journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 93 book review your books are in the mail: fifty years of distance library service at massey university philip clarke the open polytechnic of new zealand white, b. (2011). your books are in the mail: fifty years of distance library service at massey university. massey university library: palmerston north, new zealand (pp. 86) it’s an exciting time to work in a distance education library: the digitisation of content, coupled with an increase in speedy internet connections, means that students have access to a wealth of information, anytime, anywhere. in many ways this is a nirvana for off-campus students and librarians. it certainly helps mitigate the tyranny of distance and makes possible real-time delivery of information literacy and reference. of course, these new developments have their own challenges so it is fitting to look back, to see where we have come from, and to place these new developments within the context of the library and its role in an educational institution. bruce white joined the distance library service of massey university in 1982, almost in the middle of the history he describes. he saw at first hand many of the changes that transformed the service in its first 50 years, and so is well placed to document its history. the library building often stands at the centre of the academic institution; its contents and the librarians who make it work are a crucial part of the learning process. for the distance student, the bricks and mortar of the library, and the sense of place they give, is absent—creating a key challenge for all distance education librarians. remarkably, however, the need for a library service for extra-mural students was not recognised, nor supported, by all massey university staff and the library struggled against the attitude of some academics that students should purchase for themselves any extra reading they required, or use any libraries they could access locally. white shows how successive librarians developed the library service in spite of these attitudes and how they worked to convince the university of the need for a distance library service. one of the book’s themes is the professionalism of library staff. under these staff the library service has changed from one that was almost solely concerned with sending books to students, to one that is concerned with helping mould students into researchers. as white puts it, the library becomes “(frequently unacknowledged) the third leg of the distance education stool” (p. 74). all you would expect to see in a brief history is here; the origins of the organisation are covered, the key personnel, the relationship with the institution and the wider community. a real strength of the book is the analysis of the various reports and surveys that have helped shape the direction of the service. this is a very readable contribution to the history of academic libraries in new zealand, helped because white specifically avoids making the book into a thesis. white does a good job of helping to put the massey distance library service in context. librarians from distance libraries or from institutions about to embark on extra-mural provision will be surprised to learn that many book reviews 94 of the issues they face have already been examined and reported by the massey university distance library service. all librarians, and distance librarians in particular, will get something from this book—but i hope the audience includes academics because it conveys the valuable message that library services are much more than just managing books. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) i introduction welcome to this first open-source and online volume of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. in my 2010 editorial i remarked on our journal‟s new title and stated, “this is not the time to go into definitions … ” (p. 2). my experience over the past year has led me to believe that some comment on definitions is, in fact, necessary. it is a sad indictment that the terms „open‟, „flexible‟, and „distance‟ tend to be themselves open to interpretation, flexible in their use, and distant in their usefulness. the terms „blended‟ and „online‟ add to the general confusion. rather than attempt to bring finality to what ought to be more openly debated than is the case, i would rather use this space to provide my own views, which broadly reflect those of the journal of open, flexible, and distance learning. these are designed to be indicative not dogmatic.  open: education that is specifically designed to be accessible for learners, typically through open enrolment periods but also through relaxed entry criteria. „open‟, like „flexible‟, is always relative.  flexible: education that provides learners with more choice over where, how, and when they learn. flexibility is always a relative feature of formal study; however, particular techniques that are usually applied to enhance flexibility over traditional on-campus learning make the term appropriate. distance learning tends to be flexible by nature.  distance: education that does not require a learner to attend on-campus or contact classes. stated positively, distance education enables a learner to study from the location of their choice for the duration of their formal enrolment.  blended: education that deliberately mixes the features of classroom contact and online or distance learning experiences. typically a blended course makes online resources and experiences available to learners in order to make their learning more flexible.  online: education that emphasises the use of online (internet) technology for study. the definition of „online‟ is particularly broad because the great variety of potential online platforms, user devices, and pedagogical approaches makes anything more specific unhelpful. personally i find the definitions above very useful; however, it is often necessary to be more specific when using them in conversation. although online and distance are frequently contrasted, in my definitions they are quite complementary. in my own institution, use of the term „blended‟ is somewhat unhelpful at present because it tends to be used to imply the addition of online approaches to traditional distance education. using the term „blended‟ in this way is particularly problematic because some of the educational approaches we use at the open polytechnic “deliberately mix the features of classroom contact and online or distance learning experiences”, leaving us with inadequate terminology for describing what that represents! i trust readers will be able to identify their own frustrations with terminology, and i certainly welcome any feedback, improvements or exceptions to the suggestions above. while the terms „blended‟ and „online‟ are not specifically included in the title of this journal, these proposed definitions show that they cannot be neatly separated from the terms „open‟, „flexible‟, and „distance‟. these broad definitions help to explain the common thread across the contributions in this issue. the subjects of each article may seem ad hoc unless the shared commitment to principles of openness, flexibility, or distance is appreciated. introduction ii we begin with three primary investigation studies. hartnett et al explore an important question for online educators: “in what ways do social and contextual factors undermine learner autonomy and competence when unique circumstances are not taken into account?” (2011, p. 4). the casestudy methodology reveals factors that influence student motivation during the problem-based learning (pbl) assignment, contrasting the experiences of co-located and distance participants‟ experiences of an online forum. hartnett et al clearly show the importance of considering student motivation and student circumstances when designing student learning experiences. following this, fletcher et al propose how e-learning can be applied to encourage and motivate adults toward success in lln learning, based on a case-study approach. the findings, which also draw on a literature review, reveal a rich set of benefits for lln based on e-learning. davis et al also hint at the innovative possibilities permitted by an e-learning approach. our third primary study by maathius-smith et al considers how distance educators might work to improve education performance indicators (epis) such as course completion, and provides excellent insight into good open and distance learning practice. maathius-smith et al also provide six recommendations that will no doubt resonate with seasoned odl practitioners. we have two descriptive pieces in this issue. khoo and cowie suggest a framework for online learning communities, drawing on previous primary research. the guiding principles suggested give valuable guidance for practitioners seeking to maximise student engagement with online discussion. the khoo and cowie article also demonstrates how these principles have been applied to assist an educator who is new to the online environment to enhance his teaching. owen gives us insight into the workings of a pilot professional learning and development model applied to new zealand teachers, based on an online approach. finally, we have a position piece by powell and barbour, comparing the k–12 education elearning related policies of the new zealand ministry of education with the situation in north america, particularly canada. powell and barbour conclude that the growth of e-learning in new zealand is largely the result of visionary policy. i trust that you enjoy the new format and, more importantly, that you learn from and consider contributing to the various scholarly conversations underway in this issue. it is gratifying to present an issue of journal of open, flexible, and distance learning that features new zealand scholarship and practice so prominently. references nichols, m. (2010). introduction. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning 14(1), 2–5. mark nichols woburn june 2011. scanned document introduction jay reid, deanz president auckland university of technology auckland, new zealand thank you for your patience in waiting for this issue of the journal of distance learning. a number of factors have delayed publication, but please be assured that there will be another issue published this year. the theme for that issue has already been set. this issue includes papers from contributors to the 2002 deanz conference, evolving eleaming, as well as other papers of a general nature and four reviews of books and a cd-rom. many readers will be familiar with christchurch college of education's primary open learning option (polo). in "empowering an indigenous rural community: local teachers for local schools," jolm delany and derek wemlloth present us with an honest and interesting evaluation of polo's distance delivery of three-year primary teacher education to student teachers in a remote and isolated community (pan guru, in northland). this paper explores the need for contextualisation, especially for maori, and examines how individuals in the community gained a sense of selfworth and developed professionally. delany and welmloth make a passionate plea for the development of local teachers for local communities, the sort of people who are: grounded, owned, and accepted in their local community. they were not required to uproot themselves and their families in order to train for teaching, and their commitment to their local region remains intact. rather than attempting to manufacture a commitment to teach in such isolated areas from graduates who would much prefer to remain in the big cities, the answer at least in part lies in educating local teachers for local schools . june kean's paper reports on a survey of the perceptions of new zealand tertiary college (nztc) students enrolled as distance learners in the college's diploma of teaching (early childhood education) progranmle, and although aspects of studying by distance learning selected for the survey were limited to those that nztc had identified as of importance in informing directions for future delivery, students saw studying by distance to be effective providing certain conditions were met. but some disadvantages were perceived, the major one being a lack of interaction with peers . she reports nztc's response to this. fred lockwood was a keynote speaker at the deanz conference. his paper contrasts speculation in 1995 by david hawkridge on likely developments in the field of open and distance learning with actual development seven years later. hawkridge's five original terms jo!lmal of distance leaming, vol 7, no i , 2003 © distance education association of new zealand 3 of globalisation, electronification, commodification, domination, and liberation are revisited and examined critically in terms of dlcmges that have occurred and new challenges identified. lockwood believes the latter are significant and suggests: the question is becoming, not whether flexible lean1ing can enhance the cost effectiveness of traditional teaching (important though that question is), but whether a illuversity will survive and prosper in the next century without rapidly integrating the various dimensions of flexible leaming into its process, culture and values. (moran, 1997, p. 181) online is the answer, but what is the question? elspeth mckay addresses this familiar theme through the examination of commonly held beliefs about eleaming. she describes the gaps in expectations that novice learners have with web-based courseware. do webbased courseware designers deal effectively with information that is central to eadl learning event? if e learning is an holistic process and experientialleaming events are seen to be important, what place is there for the social aspects of community leaming? with "becoming a 'communal ardutect' in the online classroom: hltegrating cognitive and affective learning for maximum effect ill web-based education," robert woods and samuel ebersole explore how we might contribute to the kiild of communal ililiastructure that builds colmectedness and promotes learnillg. they posit: practitioners must ... recogiuze that a positive social dynamic requires intentionality that is, conmlilluty just doesn't happen but is created through a variety of verbal and nonverbal commillucation cues and suggest that there are no shortcuts to buildillg commilluty that it begiils with "precise defuutions and measurement of commilluty and the collection of data beyond siinple self-report by students." they illsist that it is necessary to structure time between teacher and students, and students and students, to facilita te the "transfer of illtellectual and emotional capital." tlus issue also sees four reviews. ken stevens reviews books by desmond keegan, distance training: taking stock at a time of change, and anthony picciano, distance learning: making connections across virtual space and time. jay reid reviews fred lockwood and fume gooley's (eds.) book innovation in open and distance learning: successful development of online and web-based learning and mark nichols's cd-rom teaching for learning: designing resourcebased learning courses for the internet age. i hope you enjoy this issue. it touches on a range of sectors and matters of illterest. the book reviews cover material that is lughly topical and the cd-rom reviewed is published by a new zealand author. that's a feat ill itself. the next issue of the journal of distance learning will be a themed one with preselected contributors. nicki page will edit tlus. don't, however, let that put you off sendiilg us material to be published ill 2004. journal of distance learning, vol 7, no 1, 2003 © distance education association of new zealand 4 scanned document introduction claire mclachlan-smith prlncip al lecturer, school of education and social sciences auckland unnersity of technology auckland, new zealand cathygunn senior lecturer, centre for professional development unnersity of auckland auckland, new zealand it is with great pleasure that we present, as the new editors, this volume of the journal of distance learning. we are living in an extremely interesting period in which education as we know it is challenged by the arrival of new technologies and the demands of increasingly complex lives. we hope that the journal can provide a barometer on how the innovations are being adopted and used within a range of educational settings. to this end, we hope in future issues to bring to you a range of evaluation studies, position papers and case studies of new and innovative approaches to open, distance and flexible learning. the majority of the papers in this volume were presented in an earlier form at the deanz conference 2000 at the university of otago in dunedin, new zealand. a predominant theme of the conference concerned how students are learning using new technologies for open, distance and flexible learning. it was interesting to note the difference between the last two conferences. in 1998, many presenters were the early adopters of new technologies for teaching and were explaining their forays in new frontiers of teaching. by 2000, a number of speakers from new zealand, australia and north america were discussing the issues arising from the use of technology for teaching. one of the questions we often like to ask the ardent advocates of new technology in various educational contexts is the following: "have you got beyond the early adopters yet?" the 2000 conference suggested that in many areas of education, the use of the internet, in particular, is beginning to bed down into becoming an accepted and acceptable media for many learners . the overwhelming message, however, was that new technologies continue to perform best when there is a compelling reason for studying by the advocated method. archee and saunders present some valuable insights on the differences between novices and experts and their choice of media for teaching and learning, with some surprising insights about students' choices about synchronous and asynchronous approaches . their findings about impact on academic workload confirm what many conference presenters also argued, that new teclmologies do not reduce journal of distance learning, vol 6, no 1, 2001 © distance educa tion association of new zealand 3 teaching load, they simply change what that load looks like. campbell, yates and mcgee also present useful insights into how students are learning using online learning technology. campbell et al. are pioneers in new zealand in terms of online delivery of teacher education, and evaluations of the effectiveness of these programmes have been eagerly awaited by those of us involved in teacher education. campbell et al. identify similar features to archee and saunders in the success of programmes. it is interesting to note the emergence of a set of themes associated with multimodal delivery of education, which parallels the early literature on successful distance education, such as that advocated by lockwood, race, rumble and others. the paper by kinshuk, patel, oppermann and russell is an interesting addition to the deanz stable, because a group who is primarily interested in the design of computer systems has written it. we think this is an exdting development, because it suggests that those interested in design of software are reflecting on the role of teaching and learning in a way that becomes accessible to those intimately involved in teaching and learning. one of the strengths of the conference at which this paper was originally presented was that the computer experts and the teachers were engaged in a meaningful dialogue which may help to overcome the barriers assodated for both teachers and learners in the use of new technology. for those of us who get readily frustrated by computer systems based on the "guess what is in the mind of the designer" model (such as the microsoft excel help file!), it is deeply reassuring to read that kinshuk et al. are advocating a system which keeps a real human teacher in mind as the primary target user! the paper by rabel and higgins provides some valuable data on the impact of flexible learning methods at the university of otago. many of us have been awaiting with interest the evaluations of whether the university of otago's considerable investment in flexible learning has resulted in improved student learning outcomes. although the authors present mixed results, they identify the features that make any university teaching a challenge: dry subject matter and variable motivation and interest on the part of the student. it is indeed reassuring to know that the teachers of this century will face the same challenges as their ancestors! the final paper in this volume is a research note by ken stevens, who is well known by many deanz members. it is nice to receive an update on ken's activities in the frozen and isolated north of canada, following his recent visit to many of us in new zealand last year. there is no doubt that the issues that ken raises are applicable to many remote areas of new zealand, australia and elsewhere. we look forward to ken's full evaluation of the approaches being trialled in newfoundland. we hope that you enjoy this volume of the journal and will be inspired to put into print your own stories of successes and failures in open, distance and flexible learning! we would welcome your suggestions on what you would like to read about in future volumes of the journal. please send us any requests and we will attempt to honour them. best wishes for 2001. journal of distance learning, vol 6, no 1, 2001 © distance education association of new zealand 4 book reviews book review adding some tec-variety: 100+ activities for motivating and retaining learners online maggie hartnett massey university bonk, c. j., & khoo, e. (2014). adding some tec-variety: 100+ activities for motivating and retaining learners online. bloomington, in: open world books (pp. 367). with the increasing ubiquity of online and blended learning, more and more educators are being asked to teach online, often without any specific specialist training. adding some tec-variety: 100+ activities for motivating and retaining learners online by bonk and khoo is a practical ‘how to’ guide for motivating learners in online and blended learning contexts. drawing from a rich base of research into motivation, this book provides a framework and an extensive set of associated online instructional activities that anyone involved in teaching online, from primary through to tertiary education, can use to engage and motivate learners. the book is divided into three sections. it begins by introducing the tec-variety framework that provides the structure for the remainder of the book. the authors have developed this framework by considering emerging technologies that encourage the engagement and motivation of learners in pedagogically appropriate ways. the name, tec-variety, is a mnemonic that describes the ten underpinning motivational principles. they are: 1. tone/climate: psychological safety, comfort, sense of belonging 2. encouragement: feedback, responsiveness, praise, supports 3. curiosity: surprise, intrigue, unknowns 4. variety: novelty, fun, fantasy 5. autonomy: choice, control, flexibility, opportunities 6. relevance: meaningful, authentic, interesting 7. interactivity: collaborative, team-based, community 8. engagement: effort, involvement, investment 9. tension: challenge, dissonance, controversy 10. yielding products: goal driven, purposeful vision, ownership. (p. 10) in the second section, the authors outline their rationale for developing the framework, which is based on their combined three decades of research and teaching in web-based environments, and addresses low completion rates—one of the major issues associated with online education. what follows is a review of the theory and research that has learner retention and attrition as its central focus. based on this discussion, the authors argue that motivation is a crucial factor that helps us to understand and explain learner dropout or persistence in online courses. 82 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) having established the premise that motivation has a direct influence on online retention, the next chapter explores various motivational theories and concepts from four learning perspectives: behaviourism, cognitivism, constructivism, and sociocultural theory. each of the associated psychological principles of the tec-variety framework is then linked to these differing views of human learning. for example, learning theory #3 (constructivism) is linked to framework principles #1 (tone/climate), #4 (variety), and #9 (tension). mapping the framework principles to learning theories (summarised on page 42) enables the authors to present a compelling case for the need for those involved in online education to seriously consider and cater for the motivation of learners in online and blended environments. they also, importantly, remind the reader that no single motivational technique or strategy is the answer for all situations, and that a combination of strategies and approaches are needed. the remainder of the book dedicates a chapter to exploring each of the 10 framework principles in some depth. the authors describe this as “a toolkit or online teaching guide” (p. 43). each chapter starts with an introduction to the principle, followed by a brief overview of some of the web-based learning tools and resources that online instructors and designers could use to address it. the overview is followed by 10 specific, detailed online instructional activities that readers can adapt and apply to their own practice. in detailing each activity, the authors provide an explanation, practical advice and guidance, and ideas for variations and extensions. they close with several key instructional considerations (i.e., risk, time, cost, learner-centredness, and expected duration of the activity) that are designed to aid anyone involved in online and blended teaching to determine the appropriateness of an activity in a given context. over the course of 10 chapters, 100+ online instructional activities are offered to the reader along with associated online tools and resources, practical examples, and suggestions. for ease of reference, the 100+ activities for tec-variety are summarised in a table in chapter 15 (pp. 292–301). the book wouldn’t be complete without some consideration of the role of instructor motivation. common reasons for instructor reluctance to engage with and change online teaching practices are discussed briefly in chapter 14. some ways to support change are also suggested. as with any book that sets out to offer a ‘toolkit’ of online and blended teaching strategies to motivate and engage learners, some ‘tools’ will be more relevant than others, depending on the programme, course, curriculum, content, and context. as such, this book does not attempt to comprehensively cover the rich and complex nature of motivational theory and research in online learning contexts—or education in general. the strength of the book lies in its practical nature and the ability for readers to dip in and out of the various principles of the framework, easily locating strategies that they can apply to their own teaching. overall, adding some tec-variety: 100+ activities for motivating and retaining learners online is a worthwhile read for teachers, instructors, designers, managers and administrators involved in online and blended learning at any level of education. this book is a useful resource to have readily available and has been endorsed by well-known online learning researchers such as norm vaughan and rena palloff. it can be downloaded for free from the adding some tecvariety website http://tec-variety.com/. dr. curtis bonk is a professor of education at indiana university, united states, which is well known for strength in instructional design. dr. elaine khoo is a research fellow at the wilf malcolm institute of educational research at the university of waikato, new zealand. 83 http://tec-variety.com/ book reviews biographical notes maggie hartnett m.hartnett@massey.ac.nz maggie is a lecturer in the institute of education at massey university, new zealand, where she teaches in the areas of e-learning and digital technologies. her research interests include motivation and engagement in digital environments, teaching and learning with digital technologies, electronic portfolios, support for digital learners, digital places, and spaces of learning. maggie is an associate editor of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. hartnett, m. (2014). book review: adding some tec-variety: 100+ activities for motivating and retaining learners online. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 18(2), [82-84]. 84 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(2) 61 book review teaching crowds: learning and social media evelyn lewis massey university dron, j., & anderson, t. (2014). teaching crowds: learning and social media. edmonton, alberta, canada: athabasca university press (pp. 370). in teaching crowds: learning and social media, jon dron and terry anderson examine the critical questions and emerging trends associated with the role of social software in the online learning environment. drawing upon their extensive years of experience as online distance educators in the tertiary sector, dron and anderson suggest that the ability of social software to aggregate behaviour and choices is changing the nature of online learning. they contend that social software is set to become a significant feature of the online learning environment. in ten chapters, readers are provided with a comprehensive history of the development of online learning, associated learning theories, ideas for good practice, and a little future gazing. at 370 pages, this book isn’t necessarily a quick read. however, each chapter provides depth and exploration of its topic, bringing together research and practice. it is undoubtedly an extremely useful practitioner’s guide that will appeal to teachers, trainers, researchers, students, and administrators. for those who are unfamiliar with the array of social software currently available, chapter one provides a valuable overview. the authors give comprehensive examples of social software, explain the types of interactions they afford, and describe their pedagogical value in an educational context. chapter two examines the history and development of learning theories, pedagogies, and their associations with technology in online social learning environments. the potential and the limitations of each theory are considered in the context of online learning. the authors acknowledge that moore’s theory of transactional analysis, which defines the “distance” in “distance education” as the psychological and communication gap between teacher and learner, is applicable to learning in formal situations. however, in less formal, social situations where learning occurs in crowds, they suggest that a new model is needed. adapting paulsen’s theory of cooperative freedom, dron and anderson propose their own decagon of cooperative freedoms, which define learner agency in social online learning environments. they contend that the interplay of the inverse relationships of the ten “cooperative freedoms” in social learning affects the success of the individual’s experience. in chapter three the authors encourage the reader to engage further with their conceptual model for online learning and distance education. they set out to categorise the types of interactions possible in online learning contexts in formal and informal learning situations. contending that three main social forms of learning formerly existed (namely “groups”, “nets”, and “sets”), they suggest a fourth, that of “collectives”, is now emerging. each form enables interaction, whether it is one to one, one to many, or many to many. specifically, groups define interactions in more formal educational contexts; for example, in classes or tutorials in schools and universities. nets or networks are made up of nodes (which may be people, objects, or ideas) that connect or interact at the edges. nets, like people and their interests, can change over time. sets, on the other hand, are defined by the commonality or shared interest of the people they bind. collectives are different in nature. they arise out of the aggregation of activity made possible by the internet, whereby the crowd acts as a single entity, possessing the potential to give guidance in the book review 62 learning environment. this is not to say that the forms are mutually exclusive (schreurs et al., 2014). the authors detail intersections that manifest in familiar social organisational forms, and the social software that supports the different social forms. the following four chapters explain in detail the characteristics of groups, networks, sets, and collectives. the authors discuss the opportunities presented by each to support learning in the online environment. in chapter eight, dron and anderson describe their experiences teaching distance education students online. this chapter gives the reader an opportunity to glimpse the different interactions made possible by the affordances of social software. helpfully, the authors share what has worked well for them, and why. chapter nine focuses our attention on the need to acknowledge the pitfalls when using social software in educational institutions. the authors suggest that educators should recognise the disruptive nature of the innovation and rethink the traditional learning process, reconceptualising it from that previously used for groups. but in doing so, we are warned to remember that, while socially orientated technology and software are opening up new opportunities for learning, using these innovations is not without risk. in chapter ten the authors chart the history of higher education and, while noting current trends, engage in a little future-gazing. suggesting that the system, still largely based on an outdated and inappropriate medieval european model, they attempt to predict the future of online learning in higher education. we are urged to recognise that facilitating learning as part of a net, set, or collective will require us to reconsider not only learning processes, but the structures and controls that surround them. george siemens has suggested this is one of the most important books in the field in its year of release, and it undoubtedly has the potential to be an excellent resource. it is likely to be of greatest use to those currently practising in the field, or to experienced educators new to the field of online learning. they will find the insights provided by dron and anderson, on teaching crowds and how crowds can teach themselves, to be invaluable. the book can be purchased in paperback, or downloaded at no cost from: http://www.aupress.ca/index.php/books/120235 jon dron is associate professor in the school of computing and information systems and a member of the technology-enhanced knowledge research institute at athabasca university. terry anderson is professor and researcher in the technology-enhanced knowledge research institute at athabasca university. references schreurs, b., van den beemt, a., prinsen, f., witthaus, g., conole, g., & de laat, m. (2014). an investigation into social learning activities by practitioners in open educational practices. international review of research in open and distance learning, 15(4), 1–20. http://www.aupress.ca/index.php/books/120235 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 97 book review mobile learning communities: creating new educational futures ken stevens faculty of education memorial university of newfoundland danaher, p. a., moriarty, b., & danaher, g. (2009). mobile learning communities: creating new educational futures. new york: routledge (pp. xiii, 210). mobile learning and distance education have an obvious relationship. te aho o te kura pounamu (the new zealand correspondence school), for example, provides education for new zealanders travelling or living temporarily overseas. people on the move in developed societies are increasingly able to continue schooling, using an expanding range of learning technologies as they travel and keep in touch with teachers and communities of learners. mobile learners can be considered to be on a continuum from the international jet set to urban homeless people. contemporary manifestations of mobility include itinerant sheep shearers, nomads (particularly in africa), the roma in europe, children of globally mobile professionals, and highly-skilled migrant knowledge workers in fields such as information technology. the term ―neo-nomadism‖ is used by the authors of mobile learning communities to describe the development of counter cultures of artists, exotic traders and bohemian workers. mobility may be prized by some groups and devalued by others with different access to power and support. some people have a romantic idealism about those who are mobile and have been able to escape the confines of civilisation and the routines of industrialised labour. settled people sometimes feel uncomfortable with those who move in and out of their communities and are considered to be of no fixed abode. this book is about mobile learning communities—an international and increasingly diverse phenomenon spanning both the developed and developing worlds. in the developed world, national and international travellers engage in workplace learning and use information and communication technologies to organise themselves as learning communities. meanwhile, in less-developed parts of the world, mobile learners sometimes have difficulty accessing learning opportunities at all. in all cases, governments have to find ways to provide educational opportunities for citizens who do not live settled lives—whether they live in the connected, digital world or are displaced, homeless, and without resources or a place to call home. the authors define a mobile learning community as: a group of people who are mobile for sustained periods of the year or of their lives and who recognize in themselves and others a common experience of mobility and a shared commitment to learning for themselves and other group members (p. 3). the book is based on an examination of the intersection of mobility, learning, and community, each of which is likely to engage the interest of distance educators. mobile learning communities draws on 17 years of empirical research with occupational travellers, workplace learning, globalisation, and emerging technologies to explore how mobile people make sense of themselves as learning communities. this is one of the strengths of the book. mobile learners bring knowledge and experience to schools and communities, but how do schools and settled people receive those who migrate and settle—permanently or temporarily—among them? the first chapter of mobile learning communities examines the concepts of networks and partnerships, raising questions about marginalisation and exclusion. each chapter concludes with an overview of the implications of mobility for broader educational practice, and questions for reflection. the aim of each chapter is to focus on the link between mobility and learning book reviews 98 communities in terms of networks and partnerships. the question is: how do those who are mobile partner and network with those who are like themselves as well as with people who lead settled lives? as increasing numbers of displaced people cross borders and migrate in search of economic, social, and educational opportunities, how should governments respond? the authors ask to what extent educational futures for members of mobile communities should be located within formal education ―provided, or at least sanctioned by the state‖ (p. 178), raising the possibility that education systems may be fundamentally flawed and antagonistic to mobile groups and hence need to be supplemented by other approaches. mobile learners are an international phenomenon, yet they are not always accepted in an increasingly globalised world. a case in point is the education of migrants—particularly people who have travelled from one country to settle in another. many schools enrol migrant children and this book provides insights into how they might be accommodated. one of the approaches the authors suggest is to focus on the knowledge and experience of mobile learners such as migrants in classrooms. they draw attention to the work of salinas and fránquiz (2004) in the united states who have argued that, in the case of migrant children in that country, multicultural education encourages us ―to embrace culturally responsible or congruent teaching methods that address different ways of knowing‖ (p. xii), a view supported by cardenas (2004) who argues that migrant children’s experiences ―create formidable assets‖ (p. 250). it is up to teachers to recognise and build upon these assets to enable migrant children to succeed in school. mobile learning communities challenges traditional thinking about non-sedentary learners just as distance education once challenged traditional ideas about the provision of education. distance educators and mobile learners in the developed, digital world have obvious common interests. there are many mobile learners, however, who are not part of this world, and this volume provides insight into their experiences and critiques existing notions of schools and of learning. this book will interest distance educators, principals, school boards, teachers, and members of communities that host learners who are not settled. for distance educators, mobile learning communities provides insight into what the authors have sub-titled ―new educational futures‖. new educational futures for mobile learners will be shaped in part by the response of distance educators together with advances in learning technologies. references cardenas, b. (2004). breaking through in migrant education. in c. salinas & m. e. fránquiz (eds.), scholars in the field: the challenge of migrant education (pp. 239–248). charleston wv: eric clearinghouse on rural education and small schools/appalachia educational laboratory. salinas, c., & fránquiz, m. e. (2004). preface: making migrant children and migrant education visible. in c. salinas & m. e. fránquiz (eds.), scholars in the field: the challenge of migrant education (pp. xi–xvii). charleston wv: eric clearinghouse on rural education and small schools/appalachia educational laboratory. microsoft word editorial 21(2).docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(2) 1 open, flexible, and distance learning: changes to the journal, changes in the field alison fields, editor-in-chief, open polytechnic of new zealand maggie hartnett, associate editor, massey university abstract change and more change. this editorial, like the last, notes several changes happening within the journal and in the wider context of open, flexible, and distance learning. a quick look at some of the social commentary on change provides the backdrop for events and decisions described more fully in this issue of the journal. changes to the editorial team and editorial advisory board are announced and the papers for this issue are introduced. ideas to identify change, manage change and live with change are set within the world of open, flexible, and distance learning. keywords: open learning; social commentary; change introduction as noted in the last editorial—the times they are a-changin’. change is inevitable, and it seems our reaction to it and the strategy we choose to deal with it is entirely up to us. in his reflections on the human condition (1973), eric hoffer wrote: the central task of education is to implant a will and a facility for learning; it should produce not learned but learning people. the truly human society is a learning society, where grandparents, parents, and children are students together. in a time of drastic change it is the learners who will inherit the future. the learned usually find themselves beautifully equipped to live in a world that no longer exists. (p. 22) it reads like science fiction but is actually social commentary. hoffer provides a good description of life in our rapidly changing technological world, the pace of which has increased markedly in the 40 years since reflections was written. education is concerned with the learning process, not simply the acquisition of knowledge. it is primarily about people and about learning. in hoffer’s terms it is a hallmark of a ‘truly human society’. so what does this mean for open, flexible, and distance learning? it is itself one of the changes happening in our increasingly technological time. it is education adapting itself to the new environment, creating accessibility for a wider proportion of society. the transfer of existing formal education to the new technologies is met with a rise in accessibility of informal education through moocs, collaborative software, and other avenues. it is up to us to ensure that education is still education, to make use of the available ways of engaging our students, and to be an active part of the ‘learning society’. there is plenty to ponder there for both our learners and ourselves, providing a very broad sweep of ideas to guide whatever learning opportunities we develop next or how we (re)use the ones we currently have. fields, a., hartnett, m. 2 in this editorial we outline some of the recent changes at the journal, and introduce the papers in this issue. change in editorial roles and editorial board distinguished professor niki davis is standing down from her role in the editorial team. niki was editor-in-chief of jofdl from 2014 to 2017, and stepped back to the role of associate editor in 2017 due to other commitments. she is now standing down from the editorial role entirely. the journal has been served well with niki’s contribution in both leadership and editorial vision. we thank niki again for the care and expertise she has provided to both the journal and the editorial team and wish her all the very best in her future endeavours. alison fields and dr maggie hartnett continue in their roles of editor-in-chief and associate editor respectively. there have also been a number of changes in the editorial advisory board. three members are retiring this year: peter albion, mary simpson, and bill anderson. peter (professor of educational technology at the university of southern queensland), mary (formerly associate professor of education at otago university) and bill (formerly director, distance learning at otago university) are distinguished members of the open, flexible, and distance learning community and have provided support and advice to the journal over many years. we thank them very much for their contributions over an extended period and wish them all the very best for the future. replacing them are three new editorial board members: kathryn kennedy, keryn pratt, and derek wenmoth. kathryn (director of the michigan virtual learning institute), keryn (postgraduate & distance coordinator [education], otago university) and derek (director of elearning, core education) bring a new set of skills and talents that will help the board to support and guide the journal over years to come. we welcome these three people to the editorial board. articles in this issue the three articles in this general issue come from a variety of viewpoints on rather different topics. all contribute to an area of open, flexible, and distance learning, and all come from a new zealand experience or perspective. barnett and te wiata report on a māori peer mentoring programme offered to māori students studying at a distance. it uses a kaupapa māori methodology and a model of māori student success to investigate the value and benefits of a programme already in operation. results cover benefits and opportunities not only for the mentees but also for the māori student mentors. the bassett and robson paper is the last of the 2016 flanz conference papers to emerge as a fully-fledged article. the topic of middle leaders is explored, with a focus on opportunities to engage with effective appraisal and leadership development for those who lead ‘from the middle’. an investigation into current practice and development-seeking is outlined and a possible programme to fill the identified gap is mooted. the final article, by nichols and meuleman, outlines the case study of a new educational designer, charting the transition from other work into this new area of expertise. a narrative inquiry is used to follow the journey of the new education designer; contemporaneously written journal entries were the main source information. a mentoring relationship is described, and themes are derived from a content analysis of the journals. the article ends with a practical section of ‘advice to new educational designers’ which may inform others embarking on this journey. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(2) 3 references hoffer, e. (1973). reflections on the human condition. new york: harper & row. biographical notes alison fields alison.fields@openpolytechnic.ac.nz alison is a senior lecturer at the open polytechnic of new zealand where she teaches information and library studies. she is a fellow of the library and information association of new zealand aotearoa (lianza). her research areas encompass e-learning, library services, and continuing professional development. alison is an executive member of flanz and is the editor-in-chief of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. maggie hartnett m.hartnett@massey.ac.nz maggie is a senior lecturer in the institute of education at massey university, new zealand, where she teaches in the areas of e-learning and digital technologies. her research interests include motivation and engagement in digital environments, teaching and learning with digital technologies, electronic portfolios, support for digital learners, digital places, and spaces of learning. maggie is an executive member of flanz and associate editor of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. field, a., & hartnett, m. (2017). open, flexible, and distance learning. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(2), [1–3.]. microsoft word forbes.docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 21 keynote: going to university—blended strategies for learning and teaching in a modern tertiary context dr dianne forbes, te kura toi tangata faculty of education, university of waikato abstract this think piece is a follow-up to a keynote delivered at the biennial deanz conference, at the university of waikato in hamilton, new zealand, in april 2016. it explores the university of waikato’s mixed media pathway. dianne forbes ponders her own experiences as a tertiary student, considers some of the changes and challenges facing universities today, and presents one response to these changes in the form of blended learning. the bachelor of teaching, mixed media presentation—an initial teacher education degree at the university of waikato—is used to illustrate the benefits and challenges of blended learning for students and lecturers. it is proposed that students based on campus can benefit from blended learning, just as geographically dispersed students can. going to university can comprise active learning partnerships at a range of physical locations. keywords: online learning; distance education; flexible learning; teacher education introduction i went to university as a school leaver in 1989. for me, “going to university” entailed physically attending campus most days. there i joined a hundred or so other students in a large theatre for a 50-minute lecture and note-taking session, followed by a small group tutorial to discuss ideas, readings, and assignments. some years later, as a masters student, i went to university part time while working full-time as a school teacher. at that stage, for me, “going to university” meant driving to the inner city campus after school to attend a 3-hour weekly seminar. later still, as a part-time doctoral student and full-time lecturer, university was my workplace—so “going to university” meant going to work, where i spent some of my time working on my thesis, and met with my supervisors on campus. although my experience of going to university was campus-based, i started to teach online in 2002, working with students for whom physically going to university was something that occurred just three times a year. the students in the bachelor of teaching, mixed media presentation (mmp) at the university of waikato, complete most of their study at home, online, and in base schools in their local areas. teaching online programmes such as mmp have been developed in response to changes in society, demographics, and student needs. specifically, mmp was established in 1997 during a teacher shortage in rural primary schools. at that time, many principals considered that there were people in their school communities who would be ideal candidates for teacher education, but who were unable to leave their regions due to adult commitments. for many of these potential forbes, c. 22 teachers, the idea of “going to university” seemed out of the question, daunting, and an opportunity that had slipped by. when mmp became a reality, students were able to juggle their online study with parenting. by spending one day a week teaching in a local base school, they enjoyed a close connection with the profession, and were able to reconcile theory with practice. partnerships with teachers in schools have always been central to teacher education and these field-based placements are increasingly recognised as relevant across disciplines. from the inception of mmp through to the present day, the students have also spent blocks of time on campus where they meet with peers, attend classes, and form important relationships that sustain them through times of isolation. back home, in the regions where the students live, connectivity has improved significantly since the late 1990s, when dial-up internet was the bane of every student’s life. although they could sign up for contracts that allowed 30 hours a month of internet between 5pm and 8am daily, the connections were limited in speed and efficiency. students used their internet connections to email files to lecturers. most other communication was via telephone, which was a key means of support for students at a distance. as well as talking with lecturers on the phone, students worked in study groups with peers in their local area to talk through their work on assignments. although technology is often applauded as a driver and the source of innovation, it was just one aspect of the blend. in my interviews with students from the class of 1997–1999, technology was mentioned only when it was an impediment to their learning (dial-up, waiting for pages to load, computer problems, and connectivity issues). these students were instead sustained by their own sense of purpose, along with relational connections in base schools, on campus, with peers, and with lecturers. these days, we have moved on from emails and dial-up internet to make use of synchronous and asynchronous technologies. i start a typical week with a video-cast to foreshadow the week ahead, and to give oral feedback on recent events in class. i then work in the asynchronous discussion forum and may encourage students to skype or meet in appear.in.1 all mmp students establish an eportfolio in their first year; this is then used for formative feedback and eventual summative submission. increasingly, we are inviting students to use social media, with class hashtags and tweetchats, to connect with us and the wider professional community. of course, the mixed media experience is not without its challenges. for students, key challenges include lack of support from family and friends, and absent staff and weak feedback can create confusion. managing time is a common struggle, as is balancing the demands of family, paid work, and the financial sacrifices needed to commit to fulltime study. alongside the practical challenges there are the usual academic hurdles. for each barrier there is corresponding triumph when family, peers, school colleagues and university staff are responsive. students who conquer the challenges feel an incredible sense of accomplishment and enhanced digital literacy due to the mode of study. while the flexibility of mmp is a benefit for students, it is also a benefit for the teaching staff. thanks to the collegial mentoring i have enjoyed, teaching online enables me to fit my research, service, administration, and family life into the blend. a significant challenge has been workload management, and ensuring that flexibility leads to productivity rather than procrastination or overworking. the relational connections that are formed with care and attention to student needs are a complex feature and a powerful benefit of this kind of work. as for the students, the pros and cons balance out when a skillful approach is applied to blended learning. 1 appear.in is a free video-conferencing app that enables synchronous face-to-face interactions between individuals and groups over distance without the need to log in or download software. see https://appear.in journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 23 conclusion while distance learning is an obvious solution for students who are geographically dispersed, there is still a widespread assumption that if students can be primarily campus-based, then physical attendance is ideal. however, i contend that the benefits of blended learning can be shared with students who are based on campus. for example, for one of my four classes next semester, i faced the prospect of teaching a weekly lecture, followed by repeated tutorials. i could readily identify with the timetable clashes and exhaustion of colleagues who teach predominantly face to face! in response, i’m reducing the on-campus hours for the class in favour of a flipped approach to blended learning. students will prepare for a single weekly session on campus. this preparation includes time for asynchronous online discussion. this is not a matter of whether the students can study on campus, but rather how and where they learn best, and how an academic can balance the demands of quality teaching with other aspects of the job. my key message in this think piece is that tertiary education is experiencing a time of change. blended learning is one response to change. it ensures flexible and relevant offerings to diverse students, and can work in a variety of ways to suit the students, staff, and discipline. when the focus is on people as well as efficiencies, blended learning can be a flexible solution to the challenges faced by modern tertiary education. as we look to the future, the way we understand “going to university” will be less about the on-campus experience and more about active learning partnerships in a variety of physical locations. note: the video recording of dianne’s keynote speech given during the deanz2016 conference on 19th april 2016 is available at http://bit.ly/2e8yfso biographical note dr dianne forbes diforbes@waikato.ac.nz dr dianne forbes is a senior lecturer in te hononga school of curriculum and pedagogy at the university of waikato. her research interests include innovative pedagogies, e-learning, tertiary teaching, teacher education, leadership, and lifelong learning. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. forbes, d. (2016). keynote: going to university—blended strategies for learning and teaching in a modern tertiary context. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2), [21–23]. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 59 book review motivation in online education dr bill anderson hartnett, m. (2016). motivation in online education. singapore: springer. (pp. 134). we know motivation is an important factor in education; we also know that, in the tertiary sector, online education is the norm. whether students are on campus or at a distance, full time or part time, school leavers or adult students, they will probably spend more of their total learning time accessing study material, communicating, and producing study-related artefacts (whether for assessment or not) using digital technologies, than they will through any other means. when students actually are studying at a distance, the ongoing online nature of study can be almost guaranteed. a book that ties motivation and online education together provides reason enough for any online educator to read it, but there are others. in motivation in online education, dr. maggie hartnett explores the nature of motivation to learn in online contexts, and the factors that impact on that motivation. she tells us that motivation “has been shown to play an important role in determining whether a learner persists in a course, the level of engagement shown, the quality of work produced and the level of achievement attained” (hartnett, 2016, p. 13).think of the factors mentioned—persistence in a course, quality of work, level of achievement. obviously, knowing how motivation plays out in online contexts is essential in education today. dr hartnett’s book is a slim volume, but in my reading lifetime it’s always seemed that the books that punched well above their weight were like that. this book is more targeted than the others i’m thinking about—books such as gee’s situated language and learning (2004) or edwards and mercer’s common knowledge (1987)—but it has the same quality of pushing me away to make me think, then drawing me back to re-read and re-imagine my work as an educator. the book is organised in a way that belies the effort and challenge involved in the research that underpins it. it has only six chapters, but at a mere two pages, chapter one doesn’t really count. chapter two takes us through the literature; chapter three provides us with a report of the research; chapter four brings the findings together in an extremely accessible structure; chapter five uses that structure to develop guidelines for teachers and designers in online learning environments; and chapter six highlights the key ideas from the book and looks at possibilities for further research in the area. the core of the book lies clearly in chapters two to five. i found myself wondering which of those i valued most. i certainly appreciated the well sign-posted and well-paced jaunt through the literature on motivation that chapter two provided. yes, it was a review that focused on motivation—in the context of online learning—although it also explored central concepts in online learning that intersected with the motivation literature, such as interaction, autonomy and control. this gave me the first clue as to why i found this book useful. it was the solid engagement with core concepts—old friends with a solid pedigree—that drew my attention. so much is known book reviews 60 about motivation in a wide range of contexts that you’d ask what was left to uncover. yet, in focusing on those core concepts and tying the issues of motivation and online education together, the author argues for a perspective on motivation that reflects the online learning context. this perspective recognises the learner, the learning environment, and the relationships between the two, and asks what supports or hinders learner motivation. discussion of the findings in chapter three teases out the complex patterns of motivation that are experienced by learners. motivation is clearly not a binary state where you are or you are not motivated. students experience a range of motivational factors that impact differently, and they have a multi-dimensional experience of motivation at any time. as one section heading puts it: “different types of motivation co-exist in a complex mix” (hartnett, 2016, p. 80). this didn’t come as a surprise since my work in the area of approaches to study (deep, surface, strategic), and the way they are orchestrated, taught me that students show evidence of using all three approaches at differing levels in a single learning context. however, it does alert readers to the fact that a wide range of factors support or undermine motivation, pushing or pulling in different directions simultaneously. however, the part of this chapter i most enjoyed was the provision of extensive quotations from students in support of the depictions of factors that affected motivation. all online educators who pay attention to their students will recognise the feelings and sentiments expressed by the research participants. the quotations bring the research context to life. chapter four proceeds to add some flesh to the bones of the skeleton assembled in chapters two and three. this chapter is also a pivot point in the book. discussion still concerns the three areas of motivation – autonomy, competence and relatedness; however, it is based on the principal components of the learning environment – teachers, learning activities, and peers (fellow students). as we read, we discover how each component can support or undermine students as they attempt to meet their motivational needs. this is a helpful change in direction. while soundly academic in content, the book’s tone and style indicate it is written primarily for an audience of practitioners. chapter four provides opportunities for any online teacher, e-learning student, or learning designer to subject their practice to critical reflection that draws on the substantive analysis of the learning contexts that were examined in the research. such reflection is supported even further in chapter five. the penultimate chapter provides guidelines for “professionals tasked with building online educational environments as well as those teaching and learning within them” (hartnett, 2016, p. 115). if i was a busy teacher/designer/student who had time to read only one chapter in this book, this would probably be it. the ways in which actors in the learning environment can play a role in supporting the motivation of online learners are clearly laid out. there is no escaping the fact that we can all do something in support of motivation to learn. however, the caution (wisely offered), is that these are not prescriptions; they are guidelines. actions are situationally dependent. allied to that last point is another that surfaces earlier in the book but could escape attention. it is recognition of the importance of students perceiving that their needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness are being met. perception is clearly important. at stages throughout chapter three we saw several ways in which actions from lecturers, or design elements in the course material, that were intended to offer support to students in one or more of the areas (autonomy, competence, relatedness), were in fact perceived as doing the opposite and thus undermining motivation. how do we know how students perceive our actions or the design of a course? if you think it matters, perhaps this is a question to leave you with. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 61 with the essence of the book laid out, the final chapter reiterates the main points about motivation and looks towards future directions for research. having read chapters one to five thoroughly, and continuing to dip into them, i decided there was a missing element. i have long been interested in the support offered to distance learners by the communities in which they live—their family, friends, professional colleagues, and so on. these are people outside the immediate learning context, yet there is some evidence that they have a useful role to play in supporting distance learners. why was there no mention of this? the answer came when i read chapter six. the question had certainly been considered and was noted as an area for future research. with a book as worthwhile as this, i find it hard to make the next comment. it concerns a feature of the hardcopy book that i didn’t like—the referencing. each chapter concludes with its own reference section. this is handy if you are only interested in what happens in one chapter, but when your concern is the whole book it is useful to have an aggregated set of references. the decision to have separate chapter reference sections is understandable, since each chapter is available separately, online. but i wish the publishers had provided a full set of references for the hardcopy edition that i was reading. i can’t finish with this slight criticism. this book is too valuable and too useful for my slight misgiving to flavour your final impression of this review. the style and clarity of writing, the sustained focus on motivation in the online learning context, and the interplay of theory and practice combine to make this book one that i will return to in future. i urge you to take my advice. read it. references edwards, d., & mercer, n. (1987). common knowledge. london: methuen. gee, j. p. (2004). situated language and learning. new york: routledge. hartnett, m. (2016). motivation in online education. singapore: springer. biographical note bill anderson has previously been involved in distance and online education at massey university and the university of otago as a lecturer, researcher and administrator. since retiring around 3 years ago he has continued to engage with distance educators and their students through teaching and research projects. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. anderson,w. (2016). book review: motivation in online education in schools. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1), [59-61]. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ book review motivation in online education dr bill anderson references biographical note journal insides v1.indd © distance education association of new zealand 2 introduction mark nichols laidlaw college henderson, auckland there are a number of changes as of this volume. firstly, the title of the journal has changed from the journal of distance learning to the journal of open, flexible, and distance learning. more than anything, this change refl ects the various interests of deanz members—many of whom are likely to identify with fl exible learning more than distance learning. this is not the time to go into defi nitions; however, i am certain that readers will appreciate the inclusiveness of the new title. another change is the appointment of dr ben kehrwald of massey university as co-editor. ben and i will now share the role, though i have taken the lead for this volume. ben will provide the additional energy and expertise required for the third adjustment to the journal; from 2011 the journal of open, flexible, and distance learning will be open access and online. we hope that, with this shift in format, we will move to two issues a year—the second being a special issue on a particular topic. finally, so far the journal of distance learning has not seriously pursued its status as a ranking journal. we hope that these new initiatives will result in a publication that goes from strength to strength in the volumes ahead. as the journal moves into a new phase, it is timely to provide some insight into its workings and to indicate how members of the deanz community can provide support. over the past 4 years, we have received 58 submissions. of these, 16 have been published; 22 were declined editorially (not sent for review); 8 were deemed unfi t for publication by reviewers; and 12 were either withdrawn by their authors following a reviewer decision to revise and resubmit, or are still in progress. these fi gures need some context. a journal can only be as full and as useful as its submissions permit. while there are no benchmarks for how many submissions ought to be accepted for publication, our rate of about 27 percent is comparable to the australasian journal of educational technology (ajet, the journal of ascilite) (atkinson and mcloughlin, 2009), which published more than 100 articles to our 16 in the same timeframe. our acceptance rates are similar but the number of articles we publish is far lower. simply put, the journal of open, flexible, and distance learning needs more submissions if it is to advance beyond the interests of deanz. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 2–5 © distance education association of new zealand 3 lest there be any confusion, the odds of publication in the journal of open, flexible, and distance learning are not 27 percent. the chance of a submission being published depends entirely on that submission’s merits and is not at the mercy of a process governed by a faceless and selfinterested group of gatekeepers, nor of an editor eager to maintain a certain rate of rejection. this may seem too loaded; however, it is a refl ection of my thinking in the early days of my own efforts to seek publication. the substance of this journal, as with all scholarly publications, depends entirely on the quality and quantity of work submitted. in the case of the journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, both quality and quantity are major factors. submissions have been declined editorially for this journal because they lack the sort of rigour expected by deanz members and the wider scholarly community. there is a tension here: naturally deanz wants to encourage research in the area of open, fl exible, and distance learning, and to provide an outlet for scholarly conversation in the pacifi c. however, the conversation is, by defi nition, scholarly. certain conventions, standards, and genre of discourse must be in place for a publication to appear in this journal. much of the time, the submissions rejected editorially lack one or more of three core elements: poor appreciation or representation of the greater conversation already 1. taking place fl awed methodology (a small sample, or an ad hoc or simple instrument 2. that reveals nothing of signifi cance) poor standards of written expression (not always in overseas 3. submissions!) and/or not following the apa style required for the journal. clearly it is not possible for us to publish an article that has any one of these fl aws—both for the journal’s reputation and, ultimately, the author’s. ensuring a thorough literature review (drawing from other scholarly literature), ensuring your study has followed a careful methodology (it’s too late at the end of the process), and careful editing and proofreading are the best ways to ensure a submission makes it to review. for those papers that do make it to review, the process toward publication continues. the journal of open, flexible, and distance learning uses a double-blind peer-review process. submissions are sent to a selection of reviewers (whose names are on the inside cover of this issue), each of whom are in touch with the wider conversation, have experience with research journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 2–5 © distance education association of new zealand 4 methodologies, and have a signifi cant publication history. all are dedicated to prompt and thorough feedback to authors. i am proud that, with very few exceptions, our editorial board meets a 3-week turnaround time for review. submissions are sent to reviewers who have a specifi c interest and expertise in the subject. these reviewers add signifi cant value to the process: they carefully read the submission; they suggest areas of improvement; and they recommend that the paper be accepted, accepted after adjustment, revised and resubmitted, or rejected. from experience, i know that the term ‘blind review’ might have a double meaning: on the one hand indicating a system of refereeing and, on the other, suggesting that the reviewer lacks a certain enlightenment. reviewers often disagree, and may occasionally fail to appreciate the genius of an earnest submission (i am writing from experience here!). however, i also know from experience that there is fundamental value in the process of blind review. reviewers are not self-interested; they are discipline interested. their comments and decisions do not refl ect a personal standard so much as the standard they perceive to be required for conversation within their discipline. their comments give some insight into how the broader scholarly community might react to the submission, and are always constructive. it is the quality and number of submissions that provides scope for multiple issues per volume, and on this point i would like to appeal to readers. given our transparent process, and given the journal’s planned expansion, i would like to warmly invite researchers in the fi eld of open, fl exible, and distance education (broadly defi ned) to consider publishing with us. research is a demanding and challenging activity. it is work. it is hard. there can be times when one’s work does not seem to be appreciated (one of the withdrawn submissions over the last 4 years was my own). but work of this kind furthers the conversation. the editorial board works hard to ensure that submissions are promptly evaluated and given fair assessment, and i commend the process to you. the work published in this volume represents those submissions that the deanz community recognises and authenticates as furthering the conversation. i trust you fi nd them stimulating and relevant. our opening piece by tim winkelmans, barry anderson, and michael barbour traces the development of distributed learning in british columbia. readers will fi nd that the context of the article is very similar to new zealand’s own, and parallels will also be seen in those external factors that manipulate supply and demand for distance education. given the claim that british journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 2–5 © distance education association of new zealand 5 columbia has the most supportive legislation for k–12 distance education in canada, and its similarity to new zealand in terms of population density and geography, the british columbian situation is one to learn from. in volume 13 of the journal of distance learning we featured a piece by gary mersham: “refl ections on e-learning from a communications perspective” (mersham, 2009). in my introduction to that volume i remarked that mersham’s article “invites a critical response”. that response has been provided by ben kehrwald in his article: “online communication: a response to mersham”. kehrwald draws on the considerable research in the area of computer mediated communication (cmc) in his rebuttal of mersham’s claims. kehrwald’s apologia is a window into the considerable progress that has been made in understanding the dynamics of online presence. the third article in this volume is a case study from john milne, eva heinrich, and isabelle lys; it considers the challenges of e-portfolio implementation within a single course. while it is not surprising that such a small-scale implementation within a single course would face diffi culties, milne et al. provide solid insight into the issues, and reinforce the importance of sound implementation. their guiding questions formed the basis for a successful case study, which in turn will lead to a broader use of e-portfolios across a programme. finally, marcia bolton reports on using teleconferencing to supervise student teachers. while the approach is not intended to replace in-person supervision, applying technology does provide an opportunity for distance educators. feedback from the student teachers involved indicates that supervising student teachers via teleconference holds some promise. so this is our last printed journal, and our fi rst with a new name and coeditorship. what hasn’t changed is the quality of the scholarly conversation taking place. welcome to a volume of signifi cance. references atkinson, r., & mcloughlin, c. (2009). editorial. australasian journal of educational technology, 25(2), iii–vi. mersham, g. (2009). refl ections on e-learning from a communications perspective. journal of distance learning, 13(1), 51–70. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 2–5 journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 1 editorial: charting flexible pathways in open, mobile and distance education elaine khoo, university of waikato noeline wright, university of waikato abstract this editorial offers an overview of extended papers presented at the biennial deanz2016 conference held at the university of waikato, new zealand, from 17–20th april, 2016. in tandem with the conference theme, there and back: charting flexible pathways in open, mobile and distance education, this special issue highlights think pieces from the three keynote speakers and five papers that offer insights into developments and practices in open, flexible, and distance learning contexts. as such, the collection is a rich repository of ideas and research that contribute to our interrogation of how digital technologies influence teaching and learning and work in a range of new zealand and international educational contexts. keywords: deanz2016 conference; flexible learning; teacher and learner experience; digital technologies; open learning introduction this special issue of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning (jofdl) features extended papers presented at the deanz2016 biennial conference held at the university of waikato, hamilton, new zealand, from 17–20th april, 2016. this conference was the last conducted by deanz, as the organisation underwent a name change at the conference and was rebranded as the flexible learning association of new zealand (flanz).. the conference theme, there and back: charting flexible pathways in open, mobile and distance education, was inspired by hamilton’s close proximity to the hobbiton movie set—a permanent legacy from the sir peter jackson-directed trilogies based on the books by j. r. r. tolkien. importantly, the conference was an opportunity for the organisation and presenters to reflect on the organisation’s origins as well as current digital developments for learning. it was also an opportunity to be visionary in charting a future course that fosters research and best practices in open, flexible, and distance learning contexts. the conference, therefore, brought together a wide range of national and international presenters whose contributions added to the richness of the discussions and debates on the extent to which digital technologies can strengthen teaching, learning, and professional development across educational and multidisciplinary contexts. as a result of the overwhelming response to our invitation for submissions to the 2016 jofdl special issue, we are delighted to consider two special issues. as conference convenors of the deanz2016 conference, we have the privilege of co-editing this current special issue. the remaining papers are being edited by the jofdl editorial team led by niki davis, alison fields, and maggie hartnett. khoo, e., wright, n. 2 for the 2016 special issue, we have brought together two types of contributions. a think piece from each of the three conference keynote speakers these pieces have evolved from the keynote presentations, and offer readers a nuanced view of the way each speaker has approached and used technology. curt bonk, dianne forbes, and carolyn alexander-bennett begin their think pieces with their personal encounters of how digital technologies have made a difference in their teaching and learning journey, then introduce their philosophies for incorporating technology to influence their practice, and give a personal account of the wider general trends that impinge on current educational practice. these wider trends include opportunities and challenges, and suggestions for enriching teachers’ and learners’ experiences. five of the submitted conference-refereed papers, which have been expanded into full articles after presentation at the conference the feedback from the conference delegates, and subsequent discussions with peers during conference breaks, gave authors further ideas for enhancing the quality of their paper as they extended it for peer-reviewed submission to jofdl. these five papers are, therefore, the outcome of a rigorous and value-added process to inform, challenge, and spur discussions on the ways digital technologies can be harnessed to serve education. keynote think pieces curt bonk’s think piece invites readers to consider the state of e-learning by highlighting three mega-trends impacting on teaching and learning today. these overarching trends are learner engagement, pervasive access to learning, and customisation and personalisation of learning. bonk begins by foregrounding plato’s ideals for education and how these ideals are still relevant to and anchor many of the educational innovations to ensure best practices in today’s education 3.0 learning era. he argues for 30 ways in which learning is changing—through the plethora of technologies such as mobile devices; online tools that offer access to multimodal learning opportunities, collaboration, digital repositories, and open resources; gaming, virtual reality, and immersive systems that are available to support learners learning from anywhere, anytime, and at their own pace. curt encourages instructors to leverage these technologies in combination with sound pedagogical approaches to create more engaging, empowered, and equitable learning environments for today’s tech-savvy students. dianne forbes’s think piece identifies key aspects of blended learning that feature in the university of waikato’s mixed methods programme (mmp) for an undergraduate initial teacher education bachelor degree. the faculty of education’s intention when offering the programme was to include people who had difficulty leaving their homes to study, but who could work in a local primary school during their degree programme. in her presentation, dianne explained that she had sought feedback from students and lecturers of the programme to paint a picture of its value—especially for young mothers and those living in rural and isolated communities. some unexpected findings were also very pleasing, such as these new teachers becoming highly digitally proficient and leading the development of digital technologies in the local school. another was that local, rural, and often isolated schools benefitted from the presence of new teachers who have new ideas and thinking. dianne’s think piece also shows how working digitally has benefited her own professional practices as an online teacher educator. carolyn alexander-bennett’s think piece explicates the origins and developments of farnet, which is now a decade old. farnet is an online cluster of schools catering for the teaching and learning needs of rural secondary schools in the far north of new zealand. the far north has a predominantly māori population and farnet has strong māori cultural underpinnings to cater for māori participants in the region. carolyn describes how farnet is informed by international journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 3 literature, before summarising the opportunities and challenges offered through digital technologies to support teachers and learners in farnet and the national virtual learning community. she concludes by encouraging the wider educational community to adopt partnership principles to ensure the equity and success of future online students. special issue articles the articles following the think pieces represent a variety of contexts and experience in open, flexible, and distance learning. as such, they are a rich repository of ideas and research that contribute to our interrogation of how digital technologies influence teaching and learning and work in a range of educational contexts. these articles encompass initiatives undertaken at the macro level of systems or institution-wide policies that impinge on technology access and delivery of quality teaching and learning programmes, and those that focus on the micro level. these micro initiatives include individual practitioners undertaking trials in innovative uses of digital technologies such as mobile devices to foster teaching and professional development. colleen halupa’s literature review begins this section. her focus is on the increasingly changing and complex roles that deans and heads of departments of small private educational institutions need to take to ensure their institutions remain competitive and relevant in an era dominated by open and flexible learning initiatives and resources. her review spotlights institutions in the united states, australia, and new zealand because, she argues, their educational systems share origins that emanate from the philosophical establishment of the british university. her paper details some of the challenges faced by small private institutions—such as student recruitment, limited financial capital (especially for marketing) and staff recruitment, and higher institutional fees. she gives a comprehensive yet concise guide to the additional and non-traditional roles undertaken by department heads she highlights issues such as cost control, fundraising, marketing, recruitment and retention of students, outreach and innovation, and curricular and staff management. guimei liu and john clayton’s paper describes a transnational initiative between new zealand and china through the new zealand–china vocational education and training model programme, which aims to enhance the development and delivery of quality programmes offered in the context of technical vocational education and training (tvet) as part of facilitating access to new zealand qualifications in china. one of the outcomes of this particular collaboration is establishing foundations for joint model programmes that are collaboratively designed, developed, and delivered. as part of this programme, they argue that it is important to establish performance indicators and measures of learner and institutional success. institutions can therefore identify gaps between policy rhetoric and actual classroom reality. such measures, they argue, need to be framed by outcomes and process measures to generate a more robust understanding of the learner experience. the authors then detail the development of a user-driven and flexible online instrument to gather student perceptions to identify when, how, and where the policy intent versus classroom reality gap occurs in tvet learning environments. although such an instrument is currently in the development stage, the authors expect it will provide institutional decision-makers in both countries with reliable evidence of the effect of the model programme on learners’ experience and achievement. they hope it will make a significant contribution to teaching, learning, and research in the tvet sector. dilani gedera’s paper is also set in a polytechnic context, and addresses concerns relating to quality programme design, development, and delivery. her paper overviews an institution-wide initiative known as designing for learner success (d4ls) at otago polytechnic. the design 4 learning success initiative adopts a collaborative and agile approach to course redevelopment. d4ls encourages subject matter experts to collaborate with course developers to produce quality teaching and learning materials and activities intended to enhance learner success and khoo, e., wright, n. 4 satisfaction and develop learner capabilities. of the four key systematic phases (design, development, delivery, and evaluation) in the d4ls project, gedera’s work focuses on the development phase where she explicates, from an e-learning designer’s perspective, some inherent challenges and limitations. her paper therefore offers important insights into the value of a collaborative approach to course development and provides recommendations for e-learning designers and course developers in similar institution-wide enterprises. kamila hoffmann-dumienski’s article focuses on the development of facilitators working in a blended learning environment across remote islands of the cook islands. through semistructured interviews that were designed to elicit facilitators’ own perceptions of their professional lives, the findings suggest positive outcomes for engaging in an online professional community. through this engagement, facilitators had ongoing opportunities for learning, development, and support. this combination, hoffmann-dumienski found, appeared to reduce facilitators’ feelings of isolation, which had previously been a feature of the remoteness of their geographical locations. the finding speaks to the power of the internet to bring people together virtually, without physical proximity, when common interests sustain a community. positive relationships arising through connecting with internet-enabled devices are also a key feature of jo tilton and maggie harnett’s article. tilton and hartnett provide a snapshot of digital practices in a german international school, where students in a secondary school classroom used mobile devices (principally ipads) to learn english. findings focus on the perspectives of teachers (who were interviewed three times over a school year) in their first year of implementing a specific one-to-one ipad programme. tilton and hartnett suggest that the teachers’ successes were important. their experience led to developing efficacy and confidence in using these mobile devices for learning purposes, and continuing to use them. they describe how teachers ascribed importance to building students’ efficacy in tandem with their own confidence. this co-developmental support helped build teachers’ individual self-efficacy, and relationships between teachers and learners. tilton and hartnett also discovered that the affordances inherent in the device contributed to this self-efficacy, even in the face of some barriers to teachers integrating the devices regularly into their programmes. we hope you enjoy the selection of articles in this special issue. they promise to provoke and offer nuanced insights into the possibilities, promise, and practices of technology-supported teaching and learning as well as wider institutional developments that leverage the affordances of these technologies. if you attended the deanz2016 conference, these articles will remind you of the broad diversity of presentations that contributed so well to the success of the event. if you were unable to attend the conference, you can access the full proceedings and video recordings of key sessions at http://bit.ly/2e8yfso last but not least, we are indebted to the many people who contributed to the deanz2016 conference and the preparation of this issue. we thank our conference organising committee at the university of waikato for their enthusiasm and commitment, the flanz executive committee for their support of the conference, and the reviewers of articles submitted for their time and critique. we also acknowledge the guidance of the jofdl editorial team led by niki davis with maggie hartnett and alison fields. the contributions by reviewers and editors have been key to the success of this issue. enjoy! http://bit.ly/2e8yfso journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 5 biographical notes elaine khoo ekhoo@waikato.ac.nz elaine is a senior research fellow at the wilf malcolm institute of education (wmier), university of waikato, with research interests in pedagogical strategies in technology-based and technology-supported learning environments. noeline wright noelinew@waikato.ac.nz noeline is a senior research officer in wilf malcolm institute of educational research (wmier) in the faculty of education, university of waikato. she researches pedagogy, and digital technologies in secondary school contexts and initial education. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. khoo, e., & wright, n. (2016). editorial: charting flexible pathways in open, mobile and distance education. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2), [1–5]. mailto:ekhoo@waikato.ac.nz mailto:noelinew@waikato.ac.nz http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ keywords: deanz2016 conference; flexible learning; teacher and learner experience; digital technologies; open learning the vintage years of elearning in new zealand schools introduction the term "elearning" has been used in a variety of contexts in new zealand schools and has been described by a variety of different terms, e.g., "computers in education," "teleleaming," "telecommun­ ications," "distance learning," "open learning," "flexible learning," "online learning," "virtual learning." these terms are linked by a common purpose and desire to communicate with other people across time and space to enhance a range of educational opportunities. the birth of elearning in new zealand schools occurred when teachers began using computers in schools. this was when electronic mail was the prevalent interactive medium, well before the arrival of the graphical web internet interface. this was a time of elearning pioneering sprit, imagination, and innovation. a look back to events at this time reveals a wealth of rich learning experiences for teachers, students, and government officials. a look back to the 19805 and 19905 1980s computers common in new an enthusiastic during the early became increasingly zealand schools and group of teachers, nola campbell school of education i university of waikato hamilton, new zealand predominantly men in the mathematics and science areas, began to explore the possibilities of using these tools in their classrooms. these computers were used as writing tools, instructional learning tools, or tools to explore computer programming. the department of education responded to this emerging trend and set up the computers in education development unit (cedu), which began operation on 1 april 1984. the role of the cedu was to provide training and direction for educational computing in new zealand. in 1986 the department of education report the potential educational benefits of electronic communications technologies for new zealand was released. this comprehensive document examined the range of telecommunications systems available in new zealand, australia, and britain. the report also considered what was happening with electronic mail and included some recommendations for future development. the report emphasised that the department of education had an obligation to recognise the need for new technologies, something which had been happening since the late 1970s in britain, where financial backing carne from both government and industry. after reviewing electronic mail journal of distance learning, vol8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 17 activity in five different schools, the report issued three warnings: 1. the importance of teacher training was emphasised as being a crucial factor and a function of any organisation that lends its support to the use of electronic communication. 2. if people were to see electronic communication as just an electronic pen-pal system, it would not maintain student motivation. 3. new technologies were not automatically better by definition. elec­ tronic mail, for example, had to provide a cost-effective service to education and be educationally justifiable. the report highlighted the advantage of new zealand's education system being governed by one body so that any initiatives and commitment to electronic communication would be a national rather than a regional one. this was in direct contrast to education systems in australia and britain, which had a more devolved structure. a further difference became evident when it was observed that both australia and britain were in the process of investing in computer hardware and software. in contrast, computers in schools in new zealand had been provided by the hard work of parents and a variety of fund-raising activities within each school and not by central government. requests for funding for hardware and software would not be realised for many years, and this was often perceived as a barrier to change by some teachers. it could be argued however that the emphasis the government placed on teacher professional development was an important investment in elearning for the future. new role for cedu the potential educational benefits of electronic communications technologies for new zealand report (department of education, 1986) recommended that the department of education, through cedu, work in conjunction with education and curriculum officers, teachers, and students to establish specifications and recommendations for a new zealand electronic mail system for schools. the result was the establishment of a user group called cdu on starnet, an electronic mail system operated by the new zealand post office. at that time it was operating as a communication network for government, industry, and commerce. based on international standards and conventions of specifi­ cation, it allowed international mailing facilities. ann frampton, a cedu staff member, was appointed as the system manager to oversee this email development in schools. cedu was given the role of electronic mail teacher training, which complemented their role to provide national educational computing information and training. cedu regularly sent newsletters to schools, and the first mention of starnet was in newsletter 9, term 3, 1986. it gave details of the equipment required and where to get help, and stated the charges of an initial $30 per mailbox, $2 a month box rental, and 35¢ a minute online charge. it was stated that electronic mail and the exchange of word -processed files both nationally and internationally for both students and teachers offered great potential, but no mention was made of how this could actually happen. teacher journal of distance learning, vol8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 18 education centres nationally were to join starnet and it was hoped this yvould allow teachers to keep in touch with their local centres. increasingly, new zealand primary and secondary teachers and students were introduced to the use of electronic mail in classrooms. utilising a telephone line, computer, and modem provided the opportunity for them to extend the boundaries of their classrooms and communicate with their peers in a number of countries around the world. cedu strongly promoted the use of the starnet system, and many teachers who had access to computing technology at that time were eager to leap on the new bandwagon. initially, as teachers began to explore the world of electronic mail, the activity appeared to have a lot to do with the technology and more limited regard for students' learning needs and positive learning outcomes. on reflection this emphasis appears to be part of an evolutionary process, where teachers are encouraged to first learn to use the tools that they did not have when they were school pupils. in cedu's report on the exploratory studies in educational computing (1987), a statement was made about how: the teachers in both electronic communications studies believe that children have little difficulty in understanding and using this technology at an appropriate level. students are clearly highly motivated to write when electronic publishing is possible. teachers and students are excited about the opportunities for development of multi­ cultural awareness, afforded by international exchange of letters, stories and information of interest to the students. (p. 8) there was no mention of links with the curriculum, merely a refl�ction of the continued high level of interest. it is unfortunate that more detailed results from some of these electronic mail studies still remain unpublished, as the opportunity to review what actually happened for teachers and for learners and their learning has been lost. in january 1987 the department of education published computer communi­ cations in education, as a result of the discussions of a working party at hamilton teachers' college. this resource booklet for teachers provided a valuable guide on how to get started, what was available, and information about some case studies. any links with the curriculum were still not emphasised in this document. by 1989 the cedu newsletter number 16 was describing successful electronic mail projects to stimulate children's writing, such as the progressive stories exchange between w aihou downs school and brightwell school in england. this was a clear indication of the changes that were now occurring in some classrooms. teachers and children were beginning to grow in confidence and take control of this new medium to interact with wider audiences. as the number of schools and teachers who were utilising the new technologies rose, the need for support became far greater than had been anticipated and support for schools was beyond the scope of cedu. the result was that cedu went out of existence on 30 september journal of distance learning, vol8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 19 1989 and support was then provided through the advisory services attached to the teacher education institutions in schools and colleges of education across the country. this had the effect of decentralising what had been a small but coordinated team who provided national guidance and leadership. responsibility for providing training to such a large number of schools soon became a daunting task for each of the educational computing advisors, just as it was for the cedu staff. these advisors worked tirelessly as demand for their time and expertise far outstretched their resources. the demise of cedu was also to signal reduced use of starnet, as the internet became more available. new opportunities promoted by a range of internet providers signalled the arrival of business and industry as key players in the national elearning scene, and this was to be a feature of development in the 1990s. change in class rooms a computer provided access to the global classroom but, as chapple (1992) highlighted, it also provided the oppor­ tunity for learners to learn from other learners. he saw this. as being one of the most powerful ideas to be confronted by schools, and he observed that the role of teachers was changing. traditional sources of knowledge such as the teacher or the library represented knowledge from an adult perspective and at best it was second-hand. a teacher who was prepared to fill the role of the facilitator and was not afraid of change could find electronic mail a powerful classroom tool, providing first-hand knowledge applicable to all areas of the school curriculum. chapple (1991) described the importance of a bottom-up approach where teachers and students used the technology to solve a problem. chapple warned that the mediun:;t could become the message, and stressed the importance of establishing a clear purpose for the contact, as well as the need to ensure expectations are clear and there is strong commitment between both parties as part of the communication activity. he suggested: perhaps computer mediated communication is at last coming of age as educators themselves learn that it has a significant role to play in student learning, that it is not an end in itself but a means to an end. at last the technology has respectability. (chapple, 1992, p. 147) hugh barr, in his 1991 article "social studies by electronic mail," believed schools had been slow to take advantage of electronic mail opportunities that had been available to them for more than five years. barr, like chapple, identified that the use of sophisticated pieces of technology does not in itself guarantee sound educational outcomes, particularly in learning situations lacking a clear structure or purpose. barr (1994) believed teachers appeared too conservative or afraid to make changes from existing information-gathering methods, and he challenged them on this. if email had been first placed in the hands of social studies teachers who were, according to barr, much more child and learning centred, then some pain..ful learning experiences may have been avoided. barr's perspective and comments were important because, as a person who had vast experience in the field of journal of distance learning, vol 8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 20 social studies, he was a relative newcomer to electronic mail. however, he had developed through his own research clear ideas about what electronic mail could do to improve a teacher's knowledge of a topic and in turn that of young children. the new curriculum initiatives emerging at this time were challenging the role of the new zealand classroom teacher and placing them in a more facilitative role, giving them the. opportunity to validate creativity and the learning process in new and exciting ways. people like chapple and barr believed strongly that learner­ centred education could be enhanced by using an elearning approach. new learning networks develop while electronic mail was being utilised in schools, other telecommunications tools were gaining momentum. bulletin boards like k12 net and fidonet were gaining in popularity, along with a host of online databases that provided access to information generally only available in schools as written text on paper. the k12 net was a school-oriented bulletin-board system brought to new zealand by ibm. elizabeth probert, an english teacher and the teacher in charge of the library /information resource centre at pakuranga college, was a dedicated user of k12. she described how: i have used k12 at school in three ways-with junior english classes who write short 1 00 word news stories to post in global village news (gvn), with a fourth form class who wanted information about life for other 14 year olds around the world and with the german teacher who used the german area with her german language students. (probert, 1994, p. 34) the process of sending and treceiving information on k12 involved nightly downloads and uploads of messages ready for the staff and student the next day. these bulletin boards were carefully moderated and probert described how in k12, "people sending inappropriate messages are smartly told off in no uncertain terms" (1994, p. 33). when describing her enthusiasm for using k12, probert warned other teachers, "you may well become addicted and find that 3 hours can seem like 3 minutes once you get started" (1994, p. 37). te wahapu, a member of the international fidonet association, was launched in may 1991. daphne ropiha (1991) identified how te wahapu was set up for two specific purposes. firstly, it was to provide a forum for exchange for teachers within the area of maori language and education. secondly, te w ahapu would provide an interesting and stimulating environment for schools "to exchange creative and expository writing in the maori language" (p. 47). it was also a significant elearning development because of its use of maori as the language for commands and system messages, and the fact that it provided access to a range of databases (benton, 1994). benton described how: registered members of te w ahapu whanau who agree in writing not to allow the material to be used for commercial purposes may download the latest version of the database, together with a program to enable them to journal of distance learning, vol8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 21 -----------search it on their own computer. (1994, p. 39) the response from te wahapu users was, according to benton, very positive and "native-speakers found the universality of maori on the system both affirming and intriguing," as it had been difficult for some "to come to grips with supposedly english-based computerese" (1994, p. 39). the ability to download regular updates to the database and to link with other people in te wahapu was a groundbreaking development in elearning in new zealand and a treasure that was held in high regard by its users. partnerships between schools and business were to provide resource benefits for schools, as in the casatech case (mcmahon, 1996). carol moffatt took up the position as the principal of oxford area school in canterbury in 1991 and was faced with falling senior school numbers. her interest in information technology and her industry links enabled her to group six schools in the region and form casatech in 1994. they used new information technologies to enable teachers and students to communicate across the geographical barriers, forming regular online classes. in 1996 cantatech was born when four other form 1 to 7 schools joined the group. this pioneering work by moffatt with the casatech/cantatech online networks was to provide a successful model for online school collaboration and networking for future school elearning clusters. the age of the internet and the 1990s the call from schools for government to recognise the need for a much more focussed and strategic approach was acknowledged in 1993 with the first of the information technology teacher professional develop;ment contracts funded by the ministry of education. later these were referred to as information and communication technology professional development (ictpd) contracts. there was a heavy emphasis on telecommun­ ications in the majority of early contracts, and this was due in no small part to the high level of sponsorship and support from telecom new zealand at that time. the telecom education foundation established in 1993 facilitated the loan of equipment and resources to encourage the use of telecommunications in schools. the important issues that emerged from this period were, to some extent, accurately documented and predicted in the report the potential educational benefits of electronic communications technologies for new zealand (department of education, 1 986). they were the importance of teacher education, use of electronic communications simply as a pen-pal system without cognisance of its teaching and learning potential, and the cost-effective uses of telecommunications education. these warnings were echoed in overseas experiences and reflected a period where schools were busy "doing computing" or "doing electronic mail" with few links with the curriculum. another critical event that affected the elearning landscape in new zealand was the draft release of technology in the new zealand curriculum (ministry of education, 1 993). this draft document was released into schools for comment at the end of 1993, with feedback gained throughout 1994 and early 1995. the final version of the curriculum journal of distance learning, vol 8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 22 statement was officially released and launched in late 1995 and gazet,ted in february 1999 as mandatory for all schools from years 1 to 10. a new term, "information and co:rrununication technology" (ict), one of the seven technological areas in the curriculum document, soon became part of teachers' vocabulary. what was significant was the inclusion of the word "co:rrununication," as this signified the importance· of these tools to promote and enhance elearning. the curriculum document highlighted the importance of using electronic networks for the collection, structuring, manipulation, retrieval, and communication of information in various forms. technology in the new zealand curriculum (ministry of education, 1993) emphasised how ict was part of a learner's technological knowledge, understanding, and capability to enable them to live and work more effectively in their society and environment. this document gave both ict and elearning a purpose and direction with their own knowledge base and a clear link with society. no longer was eleaming something that was practised by the computing enthusiasts in some schools; it was to become a vital part of the curriculum planning and integration of all teachers. to support the integration of ict, the ministry of education continued to provide support for ictpd through an ongoing progra:rrune of school contracts, which have continued to affect the new zealand elearning environment into the twenty-first century. into the new millennium new zealand is an isolated country geographically, but this isolation has been minimised to some extent by the efficient use of a range of elearning technologies. for many students, the hardware has become transparent; it is simply a tool to achieve a goal. as a window ·on the world, elearning allows students in new zealand to take part in the global information world with new 1 partners among classrooms, teachers, students, and members of our communities. one of the strengths of teachers and schools in new zealand has been the way in which they have responded to the elearning challenge by examining their own practice and how this can be enhanced by the use of new and different tools. from the early pioneering activity in classrooms in the 1980s, there was generally a clear emphasis on teaching and learning and the beginnings of a new elearning pedagogy. there was no centralised scheme to facilitate widespread dumping of large numbers of computers into classrooms and suites, leaving teachers numb with anticipation. there was no clear political or economic expediency to drive the change toward the implementation of distance modes of teaching and elearning. the result was a situation where there were steadily increasing numbers of students and teachers in new zealand classrooms becoming excited about what elearning could offer them. the new zealand approach to elearning in schools has placed a strong emphasis on teacher support and the development of a pedagogy that can justify and sustain ongoing resourcing and development. while the 1980s began a period of do-it-yourself elearning, the 1990s saw a period of recogriition for the use of these new tools and practices with support from both government and the telecommunications and computing industry. journal of distance learning, vol8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 23 when speculating on the future of elearn:ing :in new zealand, it is possible to imagine new configurations of classrooms, schools, and the technologies they will contain. there is little doubt, based on what we have seen in the past twenty years, there will be some significant changes and the environments will be different in 2023. what we will hopefully still be able to recognise and identify with are learner-centred teaching practices that have been made possible by the integration of elearn:ing, in whatever form that might be. finally, the words of ann frampton, the cdu starnet system manager and one of the leading pioneers of electronic mail in new zealand schools, sum up what elearn:ing educators will expect to see in the next twenty years: the application of electronic mail to expand the available audience for children's writing, and for sharing projects and research with children in another part of the world is well accepted these days, but the possibilities do not stop there. (1990, p. 45) references barr, h. (1991). social studies by electronic mail. social studies observer, 24(1), 10-11. barr, h. (1994). social studies by electronic mail. the social studies, 85(4), 170-173. benton, r. (1994). combining medium and message: an electronic communications network for maori language and education. computers in new zealand schools, 6(1), 38-46. chapple, d. (1991). the good, the bad, and the ugly: taking your pick. computers in new zealand schools, 3(1), 42-45. chapple, d. (1992). gaining entry to the global classroom: the computer as a key. in k. lai & b. mcmillan (eds.), learning with computers. palmerston north, new zealand: the dunmore press. computers in education development unit. (1986). newsletter 9, term 3. compute;rs in education development unit. (1987). report on the exploratory studies in educational computing. wellington, new zealand: department of education. computers in education development unit. (1989). newsletter 16, term 1. department of education, new zealand. (1986). the potential educational benefits of electronic communications technologies for new zealand. wellington, new zealand: author. department of education, new zealand. (1987). computer communications in education. wellington, new zealand: author. frampton, a. (1990). world without speech. computers in new zealand schools, 2(3), 41-45. mcmahon, t. (1996). establishing distance education networks in new zealand: policy parameters. in j. g. hedberg, j. steele, & s. mcnamara (eds.), learning technologies: prospects and pathways (pp. 99-101). selected papers from edtech'96. canberra, australia: ajet publications. ministry of education, new zealand. (1993). technology in the new zealand curriculum (draft). wellington, new zealand: learning media. ministry of education, new zealand. (1995). technology in the new zealand curriculum. wellington, new zealand: learning media. probert l. (1994). telecommunications: turn on and join the world. computers in new zealand schools, 6(1), 33-37. ropiha, d. (1991). he punawaru-a-tuhi te wahapu: maori education and language electronic network. computers in new zealand schools, 3(3), 47-48. nola campbell is senior lecturer in information and communication technology at the school of education, university of waikato. journal of distance learning, vol8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 24 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 1 editorial: prizing equity in education and research in the field of open, flexible and distance learning niki davis, editor-in-chief, university of canterbury alison fields, associate editor, open polytechnic of new zealand maggie hartnett, associate editor, massey university abstract valuing more open and equitable approaches to practice and research in the field of flexible, open, and distance learning enables the editors of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning (jofdl) to better describe the distinctive mission for the journal, which is uniquely situated in a bicultural nation where complementary approaches of indigenous cultures and western science are best braided. three of the four research papers introduced for this issue provide answers to the deanz 2014 conference question of “where is the ‘e’ in engagement?”, which referred to engagement of students from organisational and faculty perspectives. bonk and khoo’s (2014) recent text book on that conference topic is also celebrated in a book review. in contrast, the fourth paper identifies the possibilities for increased engagement between administrators and the staff that they lead in virtual charter schools. the editorial also describes the increasing visibility of jofdl in collections worldwide. keywords: open learning; distance learning; open publishing; retention; student engagement; administration; leadership in distance education; vocational education and training; equity in elearning text introduction in this editorial we explore and illustrate several ways of prizing open education. as editors and educators, we are, like many of our readers, leaders in open, flexible, and distance learning research and development because we wish to open education up to more people, and raise awareness of the rhetoric and realities of technology-enhanced learning, teaching, and professional development. we also explore increasing access to research in this field through open-access published papers and collections of data. the papers in this issue are situated within our field using this theme, and so we are able to explore more of what makes the journal of open, flexible and distance learning (jofdl) such a distinctive international refereed journal. it is also our pleasure to celebrate the achievements of the 2014 deanz award winners and update readers on our progress to increase access to this journal. davis, n., fields, a., & hartnett, m. 2 papers in this issue we are delighted to celebrate the theme of the deanz 2014 conference in this issue with three papers that have been further developed following presentation in the refereed strand. all three provide an answer to the question posed by the theme for the conference: “open, flexible and distance learning: where is the ‘e’ in engagement?” the presentation by smith, erlam, quirke, and sylvester (2014) was highly engaging, and they have followed up with a valuable paper that carefully describes their research into ways to engage students for more effective distance learning. although contextualised for theology students studying at a distance with a major provider in australasia (laidlaw college), their findings illustrate the value of “fostering connectedness amongst tutors, academic advisors and students by providing high-quality content and materials through appropriate technologies.” (p. 11) the care for students and collaboration amongst the staff was obvious at the conference presentation, and the detailed evidence, supported by literature, makes a persuasive case for other tertiary providers. this college clearly prizes its staff and students and has been rewarded with increased retention which, in new zealand, can be easily linked to tertiary education commission funding. an institutional perspective on improving retention is also the focus of yates, brindley-richards, and thistoll (2014) in their research at the open polytechnic of new zealand (opnz), which is a major provider of technical and vocational education and training in this region. recent interventions at opnz have included improvements in distance learning support, culturally appropriate support designed specifically for māori and pasifika learners and their whānau (family), and teachers’ support of distance students. improvements in organisational strategies (including what appears to be connectedness amongst tutors, academic advisors, and students) also emerged as an important factor. one aspect is similar to the findings of smith et al. at laidlaw college. this paper is complemented by another on developments by the leader of a first-year opnz economics course. nash (2014) describes her innovative development of a weekly newsletter emailed out to students via the learning management system to improve student engagement. our final paper is a contrast with the others in many ways. it opens a new line of enquiry for jofdl; namely, the consideration of the potential to transform personnel practices in schools that adopt learning management systems, particularly those set up to provide virtual schooling. given that the phenomenon of virtual schooling has spread rapidly in the united states, it is not surprising that the authors and evidence analysed are from that region. beck and maranto (2014) clarify that there are many novel opportunities for school leaders in such schools to unobtrusively view and evaluate teacher performance—using recordings and online opportunities and to (hopefully) support and improve their own and others’ performance as part of the process. increased collaboration between school leaders and their staff has been recognised as good practice in recent years (stoll, 2011). however, beck and maranto did not find that teachers in the virtual charter schools perceived transformation to have taken place. although the teachers did “tend to rate the virtual charters more positively on empowering and respecting teachers, and on developing a student-centred school culture” (p. 68), there was no transformation of administrative practice. given the legacy of correspondence schools (twining & davis, in press) in the asia pacific region, such transformation is also unlikely here. maybe that is something to aim for in future. the recommendations to include aspects and experience of effective flexible and distance learning in leadership professional development are certainly relevant worldwide, and particularly in this region. there is a shortage of skills and knowledge about digital technologies in school leadership (levin & schrum, 2012), which indicates that administrative leaders have not prized open, flexible, and distance education. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 3 book reviews, led by our book review editor, una cunningham, are a regular feature in jofdl. our final conference-related item is a book review, by maggie hartnett, of a practical ‘how to’ guide for motivating learners in online and blended learning contexts. the book was launched at the deanz conference by new zealand author, elaine khoo, with a video link to co-author, curtis bonk, in the united states, during which bonk acknowledged khoo’s leadership on theory to complement his more practical expertise. drawing from a rich review of theory and research into motivation, the book “provides a framework and an extensive set of associated online instructional activities that anyone involved in teaching online, from primary through to tertiary education, can use to engage and motivate learners” (p. 83). bonk and khoo have generously provided open access to the book and individual chapters, in addition to the opportunity to purchase a printed copy. the book is therefore of value to all jofdl readers, and its chapters provide more links to the theories and findings of the papers introduced above. progress on recommendations from the 2013 review of jofdl in our last editorial we outlined aspects of the 2013 review of jofdl conducted by peter albion. one of the recommendations made was: “to increase the visibility of the journal” (davis, fields, & hartnett, 2014, p. 6). we are pleased to report that over the past year much progress has been made in making jofdl more visible in the field, and more action is planned for the coming term. jofdl has been available for access for some time via the deanz website, on the ako aotearoa website where it is hosted, and on the informit database. it is searchable via various authors’ institutional repositories and personal listings, which are often also searchable on google and google scholar. articles are also electronically archived on the national digital heritage archive and so can be accessed via the national library of new zealand’s main catalogue. new jofdl visibility achieved in 2014:  editlib: jofdl entered the editlib digital library in july 2014, and is now available to the many organisations which subscribe to that library.  google scholar: a technical difficulty in allowing access to google scholar search bots was overcome, and now all articles in jofdl are listed in and searchable through google scholar.  k–12 online and blended learning clearinghouse: in november 2014 jofdl/deanz became a contributing member of clearinghouse, which is hosted by the michigan virtual learning research institute. in progress:  ebscohost: jofdl and ebscohost have signed an agreement which will see jofdl content available on the ebscohost databases in the next few months.  doaj: an application to have jofdl listed on the directory of open access journals has been submitted. the processing of applications usually takes several months. planned:  sherpa/romeo: the editorial team would like to list jofdl’s open access policy with sherpa/romeo in the near future. this listing will publicise the open access ethos of jofdl more widely and publicly. davis, n., fields, a., & hartnett, m. 4  other journal databases: these are yet to be identified and approached for inclusion of jofdl content, and decisions about approaching more database providers will be made in 2015. increasing the visibility of jofdl brings a number of benefits. for authors, it means that there is a wider potential readership for their articles. their content is more accessible to other researchers, students, and academics, and their academic endeavours are more visible. for readers, the increased visibility of the journal means that articles are more likely to be encountered, references to other jodfl articles may be followed, and search patterns resulting in useful articles are more likely to be repeated, drawing readers to subsequent jofdl content. for the journal itself, increased visibility increases its usefulness in terms of readership and citation of jofdl articles (and therefore its rankings) which, in turn, further increases visibility to both authors and readers. prizing quality with jofdl’s inaugural best paper award to bring the value of authors’ contributions further to the fore, jofdl made its inaugural best paper award in 2014. the winner of this first biennial award was selected from papers published in jofdl in the preceding 2 years, encompassing volumes 16 and 17 (the three issues published since the 2012 deanz conference). the first award was presented at the 2014 deanz conference dinner in christchurch, new zealand, in may 2014. papers were selected from those in the 2012 conference issue, general papers, and a special issue on primary and secondary distance education. choosing the best paper was an interesting and uncharted process, with a range of methods available. these methods encompassed:  downloading statistics for each article from the jofdl website  tracking citation statistics for each article from google scholar  recognition of the importance of the topic to the jofdl readership, and its contribution to the wider open, flexible, and distance learning field  considering the overall quality of topic, research, and writing. a spreadsheet was created for all articles eligible for the award. download and citation statistics were entered for all items, and a shortlist of items that scored highly on either or both of these factors was made. from this shortlist a team of four deanz members considered each article independently, taking into consideration the importance of the topic to jofdl readership; its contribution to the wider open, flexible, and distance learning field; and the overall quality of the topic, research, and writing. each of the deciding team had three votes for the best items, and cast their votes without consulting the others. when all votes had been cast, the results were compared to determine if there was a single winner from the shortlist. on this occasion, one winner emerged from the group, but several rated very highly, and this, combined with the subjective nature of two of the selection criteria, led to the recognition of runners-up whose articles were worthy contributions to the jofdl readership. it was not an easy process to select the best paper, as all of the top candidates were worthy in their own way. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 5 the results of the jofdl best paper award for 2014 winner: anderson, b., & simpson, m. (2012). history and heritage in distance education. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 16(2), 1–10. three highly commended papers: agnew, s., & hickson, s. (2012). using online assessment to replace invigilated assessment in times of natural disaster: are some online assessment conditions better than others? journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 16(1), 1–13. bennett, c., & barbour, m. (2012). the farnet journey: perceptions of māori students engaged in secondary online learning. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 16(1), 83–98. falloon, g. (2012). inside the virtual classroom: student perspectives on affordances and limitations. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 16(1), 108–126. 2014 deanz awards the conference of the new zealand association for open, flexible and distance learning (deanz) provides an opportunity every 2 years to prize and promote projects related to the conference theme. the website announcement clarifies its purpose as follows: the deanz award is designed to promote and reward excellence in e-learning, distance, open and flexible learning. awards are given for projects that advance understanding of best practice in e-learning, distance, open and flexible learning in new zealand; are original or innovative in concept or application; and are relevant to and whose outcomes are useful to the e-learning, distance, open and flexible-learning community. (http://deanz.org.nz/deanz-award-2/deanz-award-2014/) each application must show evidence of its value and, providing the field is of adequate quality, a panel of judges selects one or two for the award. this year the main deanz award recognised michael fenton, a tutor in the school of science and technology at opnz, for his leadership of professional development for primary school teachers to enhance science education and engage children’s interest in science. when announcing the award at the conference dinner the chair of the panel of judges, derek wenmoth, noted that michael fenton and his team: … provided a full, clear and pedagogically sound documentation of the on-line programme development, providing a clear demonstration of how to create a successful and innovative course that engages teachers and students with high levels of interaction. the programme design clearly encouraged engagement by participants in the widest sense, and is highly relevant to the very topical issue of the need for improving the teaching of science in our schools. the evaluation (both internal and external) was integral to the programme. (http://deanz.org.nz/deanz-award-2/deanz-award-2014/) a merit award was also made to matthew smart, university of otago, for his leadership in the production of mobile resources for working students. the project aim was to more fully engage distance learners by providing multimedia-rich material which, after downloading to a smartphone or tablet, could be accessed whenever and as often as they wished. the use of mobile technologies matched the resources of learners with the capability of the institution, including scalable transfer. “the judging panel thought this was an excellent description of a very http://deanz.org.nz/deanz-award-2/deanz-award-2014/ http://deanz.org.nz/deanz-award-2/deanz-award-2014/ davis, n., fields, a., & hartnett, m. 6 innovative project that will be of real interest to many practitioners.” (http://deanz.org.nz/deanzaward-2/deanz-award-2014/) the editors are pleased to acknowledge these awards and encourage all deanz award winners to follow up by submitting a paper to jofdl with longer-term research on their innovative projects. prizing equity in ict in education and related research on return from a unesco-sponsored event in 2001 to promote the book that niki had collaborated on under paul resta’s leadership (unesco, 2002) while president of the society of information technology and teacher education, the first author was inspired to create a new award for that society—the site award for outstanding service to digital equity in teacher education. experience in leading the award led to greater understanding of the quality assurance and ethical issues involved in making such awards. in some ways they echo those of a refereed journal, in that they include a panel of referees and difficult decisions on who and what to make public. notable site osde award winners include:  henrique hinostroza (hinostroza, hepp, & lavel, 2001), for his innovative leadership of the enlaces initiative that began with consideration of the needs of indigenous people for digital technologies in remote schools in chile and then spread across south america  bonny bracy, who continues to advocate for equity as a fellow of the george lucas foundation, and recently raised awareness that the digital divide is increasing  mano talaiver, who continues to advocate for women and minorities in science and engineering, and has visited new zealand to support this initiative with programming activities designed to engage girls in after-school clubs  paul gorski who developed a somewhat idealistic agenda on “insisting on digital equity”. (gorski, 2009) (for more details, see http://site.aace.org/awards/award-osde.htm) in 2014, while distinguished professor paul resta was visiting new zealand as canterbury university fellow, he talked to niki davis about his leadership of unesco’s only ict in education award, and recorded the conversation on youtube (see http://youtu.be/nur_jppgw0). paul and niki agreed that awards that are carefully judged are a means to value and promote equitable development, and often include open, flexible, and distance learning. for example, one of the award winners of this prize for the use of icts in education was the korean home cyber school initiative. this prize has been in existence for 7 years, and in november unesco agreed that it would continue to be offered, with these details: this annual prize is placed under the patronage of king hamad bin isa al khalifa of the kingdom of bahrain. the prize (a diploma and us$50,000 divided between two laureates) aims to reward projects and activities of individuals, institutions, other entities or nongovernmental organizations for excellent models, best practice, and creative use of icts to enhance learning, teaching and overall educational performance. (see http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/themes/icts/e-learning/icts-in-education-prize/). the award of research contracts is another way to recognise quality of research design. recently the importance of open access to research has brought a closer focus on valuing open access to such research and the underlying data. for example, the bill and melinda gates foundation has announced a policy in support of open research and open data that will operate from the beginning of 2015. implementing this policy will be challenging: 1. publications are discoverable and accessible online. publications will be deposited in a specified repository(s) with proper tagging of metadata. http://deanz.org.nz/deanz-award-2/deanz-award-2014/ http://deanz.org.nz/deanz-award-2/deanz-award-2014/ http://site.aace.org/awards/award-osde.htm http://youtu.be/nur_jppg-w0  http://youtu.be/nur_jppg-w0  http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/themes/icts/e-learning/icts-in-education-prize/ journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 7 2. publication will be on “open access” terms. all publications shall be published under the creative commons attribution 4.0 generic license (cc by 4.0) or an equivalent license. this will permit all users of the publication to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format and transform and build upon the material, including for any purpose (including commercial) without further permission or fees being required. 3. foundation will pay necessary fees. the foundation would pay reasonable fees required by a publisher to effect publication on these terms. 4. publications will be accessible and open immediately. all publications shall be available immediately upon their publication, without any embargo period. an embargo period is the period during which the publisher will require a subscription or the payment of a fee to gain access to the publication. we are, however, providing a transition period of up to two years from the effective date of the policy (or until january 1, 2017). during the transition period, the foundation will allow publications in journals that provide up to a 12month embargo period. 5. data underlying published research results will be accessible and open immediately. the foundation will require that data underlying the published research results be immediately accessible and open. this too is subject to the transition period and a 12-month embargo may be applied. (retrieved from http://www.gatesfoundation.org/how-we-work/general-information/openaccess-policy). researchers who design proposals for submission must pay careful attention to ethical issues in order to avoid conflicts of interest. it will be particularly interesting to see how the human ethics committees treat the requirement “that data underlying the published research results be immediately accessible and open”, given that the most common approach to protect research participants is to avoid their identification and restrict access to the data collected. the editors are pleased to note that this journal is well placed to publish such research, and is now particularly keen to publish articles about relevant research issues and methodologies. jofdl is located in a bicultural nation that is committed to the equitable principles enshrined in the treaty of waitangi between the indigenous māori people as tangata te whenua (the first settlers) and the united kingdom in the nineteenth century. in new zealand, the 2014 national science challenges are stimulating a more equitable bicultural approach to research that is informed by the treaty. this challenge is expressed as a vision mataurānga specified by the ministry of business and innovation, the funding agency. national science challenge 2 is particularly relevant to jofdl readers because it includes the theme of “education: growing up in a digital world”. the lead group for national science challenge 2 has developed a research approach (illustrated in figure 1) that braids indigenous and western scientific views on research. one of the earlier versions of this “braided rivers” approach emerged from the foundational meeting of the new zealand hub of collaborative action research network (carn), which niki davis co-led with bridget somekh under the mentorship of angus macfarlane (fletcher, mcgrath, morrow, davis, & somekh, 2009). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://www.gatesfoundation.org/how-we-work/general-information/open-access-policy http://www.gatesfoundation.org/how-we-work/general-information/open-access-policy davis, n., fields, a., & hartnett, m. 8 figure 1 a symbolic depiction of the braided rivers framework for the better start national science challenge: e tipu e rea. the challenge braids knowledge and perspectives from differing sources to advance the challenge aspirations. (cutfield, gillon, & taylor, 2014, p. 2). as described in the platform of research proposed for national science challenge 2 earlier this year, the braided rivers acknowledged that: durie [2] and macfarlane [3] discussed the issues of māori knowledge and scientific enquiry in the context of the resurgence of indigenous approaches to understanding children’s health, education and well-being. they advocate for two knowledge bases, each with their own standing and integrity. they argue for a “braided rivers” approach which harnesses the energy from two systems of understanding in order to create new knowledge that can be used to advance understanding in two worlds. a braided rivers framework within the context of this challenge symbolises the integration of knowledge from differing sources. the braiding of māori and non-māori perspectives is central to the framework, as is the braiding of knowledge from differing academic disciplines, differing agencies that support our children and whānau and differing bodies of new research as the national science challenges advance. to give effect to a better start to life for children and whānau in our communities who are in particular need, we must harness our efforts in new and innovative ways. there is no simple answer or single line of research that will ensure a better start for our young tamariki (children). rather, it is through the braiding of knowledge from multiple domains, meaningful collaborations between research and professional communities and successful engagement of family and whānau in their child’s health, education and well-being that will help realise the challenge aspirations. these are key elements that thread through the platform of research proposed in this challenge. (cutfield, gillon, & taylor, 2014, p. 2). this challenge should be welcome to all educators and researchers in our field, and is one that jofdl is happy to champion and promote. indeed, the editors will prize such research and related methodology highly, and will work to promote its dissemination. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 9 conclusion and recommendations our theme of valuing more open and equitable approaches to practice and research in this field has been stimulating, and has enabled the editors to better describe a distinctive mission for the journal, which is uniquely situated in a bicultural nation. jofdl has continued to make progress in opening its access and promoting its papers worldwide through collections such as editlib. 2014 has been a year to celebrate, with jofdl, the deanz awards, and the biennial deanz conference that took place in christchurch, new zealand. most of the papers in this issue identify where the ‘e’ is in engagement, in line with the conference theme, while the outlying paper on leadership practices in virtual schools recommends more engagement between administrators and their staff. the editors also recommend that authors submit papers on research approaches and methodologies, particularly those that prize equity and recognise the challenges of opening access. acknowledgement multiple meanings for ‘prizing open education’ was the theme that niki davis chose for her december 2014 keynote for the australasian society of computers in learning in tertiary education (ascilite), stimulated by the conference theme of “critical perspectives on educational technology: rhetoric or reality?” this article has drawn on one aspect of that keynote. references bonk, c. j., & khoo, e. (2014). adding some tec-variety: 100+ activities for motivating and retaining learners online. bloomington, in: open world books. cutfield, w., gillon, g., & taylor, b. (eds.). (2014). better start research challenge – e tipu e rea: research plan. wellington: submitted to the ministry of business innovation and employment. davis, n., fields, a., & hartnett, m. (2014). editorial: engaging in open, flexible, and distance learning with a new editorial team. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 18(1), 1–10. durie, m. h. (2007). alignment of clinical and cultural perspectives: innovation at the interface. in te manu ao seminar series. palmerston north: massey university. fletcher, j., mcgrath, a., morrow, d., davis, n. e., & somekh, b. (eds.). (2009). proceedings of the inaugural research symposium for nzcarn: new zealand collaborative action research network. christchurch: university of canterbury school of literacies and arts in education. gorski, p. c. (2009). insisting on digital equity: reframing the dominant discourse on multicultural education and technology. urban education, 44, 348–364. doi: 10.1177/0042085908318712 hinostroza, h., hepp, p., & laval, e. (2001). enlaces: the chilean ict experience in education. retrieved from http://www.mirandanet.ac.uk/ftp/enlaces.pdf levin, b., & schrum, l. (2012). leading technology-rich schools: award-winning models for success. new york: teachers college press. javascript:webform_dopostbackwithoptions(new%20webform_postbackoptions(%22_ctl0:authorview:outputsdatagrid:_ctl20:selectoutputlinkbutton%22,%20%22%22,%20true,%20%22%22,%20%22%22,%20false,%20true)) javascript:webform_dopostbackwithoptions(new%20webform_postbackoptions(%22_ctl0:authorview:outputsdatagrid:_ctl20:selectoutputlinkbutton%22,%20%22%22,%20true,%20%22%22,%20%22%22,%20false,%20true)) javascript:webform_dopostbackwithoptions(new%20webform_postbackoptions(%22_ctl0:authorview:outputsdatagrid:_ctl20:selectoutputlinkbutton%22,%20%22%22,%20true,%20%22%22,%20%22%22,%20false,%20true)) javascript:webform_dopostbackwithoptions(new%20webform_postbackoptions(%22_ctl0:authorview:outputsdatagrid:_ctl20:selectoutputlinkbutton%22,%20%22%22,%20true,%20%22%22,%20%22%22,%20false,%20true)) http://www.mirandanet.ac.uk/ftp/enlaces.pdf davis, n., fields, a., & hartnett, m. 10 macfarlane, a., blampied, n., & macfarlane, s. (2011). blending the clinical and the cultural: a framework for conducting formal psychological assessment in bicultural settings. new zealand journal of psychology, 40, 5–15. stoll, l. (2011). leading professional learning communities. in j. robertson & h. timperley (eds.), leadership and learning. (pp. 103–117). los angeles: sage. twining, p., & davis, n. e. (2015, in preparation). the evolving nature of icts and ict infrastructure for the school sector. montreal, ca: unesco institute of statistics. unesco. (2002). ict in teacher education: a planning guide. paris: unesco. france. retrieved from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001295/129533e.pdf biographical notes niki davis niki.davis@canterbury.ac.nz niki is distinguished professor of e-learning and director of the e-learning lab in the university of canterbury college of education, christchurch, new zealand. in addition to researching e-learning in teacher education and professional development, niki teaches and researches about change with digital technologies in education and related areas of scholarship. niki is editor-in-chief of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. alison fields alison.fields@openpolytechnic.ac.nz alison is a senior lecturer at the open polytechnic of new zealand where she teaches information and library studies. she also sits on the professional registration board of the library and information association of new zealand aotearoa (lianza). her research areas encompass e-learning, library services, and continuing professional development. she is currently enrolled in edd studies at the university of otago under supervisors wing lai and keryn pratt. alison is an associate editor of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. maggie hartnett m.hartnett@massey.ac.nz maggie is a lecturer in the institute of education at massey university, new zealand, where she teaches in the areas of e-learning and digital technologies. her research interests include motivation and engagement in digital environments, teaching and learning with digital technologies, electronic portfolios, support for digital learners, digital places, and spaces of learning. maggie is an associate editor of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. � this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. davis, n., fields, a., & hartnett, m. (2014). editorial: prizing equity in education and research in the field of open, flexible and distance learning. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 18(2), [1–10]. http://learn.canterbury.ac.nz/mod/resource/view.php?id=246928 http://learn.canterbury.ac.nz/mod/resource/view.php?id=246928 http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001295/129533e.pdf http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ microsoft word moore-greenland.docx moore, c., greenland, s. 52 employment-driven online student attrition and the assessment policy divide: an australian open-access higher education perspective catherine moore, university of liverpool steven greenland, charles darwin university abstract two hundred and twenty-six qualitative interviews with students studying at australia’s largest online tertiary education organisation, open universities australia (oua), found that failure to complete assessments due to unexpected and unavoidable employment commitments was the standout reason for dropping out of its open-access courses. the assessment policies of 10 australian universities that teach the oua tertiary programmes were then reviewed to evaluate the extent to which employment-related circumstances were considered to be grounds for granting concessions and extensions. half of these institutions’ policies did not mention employment as an extenuating circumstance, others made only passing reference, and one specifically stated that work was not a valid reason for an assignment extension. in this regard, online students may not be receiving the flexible and accessible learning that online education is purported to provide. this situation highlights a broader issue, in that many online educators are using policies and protocols that are designed for traditional on-campus students without adequate adaptation for the online learner. considerable scope therefore exists for improving online learner satisfaction and retention by more effectively accommodating online student characteristics and needs. keywords: student retention; policy; student drop-out; online learning; non-traditional students introduction the differences between online and on-campus students have been widely researched and reported in the literature (e.g., lim, morris, & kupritz, 2007; liu, 2007; rovai & jordan, 2004; summers, waigandt, & whittaker, 2005). one important difference relates to demographic characteristics (palmer, 2012). while many on-campus students are school leavers, online learners tend to be older and have greater time pressures from family and work responsibilities. a consequence of this difference is reflected in rates of student drop-out. as observed by sener and hawkins (2007) in the united states, and by others elsewhere (e.g., maathuis-smith et al., 2010) online courses frequently experience significantly higher levels of drop-out than their on-campus counterparts. the high rate of online student attrition is particularly challenging for online educators. for example, attrition rates exceeding 20% have been observed across australian open-access online degree units (greenland & moore, 2014). this percentage represents a substantial revenue loss. high levels of attrition also present challenges for resource planning, particularly with larger student cohorts, where substantial drop-out necessitates the reallocation of teaching resources. this, in turn, often creates disatisfaction among casual or contract teaching staff. a further issue relates to the practice of using student completion figures to evaluate institutional performance journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1) 53 (maathuis-smith et al., 2010). as illustration, the australian government published completion rates for australian universities on 17 january 2017 (department of education and training, 2017). these figures were then taken as quasi education quality indicators and immediately reported in the media (e.g., martin & fox-koob, 2017). however, these media articles did not acknowledge the institutions’ student demographic profiles, or the implications of these profiles for completion statistics. the media therefore presented a distorted perspective and negative publicity for those institutions that have greater numbers of non-traditional students. in reply, these institutions responded with their own media releases (e.g., “unis australia calls for perspective on completion rates”, 2017), which explained that lower completion rates are characteristic of part-time, mature age, distance education students. understanding why more students drop out of online learning is essential to inform effective retention strategy (simpson, 2013) and considerable research has sought to achieve this. much of the past research has focused on improving online pedagogy and student engagement. studies include stacey’s (2002) research into constructivist online learning environments; browne’s (2003) cooperative learning model; gabriel’s (2004) exploration into the benefits of online student interactions; xie, debacker, and ferguson’s (2006) study, which unpacked student motivation and participation in online learning; powell, tindal, and millwood’s (2008) study into personalisation of the online learning experience; and dearnley and matthew’s (2007) investigation of the factors that contribute to study skill development. safford and stinton (2016) summarise other key contextual characteristics of online students that affect dropouts, including level of information and communications technology (ict) skills; ict resource availability; isolation, anxiety, and cognitive overload factors. taipjutorus, hansen, and brown (2012) also considered learner confidence in their own study ability to be an important factor in determining online study success. despite the considerable research on retention, the main drivers of online student attrition are still not fully appreciated, and further investigation is required (burns, 2013; o’shea, stone, & delahunty, 2015). also, while online and on-campus learner differences are widely acknowledged, many online programmes have been developed by simply adapting existing traditional on-campus programmes (waugh & su-searle, 2014). in this regard, online educators might not be providing the online learner with the flexibility they promise. however, evaluating the extent to which learning flexibility is provided to online students is challenging. as forsyth, pizzica, laxton, and mahony (2010, p. 25) noted: “in the institutions that identify their mission within more traditional boundaries, such as campus-focused universities, it is more difficult to evaluate the institutional capacity for flexibility beyond the elearning strategy”. interestingly, the design of policies and procedures for online degrees has received limited research attention. an additional worthwhile avenue of investigation therefore concerns the design of online programme policies and the extent to which these accommodate and provide flexibility in relation to the specific needs and characteristics of online students. this study contributes by identifying the main driver of online student attrition in an australian open-access education context. institutional programme protocol is then evaluated to assess the extent to which related policies accommodate the main attrition driver. in this manner it should be possible to expose policy dimensions that do not match online student needs and to then recommend modifications for improving study flexibility and retention. research context this study investigates student attrition and policy in open universities australia (oua), the largest online australian tertiary educator. open universities australia has more than 126,000 annual unit enrolments and more than 45,000 online students, 68% of whom are over 30 years moore, c., greenland, s. 54 old (open universities australia, 2016). the research findings should therefore be of interest to the broader online education community that caters for similar non-traditional students. open universities australia schedules four 13-week study periods each academic year. the oua degree programmes are taught by 10 australian universities, which are referred to as providers. as accrediting institutions, these providers impose their own policies for their units and degrees. in this regard oua is a very different higher education entity from the selfaccrediting open university in the united kingdom. the units making up oua degree programmes are frequently taught by several institutions, with agreements relating to exemptions, credits, and recognition of prior learning. therefore, while each provider delivers accredited degrees, they frequently do not deliver all the units in the programme, but rather core units and enough units to validate a student’s award. the majority of the online units offered via oua were developed from the provider institutions’ pre-existing on-campus programmes. however, unlike their on-campus counterparts, students enrolling on oua units do not have to sign up for a whole programme and are permitted to (and often do) enrol on individual units. furthermore, students may withdraw by a pre-census withdrawal deadline (usually around week three) without financial or academic penalty. in this regard oua is considered to be an open-access educator and its students have the flexibility and freedom to try units without committing to a full degree. methodology and findings this research comprised two phases. first, in-depth interviews were conducted with students to identify the main reasons for dropping out of an oua unit during the previous study period. the second research phase involved identifying and evaluating the policies of the 10 oua provider universities to assess the extent to which they accommodated the main driver of attrition identified in phase 1. phase 1: in-depth interviews with online student drop-outs while some previous researchers have used quantitative approaches to investigate online student attrition (e.g., holder, 2007; lee, choi, & kim 2013; yasmin, 2013), others (e.g., o’shea et al., 2015) have stressed the need for further qualitative investigation to provide more detailed insights. two hundred and twenty-six telephone in-depth interviews, spread across the four annual study periods, were conducted with students who had recently withdrawn from a unit delivered by one of oua’s main providers. for this purpose a random sample of students who dropped out of a unit during the previous study period was compiled. research ethics approval was gained for the project and interviews adhered to strict guidelines for telephone interviewing (national health and medical research council, 2015). an open-ended interview schedule was used to probe the broad array of reasons that had influenced student drop-out, with a particular focus on identifying the single most important driving factor. the conversations were recorded and verbatim transcripts produced. these were then analysed using thematic content analysis (braun & clarke, 2014). phase 1 findings the in-depth interviews enabled a diverse set of attrition drivers to be identified. figure 1 shows that employment accounted for 35.8% of drop-outs and was by far the most frequently given main reason. during the previous study period many employed students had experienced unanticipated work challenges, which necessitated additional effort and took priority over their studies. these challenges related to increased workload demands due to changing work roles, covering for other staff, increased responsibilities, promotion, work-related travel, and starting a new job. the main consequence of the unanticipated work challenges was that students were journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1) 55 unable to overcome assessment hurdles. this manifested in failure to submit assignments on time and/or an inability to sit exams. fig. 1 the main reasons given by online students for dropping out although the purpose of the first research phase was to identify the most important driver of student drop-out, fig. 1 reveals a range of other attrition factors. the next most frequently mentioned reasons for dropping out were enrolment dimensions relating to the open-access nature of the oua programme. because oua permits students to trial online units without financial or academic penalty as long as they withdraw by the pre-census deadline, many students enrolled to see what a unit was like before deciding whether to continue. the greater flexibility offered by online studies compared with on-campus courses, and the exploratory nature of online student enrolment, has also been noted as an attrition driver in other research (boston, ice, & burgess, 2012). family commitments, health, and personal reasons, also had a significant combined effect on drop-out. collectively, these personal aspects accounted for 29% of the main reasons given for withdrawing from online studies. the remaining reasons related to characteristics of the institution, the programme, and the individual unit. phase 2: online programme policy reviews the objective of phase 1 was to identify the main reason for drop-out, so that phase 2 of the research could evaluate the extent to which institutional policies accommodate this key driver of attrition. phase 1 identified unanticipated, challenging employment situations as the most important driver of online student drop-out. because the main consequence was that these working students were unable to complete their assignments on time and/or sit the exam, phase 2 investigated whether the assessment policies of the 10 oua providers recognised employment as grounds for granting concessions and extensions. moore, c., greenland, s. 56 the relevant assessment policy documents were located on each provider institution’s public webpage, and accessed through links on the oua website. once the policies were identified, they were manually reviewed using textual analysis (mueller, 2015), and explored using search terms such as assessment, policy, procedure, extension, concession, and extenuating circumstance. using this method, the protocol for granting assessment concessions and extenuating circumstances for online students on the grounds of employment commitments was identified. any details that indicated the provider did not recognise employment were also captured. phase 2 findings the assessment policy analysis revealed that all the oua higher education providers consider traditional extenuating circumstances, such as medical issues and bereavement, to be grounds for granting flexibility and concessions. however, the recognition of employment was variable across providers. table 1 presents a synopsis of the oua providers’ assessment policies in relation to their specific acknowledgement (or otherwise) of online student employment issues as grounds for granting assignment extensions and concessions. table 1 summary of the assessment policies of the 10 oua tertiary education providers1 in relation to provision of employment related concessions oua provider employment mentioned as an extenuating circumstance for assessment extension/concession example of policy detail for granting assessment extension/concession 1 yes “work-related circumstances based on written evidence by his/her employer” 2 yes “unavoidable and unexpected work commitments (e.g. relocation, changes to fly-in-fly-out schedules)” 3 yes “unavoidable work commitments” 4 yes “unavoidable employment known in advance” 5 yes “employment related circumstances that are beyond the student’s control” 6 no no mention of employment extensions may be given at the convenor’s discretion 7 no no clear statement regarding grounds for granting extensions 8 no “… being busy with other work is not a valid reason for an extension” 9 no no mention of employment, but “extraordinary causes” considered at the convenor’s discretion 10 no no mention of employment — extensions may be given at the convenor’s discretion in table 1 the 10 oua education provider institutions have been anonymised and are presented no particular order. as illustrated, five oua providers did at least acknowledge the challenges students face in relation to work commitments and indicated that unavoidable work commitments may be considered at the unit convenor’s discretion. however, the specific details regarding 1 based on assessment policy documents from: charles darwin university (2016), curtin university (2015), griffith university (2016), la trobe university (2016), macquarie university (2016), murdoch institute of technology (2015), royal melbourne institute of technology (2016), swinburne university of technology (2014), university of new england (2016), university of south australia (2016) journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1) 57 exactly what these work-related commitments might be were lacking. only one institution gave an example of employment scenarios that would be considered: … relocation and changes to fly-in-fly-out schedules … [provider 2] another institution had a caveat that required students to let their employment situation be known in advance of any assessment deadline if they were to be eligible for consideration in this regard. the other five providers made no specific mention of employment as an extenuating circumstance. one institution even stated, in relation to its online/blended programmes and assignment concession, that: … being busy with other work is not a valid reason for an extension [provider 8] discussion the rising demand for higher education from non-traditional, working students (bradley et al., 2008) has driven the huge global growth in online learning. however, this growth has been accompanied by very high levels of online student attrition—even a small reduction in these numbers could therefore have substantial consequences for online programme profitability. reducing online student drop-out rates would also help institutions to overcome the associated resource planning issues and negative perceptions of education quality. research that investigates the drivers of online student attrition and identifies ways to overcome them should therefore be a priority. in this study, 35.8% of students withdrew from australian open-access online units as a result of changing work commitments. this finding contrasts with some earlier studies of online student drop-out that focused on attrition factors relating to pedagogy and engagement (e.g., stacey, 2002), and other online learner contexts (e.g. see safford & stinton, 2016). the specific employment challenges that caused the majority of online student drop-outs related to unanticipated increased workload demands (covering for colleagues who were sick or on leave), increased responsibilities and changing work roles, promotion, work-related travel, and new jobs. for most of these students, increased employment demands presented a temporary challenge that frequently required greater cognitive load and adjustment. while they were still interested in achieving their online study goals, jobs took priority over studies when students were subjected to increased work pressures. as a result, online students were unable to complete assessment hurdles in accordance with assignment deadlines or scheduled exams. they then had to wait for the next iteration of a unit, usually in the following year. as observed in other research (e.g., waugh & su-searle, 2014), the resulting time away from the virtual classroom had a significant negative effect on study momentum and progression. some students found it difficult to get back into studying and subsequently failed to return and complete their studies. online students don’t fit the traditional classroom teaching scenario (business credit, 2010) and require greater flexibility in their studies (bradley et al., 2008). online education is frequently advertised as offering the best option for up-skilling (merriman, 2006) by providing learners with greater convenience and flexibility (ware, 2014). given that employment challenges are the major cause of online student attrition, it might be anticipated that policies would provide learner flexibility in this regard. by analysing publicly available assessment policy documents, the second phase of this research evaluated whether any flexibility was, in fact, offered as a concession for students’ employment circumstances. this research suggests that current online higher education policies may fail to acknowledge important fundamental differences between on-campus and online students. the review of the assessment protocol of the oua tertiary education providers revealed that policies focused on providing concessions for medical and personal circumstances, which are the main issues that moore, c., greenland, s. 58 challenge more traditional on-campus students. however, there was no clear or consistent protocol for accommodating online students’ work-related issues, with much of the responsibility for granting extensions and concessions falling to the discretion of unit coordinators. while some providers mentioned employment as grounds for an extension or concession, only one gave specific details of the aspects of employment that would be considered. other providers made no explicit mention of employment, with one provider even indicating that work was an invalid reason for not completing assignments. conclusion unexpected employment challenges are the biggest driver of online student drop-out in the context of australian open-access higher education. although flexibility is offered to oua students in terms of study location, asynchronous learning activities, choice of teaching provider, study progression, and the number of units chosen, there was a lack of flexibility in relation to accommodating student employment challenges. inconsistent and vague policies for granting employment-related assessment extensions and concessions were found among the oua teaching provider institutions. the lack of consideration given to employment suggests that some institutions have merely adopted on-campus policies without adequate adaptation to online students’ needs—an observation that is consistent with research findings from other online education contexts (e.g., waugh & su-searle, 2014). adjusting online assessment policies and making them more flexible to accommodate students’ employment challenges therefore offers scope for improving online student retention. online students’ work-related commitments should be overtly considered in assessment policies. other considerations include designing assessments that align more closely with workplace challenges, providing greater choice of assessment options, and offering flexible assignment submission deadlines. in this manner, online educators can overcome, or at least ameliorate, the biggest driver of online student attrition and have a positive effect on student retention. further research is required into the feasibility of offering online students greater flexibility. one dichotomy for institutions relates to the desire to be seen to be fair, by treating on-campus and online students equally. some institutions, for example, appear to be firmer than others in imposing their traditional policies on online students. another potential challenge relates to granting assessment extensions and more flexible deadlines, strategies that potentially create resource planning issues because teaching staff are required to mark assessments and process grades over a longer period, particularly if deadlines extend beyond the scheduled study period. regardless of the challenges posed by offering flexible assessment policies, at the very least institutions could better manage online student expectations by clearly communicating exactly what, if any, flexibility is offered in relation to their employment. a limitation of this study is that it focused on online student attrition and assessment policy in an australian open-access education context. however, the gap identified between student employment challenges and associated assessment policies should be of interest to the broader online education community. future research might therefore adopt a similar approach for investigating other online education contexts. another limitation is that this study was student focused. subsequent research might also consider the provision of greater learner flexibility from the teacher and institutional perspectives. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1) 59 references boston, w., ice, p. & burgess, m. 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[accessed from the university website/oua link december 2016] ware, j. (2014). earning an mba online: internet-based programs offer flexibility. florida trend, 56(12), 84. waugh, m., & su-searle, j. (2014). student persistence and attrition in an online m.s. program: implications for program design. international journal on e-learning, 13(1), 101–121. moore, c., greenland, s. 62 xie, k., debacker, t. k., & ferguson, c. (2006). extending the traditional classroom through online discussion: the role of student motivation. journal of educational computing 34(1), 67–89. yasmin. (2013). application of the classification tree model in predicting learner dropout behaviour in open and distance learning. distance education, 34(2), 218–231. biographical notes catherine moore aftercath@gmail.com catherine moore is currently a doctoral candidate with the university of liverpool. until december 2016 she was a lecturer in information systems at the swinburne business school. cath writes in the area of online education. steven greenland steven.greenland@cdu.edu.au steven greenland is a professor in marketing at the charles darwin university business school. he has over 25 years marketing and education experience, including academic positions in australia and the united kingdom. steve regularly publishes in the areas of online education, business strategy, and marketing. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. moore, c., & greenland, s. (2017). employment-driven online student attrition and the assessment policy divide: an australian open-access higher education perspective. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1), [52–62.]. microsoft word osbornedibben.docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1) 25 ‘over the edge of the wild’: lessons of discovery through developing transdisciplinary (breadth) units in blended courses jo osborne, university of tasmania mark dibben, university of tasmania abstract universities are increasingly recognising the need to broaden the experience and understanding of their students beyond a single disciplinary approach, to produce graduates more capable of solving the problems of a multidisciplinary world. at the university of tasmania, a “breadth unit” programme is underway with the dual purpose of evidencing student experience in graduate attributes and developing transdisciplinary approaches for interpreting the complex challenges (or “wicked problems”) of the real world. all breadth units are developed by lecturers working in teams across multiple faculties, all units must be capable of being studied off campus, and several have on-campus options (meeting the university’s requirement for blended learning). breadth units are being built into student study plans, with most students required to study at least two units as part of their undergraduate degree. the initiative, which commenced in 2013, uncovered challenges in administrative and academic systems that might have been predictable, but were often surprisingly intractable. administrative systems have had to adapt to university study moving out of faculty silos. one-year-on reviews of units following their introduction capture the delivery experience (from lecturer and student perspectives) and provide vital feedback on learning design for quality improvement. teaching teams now confront how best to sustain the blended approach as enrolment numbers increase. this paper raises some of the issues to be tackled and suggests indicators for the success of this initiative. key words: learning design; blended learning; transdisciplinary; online; multidisciplinary; administrative systems introduction many universities are now addressing the need to broaden the experience and understanding of their students beyond the boundaries of a single disciplinary approach, to produce graduates with a ‘rounded perspective’ capable of operating in our multidisciplinary world. the purpose of this paper is to explore the practical implications of this trend on the delivery of such units into the undergraduate curriculum. it does this by exploring the experience of one university in australasia—the university of tasmania (hereafter, the university)—which has purposefully committed to integrating such units into the curriculum. because this approach to undergraduate education is relatively new, the paper is not intended to be a definitive study; rather, it describes the lessons learnt in the attempt to implement the units. the units discussed are required to be osborne, j., dibben, m. 26 developed collaboratively and delivered online; the implications of the experience revolve around the limitations of a system as much as their effect on online course development or student experience. the paper starts out with a review of the university’s approach to “breadth”, before exploring early discoveries in the initial implementation phase, challenges to administrative systems and learning delivery, and student feedback and performance. it then moves to a discussion of the implications of implementing breadth as raised by the tasmanian experience, including questions of unit design, staff collaboration, and the challenges associated with making so-called “wicked problems” the focus of such units. in light of this discussion, and informed by the academic literature, the paper raises a series of questions for further study, and concludes by noting the inherent irony of implementing significant curriculum change in universities; namely, the extent to which such implementation (perhaps uncomfortably) exposes the institution to the very challenge it sets its students. historically, universities have commonly given students the opportunity to sample elective units from different faculties as part of their degree courses, thereby providing experience of different disciplinary ‘norms’. a more generalist approach has been to introduce core subjects that cover cross-disciplinary topics relevant to all courses, and in which multidisciplinary understanding may be incidental to the required learning outcomes. a third approach is the development of purposely designed interdisciplinary courses that span several traditionally taught disciplines and focus more on emerging job opportunities (an early example being environmental studies). “the focus on preparedness for the workforce and the beneficial skills of interdisciplinary curricula reflects the trend in education towards skill development” (millar, 2016, p. 3). lastly, there is the approach of the “breadth unit/subject”. one definition, such as that adopted by murdoch university (2016), is to say that these types of units “are designed to introduce students to knowledge outside of their chosen discipline, teaching them to understand how others think and solve problems”. their purpose is to bring academics from different disciplines together to develop and teach on a topic with the purpose of being examined through different disciplinary lenses which provide complementary or contrasting understandings reflective of a real-world context. terminology this paper uses the following australian terminology: • a unit (equating to a “paper” in new zealand) is the smallest typical section of student enrolment of one semester’s duration. a full-time study load comprises four units per semester. • a course describes a programme of study, which is 3 or 4 years for a typical undergraduate degree. the following distinctions have been applied to describe an approach that encompasses more than one discipline (adapted from scott & hofmeyer, 2007): • multidisciplinary: comprising several disciplines operating together • cross-disciplinary: going across different distinct disciplines • interdisciplinary: communicating across traditional disciplinary boundaries • transdisciplinary: moving beyond (transcending) disciplines towards a holistic approach to student learning without obviating the central importance of disciplines. the blended learning model as employed by the university requires that every unit incorporates access to quality online resources and interactivity. many—including breadth units by requirement—can be completed entirely online at a distance but may also have a parallel option incorporating on-campus activities. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1) 27 tasmania’s approach to breadth the breadth unit initiative at the university was originally conceived to evidence graduates’ experience during their studies in each of the generic graduate attributes. the curriculum review committee soon saw the potential for using carefully selected topics that would offer students insights into the complex challenges (or wicked problems) that they would face as graduates, and for doing this from a transdisciplinary perspective. (two original examples of such units are ‘confronting sustainability’ and ‘living with cultural diversity’.) the units needed to concentrate on real-world issues that are appropriate for all students irrespective of discipline (e.g., sustainability, leadership, and ethics). this, in turn, would better address student employability (i.e., job readiness) and improve the student experience through enhanced curriculum diversity. this university is no different from many other research universities in that the disciplines are the starting point for academic discussion; indeed, they are the very basis of academic life. however, the usual way of delivering global perspectives to an undergraduate cohort consists of requiring all students to take a small handful of common compulsory units. to put in place an entire suite of ‘breadth units’ that require knowledge from a variety of disciplines to be brought together into a coherent whole, to address current issues of our time, and then to give students the choice of which units to take, represented a significant shift in thinking. in sum, the university’s approach to breadth—its focus on complex world issues and the variety of options provided to students—appears to be almost unique to tasmania (dibben, 2017). units are compliant with the university’s blended learning model (university of tasmania, 2013), which means all can be studied off-campus, several include on-campus support alternatives, and individual and group project work demands high-level student interactivity and application in developing individual perspectives. all breadth units are developed and taught by teams comprising representatives of at least two faculties. at both the university of tasmania and murdoch university, students are required to select breadth units from a range on offer at levels 1 and 2, with additional options also available at level 3. establishing breadth unit development the breadth unit development programme commenced at the university in 2013 with the establishment of guidelines and the introduction of an ‘expression of interest’ process from interested cross-disciplinary teaching teams (university of tasmania, 2016a). this is a priority initiative for curriculum renewal and, because the resourcing and workload implications for the novel cross-faculty approach are acknowledged, team work for the preparation of new breadth units is provided with central support in the form of incentivisation funding (to faculties) and design advice. of particular significance to this discussion is the requirement that units “can be delivered consistent with the [university’s] blended learning model, either fully on-line or both fully online and face to face” (university of tasmania, 2016b); hence the importance of understanding good learning design for online delivery to off-campus student cohorts. every undergraduate programme at the university is required to build breadth unit options into study plans and, with most students required to study at least two units, the projection is for up to 40 units to be available. three units were initially approved for development in the first funding round and, as part of the support provided to teaching teams, a community of practice was established. this community is coordinated by a senior teaching fellow who has regular access to senior management to help iron out any emerging difficulties. a “one-year-on review” was inherent in the original plan. consequently, an educational developer reviews each breadth unit implementation, and makes recommendations. the review focuses on the perspectives of both the teaching team and the students rather than the actual subject content. osborne, j., dibben, m. 28 early discoveries there are no safe paths in this part of the world. remember you are over the edge of the wild now, and in for all sorts of fun wherever you go (tolkien, 2012, p. 161). at an early stage in discussions it was recognised that there would be some interesting issues for teams to negotiate (one of the first being that of preferred referencing style), but the realities of moving outside the mould with unit development have uncovered unforeseen incompatibilities in administrative and academic systems. it proved a challenging journey leading up to the first year’s (2014) experiences of introducing breadth units into a university whose systems and processes were not geared to implementing them (dibben, 2017), and the pioneers faced unique logistical hurdles along the way. in translating the breadth unit idea into reality, we divide the challenges into two types: administrative systems and learning delivery. challenges to administrative systems the first three units approved for development were delivered at the university in semester 2, 2014. a range of logistical issues quickly emerged (dibben, phegan, & brown, 2014), providing ample support for golding’s assertion that “the administration of an interdisciplinary subject tends to be more problematic than other subjects” (2009, p. 9). confusion arose over what constituted appropriate distribution, and timing of funding and revenue. incentivisation funding was originally delivered in two equal increments: development (upon approval of an expression of interest) and delivery (at the commencement of the first semester of teaching). questions arose as to whether this was a fair representation of the effort (and staffing) required. issues also arose when, for example, unit developments that were bound by an annual funding model spanned the date boundary – as was inevitable for units destined for february delivery. unit development contract approvals required a defined percentage split of relative contribution between faculties to fund staff input appropriately; but this may not be constant across development and delivery phases, and different levels of staff seniority may be involved at each stage. administrative funding models are not sympathetic to changing mid-stream. unit coding also caused confusion. early resistance by university administration to creating new unit codes nearly threatened the viability of the whole breadth unit initiative. it took considerable effort to convey, to all supporting areas, the significance of moving from a single faculty identity to a transdisciplinary learning experience and the need to be accommodated by university systems. (this was eventually achieved for the second semester of breadth unit delivery by including new non-faculty coding throughout university systems and student study plans – a considerable achievement!) as these issues were becoming apparent, a new cross faculty learning and teaching committee was established to administer the breadth unit approval process and formulate sensible solutions to emerging challenges to traditional faculty-based administrative systems. challenges to learning delivery interdisciplinary subjects present multiple, and often conflicting, perspectives and ways of knowing. these need to be coordinated in some way so the students have a coherent and rewarding teaching experience, and so the subjects do not become a confused muddle. (golding, 2009, p. 7) breadth unit development requires the input of disciplinary experts with interdisciplinary insight (golding, 2009, p. 7)—a challenge that has frequently engaged senior academics. significantly, the incentivisation rules require units to be available for study online—and while most of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1) 29 university’s teachers are becoming conversant with the university’s learning management system (lms) it is evident that many lack experience in holistic design for distance learning. some issues tend to be amplified with cross-faculty teams when different disciplinary norms apply. the one-year-on review process developed and conducted by an experienced educational developer (ed) identifies issues that are important for quality improvement, as evidenced by student and teacher feedback. the ed accesses the completed unit online in the lms, reviews unit assessment and engagement requirements, reads discussion boards, reviews evaluation reports, and interviews the teaching team. a standardised set of questions has been developed to inform the review process, a summary report is provided to the unit coordinator, and recommendations are made for improvements to learning delivery where appropriate. at the time of writing this process has been applied to fourteen undergraduate units. significant recurring issues emerge in the online delivery of breadth units. some of these might be expected from teaching any content in the distance mode, but they are nuanced by the particularities of the breadth unit initiative. arguably the most significant in this context, and the most widely applicable, have been issues of consistency within an individual unit, the sensible use of discussion forums, equating online and face-to-face delivery, and planning for unit sustainability over the long term. consistency individual teaching styles can enhance a unit, but elements such as content organisation, delivery language (modules? chapters? weeks?), the assignment submission process, feedback, and delivery of grades (through the lms?) need to conform. there are generally agreed consistencies within a single discipline but different disciplinary norms and styles cannot be allowed to confuse students in a transdisciplinary context. discussion forums there was a tendency to include multiple online discussion forums in a unit, but the reasoning can be unclear. more forums did not equate with increasing interactivity unless they were used purposefully to develop the learning process. students felt frustrated if expectations were not well communicated, especially when forums were added ad hoc throughout the teaching semester. face to face vs. online student perception and pedagogical requirements combine in the challenge of equivalence regarding online and face-to-face deliveries. this is a particular issue for the breadth unit initiative in which online delivery is mandated, and the parallel blended mode (incorporating face-to-face) is optional; there is one unit code and the same intended learning outcomes for all offerings. the increase in online enrolment figures (200+ per offering) is proving to be challenging for facilitating interactivity, tutorial engagement, and assessment activities. including group work is one obvious strategy, but the online mode amplifies the difficulty of organising and maintaining group activity. also, in the search for equivalent delivery formats, the experience of sitting in a lecture facing an animated lecturer while surrounded by your peers, is not the same as logging in to the lms to watch long narrated slide programmes. long-term sustainability for initial offerings, teaching teams have been well funded by the incentivisation scheme, and the first unit deliveries have typically been to small-to-medium online classes that have been supported by casual tutors. this has been good for developing a novel initiative. however, because it has taken time for breadth units to be built into course curricula, the expected increase in enrolment resulting from compulsory breadth unit study is only now being realised. after the first offering of a unit, funding to faculties is normalised on the basis of student load, and staffosborne, j., dibben, m. 30 to-student ratios that were originally possible are having to change, with consequent adjustments to student–tutor interactivity. as part of the unit review process, the ed advises on judicious use of lms features to encompass enrolment growth and a possible reduction in individualised staff support once incentive funding expires. the ed’s feedback to teaching teams informs the revised offerings. particular consideration is given to the unit delivery rationale and support expectations of on-campus vs. off-campus students, thereby engaging lecturers in novel cross-disciplinary conversations on the demands of the blended approach. student feedback and performance while the breadth units themselves have not generally scored differently from other online units in standard evaluation scales of content relevance, alignment, and perceptions of outcomes achievement, the comments made by students in formal evaluations have been hugely variable. there have been very different opinions expressed even within the same unit. for example: this unit…progressed my university education beyond my expectations. (anonymous student evaluation feedback, 2015) and there is nothing useful about this unit, it is a complete waste of time and money. (anonymous student evaluation feedback, 2015) one might expect this difference to be related to learning preferences, and that it might be shaped by the students’ levels of maturity and life/work experience. it does suggest that the purposes and processes of a transdisciplinary approach should be introduced carefully to students. the students’ final grades have also shown no notable difference from those achieved with the university’s conventional units. lecturers have reported anecdotally that performance appears to be related to the level of student engagement; that is, those who contribute regularly to discussion boards and optional activities are more likely to do well. (the literature would also lead us to expect this; for example, as summarised by beer [2010].) little formal data has been accumulated from the breadth unit experience so far, and statistical comparisons cannot yet be made, but the application of standardised data analytics to the university’s online units in 2017 is expected to identify correlations between regular student engagement and eventual performance. discussion some real lessons can be learnt from the university’s experiences; for example, the extent to which pioneer teams—with development assistance—have achieved by surmounting (unexpectedly challenging) administrative hurdles and developing and delivering engaging content to students from all university disciplines. there are positive outcomes for the staff too; by coming together to work in novel teams, they can share teaching experience and techniques, and identify new and otherwise improbable opportunities for research and collaboration. in response to demonstrated planning and development needs, a new unit planning process has been introduced for all new (2016–) breadth units. implemented as a team process, this anticipates design options and promises to improve content structure, consistency, and alignment (linquist & phegan, 2015). early indications from reviews of units undergoing this structured development process indicate improved content structure and clearer alignment with intended learning outcomes and assessment components. the three 2016 units reviewed in early 2017 have resulted in outstanding student evaluation scores. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1) 31 development funding has been split into two phases with a tighter feedback loop to demonstrate progress to the cross faculty learning and teaching committee. administrative inconsistencies continue to emerge to challenge the siloed nature of the university systems, but communication with and amongst the faculties has improved as respective responsibilities are clarified. this includes faculty responsibilities in the continuing support of teaching teams in response to staff turnover—a faculty balance has to be maintained in compliance with the original unit development and delivery commitment. as well as developing staff and student understanding of multidisciplinary approaches and collaborative problem solving, the breadth unit programme at the university has brought other benefits. by working in teams, lecturers have learnt from each other about online teaching methods that really work to address the implications of on-campus vs. off-campus study. far from being concerned about the loss of discipline-specific content, professional accrediting bodies have, to the surprise of some academics, been very accepting of breadth units once they recognise the benefits for employability. lastly, and unexpectedly, the discipline of philosophy is suddenly in demand; staff from other disciplines have recognised the unifying role philosophy can play in helping to reflect, and to integrate different perspectives into a single whole. as graham wood, one of the philosophers involved in the breadth unit programme, has explained: wicked problems are called ‘wicked’ for a reason. they are not narrowly focused problems that yield straightforward answers. they are not problems that can necessarily be solved by the application of one methodology or understood within one conceptual framework. they do not neatly fit into physics, biology, or psychology. so philosophy, without being constrained by one disciplinary methodology or conceptual framework can engage with wicked problems in a way that may yield valuable answers. another way to understand wicked problems is that they are essentially interdisciplinary problems. and … philosophy was interdisciplinary before there were any disciplines. that might go some way to explaining why philosophers are naturally at home in breadth units. (g. wood, personal communication, april 8, 2016) a number of issues remain to be addressed in ongoing study. importantly, we might ask how we might evaluate the success of interdisciplinary subjects. golding (2009, p. 22) argues that standard student survey instruments are not sufficiently specific, and should include an evaluation of the extent to which a subject enables students to develop a meta-disciplinary understanding and interdisciplinary skills. are we achieving this by matching outcome achievement to graduate attributes such as problem solving and global citizenship? further, how do we define what we expect of our students from their transdisciplinary understanding? are we testing for the ability to recognise and notionally repeat differing disciplinary points of view, or for the ability to value and incorporate them in their own way of thinking (millar, 2016)? how can a first-year undergraduate, with little or no understanding of their own home discipline, argue from its perspective and recognise arguments from other disciplinary perspectives? do we expect different depths of understanding from different year levels? augsburg (2014, p. 240) asserts that transdisciplinary collaboration “involves mutual trust, personal chemistry, and a feeling of safety”. how can educators successfully foster collaboration in a learning environment (especially in a one-semester online class)? and what transferability can be expected—and indeed accommodated—across the rest of a student’s conventional undergraduate course? do we know that exposure to breadth units improves student learning outcomes at the course or degree level? there is clearly a wealth of potential investigation ahead, and there are already many ripples across a university system arising from the introduction of breadth units (and the notion of transdisciplinarity) into the curriculum. osborne, j., dibben, m. 32 the breadth units discussed in this paper were all signed off with the explicit requirement that they be delivered fully online, so that students from across the university could access them regardless of location. in practice, many lecturers found online delivery problematic—they were far more comfortable delivering the units with a sizeable face-to-face component. more research is indicated, but regardless of whether delivery is completely online or blended (online and face to face), the university’s desire to make breadth units available to all placed a focus on the challenges of both modes of delivery for the university’s it infrastructure and for staff. conclusion this paper has focused on lessons learnt from the implementation of breadth units delivered online at a top ten australian federal research university, as a way of indicating some of the challenges faced by universities when introducing transdisciplinarity into the higher education curriculum. transdisciplinary studies are becoming a vital component of contemporary undergraduate education. at this university, breadth units that focus on complex challenges (or wicked problems) aim to make the central issues of our time fundamental (rather than secondary) to advanced discipline-focused university level study. our experience suggests one should expect: (a) limited knowledge of leading-edge unit development principles and thus a need to develop competencies of teaching staff as part of the implementation process; (b) university systems governing finance, faculty workload, and student management information systems are not suited to transdisciplinary project requirements. however, these challenges are surmountable and the outcomes are inherently worthwhile. in conclusion, our experience of implementing breadth units at this university bears out tolkein’s 2012, p. 161) observation that being “over the edge of the wild” does indeed mean you are “in for all sorts of fun wherever you go”. however, particular successes of projects like this are two-fold. first, they provide a legitimate means by which to bring not only faculty staff but also the student body together so that, for example, students from medicine get to meet, interact, and study with students of art history; thus the silos inherent in the experience of higher education may be broken down. second, the limitations that are exposed in the systems’ infrastructure and teaching concepts and capabilities can be addressed as part of the implementation process to the benefit of the university; the system must be willing to evolve when embarking on the journey. in this respect there is, indeed, “nothing like looking, if you want to find something. you certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after” (tolkien, 2012, p. 69). there is no question that the university has found things out about itself it was not expecting, but this has not in any way deterred it from moving forward. such has been the success of the breadth unit initiative in opening up the academic narrative to rethink student learning outcomes, course relevance, course design, and unit delivery, that the initiative is now a catalyst for complete curriculum renewal. the principles inherent in breadth units will be integrated in all units of study, and will be built into entirely new course structures that focus on student choice and contemporary experience. “depending on the degree chosen, students will be able structure degrees in such a way as to acquire greater depth and/or breadth, with more opportunities for multidisciplinary minors, global and local engagement, team-based learning and authentic experiential learning opportunities for students” (sadler, 2016). in addition, the structured course and unit design processes will be based directly on those developed for the breadth unit programme, and the insights that have come from it. this new curriculum will roll out from 2018. that is to say, the findings reported in this paper have played a significant part in the university changing its entire educational model in the direction of breadth. for a federal research-focused university to commit scarce resources to radically rework its teaching in such a way demonstrates the potential significance of transdisciplinary breadth for journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1) 33 the future of higher education. this paper has provided some insight into the processes and learning that led it to make such a momentous decision. to conclude, perhaps the most significant outcome of transdisciplinary teaching projects, particularly those with a substantive online component, is that they take universities out of their comfort zones and encourage them to do something they require of their students—namely, to learn. references augsburg, t. (2014). becoming transdisciplinary: the emergence of the transdisciplinary individual. world futures, 70(3–4), 233–247. doi:10.1080/02604027.2014.934639 beer, c. (2010). online student engagement: new measures for new methods. retrieved from http://cqu1.academia.edu/colinbeer dibben, m., phegan, r., & brown, n. (2014, november). breadth units: re-thinking place and space in the curriculum. presentation at teaching matters conference, launceston. dibben, m. (2017). “liberating the curriculum” by introducing trans-disciplinarity and human values into undergraduate education at the university of tasmania. in s. rowe & m. ford (eds.), from liberation to civilization: re-thinking education from a process perspective. anoka, mn: process century press, pp. 167–88 golding, c. (2009). integrating the disciplines: successful interdisciplinary subjects. centre for the study of higher education, university of melbourne. linquist, s., & phegan, r. (2015). curriculum first / not technology: facilitating the design of blended and online units with teaching teams. workshop presented at herdsa conference: learning for life and work in a complex world, melbourne, june 6–9. abstract retrieved from http://herdsa-2015.p.asnevents.com.au/days/2015-07-08/abstract/23851 murdoch university. (2016). what are breadth units and must i take them? retrieved from https://askmurdoch.custhelp.com/app/answers/print/a_id/1246 millar, v. (2016). interdisciplinary curriculum reform in the changing university. teaching in higher education. 21(4), 471–483. sadler, d. (2016). degrees of difference: the university of tasmania educational model. retrieved from https://secure.utas.edu.au/curriculum-renewal-secure/documents/degrees-ofdifference-the-university-of-tasmania-education-model.pdf scott, c. m., & hofmeyer, a. t. (2007). acknowledging complexity: critically analyzing context to understand interdisciplinary research. journal of interprofessional care, 21(5), 491–501. doi:10.1080/13561820701605474 tolkien, j. r. r. (2012). the hobbit. london: harper collins. university of tasmania. (2013). technology enhanced learning and teaching. white paper. retrieved from http://www.teachinglearning.utas.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/439013/technology-enhanced-learning-andteaching-white-paper-academic-senate-15-november-2013.pdf osborne, j., dibben, m. 34 university of tasmania. (2016a). breadth unit development. retrieved from http://www.utas.edu.au/dvc-students-education/introduction/breadth-units/breadth-unitdevelopment university of tasmania. (2016b). breadth units. retrieved from http://www.utas.edu.au/dvcstudents-education/introduction/breadth-units biographical notes jo osborne jo.osborne@utas.edu.au jo is an academic developer in the tasmanian institute of learning and teaching at the university of tasmania, and was recently awarded senior fellowship of the higher education academy. jo has designed, developed, taught, and advised on distance, open, online, and blended courses in higher education for over 30 years, working in hong kong, australia, and the south pacific. jo served on the executive committee of odlaa from 2011–2017, coordinating and chairing the professional development webinar series. she has a particular interest in staff development, review, and feedback for quality learning delivery. mark dibben mark.dibben@utas.edu.au mark dibben is associate professor management, breadth unit fellow in the division of students and education at the university of tasmania, and senior fellow of the higher education academy. he is also academic director of the international process network of process philosophy research centres, which focus on the work of a. n. whitehead. in line with whitehead’s ‘aims of education’ (1929, p. 5, cambridge university press), mark views the central challenge of education as “the problem of keeping knowledge alive, of preventing it from becoming inert [whereby] ideas are merely received into the mind without being utilised […], or thrown into fresh combinations.” this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. osborne, j., & dibben, m. (2017). over the edge of the wild: lessons of discovery through developing transdisciplinary (breadth) units in blended courses. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 17(2), [25–34.]. journal insides v1.indd © distance education association of new zealand 47 integrating e-portfolios: guiding questions and experiences john milne centre for academic development and elearning massey university, new zealand j.d.milne@massey.ac.nz eva heinrich school of engineering and advanced technology massey university, new zealand e.heinrich@massey.ac.nz isabelle lys institute of food nutrition and human health massey university, new zealand i.lys@massey.ac.nz introduction the term e-portfolio is often used to describe an approach to learning that builds on the collection, selection, refl ection, and sharing of student learning material (mason, pegler, & weller, 2004). an e-portfolio is used in the context of lifelong learning as a tool that students can use for the duration of the learning process; it is controlled by the student to integrate learning from different situations. the importance of lifelong learning is widely recognised (friesen & anderson, 2004) and applies in general to all members of society. the tertiary sector has been aware of the importance of lifelong learning in principle for a long time; however, only in the past few years have educators actively supported lifelong learning principles in student learning material. for example, graduate profi les for degree programmes describe the skills (including lifelong learning skills) and competencies a graduate will possess. traditionally, these graduate profi les have been developed by academic committees but journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 47–61 © distance education association of new zealand 48 have little effect on either teaching staff or students. the current climate of renewed emphasis on lifelong learning skills has resulted in a shift in thinking. (see, for example, the strategy documents of the new zealand ministry of education, 2009). the graduate profi les have been revisited and skills and competencies are matched against learning outcomes, integrated into teaching, and presented directly to students. as part of this move, several tertiary institutions have investigated the use of e-portfolio systems and taken advantage of their strengths in refl ective and lifelong approaches to learning (australian eportfolio project [aep], 2008). a big challenge for tertiary institutions arises from the holistic nature of skills and competencies and the typical structure of degree programmes. skills and competencies such as ‘ability to work in a team’, ‘ability to solve complex problems’, and ‘awareness of the professional responsibilities of an engineer’ need to develop over a long period of time and from a range of experiences in a variety of contexts. this complex situation suggests an approach that accompanies a whole degree programme across all courses taken in each year—something an e-portfolio approach is very compatible with. but the typical structure of a degree programme works against such an approach. programmes are divided into separate courses, adding up to about 24 courses over a 3-year degree. each course commonly has about three or four assessment points, further fragmenting the students’ approach to their studies. the academic teams designing degree programmes will have taken a holistic approach to their disciplines and will have ensured that all areas of graduate profi le and subject knowledge are covered. but this design is not visible to the students, who see degrees as a collection of separate units. it has long been known that assessment is one of the strongest drivers for student engagement (black & wiliam, 1998; black, mccormick, james, & pedder, 2006; crooks, 1988; hattie & temperley, 2007). students such as professional engineers, are initially not aware of all the valuable learning that has occurred. they need to be prompted to refl ect, and taught how to recognise not only formal but also informal learning (guest, 2006). to address the issues of lifelong learning, graduate profi les, and degree structures, tertiary institutions are increasingly turning to approaches that use e-portfolios (mcallister, hallam, & harper, 2008). additional evidence for this move comes from the high level of participation at the australian eportfolio symposiums 2008 and 2009 (http://www.eportfoliopractice.qut.edu.au). in this paper we discuss the use of an e-portfolio in a single course in human biology. we outline aspects of institutional e-portfolio support and the level of integration at degree programme or course level. we introduce a set of journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 47–61 © distance education association of new zealand 49 guiding questions to help design the e-portfolio activity. we provide student responses to the e-portfolio work and evaluate both the e-portfolio activity and the guiding questions against the context of the degree structures. institutional support and level of integration the typical approach in a tertiary institution is to use e-portfolio tools that are supported at an institutional level (joint information systems committee [jisc], 2008; jisc, 2009; aep, 2008). the institution generally provides access and central services to staff and students. the central services offered include three aspects of support: technical, pedagogical, and policy. technical support covers issues such as creating logins, troubleshooting, and providing instructional material on how to use the system. once an institution has adopted an e-portfolio system it is likely to establish some form of pedagogical support. ideally, educational developers will support teachers to use the e-portfolio system in pedagogically valuable ways. in terms of policy, an institution that provides good support for staff will have made a commitment to refl ective and lifelong learning approaches. in this case study, the institution supported the e-portfolio in several ways. the university provided the software and chose to host it externally so students could access it after they completed their study. the central helpdesk was trained and informed about the e-portfolios so they could support students with any technical issues. staff had access to pedagogical expertise and support. a pro vice-chancellor supported the project, and a lifelong learning policy was drafted. once institutional support was in place, actual e-portfolio integration was planned and implemented. a promising approach was to implement e-portfolios at degree level. this involved looking at a degree programme in its entirety and integrating e-portfolio activities throughout the different year levels and individual courses where appropriate. such an implementation strategy has the advantage of transcending course boundaries and looking holistically at skills and competencies as directed by the graduate profi le. furthermore, it is possible to integrate the e-portfolio activities into the overall assessment for the degree programme, thus potentially increasing the students’ motivation to participate in lifelong learning by using e-portfolios. unfortunately, such an approach has diffi culties on a practical level. revising a degree programme, and its subsequent implementation, takes several years and requires a programme committee that places a high value on using journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 47–61 © distance education association of new zealand 50 e-portfolios. all lecturers involved at planning and teaching levels need to support and participate in the e-portfolio concept, because all courses will contain e-portfolio activities. so far we have seen a programme-level approach in teacher education degrees (bhattacharya, 2009; lamont, 2007; maher & gerbic, 2009). in our own institution, as in most institutions in australia and new zealand, the commitment to e-portfolios across a degree programme level is the exception rather than the rule (mcallister, hallam, & harper, 2008). while we enjoy a reasonable level of institutional support for e-portfolios, we are faced with the question of how to implement relevant activities. a number of our lecturers believe in the e-portfolio approach and chose not to wait until the programme committees and their teaching colleagues were ready to implement them. we have been charged within our institution to work with these lecturers and facilitate ground-level adoption. to advance this process we have developed a set of guiding questions to help motivated individuals to introduce e-portfolio activities. we have trialled these questions, and report on our efforts in the following sections. guiding questions for adoption at single course level when introducing any e-learning technology in a teaching context it is essential to put pedagogy fi rst. e-learning technology should not be used merely because it is available, but in a supporting and facilitating capacity that encourages and motivates student participation and learning. pedagogy therefore stands at the forefront when educational developers discuss the introduction of e-portfolio activities within teaching and learning. in our conversations with lecturers we encounter two common situations. firstly, we fi nd that lecturers are already conducting refl ective activities with their students (e.g., weekly logs or diaries) in paper form, and are looking for ways to improve these activities. students are already encouraged to refl ect on their progress and provide peer feedback, and moving towards the use of e-learning technology for this purpose would help students to capture this process. by recording refl ections in an e-portfolio, the student retains their individual focus, but can vastly improve storage; access; and sharing with other students, academic staff and potential employers. secondly, we see that lecturers are aware of the need for improvements in specifi c areas but have not found the mechanisms for implementation. while technology should not drive learning design, we fi nd that sometimes its availability allows progress in tackling some long-standing issues. one example, described in more detail in our case study, is the need for student refl ection on formative feedback received in response to assignment work. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 47–61 © distance education association of new zealand 51 the main benefi t of using an e-portfolio is to provide students with a refl ective framework that can be applied to all areas of their learning. other benefi ts may include increasing effi ciency of assignment submission, marking, and return. to assist in our work of discussing e-portfolio opportunities with lecturers, we have developed a set of guiding questions (figure 1). we use these as the backbone of our conversations with lecturers to guide and address the important issues. pedagogy what do you want to improve or focus on?1. what existing elements will you modify? outline how they will change.2. what new elements will you design and integrate into existing structures? describe the new 3. elements. what are the intended learning outcomes for the e-portfolio activity?4. what are the benefi ts of using an e-portfolio approach?5. does the approach fi t into a wider picture of lifelong learning support?6. administration in which context do we want to do this (programme, paper, part of a paper, degree requirements 7. outside of paper)? what is the timeframe? (this should include lead-in time and duration of the work.) 8. how many students are involved?9. who is going to be involved? (other lecturers, administrators, etc.)10. what are the consequences of the changes in terms of formalities, and information given to 11. students? support what technical and instructional support does the lecturer need?12. what support will the students need to do the tasks (e.g., how to refl ect)?13. what level of familiarity do the students have with using e-learning systems? 14. what technical support will they need?15. how will you explain the value of the approach to students?16. evaluation how will we measure whether the approach has been successful?17. figure 1 guiding questions to support lecturers who plan to use e-portfolios journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 47–61 © distance education association of new zealand 52 while pedagogy is the guiding principle of tertiary teaching, we acknowledge the reality. for any teaching initiative to be successful, the questions of administration and support need to be addressed. the wider institutional context was important to discuss these questions. here we build on the assumption that an institutional e-portfolio system has been selected and institutional support is provided at technical, pedagogic, and policy levels. to a certain degree, questions about pedagogy, administration, and support are intertwined. for example, the pedagogy might necessitate a time-consuming feedback loop that can only be implemented with a limited number of students and the availability of dedicated resources. e-portfolio use requires network access. in new zealand, e-learning courses are classifi ed as web-supported (student use is optional), web-enhanced, or web-based (student use is compulsory). these terms specify the degree of network access students must have to participate in the course. students must be advised of the course classifi cation before enrolment to ensure they have the required level of access. this implies a considerable lead-in time for the introduction of an e-portfolio activity into a course. the amount of assistance students need for accessing and operating the e-portfolio system depends on their familiarity with e-learning tools. writing refl ections can be challenging, and students may require guidance in this area. it is important that we clarify such needs ahead of time to schedule the right support resources. if this does not occur, then a pedagogically valuable approach may prove unsuccessful in its implementation and have a negative effect on future initiatives. the last section of our set of guiding questions (see figure 1) deals with the very important aspect of evaluation. how do we know whether the activity we have introduced into a course has been successful? how do we defi ne success? we saw a wide range of possible answers, from the less ambitious ‘number of students who have participated’ to the very involved ‘benefi t to student learning’. the questions tied in closely with the goals set for the e-portfolio activity (see case study below). considering evaluation right from the start helped to clarify these goals. case study of a specifi c science course an e-portfolio activity was introduced for the fi rst time into a fi rst-year course, ‘human bioscience: normal body function’. this was a foundation course for students studying towards health professional degrees such as nursing, midwifery, health sciences, and sports and exercise. the activity journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 47–61 © distance education association of new zealand 53 was introduced in the 2008/9 summer-semester distance-mode offering. a total of 193 students enrolled. the lecturer in charge of the course was new to e-portfolio use but could identify the potential benefi ts of using e-portfolios for student learning and was very keen to participate. an analysis of the context of the course provided the following parameters: it had to be assumed that the level of familiarity of the students with e-learning technology was fairly low; the distance mode meant that no face-to-face support sessions were possible and that any support had to be provided by distance; the lecturer was willing to invest time to develop the e-portfolio activity; and the two colleagues involved in the course were open to the e-portfolio idea but did not want to be directly involved in this fi rst iteration. guided by our set of questions, we collaborated with the lecturer and worked on possibilities for using e-portfolios for this course delivery. the lecturer wanted to address the core point of student refl ection on the formative feedback they received on assignment work. the lecturer decided to make refl ection a component of the fi rst of three assignments. the students had to write a 1500-word essay worth up to 15 percent of the fi nal mark for the course. they could gain a further 5 percent by writing a refl ection on the feedback they received for their essay. they had to describe the feedback, identify what they learnt from it, then set a goal and outline steps to achieve this goal. this activity drew on lamont’s paper of 2007 which uses smyth’s (1992) refl ection model—describe, inform, confront, reconstruct—and builds on this model by adding an action plan. the students were invited to do this activity in the e-portfolio system adopted by our institution (mahara, http:// mahara.org, accessed via the myportfolio portal, http://myportfolio.ac.nz/). because the course was classifi ed as web-enhanced it was assumed that all students would be able to access the e-portfolio system. however, a few students who could not use the internet were provided with a paper-based alternative. the lecturer was supported by an educational developer who fi elded questions about using the e-portfolio system. technical problems were covered by the institution’s central helpdesk and the educational developer. additionally, the students were informed of the e-portfolio activity early in the course outline. one of the major issues to arise in the design of e-portfolio integration centred on voluntary versus enforced participation. e-portfolio thinking is better aligned with voluntary participation, but the reality of teaching showed that the bonus—or threat—of marks was necessary to ensure students used the e-portfolio. another common issue was that of low stakes versus high stakes. being new to e-portfolios, and often also being new to a refl ective approach, journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 47–61 © distance education association of new zealand 54 can mean that lecturers are more comfortable with a fairly small e-portfolio component in their course, but this downgrading of the e-portfolio activity was counterproductive to high student uptake. these questions were central to the discussions about our specifi c course, and the compromises resulted in compulsory participation (for full course marks) balanced by a fairly lowstakes approach. apart from the main goal of encouraging refl ection, the lecturer wanted to introduce students to an e-portfolio system, hoping that some students would start working in an e-portfolio environment outside the course boundaries. further, this activity would provide their fi rst experience with the e-portfolio system, preparing for potential adoption in other courses. 0.0 10.0 20.0 30.0 40.0 50.0 <50% 50%–64% 65%–79% >80% categories of marks percentage of students did no e-portfolio completed e-portfolio figure 2 essay marks grouped by completion of an e-portfolio activity not all of the students did the e-portfolio activity that followed the essay. the essay marks of those students who did complete the e-portfolio activity were compared with those who did not. the essay marks of the students who completed the e-portfolio were slightly higher than those who did not (means 68%, 63%, t(df = 156) = 2.682, p < 0.01). this difference was explored by looking at the categories of student marks. it was hypothesised that the students who received lower marks may not have gone on to do the refl ection exercise. this was not the case (chi sq = 0.096). students who did not do the refl ective exercise received marks from across the range (see figure 2), indicating that completing the refl ection activity involved other factors and was more complex than initially thought. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 47–61 © distance education association of new zealand 55 one factor that infl uenced the students’ completion of the refl ection exercise was the usability of the e-portfolio software. some students were not confi dent computer users and found the e-portfolio environment diffi cult (table 1). improvements to user instructions will solve many of these problems. evaluation of the e-portfolio activity was designed in three parts: practicalities: 1. did the e-portfolio system perform well on a technical level? how much support did students require? lecturer’s view on the learning effect: 2. did the students’ refl ections indicate increased understanding? students’ views on the learning effect: 3. did students think that the e-portfolio activity had helped their learning? to assist with the evaluation, the students were surveyed. we report here on one aspect of this survey: how the students viewed the effect on their learning. a questionnaire with a self-addressed return envelope was sent to all students. (because some students were not confi dent computer users we used a paper questionnaire to give all students the opportunity to respond.) the questionnaire return rate was 23 percent. some students did not answer all questions. table 1 evaluation data evaluation questions yes no unsure did the refl ection activity help your learning? 16 14 1 did you have enough guidance on the ‘refl ection on feedback’ exercise? 22 5 5 did you have enough guidance on how to use the e-portfolio software? 16 13 3 was the e-portfolio software easy to use? 9 19 4 responses to the fi rst question (table 1) divided the students into two almost equal groups. most of the students who stated that the activity helped their learning explained that it helped them identify areas that they needed to improve. a few students said that it made them think about the markers’ comments and their own problem areas, and encouraged them to make an action plan (see figure 3 for a selection of questionnaire responses). journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 47–61 © distance education association of new zealand 56 helped learning i learned what i had done wrong and it helped me actually put aside time to think about 1. improving my errors. it made me analyse what i’d done wrong and gave me a chance to think about a positive action 2. plan. made me think about markers’ comments. 3. did not help learning not really as i got a good mark and there weren’t any marker comments to refl ect on. 4. the comments didn’t surprise me and i agreed with them and expected them.5. i already refl ect on and learn from the feedback i receive. it takes a whole lot less time.6. comments re assignment were useful to improve—refl ection activity just took time away from 7. study. not at this stage as it was more about getting it done to receive marks. not about freely refl ecting. 8. no, not really would have been far more helpful to have better essay guidelines before writing than 9. telling us afterwards—what is the point that we know better now, not before when it mattered. figure 3 extract from respondents’ questionnaires the respondents who said the refl ection activity did not help their learning gave a variety of reasons. the most common was that they did not consider the return they anticipated to get from the activity to be worth the effort. this group included students who said they did not get much feedback to refl ect on (figure 3, no. 4) and those who said they already knew what the markers were going to say and so they did not learn anything new (figure 3, no. 5). some students said they always read the feedback and refl ect on it (figure 3, no. 6) and did not see the additional value of writing down their refl ections and showing them to the lecturer. the time issue was alluded to by some students (figure 3, no. 7), who valued the feedback they received but did not see enough benefi t in recording their refl ections. two students were driven solely by the marks (figure 3, no. 8). these students, possibly under time pressure, might have done what they considered the minimum to receive the marks. two respondents did not value the feedback they got on the assignment or the refl ection activity. they said it would be better for the lecturer to provide more information at the start so they knew what was required before they wrote the assignment, rather than at the end when they had completed the activity and received their marks (figure 3, no. 8). journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 47–61 © distance education association of new zealand 57 this was the fi rst time the e-portfolio activity was integrated into this course. in the past, students received feedback but no further support. it could be argued that, overall, the e-portfolio activity helped many students learn, although some of them did not recognise it at the time of the survey. the participants’ view of the usability of the refl ection activity, e-portfolio instructions, and software is shown in table 1. while most participants considered that they had enough guidance on using the e-portfolio, many found the e-portfolio software diffi cult to use. this is likely to have frustrated some students because their energy went into learning how to use the software rather than refl ecting on their feedback. review of the value of the guiding questions overall the e-portfolio activity was regarded as successful. the e-portfolio was applied in an institutional setting that was just starting to explore e-portfolios (i.e., a teaching team that was new to e-portfolios) and using a relatively lowstakes assessment for students who were neither accustomed to refl ection nor very e-learning ‘savvy’. if the guiding questions contributed to this success, then it may be for the following reasons: pedagogy stood at the centre of the conversations with the lecturer; the learning goals were discussed frequently; the outcome of the guided questions was an activity with a clear main goal, supported by sub-goals. this combination reinforced thinking about the learning goals. having an evaluation plan provided the e-portfolio implementation team with data to assess the success of the e-portfolio activity. discussions with the lecturer confi rmed that it was essential to consider practicalities. e-portfolio activities that were pedagogically valuable but very costly to support were explored and discussed. the questions of support were assessed after each new idea, followed by administration considerations. issues such as administration formalities and timeframes were clarifi ed to ensure that students did not feel uninformed. the support structures created were adequate. the helpdesk and the educational developer fi elded most of the questions, leaving the lecturer free to focus on teaching. now it is important to learn from the experience from an institutional and educational development perspective. we need to develop a set of meta-level questions to help us extract what we can from this single experience for future use of e-portfolios. for example, we could analyse the types of support questions raised by students, and create structures to pre-empt some of these in the future. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 47–61 © distance education association of new zealand 58 conclusion using e-portfolios to integrate support for lifelong learning required lecturers to make a major shift in thinking. they required time and guidance to think through the issues and needed to plan well so that the students would benefi t from participating in the activity. in this case study, we can say with certainty that some students judged the refl ection activity as benefi cial to their learning. a considerable number of students have now been exposed to a refl ective approach and to the e-portfolio system. this will make future e-portfolio activities conceptually easier for the students to understand and manage. it is hoped that some students have taken on the refl ective e-portfolio approach and will follow up in their own time. the students now have access to the e-portfolio system and can continue to use it beyond this course. with the support structures in place, the extra work for the lecturer was manageable and this appears to have made a difference for many of the students. this small-scale e-portfolio activity was a valuable starting point that provided experience and the confi dence that lecturers and educational developers needed to further integrate e-portfolio activities to support lifelong learning. at the single course level, the next step will be to involve all course lecturers. an integrated approach, in which students use myportfolio across a programme, will give students the opportunity to develop their e-portfolio over time. learning a new system such as myportfolio for both lecturers and students will then be rewarded with more frequent use of the new skills. many students reported that the e-portfolio software was diffi cult to use. reasons included the quality of guidance students received on how to use the e-portfolio, the task they were set, and how the e-portfolio software operates. student feedback provided direction on how to improve the user guide for e-portfolios, and an analysis of the activity identifi ed how to simplify it so students could focus on the learning outcomes rather than on how to use the software. lifelong learning stretches beyond paper boundaries, and e-portfolios can support students over a longer timeframe than just one course. ultimately, the challenges of designing e-portfolio integration will be addressed only if we work on implementation across a whole programme of study such as a full degree. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 47–61 © distance education association of new zealand 59 references australian eportfolio project. (2008). aep: stage 1 final project report (august 2008). retrieved december 15, 2009, from http:// www.eportfoliopractice.qut.edu.au/information/report/index.jsp bhattacharya, m. (2009). introducing integrated e-portfolio across courses in a postgraduate program in distance and online education. in c. spratt & p. lajbcygier (eds.), e-learning technologies and evidence-based assessment approaches. p. hershey, pa: information science reference. black, p., & wiliam, d. (1998). assessment and classroom learning. assessment in education, 5, 7–74. black, p., mccormick, r., james, m., & pedder, d. (2006). learning how to learn and assessment for learning: a theoretical inquiry. research papers in education, 21(2), 119–132. crooks, t. j. (1988). the impact of classroom evaluation practices on students. review of educational research, 58, 438–481. friesen, n., & anderson, t. (2004). interaction for lifelong learning. british journal of educational technology, 35(6), 679–687. guest, g. (2006). lifelong learning for engineers: a global perspective. european journal of engineering education, 31, 273–281. hattie, j., & temperley, h. (2007). the power of feedback. review of educational research, 77(1), 81–112. joint information systems committee. (2008). effective practice with e-portfolios. retrieved december 15, 2009, from http://www.jisc.ac.uk/ media/documents/publications/effectivepracticeeportfolios.pdf. joint information systems committee. (2009). jisc infonet: e-portfolios. retrieved december 15, 2009, from http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/infokits/ e-portfolios lamont, m. (2007). what are the features of e-portfolio implementation that can enhance learning and promote self-regulation? european institute for e-learning (eifel) eportfolio conference, maastricht. retrieved december 15, 2009, from http://www.eife-l.org/publications/eportfolio/proceedings2/ ep2007/proceedings-pdf-doc/ journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 47–61 © distance education association of new zealand 60 mcallister, l. m., hallam, g. c., & harper, w. e. (2008). the eportfolio as a tool for lifelong learning: contextualising australian practice. in proceedings international lifelong learning conference 2008 (pp. 246– 252), yeppoon, queensland. retrieved december 15, 2009, from http:// eprints.qut.edu.au/14061/1/14061.pdf maher, m., & gerbic, p. (2009). e-portfolios as a pedagogical device in primary teacher education: the aut university experience. australian journal of teacher education. 34(5), 43–53. mason, r., pegler, c., & weller, m. (2004). e-portfolios: an assessment tool for online courses. british journal of educational technology, 35(6), 717–727. new zealand ministry of education. (2009). tertiary education strategy 2010–15. retrieved february 17, 2010, from http://www.minedu.govt.nz/ theministry/policyandstrategy/tertiaryeducationstrategy.aspx smyth, j. (1992). teachers’ work and the politics of refl ection. american research journal, 29(2), 267–300. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 47–61 © distance education association of new zealand 61 biographical notes john milne john milne is a research project manager in the centre for academic development and e-learning at massey university. he is an e-learning specialist with expertise in the design, development, implementation, and evaluation of e-learning. he worked on a year-long project implementing lifelong learning and e-portfolio approaches in the college of science. dr eva heinrich dr eva heinrich is a senior lecturer in computer science at massey university. her main research interests are in e-learning and higher education. she works on projects such as e-learning supported assignment assessment, lifelong learning with e-portfolios, learning from writing for computer science students, and learning communities for higher education teachers. dr isabelle lys dr isabelle lys is a lecturer in health and life sciences in the institute of food nutrition and human health at massey university. she is a molecular biologist with research interests in food quality and health protection and promotion. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 47–61 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 45 take aim and keep your students engaged catherine nash, open polytechnic of new zealand abstract this paper outlines the benefits to distance education teachers of formatting a weekly online newsletter in accordance with motivational learning theory. it reflects on the delivery of weekly aim newsletters to undergraduate economics students at the open polytechnic of new zealand via moodle. the acronym, aim, stands for academic content, information for the course and motivation—three critical elements required to meet the challenges of effective course facilitation. the aim newsletter integrates all three of these key components in one easy-to-use product. the object of aim is to keep students engaged in economics and reduce the perceived distance from distance education. this article discusses the context, underpinning theory, practicalities, and the way forward for aim. keywords: student engagement, e-learning, teaching, teaching economics, motivation, reusable, practical application, reflection, ako, communication introduction this article is a critical reflection on the use of the weekly aim newsletter. aim is an acronym in which “a” stands for “academic content”, “i” stands for “information for the course” and “m” stands for “motivation”. the aim newsletter is a key component in the online delivery of the economic environment (“the course”) at the open polytechnic of new zealand (“open polytechnic”). initially, aim was created by the author to meet:  an increase in workloads due to staff reductions that resulted in higher student/lecturer ratios  a growing student demand for immediate replies to queries  an increasing number of requests from students for links between the theory taught and real applications  a greater uptake of technology and internet access by students  the increasing requirements for meeting education performance indicators, as outlined by the tertiary education commission (2009). the aim newsletter seeks to address the above needs, keep students engaged in economics, and reduce the perceived distance in distance education. the great philosopher and educationalist john dewey (1933, p. 78) posits: “we do not learn from experience. we learn from reflection on experience”; hence the reflective nature of this article. the article will begin by outlining the environment in which the course is delivered at the open polytechnic and the engagement challenge. following this, the article will contextualise the research that underpins the use of the aim newsletter. next, the article will discuss what aim comprises and the practicalities relating nash, c. 46 to its delivery and, finally, the article will provide an overall reflection of the use of the aim newsletter in the course, including an evaluation of aim and an outline of future developments. context the course is an introductory economics paper that applies elements of economic theory to contemporary business issues. the course is delivered predominately to business students enrolled in either the bachelor of business as a compulsory paper, or in the new zealand diploma of business as a core paper. because there are no prerequisites other than those prescribed for entry into a new zealand tertiary educational institution, the course is stand-alone. there are no higher level economics courses offered at the open polytechnic. assignment 1 (worth 20%) is usually assessed in week 5 of a 17-week trimester, assignment 2 (worth 30%) is assessed in week 10, and assignment 3 (worth 50%) is assessed in week 17. the course is delivered online via the learning management system, moodle. a learning guide is available to all students on the course page, and contains the course material, activities with feedback, reflections, and additional readings. in addition, the course page has discussion forums, powerpoint presentations, chats, and formative multiple-choice quizzes. students are required to have access to the course page to download the assignments, upload their scripts, and receive their marked scripts with feedback. they purchase a textbook, and they are also sent a package of course material (learning guide in hard copy) and can successfully complete the course by working through the learning guide and textbook by themselves. students do not have to interact with other students but are encouraged to join the community on the course page through aim. like many other distant education courses, this course is dominated by mature students, with 74% of all students studying in 2014 being 25 years old or more. open polytechnic (2013) embraces the concepts of ako, which is māori for both “to teach” and “to learn”. ako has three key principles: 1. whakapiri: engagement and retention of students participating in the learning process 2. whakamārama: enlightenment through teaching and learning that brings transformation in students and our practice 3. whakamana: empowerment of students for lifelong e-learning and active citizenship. thus the open polytechnic perceives learning to have a dynamic relationship with knowledge, resulting in personal growth. the author endeavours to embrace all three of these principles in the aim newsletter. the early stages of aim in 2010, after a number of changes in the open polytechnic economics section, the author was asked to take over the paper, the economic environment, during a trimester. shortly after taking over the course, a large number of similar (but not exactly the same) emails and telephone calls were received from students asking administrative questions about extensions and assignment feedback. because the emails came directly to the author’s email box rather than through the course page, each email required an individual response. this took considerable time, despite the extensive use of “copy and paste”. initially, as an introduction to students, and then to proactively stop answering the same or similar questions multiple times, the author used the bulk email function button on moodle (the news forum) to inform students of relevant administrative information at irregular intervals when the need arose. information also included hours of work and helpdesk (computer support) availability. students are automatically subscribed to the news forum and therefore receive preemptive emails from the author. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 47 this information was usually already available on the course page or in printed hand-outs that were sent to students, but was perhaps difficult for some students to find. after bulk emails were sent out via the news forum, the number of administrative questions from students declined dramatically (by approximately 70%). this meant that students had relevant information (perhaps that they did not know existed) presented to them at an appropriate time, in a format that they could read and use. they therefore did not need to request such information, resulting in a decrease in overall workload for the author and the student. in 2009, ormond simpson, a visiting professor on sabbatical to the open polytechnic from the open university, presented material on the importance of motivation in distance education. the author attended several of these presentations and a seed was sown as to the importance of motivational material in weekly bulk emails to students. by 2011, the bulk emails were transformed into what is now known as the aim newsletter. in trimester 1, 2014, aim was sent weekly to the course’s 79 students in new zealand, australia, and india. underpinning theory the theories that support aim are motivational theory and motivational design theory. key thinkers in the field argue that student motivation is a key ingredient in keeping students engaged (bonk & khoo, 2014; devito, 2012; guyan, 2013; hartnett, st. george, & dron, 2011; keller, 2008; moore, 1980; muilenburg & berg, 2005; salmon, 2004; simpson, 2008a, 2008b, and 2012; and stravredes, 2011). simpson (2008a) noted that many distance learners are mature students who may face isolation, as well as additional family and work commitments, resulting in higher levels of transactional distance. moore (1980) argues that transactional distance is the psychological and communication space that occurs in distance education, and that transactional distance can be reduced through increased dialogue between teachers and learners. simpson (2012) posits that student contact needs to be proactive in distance education, with the institution contacting students first rather than waiting for students to contact them. stavredes (2011) argues that the facilitator needs to help motivate the learner by telling personal stories and demonstrating knowledge and passion in the subject area. guyan (2013) argues that facilitators need to facilitate the course to ensure that student motivation is maintained. woods (2002) posits that regardless of frequency, instructor-initiated emails that are outside any required group discussions result in some students being positively affected. bonk & khoo (2014, p. 157) argue that without relevance (which includes meaningful, authentic and interesting material) “learners will fail to tune in”. the importance of motivational design was outlined by keller (1979), who later developed it into his attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction (arcs) model. in brief, we can say that in order to have motivated students, their curiosity must be aroused and sustained; the instruction must be perceived to be relevant to personal values or instrumental to accomplishing desired goals, they must have personal conviction that they will be able to succeed; and the consequences of the learning experience must be consistent with the personal incentives of the learner. (keller, 2008, p. 178) the arcs model has been used to design the aim newsletter. the effectiveness of aim can be benchmarked against procedural learning design set out by keller in his arcs model and by taking into account the practical guidance provided by simpson (2012), mayo-smith (2003) and others when delivering information in motivational emails. in what follows, the author will explain how keller’s principles can be translated into practice in an aim-style newsletter. nash, c. 48 attention keller’s arcs model posits that motivational design requires the learning material to first attract the attention of the students. aim’s subject line and sender information provide the first opportunity to do this. mayo-smith (2003) identifies the subject line as the most important item of any email because it is the key to getting any email read. she argues that the subject line needs to be easily identifiable to entice the student to read it and to prevent it ending up in spam. in addition, the subject line should be unique and logical, so that students can immediately recognise it amongst the myriad emails they receive. they can see it is from a reputable source and that it contains important information about their course. once the email is opened, typography is paramount if the student is to read and absorb the contents. simpson (2012) and (mayo-smith 2003) consider personalisation of emails to be very important —it should be welcoming and addressed to the individual student. larson & picard (2008) demonstrated that high-quality typography can induce a positive mood, and thus encourage further reading. mayo-smith (2003) recommends using boxes and columns with bolded headings, directly followed by information, allowing the reader to skim and then read areas of interest in detail. in addition, she argues that, because students read from the top down, the most important information needs to be at the top of an email. length and size of the email are also important components. mayo-smith (2003) argues that the emails need to be concise and to the point—less is more, and one page is more inviting than two. this is supported by simpson (2012), who uses fewer than 400 words in his proactive motivation student support emails, and advocates using personal stories and humour to keep students engaged. relevance keller’s second element in the arcs model is relevance. for aim to be effective it needs to be relevant to the course and the student’s interest. aim maintains relevance by providing connection points between economic theory and real examples in a variety of formats. confidence the third element in keller’s arcs model is confidence. aim must be written in a style that provides positive reinforcement to the student, improving their confidence by confirming that they can succeed in the course. information on ways to learn, where to seek help, requirements of the course, and identifying areas of personal control should be identified so that the student has confidence and continues to engage. satisfaction satisfaction rounds out keller’s first principles of the arcs model. aim needs to provide satisfaction and ensure that the student’s perceived benefits outweigh their perceived costs. this will result in aim being consistently read by all students. reflecting on the nature of aim aim is delivered weekly via moodle 2 to all students in the course. aim is a proactive motivational support mechanism which draws on and extends simpson’s (2008a) model. aim opens the conversation between student and author and is designed to engage students and keep them engaged (whakapiri) in the course through weekly communications and connections. students are often prompted by the aim newsletter to then email the author or make a posting on the forum with questions about the course. in line with practices outlined by bonk and khoo (2014), aim draws on the author’s and students’ personalities, activities, course content, and journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 49 current events to make the connection between author and student meaningful, authentic, and interesting. a = academic content aim provides discussion on the current topic, lists appropriate readings, and provides links to economic news—from both mainstream new zealand media and overseas material—which is relevant to the course and reinforces economic concepts in the weekly module. this provides enlightenment (whakamārama) that decisions on economic matters affect all of us in our daily lives, and the course cannot, therefore, be studied in a vacuum. examples include articles, interviews, and/or video clips which discuss the changing price of milk and petrol, as well as providing statistics and commentary on economic growth, unemployment, and inflation in the appropriate week. links provided include media in written form (articles on stuff or new zealand herald websites), oral form (interviews or commentaries from radio nz or radio live), and visual form (tv1, tv3, and youtube). using a variety of links is important and designed to meet three of fleming’s four (2014) visual aural, read/write and kinaesthetic (vark) learning preferences. these links are also selected and highlighted to provide “meaningful choices … not just options” (hartnett, st. george, & dron, 2011, p. 33) to the student. providing these links also ensures students do not waste unnecessary time searching for validating material. the size of aim is an obvious consideration in its production. because visuals increase the size of the email and are not easily achieved in the news forum of moodle version 2.3, the aim newsletter is text only. visuals also result in longer download time—a concern for dial-up users. the number of links in aim varies, but averages five per week. the size of file or length of the clip is identified with a clear indication as to whether it will provide the student with reinforcement of the topic, up-skill students, or extend their knowledge outside the learning outcomes. these links provide encouraging and continuous development for all students now and in the future. too many links or too large a file will waste the student’s time and ultimately demotivate them. headings such as “not compulsory but very interesting”, “a light-hearted look” and “if you are having trouble understanding the … ” attract attention and allow each student to decide on the relevance of the material. i = information for the course aim provides information on the administration and mechanics of the course. although this information might be available to students elsewhere on the course page or the open polytechnic website, its inclusion in aim provides the student with accessible, timely, and relevant material to ensure their valuable learning time is not wasted on administrative searches that might ultimately demotivate them. examples of this information include the current week’s readings, when an assignment is due, when assignments will be returned, how to access the marked assignments, and student feedback. information is also provided on additional resources that are available at the open polytechnic to support students, empowering (whakamana) them with knowledge and relevant assistance. in addition, aim breaks the learning guide into logical smaller weekly units of study that are consistent with a suggested study plan. flexibility is maintained for the student because they decide when and where they will study. assignment deadlines are consistently highlighted in aim; however, options are also noted and links for extensions identified. nash, c. 50 m = motivation aim provides motivational material including quotes, personal experiences, and previous student experiences on motivational themes that include struggles and successes. in addition, connections between economics and movies, books, and cartoons are used to reinforce the concept that economics is a part of their everyday life. the concept of including links to movies is not new and was highlighted to the author in mateer’s (2006) book economics in the movies. examples of links included in aim newsletters are erin brockovich (2000 film), with a link to the official trailer; nudge: improving decisions about health, wealth and happiness (2008 book) and a link to the review by the economist; and the crisis of credit visualized –hd by jonathan jarvis (animated video) link. the author considers that the students were motivated, at least in some small way, at the beginning of the course; after all, they enrolled in the course and either paid their fees to the open polytechnic or took out a student loan. there is perhaps extrinsic motivation as students see successful completion of the course as taking them a step closer to their goal of obtaining a degree or diploma. hartnett, st. george, & dron (2011, p. 31) posit that “motivation is not a onedimensional trait, but is complex, multifaceted and influenced by both person and context.” the author agrees, and notes that the student context is constantly changing. students may experience amotivation (lack of motivation) due to unexpected events such as death of a relative or personal illness, thus reducing their desire for learning. time is limited and the opportunity costs of learning are real. an environmental change may result in the marginal costs of study outweighing marginal benefits for an individual in a particular time period. therefore, to ensure that student motivation continues throughout the course, and to energise flagging students back into the course, regular weekly communication by aim helps all students to stay engaged. by providing “meaningful and authentic choices” (bonk & khoo 2014, p. 157) within aim, student curiosity may be aroused and their interest may be activated, reactivated, and maintained. aim also provides a summary of what has been discussed during the week, reinforcing what has been learnt and looking positively to the future, encouraging all students to join the community on the course page. students are asked, through aim, to reflect on their own effort in the assignment and to note what they have learnt—not just focus on their marks. how is aim delivered? aim is sent via the course page news forum through moodle 2.3, not through the author’s email address. this models behaviour and encourages students to visit the course page and participate in the forums. delivery through moodle has several positive outcomes: first, a copy of the aim newsletter is available on the course page for all students at all times during the course; second, only students who are currently enrolled are sent aim newsletters because the course page participant list is updated and maintained by academic registry. unfortunately, in moodle 2.3, the news forum does not allow personalisation of the email as recommended by simpson and mayo-smith. to counteract this deficiency, the author uses generic and timely greetings such as “kia ora”, “good afternoon”, and “happy easter”. such phrases place the author in the student’s culture and time zone. the author uses the course code, week number, and week topic as the subject line for aim to grab the attention of students and ensure that they recognise it as a valid email. for example, (mc)2014|520/71120|s3: aim: week 4: supply and demand: elasticity. this consistent style ensures easy identification of the aim newsletter and easy access if students save and file aim independently. mayo-smith (2003) advocates using colour in the emails. this is not currently being used, and is unlikely to be used because of the additional time required in production and the possibility that students could waste costly coloured ink if they print the newsletter. capital letters were used occasionally in the subject line; however, because this is equivalent to shouting journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 51 at someone over the internet (and hard to read), the practice was stopped in 2014. aim uses a mix of times roman font (plain, italics and bold) because these are the only options in the moodle 2.3 news forum. sub-paragraph headers are bolded to highlight the path students are to take. keywords are also bolded to ensure students’ eyes rest longer on important information. in trimester 1, 2014, the author trialled a reader/printer friendly pdf version of aim on the course page with a link from the aim newsletter. the pdf included the same written material, but it was displayed in columns and boxes. the pdf also used different fonts and provided visual material to aid understanding of different economic concepts. although the adage that ‘a picture paints a thousand words’ may be true, the time taken to find relevant material and receive copyright approval meant it was very difficult to produce. statistics from the course page show that 35% of students viewed the reader/printer friendly version twice or more during the trimester. this success has meant that in trimester 3, 2014, the reader/printer friendly edition has contained at least one visual to support student learning. to compare the two editions, see:  appendix a for a recent example of the aim newsletter sent through moodle: (mc)2014|520/71120|s3: aim: week 4: supply and demand: elasticity  appendix b for a recent example of the reader/printer aim newsletter with visual material: aim: week 4: supply and demand: elasticity: reader/printer friendly edition. when is aim delivered? aim is sent out weekly by the course leader to provide a positive environment for the learner, and a regular teaching presence in the course. monday (before 4 p.m.) was specifically chosen as the best day and time to post aim because it is the beginning of a new topic and so the author can provide:  a summary of the previous topic forum discussions  an introduction to the new topic  links to current relevant media stories that match theory to practice  relevant information about the mechanics of the course  assurance that the posting makes the forum daily digest for students who opt for the one email a day from the open polytechnic containing all posts on enrolled courses (open polytechnic moodle 2.3 forum daily digest deadline is set at 5 p.m.). aim is a reusable product, although each newsletter is unique in terms of its personality and material. the newsletters from previous trimesters provide a template for drafting aim in the new trimester (e.g., week 6 is always theory of the firm regardless of the trimester). however, as the course leader role rotates between the two staff teaching economics, there are inevitably some changes required for each offering, including items relating to personality, stories, humour, summaries of discussion forums, and relevant media connections. conclusions about aim because composing and posting aim takes approximately 2–3 hours per week, the aim newsletter is a relatively low-cost product, regardless of who produces it in the economics section. the time taken to produce aim is affected by the size and detail of student discussions on the previous topic, the availability of relevant media content, and other work commitments. the author considers it has resulted in a reduction of 70% in administrative questions from learners asking the same or similar questions, and thus less time is spent on composing and responding to administrative emails; and this must apply to both author and student. in the course evaluations, some students considered that the aim newsletter was a vital part of the course nash, c. 52 (amongst other things), and some students placed aim in the category “the best thing about the course”. aim opens a conversation and keeps the conversation open throughout the trimester. aim’s content reinforces learning by complementing the learning guide and preparing learners for the week ahead. economic theory is matched with practice because real examples are used to capture the student’s interest and enlighten them. extension points, via links, are given to further stimulate learners’ thinking, growing their interest in economics both now and in the future. in addition, links to student support are provided for those students who need or would like remedial material. these strategies signpost relevant help and empower students to find their own solutions. thus aim’s proactive communications embrace whakapiri, whakamārama, and whakamana, the open polytechnic’s key organisational learning principles of ako. the author also receives personal satisfaction through her proactive engagement with students, and considers isolation and transactional distance are reduced because students find connection points with material and the author. in face-to-face instruction, the students experience verbal tone, facial expression, and emotions; thus, it is not just what you say but how you say it. in online communication, there is no body language. therefore visual presentation is critical in replacing the face-to-face experience; and the written tone, including telling stories and humour, is highly relevant. it is submitted that the aim newsletter sits very comfortably within the research on motivational theory and motivational design. aim has proved to be an efficient means of dealing with student queries, and it has provided students with real connection points between economic theory and practice. way forward in the immediate future the author will continue to refine aim and, in line with the findings of this reflection, continue to provide more visuals within the reader/printer friendly edition as well as attempt to use even more relevant stories and humour within aim. in addition, in the next trimester the author will trial an oral version of aim to meet the preferences of different learners. in the long term, the author intends to undertake research into the effectiveness and efficiency of aim in meeting education performance indicators, and investigate the students’ perspective of the value of this reusable product. acknowledgements the writer acknowledges the support from colleagues in the school of business (particularly andy kenah, jonathan barrett, and vanessa scholes) in the production of this published article. references bonk, c. j., & khoo, e. (2014). adding some tec-variety: 100+ activities for motivating and retaining learners online. bloomington, in: open world books. devito, j. a. (2012). human communication: the basic course (12th ed.). boston, ma: allyn & bacon. dewey, j. (1933). how we think: a restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the educative process. chicago, ill: henry regnery. fleming, n. e. (2014). vark: a guide to learning styles. retrieved from http://vark-learn.com/ guyan, m. (2013, october). improving motivation in elearning. retrieved from http://elearnmag.acm.org/featured.cfm?aid=2527388 http://vark-learn.com/ http://elearnmag.acm.org/featured.cfm?aid=2527388 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 53 hartnett, m., st. george, a., & dron, j. (2011). examining motivation in online distance learning environments: complex, multifaceted and situation-dependent. international review of research in open and distance learning, 12(6), 20–38. retrieved from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1030 keller, j. m. (1979). motivation and instructional design: a theoretical perspective. journal of instructional development, 2(4), 26–34 keller, j. m. (2008). first principles of motivation to learn and e 3 -learning. distance education, 29(2), 175–185. doi: 10.1080/01587910802154970 larson, k., & picard, r. w. (2008). the aesthetics of reading. retrieved from http://affect.media.mit.edu/pdfs/05.larson-picard.pdf mateer, g. d. (2006). economics in the movies. mason, oh: thomson south-western. mayo-smith, d. (2003). successful email marketing (2nd ed.). auckland, new zealand: penguin. moore, m. g. (1980). theory of transactional distance. retrieved from http://www.c3l.unioldenburg.de/cde/support/readings/moore93.pdf muilenburg, l. y., & berg, z. l. (2005). student barriers to online learning: a factor analytic study. distance education, 26(1), 29–48. doi: 10.1080/01587910500081269 open polytechnic of new zealand. (2013). teaching and learning ako strategy 2013–2016. lower hutt, new zealand: author. salmon, g. (2004). e-moderating: the key to online teaching and learning (2nd ed.). london, england: routledge-falmer. simpson, o. (2008a). guide to proactive motivational student support (pams). retrieved from http://www.mrsite.co.uk/usersitesv31/94669.mrsite.com/wwwroot/userimages/proacti ve%20motivational%20support%20guide%20non%20ou.pdf simpson, o. (2008b). motivating learners in open and distance learning: do we need a new theory of learner support? open learning: the journal of open and distance learning, 23(3), 159–170. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02680510802419979#.u_pmewoossy simpson, o. (2012). supporting students in online, open and distance learning (3rd ed.). london, england: routledge. stavredes, t. (2011). effective online teaching: foundations and strategies for student success (2nd ed.). san francisco, ca: jossey-bass. tertiary education commission. (2009). improving student results: tertiary education sector performance 2008. retrieved from http://www.tec.govt.nz/documents/reports%20and%20other%20documents/tertiary-sectorperformance-improving-students-results-aggregate-november-2009.pdf woods, r. h. (2002). how much communication is enough in online courses? exploring the relationship between frequency of instructor-initiated personal email and learner’s perceptions of and participation in online learning. international journal of instructional media, 29(4), 377–394. http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1030 file://mcvpfpsfs/pdrive1/nascat/research/journal%20article/doi http://affect.media.mit.edu/pdfs/05.larson-picard.pdf http://www.c3l.uni-oldenburg.de/cde/support/readings/moore93.pdf http://www.c3l.uni-oldenburg.de/cde/support/readings/moore93.pdf http://www.mrsite.co.uk/usersitesv31/94669.mrsite.com/wwwroot/userimages/proactive%20motivational%20support%20guide%20non%20ou.pdf http://www.mrsite.co.uk/usersitesv31/94669.mrsite.com/wwwroot/userimages/proactive%20motivational%20support%20guide%20non%20ou.pdf http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02680510802419979#.u_pmewoossy http://www.tec.govt.nz/documents/reports%20and%20other%20documents/tertiary-sector-performance-improving-students-results-aggregate-november-2009.pdf http://www.tec.govt.nz/documents/reports%20and%20other%20documents/tertiary-sector-performance-improving-students-results-aggregate-november-2009.pdf nash, c. 54 biographical notes catherine nash catherine.nash@openpolytechnic.ac.nz catherine is a lecturer of economics at the school of business, open polytechnic of new zealand. catherine has been involved in distance education over the last decade as facilitator of economics courses, online learner, and researcher. � this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. nash, c. (2014). take aim and keep your students engaged. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 18(2), [45–57]. mailto:catherine.nash@openpolytechnic.ac.nz http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 55 appendix a (mc)2014|520/71120|s3: aim: week 4: supply and demand: elasticity. (mc)2014|520/71120|s3 » forums » news, updates and notices » aim: week 4: supply and demand: elasticity aim: week 4: supply and demand: elasticity by catherine nash (99900820t) monday, 1 december 2014, 1:38 pm kia ora and welcome to week 4! attached is the link to reader/printer friendly edition i trust you had a restful weekend particularly as there was no early morning call to all black rugby. in the weekend i went for my first run in nearly a year. a month ago i signed up for the cigna round the bays run and i have been improving my fitness with walking after work. i know i need to start my training now if i am to successfully complete the whole run. some days i will be able to do more than others however i know i can’t leave it until january or february as there will not be enough time for me to reach the required fitness level. this is a little bit like studying really. following the study plan, creating a routine and sticking to it should enable you to successfully complete the course. assignment 1 is due 9 december; worth 20% of your final mark. an extension of one week is available. log into my open polytechnic frequently asked questions, for information on “where do i request an assessment extension”. assignments will be marked and returned by 23 december with feedback. the learning centre is offering writing support services for all students, see assignment writing link. week 4: supply and demand: elasticity great to see the discussion on the forums re elasticity. see reader/printer friendly link above for a pictorial example of the elasticity concept and course page link for the mathematical http://campus2.openpolytechnic.ac.nz/course/view.php?id=24926 http://campus2.openpolytechnic.ac.nz/mod/forum/index.php?id=24926 http://campus2.openpolytechnic.ac.nz/mod/forum/view.php?f=43360 http://campus2.openpolytechnic.ac.nz/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=80734 http://campus2.openpolytechnic.ac.nz/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=80734 http://campus2.openpolytechnic.ac.nz/user/view.php?id=27768&course=24926 http://campus2.openpolytechnic.ac.nz/user/view.php?id=27768&course=24926 http://campus2.openpolytechnic.ac.nz/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=80733 https://www.openpolytechnic.ac.nz/my-open-polytechnic-frequently-asked-questions/ http://campus2.openpolytechnic.ac.nz/mod/page/view.php?id=186065 http://campus2.openpolytechnic.ac.nz/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=80173#p196206 nash, c. 56 calculation using the midpoint formula on the “discussion forum for students”. readings: module 1.2 hubbard chapter 4: feel free to start on module 1.3 if you have time. withdrawal: the last day to withdraw from the course with a refund is 7 december. see withdrawal for further information. what is in the news? not compulsory but interesting links…..see nz herald: world’s biggest chocolate-maker says we are running out of chocolate . see mjmfoodie on youtube for an excellent discussion of price elasticity of demand (9:35; note in your assignment you need to use the midpoint method). for a light hearted look see mr clifford: econmovies 4 on youtube: indiana jones (demand, supply, equilibrium shifts (7:03). enjoy! we look forward to receiving your assignment in the near future. as always if you have any questions do contact either andy kenah or me through the forums. regards catherine reply see this post in context change your forum digest preferences http://campus2.openpolytechnic.ac.nz/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=80173#p196206 http://www.openpolytechnic.ac.nz/study-with-us/enrolment-information/withdrawals/ http://www.openpolytechnic.ac.nz/study-with-us/enrolment-information/withdrawals/ http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11360512 http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11360512 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oj_lnj6pxa http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rp0j3lnlazs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rp0j3lnlazs http://campus2.openpolytechnic.ac.nz/mod/forum/post.php?reply=196248 http://campus2.openpolytechnic.ac.nz/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=80734#p196248 http://campus2.openpolytechnic.ac.nz/mod/forum/index.php?id=24926 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 57 appendix b: aim week 4 supply and demand: elasticity: reader/printer friendly edition. nash, c. 58 microsoft word gedera.docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 55 designing for learner success (d4ls) at otago polytechnic: from an e-learning designer’s perspective dilani s. p. gedera, university of waikato abstract otago polytechnic (op) is currently redesigning and redeveloping its programmes and courses under an institution-wide initiative called designing for learner success (d4ls). this initiative has several phases—design, development, delivery, and evaluation. this article focuses on the processes and considerations in the development phase of d4ls, which adopted a collaborative and agile approach to developing high-quality course content, learning activities, assessments, and resources. a thematic analysis was conducted from a record of challenges and limitations encountered by e-learning designers in the development process. four themes emerged as the key challenges: workload and timelines, products and process, communication, and capabilities and attitudes. recommendations are offered for improving the support for e-learning designers and course developers who are undertaking similar institutional initiatives. keywords: curriculum; learning design; designing for learner success; e-learning; challenges text introduction otago polytechnic (op) is currently redesigning and redeveloping its programmes and courses under an institution-wide initiative called designing for learner success (d4ls). this initiative was established in 2015 with the aims of improving overall learner success rates, enhancing learner satisfaction with their learning experience, and improving the integration of development of learner capabilities within programmes at op (otago polytechnic, 2014). this initiative is in line with the tertiary education strategy developed by new zealand’s ministry of education, which emphasises the importance of focusing on student achievement while “ensuring tertiary education supports development of transferable skills” (ministry of education, 2015, para 6). the d4ls initiative commenced with programmes arising from the new zealand qualifications authority’s (nzqa’s) targeted review of qualifications (troq). it also targeted op programmes that have less than 70% course completion rates, and programmes with large student numbers that might have an impact on the whole institution (otago polytechnic, 2014). the d4ls initiative has four key phases: design, development, delivery, and evaluation, and each programme and course has to go through each phase of the d4ls. otago polytechnic shaped d4ls to take central leadership for programme and course redevelopment and to bring together several of op’s support services—learning and teaching, the quality enhancement centre, op online, and staff capability—to work in partnership with the lecturers as subject matter experts (smes), so ensuring the best use of available expertise and experience. this article focuses primarily on the development phase of the d4ls process and explores the challenges and limitations encountered by a group of e-learning designers, who also have the role of developers (op online team) in redesigning and redeveloping courses for three programmes at gedera, d. s. p. 56 op. the collaborative nature of the initiative in general, and the development phase in particular, offered great opportunities for course redesign and redevelopment to meet learners’ needs to help them succeed—which is the overall aim of the d4ls initiative. the collaborative nature of the d4ls initiative also posed some challenges and limitations. as an e-learning designer, i will look at the challenges the team of e-learning designers faced in this collaborative process in the development phase, and offer some recommendations. there is a paucity of research on collaborative programme and course development approaches (particularly in the context of new zealand tertiary education), and this article goes some way to fill that gap by pointing out the avenues to consider when conducting similar initiatives. the goals of d4ls, which include improved learner achievement and outcomes, will be measured by successful course and qualification completions, increased learner employability, enhanced learner capability, and learner satisfaction with their learning experiences in the long run. however, measuring the outcomes of the d4ls initiative is not within the scope of this article. the article commences with a literature review on collaborative programme and course development approaches to highlight the lack of substantial studies on institution-wide initiatives across new zealand. this will be followed by an introduction to the four key phases of the d4ls initiative, with a focus on the development phase. i will then discuss the challenges encountered by e-learning designers in the development phase and, finally, make some recommendations to mitigate the issues discussed. collaborative course development initiatives with the advancement of educational technologies, the demand for high-quality online education continues to grow. as a result, institutions are faced with the challenge of developing methods and processes for online course design and development to most effectively meet their learners’ needs and help them succeed. it is evident that developing programmes and courses is a complex and multifaceted process that requires careful planning and different levels of expertise. in some conventional institutions, course design and development involves only smes (chao, saj & hamilton, 2010). although smes are experts in their subject areas, they may not have the necessary specialised knowledge and capabilities to design and develop courses within the overall curriculum and across the programme(s). the consequences of the ever-increasing range of online learning and emerging technologies are that designing a high-quality course requires other expertise, such as instructional design and designing for e-learning. as such, “quality courseware production requires a highly organized, concerted effort from many players” (caplan, 2004, p. 186) and is not “possessed by one person” (chao et al., 2010, p. 107). the relevant literature shows that there has been a handful of collaborative institutional course development efforts. one example is the study conducted by chao et al. (2010) in a canadian university. it examines courses developed by teams that used quality standards. the authors discuss how the quality of the course was influenced by the relationship between faculty staff and instructional designers, and the issues linked to the use of quality standards as a development tool. their findings indicate that the degree of collaboration was determined by (a) the extent of the course development and revision needed, (b) the nature of the rapport between the faculty member and the designer, and (c) the faculty member’s experience. puzziferro and shelton’s (2008) study discusses collaborative course development project, at colorado state university-global campus. they focus on using an integrated and collaborative model based on the instructional design theory of active mastery learning. the authors describe how team members (such as faculty course developers, instructional technologists, course journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 57 technicians, and copyright clearance coordinators) collaborate in different phases to establish their institutional model for course development to enhance effective practice. similarly, hixon (2008) focuses on a particular online programme development and observes four collaborative teams that include (a) an instructional designer, (b) an instructional technologist, (c) an information resource consultant, (d) a digital media services consultant, and (e) a copyright consultant. the teams were to complete the course development in 67 days. the findings of the study highlight the importance of having a flexible course development process, faculty ownership of the courses, and clear and effective communication among team members at the university. the related literature also focuses on the design and development of specific online courses or aspects related to online course design. examples include discussion of design principles (crews, wilkinson, & neill, 2015), course design guides and strategies (stavredes & herder, 2014; vai & sosulski, 2011), learner satisfaction (dziuban, moskal, & hartman, 2010), course design and learner engagement (gedera, 2014), and courses with learner-centred, experiential activities and learning opportunities (caulfield, 2011; holtslander, racine, furniss, burles, & turner, 2012). the preliminary inquiry i carried out in searching for information on programme and course development approaches revealed a paucity of studies on collaborative approaches to programme and course redesign and redevelopment, particularly in the context of new zealand tertiary education. furthermore, the existing literature does not include e-learning designers’ perspectives on course development processes. these perspectives are important, because e-learning designers have the opportunity to think about the factors involved in the design of the course, how that thinking can be transformed into the actual design of the course, and how design can enhance students’ engagement and interest in the content and activities. this consideration was particularly important in op’s curriculum framework within the d4ls initiative (which may not be the case in some institutions). as caplan (2004) accentuates, it is best to involve the e-learning designers in the course development process from the beginning to ensure the content design is based on sound pedagogy and learning theories. e-learning designers also have the expertise to select appropriate media for courses and make sure the courses meet the institution’s expectations and quality standards. the purpose of this article is to describe how a collaborative and agile approach facilitated the design and development of high-quality course content. it further addresses the challenges and limitations encountered in the development phase. the development phase of designing for learner success designing for learner success comprises several key phases including (a) design, (b) development, (c) delivery and (d) evaluation. it is planned to have all of op’s programmes and courses go through the d4ls process. the duration of the design and development of each programme varies depending on the number of courses offered by that programme. in preparation for the d4ls process, lecturers are defined as subject matter experts (smes). they gather information about their programmes and learners to ensure that all relevant issues can be addressed in the redesign and redevelopment process. the design phase during the design phase the smes attend several workshops which are facilitated by the d4ls facilitation team (members of the learning and teaching team). the workshops focus on the programme as well as individual courses. in redesigning the programme and courses, several essential factors need to be considered, including learner capabilities and skills, prior experiences, and other specific aspects. the smes examine and redesign the learning activities gedera, d. s. p. 58 and assessments that build learner capability for the course learning outcomes in the programme. the details of the course content—including topics and modules, activities and assessments, and the sequence in which these occur—are then compiled by the smes in a document called a ‘blueprint’. while the smes work on the blueprint, the learning and teaching facilitators and the op online team examine the blueprint of each redesigned programme and its respective courses to ensure that the course learning outcomes are aligned with the graduate profile outcomes, face-to-face and online activities, and assessments. the development phase in the development phase the blueprint of the designed programmes and courses is handed over to the op online team (e-learning designers), and the smes collaborate with the op online team to develop the programme’s moodle courses. op online uses an ‘agile methodology’ and creates standards, templates, and procedures to oversee the development. the agile methodology or ‘agile process management’, which was first used in software development, is an iterative and flexible method of managing the design and development of products and processes (schwaber & sutherland, 2014). there are different types of agile methodologies, the most popular of which is scrum. scrum is simple and flexible, and breaks large projects into small and manageable chunks called sprints. the project’s progress is via a series of sprints (apmg international, 2011). one sprint can be one week long and the sprint goals can include developing online activities for one or two courses. in scrum methodology, a project team generally includes smes, a lead developer called a scrum master, and other developers who are mainly e-learning designers. the project team has daily scrum meetings within a sprint period to check the team’s progress and resolve any impediments. based on the scrum methodology, each member has to answer three specific questions at daily scrum meetings: 1. what did i do yesterday that helped the development team meet the sprint goal? 2. what will i do today to help the development team meet the sprint goal? 3. do i see any impediment that prevents me or the development team from meeting the sprint goal? at the end of each sprint, developers receive feedback from the smes on the developed courses, and the required action can roll over to the next sprint. once the smes have provided highquality, robust development information to op online, the op online team uses a series of sprints to design and develop activities and assessments as well as the moodle course interface. the redevelopment of the moodle courses and their features was based on the specifics of learning design thinking which, in turn, were based on constructivist theories to create learnercentred courses that meet the op principles of learning design and quality standards. the quality standards include learning design standards, course information standards, writing standards, and pedagogy standards, which op has adopted from tanz ecampus.1 the redeveloped moodle courses have several standards: • the courses are easy to navigate. • the important information about the course (including the timetable and assessments) is easy to locate. • the activity-led topics are arranged into modules or weeks. • there are clear instructions for face-to-face and online activities. • learner support resources and guidelines are provided. 1 tanz ecampus is a flexible online learning service provided by a group of major tertiary education providers in new zealand, including otago polytechnic. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 59 • there are multiple opportunities for students to provide feedback on the course content and the learning design. as specified in otago polytechnic strategic directions 2015–2017 (otago polytechnic, 2015), to strengthen the quality and learner outcomes of the programmes and courses, the learning and teaching strategic framework and other frameworks (such as learner capability, sustainability, and the māori strategic framework) are incorporated in the learning design. according to the learning and teaching strategic framework, all on-campus courses will be taught with a blended delivery model that includes online, face-to-face, student-managed, and work-based delivery mechanisms. by incorporating cost-effective and flexible modes of delivery, more learners in the region can be reached. the new programmes also incorporate experiential learning opportunities that include internships, clinical placements, work experience, and engagement in work-related knowledge transfer activities. otago polytechnic anticipates that, by integrating experiential and reflective learning opportunities, op graduates will have greater confidence that they are ready for work. all programmes are designed to improve learner capabilities so that op graduates will have the relevant industry knowledge, technical skills, and personal attributes that they need to succeed. furthermore, the integration of the sustainability framework with course content and learner activities is expected to develop graduates’ skills and knowledge to be sustainable practitioners. in terms of the māori strategic framework, relevant māori knowledge and perspectives are integrated purposefully in the programmes and courses where appropriate. for instance, students may gain iwi knowledge of significant local places through learning activities, specific readings, site visits, and storytelling. within the d4ls goals, op’s emphasis evolved to offer activity-led, learner-centred, experiential learning opportunities to enhance learner experience and capabilities. to design and develop interactive and engaging learning activities and assessments, op online uses educational technologies and software such as articulate storyline, adobe captivate, pathbrite, adobe connect, moodle, zaption, and google apps. when op online has completed the course development, two developers rate the redeveloped course using op quality standards to confirm that it is of the highest possible quality. then the redeveloped course is reviewed and signed off by the lead developer and the sme. the delivery phase in the delivery phase, the redeveloped programmes and courses are offered to the learners. during the first semester, there is a clearly designed support system available for the smes. if the smes need any assistance with their new courses, they can fill in an online form with their requests. the op online team manages the support process accordingly. the requests can relate to aspects of teaching, technology, content, and the like (e.g., to make changes to a learning activity developed by e-learning designers, or to add an extra activity to a module). learners can also add feedback on the design and the content of the course—these comments are taken into account for the next iteration. furthermore, an ongoing upskilling process allows staff members to either complete online self-directed courses or request face-to-face training sessions to assist them to deliver the new courses using engaging educational technologies. the evaluation phase an evaluation is conducted after the new courses are implemented. seven redeveloped courses were delivered in the first semester of 2016 for the first time, and an evaluation of these courses will take place in the near future. as part of the evaluation, learners and lecturers will provide feedback on their experiences of learning and teaching with the redesigned and redeveloped gedera, d. s. p. 60 courses. in 2016, another 43 programmes are being redesigned and redeveloped under the initiative. figure 1 demonstrates the key phases of the redesign and redevelopment process. figure 1 key phases of the d4ls initiative challenges encountered in the development phase as with any other institution-wide initiatives, d4ls has faced challenges in some of these phases. in such institution-wide initiatives it’s not unusual to have tensions between management and those who are implementing the project. in the case of d4ls, e-learning designers observed no significant tensions that could disrupt or delay the development phase of the three programmes. the initiative was sponsored and supported by op management. in fact, the polytechnic invited an external learning design consultant, who was experienced in instructional design and curriculum development, to lead the initiative to ensure the process was based on op’s goals and aspirations. the challenges encountered resulted mainly from the size and the nature of the initiative, and because the work involved was larger than anticipated. the section below focuses on the challenges encountered in the development phase with which i was involved as an e-learning designer. because the e-learning designers are working on several programmes concurrently, a record of risks, challenges, and limitations encountered in the development phase was compiled and recorded in a document called d4ls risks, assumptions register. i analysed and categorised this document thematically (mutch, 2005) (and added my own observational journal entries from working as an e-learning designer in the team) to identify the key risks and challenges faced by the online developers during the development phase. table 1 summarises these challenges: workload and timelines, products and processes, communication, and capabilities and attitudes. some of these challenges (such as increased workload and time constraints) may appear in the collaborative process of any online course production (xu & morris, 2007). when redesigning and redeveloping a curriculum as an institution-wide process (such as with d4ls), the nature of such common challenges complicates and affects the continuity and timeline of the phases in the journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 61 overall project. despite the challenges i observed that in the wrap-up meetings, which were conducted at the end of each sprint for different programmes, the smes were pleased with their redeveloped courses. table 1 summary of challenges encountered in the development phase workload and timelines products and process communication capabilities and attitude many programmes are concurrently going through d4ls • understaffed • high workload for the developers • inadequate development time smes’ expectations of the products (activities and assessments) in a short time frame (e.g., expecting a large number of online activities in blended learning courses) development of highquality programmes and courses in a short time frame (some programmes spend a long time in the design phase) collaborating on google drive with multiple teams across the institution smes’ attitudes towards change in general (e.g., apprehension about losing ownership of the programme) developer unavailability (e.g., getting sick or going on leave) programmes developed for multiple (sometimes three) platforms working with staff from different branches of op attitude towards technology (e.g., some programme smes’ resistance to use google drive for collaboration) smes’ unavailability during sprints due to other commitments or during the semester break incomplete documents (e.g., incomplete activity development forms) things can get lost in translation (from smes to the lead developer and then to other developers) smes’ capability with learning design and instructional design smes’ delayed responses during sprint smes wanting to reuse existing materials (developers spending a lot of time for quality check and creative commons license) different developers working on different sprints of the same programme bringing new developers up to speed (which involves the e-learning team setting up relevant training sessions) workload and timelines when the d4ls process was first initiated, the op online team comprised only five members. as more programmes began to go through d4ls, e-learning designers’ workloads increased. they were working closely with the smes on course design, preparing for the development phase (creating templates, support documents, and researching appropriate tools and resources), and supporting the academic staff with day-to-day issues and enquiries about educational technologies. as a result, the time allocated for the development of courses was very focused and limited. to manage the course development process efficiently, the sprints were generally well structured and required maximum commitment from the members involved. however, some common challenges faced during the sprints were: developers getting sick or going on planned leave, and smes’ unavailability or delayed responses during the sprints as a result of their teaching and other commitments (such as conferences). some of these challenges are unavoidable consequences of the natural course of academic life and work. in spite of their time gedera, d. s. p. 62 constraints in terms of their teaching load, administrative roles, and other commitments, smes were generally positive and supportive of the development initiative. products and processes because many programmes were going through d4ls at once, it was challenging for the e-learning designers/developers to create a large number of high-quality products in a short time. in some cases, the smes spent more time on the design phase and, therefore, by the time the courses got to the development phase, there was only a couple of months left to develop a number of courses. some courses also had to be developed for multiple platforms such as moodle, tanz ecampus, and open education resources universitas (oeru), a requirement that put pressure on the e-learning designers. before the developers could build activities and assessments, the smes needed to provide detailed information such as the name of the activity, module and topic names, learning outcomes or learning objectives, a brief description of the activity, a set of instructions (what to do now, what to do next), relevant links to resources, and so on. the main challenge faced by the developers with regard to this process was receiving incomplete activity and assessment development forms. in many instances the developers had to wait until they received enough details to be able to develop the course content and other components during sprints. in addition, when smes wanted to reuse some of the existing materials, the developers had to spend a lot of time checking their relevance, quality, and permission to use (e.g., images subject to creative commons licences). communication because multiple teams were working together to redesign and redevelop courses, google drive was used as a common workspace. developers therefore had to guarantee standard file names and a clear folder structure in google drive so that everyone could collaborate without getting confused and (perhaps) frustrated. although the developers were keeping track of all the changes that were being made to files and folders in google drive, sometimes people dropped files in the wrong place, duplicated files, and deleted files accidentally. such instances affected and slowed down the communication process. otago polytechnic has campus branches in three different locations—dunedin, cromwell, and auckland. organising sprint and review meetings with staff at different branches was challenging at times. generally, there were three sprints (each sprint was 3 to 5 days) scheduled to build and assemble two blended learning courses. in some instances (when an e-learning designer transferred to another department at op, and when a developer went on leave), different developers had to work on different sprints in the same course. the main challenge in this situation was that it took a while for the developers to get to know what had been done and what needed to be done, and then start building. also, if a developer was not able to attend a daily scrum meeting, the lead developer then had to explain what needed to be done, and some essential details could be lost in translation, transferring information, and updates. capabilities and attitudes the smes generally had a positive attitude towards the d4ls process of centralised leadership and support for the redesign and redevelopment of programmes. however, some smes were resistant to change and some were technologically challenged when it came to working collectively in google drive. however, it was a learning experience for them to see the benefits of google drive when several parties were involved in a project. the smes also needed support to build their capability in learning design and instructional design. in terms of the developers’ journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 63 capability building, whenever a new developer joined the op online team, the members of the team were able to conduct relevant training sessions to bring the new developer up to speed. to address some of the issues mentioned above, op proactively hired additional developers for the d4ls initiative in 2015 and 2016. in addition, to ease the e-learning designers’ workload, some development work has been given to external contractors. when an external contractor works with a sme, an op online e-learning designer liaises to ensure the redesign and redevelopment processes remain interactive. furthermore, to support all the programme teams efficiently, op online developed and introduced a development support site which contains resources and links to all the design documents and staff training courses. as well as the programme and course design and development workshops, opportunities and support have been developed to build sme capability in learning design, learning and teaching, assessments, and digital literacy. the learning design toolkit was developed as an interactive and dynamic support system for staff to learn and upskill on components and stages of the curriculum design process. the capability building suite was developed to provide support on course alignment, learning outcomes, assessment, experiential learning, inclusive learning, reflective teaching, and learning in groups. staff could also access support in the form of online, self-paced training courses that were built specifically for d4ls, and they could schedule individual consultations on teaching approaches and other aspects of pedagogy. moodle-based online support courses include teaching a blended course, moodle essentials, editing a moodle course, managing a programme page, end of semester process, examples of resources for blended courses, intro to the blended template, and course editor agreement. most of these workshops and professional development opportunities are offered by the staff capability team, the op online team, and the learning and teaching team. recommendations from an e-learning designer’s perspective my first-hand experience as an e-learning designer in the d4ls initiative has given me the opportunity to reflect on the challenges encountered during the development process. the following recommendations can mitigate some of the challenges described in the previous section. • have a back-up e-learning designer/developer to work with the lead developer in each programme, so that if the lead developer is unavailable, the back-up developer can take over the responsibilities. • have the same developers working on the same programme sprints. • include developers in sprint meetings so that ideas and plans don’t get lost in translation. • agree on sme turnover time during sprints and have a set schedule for sprint meetings. • demonstrate how to use collaborative online spaces (such as google drive) effectively from the beginning of the project. • demonstrate how to fill in development forms with all the details required for course and activity development. • set realistic expectations of the products developed in the given time frame at the beginning of the process, and communicate these to the smes and other parties involved. in spite of the challenges encountered in the development phase of the project, the redeveloped courses were developed on time and met the op quality standards. the e-learning designers’ hope is that the courses will be well received by students and smes in the evaluation phase. (at the time of writing this article in 2015 and early 2016, the evaluation process was scheduled to start in the second semester of 2016.) gedera, d. s. p. 64 as tertiary institutions come under increasing pressure to develop quality online learning teaching and learning resources in support of effective blended and online learning initiatives, it is essential that they have a better understanding of more sustainable approaches to support staff and course development efforts. by investigating the opportunities and challenges offered through a collaborative and agile approach—including ways to address the challenges in one institution in new zealand—this study has provided insight into this process from an e-learning designer’s perspective. it is hoped that this research will stimulate further research and discussion in this important area, particularly by other practitioners and researchers in similar contexts and/or undertaking similar institutional initiatives. references apmg international. (2011). agile project management: white paper. retrieved from https://www.dsdm.org/resources/white-papers/agile-project-management-white-paper caplan, d. (2004). the development of online courses. in t. anderson & f. elloumi (eds.), theory and practice of online learning. athabasca, alberta, canada: athabasca university press. caulfield, j. (2011). how to design and teach a hybrid course: achieving student-centered learning through blended classroom, online, and experiential activities (1st ed.). sterling, va: stylus. chao, t., saj, t., & hamilton, d. (2010). using collaborative course development to achieve online course quality standards. the international review of research in open and distributed learning, 11(3), 106–126. crews, t. b., wilkinson, k., & neill, j. k. (2015). principles for good practice in undergraduate education: effective online course design to assist students’ success. journal of online learning and teaching, 11(1), 87. dziuban, c., moskal, p., & hartman, j. (2005). higher education, blended learning and the generations: knowledge is power—no more. in j. bourne & j. c. moore (eds.), elements of quality online education: engaging communities. needham, ma: sloan center for online education. gedera, d. s. p. (2014). mediational engagement in e-learning: an activity theory analysis (unpublished doctoral thesis). university of waikato, hamilton, new zealand. hixon, e. (2008). team-based online course development: a case study of collaboration models. online journal of distance learning administration. 11(4). retrieved from http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/winter114/hixon114.pdf holtslander, l. f., racine, l., furniss, s., burles, m., & turner, h. (2012). developing and piloting an online graduate nursing course focused on experiential learning of qualitative research methods. journal of nursing education, 51(6), 345–348. doi:10.3928/0148483420120427-03 ministry of education. (2015). priority 1: delivering skills for industry. retrieved from http://www.education.govt.nz/further-education/policies-and-strategies/tertiary-educationstrategy/new-collapsible-item-4/ mutch, c. (2005). doing educational research: a practitioner’s guide to getting started. wellington, new zealand: nzcer. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 65 otago polytechnic. (2014). designing for learner success: a sustainable model of educational delivery for otago polytechnic. retrieved from http://process.op.ac.nz/assets/uploads/designing-for-learner-success-full-paper-sp-v2-30oct-2014.pdf otago polytechnic. (2015). strategic directions 2015–2017. retrieved from https://www.op.ac.nz/assets/our-publications/otago-polytechnic-strategic-directions-20152017.pdf puzziferro, m., & shelton, k. (2008). a model for developing high-quality online courses: integrating a systems approach with learning theory. journal of asynchronous learning networks, 12(3), 119–136. stavredes, t., & herder, t. (2014). a guide to online course design: strategies for student success (1st ed.). san francisco, ca: jossey-bass. schwaber, k., & sutherland, j. (2014). the scrum guide. retrieved from http://www.scrumguides.org/docs/scrumguide/v1/scrum-guide-us.pdf vai, m., & sosulski, k. (2011). essentials of online course design: a standards-based guide (1st ed.). doi:10.4324/9780203838310 xu, h., & morris, l. v. (2007). collaborative course development for online courses. innovative higher education 32(1), 35–47. doi:10.1007/s10755-006-9033-5 biographical note dilani gedera dgedera@waikato.ac.nz at the time of writing this article, dilani was an online developer for op online. she is now an e-learning designer at the centre for tertiary teaching and learning (cettl), university of waikato, new zealand. her research interests and areas of expertise include e-learning, educational technologies, learning design, instructional design, technological pedagogical content knowledge (tpck), and learner engagement. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. gedera, d. s. p. (2016). designing for learner success (d4ls) at otago polytechnic: from an e-learning designer’s perspective. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2), [55–65]. microsoft word nichols 1.docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 19 a comparison of two online learning systems mark nichols, open polytechnic of new zealand abstract open polytechnic is a single-mode provider of distance education with a rich history of print-based provision. strategically, the institution is rapidly adopting an online-only approach, with some exceptions for programmes that require student contact. a recent and internal review of moodle, the open polytechnic’s learning management system (lms) indicated concern about the likely student experience for an online-only format, so an internal system called iqualify was developed. iqualify was developed specifically from a user-experience (ux) perspective to optimise the online-only learning experience. as part of the drive towards online-only education, open polytechnic courses are being purposefully redeveloped for iqualify, moving away from print-and textbook-based materials, and towards textbook-independent and online-only study. this article uses a ux perspective to compare student outcomes, high-level course evaluations, and student perceptions of the two approaches—moodle, with print and textbook; and iqualify online-only. findings indicate that while students tend to prefer printed materials, actual withdrawal and pass rates are not affected by an online-only approach. respondents also indicated a significant preference for the new iqualify platform over moodle, and openness to online-only study. keywords: distance education; iqualify; lms evaluation; moodle; online education; open polytechnic; student preferences; user experience; ux background open polytechnic is the largest distance learning provider in new zealand. each year it provides more than 30,000 adult learners with the opportunity to study for formal qualifications. since being established as the technical correspondence school in 1946, the institution has practised an industrialised approach1 (peters, 2007) to course development and student teaching. open polytechnic now offers a suite of degree programmes alongside its more traditional certificates and diplomas; all of these course materials are developed by a team of specialists and taught by qualified subject matter experts. open polytechnic could be defined as a resource-based, rather than lecture-based, institution (seelig & nichols, in press). the programmes offered by open polytechnic lead to a variety of qualifications in business, social work, early childhood education, library studies, architectural technology, foundation studies, and other discipline areas. open polytechnic was an early adopter of online education. it implemented the moodle learning management system (lms) in the mid-2000s, and received a mellon award in 2007 in recognition of its enthusiastic contribution to moodle’s development. but until recently, moodle predominantly served to complement printed resources. although moodle added a flavour of social constructivism to otherwise independent learning resources by encouraging students to 1 an industrialised approach is characterised by a division of labour and centrally coordinated activity. nichols, m. 20 participate in online forums, the actual online course materials were usually in the form of pdf versions of printed materials that were previously made available to students. with moodle in place, open polytechnic could move toward online assignment submission and marking, and took its first forays into developing courses specifically for online-only delivery. as outlined in seelig & nichols (in press), corbeil and corbeil suggest that the 1990s might be described as “the era of the learning management system” (2015, sec. 4, para. 1), and popular learning management systems developed before the new millennium continue to dominate online learning. although these systems have continued to evolve, they suffer from three distinct problems from the perspective of online learning systems. these systems: • tend to be based on older technologies and approaches • assume that the teacher is solely responsible for the learning experience, and is using a lecture-based model • assume that online learning should involve formal online collaboration and communication. as open polytechnic deepened its understanding of the online learning activities that would best suit its needs as a distance education provider reflecting an industrialised approach, it became clear that a traditional lms was unsuitable because these systems were not developing in ways that enhance a genuine, online-only student experience. subsequently, following an investigation of lms alternatives in late 2013, open polytechnic began to explore bespoke possibilities, and development of iqualify began in 2014. rather than seeking to emulate an lms, iqualify began from the paradigm of creating a learning experience platform. the starting point of development was the user experience (ux) of the online student. a user experience includes “the individual’s entire interaction with the thing, as well as the thoughts, feelings, and perceptions that result from that interaction” (tullis & albert, 2013, sec. 1.1, para.4). the ux approach considered how students use contemporary internet-based applications and on-screen resources. online services such as facebook, the on-screen functions of such applications as kindle reader, and device independence, provided examples of how a user’s experience with online materials might be enhanced. the ux aspects of the iqualify system include providing point-of-interest discussion tools rather than requiring students to go to a forum tool and then return; note-taking that is facilitated in the online system; removing all clutter to provide a clean on-screen page of content; out-of-the-way navigation that can be activated when required; and optimising the synchronisation of student place and presentation across devices. a suite of interactive, formative activity options is also available, as is a series of analytics data. figure 1 shows the indications of student progress in iqualify. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 21 figure 1 my courses page in iqualify, showing progress indicators © open polytechnic the study of online learning from a ux perspective is overdue. previous studies have investigated lmss “in terms of usability, accessibility, instructions for use, navigational facilities, and content” (byrne & bates, 2009, p. 131), but comparisons across systems in literature are yet to reflect a ux perspective (zaharias & mehelenbacher, 2012). in education, the overall ux of the student is a combination of the elements of technology, pedagogy, and the actual learning that takes place. all three are interdependent. the student’s ux consists of both a different online experience as the result of a new platform, and a new approach toward courseware development. evaluative lms studies also tend to consider the lms from the perspective of supporting on-campus students (gavira & omoteso, 2013; volery & lord, 2000). in developing and adopting iqualify as its platform for the online student experience, open polytechnic made a deliberate decision to develop online-only courses and to extend its resourcebased approach. students are not provided with any print materials (although an option for providing printed readings – not materials written for iqualify pages – is being developed). nor are students required to purchase a set text. this decision to go online-only for course development was deliberate, and represented a further institutional departure from using moodle for online learning. materials are purposefully prepared to leverage the possibilities of a digitally enriched on-screen experience. there are several reasons for discouraging print. the first is that not having a print option means open polytechnic is free to develop enriched online materials that use embedded media and activities. if students get print copy, they tend to not benefit from these activities. online study also enables students to benefit from writing and engaging with social notes. further, when students engage with online materials, they generate important and detailed analytics data that are then used to improve student support and the online course materials. students can print each nichols, m. 22 online page but there is no easy way to aggregate pages for printing. figure 2 shows a text-only iqualify page of learning materials. figure 2 an iqualify page (without activities or embedded media) © open polytechnic the course design approach used for iqualify consists of revising print materials so they are not aligned to a set text and are optimised for online-only learning. video clips, engagement activities and pdf readings are embedded in materials written for on-screen reading. most modules also have a final self-marking quiz to help students to consolidate their learning. the iqualify platform was developed using an agile architecture (schwaber & beedle, 2001; stellman & greene, 2013). this means that new features are added frequently, and a minimal viable product forms the criteria for feature implementation. in the first trimester of 2015, iqualify courses were available only via a browser, and were not available offline. further, full integration with open polytechnic systems was incomplete. this meant that, for example, students had to log into the iqualify platform as well as their own online open polytechnic page. because it was designed to provide an intuitive experience, students were not given any orientation. open polytechnic opened iqualify to students in the first trimester of 2015. in the latter half of 2014, six bachelor of business courses were especially adapted to be set-text-free and onlineonly through the iqualify platform. the course subjects included accounting, business communication, business computing, ethics, financial management, and leadership. four were journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 23 first-year degree courses, with the balance being second-year degree courses. open polytechnic therefore used two different online platforms to deliver bachelor of business courses, though all of those designed for iqualify were offered only in the new system. a thorough and multi-faceted comparison and evaluation was conducted. the objectives of the exercise were to provide evidence of the effectiveness of the online-only approach, the efficacy of iqualify as an online learning experience platform, and the student perception of an onlineonly learning approach. comparison and evaluation method a multi-dimensional approach was applied for the purposes of comparison. of interest to the polytechnic were the student enrolment behaviour profile and outcomes (explained below), course evaluations, and direct student perceptions of moodle and iqualify from a ux perspective. the student enrolment behaviour profile considers course withdrawal and completion through 2014, when the courses were offered only in moodle, and 2015 when the online-only, textbookindependent versions of the courses were offered only in iqualify. with one exception, all of the courses under consideration were offered to students in the first trimester of both 2014 and 2015 (the exception, offered only in the latter part of 2014, is indicated in the findings). the purpose of comparing 2014 and 2015 student enrolment behaviour was to determine whether removing set texts and moving to an online-only course significantly affected student behaviour. in particular, withdrawal behaviour might demonstrate a negative student response to an online-only study environment, and fewer students succeeding could indicate a flawed design. course evaluations for 2014 and 2015 were also compared. open polytechnic uses an online survey in two parts for course evaluations. initially, students were asked for their overall impression of the course, which they scored on a scale from 1 to 5. they were then given the option of committing to a further set of questions that provided more detail of their experiences. the purpose of the comparison was to determine whether the iqualify experience significantly shifted students’ overall appreciation of the course. finally, level 5 (first-year-degree equivalent) business students who had enrolled for the first trimester of 2015 were invited to participate in an online survey. the population for this survey excluded those students who enrolled in the two level 6 (second-year-degree equivalent) courses added to the iqualify system. the survey was available in survey monkey,2 and students were invited to participate by email in a 1-week timeframe. two reminders were sent. three discrete groups were invited to participate in the survey: 1. students using only iqualify. the population of this group was 38, of whom 13 responded (a 34% response rate). 2. students using iqualify and moodle at the same time. the population of this group was 33, of whom 5 responded (a 15% response rate). 3. students using iqualify who have previously studied using moodle. the population of this group was 188, of whom 78 responded (a 41.5% response rate). this analysis focuses solely on groups 1 and 3. the response rate of group 2 was regarded as being too small to enable any meaningful analysis. 2 http://www.surveymonkey.com nichols, m. 24 the survey instrument combined measures from several studies (byrne & bates, 2009; gavira & omoteso, 2013; park, 2014; tullis & albert, 2013, focusing on the ux and online learning experience during students’ study (see the appendix to this paper). the survey asked students to rate a series of factors using a standard likert scale of 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent). the overall scales of usability, accessibility, instructions for use, navigational facilities, and content were measured, in addition to an overall rating. group 1 respondents were asked to rate only iqualify, while respondents from groups 2 and 3 were asked to rate both iqualify and moodle. the online survey also invited students to make open-ended comments relating to their perceptions of each system, and they had the opportunity to participate in a telephone interview. seven students, all from group 3, were prepared to be interviewed. the purpose of the interview was to explore the student experience of both systems in more detail. it is important to note that, while “content” is a specific scale of the instrument, respondents are likely to have considered course materials across most measures. separating the technology from how materials are made available is not an objective of this study. rather, findings must be understood in the context of a new online learning platform that also happens to make a new form of online course available to students. findings findings from each of the comparison and evaluation exercises follow. comparison of student enrolment behaviour and outcomes enrolment and completion data for each course were checked to see whether adopting iqualify and online-only delivery influenced student withdrawals and success. this data is based on the student population of those enrolled in the courses of interest in 2014 and 2015. table 1 summarises the data for the first trimesters of 2014 and 2015 with the exception of course 6, which was not offered in the first trimester of 2014 (the second trimester of 2014 is used as a comparison instead). the only changes between the 2014 and 2015 course offerings were the redevelopment of courses for the iqualify system, and the iqualify experience. table 1 student participation behaviour in moodle and iqualify courses, 2014 and 2015 withdrawn (total)1 not successful successful 2014 2015 2014 2015 2014 2015 χ2 p course 1 59 74 20 30 103 94 3.44 0.179 course 2 0 6 0 2 6 18 2.46 0.292 course 3 14 8 4 0 55 30 2.17 0.338 course 4 3 7 4 9 10 18 0.16 0.923 course 5 14 21 6 3 54 59 2.11 0.348 course 6 9 3 12 16 59 56 3.49 0.174 1 this percentage includes students who withdrew before the refund period; that is, they enrolled but withdrew within 4 weeks of the start of the course. chi-square analysis was applied to each course to test for significant differences between the 2014 and 2015 course offerings. no significant differences were found for any course between 2014 and 2015, at p < 0.05. it appears that adopting iqualify has not made any significant journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 25 difference to student withdrawal patterns or success, despite the deliberate shift to an online-only study paradigm with no print resources provided. comparison of course evaluations open polytechnic provides an online interface for students to provide course feedback after they complete each trimester. the evaluation survey begins with a request for students to provide an overall rating for their course from 1 (very poor) to 5 (excellent), before giving students the option to proceed to more detailed questions. table 2 shows the mean overall ratings by course. table 2 overall student evaluations for moodle and iqualify courses, 2014 to 2015 mean (s.d.) overall rating number of responses 2014 2015 2014 2015 course 1 4.2 (0.75) 4.2 (0.86) 54 26 course 2 4.1 (0.5) 4.5 (0.58) 4 4 course 3 4.3 (0.91) 3.5 (1.04) 36 11 course 4 4.1 (0.69) 4.4 (1.00) 7 3 course 5 4.2 (0.86) 4.2 (0.85) 67 34 course 6 3.2 (0.94) 3.4 (1.10) 47 20 the mean overall rating for each course was similar but slightly higher in the second year, with the exception of course 3, for which the rating dropped. a mann-whitney u-test confirms that the results for 2014 and 2015 are not significantly different, at p <= 0.05. there is no significant difference through 2014 and 2015, even with the course 3 outlier included. course 3 received several evaluative comments that related to the quality of course video clips, a desire for more worked examples, and requests for printed notes. the desire for printed notes was not unique to course 3; however, the technical nature of the course may have accentuated the feedback. student comments across all courses indicated a polarisation of preference for printed materials. some students (n=10) expressed concern that materials could not be downloaded or easily printed for revision; others commented positively about the flexibility that online-only and device-synchronised material provided (n=5). however, most student comments did not mention the paper or online format in particular. comparison of student ux the student experience of iqualify consisted of an evaluation survey based on ux characteristics and follow-up interviews. two user groups—1 and 3—returned sufficient data for analysis. group 1 comprised level 5 students who used iqualify but had not used moodle. typically these students were new to open polytechnic. the online survey for group 1 (n=13) provided the results shown in table 3. nichols, m. 26 table 3 ux survey results for iqualify-only students (group 1) mean (iqualify) standard dev (iqualify) mode (iqualify) scale usability 3.53 0.98 4 accessibility 3.82 1.01 4 instructions for use 3.41 1.05 4 navigational facilities 3.88 0.96 4 content 3.61 0.9 4 overall 3.64 1.03 4 respondents to the online survey in group 1 commented on several improvements that would improve the iqualify system. most comments related to wanting offline access, single sign-on, email notification of changes, and a search function. respondents also commented that portability, contents (navigation), access, and peer engagement were useful features, as was the fact that iqualify “retained where you left off”. group 3 respondents were level 5 students who used iqualify in the first trimester of 2015 and had previously used moodle. this group was asked to comparatively rank iqualify and moodle using the survey instrument. table 4 shows the results for group 3 (n=78). table 4 ux survey results comparing students with moodle and iqualify experience (group 3) mean standard dev mode χ2 scale moodle iqualify moodle iqualify moodle iqualify p usability 3.54 3.76 1.06 1.11 4 4 0.036 accessibility 4.15 4.03 0.97 1.14 5 5 0.3639 instructions for use 3.81 3.93 0.99 1.14 4 5 0.328 navigational facilities 3.52 4.02 1.07 1.14 4 5 3.6e-06 content 3.58 3.85 1.02 1.08 4 4 0.007 overall 3.55 3.87 1.01 1.16 4 4 0.0146 respondents in group 3 rated iqualify more favourably than those in group 1—this may have been because group 3 was asked to compare two systems. significant differences in favour of iqualify over moodle are apparent in the usability, navigational facilities, and content scales. overall, iqualify was perceived to be significantly better than moodle, at p < 0.05. respondent comments from group 3 provided additional insight into perceptions across the two systems. fifteen of the 61 respondents who provided written feedback commented on the need for printed materials or pdf versions of all courseware. most of these respondents indicated a preference for the latter. comments such as “i did not like the fact that pdf copies of the learning material were not available, these are handy to have when travelling”; “i would rather have hard copy records as well”; and “[i would like the] ability to download notes as i have limited internet access” were typical. in contrast, several group 3 respondents expressed appreciation for the print-free format. statements such as “everything is online [so there are] no papers to wor[ry] about”; “all information i needed was online (no textbooks)”; and “not wasting trees to print manuals was pretty cool . . . it is a step in the right direction as far as journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 27 paperless learning is concerned” were all clear endorsements of the online-only approach. the online-only format was also appreciated by the respondent who remarked “i’m able to study on the bus to and from work, making use of time otherwise wasted . . . i really appreciate being able to study on my tablet, rather than lumping around textbooks and modules”. videos and engagement exercises were also identified as contributing to the iqualify experience. most student comments expressing a preference of one system over the other (n=21) preferred iqualify (n=17), with statements such as “use iqualify more”; “i wouldn’t change anything but i preferred iqualify”; and “i enjoy using iqualify as it is” being representative. one student commented that moodle was “a very old, very unuser [sic] friendly system that needs replacing entirely”. as in group 1, many group 3 respondents commented on the need for an additional log-in step to access their iqualify courses, and the benefits of email notification to updates. only one respondent indicated a preference for moodle, commenting that using iqualify “was such a frustrating process. i prefer [m]oodle and would try to avoid papers that [use iqualify] . . . it takes [a lot] of getting used to”. one stated that “[i] haven[’]t enjoyed either system”. comments from group 3 respondents were similar to those from group 1 in that they were especially appreciative of iqualify navigation, memory of last page visited, and engagement activities. the layout of materials in iqualify also attracted comment, with one respondent simply remarking that “it is better than [m]oodle”. other appreciative comments related to iqualify’s ease of use, progress tracker, and attractive layout. student interviews seven respondents from group 3 were interviewed to get first-hand accounts of using moodle and iqualify. an important context for all student responses is their appreciation of flexible access to study. most respondents studied early in the morning or late at night, and between work and family commitments. the design of iqualify courses recognises such study habits, though not all appreciated the page set-up used by iqualify (respondent 7’s comments on speed reading, and the need for those who prefer hard copy to print multiple pages, are mentioned below). two respondents indicated that their desktop or laptop computer was not the ideal tool for their study, but others appreciated the flexibility of study through their mobile devices. of the seven interviewees, four mentioned the lack of a print option. respondents had a definite preference for printed readings (in the form of articles), though the materials written directly into iqualify were also mentioned. respondent 1’s comments are representative: . . . my actual preference is moodle because you can print out modules . . . i don’t actually like sitting down at a computer. i just print off the modules. i read the module in my own time. with iqualify you can only print page by page, the page you are currently on, which is a bit of an annoyance. (respondent 1) this same respondent’s preferred means of engaging with online materials is to “print [the material] out, i’ll take away, read it, if there’s something i need to do online, i’ll log on, do what i need to do online, get off-line, go back to my printed materials”. respondent 7 added that it was more difficult to speed read on the screen. respondent 1 did close with an indication of changed behaviour: if i had the choice i’d go for moodle for that printing, and that’s my biggest thing. i found it an annoyance when iqualify came out and i couldn’t print out chapters, but i’m used to it now as i’m on another course with iqualify and i know what to expect . . . i just have to change the way i learn i guess . . . i guess i’m pretty old school. (respondent 1) nichols, m. 28 the perception of being ‘old school’ was also mentioned by respondent 4, who remarked that “sometimes i just wish this was on paper”. paper was preferred by respondent 7 because paper provided the opportunity to “flick and find [information] a lot quicker”. respondent 7 added “it probably is an age related thing as well, i’m more comfortable with flicking through a book, backwards and forwards”. respondent 6 was an exception, stating that “i preferred the online version rather than the printed version”. having no way to highlight text was also raised as a technical issue with iqualify materials, though respondent 6 mentioned “i typed or cut and pasted things, that made it easier . . . pieces of text or quotes, or whatever”. poor internet connectivity also affected three respondents, though all were philosophical about it. respondent 1 stated that “there are times when i might not have a good connection or i’m at work, i might not be at home, i don’t have an internet connection . . . but when you’re on it, and you’ve got a good connection, it’s great”. another respondent remarked that “i can remember there was [sic] some technical difficulties, which was obviously because maybe it was in its early stages”. all respondents remarked positively on the aesthetics of iqualify and the design of the courses they encountered. respondent 1 commented that they preferred the “look and feel” of iqualify, though overall preference was for a combination of both that included access to printed materials. iqualify’s modular design of courseware, percentage of study completed, and ‘wrapup’ quizzes at the end of modules were particularly popular. respondents indicated that email notifications for new discussion contributions, an index of readings, and a search feature would be useful. comments about course design included appreciation of the use of video (with some exceptions relating to specific use of third-party clips), but one respondent indicated videos were an inefficient way to learn. three respondents also reflected on the use of forums in iqualify. respondent 5 said that “i find the whole student online forums a bit frustrating really . . . ’cause i think there’s a lot of rubbish on them [laughs]. . .i don’t have much confidence when it comes to contributing my own stuff”. respondent 7 added that “i didn’t find screeds and screeds of pages of discussion helpful, because everyone had different ideas and that became confusing because you couldn’t actually brainstorm and feedback straight away”. respondent 6 said: . . . at first the lecturer actually summarised [student views], which i thought was really useful. but as time went on i think that got less and less which meant you sort of had to plough through everybody’s different experiences and different views which could become a little bit tedious. and also repetitive, because people often had the same ideas. but yeah, i did like that and the fact that everyone was contributing. (respondent 6) overall, all respondents were satisfied with their online learning experience with open polytechnic through iqualify. a statement from respondent 5 is representative: i’ve really liked it and i’m probably in the age group where we find technology a little bit challenging sometimes. so i was a bit surprised really because there was not much of a warning that it was going to be different. but, i have to say, generally speaking, i really enjoyed it. (respondent 5) respondent 5 also appreciated that iqualify gave them more confidence in using technology, an implicit benefit associated with 21st century literacies. discussion this study provides evidence that a well-designed, online-only study experience can be equivalent in performance, and better by way of ux, than courses that combine print materials, set texts, and online forums. the findings provide evidence to support an online-only, iqualifyjournal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 29 based education from the perspective of the student ux compared with moodle, though with some reservations regarding access to printed materials. student enrolment behaviour and outcomes, and course evaluations, remained similar for both systems. however, students reported a better ux when studying with the iqualify platform. the two ux factors for which iqualify was not perceived to be significantly better than moodle—accessibility and instructions for use—need some comment. single sign-on (sso) is under development for the open polytechnic implementation of iqualify, and this will address most of the student comments related to accessing the iqualify system. instructions for use are also being considered, particularly as some students reported difficulty in making the transition to online-only study. an overview of iqualify’s features, including device synchronisation, strategies for on-screen reading, and advice for note taking, will probably give iqualify learners more confidence in their use of the platform. the findings indicate that students are willing to make, and are capable of making, a transition to an online-only study environment. although some students expressed a strong preference for print, others appreciated the benefits of portability and ready access provided by online materials. student enrolment behaviour and outcomes findings demonstrate that the shift to an online-only experience did not result in a significant increase of student withdrawals or failure. it seems that, while many students might prefer printed materials, having them is not necessary for academic success, and students perceive the shift towards online-only education to be a progressive one. students reported their own strategies for printing materials when they felt print was required. it is anticipated that the development of an offline app version of iqualify, which will enable a download of all course materials onto a mobile device that will synchronise when online access is available, will be well received. this will transform iqualify from an online-only experience to an on-screen-only experience. it is also clear that the ux of iqualify as a platform requires consideration alongside the student experience with the course materials. it is not sufficient to consider an online system solely on the basis of its features, because these cannot be fully separated from the design of the online courseware. the development of iqualify assumes a particular approach to course development, whereby course designers embed media and engagement activities in the learning materials, resulting in an integrated online study experience. importantly for the findings, this indicates that group 3 respondents were, effectively, comparing textbook-assisted print materials and a complementary moodle experience, with an online-only and enhanced iqualify experience. although respondents to the survey were asked to compare their user experience of the online systems, their evaluations combined the features of the actual system and the course dynamics. evaluation of any online platform should consider learning materials alongside actual platform features as part of the overall ux. comparing the same online-only and enhanced learning materials across iqualify and moodle was beyond the scope of this evaluation. however, the online experience that specific features of iqualify as a platform was designed to provide gave open polytechnic confidence to develop online-only courses. iqualify is still in the early stages of development, and its analytics tools are not yet fully matured. once in place, analytics data will provide an evidence base of student engagement and progress through materials (de freitas et al., 2015; ferguson et al., 2014). they will also enrich student support services and courseware development. tutors can be alerted to students who could benefit from a motivating phone call; students who have not logged in across a certain timeframe can be automatically contacted; and engagement activities can be checked to see whether students are providing the sorts of responses that were anticipated, or if the activities are being used at all. analytics will provide an evidence base of student engagement and effectiveness of materials. it is anticipated that these developments will further enrich the student experience and lead to stronger student outcomes. nichols, m. 30 because iqualify was developed in-house using an agile project management approach, it will be possible to enrich the platform with new and improved features while it is being used. evaluations and comparisons such as this provide key mechanisms for further enhancing the iqualify system. conclusion a ux comparison of iqualify and moodle—the former featuring an online-only and textbookindependent course design—demonstrates a significantly better ux across key criteria (usability, navigational facilities, content and overall) in favour of iqualify. although student enrolment behaviour and outcomes and overall course satisfaction remain comparable, improvement in the usability, navigational facilities, and content factors of the user experience show that open polytechnic’s move to a new online learning platform has made a positive difference for students. a ux-based approach to online platform comparison has demonstrated an effective means of investigating student perspectives of online learning. a ux approach transcends the comparison of features and course evaluations, both of which determine how students engage with online learning. further studies investigating the user experience are likely to add considerably to effective online education practice. finally, it is clear that any ux comparison across different online learning platforms must include consideration of learning materials. this study does not compare the same course materials across moodle and iqualify. results show that iqualify provides an improved ux for students although it is not possible, from the data, to determine the contribution made by specially prepared courseware. references byrne, s., & bates, j. 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(2012). exploring user experience (ux) in virtual learning environments. international journal of human-computer studies, 70(7), 475–477. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2012.05.001 biographical note mark nichols mark.nichols@open.ac.uk at the time of writing this article dr mark nichols was executive director of education design services at open polytechnic. in february 2016 he began work as director, technology enhanced learning with the open university, united kingdom. nichols, m. (2016). a comparison of two online learning systems. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1), [19–32]. nichols, m. 32 appendix: user experience rating factors usability • the online system was enjoyable to use. • the online system complemented the course materials. • the online system worked in the way i would have expected it to. accessibility • i was able to access my learning when i needed to. • the online system was convenient to log in to. instructions for use • it was clear how to use the online system. • i think i used the online system well. navigational facilities • the online system was easy to work with. • in the online system it was easy to pick up again from where i left off. • i could easily find my way around the online system. content • the structure of materials in the system added to my learning. • the online system itself helped me to achieve my learning goals. • the learning materials in the system contained useful activities. overall • overall, how would you rate your learning experience through the online system? this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. microsoft word halupa.docx halupa, c. m. 32 the changing roles of online deans and department heads in small private universities colleen m. halupa, east texas baptist university and a. t. still university abstract this paper provides an overview of best practices and challenges for deans and department heads of online programmes in the ever-changing world of higher education. it concentrates on the challenges for small private universities and tertiary education institutions in the united states, australia, and new zealand. department heads must consider new roles and innovate constantly to offset the impact of global competition in online and distance learning. these changing roles include innovation in managing programme enrolment, retention, marketing, and the creation of innovative offerings to meet student needs to prevent obsolescence. other topics discussed include potential alternate sources of revenue, partnerships, and how service and research can lead to new opportunities for small tertiary providers. keywords: tertiary education; higher education; roles of deans; roles of department heads (programme chair); retention; attrition; small universities; private universities; private training establishments introduction the university systems adopted by the united states, australia, and new zealand were all originally based on the philosophy of the british university. although the philosophies of tertiary education in these countries have evolved separately they remain similar, and these countries are now all facing similar challenges. in the united states, this is a time unlike any other in the history of formal college and university structures. most large public universities and renowned private universities with large endowments are experiencing stable or increased enrolment. many small, independent, private, tuition-based, and non-profit universities—with enrolments of fewer than 5,000 students and without large endowments—are struggling to recruit students. prior to the proliferation of online learning, many small universities increased their enrolments by offering evening and weekend programmes for non-traditional learners. now student choice is no longer limited by geography and choices are almost infinite. according to allen and seaman (2015), 91.4% of u.s. college and university presidents noted that online learning was critical to their long-term institutional strategy. in the united states over 70% of colleges and universities have online education offerings, and 83.6% of smaller universities (called private training establishments in australia and new zealand) with 1000–4999 students have online courses. almost 21 million students undertook online courses in the united states in 2012–2013. in australia there are three designated private universities: bond (6000 students); university of notre dame, australia (11,000 students); and torrens university (fewer than 500 students) (australian education network, 2016). however, the differences between public and private journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 33 education in australia are “unstable, ambiguous, and unclear” according to ryan (as cited in group of eight australia, 2014, p. 4). in 2014, there were 132 providers of post-secondary education in australia. these included faith-based educational institutions which are owned by churches and serve smaller numbers of students (group of eight, 2014). according to the council of higher education, about 10% of australian students attend private institutions and, in 2015, there were more than 160 private education providers. there are over 500 private tertiary educational institutions in new zealand; most have low numbers of student enrolments (new zealand qualifications authority, 2016). small private tertiary institutions in new zealand and australia, and small private universities in the united states, have difficulty competing with larger institutions because they have limited marketing money and limited numbers of staff. in addition, their tuition fees are often much higher than those of public universities. these small tertiary institutions also have to compete, in their geographic market area, with large for-profit and non-profit universities that spend a great deal of money on marketing to the public. this has led to a change in the role of online department heads (who may also direct residential campus programmes) at small independent universities. in the past, the dean or department head’s role was primarily academic in nature. in these smaller universities, their role has expanded from primarily academic and faculty supervisory roles to include administrative functions such as recruiting, marketing, advising, enrolment, and student retention. many universities are now offering online courses to meet student demand and to make up the difference from declining residential campus revenues. however, competition in online programmes is global. small universities must find ways to stand out from the crowd. department heads and deans can play an important role in these efforts to promote their online programmes. challenges serving as a department head or dean can be a time-consuming and challenging job—even in an academic and supervisory sense. department heads may be unprepared to take on the additional roles that are required of them in modern higher education, particularly in terms of online education responsibilities. these changing roles are diverse. individuals who agree to act as department heads or deans may have expected their job to be the same as it has been for decades; however, this is no longer the case (wixom et al., 2014). faculty need to be able to make an educated decision when deciding whether to accept a position, and cannot rely on outdated notions of the role. furthermore, existing department heads and deans would benefit from guidance about what the new role entails. financial challenges lyken-segosebe and shepherd (2013) note the financial health of small universities is at risk— primarily due to falling enrolments. in 2012, moody’s tuition survey (moody’s investors services, 2012) reported that enrolments are decreasing at small u.s., primarily regional, universities and colleges that are tuition-dependent with small endowments. this decrease in enrolments is exacerbated by rapidly increasing capital expenditure for facilities and the associated operating expenses. in 2009, martin and samels (2009) compiled the following list of at-risk indicators for small colleges and universities: • high tuition discount rate (35% or more) • tuition dependency (85% or more) • a ratio of less than 1:3 between endowments and operating budgets • enrolment conversion yield of less than 20% halupa, c. m. 34 • no online programmes developed • academic governance and curriculum development systems require more than 1 year to approve a degree programme. clayton christensen, a business professor at harvard university, predicted that almost 2000 of the 4000 u.s. institutions may fail within 15 years (mcdonald, 2014). in 2012, the credit rating of 22 colleges, including the well-known private wellesley college, were downgraded (moody’s investors services, 2012). standard and poor downgraded 13 educational institutions including amherst college and tulane university, which are also well-known universities in the united states. net tuition ratings have been flat or falling at 73% of u.s. colleges and universities (selingo, 2013), and every private university is competing for the college-ready graduates whose parents have enough money to assist with paying tuition. however, that student pool is rapidly shrinking and is being replaced by students who have been poorly prepared by the secondary educational system which has focused on standardised testing, first-generation college students, and students for whom english is a second language (esl) (national center for education statistics, 2015). woodhouse (2015) predicted the number of small college and university closures in the united states would triple; 50% of small colleges are facing a 3-year growth rate of 2% or less. in response, universities have been laying off faculty and closing programmes. in australia, college enrolments increased after 2008 when the government removed the cap on the number of government-subsidised students in universities. this change was projected to cost the government au$38.8 billion by 2016 and was it was hoped that there would be an increase in student diversity in universities and in opportunities for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. the government provided an additional au$41.6 million for student support services as part of this initiative, yet no measures were taken to prepare faculty for the needs of a diverse student body (gooch, 2012). in 2015, student dropout rates reached the highest level in over 8 years, with an average attrition rate of almost 15%. the highest attrition rates were for online students, particularly adults (age 22+) and non-traditional students (hare, 2015). faculty challenges in australia, although the need for an educated workforce has increased, the number of faculty has not kept pace with growth in student enrolment numbers. the government’s goal is for 40% of the population to attain a bachelor’s degree. however, the faculty-to-student ratios increased from 13:41 in 1989, to 21:67 in 2007—a change that has the potential to affect quality. a large proportion of academics in australia are nearing retirement age and this is likely to result in a faculty shortage in the near future (coates et al., 2009). this shortage is also projected in the united states, canada, the united kingdom, and new zealand. overall academic salaries in australia are also comparable to canada, the united states, and the united kingdom; salaries for full professors in new zealand are, on average, $30,000 per year lower than those in australia (coates et al., 2009). however, salaries in australia tend to also be higher in other professions and overall, new zealand has a lower cost of living than australia (new zealand now, 2016). in a study of professors’ job satisfaction in 19 countries (coates et al., 2009), australian faculty were at the lower end of countries studied with only the united kingdom and portugal below them. the reasons for low job satisfaction included juggling teaching, administrative duties, and research as well as declining numbers of tenured positions. compared with other countries, australian faculty were the most likely to have considered changing careers and reported more dissatisfaction with management issues in universities. this dissatisfaction has been exacerbated by the corporatisation of higher education. australian faculty perception of institutional support was also among the lowest. australian academics worked the most hours per week (50–60 hours) compared with 39–40 hours per week in other professions in australia (coates et al., 2009). this total does not necessarily include hours spent journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 35 conducting research, grading papers, and working at home. working very long hours leaves academics little time to absorb additional duties. roles and responsibilities in the author’s experience of the last 10 years, online academic department heads are now expected to fulfil a range of new and diverse roles. these diverse roles include: • curricula roles (curriculum mapping, curricula evaluation) • new programme development • *developing innovative revenue streams for the future • *institutional effectiveness (attainment of student outcomes) • *evaluating faculty performance in online courses • hiring adjunct and contract faculty • tenure assessment • budgeting and finance • *enrolment and recruitment activities • *community, corporate, and organisational outreach • *collaborative partnership agreements for degree programmes or corporate training (alternate revenue sources) • fundraising • grant writing • assessing student satisfaction • *improving student retention • *designing processes for student remediation • *marketing • *technology innovation. *new or markedly changed processes in addition to these roles, many (or most) department heads and deans also still teach, research, and serve the university through committees and other functions. the sheer number of potential tasks can be overwhelming for department heads who have not had to perform these roles in the past. ernst and young (2015) noted that the current educational model in australia primarily comprises: [a] broad-based teaching and research institution [which is] supported by a large asset base and a large, predominantly in-house back office—will prove unviable in all but a few cases over the next 10–15 years. at a minimum, incumbent universities will need to significantly streamline their operations and asset base, at the same time as incorporating new teaching and learning delivery mechanisms, a diffusion of channels to market, and stakeholder expectations for increased impact. (p. 4) ernst and young note these changes will be driven by (a) free availability of knowledge for all through the internet (the universities are no longer the “keepers” of knowledge), (b) budget constraints, (c) instructional technology and proliferation of online learning, (d) globalisation of education, and (e) industry partnerships. they also hypothesise three categories of institutions will emerge: (a) status quo universities that will remain essentially the same with streamlined halupa, c. m. 36 processes, (b) niche universities that provide tailored education, and (c) transformer universities that will provide education in new and different ways. department heads and deans will be tasked with leading this organisational change. to understand how deans and department heads can respond to these changes, it is crucial to further examine the challenges they will face. the roles and responsibilities listed above are grouped and discussed in the next section. cost control according to allen and seaman (2015), three-quarters of the academic officers surveyed listed education cost/student indebtedness as one of the top three issues faced by educational institutions. one way to manage costs is to manage class size and prevent low enrolment classes, this, in turn, increases revenue because fixed costs remain the same. department heads can do this by creating schedules that enhance class size (optimal size is 10–20 students). directors must ensure their programmes have an adequate number of elective offerings for student satisfaction and flexibility. however, having too many choices results in dispersal of students throughout multiple offerings and small class size. deans and department heads must also be aware that, particularly today, the cost of an education is important to students. students want value for their money. repetition, and classes that do not deliver a great deal of information, can be eliminated by curriculum mapping and design to ensure all relevant material that a student needs in a programme has been covered. in addition, department heads and deans now need to be cognisant of the cost of additional items (such as textbooks) required for student education. students do not like to purchase textbooks they really do not use. students who choose to not buy textbooks because of the cost can negatively impact their academic performance (nelson, n.d; parry, 2013). one way to reduce the cost for students is through the use of open educational resources (oer). although the use of oer is still in its infancy, allen and seaman (2015) found two-thirds of academics noted oer have the potential to reduce costs for colleges and universities (however, only 5% of faculty were aware of oers). in australia, the adapt project, 1 led by the university of tasmania, is creating an oer repository. partners in this initiative include monash university, the university of queensland, the university of western australia, and the australian government office for teaching and learning. the altc project2 in australia is also addressing issues regarding oer by evaluating potential resources. in new zealand, the oer foundation sponsors the oer university which provides resources worldwide and includes university partners throughout the world (united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization [unesco], 2012). it is important for deans and department heads to understand and consider the advantages and challenges of oers and their impact on students, intellectual property, and teaching. need for additional funds the pursuit of grants is an additional way to obtain needed funds. however, grant writing and reporting is very time consuming, and so these funds may come at a significant price. because public funding has been decreasing in higher education, competition for grants has increased exponentially. this can decrease the chance of success, particularly for small universities with limited resources. 1 see www.adapt.net.au 2 see http://wikiresearcher.org/oer_in_australia journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 37 deans and department heads are now also being tasked with additional roles in university fundraising. blanchard (2013) outlined the crucial fundraising roles deans and department heads play (particularly in the united states) by courting donors for months—or even years—at dinners and other events. hodson (2010) notes it is very difficult for deans to find time for fundraising even though it is a crucial need in higher education today. deans and department heads play a large role in the strategic planning of a college or university, particularly with the paradigm shift that is occurring in education. it is at this mid-management level that innovations and ideas for creative and niche programmes are likely to occur. an important part of this strategic planning strategy is marketing, recruitment, and retention. marketing, recruitment and retention in their recruitment funnel benchmarks for 4-year private institutions (institutions that offer 4year qualifications) in the united states, ruffalo noel levitz (2014) reported that only 9% of inquiries resulted in applications. the yield rate from admission to enrolment decreased by 7%— from 33% in 2007 to 26% in 2014. this decrease indicates it is very challenging to translate a student’s inquiries—or even the offer of a place in a university programme—into an enrolment. in today’s education environment, it is very difficult for marketing and enrolment departments to obtain sufficient students to make a course financially viable, particularly in online programmes where competition is global and immense. deans and department heads can assist with this in several ways. first, deans must be able to determine the actual cost of offering an online programme. this analysis must include both direct costs (e.g., faculty, marketing) and indirect costs (e.g., using the learning management system, the cost of running the admissions department) for each programme to ensure the programme is self-sustaining. if it is not self-sustaining, the programme might need to be changed, updated, or discontinued. second, before contemplating offering a new or revised online programme, the university must undertake a detailed market analysis to look at the current environment—including job and labour statistics, and competing programmes of a similar type. if the university cannot afford a complete market analysis (small universities often cannot), the dean or department head will probably be tasked with this evaluation because they are likely to know something about these factors. even the best enrolment department, with a large marketing budget, cannot sell a programme that is not needed or wanted by students. deans and department heads should evaluate the costs of their programmes annually (so changes can be planned and implemented) and partner with the admissions and enrolment departments (to assist in meeting enrolment goals). it is crucial for deans and department heads to consider feedback from these departments about what they can and cannot “sell” to students in today’s higher education environment. third, deans and department heads are often tasked with attending recruiting and marketing events and encouraging their faculty to participate in such events. particularly in online programmes, a personal touch can provide a needed edge against schools that have large online programmes. academic leaders can reach out to students directly, encouraging them to enrol and to establish a relationship with the faculty. this approach can alleviate some of the challenges of transactional distance in online learning. in addition to recruiting students, deans and department heads also play an important role in student retention. there are numerous strategies for retention of students, particularly in online programmes. the first is a robust “at-risk” data-mining (preferable) or reporting system so students who are not engaging with coursework can be identified and given support. a second critical component is a system of preparation and/or remediation for students who are not necessarily ready for college. according to the american college testing (act) organisation, in halupa, c. m. 38 2006 nearly one-third of u.s. college students were required to take remedial college courses because they lacked the basic skills to succeed in standard credit courses (act, 2006). in 2010 the national center for public policy and education (2010) reported the gap between secondary education and post-secondary education had grown, and nearly 60% of u.s. students had to take remedial courses. many who enrolled in these courses did not complete them; the center estimated these figures were artificially low because many students were not tested to see if they needed to be placed in remedial courses, and had entered directly into credit courses. in 2013, in a report authored by sparks and malkus (2013), the national center for educational statistics reported that approximately 20% of private-school students took remedial courses, yet acknowledged this data was self-reported by students. no matter what the true percentage (20% up to 60%) the number of students requiring remedial classes is significant. in fact, the number of students in online programmes that require remediation outside formal remedial classes is likely to be much higher (sparks & malkus, 2013). many students in online programmes might not have attended school within the last few years, might not have prerequisite maths or writing skills, and might not be familiar with apa or mla format. these students face a steep learning curve and, if additional resources are not available, they have an increased chance of attrition. international students may also need additional assistance. in the united states, more than onethird of students between 5 and 17 were first-generation students and were more likely to need remediation and drop out of college (balemian & feng, 2013). about one-quarter of australian students are international students (australian government, 2015) who may need additional assistance. deans and department heads can partner with tutoring centres and writing labs to develop robust materials to meet these students’ needs regardless of where the university is located. outreach and innovation as noted previously, competition in online programmes is high due to their global nature. small universities that started evening adult programmes in the 1980s and 1990s served students in their local geographic areas. in the united states these programmes provided a good source of revenue for universities. in the late 1990s and beyond, most of these programmes transitioned to the online format. initially, this change was to the benefit of the universities because it allowed them to expand outside their geographical area. however, as more universities began offering online courses and programmes, competition increased and many of the smaller universities began to lose enrolments. this phenomenon did not just affect online programmes; it also affected campus-based programmes as students became more cautious about going into debt for education due to the state of the united states’ economy. in countries such as australia, the increased attrition rates also negatively affected the universities’ bottom line (hare, 2015). economic pressures have led to universities looking for alternate revenue streams. one option is community outreach. although community outreach may not initially net the universities additional revenue, it is done with the intent of increasing potential revenue sources in the long term by increasing the positive view and reputation of the university in the community. in marketing terms, these initiatives can be viewed as loss leaders. some of these initiatives may include offering free educational conferences for the community at large, offering teacher education symposiums, joining community groups, and offering dual credit courses for highschool students in the hope these students will matriculate at the university. these types of initiatives are now usually driven by the relevant dean or department head because they have the necessary expertise and resources. this is another role that was not traditionally filled by deans and department heads. although necessary, it can take a great deal of time and effort and can put an additional burden on academic staff. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 39 however, such challenges can allow people in leadership roles to stretch themselves professionally and become involved in activities they might not have been involved with in the past. in addition, pursuing new opportunities can expand the pool of professional contacts for deans and department heads.. some outreach initiatives, such as offering workforce or targeted education programmes, can have direct financial consequences. although, in the past, workforce education was primarily the responsibility of community and technical colleges, some 4-year universities are also now creating partnerships with businesses to meet higher level workforce needs. for example, california state university offers this service, and partners with businesses to meet their needs.3 another example is the rocky mountain public health education consortium, which includes the university of arizona and partners. the consortium provides education for public health professionals in their region (taren et al., 2011). the university of alaska has also partnered with businesses to provide professional training in geology and engineering (university of alaska, n.d.). the national fund for workforce solutions provides a guide for establishing relationships of this type in the united states. long (2013) reported only about 18% of universities in mexico partner with businesses to provide services. the university of south australia offers corporate education through community and strategic partnerships. online education can be very beneficial in these partnerships since the targeted businesses do not have to be in the university’s geographical area. because this is a market that has not been fully tapped, small and private universities are now working to establish such partnerships. deans and department heads are leading these initiatives for their academic areas. international partnerships have also gained considerable importance. online education has opened up learning opportunities in areas of the globe that previously had limited options. the university of canterbury has robust international partnerships with universities all over the world.4 several other new zealand universities have a rich history in creating international partnerships. auckland university of technology in new zealand has established international partnerships in japan, and has provided training programmes for the japanese government.5 new zealand universities also participated in a trial to increase enrolment by streamlining the process for offshore visa applicants. this trial included 20 colleges and universities (immigration new zealand, 2014). all in all, deans and department heads need to be cognisant of any new ideas that may provide revenue for their schools and programmes and must carefully evaluate each idea for risk and benefit. curricular issues and faculty management lachiver and tardif (2002) note that “to engage and lead educators in a curriculum change process is not done easily. the road is difficult, sinuous and sometimes chaotic” (p. 7). department heads who lead curriculum change must be prepared for philosophical differences, fear, and even open resistance to change. most faculty are experts in their field of study, but many have not received formal education in pedagogy, andragogy, and heutagogy; in essence, they have not learned how to teach. instead, their teaching is based on their own personal experiences, and the practices of their own teachers and peers. however, these practices are often faculty-centred rather than student-centred. 3 see https://www.calstate.edu/extension/partnerships/documents/workforce_brochure.pdf 4 see http://www.canterbury.ac.nz/international/partnerships/ 5 see http://www.aut.ac.nz/study-at-aut/study-areas/language-culture/international-partners halupa, c. m. 40 faculty knowledge of technology often lags behind that of the students they teach (cdw-g, n.d.). although, particularly in the united states, academic freedom is sacred, pressures from third-party agencies (such as accrediting bodies and even the federal government), have led to a movement away from complete faculty autonomy to a quality curriculum model that ensures a student gets what they need in a programme of study no matter which faculty member teaches the course. for faculty who have been used to having complete autonomy, this “reining in” of faculty freedom can be controversial. the use of adjunct faculty is increasing, particularly in online programmes. the american association of university professors (2014) reported 51% of faculty were part time or adjunct. lane and hare (2015) report similar percentages at australian universities, and bryson (2013) reported the use of over 50% sessional faculty at u.k. universities. use of causal or adjunct faculty has been reported as being as high as 60%–80% in some australian universities (may, 2011; lazarsfeld-jensen & morgan, 2009). the academic workforce in new zealand is ageing, with 75% of faculty in new zealand now 45 or older (nana, stokes, & lynn, 2010) and global competition for doctoral-prepared faculty means that recruiting quality faculty will become even more difficult. the use of a large number of adjunct faculty can be necessary, particularly in online programmes; however, this approach also results in more faculty for a dean or department head to manage. adjunct faculty must be found, recruited, and vetted. as well as completing annual formal written evaluations, deans and department heads must evaluate the teaching of all additional faculty. since most universities do not fund continuing education for causal faculty, internal education and training must be provided for online pedagogy, andragogy, and heutagogy in addition to training on policies and procedures. these duties fall to the dean and/or programme director if the university does not have a specific department to train online faculty. deans also face the fact that online education is still not fully accepted by faculty, many of whom still believe it is not as effective as face-to-face education. allen and seaman (2015) reported faculty’s acceptance of online education as being as good as face-to-face education has remained stagnant over the last decade. in 2007, faculty acceptance of online instruction reached 33%; in 2015 it had dropped to 28%. however, allen and seaman did note that the stronger the online presence at a university, the more likely it is that faculty would accept it. the responsibility for increasing faculty acceptance rests largely with deans and department directors as role models. one way to ensure online programmes are of high quality is to be knowledgeable about online curriculum design (or knowing how to access experts who are) and being aware of online best practices through organisations such as the online learning consortium (formerly sloan learning consortium) and quality matters. department heads and deans must also be familiar with regional, governmental, and programmatic accreditation and institutional effectiveness standards. recommendations this review of new roles of mid-level leaders in tertiary education institutions leads to some specific recommendations. deans and department heads need to be aware of the roles they may be asked to fill since they may differ significantly from past academic roles. these include roles such as marketing, retention, and enrolment. universities also have a responsibility to educate their deans and programme chairs on these new and evolving roles since most of these are outside the usual purview of academic expertise. without education, it is much more difficult for deans and department heads to be successful in these new roles; this ultimately affects the academic and financial health of a university. there is a paucity of research on how academicians are adapting to these new roles. more research is needed on how small universities and tertiary training centres can remain viable. in addition, more research is needed on viable journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 41 solutions for the issues and challenges identified in this paper. this research needs to be conducted on an international level since academic roles and institutions differ in scope and structure across the globe. conclusion the purpose of this review has been to serve as a comprehensive yet concise guide for the additional roles 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(2014). the current state of business intelligence in academia: the arrival of big data. communication halupa, c. m. 44 of the association for information systems, 34(1). retrieved from http://aisel.aisnet.org/cais/vol34/iss1/1/ woodhouse, k. (2015, september 28). closures to triple. inside higher ed. retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/09/28/moodys-predicts-college-closures-triple2017 biographical notes colleen halupa chalupa@atsu.edu dr colleen halupa is the dean of online learning at east texas baptist university and an associate professor at a. t. still health sciences university. she served in the united states air force as a clinical laboratory scientist and health administrator for over 20 years prior to her career in academia. she has a doctorate in education, curriculum and instruction/educational leadership and management. she has published and presented in the field of online learning, instructional technology, and health policy in the united states and other countries. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. halupa, c. m. (2016). the changing roles of online deans and department heads in small private universities. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2), [32–44]. goldingay, s., & land, c. emotion: the ‘e’ in engagement in online distance education in social work sophie goldingay, deakin university, geelong, australia clare land, deakin university, geelong, australia abstract many social-work students enrolled in a particular australian university approach the prepracticum practice skills unit with dread, due to the required role-play exercises. online distance students could be seen to be challenged even further in their preparation for practicum, due to a perception that they are learning practice skills on their own. a survey of online distance education social-work students who had completed the practice skills course in 2012 showed that a number struggled to remain engaged, and felt isolated. a constructivist pedagogy, involving peerand self-assessment of practice role plays, was therefore trialled in both 2012 and 2013, alongside the weekly videos produced by the lecturer. the aim was to improve online distance students’ opportunity and motivation to practice the required skills before their practicum. learning management system (lms) usage data for students in the 2013 cohort showed an increase in the number of times students accessed online readings and used interactive technology. interestingly, while both cohorts expressed a positive experience in relation to their learning in the end-of-trimester student evaluation survey, and despite both groups being asked the same questions, only the 2013 cohort spontaneously articulated the content of what they actually learnt. these findings suggest that the ongoing peer interaction generated by the new pedagogy resulted in a deeper, enduring learning experience. in addition, data showed that online distance students in the 2013 cohort experienced a feeling of being emotionally connected with the unit and the teaching staff. it is posited that a combination of established video-based content delivery and ongoing formative peerand self-assessment reduced isolation and alienation and, as a result, had a multi-pronged positive effect on the learning process. keywords: formative assessment; constructivist pedagogy; peer interaction; social presence; social work; online blended learning; odl engagement introduction this paper reports on a section of a study that commenced in late 2012 to investigate the efficacy of online blended learning for social-work students in an undergraduate degree. the study was initiated as a result of a commitment by the authors to ensure the achievement and relevance of learning outcomes for online distance students, and a pervading scepticism on the part of the accrediting body (the australian association of social workers) about the ability of online learning to prepare students for practice. in the new australian social work education and accreditation standards (asweas), 20 days of face-to-face content must be built into all accredited social-work degrees (australian association of social workers [aasw], 2012). 58 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) online, synchronous, and simulation learning modes are not perceived to be meeting the learning objectives in practice skills units (aasw, 2012), the presumption being that these can only be learnt face to face. in the bachelor of social work, an average of 67% of students are enrolled in online distance mode each year, generally due to their geographic location and other commitments which include paid work and caring responsibilities. at the present time, online students in this course have their learning experience supplemented with face-to-face learning in two 2-day workshops during the degree, making theirs a blended online experience. in a study of a first-year cohort in 2011, 31.8% of students had enrolled under the special entry access scheme (seas) due to their mature age, financial disadvantage, or rural and remote situation (goldingay et al., 2014). research demonstrates that the ability to study online is inherently inclusive because it enables those who otherwise would be excluded due to such circumstances to engage in higher education (anderson & simpson, 2012; madoc-jones & parrott, 2005; okech, barner, segoshi, & carney, 2012). the researchers of the current study anticipated that the increased aasw face-to-face stipulations would lead to greater difficulties in participation—and so attrition and exclusion from education—for a large proportion of potential and current students. the teaching methods on which this paper reports were underpinned by a constructivist pedagogy, which holds that learning environments need to include a variety of instruction strategies including tasks that have personal relevance for learners (reeves & reeves, 2008). drawing on a sub-set of the data gathered, the focus of this paper is on how students experienced the new pedagogy, which comprised small-group formative peerand self-assessment in an online medium in a pre-practicum practice skills unit. it also reports how students experienced the weekly video ‘selfies’ uploaded to youtube by the lecturer. student experience of social presence as a result of using these tools will be a particular focus for this paper. this focus is important because professional socialisation and professional interaction are key outcomes of professional social-work education. social presence and emotion in distance education online learning has traditionally been described as isolating (robinson, 2012) and students can feel lonely and neglected (nagel & kotze, 2010). isolation is naturally a concern for a discipline such as social work, which puts social interaction at its centre. such emotions are also likely to impede learning, since learning is more than a cognitive process—it involves the whole person (christie, tett, cree, hounsell, & mccune, 2008). christie et al. (2008) observed that there is a need to consider the “emotional interaction between the student and the learning environment of the university” (p. 568), in order to overcome a feeling of anonymity. while it has been observed that emotion is key to the learning experience (mcmillan, 2013), the emotional dimensions of learning have not been extensively covered in the literature (christie et al., 2008). however, a number of writers have discussed the role of student peer relationships in fostering a sense of emotional wellbeing. for example, shin (2003) notes that student peer relationships have a significant influence on motivation and affect (mood). because peer relationships influence mood and emotions, it follows that it is important to set up a learning environment that encourages peer-to-peer interaction. a move to thinking about the role of emotional interaction in student engagement invites a discussion of social and psychological presence in education and, indeed, social work. rettie notes that a psychological connection is established when users feel they have access to the other person’s affect and intentions, and when they believe the other person is “there” (as cited in la mendola, 2010, p. 111). online work that creates social presence “translates virtual activities into impressions of ‘real’ people” (dixson, 2010, p. 2–3). thus, while not confined to face-to-face 59 goldingay, s., & land, c. interaction, psychological or social presence is created only within relationships, or by relating to or being involved with others. the key to social presence in education, therefore, is for students to feel connected to each other and to their lecturers well as to the content being studied. educators deploy various strategies to generate feelings of connectedness in both online and face-to-face settings. for instance, group work helps students to develop trust, respect, and belonging (dixson, 2010; la mendola, 2010) because they relate, interact, and are involved with each other. strategies that require students to complete cumulative tasks that are linked to assessment have been used to ensure sustained engagement in online blended social-work education (maple, jarrott, & kuyini, 2013). peer-formative assessment a number of scholars around the world have been trialling and evaluating innovations such as peerand self-assessment (e.g., hodgeson & pang, 2012; kearney, 2013; mcgarr & clifford, 2013) and formative assessment that has a participation grade (hodgeson & pang, 2012). the benefits of formative assessment for students include increased understanding about what is required in assessment, and a higher level of learning responsibility and ownership of their learning (hodgeson & pang, 2012). in addition, the ability to evaluate the quality of one’s own work as well as that of one’s colleagues is a key professional skill (mcgarr & clifford, 2013) that is also likely to contribute to effective ongoing professional development after graduation. nagel & kotze (2010) observed that peer assessment (which in their study was double-blind and summative) improved the “teaching, cognitive and social presences in the class” (p. 45). the current study adds to this literature, as it reports on how students interacted with an online formative peerand self-assessment pedagogy that was trialled with a group of second-year social-work students. the current study also compares the difference in learning and engagement observed in the 2013 cohort, when 20% of the overall grade was awarded for participation in the formative peerand self-assessment. this group was also guided by their lecturer in group bonding and had clear peerand self-assessment guidelines. the interactive intervention social-work students learn the values, skills, ethical principles, and behaviour required to practice as social workers with diverse groups of people (goldingay, 2012). these attributes are fundamental to social-work education. not only do students have to ‘know’ things, they need to be able to operationalise procedural knowledge and show they can self-reflect on their performance of procedural skills (bogo et al., 2013; goldingay, 2012). it is important for students to attain and/or develop these self-reflection skills so that, as professional social workers, they can evaluate their own practice (fook, 2012). such ability does not occur by reading and reciting knowledge. rather, it develops from practising—from being exposed to a number of practice situations and role-playing how to use the knowledge they gain to work in these situations. given these essential features of social-work education, and aasw’s stipulation (of 20 days face-to-face content), the first author was prompted to seek ways to ensure online students achieved the necessary interactive experience, social presence and socialisation into the profession in the practice skills unit immediately preceding practicum. across the two trimesters analysed here, students were randomly assigned to online groups of approximately four students. in 2012, students were invited to interact and get feedback from their peers, and to evaluate their own mini role-play practice videos. students in the cohort of 2013 were required to make contact with their group members, and to engage in some online group cohesion exercises using a mixture of asynchronous and synchronous technology. these exercises included sharing photos 60 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) and answering a set of questions about themselves (such as what made them decide to study social work, what their hobbies and interests are, and so on).they also posted three videos of their own role-play practice onto their group site to gain feedback from the other members of their group. students were then required to write a reflection on their own practice and, with the help of a guided feedback sheet, to provide feedback on the videos posted by their group members (see appendix). an illuminate live (e-live) room was also made available to each group to meet for informal discussion. because they needed to provide a number of role-play videos of themselves and a number of sets of feedback for their team mates before the end of the trimester, students had to engage in the online medium to complete the course requirements. a grade value of 20% was allocated, with 20/20 awarded if students met these requirements, and 0/20 awarded if students did not complete the exercises by the end of the trimester. as well as having access to the online interface, students received print materials and digital resources, including a case-study dvd and a cd of an interview with a practising social worker. video connection with the students as well as initiating the online groups, the lecturer produced a weekly video ‘selfie’ that covered unit content, administration, and encouragement for students. such encouragement was designed to support motivation and engagement. the video was then uploaded to youtube and an ‘unlisted’ link placed on the lms for online students in both the 2012 and the 2013 cohorts’ access. the videos were interactive in that, at various points in the video, students were encouraged to press ‘pause’, engage in an activity relevant to the topic with a neighbour, friend, or family member, and then come back to the video for further discussion. the video included lecturer’s vignettes to illustrate the complexity of practice settings and to help students visualise how theories may be applied in practice. this new way of delivering content resulted from the lecturer’s belief that better social presence and emotional connection to the unit’s teaching staff could be achieved if students could see the facial expressions and the ‘selfhood’ of the lecturer. it was thought this it would be more engaging than a narrated powerpoint or recordings of the on-campus lectures, which were the standard ways of delivering content to online students at the time. listening to a recording of what happened on campus may inadvertently place online students in a passive observer position, like a fly on the wall. such passivity is not in keeping with a constructivist view of learning, which holds that students need to be actively engaged in order to learn effectively (reeves & reeves, 2008). making the weekly video also communicated to online students that their learning needs and contexts had been specifically considered, since the video was designed just for them and included content that was relevant to those studying interstate, or even intercountry. as mentioned earlier, the decision to combine a number of instructional methods (including lecturer video ‘selfies’, visual resources and vignettes, and formative peerand self-assessment) was based on the notion that social presence is key to effective learning, and social presence must be experienced with both peers and teaching staff. in keeping with the constructivist approach, using multiple teaching methods that had personal relevance for the learners was seen as the most effective approach to engage students in multiple dimensions, including the emotional. the next section of this paper will detail the process for evaluating the effectiveness of this approach for student learning and engagement. 61 goldingay, s., & land, c. study methodology data collection took place during 2012 and 2013. multiple data sources were used to capture facets of the students’ experience. these included new data (online survey and phone interviews with students) and pre-existing data. ethical approval was obtained for the online survey, the interviews, and the use of pre-existing student evaluation survey results to capture the views and experiences of a wider group of students across both years. a similar method of using formal course evaluations was used by okech et al. (2012), who also investigated students’ experience of online teaching technologies. exemption from ethical review was obtained for use of nonidentifiable statistics downloaded from the lms, desire to learn (d2l). students who had completed their first 2 years of study while enrolled in off-campus mode were surveyed after their first practicum which occurred in the first half of year 3. they were asked about their experience of learning online and if, in hindsight, they felt they were adequately prepared for practicum as a result of their off-campus study. in addition to this, statistics of both the 2012 and 2013 cohorts were downloaded from d2l. these statistics showed the number of times students accessed key online technologies such as e-live, e-readings, and online teaching videos and lectures. to find out if the methods employed in the course were optimising the level of engagement needed for deep learning, we used the online survey to present students with a range of types of interaction, and asked them how frequently they experienced these interactions in online study. the first four types of interaction represented various phases of e-learning and engagement (from low level to high level). the suggestion is that that “deeper level learning, knowledge construction and development is occurring in the higher level types of interaction” (madoc-jones & parrott, 2005, p. 764). “stimulating discussion”, the fifth option, is regarded as a central mechanism for learning, particularly in an online environment (okech et al., 2012, p. 125). we analysed the open-ended responses in the phone interviews, the online survey, and the student evaluation survey to assess whether students expressed feelings of being connected to the unit, to each other, and to their lecturer. sample the online survey sample (of the students who completed the practice skills unit in 2012) consisted of ten0 students (eight female and two male), who described themselves as angloaustralian. english was the primary language spoken at home for all but one student. six of the ten volunteered to be interviewed. all had experienced face-to-face learning in another higher education learning institution and three of the ten had prior online learning experience. as a result, three stated they felt very competent, three stated they were not at all competent, and the remainder stated that they were either slightly or somewhat competent with online learning. in one study, it was noted that students’ confidence in their own ability did not necessarily match the grade they received for the course (lawrence & abel, 2013, p. 769), suggesting that confidence and competence are different. of the 52 course completions, 20 were by students in the off-campus cohort (38.46%). in 2013, however, of 56 course completions, 28 students were studying off-campus (50%), so there was a higher proportion of students studying off-campus during 2013. data was collected with survey monkey, and statistics tables were generated from this program. we used thematic analysis (braun & clarke, 2006) to analyse the interview and qualitative survey data, and we generated tables to display the quantitative data. 62 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) findings participants in the online survey reported a number of reasons for choosing online study, including geographical location (six students), working commitments (five), parenting or other caring commitments (three), time commitments (one), and lack of transport (one). one stated a preference for the online environment for learning because they did not enjoy face-to-face classroom learning due to a previous negative experience. there were plenty of positives cited about online study, including independence, freedom, and working at their own pace. students commented that they would be unable to study if the off-campus option was not offered, “[it] allows me to fit my life around study, it is essentially allowing me to improve my life”. students also mentioned that off-campus study had assisted them to up-skill in key technologies that are also required in the workplace, “as a mature age student it’s opened up the computer world to me, and i utilise the computer for all things in my case management role at work”. despite these compelling reasons to study online, the online survey results showed that types and frequency of interaction with peers was not weighted towards the high-level interactions that best promote deep learning. only four out of eight students in the 2012 cohort had exchanged information and helped each other to understand material every week, while two out of eight engaged in stimulating discussion every week. three out of eight reported they engaged in stimulating discussion each fortnight, and initiated debates fortnightly. a large proportion (five out of eight) reported they never challenged each other, and three out of eight reported they never exchanged information or initiated debates. in addition, eight out of ten students in the 2012 survey group reported that they felt isolated at times, and eight out of eight reported that loss of face-to-face contact was a disadvantage of taking an online course and that they experienced confusion about what was required. importantly, seven out of eight reported difficulty in developing a relationship with the lecturer. there therefore appeared to be a significant level of disengagement with the course materials and technologies. one student survey response expressed regret that they had not engaged in the (optional) formative peerand self-reflective feedback process that the lecturer encouraged: i didn’t feel totally prepared. apart from the weekend workshop i had no role-play experience, [lecturer’s name] had encouraged us to send in role-plays but i felt too nervous about that so i didn’t. (i don’t know if many people did.) when i was on placement i wished i had. i felt like a fish out of water on placement. i had the theory (well sort of) but not the confidence. (survey response) the online formative peerand self-assessment did not carry any grading or other incentive in 2012, and it was observed that very few, if any, students participated in the interactive formative assessment groups set up by the lecturer. an interview participant echoed a feeling of lack of preparedness for placement as a result of not having undergone the scenarios on offer in the online space: i had a horrible experience [on placement]<laughs> so again, maybe doing group workshops or scenarios to really nut out all the difficult things that could happen on placement. (interview response) that the students felt isolated and were not engaged in the online technologies available was a concern. it was also concerning that students did not feel they were adequately prepared for practicum. as mentioned earlier, the lack of use of the online technologies by this 2012 cohort therefore prompted the lecturer to further develop the online group space and to introduce a clear formative peerand self-assessment process that was designed to improve students’ skills, confidence, and interactions. 63 goldingay, s., & land, c. online participation results this section of the results compares student activity in the online medium across the different cohorts in the different years (see table 1 below). in 2013, when the guided, graded, formative peerand self-assessment process was implemented, there was a considerable difference in the number of times some online resources were accessed. for example, only 38% of the total student cohort that completed the unit actually accessed the online readings in 2012, whereas 61% of the student cohort accessed online readings in 2013. (it should be noted that both cohorts also had access to print copies of the readings.) e-live, a synchronous online interactive tool that enables students to meet in a virtual space in real time, was accessed by 41% in 2013, whereas only 27% of students used it in 2012. this difference may reflect the fact that there was a larger cohort of off-campus students in 2013, and the percentages should be read with this in mind. however, the research team was surprised by the lack of change in access to course content in the 2013 cohort. in 2012, 53% of students accessed the powerpoint slide show for the first lecture , whereas 75% accessed it in 2013. but despite the apparent initial flush of interest in this content, there was a similar decline in access of course materials, as indicated in table 1. table 1 online resource access rates type of online resource percentage accessed 2012 percentage accessed 2013 e-live 27 41 e-readings 38 61 powerpoint lecture week 1 53 75 video lecture week 2 50 48 powerpoint lecture week 5 46 50 video lecture week 5 40 41 powerpoint lecture week 7 44 34 video lecture week 7 23 21 powerpoint lecture week 9 0 23 thus, although there was no significant difference in ongoing access of course materials, there was greater use of interactive technology and use of online readings across the trimester in the year of the interactive intervention. student evaluation survey another surprising result was that student evaluation survey results were only slightly quantitatively higher as a result of the guided, graded, formative peerand self-assessment process. a key marker of satisfaction was whether students felt the online teaching and resources enhanced students’ learning experience. the results are shown in tables 2 and 3. table 2 unit satisfaction comments 2013 the on-line teaching and resources in this unit enhanced my learning experience. unit code unit title total responses mean std.dev % agree % disagree % difference hsw212 social work processes and interventions: social work theory and practice e 14 4.57 0.65 92.9% 0.0% 92.9% 64 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) table 3 unit satisfaction comments 2012 these tables show there was only a one point difference between the years (2013 mean 4.57; 2012 mean 4.56), although there was more agreement within the 2013 group that they had a positive learning experience. the lack of significant difference can be explained by the fact that these figures do not indicate the qualitative experience of guided, graded formative peerand self-assessment, nor do they indicate the quality of the learning. to try to understand the actual experience of the interaction and learning, the authors consulted qualitative comments that were generated each year by the student evaluation survey. because this paper wishes to explore students’ feelings of connectedness, social presence, and emotional affect, the analysis below focuses on words that convey emotion. this analysis of student responses is similar to that carried out by mcmillan (2013), who investigated students’ emotional experiences in their firstyear transition to university. 2012 comments from online students in response to the survey question, “what were the best aspects of your unit?”, online students in 2012 responded with, “the youtube videos and the [case study] dvds”; “the amount of effort put in by [lecturer’s name]”; “the course material and the youtube videos” and “[the course was] very relevant”. two online students said the [campus-based] workshop was the best aspect of the course. to the request, “please provide any comments on the teaching of this unit by this teacher”, a number of students commented on the practices the lecturer used to engage students and demonstrate care and concern for them. words which conveyed such emotion included “care” (used by three different online students), “kind”, “helpful”, “understanding”, “engaging”, and “enthusiastic”. while it is good to know that students felt understood and cared for in the learning experience, comments about what was actually learnt are noticeably absent. 2013 comments from online students in 2013, when the graded formative peerand self-assessment with guidance was trialled, there was quite a difference in the comments from students. when they were asked what they liked about the unit, students expressed their sense of connection with the unit and the lecturer (italics added to emphasise emotion phrases): each week [lecturer] did a mini selfie lecture via a youtube video which was so helpful. as an off-campus student i felt engaged by her doing this—rather than disconnected and out there on my own. other students echoed the connectedness experienced as a result of viewing the youtube content videos created by the lecturer, and actually addressed the comments to the lecturer (which the previous cohort did not do): [lecturer’s name], i really appreciated the weekly video posts that you uploaded. it was so nice not to just listen to a voice talk at us as it really felt you were talking to me. this statement suggests that the student perceives the lecturer to have a tangible social presence, and that they have an interest in conveying their own presence back to the lecturer. the same student went on to comment: you also have such a pleasant expression on your face during the video … it just came across as calm and friendly. it was a pleasure to watch. another student commented: the on-line teaching and resources in this unit enhanced my learning experience. unit code unit title total responses mean std.dev % agree % disagree % difference hsw212 social work processes and interventions: social work theory and practice e 18 4.56 0.86 88.9% 5.6% 83.3% 65 goldingay, s., & land, c. i thought the weekly lectures with video were fantastic and very engaging”. students were also explicit about the particular actions by the lecturer that helped them to feel connected to both her and the unit: [lecturer’s name] was always available for further instructions if needed, she always got back to me in a small time frame. every question was answered with as much help as i could of possible [sic] needed. another notable difference in the responses from this cohort is the explicit detail spontaneously given about what they had actually learnt in the unit. for example, additional comments about the best aspects of the unit in the 2013 cohort included: “putting the theories into practice” and “using the feedback sheet as it was simple and effective and gave good dot points of what needed to be covered”. interestingly, even the dreaded role-plays that students had to record and share with other students to gain feedback were talked about in glowing terms, and comments clearly reflect how immersed students had become in doing them: the role plays … i thought that they were the absolute worst thing until i did them and realised the value in them … so many things i do that i didn’t realise until i watched it back. and from another student: the role-plays were a great way to really put our learning into practice. the most compelling quote, showing a developing sense of pride and professional identity from a student was: it challenged me a lot! in every way—from seriously wondering if i had chosen the wrong career path to being inspired! discussion the data above demonstrates that the 2013 cohort had a greater sense of social presence and connection with the lecturer and the content. while both cohorts were offered the online ‘selfie’ videos and were assigned to formative peer-assessment groups, it was the graded and guided formative peerand self-assessment cohort in 2013 that really engaged with and benefited from them. these interventions by the lecturer may also have contributed to students’ sense of connection and trust in each other, which then enabled them to feel confident to post their own practice videos into the group space for feedback. comparing the responses across these two different cohorts shows a tangible difference in students’ experience of social presence and emotional connectedness. students’ comments, which explicitly state they felt the lecturer was talking directly to them, and felt they were not on their own, demonstrate a sense of engagement that was not apparent in the online survey or the student evaluation survey administered to the 2012 cohort. the survey results demonstrated that the 2012 cohort had a sense of isolation and lack of confidence. however, the 2013 cohort demonstrated a sense of being in charge of their learning, to the point of being inspired. this suggests the immense value of the formative peerand self-assessment which was discussed at the beginning of this paper. it also demonstrates the care needed in setting up groups where peer feedback will be given, as a high degree of trust is required to enable people to feel comfortable to evaluate and be evaluated by peers in social-work role-play situations (goldingay, 2012). the student evaluation survey results also showed a lack of immersion in the unit content in 2012 in comparison to the 2013 cohort. from the difference in results, it also appeared that students took the formative activity seriously as a result of the 20% grading attached to participation. 66 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) the fact that students responded and engaged more with readings and online technologies once grades were attached to participation and guidance was given about how to interact in the formative assessment in their groups, also suggests that students were more motivated to learn. again, this echoes findings in other studies that demonstrate the connection between peer–peer social presence and motivation (shin, 2003). the surprising finding—that quantitative student evaluation surveys across both years were not overly different—suggests that such evaluations may not capture the subjective, emotional experience which has such an effect on student learning outcomes. in addition, the similar drop-off rates in accessing formal unit content across the two cohorts suggest that students were more attracted to spending their time in the formative peer-assessment space, and a great deal of learning occurred in this space. the video ‘selfies’ were available to both cohorts but the results from this study suggest that they need to be combined with other interactive methods to engage students in multiple dimensions. conclusion the data collected for this paper demonstrate how students engaged in their online social-work practice skills course as a result of careful group bonding procedures and clear feedback guidelines set up at the beginning by the lecturer, and grades attached to participation in an online formative peerand self-assessment process. it also demonstrates the positive effect of video ‘selfies’, delivered by teaching staff to online distance students, which take the situation of online distance students into account and include encouragement, practice vignettes, and interactive activities for students to participate in in their location. while online students in 2012 reported isolation and lack of engagement in undertaking these units, and struggled to articulate what they have learnt, the 2013 cohort demonstrated the potential of using constructivist pedagogy of active engagement in online learning to facilitate deep learning, and to provide the professional socialisation and social presence required to learn to be a professional social worker. thus, lecturer’s video ‘selfies’ are not sufficient, on their own, to achieve deep learning or engagement. rather, they need to be used alongside other interactive activities such as formative peerand self-assessment, which in turn need to be implemented carefully using guided relationship-forming processes set up by the lecturer. this short study has demonstrated a sense of emotional connection to the unit, and a mastery and developing sense of professional identity as a result of being immersed in the graded formative peerand self-assessment process and video ‘selfie’ programme. nevertheless, future research is needed to conduct more in-depth data collection with this group (beyond student evaluation surveys) to further explore the findings discussed here. it is unclear whether the grading (to take the activity seriously) or guiding (to support students’ sense of trust and confidence) had greater influence on the success of this trial, and future research is needed to gather students’ views on this. references anderson, b., & simpson, m. 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(2010). supersizing e-learning: what a community of inquiry survey reveals about teaching presence in a large online class. internet & higher education, 13(1/2), 45–51. doi: 10.1016/j.iheduc.2009.12.001 68 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) okech, d., barner, j., segoshi, m., & carney, m. (2012). msw student experiences in online vs. face-to-face teaching formats? social work education: the international journal, 33(1), 121– 134. doi:10.1080/02615479.2012.738661 reeves, p. m., & reeves, t. c. (2008). design considerations for online learning in health and social work education. learning in health & social care, 7(1), 46–58. doi: 10.1111/j.1473– 6861.2008.00170.x robinson, s. (2012). freedom, aspiration and informed choice in rural higher education: why they are saying ‘no’. education in rural australia, 22(2), 79–95. shin, n. (2003). transactional presence as a critical predictor of success in distance learning, distance education, 24(1), 69–86. doi: 10.1080/01587910303 acknowledgement the role-play feedback form (see appendix) was developed by s. goldingay and n. hosken in 2013. biographical notes sophie goldingay sophie.goldingay@deakin.edu.au sophie is a senior lecturer at deakin university, geelong, australia,where she teaches social work. she also a member of the board of directors for barwon youth, an agency committed to supporting young people to reach their potential. she is the recipient of several teaching awards, including the vice chancellor’s award for outstanding contribution to equity and access (2012), a faculty commendation for excellence in teaching (2012), and a school award for excellence in teaching (2011). her research interests include the scholarship of teaching, particularly in constructivist approaches to teaching. clare land clare.a.land@gmail.com dr clare land is a research associate at deakin university. she also provides sessional lecturing to a number of other higher education providers in victoria. her research interests include studies in higher education, and critical and postcolonial studies in history and sociology. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. goldingay, s., & land, c. (2014). emotion: the ‘e’ in engagement in online distance education in social work. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 18(1), [58–72]. 69 mailto:sophie.goldingay@deakin.edu.au mailto:clare.a.land@gmail.com http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ goldingay, s., & land, c. appendix peer feedback sheet hsw212 date: name of student taking role of practitioner: name of social work student providing feedback on role play theory (s) in use observed: strengths based approach anti-oppressive approach task centred systems theory please circle which skills you observed listening and attending responding to feelings understanding and responding to verbal cues demonstrating empathy using open and closed questions use of silence use of immediacy paraphrasing using appropriate self-disclosure reframing goal setting appropriate confrontation assertiveness clarifying negotiation brokerage prioritising normalising universalising conflict management boundary setting 70 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) feedback on where, how was observed (what question, what response, what posture, what use of skill) what was good? what could be improved/how? feedback suggestions try to • start positive • comment on specific aspects • move to areas to be improved • no criticism without recommendation • be specific • always offer alternatives • begin with “…..i wonder if you had tried” ,“….perhaps you could have….” “…sometimes it might be … helpful….” • distinguish between the intention and the effect of a comment or behaviour • distinguish between the person and the performance (“what you said sounded judgmental”—rather than “you are judgmental”) try not to • forget the person’s emotional response • criticise without recommending • comment on personal attributes (that can’t be changed) • generalise • be dishonestly kind – if there was room for improvement be specific and explore alternative approaches • forget that your feedback says as much about you as about the person it is directed to 71 goldingay, s., & land, c. receiving feedback • listen to it (rather than prepare your response/defence) • ask for it to be repeated if you didn’t hear it clearly • assume it is constructive until proven otherwise; then consider and use those elements that are constructive • pause and think before responding • ask for clarification and examples if statements are unclear or unsupported • accept it positively (for consideration) rather than dismissively (for self­protection) • ask for suggestions of ways you might modify or change your behaviour – opportunity to rehearse • respect and thank the person giving feedback 72 the metamorphosis of elearning elspeth mckay school of b'ljsiness information teci-inology, rmit university melbourne, australia backgrouni) it would seem. fronl list~ning to educationalists discussing therr elean1ing preparations that the approach to online learning has undergone sonle kind of nlystical transformation, fronl all accounts, unless learning ulaterials are ondne they should be thrown out with the bath wa.ter (so to speak). however, listening to novice learners talking about their expeliences with web-ba.sed learning products, it is pretty apparent there is quite a considera bie gap in their expectations relating to what they feel technology is capable of doing, and what is actually occurring. the task ahead for courseware designers is to fill this gap (bush, 2002). appropriate leadership is required to realize the rich potential that teclulo-educational lnaterial" can provide (maddux, 2002). it would seenl that a comnlon fault with much of the discourse on elearning to date is that it remains lilnited to the hulnail-conlputer interaction (hel) aspects. unfortunately, this tendency narrows the focus of the debate, leaving out one of the 1110st inlportant issues relating to courseware developlllent: the original instructional design principles. it is essential to look beyond software/hardware lllanagement and deal with the difficulties relating to lllaintaining the integrity of the learning activities per se. a comlnon fault with cu.rrent courseware designers is that they are not learning frolll past nlistakes (salomon, 20(2), of particular i1l1portance is to deal effectively with the inforllla tion that it; central to each p~rticular e leanling event. this paper will acknowledge the need to differentiate the learning event as between training and knowledge lllanagenlent. the discussion path of this paper takes the reader through a progression of teclulological concepts, begllming with a brief examination of sonle of the conll11only held beliefs about elearning, to identify a significant gap in expectations experienced with web'based courseware by so ulany novice learners today (quigley, 2002). learning integrity is then raised as another vexing issue; do web-based courseware designers deal effectively with the inforulation that is central to each learning event? finally, the paper suggests holistic strengths of e leanling in terms of experiential learning events, with an eulphasis placed on the positive sodal aspects of conllllunity learning. status quo 'many different voices are now heard in the literature; confusion abounds especially in relation to the eleanung environlllent (preece, 1994; miller, 2000; schank, 2002). firstly, there is the operational aspect of dealing with the il1lplementation of successful journal learning, vol 7, no 1, 2003 © distance education association of new zealand 40 'web-based courseware (flicker, 2002). on the one hand, despite widespread use and growing popularity of e learning, coll1puter-based instruction (cbi) is still on trial (gibbons & fairweather, 1998). willie webcasts can effectively transm.it training events to many distributed learners, offering a comprehensive range of tools like discussion boards, conferencing, screen sharing, and whiteboard dell1onstrations (horton, 2000), where is the c01nu1on ground? what can we be sure of? secondjy, there are the theoretical aspects of the elearning context, which are alnlost as confus111g as the previously mentioned operational elell1ents, while there are no 111stances emerging from pure tl-:search dealing directly with elearning, sollle researchers agree 011 the inlportance of the constructivisll1 and social cognition (hung & nichani, 2001); there is the equal but opposite view that knovvledge can be engineered through intelligent agents (lopez, 2001). there is an emergent literature 011 the topic of cbi and designing online learning systems (gery, 1987; horton, 2000i khan, 2001). nevertheless it will only be through targeted research that it will be known -with any certainty whether web-based learning gives rise to a new type of learn111g dissonance. it has been proposed that converged theoretical paradigms that underpin particular digitised or context-n1ediated learning systen1s are forcing learners into new ways of thinking (mckayr 2000a). in a sense, the combination of theoretical perspective and electronic com.municalions technology fosters a mentality that web-based learning will supply a leanling-oll-deuland or a just-in-time approach. the web-based learnillg environment should be about providing open, flexible, and distributed leanm1g environlnents (laurillard, 1993). however, without adequate learning management processes eulbedded within the courseware, this type of distributed learning experience will remain just that distributed (mckay & martin, 2002). expectations this paper is describing the gap in a novice learner's expectations in these ternls: students report dissatisfaction in e leanmlg platfonns because learning online does not provide then} with an ability to manipulate and directly interact with the iii ate rlals (see http://www.othermedia .com/blog). credibility checks of the courseware designer are often difficult to locate in online learning sites. this surely does not engender a sense of c01llfort for the student. furtherm.ore, there is a di'itinct lack of certification processes to reassure students that the elearning lllaterials have undergone sufficient quality test111g. one such website providing 114aining for this type of certification testing can be found at http://www.brainbench.com; unfortunately these programmes do not extend to online and/or coll1puter-based educational m,aterials. online educational progralnmes can however ignite a learner's imagination. in some cases researdl shows that students who have participated in online learning at higher levels than in their lllore traditional clagsroom sessions record the highest levels of perceived learning (fredericksen, et al, 2000). however, this experimental research also reveals that 111 the absence of a structured classroom, envir011ll1ent, courseware developers need to be aware of the expectation that leanl€rs will take a more active role in journal of distance learning, vo17f no 1f 2003 © distance education association of new zealand 4] their own learning. as a consequence, the instructional strategies adopted for online education nlust be nlade crystal clear to the learner and facilitator alike. webbased courseware designers lllust assujne nothing; all types of questions frolll leanlers should be anticipated and answered by facilitator in a friendly, non-judgulenta] 111muler. on the surface, tedmological access to learning facilitation appears to offer increased benefits. there is an assumption that in web-based courseware the students and instructors are somehow brought together (quigley, 2002). to cope with teclulo-insltuction, higher-order skill sets are required on the part of the students, including: knowing how to update personal skills when required by the instructional media, ability to use a range of thinking skills, transfer collaborative leannng in the real-world into the classroodl environment, and a willingness to engage in agile and flexible learning ll10dels (cadena, slllith, & shelley, 2002). however, m.ost of the instructional nlaterialoll offer today is text-based, witi1 an emphasis on asynchronous discussion forulus, where questions and answers are posted online for all participants to view and become involved. willie this type of learning experience may have its place in techno-pedagogy, it can becolne extremely frustrallilg for a novice learner wishing more llnnlediate feedbadc it would appear that learners have been tenlpted by tile possibility to engage in a nlore visual instructional environdlent than co]]11nonl y offered by the traditional approach to classroonl experiences. the elearning comnlunity is currently demanding more fronl technology than can be delivered (quigley! 2002). shllll11l(~ring on the horizon are tlnngs like the teleportation of a facilitator, providing a life-sized representation of a facilitator conlplete with the ability to eye-bad participants, wi til lif(;~-like . body language respol:t.~es. sadly, tins .,> type of learning context win not be available for the 111ajority of leanlers. costs are imnl€l1f,e; isdn and broadband networks are needed for successful llnplementa lion. clearly, enhanced tedulo-learning environnlents such as tlns will renlain beyond the reach of nlost individuals for quite sonle tune to come. herein lies a dilemnla for those taking up the developnlent of content for a new elearrring project or enlbarldng on a venture to convert existing instructional nlaterials represented ul a traditional text-based orientation to a vveb-based learning progranl11le. courseware designers need to have their feet planted firnll y on the ground. while dealing with the temptation of installing these new tec1mologies, they also need to keep abreast of the enlerging strategies froln the hlstructional science paradignl. one advantage of the push towards increasing the uptake of elearning is the growing awareness for sound instructional design principles (gibbons & fairweather, 1998). learning integrity there can be no doubt that the web-based envirolmlent is highly visual, and appears to lend itself towards graplncal sllnulation.s. consequently, novice-cou.rseware designers may be tenlpted to over-utilize the visual nature of cbl materials (ausburn & ausburn, 1983). a difficulty v.rith tins misconception is that most individuals are not necessarijy visually literate (mcnanlara, 1988; mckay, 2000b). this journal l.,eanring, vol 7, no i, 2003 © distance education association of new zealand 42 position has not really altered llluch with the advent of l11ultbl1edia. courseware design is c011lplex. to facilitate elearnll1g, the representation of the subject matter or leanling content should be urrennost in the development of new el()arning inaterials (or conversion o[ existing non-web-based learning components), sadly, often this is not the cdst) (merrill, 2000, 20(2). a nmnber of models to support eleanung are emerging through the literature: coalition for self-learning (~1illerj 2000). a nulllher o[ different self-organizing models a n' emerging through this merger of likp minds, identified as a sodal phenonwnon. in many cases the instigators htl vp never lllet face-to-face. the ll10sl rroll1.inent featuxe of these models is llw €nlphasis given to the iulportance [or lifelong learning. learning by doing (schank, 2002). the corporate s()clor aye caught in the dilemjua where profit dlm-gins dictate their training 1110del decisions (flicker, 2002). th0:rdore their prograll1ll1e evaluation rules are often preset according to time, cost, and availability of resources. hypertext and hypermedia systems (pre(~ce, 1994). the idea behind this approach is to provide a navigation tool through predetermined websites. the prinlary context of these types of elearning lllodels is to deliver a meta-database resource. the concept is not new; it was identified over fifty years ago, long before the advent of web teclulology. collaborative and situated learning models (preece, 1994). these n10dels reflect very different cl1aracteristics. in the first instance, there is an emphasis placed on the encouragelue11t towards social interaction in the assulllption that learning and conceptual chatlge will occur. whereas the latter recognises that learning/instruction nlust occur in the fon11 of a type of experiential learnmg or apprenticeslup. for exalllple, hairdressers are required to undergo a substantial work experience conlponent of their study to qualify. these two distinctly different lllodeis do have a comlllon thread; they both rely upon the coll1ll1uluty knowledge (preece ... 1994), sonletim,es referred to as professional practice being shared (collaborative learning). to understand how complex the elearning environment has becon1e, it is helpful to consider the suggestion from, cogiutive psychology that lllental models consist of two inajor colllponents; knowledge structures and 111 ental operations (merrjll, 1994). therefore, careful analysis of the leanung content is required to establish a colllprehensive instructional structure to identify and support the external representation of knowledge (the knowledge object) and the required ll1ternal representation (designed to encourage correct lllental nlodels) (merrill, 2000t 2002). as a consequence of this distinction, attention ll1ust tutil towards the age-old pursuit of knowing how to look at the different aspects of knowledge itself. however, thjs part of the discussion is just the tip of the proverbial icebel'g. knowledge features in a myriad of formats across a wide range of literatures, and is heavily contextual. this contextual dimension extends not just to the subject or professional context or to specific organisational settings, but also to individual c1]'cum.stances. one journal learning, vol 7, no i, 2003 © distance education association of new zealand 43 person's knowledge nwy be another person's infornlation. before fully understanding how to define types of knowledgej it is necessary to differentiate between the basic concepts of information and knowledge. one definition that involves both concepts holds that infornlation is a flow of lllessages, while knowledge is created and organized by the very flow of that infonnation, anchored 011 the colllulitm.ent and behefs of its holder (nonaka, 1994). indeed this distinction between information and knowledge continues to be a feature of the relevant literatures (mckay & martin, 2002). knowledge .. however, has been identified by the instructional science paradigul as concrete or declarative (knowing the specific facts and rules), and abstract or procedural (knowing how to apply declarative knowledge in new situations) (gagne, 1985). more recently.. it was proposed that there was enough evidence rrolll linguistics and psychology to conclude that people construed llullly concepts in terms of metaphor; and called for more research to see it when, and how certain concepts were 11letaphorically represented (gibbs, 1996). while defining knowledge acquisition strategies through webmediated learning/ instructional environ11lents, things become quite complex. there can be no doubt that inttoducing ulultim.edia ill education and training per se brings forward additional variables for educational researchers to unravel (audio, colour, and movenlent). this riclnless of web-related nledia however should not lessen the requireln{~nt for sound ulstructional desii,th. researchers have refined their attitudf:) towards the relationship between "'knowledge and lean-ring since the 1960s. for ulstance, a coulprehensive schemd acts as a basis for classifying types 0'learning: "knowledge is 'infomlation stored' -it is something an individudl possesses. either he has it, or 11, . has not-a go/no-go quality. individudl .... differ in the quantity of knowledg(' that they possess" (rollliszowskl. 1981, p. 267). training and know ledge m anagel11ent the whole notion of elearnjng is bpin)" questioned (reeves, 2002). to llnpro\'(' the exist:iilg gap ul novice expectauon .... of elearning products, it is llllportdl1l to clarify the special type of leanlin),. event positioned between trauung jnd knowledge manageulent. it is propos('d that unless courseware designers tl n' able to differentiate the difference, llwlj' instructional models will not be effecti \it', for that reason, to understand thl' definition of trauling as an ulstrnction,ll process, it is necessary to draw on l w{ i classic m.odels (kraiger, 1995-1996): dil k and carey's ulstructional design (i d) model (1990) and goldsteul's uldustri.li/ organizational (i/o) model (1993). journal learning, vol 7, no 1,2003 © distance education association of ne1lv zealand 44 figure 1: a training process model; hybrid of two classic models (kraiger,1995-1996) needs assessment: ii organizational analysis .. task & ksa analysis fj person analysis training development of criteria stlnunative evaluation summative evaluation after training r .. "·· .. '······"',."··"··~·· .... ···i j ~ formative . develop instructional strategy "·~~i~~;;~;~;;~al:v·· .~.~.~ltl~~~~ ....... , validation goals: : ' iii> training validity ~.' ... ~."h ........ _h .. " ..... uh ... ~h ..... n., ....... h........... transfer validity instructional goals: tile f'unction of goal analysis is to define the indefinable. the instructional goal can be presented as an ulllbrella statem.ent. difficult as it m,ay be at times, it is possible to describe the essential elem,euts of abstract states. this nleans to identify and describe the 111ain perform.ances that go to m,ake up the meaning of the goal (mager, 1988). for online learning these instructional goals m.ay be thil11y veih~d at best, or completely 1l1issing. needs assessment: the instructional design process will collll11ence with an identified gap between what is and what should be. typically when needs .. intra-organizational validity .. extra-organizational validity assessll1ents are conducted, instruments should be developed to collect data from the learners. it is vital that the learner's opinions are taken into account (dick & carey,1990). instructional objectives: sometinles referred to as perfornlance objectives that detail what the learner can be expected to be able to do when they conlplete a unit of instruction. dick and carey describe three colnponents of an objective. the first describes the skil1 or beha viour identified in the instructional analysis. the second is the description of the conditions that will prevail while a learner carries out the task (use of extra journal learning, vol 7, no 1, 2003 © distance education association of new zealand 45 technology pernlitted, etc.). the third describes the criteria that is to be used to evaluate the learner's performance on the objective; this may be expressed for instance with a range of acceptable answers or behaviours. instructional strategy: instructional design strategies involve the arrangenlent of content eleulents and other information to facilitate learning. although there are strategies that lllay inhibit learning (loading conlplete textbooks onto a websi.te!), there are a l1mnber of exciting strategies upon which the elearning enviroiidlent can draw. technology provides the courseware designer with lllany opporturtities to include instructional strategies! which involve the lllixing of generality-examples (those which depict a given concept to be learned well) with example-poor or non-exaulple concepts (specially devised to lnark incorrectness) (merrill, 1994). development of criteria: in specifying an instructional objective, the criteria used for judging acceptable perfornlance of the skill in question should also be identified. special attention should be given to the nature of the task to be perfornled. for i.nstance: how lllany tinles the task should be perfordled, how '.many correct itenls to be com.pleted, and sllllilar inastery statenlents. training: an effective training progranune is one in which individuals will learn relevant knowledge, develop associated ski11s, and possess an attitude to perform particular tasks (gagne, 1985); along with this is an expectation they will also be capable of transferrmg these trained tasks to the work situation or to transfer the newly learned skill to a different environment. summative evaluation within training: this is intended to provide a grade (lefrancois, 1991), and is usually conducted during the training event. often the result of the sunlnlative _ evaluation is provided to the learner as ,,> a feedback dlechanisnl to generate an unproved perfornlance. summative evaluation after training: the notion of conducting thi.s type of evaluation is to provide the organizationa] stakeholders feedback as to (cost) effectiveness of the training session andl or of participant skin developlnent rates (kraiger, 1995-1996). formative evaluation: essential1y this type of evaluation is to provide a diagnostic tool of the training process. fornlative evaluations are usually conducted aiter the conlpletion of the instructional event (leftancois, 1991). vaiidation goals: this colnponent is included in this inodel to elnphasize the inlportance of decision-making to the evaluation process. this inclusion provides a clear set of objectives concerning whether learning during transfer should generalize and, 1110reover, to what extent and how it may be applied in real-world contexts (kraiger, 1995-1996). even within tbe instructional science paradigm there are differ:il1g voices. figure 1 illustrates thes(~ differences representing the com bil1ation of both the dick and carey and the goldstein nlode]s. notice the bolded textual boxes represent colllnloll elenlents; while the italicised boxes indicate dick ajld carey's, the unaffected textual boxes depict the goldstein 110 model. although both lllodeis recogllize the importance of conducting the pl1nlary jollrnal learning, vol 7, no 1,2003 © distance education association of ne"v zealand 46 steps in the instructional process, eacll model advocates quite different ways to carry out that step. the essence of this approach to training can be seen in the enlphasis placed on the conlinitnlent of available resources, and that the organizational context is stable, at least until the training is implenlented (kraiger, 1995-1996). when preparing web-based instructional inaterials, it would seem that in any novice courseware designers proceed without the benefit of really defil1ing the type of learning needed (rosenberg, 2001). for instance, whether instruction is required for upgrading skijls/perfornlance, or whether there is sinlply a need to disse111inate 'inforlllation (see figure 2). a luajor portion of 1l1aterial written about e learning does not luake this distinction dear enough. perhaps the confusion relates to the linguistic effects of distributed cognition (salolll 011, 1993) that has occurred over tiule. because of this, there is a real risk of losing the riduless of the elearning phenomenon if our colllprehension is deferred to the literal translati.on. in other words, anything that is online (colnputerized) and involves digital tedul010gy, or call be described as electronic delivery of learning experience, will be considered elearning. consequently, if courseware designers lllisjud ge the perils of distributed cognition in relation to elearning, their courseware will reflect nothing inot(! than an electronic version of the printed version. instead there should be considerable discussion on the wider translation of the ternl ii e learning." one author describes e leanling in tenns of the need to differentiate the learning event as between trainil1g and knowledge inanagement (rosenberg, 2001). furtherlllore, endurijlg courseware should entail i.nstructional strategies that are clear on the why to do it·, and not just the how. figure 2: online training vs. knowledge management clarify learning events requirement: instruction measure effectiveness inlplement training programme to facilitate improved perfonnance knowledge management required journal leaming, vol 7, no 1, 2003 distance education associatioll of new zealand 47 to this effect any learning n:quitl11g instruction belongs within the training domain, while inforn1ational ments require a knowledge management approach. courseware designers should, first, examine the leanting goals and expected performance outconles; and, secondly, decide on all instructi.onal strategy to achieve the lit9tructionai objectives. the last but not at all the least :important elem,ent of an elearnmg event is the measurenlent strategy that lllust be installed to llleasure the effectiveness event. the challenge, however, is to identify and distinguish between the need for instruction (online training) and information (knowledge lllanagem,ent), and to understand how work in tandenl (rosenbergy 2001). expanded hou.rzons the 1110st exciting aspect of elearning surely is not found in lhe plethora of web-based pr0f,rram.llles installed for c01l1ll10n use (moe, 1999), nor is it the capacity for the global information revolution; it is ll),ore to do with opportunities for colllpletely new ways of thinking (miller, 2000). never before in the history of mankind has there been such an enriching opportmuty. the real excitenlent surrounding is more to do with the capadty encouraging networks of leanling, through collaborative experiential learning events (bhattacharya, 2000; garner, 2001; mckay, 2001; komnlers, 2001; okanlotof kaya:ma, & cristea, 2001). tlus learning can take various forms, fronl vocational and fornlal, to the less {ornlal where individuals leanl through their work places (wheeler, 2001), or the learniilg which takes place in everyday experiences. moreover, el(:\arning places collaborative experiential learning in the foreground of human endeavour (mckay, 2001). not so long ago students placed limited value on social functions with either fellow students or acadenlic staff ", (kelllber, 1995). experiential leanung events describe the process of lifelong learning, wluch for some individuals is (~ndiess; surely the elearning environnlent adds to this quest. finally, the social aspects of co.lllllluluty leanung are enhanced by the sense that the notion of collununity is not necessarily forced on an individual. rather within the eleannng envirolunent an individual can participate as an extended family melllber where caring, belonging, and deep association link faintly ll1elnbers with the world outside of it, lllaking life not only possible, but enjoyable (ellis, 2000). conclusion tins discussion paper progressed through concepts, briefly exanlining soille of the collllllonly held behefs about web-based instruction. an expectation was identified with leanlers' what they feel tedu1010gy should and what the reality (quigley, 2002). learning integrity was raised as a crucial instructional design issue, leading on to an acknowledgement that elearning designers should address the different types of leanung requirelnents, llajnely training and information dlanageulent. holistic strengths of elearning were discussed in brief, in terd1s of collaborative experiential leantil1g events and the social aspects of colllmunity learning. the final word nlusl be to propose that successful web-based courseware designers need to think outside their square, to blend learning opportunities into collaborative interactive joumal learning, vol 7, no 1, 2003 © distance education association of new zealand 48 opportunities that draw on the ricluless of offline sodalization and non-technocratic life events. references ausburn, f. b., & ausburn, l. j. perception, and education in developing countries. in m. l. fle111ing & d. w. hutton (eds.), mental imagery and learning (pp. 11-19). englewood cliffs, nj: educational technology publications, bhattacharya, m. 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(2001). collaborative learning support know ledge managemer\t for asynchronous learning networks. in t. okamoto, r. hartley, kinshuk, & j. p, klus (eds.), achievementsj and challenges (pp. 490-491). ieee international conference on advanced learning technologies: (icalt), madison, wi. journal of distance vol 7, no i, 2003 © distance education association of new zealand 50 preece, j. (1994). human-computer intel'act7'on. harlow, england: addison-wesley. quigley, a. (2002, january). closing the gap: new are online students and instructors to~retj.l.er elearn from reeves, t. e-learning: outcornes, assessment, and evaluation. educational technology; 42(november 6-december), 23-29. romiszowski, a. j. (1981). designing instrucfiol1al systerns. london: page. rosenberg, m. j. (2001). e-learning: stra·tegies for delivering knowledge in the digital age. new york: mcgraw-hill. salomon, g. (2002). technology and pedagogy: why don't we see the promised revolution? educational technology; 2-april),71-75. salornol1, g. (1993). distributed cognitions: psychological and educational considerations, cambridge, uk: cambridgr:::! university press. schank, r. c (2002). designi11g (dorld-class e-learning: how ibm, ge; haj'vm-d business school, and columbia university are succeeding al: e-learning. new york: mcgraw-hill wheeler, l. learning network models: a practitioner's view. melbourne, australia: rmit elspeth mckay is senior postdoctoral research fellow (human-computer interaction), school of business information tedzl1ology, rmit university, melbourne/ australia. mckay has extensive industry sector in computer ;;'1"'~ci'u;), of distance learning, vol 7, no 1,2003 © distance education association of new zealand 51 davis, n. e., higgins, a. 8 researching possible futures to guide leaders towards more effective tertiary education niki davis, university of canterbury e-learning lab andrew higgins, independent consultant abstract this research aimed to inform institutional leaders by producing and disseminating a systemwide view of what tertiary education might look like in aotearoa new zealand, 5 years into the future. the researchers were responding to a challenge in a speech by highly respected national leader, dr peter coolbear, at the deanz 2010 conference. the outcome was this research, known as the deanz2016 scenario set. using jisc scenario-planning methodologies, including interviews of 16 national and international education leaders, the scenario set was developed on an x-axis depicting the tension between facing the academy and facing new zealand employers, professions and iwi; and a y-axis depicting the tension between standardised education and customisation to personalise learning. each of the quadrants aimed to expose and contrast potential future scenarios. these quadrants were entitled: articulation, the “supermarket”, quality branded consortia, and self-determination. the project was innovatively disseminated via the web, and the deanz2016 website became the most popular section of the larger ako aotearoa website, stimulating further research into the uptake and effect of the project. keywords: futures; scenario planning; deanz; tertiary leadership; open education; open educational resources; oer; open educational practices; online support services introduction this paper presents the research and findings of a project that aimed to develop leadership in the tertiary sector, and so to improve the successful outcomes for tertiary students in aotearoa new zealand. ako aotearoa, the national centre for tertiary teaching excellence, stimulated and supported the project, which was entitled deanz2016 scenario guide to effective tertiary education in new zealand. the project, led by the authors, was managed and supported by deanz (the national association for open, flexible, and distance learning), which also contributed in many other ways, including expertise. in 2010, the biennial conference of deanz (held in wellington at te papa tongarewa, the national museum), included two important speeches that are relevant background for this project. professor sir mason durie, recently knighted to recognise his contributions to aotearoa new zealand and the world, presented a keynote that addressed the misconception that māori are averse to communication through digital technologies or other forms of open, flexible, and distance learning. durie emphasised that māori value engagement of learners and teachers on a personal level, but this has little to do with the physical distance between the people involved. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(2) 9 using communication technologies can enable two or more people to be engaged on a personal level even when they are geographically distant. durie (2011) also explored future scenarios for māori education in 2025, including this one: te hononga ipurangi suppose, in this scenario, that māori have embraced communication and information technology with enthusiasm.… the virtual classroom pioneered through kaupapa ara whakawhiti matauranga, crs education and paerangi in the early 2000s will have become the norm. though students will still attend schools, most learning will be through the internet. being a small school will no longer prevent students from studying a wide range of subjects, including those where there is a national shortage of teachers (durie, 2011, p. 135). dr peter coolbear, chief executive of ako aotearoa, gave a very able synthesis that closed the conference. he challenged the conference and the association to design general (not specifically e-learning) research that would inform and develop tertiary leaders. in contrast to durie’s distant future, coolbear indicated that he wished to enable better impact with futures that focus on a nearer horizon of only 5 years (see also davis, zaka, higgins, anderson, & suddaby, 2012). the 2011 horizon new zealand advisory board explored emerging technologies and their potential impact in a new zealand context. amongst the trends identified was the expectation that teaching, learning, and research behaviour would change so that learners would constantly be offered flexible learning and working opportunities (johnson, adams, & cummins, 2011). in addition to increasing access, open educational resources (oer) were expected to further enhance learners’ experiences and enable educational transformation that would lead education providers towards open educational practices (ehlers, 2011). since 2011, these trends have become more and more evident, and tertiary education students, as competent users of digital technologies in everyday life, expect to remain connected (anderson, 2010). they also expect their tutors to blend digital technologies effectively in their face-to-face learning environments. in this context, tertiary education providers have evolved and increasingly adopted e-learning in ways that address the new demands. in 2008 higgins and prebble (2008, p. 1) had already noted that, in new zealand in particular, “‘e-learning’ in its various forms is transforming the way new zealand tertiary educational institutions are teaching and supporting their students”. the rollout of ultrafast broadband to 75% of the population and 95% of schools, one of the highest priorities of the government over the years 2010–2016, has and will continue to increase the uptake of blended teaching and learning by education providers (davis, 2011) and stimulate further changes in tertiary education, including initial teacher education (davis, 2015). research evidence is clear that e-learning has the potential to improve learner outcomes in tertiary education when implemented effectively (higgins & prebble, 2008; greenwood & te aika, 2009; means, toyama, murphy, bakia, & jones, 2009), and includes effective support systems (smith, erlam, quirke, & sylvester, 2014). strategies and approaches have been identified to increase success for the increasing diversity of learners and staff. these include identifying a range of strategies that are appropriate for indigenous people (tiakiwai & tiakiwai, 2010; durie, 2011), and when teaching adults with literacy and numeracy needs (davis & fletcher, 2010). effective partnerships also play an important role in increasing access and positive outcomes with e-learning for diverse people and contexts (davis, 2010; anderson, 2010). for example, although gorski (2009) notes that digital technologies in the united states tend to increase existing inequities, in new zealand, greenwood, te aika, and davis (2011) found that using blended learning across collaborating providers can be an effective approach for māori, particularly when they adopt and adapt digital technologies with a kaupapa (an agenda) that includes capacity building. davis, n. e., higgins, a. 10 however, tertiary education providers face many challenges in effectively addressing demands that are constantly changing. according to the ako aotearoa-funded project e-learning and higher education: understanding and supporting organisational change in new zealand, e-learning implementation involves a range of issues for tertiary organisations (marshall, 2012). experience from the dissemination of the ako aotearoa-funded project taking the lead: strategic management for e-learning (higgins & prebble, 2008) indicated that leaders and other staff need resources to inform their planning and to address key issues with e-learning. because e-learning can have both positive and negative implications for indigenous students (such as challenges to cultural practices), the need for informed strategic decisions is also important in the context of te reo māori and kaupapa māori education (tiakiwai & tiakiwai, 2010). marshall (2012) described a set of key factors that leaders of tertiary education organisations need to consider in order to respond effectively to technological opportunities. these factors included time, leadership, strategic and operational outcomes, external coercion, and chance. higgins and prebble (2008) identified six key areas (strategy, structure, resourcing, decisionmaking, collaborating and outsourcing, and selecting technologies) on which institutional leaders were recommended to focus, and the authors provided some guidance as to how these areas might be addressed. in a world of rapid change, there is likely to be a continual need to revise and clarify educational pathways and quality outcomes in ways that inform strategic planning for professional and organisational development. it is increasingly recognised that strategic planning is essential for effective education. scenario planning is a tool for strategic planning that is used to understand future trends and driving forces (jisc, 2008). it has been used to make flexible long-term plans that address big shifts, such as those relating to global economics and new technologies. research into the future of education with scenario-building strategies has been carried out internationally. for example, the beyond current horizons programme (2009) was undertaken in 2009 in the united kingdom to explore the future of education beyond 2025. its aim was to provide a better understanding of the current and emerging socio-technological changes/trends and their implications (positive and negative) for the education sector, and to suggest ways to increase education systems’ resilience in a world of rapid socio-technological change. by doing so, the programme also aimed to support educational stakeholders and policy makers in their long-term strategic planning (facer, 2009). similar goals appear in the work of the institute for the future (2013) in the united states, in the highly graphical report “from educational institutions to learning flows.” along this spectrum, with support from ako aotearoa and deanz, the authors led research into the future of tertiary education in new zealand for 2016 and produced the first system-wide set of scenarios to guide tertiary education towards more effective practices. based on the broad question: “what will tertiary education ‘look like’ in 2016?”, the deanz2016 scenario guide to effective tertiary education in new zealand became a collective scenario set of tertiary education in aotearoa new zealand for 2016. the scenario set was developed to inform organisational strategies, collaboration, and services to improve outcomes for 21st century tertiary students. methodology the research developed, created, and verified a set of scenarios for new zealand tertiary education in 2016 by identifying and describing promising precursors of the future tertiary education ecosystem that were recognised in 2011. the national teaching and e-learning reference group (telrg) acted as a reference and advisory group. the project question: “what will tertiary education ‘look like’ in 2016?” stimulated identification of a number of issues that were used to promote discussion during semi-structured interviews journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(2) 11 with educational leaders. these interviews with 16 expert leaders in the tertiary sector in new zealand and internationally, as well as relevant literature, were analysed with scenario-building strategies developed by jisc (a united kingdom body that supports higher education and research). the jisc methodology is based on creating a series of “different futures” generated from a combination of known factors that were used as the key driving forces. these factors were demographics, with plausible alternative political, economic, social, technical, legal, and environmental (pestle) trends. leaders in tertiary education were identified and contacted as possible participants for the project. the research team tried to involve participants from all forms of tertiary education in new zealand, including universities, institutes of technology and polytechnics (itps), wānanga, (indigenous māori institutions) and private training establishments (ptes). international experts were also included on the advice of the telrg, whose members helped to identify relevant expertise. the participants and their main characteristics are listed in appendix a. a member of the research team interviewed each of the 16 leaders who consented to participate. the interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. in 2011 the interview notes were analysed using a pestle analysis worksheet to identify major trends. the worksheet comprised seven basic categories that were adapted to the new zealand context: these were political, economic, social, technological, legal, environmental, and institutional factors. after the initial analysis of the interview notes, two rounds of workshops were undertaken by members of the research team and their research mentors to develop future scenarios. during the first round of workshops, members of the research team and project mentors reviewed the pestle analysis worksheet. the team first discussed the trends identified on the worksheet, and then additional trends. the latter trends were based on literature and the research team’s experience as faculty members and leaders in tertiary educational providers. the key trends were identified and brought forward for further reflection and consideration for the next steps of analysis. the research team then used a brainstorming activity to discuss the forces behind the key trends that had been identified. these trends were presented in pairs of driving and opposing forces and were grouped according to their similarities, to identify the key pairs of forces that are likely to most affect tertiary education in new zealand in the next 5 years. the major forces identified by the team were rephrased until they made sense in two axes that set out quadrants for four contrasting scenarios. this was an iterative process that involved revisiting and reflecting on the findings from the pestle analysis of the interview notes, current research, the relevant literature on the future of tertiary education, and their collective professional experience. this process continued until consensus was achieved. during the second round of workshops the team discussed potential and emerging scenarios in each quadrant and the characteristics that could fit with the forces described by the position on each axis, which was unique to one scenario. further discussion developed the first set of scenarios and the analysis of the interview data was revisited to add more detail and evidence for each of the four scenarios. finally, in collaboration with a graphic designer, the research team worked on ways to visualise the scenarios and communicate the collective scenario set. this work with the graphic designer was iterative, moving from sketches on paper (see figure 1) to the graphics presented in the next section and on the project’s website. 1 1 http:// akoaotearoa.ac.nz/projects/2016-scenario-guideeffective-tertiary-education-new-zealand davis, n. e., higgins, a. 12 figure 1 project team at the second workshop in july 2011, with the first version of the graphics. from left to right: janinka babcock (graphic designer), pinelopi zaka (research assistant), niki davis (principal investigator/researcher), julie mackey (mentor), andrew higgins (co-principal investigator/researcher). the later dissemination section of this paper presents a wide range of activities that illustrate ways in which the research continued to gather input and refine the scenario set. the workshops in the dissemination phase expanded the membership beyond the research team and their mentors. the scenario set is now presented as the first outcome or finding of the project. the collective scenario set of a future tertiary education system the collective scenario set was developed by the research team to provide a system-wide view across the whole tertiary education sector in aotearoa new zealand. although jisc had produced such sets with individual institutions in the united kingdom, this was the first nationwide scenario set to be produced. this system-wide view involves universities, itps, wānanga, ptes, and adult and community education workplaces. it also included the forms which they were envisaged (in 2011) to evolve into by 2016. the scenario set was based on two dimensions that were expected to have a major effect on the future of education in new zealand for 2016, as shown in figure 2. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(2) 13 figure 2 the deanz2016 scenario set graphic, created in 2011 to inform strategic planning of future tertiary education in new zealand in 2016 the horizontal axis of the scenario set is formed by the tension between facing academia/discipline, and facing employers, professions, and iwi. the vertical axis shows the tension between standardised education and education, that is more customised to learners’ needs and contexts. the dotted lines around the globe shape indicate the permeability of the boundaries of the tertiary education system in each scenario, with some indicating an easier flow in and out of tertiary education than others. the ability for courses and resources to be recycled between scenarios is indicated by the arrows in the middle of the figure. articulation articulation of courses offers some flexibility for learners by providing mapped, portable, and transferable qualifications. tertiary education providers in this quadrant focus on certainty rather than opportunity. institutions are internally focused, so that traditional structures and past policies are sustained to avoid pedagogical and financial risks. change in some aspects of teaching and learning is constrained by competing activities, such as research and quality assurance processes. courses are offered in a range of modes, such as on campus or through online/blended learning options. the use of e-learning has increased student choice and enabled more flexible use of space. davis, n. e., higgins, a. 14 figure 3 the articulation scenario this scenario is shown in figure 3. the high density of the dotted line around the articulation quadrant shows relatively little flow in and out of tertiary education. the geometric shapes and the dotted lines between them represent articulated courses within and between tertiary education programmes. the “supermarket” learning environments in the “supermarket” scenario follow specific academic and production quality standards to address the needs of new zealand employers, professions, and iwi. these environments have massive courses and units of study that are particularly effective whenever they engage with learners’ needs. the role of quality assurance authorities, such as industry training organisations and the new zealand qualifications authority, is very important. in this scenario, e-learning has been adopted to increase efficiency in producing learning materials and assessment. individual learner analytics are often available, providing useful data to teachers who can then direct learners to access additional useful resources. because a range of available resources have been redeveloped and are available in online environments, the use of oer is promoted. figure 4 the “supermarket” scenario journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(2) 15 the density of the dotted line around the “supermarket” scenario in figure 4 indicates a relatively higher flow in and out of tertiary education than that shown in the articulation scenario. the shelved rows of boxes in this quadrant represent the extensive range of learning objects, courses, and other resources that are offered to learners. quality branded consortia in the quality branded consortia scenario, there is more customisation to learners’ needs than in either the articulation or the “supermarket” scenarios. however, tertiary education is strongly influenced by the academy. learning environments respond to increasing demands from learners for programmes that link them to professional networks within and across the country. new zealand is brought to the global market through international partnerships, with an edge on particular areas, such as creativity through diversity. interdisciplinary programmes and faculty collaborations are increasingly observed and students often collaborate to carry out project work. e-learning has been employed to encourage access to oer, sharing presentations and resources, and collaborative project work. students showcase their project work through online publications, including digital portfolios. figure 5 the quality branded consortia scenario the dotted line around the quality branded consortia scenario in figure 5 indicates a higher flow in and out of tertiary education than in the articulation and the “supermarket” scenarios. the larger geometric shapes that may spread beyond the semi-permeable boundaries of this quadrant represent courses and programmes of study that may be offered through collaboration across tertiary educational providers. self-determination in the self-determination scenario, learning environments are highly customised to learners’ needs, with the support of society to establish relevant life-long learning. learners are provided with contextualised support by mentors from the workplace and/or community organisations that collaborate with tertiary education advisors and staff. there is higher use of interdisciplinary resources than in the other scenarios, and learners have more opportunities to participate in vocational and research projects and to contribute their own resources. learning teams emerge in and beyond tertiary organisations, and support staff have a key role in these creative learning environments. space is used in different ways and there are a few strong overseas partnerships including multinational companies, and communities that need support. davis, n. e., higgins, a. 16 in this scenario e-learning has been deployed in ways that encourage self-determination by learners, who enhance their learning and develop digital portfolios to showcase their knowledge and skills. mobile technologies are used by learners to access resources and to gather more evidence about their learning. digital technologies are also used by learners to contribute resources that support their programme of study and/or their authentic contexts. figure 6 the self-determination scenario figure 6 shows that the flow in and out of tertiary education is higher than in the other three scenarios. this quadrant includes larger shapes, a few of which escape the permeable boundaries of tertiary organisations to become more embedded in new zealand society (represented by koru and fern shapes). this fluidity indicates self-determination by learners for their own tertiary education programme. dissemination the final draft of the deanz2016 scenario set was updated following feedback from a face-toface meeting of experts of the telrg and a webinar that gathered feedback from deanz members. once the final scenario set was ready, ako aotearoa proposed that, rather than continuing their previous practice of printing paper-based materials to share with the sector, the project would collaborate with the ako aotearoa web designer to support dissemination by redeveloping the project’s website to be interactive. this was undertaken and unveiled at the tertiary education summit in november 2011 (see appendix b). the project also collaborated with larry johnston to take advantage of the two horizon report workshops that led to the publication of a regional new zealand horizon report in 2011 (johnson et al., 2011). each of the horizon report morning workshops was complemented with an afternoon workshop on the deanz2016 scenario set. as a result of this strategy, more national and international leaders and experts became engaged with the deanz2016 scenario set. in recognition of the diversity of needs and preferred modes of communication, ako aotearoa also stimulated the production of self-study guides for two levels of institutional leaders: senior managers, (including chief executives), and programme leaders and those at head of department or unit level. instead of being printed, the guides were freely available to download from the journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(2) 17 website as pdf files that could be printed or read on screen. both self-study guides included more direction and illustrations. the ongoing dissemination then took advantage of events frequented by these institutional leaders, resulting in 17 events between september 2011 and june 2013 (see the events referred to in appendix b). each presentation was adapted to the purposes of the event and its participants, and was often complemented with blog entries on the project’s ako aotearoa website and microblogging in other venues such as twitter. for example: future scenarios of tertiary education in new zealand will be presented in the herdsa2013 conference news: http://us6.campaignarchive2.com/?u=760aac30f043b6ed11a8c6854&id=a6bcb7adfe … #deanz2016 (tweet @profnikidavis on 15 may 2013) ites nz tertiary summit now on ministry web site http://www.minedu.govt.nz/theministry/consultation/theinnovationsintertiaryeducatio ndeliverysummit2014.aspx … and also linked to #deanz2016 for breakout 1 following salman khan (tweet @profnikidavis on 27 may 2014) twitter was also used to link current events with the scenario set. for example: the nzopened symposium report is ready for release and circulation futures envisaged by the #deanz2016 research are coming closer (tweet @profnikidavis on 13 november 2012) opportunities were taken to teach with the scenario set and related materials. the project’s focus on the future stimulated and supported the first author in innovative design of learning and teaching. in 2013, niki davis became the acting leader of her college of education, and had an opportunity to collaborate with wayne mackintosh on her course. when she realised the relevance of the project’s resources, niki was able to capitalise on wayne’s expertise (a detailed account is provided in davis & mackintosh, 2013). as a result, the deanz scenario set was further developed to become part of two workshops (a micro open online course, or a mooc) and a section of the 2013 university of canterbury postgraduate course on ‘change with digital technologies in education’ (edem630). thus the scenario set became part of the resources that are openly available for adoption and adaption in the tertiary sector of aotearoa new zealand and globally. readers might reflect that the resources could be given as an example of a resource in the “supermarket” scenario, and as an activity that could be studied by a self-directed student in the self-determination scenario. by may 2013 the deanz 2016 website had become the most popular part of ako aotearoa’s website. according to the project evaluator’s first report (weir, 2013, p. 2): in early may 2013 the project page on our website has been visited 5973 times, (2888 unique). the resource for programme leaders has been downloaded 53 times (48 unique), and resource for senior managers has been downloaded 52 times (43 unique). the final stage of the project has been to complete an extension that researched its uptake and impact, stimulated in part by the apparent popularity of the website. in brief, the findings of the extension, which included four additional interviews (see appendix a), indicated that it was hard to trace the impact of the project back to change in specific intuitions or in the sector nationwide. http://us6.campaign-archive2.com/?u=760aac30f043b6ed11a8c6854&id=a6bcb7adfe … http://us6.campaign-archive2.com/?u=760aac30f043b6ed11a8c6854&id=a6bcb7adfe … https://twitter.com/hashtag/deanz2016?src=hash https://twitter.com/hashtag/deanz2016?src=hash https://twitter.com/profnikidavis/status/334603915419086848 http://t.co/xu2wbkswpd http://t.co/xu2wbkswpd https://twitter.com/hashtag/deanz2016?src=hash https://twitter.com/profnikidavis https://twitter.com/profnikidavis/status/334603915419086848 https://twitter.com/hashtag/deanz2016?src=hash https://twitter.com/profnikidavis https://twitter.com/profnikidavis https://twitter.com/profnikidavis/status/334603915419086848 davis, n. e., higgins, a. 18 recommendations included that innovative web-based dissemination methods be complemented with hands-on workshops with leaders, where feasible. care needs to be taken in the background design of websites so that data is automatically gathered on users when the information is downloaded: that is, “ensure ip data is harvested for communications, follow-up, dissemination and evaluation purposes.” (higgins & davis, 2015, p. 8) conclusions and recommendations when viewed as a whole, the deanz2016 scenario set can be seen to have described an accurate future for tertiary education in aotearoa new zealand in 2016, which is exhibited as a diverse range that has blended two or more of the scenarios, rather than the four that were placed neatly into the quadrants. global technical and economic pressures have increased since 2010. a strong trend, which the deanz2016 scenarios aimed to communicate in the most innovative quadrant, implies that tertiary education institutions responded mostly to ‘nz employers, professions and iwi’ with tertiary education ‘customised’ to the learner. while the deanz2016 scenarios did not include the term ‘mooc’ (marshall, 2013), these were incorporated over time and added as a mooc experience: for example, in 2013 during the dissemination phase. later forecasting publications have validated the trends foreseen by deanz2016. for example, the institute for the future (2013) stated in its report, “a combination of drivers is breaking learning—and education overall—out of traditional institutional environments and embedding it in everyday settings and interactions, distributed across a wide set of platforms and tools.” (iftf, 2013, p. 1) in addition, the most recent regional horizon report (johnson, adams becker, cummins, & estrada, 2014) validates the two more radical scenarios: the panel agreed that the use of digital content has become commonplace and the growing awareness of its importance is an important driver of decisions across the continent. the growing interest in online and hybrid learning is fuelling the rise of related approaches in australia, such as the flipped classroom, badges, and open content. in fact, both australian panels emphasised the growth of open content, making it a top-ranked trend in back-to-back years. this consensus conveys the immense value of open educational resources and opensource educational platforms in the continent—a movement that is expanding access to highquality learning materials for all australians. (p. 3) the early intensive phases of the research led to a dissemination phase that involved a range of activities, which also fed back into the application and further dissemination of the scenario set. it appears that using scenario planning to inform strategic planning has increased in tertiary education, although leaders are unlikely to remember exposure to the deanz2016 scenario set. some tertiary institutions have been strongly influenced by shocking events such as the canterbury earthquakes, which have also increased financial pressures. for example, all institutions are likely to have buildings that require earthquake strengthening and most have also recognised the strategic importance of cloud computing for resilience. this research and scenario set aimed to stimulate leaders and other colleagues to recognise and support foresight to inform future developments in tertiary intuitions and across the sector nationally and globally. stimulated by a key leader in aotearoa new zealand, the project successfully generated and disseminated the first future scenario set for a nation. although the project did not focus on open and flexible learning, a core message of the research and scenario set is that as we increase learner-centred education, we must include digital technologies in our core infrastructure. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(2) 19 references anderson, w. 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(2011). creating virtual marae: an examination of how digital technologies have been adopted by māori in aotearoa new zealand. in p. r. leigh (ed.), international exploration of technology equity and the digital divide: critical, historical and social perspectives (pp. 58–79). charlotte: information age press. higgins, a. h., & davis, n. e. (2015). the impact of the deanz2016 scenario set envisaging the future of tertiary education in aotearoa new zealand in 2016. unpublished report presented to ako aotearoa and deanz executive. http://www.beyondcurrenthorizons.org.uk/ http://education2x.otago.ac.nz/cinzs/mod/resource/view.php?id=139 http://www.uis.unesco.org/statisticalcapacitybuilding/pages/communication-ict-paris-2014.aspx http://www.uis.unesco.org/statisticalcapacitybuilding/pages/communication-ict-paris-2014.aspx http://www.deanz.org.nz/home/images/newsletters/nov13%202.pdf http://www.deanz.org.nz/home/images/newsletters/august12.pdf http://www.beyondcurrenthorizons.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/final-report-20092.pdf http://www.beyondcurrenthorizons.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/final-report-20092.pdf https://akoaotearoa.ac.nz/heitauira davis, n. e., higgins, a. 20 higgins, a. h., & prebble, t. (2008). taking the lead: strategic management for e learning. wellington: ako aotearoa. institute for the future. (2013). from educational institutions to learning flows. retrieved from http://www.iftf.org/our-work/global-landscape/learning/from-educational-institutions-tolearning-flows-map/ jisc. (2008). steps to scenario planning. retrieved from https://www.jisc.ac.uk/guides/scenarioplanning johnson, l., adams, s., & cummins, m. (2011). technology outlook for new zealand tertiary education 2011–2016: an nmc horizon project regional analysis. austin, tx: new media consortium. johnson, l., adams becker, s., cummins, m., & estrada, v. (2014). 2014 nmc technology outlook for australian tertiary education: a horizon project regional report. austin, tx: new media consortium. marginson, s. (2000). rethinking academic work in the global era. journal of higher education policy and management, 22(1), 23–35. markides, c. (2006). disruptive innovation: in need of better theory. journal of product innovation management, 23(1), 19–25. marshall, s. (2012). open education and systemic change. on the horizon, 20(2), 110–116. marshall, s. (2013). evaluating the strategic and leadership challenges of moocs. merlot journal of online learning and teaching, 9(2), 216–227. means, b., toyama, y., murphy, r., bakia, m., & jones, k. (2009). evaluation of evidencebased practices in online learning: a meta-analysis and review of online-learning studies. washington, d.c.: u.s. department of education, office of planning, evaluation, and policy development. smith, n. v., erlam, c., quirke, n., & sylvester, g. (2014). establishing a sense of connectedness amongst theology students in distance education. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 18(2), 11–28. tiakiwai, s., tiakiwai, h. (2010). a literature review focused on virtual learning environments (vles) and e-learning in the context of te reo māori and kaupapa māori education. wellington: ministry of education. weir, k. (2013). evaluation interview: 6 month interview. unpublished report. wellington: ako aotearoa. acknowledgements this project was supported by the collaboration projects funding stream of the the ako aotearoa national project fund 2010, with an extension in 2014 to research impact, including the use of extensive online dissemination. the deanz executive also supported this project. it was first stimulated by peter coolbear, ceo ako aotearoa. we would also like to acknowledge contributions from researchers bill anderson (university of otago), pinelopi zaka (university of canterbury) and gordon suddaby (massey university), our mentors, and participants, including telrg and deanz members. thanks also to all researchers’ institutions for matching contributions, particularly the university of canterbury e-learning lab. http://www.iftf.org/our-work/global-landscape/learning/from-educational-institutions-to-learning-flows-map/ http://www.iftf.org/our-work/global-landscape/learning/from-educational-institutions-to-learning-flows-map/ https://www.jisc.ac.uk/guides/scenario-planning https://www.jisc.ac.uk/guides/scenario-planning journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(2) 21 the project was also promoted through the ako aotearoa homepage, the ako aotearoa alert and the e-bulletin. (weir, 2013) biographical notes niki davis niki.davis@canterbury.ac.nz niki is distinguished professor of e-learning and director of the e-learning lab in the university of canterbury college of education, christchurch, new zealand. in addition to researching e-learning in teacher education and professional development, niki teaches and researches about change with digital technologies in education and related areas of scholarship. niki is a past president of deanz and editorin-chief of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. niki was the principal investigator in this research. andrew higgins andrew.higgins@vodafone.co.nz andrew has been a director of e-learning at aut university and is a past president of both the distance education association of new zealand and of the australian rural education research association. he has been a member of ministerial advisory committees in new zealand and in queensland, australia. his areas of work include strategic planning, e-learning, distance education, and the history of education. andrew was the co-principal investigator in this research. davis, n. e., & higgins, a. (2015). researching possible futures to guide leaders towards more effective tertiary education. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(2), [8–24]. mailto:niki.davis@canterbury.ac.nz http://www.canterbury.ac.nz/spark/researcher.aspx?researcherid=3612254 http://www.canterbury.ac.nz/spark/researcher.aspx?researcherid=3612254 mailto:andrew.higgins@vodafone.co.nz http://www.canterbury.ac.nz/spark/researcher.aspx?researcherid=3612254 davis, n. e., higgins, a. 22 appendix a: research participants interviewed, and their characteristics year interviewed participant type of organisation region involved with technology māori perspective pasifika perspective 2011 a employer new zealand 2011 b university new zealand   2011 c employer asia pacific  2011 d university new zealand  2011 e pte new zealand  2011 f pte new zealand  2011 g employer usa  2011 h university/ employer europe  2011 i itp new zealand  2011 j university australia  2011 k university usa  2011 l university new zealand  2011 m employer europe  2011 n employer new zealand  2011 o university/ itp usa  2011 p employer new zealand  2015 q pte new zealand  2015 r university new zealand  2015 s university new zealand  2015 t government department new zealand  journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(2) 23 appendix b: deanz2016 dissemination activities (in chronological order) davis, n. e., higgins, a., & suddaby, g. (2011, september). a scenario guide to tertiary education for new zealand in 2016. deanz webinar, online september 2011. johnston, l., higgins, a., & davis, n. e. (2011, october). horizons workshop. auckland. johnston, l., suddaby, g., davis, n. e., & anderson, w. (2011, october). horizons workshop. wellington. davis, n. e. (2011, november). future scenarios for tertiary education in 2016: evolving designs with e-learning. the 3rd annual new zealand tertiary education summit, wellington, new zealand. davis, n. e., zaka, p., higgins, a., anderson, b., & suddaby, g. (2012, march). validating a collective scenario of tertiary education in 2016 with site. in p. resta (ed.), proceedings of the society for information technology and teacher education international conference 2012 (pp. 3170–3176). chesapeake, va: aace. higgins, a. (2012, march). future scenarios for tertiary education in 2016: evolving designs with e-learning. higher education summit, auckland, march 2012. davis, n. e., & fletcher, j. (2012, july). the co-evolution of e-learning with continuing education and the workplace. keynote presented at ials symposium on the new frontiers of learning and work, singapore. davis, n. e., zaka, p., higgins, a., anderson, w., & suddaby, g. (2012, august). deanz research into the future of tertiary education in 2016. deanz magazine, pp. 22–24. retrieved from http://deanz.org.nz/dnzwp/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/august12.pdf davis, n. e. (2013, march). the co-evolution of digital technologies and tertiary education. presentation at higher education summit, auckland, new zealand. davis, n. e. (2013, may). the co-evolution of digital technologies and education. seminar in university of oxford department of education, united kingdom. davis, n. e., & mackintosh, w. (2013, june). scenario building. micromooc/oeru short course online. davis, n. e. (2013, july). scenarios for the future of tertiary education to inform views of place in learning and teaching. presentation to the higher education research and development society of australasia (herdsa) annual conference, aut, auckland. davis, n. e., & mackintosh, w. (2013, july–august). scenario building. micromooc/oeru short course online. also a section in postgraduate course edem630 change with digital technologies in education, university of canterbury. davis, n. e., & mackintosh, w. (2013, november). a mooc prepared to make a difference. deanz magazine, 1–7. retrieved from http://www.deanz.org.nz/home/images/newsletters/nov13%202.pdf davis, n. e., & zaka, p. (2013, october). deanz ako scenarios of 2016: a planning tool for education in new zealand. poster presentation at ulearn conference. christchurch, new zealand. http://deanz.org.nz/dnzwp/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/august12.pdf http://www.deanz.org.nz/home/images/newsletters/nov13%202.pdf davis, n. e., higgins, a. 24 davis, n. e., & higgins, a. (2014, june). what will tertiary education organisations look like in 2025? workshop in innovations in tertiary education delivery summit 2014 (ites), auckland. davis, n. e. (2014, november). prizing open education. keynote to australasian society for computers in learning in tertiary education (ascilite) annual conference ‘rhetoric and reality: critical perspectives on educational technology’, dunedin, 23–26 november 2014. retrieved from http://ascilite2014.otago.ac.nz/keynotes-invited-speakers/ this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. http://ascilite2014.otago.ac.nz/keynotes-invited-speakers/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ the challenges of supporting staff and adult students in an elearnin·g environment introduction many new zealand tertiary providers-including teacher education institutions-are currently developing new online programmes to help keep their competitive edge in an increasingly global environment. as elearning experiences and research grow and mature globally, more "universal attributes of quality online courses" (mcloughlin, 2003, p. 5) are emerging. much is made of the "as good as face-to-face" (mcdonald, 2002) or "no-significant difference" (russell, 1999, as cited in mcdonald, 2002) phenomena, where online learning experiences are said to match or even surpass their on-site counterparts. the writer's own initial experiences as an adult elearner belied this. frustration ' anger, panic, anxiety, and despair were all experienced. these were related to the new technologies and suitable computer access, the lack of person-to­ person contact, uncertainties of what was expected or the standard required, and a fear in case something vital on the website was missed. other probleins included concern at the amount of time it was taking-particularly to read all the discussion postings (plus official readings with their hyperlinks that hyperlinked ruth caswell smith bethlehem institute of education tauranga, new zealand again), seeing others posting contributions on the very first day, and adjusting the rest of life to fit in with study. did anyone else ever experience feelings like these? did others in the online class feel similarly? as a community of strangers, the writer suspected they were hesitant to admit to anything of the sort. the turning point came when someone recommended reading hara and king's (1999) article on student frustrations with a web-based course. the news was out! the class voiced it, and uncovered a chorus of agreement from relieved others. somehow in the sharing the students found themselves empowered to continue on more strongly. as the institution in which the writer works is at an emergent stage of translating teaching and counselling courses into a mixed mode model, she suddenly became aware of the possible needs of a new group of students with whom there had been no prior contact­ the flexi student body. none had ever sought help even though, as learning centre coordinator, the writer's name and contact details were in all their study guides. were they experiencing the same difficulties as she had in her online class? all the flexi courses contained one or two journal of distance learning, vol 8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 34 face-to-face, on-site block courses during the semester, which may have , made a significant difference, but there were , online components-usually threaded discussions-in between. how were the students faring? did they need help? during the preparation of translating courses into a more flexible model, were there lessons to be learned from the literature and from pioneering colleagues that could help inform the work? the writer set out to explore the following questions: • what areas of learning online do adult students struggle with most? how do they face these challenges? • how can tertiary e-educators and e­ support staff better serve online students? • do students know how and from whom to access help-and do they? how well "set up for success" do they feel? • do adult eleamers in practice experience all or many of the supposed advantages of online learning-are they aware of what these are? • how self-aware are adult eleamers? • is there an "ideal" eleamer profile, as some writers suggest? method a questionnaire was developed in order to gather data pertaining to students' experiences of learning online (see appendix 1). issues to be recorded included if and where students accessed help, some common areas of struggle and ways in which these might be ameliorated, students' m�tacognitive awareness of themselves as learners, and recommendations for ways in which future online students could be better supported. (several sections of the questionnaire are subsumed into these broader parameters in the analysis). the questionnaire was sent to current and past flexi students of the writer's institution. only thirteen students fell into this category, so the potential pool of respondents was small from the outset. all were practising teachers. exploring the literature accessing help the notion of equal opportunities for all students-whether on or off campus-is at the heart of treaty of waitangi obligations for education providers in new zealand. tertiary institutions typically give online students information on how to contact academic and support personnel for help when needed-people such as their course lecturers (often the first "port of call"), library personnel, tertiary learning advisers, web-based help, it help desk personnel (lindeman, 2000) and, at a more personal level, health and counselling services. students can also access libraries in their own locality and web-based materials from other tertiary institutions, or talk to family members, friends, or work colleagues. areas of frustration as e-education is becoming more established and the honeymoon period is over, more writers are acknowledging areas of frustration for eleamers (e.g., cifuentes & shih, 2001; hara & king, 1999; hase & ellis, 2001; klemm & snell, 1995). many of these link to key areas such as issues with computers, the learning platform, or technology; course design and practice; relating in the online environment; and students' own fears and struggles. 1. computers, the learning platform, or technology. frustrations noted in these areas include difficult or slow computer journal of distance learning, vol 8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 35 access; technical problems with the student's ow:n computer (hase & ellis, 2001); an unreliable learning platform; difficulties searching for or finding relevant information on the internet, including sites that do not open (hara & king, 1999) or that are firewall protected in the student's workplace; security issues relating to intellectual property, privacy, and confidentiality (rigden, 2001); inadequate computer skills, including a slow typing speed (hara & king, 1999; klemm & snell, 1995); and a general sense of disorientation in the unfamiliar environment of cyberspace (bilotta, fiorito, iovane, & pantano, 1995). 2. course design and practice. most difficulties relating to course design seem to focus on insufficiently explicit structure or a lack of clarity of tutor expectations (national centre for vocational education research, n.d.), student difficulties under­ standing online instructions or the course materials, and the inflexibility of course schedules (hara & king, 1999). students also complain about the high levels of reading required (rigden, 2001), both official · reading and that generated by multiple discussion postings. difficulties with course practice frequently revolve around relating to the lecturer, particularly if feedback on assignments or answering of questions is infrequent or tardy (hara & king, 1999). 3. relating in the online environment. several writers note student struggles with relating in the online environment. the lack of nonverbal or visual cues in discussions (pallo££ & pratt, 2001) can lead to misunderstandings, "flaming" (where a student vents their frustration in written form), and online conflict. others note that discussion contributions can be superficial, sluggish, and unsatisfying (klemm & snell, 1995), or that they can be hijacked by one or two contributors (jonassen, howland, moore, & marra, 2003). if the class is small and classmates are lazy, since discussions are in essence social and collaborative, the learning experience is lessened for all (klemm & snell, 1995). not knowing one's lecturer or classmates beforehand can also pose problems for some elearners. in a campus setting, student life includes a rich social aspect that can be entirely missing for the online learner (rigden, 2001), who can find their study experience very lonely (trewern & lai, 2001). 4. students' own emotional fears and struggles. increasingly, the affective side of online learning is being acknowledged in the literature. apart from loneliness, other key areas of challenge include poor personal time management, resulting in last-minute panic; difficulties juggling home, work, and study co:mrrtitments; distractions in the student's workspace (rigden, 2001); feelings of not coping (hara & king, 1999); and fears that it will all take too much time, particularly the reading. students respond in various ways to these challenges. some pull out before their course officially starts or drop out in the first few weeks. some begin to withdraw, but are drawn back in by the timely intervention of an observant tutor. others have an online outburst. still others seek help inside or outside official channels. advantages of online learning at the other end of the spectrum, advocates of learning online are quick to point out ways in which it can give superior learning experiences to face-tojournal of distance learning, vol8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 36 face classrooms (e.g., kassop, 2003; mcdonald, 2002; milne, 2002; pallo££ & pratt, 2001; russell, 1999, ·as �ited in mcdonald, 2002; twigg, 2001). numerous advantages mentioned include the freedom students have to express themselves more fully, deeply, and reflectively in discussions (kassop, 2003; klemm & snell, 1995), since their asynchronous nature allows more time for reflection and reading before posting (meyer, 2003); a greater degree of sharing resources, cooperation, and collaboration between classmates, allowing students to learn from each other more (chickering & ehrmann, 1996; kassop, 2003; klemm & snell, 1995); greater flexibility to fit in with students' work, family responsibil­ ities, or the rest of life (pallo££ & pratt, 2001); improvement in students' written skills (meyer, 2003); the provision of a more equitable environment, with the elimination of power differentials between students or between students and lecturers (pallo££ & pratt, 2001); a helpful focus on the message rather than the messenger, with all having equal "air-time" (mcdonald, 2002); speedier and more regular feed-back from course tutors (rigden, 2001); opportunity for learning styles to be creatively catered for (pallo££ & pratt, 2001); and greater levels of interest, and even, potentially, higher grades (rigden, 2001). self-awareness as a new online learner metacognitive learning, including that experienced in the online environment, is an area of growing interest in educational circles (e.g., decker collins, 1994; gay, 2002; hacker, 1998; huitt, 1997; living­ stone, 1997; marshall, 2003; soellner, thrift, wildhagen, & threet, 2002). some writers have identified what they see as common traits of successful online learners, and the current project sought to discover if the students it surveyed aligned themselves with many of these. the results could provide interesting background information for arly students who sought learning support help. not every student is successful in an online environment, and if students did not identify readily with many of the indicators, it could suggest that they might require more support. equally, it was felt that becoming more aware of the kind of learner they are could help students in the learning process. commonly acknowledged indicators of a successful online learner, and consequent successful learning experience, include: • age-not a school leaver (pallo££ & pratt, 2003); • a preference for writing rather than speaking (pallo££ & pratt, 2003); • being fairly computer literate (meyer, 2003)-having access to a computer and modem on a high-speed connection and having the ability to use them (pallo££ & pratt, 2003); • being strongly reflective (pallo££ & pratt, 2003); • free choice in doing the course as opposed to it being a requirement (pallo££ & pratt, 2001); • good collaboration and cooperation skills (pallo££ & pratt, 2001; jones, 2000); • good thinking skills (pallo££ & pratt, 2003); • high personal expectations (pallo££ & pratt, 2001)-being motivated to learn for the sake of it (jones, 2000; meyer, 2003); • the ability to cope with the lack of auditory or visual cues (pallo££ & pratt, 2003); • the ability to read strategically (decker collins, 1994); journal of distance learning, vol 8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 37 � the ability to work independently m a sel£-disdplined way (jones, 2000; meyer, 2000), including asking for help as required (pallo££ & pratt, 2003); '" life transformation as a result of doing the course (pallo££ & pratt, 2003). findings as mentioned earlier, only thirteen students had participated in the flexi courses to date at the writer's institution. of the thirteen, three had only just started their courses and felt their experiences were too minimal to be of use. two others promised to respond but never did; four made no contact, despite receiving the original email, a mailed letter, and an email reminder; the remaining four responded fully. the responses of these few gave helpful indicators of areas e-educators need to consider further, both in terms of student support and course design. accessing help questionnaire results showed that the most common ways of accessing help were from the course lecturer(s) and family members or friends. three of the four respondents had accessed local libraries, while two had accessed the institute's library personnel. only one had accessed the library's e-journal databases or the institute's helpdesk, or sought help from their own or other institutions' online learning support. none had contacted the institute's learning centre coordinator or any health or counselling personnel. areas of frustration multiple areas of frustration were identified. one identified by all was that of juggling study with work and home commitments. also high on the list was not knowing their classmates, and having no social interaction with them· finding relevant information on th� internet; feelings of not coping, and panic at having too much to do in too short p. time. others commented on the frustration caused by the learning platform not functioning or technical problems with their own computers, plus a sense of disorientation in the unfamiliar environment of cyberspace. conflicts with their other work time superficial or unsatisfying discussions: fears that their study would take up too much time, and loneliness also featured. other areas identified by only one respondent-but causing extreme frus­ tration-included not knowing exactly what to do on a week-to-week basis discussions being hijacked by others, and not knowing the course lecturer. ways in which respondents combated frustrations included discussing aspects of the paper with colleagues or giving up temporarily, coming back later, continuing slowly on, gaining confidence as assignments came back, and prayer. respondents made suggestions as to how some of these frustrations could be eliminated or ameliorated. two suggested getting together as a group at the start of the course. this would help the sense of connection, so they felt they knew who their lecturer and classmates were. one suggested that each week the tutor post a message saying what students should be doing that week and in what order. another suggestion was for materials to be sent out earlier prior to the course start, allowing students time to become more familiar with course requirements and the technology and learning platform involved. this student also suggested journal of distance learning, vol 8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 38 that due dates for first assignments should take into account the steep technological · learning curve fo� many new elearners, should be of lower value, and perhaps should be later than in a campus-based class. two suggestions related to course information: more information about the various subject options was asked for, including letting students know in advance if exams were part of the assessment process, allowing those who wished to avoid them. knowing earlier when intensives were scheduled would also allow for the booking of cheaper flights. one student suggested that a detailed list be given of what the learning centre could offer students right at the start of the course. advantages of online learning respondents to the questionnaire agreed unanimously with the advantage of flexibility of timing to fit with the rest of life. all agreed that the online environment allows more time for reflection, and that the focus is on the message rather than the messenger. beyond that, they did not agree. three agreed that the online environ­ ment, which is very text-focussed, had helped their written skills. they also felt they had more access to their course lecturer(s) and had more "air time" in discussions than they might have had otherwise. respondents were divided equally as to whether they felt personally welcomed and acknowledged in the online context, whether feedback from their tutors had been faster than in a campus-based course, or whether power differentials were eliminated. again, opinion was divided as to whether more of their learning had come from classmates or whether their learning style was catered for. one respondent felt they had expressed opinions they would have been more hesitant to express in a face-to-face context; another believed they ended up with a higher grade! only one student felt the course was more interesting because of its online dimension, or that discus­ sions were deeper or more thoughtful as a result of being asynchronous. none felt the online environment allowed them to express themselves more fully or reflectively, or that their discussions were more stimulating than in a face-to-face context. none experienced a greater level of cooperation, collaboration, or sharing of resources between classmates. self-awareness as a new online learner all respondents agreed they had freely chosen to do the course(s), had high personal expectations, and their lives had been transformed in the process. three felt they were able to cope without the visual or auditory stimuli of face-to­ face learning, were highly motivated to learn for the sake of it, and were cooperative and collaborative learners with good thinking skills. they willingly sought help as required. they felt they were self-motivated, self-disciplined, and reflective, open to share from their own lives with their classmates. these respondents also acknowledged they were already fairly computer literate, with access to a computer and modem on a high-speed connection. journal of distance learning, vol8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 39 only one in four identified as preferring to communicate through writing rather than speaking, that they could work with a minimum of structure, or that they were strategic in their reading practices. when asked what else they felt contributed to successful online learning, metacognitive responses linked primarily to confidence-that they could do the course successfully and had something positive to offer. a good sense of humour and a supportive family were also identified. in sharing ways in which they recognised they had grown as leamers through doing these courses, respondents said they had leamed they could successfully complete a paper in this style of learning, were able to discipline their time effectively and work independently, and functioned better when encouraged, while acknowl­ edging that constructive criticism of their work had also contributed to their personal and professional growth. in sharing their awareness of how they liked to leam, three said they preferred to leam face-to-face, as they liked talking and having things explained to them. respondents expressed awareness that, after completing the course, they have become very familiar-some perhaps for the first time-with using email, chatrooms, and the discussion board, and that they had appreciated addressing and exploring issues one-to­ one via email with their lecturer, something they could probably not have done in a face-to-face setting. the course(s) had also helped them get back into study and professional reading. discus sion accessing help respondents were very grateful for the level of help given by their course lecturer(s).' the students mentioned they were very available and helpful, responding quickly and personally to requests. the respondents also appreciated their helpful and clear instructions. online learning often gives students far more personal access to lecturing staff than they could expect in a campus-based course (e.g., jones, 2000). friends, flatmates, or family members seemed to help mostly on the technology front, since it was unfamiliar to some, or with academic writing. the helpfulness of the librarian was also mentioned, both in accessing materials and for the detailed explanation of how to use a major e-joumal database. the local online learning centre came in for praise, although one respondent asked that powerpoint scripts also be provided in word for ease of printing. these responses showed the initiative taken by these students in seeking help where they felt they could find it. none of the flexi students had ever contacted the writer in the learning centre, but it may be that as she had never met any of them, they had no face to link to the name in their book. they may have preferred to use the learning centre materials online since they were becoming more proficient in that milieu and could access them from home. one way in which this study has changed the writer's approach is that she now plans to suggest a meeting with flexi students when they come on site, so journal of distance learning, vol8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 40 ' they can see the human side of the learning centre and hear more about how· they might be helped. in a1ddition, producing a small booklet of information on the learning centre resources and services is felt to be very worthwhile. as a result of the study, course leaders appear to be more aware of the writer's willingness to be involved with this new group of students, and may refer questions to her that they would previously have tried to answer themselves, thus saving time. areas of frustration since the respondents were all in responsible jobs, it was unsurprising to hear of the challenge of juggling study and other life commitments. it would appear that these students were very relational, since the lack of social contact or knowledge of classmates and tutor featured markedly in their struggles. this is perhaps not surprising since the teaching profession is a strongly relational area of work. it could also result from unfamiliarity with the online environment; it takes time to adjust to relating in a different way from anything previously experienced. as mature adults, these students handled the challenges positively. it could be speculated that younger students might tend to give up more easily, hence the need for tutors to be alert to vanishing students and intercept quickly if they can, coming alongside to encourage them to push through the barriers. in future, the writer would encourage new online students to keep a personal reflective journal or to share their feelings and struggles more openly in a weblog setting (blood, 2000; cross, 2002). personal experience suggests it may be that sharing how they feel will help bond a class, relieve or diffuse the negatives, and encourage an atmosphere of support and trust between classmates. advantages of online learning it was of no surprise that the noted advantage to these students was that of flexibility of time. after all, that is a key reason why many eleamers choose to take online courses. all four respondents were either schoolteachers or principals, not necessarily working full time, so time flexibility would be an essential ingredient for them. what was surprising, however, was that they did not feel their online experiences allowed them to express themselves more fully or reflectively than in a face-to-face environment. they did not all know each other prior to doing the course(s) together. perhaps the intensive section of their courses included some highly stimulating discussions. perhaps the tiny numbers in some of the online classes meant there were too few people with whom to have a satisfying discussion, in contrast to the size of most on-site classes. perhaps the fact that all were experienced professionals used to speaking up meant they were well used to being assertive in group settings anyway. perhaps the small group of respondents would be atypical of a larger sample. self-awareness as a new online learner all the respondents seemed to be very self-aware, although only three out of the ·four identified with most of the common indicators for successful online learning. other comments by the fourth journal of distance learning, vol 8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 41 student would seem to indicate a higher level of struggle with isolation,feelings of inadequacy, and stress. if future students used a weblog to share thoughts and feelings of this nature, teaching or support staff would be able to recognise those struggling earlier and ideally provide coaching. research shows (e.g., ryan, 2001) that online learning can have a very high attrition rate, and early intervention and prompt feedback are key elements in helping keep students in touch. conclusions the results suggest tertiary e-educators and e-support staff can better serve online students. the following strategies are proposed: • alert course lecturers to the presence and willingness of academic support services to get alongside their distance or online students, and encourage them to pass on relevant enquiries. it seems students may not always know all those who could help them in their studies. • ask a learning adviser and librarian to take part in face-to-face intensives, so students can put faces to names for acaderriic support. • create a booklet for all new online students listing the areas of help available through the learning centre, library, and other student support services. this should include advice on how to search the internet and use library databases. • have all online learning support materials available in word (even if also in powerpoint) for ease of printing. • encourage prompt intervention by academic or support staff to help encour­ age and motivate vanishing students. • make all expectations very explicit for elearners in the course design process to help them feel safe and also to enhance their sense of being set up for success. • send out all course materials in good time prior to the course start to allow students time to peruse them, organise their time expectations, and arrange any travel reg,uirements. • allow students sufficient time to explore the learning platform before a course starts. • academic staff should consider carefully the timing and weighting of online assessments to allow students to familiarise themselves with the new environment, and not disadvantage them over face-to-face students. • arrange a face-to-face intensive early on in the course to help online learners on many social and affective fronts. • encourage new online students to share their feelings and struggles in a shared weblog setting or a personal reflective journal. these help students' self-awareness as learners and the class bonding process. given time and sufficient experience, they probably will experience many of the known advantages of learning online. • above all, never underestimate the importance of affirmation and encouragement. as with face-to-face students, online learners thrive in a positive, can-do environment. the writer says: i feel that, through this study, my own "wrestling" has resulted in a much greater depth of understanding of online learning processes and "trouble spots." i have a much greater ability to support students unfamiliar in the online environment and will work towards translating my own courses in a way that will activate student interest and promote success. journal of distance learning, vol 8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 42 �, appendixl affective and metacognitive aspects of online learning: art online questionnaire i thank you for your willingness to take part in this questionnaire! your feedback will be most helpful in informing the support of and delivery to future online students. the orientation process for online learning • what was involved in your orientation to online learning? • what would have helped you adjust more easily? • what if anything was included that you feel could have been left out? • did you feel you had adequate experience with computers prior to starting this course? yes /no • did you feel you had adequate time to explore the software prior to starting this course? yes /no • did you feel objectives were stated sufficiently in detail and clearly? yes/no accessing help when needed where did you go to access academic, technical or personal help when you felt you needed it? please indicate your answer in bold, by underlining, or by deleting as applicable. • course lecturer(s)? yes i no • family member or friend? yes i no • institute helpdesk? yes i no • institute library personnel? • learning centre coordinator at bethlehem institute? • learning centre information online? • library e-journal databases? • local doctor or counsellor? • other libraries? • other tertiary institutions' support systems? • reflect briefly on why you went where you did for help. yes /no yes /no yes i no yes /no yes/no yes /no yes /no journal of distance learning, vols, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 43 an online learning community • to what extent did you feel part of an online learning community? not at all >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>very strongly • what helped contribute to this feeling? • what kind of "culture" did you feel developed in your online group? • what role(s) did you feel your lecturer(s) played during this course? comparison with face-to-face courses taken • did you find this paper took you more or less time than a face-to-face paper? • if more, did you feel that time was worthwhile? why? why not? • which of these claimed advantages for online learning over face-to-face learning did you experience? please indicate your answer in bold, by underlining, or by deleting as applicable. o allowed me to express myself more fully and reflectively than f2f yes i no o discussions were more reflective and stimulating o flexibility of timing to fit with work, family, or the rest of life o greater collaboration among students o helped my written skills o i expressed opinions i would have been more hesitant to express f2f o i felt personally welcomed and acknowledged o i receive feedback more regularly and/or quickly than f2f o it eliminated "power" differentials between students, and/ or between students and lecturers o learned more from others in the class o more access to my lecturer(s) than i might have had otherwise o more equitable--everyone has equal "air-time" o more interesting o more time for reflection o my grades were higher o my learning style was catered for yes /no yes /no yes /no yes /no yes /no yes /no yes /no yes /no yes /no yes /no yes /no yes/no yes/no yes i no yes/no journal of distance learning, vol8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 44 o the discussions were at a deeper level and more thoughtful than f2f would usually be o the focus is on the message, rather than the messenger o there was a greater sharing of resources by classmates o there was greater cooperation between classmates yes /no yes/no yes/no · • yes/no • comment on the role, presence or absence of humour in your online learning experience -was there more or less than f2f? • why do you think this was? frustrations experienced please tick [,i] any or all of the aspects listed below that you found frustrating in your online learning experience. then place another tick [,f,f] beside the five aspects that you would rank as the most frustrating of all. • asked for help was too slow in coming • blackboard didn't work • computer access was difficult or slow • computer problems of a technical nature • conflicts with my work time • cultural inappropriacies • didn't know any of the other classmates • didn't know course lecturer beforehand • difficulties juggling study with home and work commitments • difficulties searching for i finding relevant information on the internet, including sites that wouldn't open • difficulty with issues of privacy and/ or confidentiality • discussion contributions were superficial and unsatisfying • discussions were "hijacked" by one or two contributors online • discussions were sluggish • expectations were not clear enough • expense of internet access • experienced breaches of security • experienced conflict online with other classmates • fear that it would take up too much time journal of distance learning, vol 8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 45 • feelings of not coping-( can you identify what it was you felt you weren't coping with?) " found it too lonely • had difficulty accessing web materials due to firewalls " had difficulty understanding online instructions • had difficulty understanding the course materials • had difficulty with the level of student-centredness • inadequate computer skills • inflexibility of the course schedule • insufficient lecturer feedback • insufficient structure given • issues of intellectual property • lack of non-verbal cues in discussions-hard to know if others were serious, teasing, mischievous, hurtful . .. • lack of social interaction with other students • lecturer feedback was too slow • other students' laziness lessened the learning experience • panic-too much to do in too short a time • poor personal time management • sense of disorientation in the unfamiliar environment of cyberspace • slow at typing • too many distractions in my work space • too much reading • how did you respond to these frustrations at the time? • how do you think any i all of these could be eliminated or ameliorated next time? feel free to comment further on any individual issues if you wish. journal of distance learning, vol 8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 46 self-reflection as an online learner which of these are true for you? please) indicate you r answer in bold, by underlining, or by qeleting as applicable. • a collaborative learner • a non-school leaver • a strategic reader • able to cope without the sight i sound stimuli of f2f learning • fairly computer literate • flexible; can work with a minimum of structure • have access to a computer and modem on a hi-speed connection and the know-how to use them • have good thinking skills • have high personal expectations • highly motivated to learn for the sake of it • my life has been changed/transformed through this (online) course • prefer to write rather than speak • reflective • self-disciplined, able to work independently • self-motivated • share freely with others about my life, work .. . • take responsibility for sharing, and asking for help if problems arise • tend to be quieter orally in a f2f class • wanted to do this course (as opposed to being required to do it) yes/no \ yes/no yes/no yes/no yes /no yes /no yes/no yes i no yes i no yes i no yes /no yes /no yes i no yes /no yes /no yes /no yes /no yes /no yes /no • what other characteristics do you think contribute to successful online learning? things learned through this paper • what things do you feel you have learned through this course about o yourself? o the way(s) in which you like to learn? o online education? • what things that were new to you at the beginning of the paper now feel automatic? journal of distance learning, vol8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 47 references bilotta, e., fiorito, m., iovane, d., & pantano, p. 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(2001). on line learning: an alternative way of providing development for teachers. in k. w. lai (ed.), e-learning: technical and· professional development with the internet (pp. 37-55). dunedin, new zealand: university of otago press. twigg, c. a. (2001). innovations in online learning: moving beyond no\ significant difference. retrieved april 30, 2003, from http:/ /www.center.rpi.edu/pewsym/ mono4.htrnl ruth smith is lecturer, learning centre coordinator, and international liaison at bethlehem institute, tauranga. smith taught in the esol field in palmerston north prior to relocating to tauranga to create a learning centre and lecture at bethlehem institute. she is currently completing an m.ed. with interests in tesol and online learning. journal of distance learning, vol8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 49 microsoft word tilton hartnett.docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 79 what are the influences on teacher mobile technology self-efficacy in secondary school classrooms? jo tilton, bonn international school maggie hartnett, massey university abstract as digital technologies develop and change, so do the ways these tools are integrated into classrooms. in particular, as mobile digital technologies become ubiquitous there is a need to investigate how teachers engage with these tools—both personally and professionally. research has consistently shown that teachers’ underlying beliefs and attitudes (particularly their self-efficacy beliefs) are key elements that influence use and integration of digital technologies in the classroom. in this paper, changes to and factors influencing teachers’ mobile digital technology self-efficacy beliefs, and their subsequent classroom use of devices, are examined in the context of a one-to-one ipad mini device programme in an international school. results indicate that all of the teacher participants reported an increase in the use of the ipad mini in the classroom, partly as a result of students’ development of collective efficacy. as well as this collective efficacy, which supported the increased use of devices, other factors supported the development of teacher self-efficacy. these included modelling and coaching from colleagues, but mastery (or actual experience) was the foremost contributor to the development of teachers’ mobile technology self-efficacy. this study revealed that allowing teachers time to experience mastery in relation to mobile technology use, and having access to expertise (both colleagues and students), were key elements in building self-efficacy for teachers over time. perceptions of device value and device affordances were also identified as factors that fostered the development of selfefficacy and subsequent mobile device implementation and use. keywords: self-efficacy; technology self-efficacy; mobile digital technologies; collective efficacy; modelling; one-to-one devices; international school introduction given the rapid growth of digital technologies in schools, teachers play a crucial role in the successful implementation of new technologies in classrooms. teachers’ beliefs and attitudes towards technology have been linked to subsequent adoption and integration (donnelly, mcgarr, & o’reilly, 2011; ertmer & ottenbreit-leftwich, 2010). a key component of these beliefs is self-efficacy, which is broadly defined as an individual’s beliefs in their own ability to influence or achieve certain outcomes (bandura, 1994; paraskeva, bouta, & papagianni, 2008; shea & bidjerano, 2010). the link between teacher beliefs and subsequent integration of technology has been identified as an important area of research, particularly given the potential value of technology use for educational purposes such as personalised learning and links to successful student outcomes (ertmer & ottenbreit-leftwich, 2010). tilton, j., hartnett, m. 80 self-efficacy and technology use self-efficacy is strongly connected to beliefs about mastery as well as value and usability of devices, so it plays an important role in the acceptance and uptake of technology in the classroom (shea & bidjerano, 2010). as a central component of social cognitive theory (bandura, 1982), self-efficacy addresses the complex interaction between cognitive beliefs, environment, skills, emotion, and behaviour. it is considered central to an individual’s ability to effect change, influencing the choices a person makes regarding new situations or skills, such as using technology in the classroom (bandura, 2006). self-efficacy is linked to success and has been positively linked to achievement outcomes, self-regulation, and cognitive learning strategies (shea & bidjerano, 2010; schunk & pajares, 2002). higher levels of self-efficacy have also been connected to greater persistence in new tasks (dweck & leggett, 1988; schunk & meece, 2005). self-efficacy, unlike similar constructs such as self-concept or self-esteem, focuses on an individual’s beliefs in their performance capabilities for a particular task that has yet to be undertaken in a particular context that has (bandura, 1994; paraskeva et al., 2008; schunk & meece, 2005; schunk & pajares, 2002 tschannen-moran, woolfolk hoy, & hoy, 1998; zimmerman, 2000). an individual who has a well-developed sense of self-efficacy tends to be more motivated and will invest more effort in new challenges and tasks, particularly if they perceive a successful outcome is possible (schunk & meece, 2005). in terms of the connection between self-efficacy and changed attitudes or achievement in particular domains, change is not necessarily immediate and there may be delays in how quickly new mastery experiences translate into changed efficacy beliefs (bandura, 1982). as such, longitudinal studies (such as the one adopted for this investigation) allow exploration of the nature of self-efficacy changes over time. self-efficacy judgements are influenced through four main sources of information: mastery (or enactive/actual experiences), modelling (vicarious experiences), coaching (verbal persuasion), and physiological reactions (bandura, 1977; hinton, simpson, & smith, 2008; margolis & mccabe, 2006; schunk & pajares, 2002). mastery experiences are the most influential source of information to contribute to the development of self-efficacy, with success generally raising self-efficacy and failure lowering it (bandura, 1982; schunk & meece, 2005). this study sought to investigate whether, in the context of implementing mobile technologies, mastery experiences were the most influential sources of information for teacher self-efficacy judgements. modelling, which encompasses the observation of similarly skilled individuals in similar contexts, can encourage the observer to attempt similar tasks if they perceive that they could also be successful in similar circumstances (schunk & pajares, 2001). if the model does not complete the task successfully, the self-efficacy of the observer can be negatively affected. coaching or verbal persuasion by a trusted individual (for example, encouragement to use particular mobile apps) can also have some effect on motivation to try new or challenging tasks, although this can be fleeting (schunk & meece, 2005). physiological symptoms such as increased heart rate or sweating can be signals of anxiety, indicating a perceived lack of skills or ability. such anxiety often results in avoidance behaviour. hesitancy about using computers can be an indicator of this anxiety, and subsequent avoidance may mask low technology self-efficacy (celik & yesilyurt, 2013). technology self-efficacy can itself be divided into separate domains, including online (or internet) self-efficacy, specific device (such as laptop or smartphone) efficacy or classroom journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 81 technology integration efficacy. as in other domains, enactive mastery is the most powerful influence on technology-related self-efficacies (ertmer & ottenbreit-leftwich, 2010). researchers agree that technology self-efficacy is a key component that needs to be considered when addressing the integration of technology in the classroom (abbit & klett, 2007; celik & yesilyurt, 2013; so, choi, lim, & xiong, 2012). allowing teachers time to explore new technologies and the empowerment that results from ‘small successes’ are key elements for building technology self-efficacy (ertmer & ottenbreit-leftwich, 2010). teacher efficacy and digital technology self-efficacy in the classroom can also be considered as two different domains. teachers who have a high sense of self-efficacy are apt to examine their own practice and teaching approaches as a source for change rather than placing the responsibility solely on the shoulders of their students (protheroe, 2008). however, a teacher may feel efficacious towards teaching overall, but less efficacious about using technology in the classroom (shinas, yilmaz-ozden, mouza, karchmer-klein, & glutting, 2013). perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness are further important aspects of technology adoption in a given situation (chuttur, 2009). the easier a user perceives technology to be, the higher the self-efficacy associated with its use (davis, bagozzi, & warshaw, 1989). familiarity with a particular digital device or tool is also considered to be a key element for building confidence and use (mueller, wood, willoughby, specht, & deyoung, 2005). teacher perception of the value and use of digital devices can also play a key role in adopting technology in the classroom. in particular, pedagogical beliefs about the value of technology can heavily influence whether a teacher will engage with technology integration at the curriculum level (lai & pratt, 2008). the added value that technology brings to the classroom includes learner engagement, which is subsequently linked to success (oblinger, 2014). research indicates that teacher attitudes towards technology can also create barriers to technology integration (abbit & klett, 2007; ertmer, 1999; kopcha, 2012). mueller, wood, willoughby, ross, and specht (2008) suggests that as physical barriers to technology integration lessen, teachers’ perceptions and attitudes become more important. research also suggests that while a teacher may be confident using technology for personal use, this confidence may not carry over into the classroom (abbit & klett, 2007). conversely, paraskeva et al. (2008) argue that teachers who have high technology self-efficacy are “more open to new ideas and they are more willing to experiment with new methods” that can benefit students (p. 1084). in addition to teachers’ personal and professional technological self-efficacy, collective efficacy is a further important consideration. collective efficacy refers to the collective beliefs of a group in their ability to achieve specific outcomes (bandura, 1982, 1998, 2006). collective efficacy encompasses a synergistic approach to problem-solving, in which the combined confidence of a group of peers can be higher than an individual’s own beliefs (bandura, 2006). research suggests that collective teacher efficacy centres on the perceived ability of the entire group’s collective skills and resources (goddard, hoy, & hoy, 2000; klassen, usher, & bong, 2010; pajares, 1996). the potential for collective efficacy to influence the success or failure of particular initiatives is of particular interest. kopcha (2012) supports this notion by suggesting that a community of practice, which can be inherent in group environments, can subsequently influence engagement with new initiatives. taken together, it is clear that self-efficacy plays an important role in teachers’ personal and professional adoption of new technologies. the rapid increase in the use of digital devices in classrooms also highlights the importance of the current study. tilton, j., hartnett, m. 82 the study the central goal of this research was an in-depth exploration of teacher self-efficacy beliefs regarding the uptake and use of mobile technologies in classrooms, and how these beliefs develop over time. this research explored how teachers’ mobile technology self-efficacy changed over a school year, the factors that influenced this change, and a comparison with traditional self-efficacy sources as outlined by research. context and participants the research location was chosen because the school was about to begin a one-to-one ipad-mini implementation. the school is an english-speaking international school based in germany and follows a northern hemisphere school year (beginning in august and finishing in june). approximately 60 full-time teachers are employed across the school and come from a variety of cultural and educational backgrounds. key features of the school culture include embracing internationalism, and promoting inquiry in learning and respect for others. the school issued teachers of the relevant classes (grades 6–8, 12–14 year olds) with ipad mini devices prior to the end of the 2012–2013 school year (june 2013) in preparation for introduction of the devices in the following school year. teachers were also provided with a range of professional development options before students received the devices, including presentations on specific applications during professional development sessions. these sessions included training on professional development days, when staff could choose to attend a session that focused on an app they were interested in. several subjects (for example, language and maths) received specific instruction on how the device could be used in these subject areas. teachers’ use of the device was also showcased in short presentations in staff meetings, and staff could make individual appointments with the ict co-ordinator or technology support staff as needed. students in the specified grades received their devices in september/october of the 2013–2014 school year. an anonymous survey was initially carried out to ascertain general teacher attitudes towards the introduction of the ipad mini (see appendix a). after this survey, five teachers agreed to participate in phase two of the research investigation. these five teachers taught in a range of subject areas, and had a range of self-efficacy beliefs. both genders were represented. the data arising from the longitudinal interviews in phase two are the focus for this paper. data collection fifteen semi-structured interviews (three per participant) took place at approximately 4-monthly intervals over the first year of the ipad mini implementation. a series of interviews was considered appropriate for this study because it allowed an in-depth exploration over time. this method allows the researchers to focus on what can be learned in a specific case from which general conclusions can be formed (denzin & lincoln, 2003; yin, 2003). a longitudinal approach was relevant, as this study sought to examine the self-efficacy beliefs of individual teachers in relation to their mobile technology use in the classroom over an extended period. interview questions were based on key technology self-efficacy themes from the literature. each interview was a maximum of 30 minutes long, and focused on individual teachers’ experiences of the implementation of the ipad mini. interviews were spread over the year, so potential changes in self-efficacy over the implementation period could be observed. each teacher’s data across their three interviews was analysed, followed by cross-case analysis across all teacher interviews. this approach allowed researchers to identify common themes and findings for individual teachers, and these were subsequently analysed across the participant cohort. an open coding analysis of the information gathered was considered an appropriate journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 83 approach (strauss & corbin, 1996), allowing themes to arise through analysis. identifying common elements in both individual teacher cases and across the sample of data (gudmundsdottir, 1996) indicated common understanding of how self-efficacy was influenced by various factors. results the findings are arranged thematically to highlight key findings as they relate to self-efficacy in connection to both traditional sources of self-efficacy judgement and to the use of the ipad minis. mastery (enactive experiences) all five teachers indicated that they had invested time in learning how to use the device—by either attending training, or independently exploring the device’s capacity—and that this directly influenced their efficacy perceptions in relation to the device: i think the more time you have with something even if it’s just you are wasting time . . . you’re just really confident in how it could be used. (teacher 4, interview 3) you have to just dive into that experimentation because it’s a steep learning curve, but it’s a short one. (teacher 3, interview 3) you just go through and have a look at these apps and play around with them and see what you can learn. (teacher 2, interview 2) collective efficacy another key theme that emerged over the implementation period was the importance of collective efficacy, between teachers and students, in terms of device usage: what do i do when i strike a problem? i ask the kids. (teacher 1, interview 2) before i can even breathe to answer said question, another student has leapt in and answered the question for me, which is fun and exciting . . . (teacher 3, interview 2) the results also indicated a perceived change in the role of the teacher into more of a facilitator and collaborator. students and teachers working together to find a solution was a key element to fostering the development of collective efficacy, as the following comments indicate: i am willing to try things that . . . i don’t necessarily know how to do because we can kind of try to figure it out together. (teacher 4, interview 3) i solve a lot more through collaboration with the students. (teacher 5, interview 3) modelling collegial modelling and differentiated learning also emerged as sources for teacher self-efficacy judgements associated with device use: i think when we share each other’s ideas that’s when, because i don’t have time to just sit and look at apps and websites so when i hear of something new or see something new i want to try it. (teacher 4, interview 2) someone presented it, but that’s not enough. i’d like some designated time to be able to do it for my subject and have someone help me when i have questions. (teacher 1, interview 2) tilton, j., hartnett, m. 84 while this modelling was usually perceived to be a positive influence, it also induced some concern, as seen with teacher 1: [i] really feel insecure with that because i have a colleague who’s so fantastic at that and i just watch . . . and think “woah i’d love to be able to do that!” (teacher 1, interview 1) some teachers indicated that being the model for other teachers positively affected their own confidence in relation to using ipad minis: i really felt comfortable in saying, oh look, here’s how you could use it effectively . . . so i felt like i was sort of able to give advice so that also obviously boosts my own confidence in it. (teacher 4, interview 3) i started to find out more and more that i’m using the ipad far more than a lot of other people and successfully using it . . . teaching other people how to use the ipad and that was really good for my confidence in seeing myself as skilled user. (teacher 5, interview 3) device value the perceived value of the mobile device also emerged as a salient theme in the data. this value was expressed in several ways, including affordances such as efficiency in student organisation, encouragement of student agency, and differentiation of learning (by difficulty and interest) for students: it’s increased the learner’s toolkit. that for me is invaluable. (teacher 3, interview 3) they’re not just users . . . they are starting to become creators. (teacher 5, interview 1) teachers also commented that student enjoyment was a positive element linked to device use: if it’s done right, it’s making our teaching more engaging…more active for the students too. (teacher 3, interview 1) [the student] was just so excited to show me her video that she made of her drawings. (teacher 4, interview 1) language tools provided by the device, as well as student agency, were also highlighted as affordances: …a lot of our students are language learners, or . . . people with dyslexia. it gives an opportunity to be on a level playing field. (teacher 4, interview 3) it can benefit especially the language learners who are . . . still acquiring the language skills that we are teaching, or the students who have organisational challenges . . . and then also the gifted students have really been able to fly. (teacher 5, interview 3) barriers to device use as well as identifying affordances of using the new devices, teachers highlighted school and device infrastructure and (to a lesser degree) time and classroom management as barriers to device use: you know, plugging it in, getting all the wires. then it being slow and that thing going around and around, waiting for that. (teacher 1, interview 1) it would be feasible if we had better internet. (teacher 4, interview 1) journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 85 teachers mentioned classroom management issues that arose from using the devices with a range of students’ attitudes’ and the challenges these presented: sometimes they forget to recharge the batteries or they leave it behind. it’s more of a behavioural problem i think with the student rather than the technology itself. (teacher 2, interview 2) kids that are off task are always off task, whether they’re off task on their instrument or talking to a friend or passing a note or now they’re just doing something on the ipad they shouldn’t be, and it’s all the same type of classroom management, it’s just a new distraction. (teacher 3, interview 1) teachers also adopted specific coping strategies, suggesting a level of resilience associated with the challenge of the implementation: at first you find it frustrating and then you kind of almost expect it to happen, and so when it does happen it doesn’t really affect you. (teacher 4, interview 2) i don’t think it’s stopping people from using the ipads or the technology of the applications, it’s just a frustration point. (teacher 3, interview 2) some teachers indicated that they felt they would benefit from concentrated or additional time to explore subject-related applications, or that their mastery of the device was limited due to time restrictions and their general teaching load: my self-talk . . . is “i can only do what i can do” given the time, the time in the day and the teaching, the support that i can have . . . so i have to draw a line around it otherwise i’d go mental. (teacher 1, interview 2) throughout the study, teachers reported an overall sense of growth in efficacy in using the ipad mini although this varied in degree and form, with some teachers demonstrating clear growth relating to personal use, and others demonstrating growth in their efficacy in collective classroom use of the device. since the beginning of the year, perhaps a bit more confident. (teacher 2, interview 3) you can kind of change things on the fly and i think that’s when you know you are pretty confident. (teacher 4, interview 3) i don’t think there’s any situation where i wouldn’t feel confident about using the ipad in the class now. (teacher 5, interview 3) teachers with higher self-efficacy at the beginning of the implementation maintained efficacy and experienced further growth in overall mastery of the device. those with lower self-efficacy at the beginning maintained their initial self-efficacy and developed a more discrete sense of efficacy that often centred on particular apps or specific uses of the ipad in the classroom: so i’m more, certainly more familiar with how pages works on the ipad, how number works on the ipad and in that respect i feel more confident. (teacher 2, interview 2) i’m really confident with the kids using it, but i don’t use it much myself. (teacher 1, interview 3) tilton, j., hartnett, m. 86 where there was change in efficacy, some teachers reported growth in both personal and collective classroom efficacy, while some reported a sense of only collective efficacy. this sense of collective classroom efficacy enabled teachers to implement the device, regardless of their own personal efficacy. mostly i won’t know it, but someone will know it. (teacher 1, interview 3) i am willing to try things that i know that i don’t necessarily know how to do because we can kind of try to figure it out together. (teacher 3, interview 3) discussion teachers identified multiple sources of information on which to base their self-efficacy judgements. enactive mastery, collective efficacy, modelling, and perceived value of the device emerged as important findings from teacher interviews. while barriers to mobile digital technology were mentioned, teachers also demonstrated resilience in addressing these barriers, indicating a robust sense of self-efficacy when using the ipad mini in the classroom. having time to explore or develop their understanding of device use was identified as an important element that influenced teacher efficacy when using the ipad mini. all teachers stated that they had invested time in learning how to use the device by either attending training sessions, or independently exploring the device’s capacity. they felt this investment directly influenced their efficacy perceptions in relation to the device. this finding is consistent with research that indicates that taking time to learn and develop skills is important in technology use and uptake, and that the restriction of available time is a hindrance to teacher uptake of technology (ertmer, 1999). exploration of the practices of both teachers and students during the implementation indicated that no teachers experienced a decline in their self-efficacy. this suggests that, given the range of experiences over time, these teachers were able to build efficacy even if personal usage was minimal, or efficacy was initially low. mastery enactive mastery experiences were identified by the teachers as the most salient in terms of building self-efficacy. this finding aligns with existing research on self-efficacy (bandura, 1982; joët, usher, & bressoux, 2011; schunk & meece, 2005). all but one teacher indicated that exploration and experimentation with the device were strong factors in developing their confidence in terms of their personal use of the device and of its integration in the classroom. all teachers who reported intentional experimentation also attributed an increase in their efficacy to this experimentation. two of the five teachers said indicated that they felt they would benefit further from concentrated time to explore subject-related applications, or that their mastery of the device was limited by time restrictions. a common characteristic among the more efficacious participants (teacher 3, teacher 2, and teacher 4) was an extended and sustained approach to personal device experimentation, despite obstacles or barriers to integration. this is supported by existing literature, which finds that a higher sense of self-efficacy is linked to motivation (margolis & mccabe, 2006; schunk, 1991; schunk & zimmerman, 1997) and persistence in learning (schunk & zimmerman, 1997). collective efficacy teacher collective efficacy, and how it influences student achievement (goddard et al., 2000) is well documented; however, it usually focuses on teacher-to-teacher peer relationships and subsequent connection to student achievement rather than teacher-to-student collective efficacy. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 87 the findings from this study show that fostering collective efficacy in a class can enable teachers and students to become collaborators when using mobile technologies for learning. this sense of collective classroom efficacy was reported as being present in the classroom to different levels, with some teachers (teacher 1, teacher 2, and teacher 3) reporting a shift in their own perspective to a more agentic approach, allowing use of the device to be governed jointly by student and teacher. this belief in the synergistic capability of the group to achieve particular outcomes is consistent with existing literature on collective efficacy (goddard et al., 2000; klassen et al., 2010). collective efficacy, between teachers and students and focused primarily on technical problem solving, was a repeated finding. the collective efficacy found in this study enabled the teachers with lower self-efficacy (such as teacher 1 and teacher 5) to continue to engage with the device in the classroom, even though they felt, individually, less efficacious about device use. for those with higher self-efficacy at the commencement of the study (teacher 2, teacher 3, and teacher 4), a shift towards supporting greater student autonomy when using the device was evident. teacher 3 observed their students’ skills and noted an increase in reciprocal learning and innovation device value all five teachers identified perceived value of the device as a key theme. value aspects reported by teachers centred largely on affordances such as improved task efficiency, quality of work, students’ personal management, student extension/acceleration, and support for english as an additional language (eal) needs. this aspect of device value, and its subsequent effect on technology acceptance and self-efficacy, is supported by existing research that suggests perceived value of technology can affect teacher use and integration both positively and negatively (donnelly et al., 2011; mueller et al., 2008; oblinger, 2014; shinas et al., 2013; soa et al., 2012). perceived value can also be seen to influence teacher uptake of technology and persistence in using the technology (to some degree) regardless of personal teacher self-efficacy. this was clearly seen in the case of teacher 1 who, despite her own low self-efficacy concerning the device, was still able to actively engage with students’ use of their devices in her classroom. teachers with higher self-efficacy in this study (teacher 2, teacher 3, and teacher 4) also reported perceived ease of use, along with an overall sense of mastery of the ipad mini. teacher 1 and teacher 5 indicated a sense of ease with particular applications; however, this was limited to apps they were comfortable with. this finding aligns with research that indicates that perceived ease of use can positively affect teachers’ use of technology (davis et al., 1989; holden & rada, 2011). modelling modelling is most beneficial when there is perceived similarity between the observer and the observed. in the case of teacher 1, observing the expertise of colleagues led to some anxiety. this response aligns with self-efficacy literature on modelling, which indicates that similarity in skill level is necessary to enable the individual to feel that the desired skill is within reach, otherwise the effectiveness of the modelling experience is significantly reduced (bandura, 1994; schunk & meece, 2005; schunk & zimmerman, 1997). while much literature on modelling focuses on the observer being influenced positively through this process (margolis & mccabe, 2003; schunk & pajares, 2002), the findings from this study highlight that, when the model experiences success, their own confidence may also be positively influenced, indicating the benefits of modelling may be reciprocal. research on avoidance currently focuses on avoidance as a coping mechanism in low efficacy individuals (bandura, 1982; schunk, 1991; zimmerman & cleary, 2006). some teachers indicated avoidance of particular applications or forms of use due to lack of confidence, others indicated that they did not use the ipad as a teaching tool in certain circumstances because the tilton, j., hartnett, m. 88 limited availability of specific subject-related apps meant the device was not suitable for particular purposes. this suggests that some decisions to not use the device as a teaching tool were intentional informed choices rather than the result of avoidance behaviour. although existing research suggests that a potential barrier to technology use is a perceived sense of challenge to traditional roles of the teacher in the classroom (ertmer, 1999; paraskeva et al., 2008), this was not apparent in this study. infrastructure all of the teachers indicated that infrastructure issues—such as slow internet and device limitations—were potential barriers to using the device in the classroom. despite this, all participants continued to use the ipads. this continued use can be attributed to several extrinsic and intrinsic motivations. extrinsic motivations include expectations arising from the school environment (such as the school-wide implementation) and professional commitment, which research indicates can encourage technology use regardless of an individual’s efficacy (brown, massey, montoya-weiss, & burkman, 2002). as in the existing literature, in this study intrinsic motivators included perceived pedagogical value and efficiency which, in turn, influenced persistence with technology use (donnelly et al., 2011; lai & pratt, 2008). as with all research, this study had a number of limitations. first among these was the small sample size (five participants in the longitudinal interviews). although this sample provided a rich set of data, it does not represent the views of the teachers as a whole at the school, nor those outside the research setting. as research suggests that changes to perceived self-efficacy can take place over extended periods of time (bandura, 1982), a further extended series of interviews may have provided a fuller picture of self-efficacy development. conclusion an individual’s belief in their ability to master new skills and develop competence continues to be a key aspect of any process of acceptance of change. teachers’ self-efficacy for using mobile devices is becoming increasingly important as the use of mobile technologies in schools increases. the results of this study contribute to a small but growing body of research regarding teacher mobile technology self-efficacy and technology use, particularly for teaching and learning purposes in secondary classrooms. of particular note is the contribution made to our understanding of the importance of teacher– student collective efficacy. much of the research on mobile and collective technology efficacy focuses on self-efficacy from the perspective of teachers, rather than classroom collective efficacy between teachers and students. the findings in this study suggest that this sense of collective efficacy may be broader than similar peer relationships (i.e., teachers with teachers) and can instead be context-specific when a group of diverse individuals are working towards a common goal. the teacher–student collective efficacy reported here is promising because the shift in roles can enable shared responsibilities and increased learner agency. as technological innovation continues apace, the collective efficacy findings from this study suggest that collaboration between teachers and students offers a promising approach for enabling the successful implementation of digital devices in classrooms. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 89 references abbit, j., & klett, m. 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(2006). adolescents’ development of personal agency: the role of self-efficacy beliefs and self-regulatory skill. in f. pajares & t. urdan (eds.), self-efficacy beliefs of adolescents (pp. 45–69). greenwich, ct: information age. tilton, j., hartnett, m. 92 biographical notes jo tilton jo.tilton@gmail.com jo tilton is a secondary school teacher of visual art, digital media arts, and theory of knowledge, and has taught in four countries. she is currently a part-time coach of educational technology integration, and a full-time classroom teacher in germany. jo is also an apple professional development trainer and a google certified educator. jo is interested in helping teachers develop confidence in using technology in education, and in how technology can effectively augment collaborative learning and creativity. maggie hartnett phd m.hartnett@massey.ac.nz maggie is a lecturer in the institute of education at massey university, new zealand, where she teaches in the areas of e-learning and digital technologies. her research interests include motivation and engagement in digital environments, teaching and learning with digital technologies, electronic portfolios, support for digital learners, digital places, and spaces of learning. maggie is also an associate editor of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. tilton, j., & hartnett, m. (2016). what are the influences on teacher mobile technology selfefficacy in secondary school classrooms? journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2), [79–93]. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 93 appendix a online survey results question mean standard deviation (n) 1 i like using technology in several areas of my life. 4.1 1.1 2 i am encouraged to try new technology when i hear about what others are doing. 3.5 0.85 3 watching other people use technology makes me feel like i can try new things. 3.5 0.97 4 if people around me feel confident with technology, i am more likely to try too. 3.9 0.99 5 i feel confident about using technology in my classroom regularly. 3.5 0.97 6 i believe i can master new technology skills in general. 3.7 1.06 7 i like to have a lot of support when learning about new technology. 3.6 0.97 8 when i have a problem with technology i keep trying until i fix the problem 3.4 1.07 9 i like taking risks and trying new things when using technology. 3.3 1.34 10 i think it is important to be able to play and explore with new technology. 4.1 0.99 11 i have had many positive experiences using technology in my teaching. 3.6 0.70 12 i feel technology can help improve my classroom teaching. 3.9 0.88 13 i think previous technology training will help me in developing new skills, even if it is for something different. 3.6 0.96 14* if technology doesn’t work once, i would be unlikely to try again. 1.6 0.52 15 i am looking forward to the implementation of the ipads 3.6 0.96 16* i feel nervous about the ipad implementation. 2.1 0.88 17 i believe i can master new skills specifically when using the ipad mini. 3.6 1.07 18* i feel i can only be successful with the ipad mini if i have lots of support. 2.8 1.03 * reverse order question this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. early childhood students' perceptions of studying by distance learning for the diploma of teaching (ece) introduction traditionally, tertiary teacher education has been delivered in new zealand through faceto-face teaching courses with students ~istenin~ and taking notes while receiving ljlstructlon froul a lecturer. interaction between lecturer and students in a ciassroolll setting has been considered a vital colllponent in this process. today, political and public interest in distance learning has increased in countries where students seeking access to tertiary teacher education are geographically widely dispersed. there has also been a noticeable change in the composition of the student population. no longer largely restricted to school ie avers, there has been an increase in lllature and employed applicants seeking access to tertiary teacher education progranlllles. at the same time distallce education tedulologies have expanded very rapidly. advances in infonnation and computer tedmology have provided impetus to the growth in dil:)tance leanung (dl}, and have prom.pted the rapid growth in a new lllode of delivery, online leanring (ol). distance learning instruction can be delivered in a lllaluler as sinlilar as possible to traditional face-to-face teaching. this can be achieved through a dassroonl with two-way audiovisual junekean auckland, new zealand interaction. tius is the basis of the iowa dlode] which provides distance leanlers with experiences that initror traditional face-to-face teaching, via a nonnal classroolll setting and live, two-way audiovisual interaction. on the other h.and, the norwegian model c0111bines negotiated distance teaching with local face-to-face teaching (schlosser & anderson, 1994). this 111 0 del could be said to be reflected in the approach adopted by several new zealand teacher education providers, whereby distance learning students who are considered. to be self-lllotivated are supplied with printed course lllatl:~rial by post, soule forn1 of teleconferencing, access to further relevant literature via a website, and use of the institution's library resources. ongoing support for their studies is provided by phone / elnail contact by distallce. on-cmnpus or regionally located face-to-face study weeks (contact courses) are provided 011 a regular basis to allow for peer/staff contact and interaction. this paper is structured as follows: background infornlation is pl<ovided 011 the tertiary institution in which the study was conducted; the nlajor purpose of the study is outlined; the aspects of dl receptivity as contained in the questiolmaire are indicated; a description of the sample follows; the results of the journal of distance learning, vol 7/ no i, 2003 © distance education association of new zealand 18 survey are reported and then discussed in ternls of recent literature; the limjtations of the study are indicatedi issues and factors that have influenced the perceptions of students are analysed and future directions al'e considered in the delivery of this di~tance learning nlode for early childhood teacher education. background new zealand tertiary college (nztc) is a private provider of teacher education for the early childhood sector in new zealand. n~tc resources focus solely on early d1jldhood leachl'r education. the pr~gralnml)s offered are the early childhood teachers certificate of two (for r(~()pie wishing to work in early childhood centres such as childcare centres, preschools, and kindergartens, etc,) and lh(~ three-year diplonla of teaching (eee), which is the current benchuli:1.rk qualification for early childhood education in new zealand, the diploma of educati.on is approved for teacher registration by the council. these progranlmes are approved by the new zealand qualifications authority under the provisions of the education act 1989, and nztc is accredited to offer thenl. the new zealand qualifications authority (nzqa) had approved the diploma of teaching (bce) progrmnnle for delivery by new zealand tertiary college in septeulber 1996. at that paint; the diploma prograul111e was approved to be delivered through two modes only (college-based and field-based), students in the college-based m,ode, who were nlaillly school ie avers, attended a full~ time progranlme on campus, and had regular periods of three to four weeks of assessed and supervised teaching practice in early childllood centres. students in the field-based lllode were required to att~nd on-calllpus teaching/learning sesslons for two evenings per week, and were required to complete sixteen hours per week of supervised and assessed teaching in the centres in which they were employed, and to co]]lplete weeks pel' of teaching practice in another centre. students had considerable exlpei'iellce as early childhood educators prior to entering the progralllme. the college-based and field-based delivery modes appear to have catered adequately for applications received for early childhood tertiary studies ftolll school leavers, alld early childhood educators elllployed in centres in the auckland llletropolitan area. however, a large nulllber of inquiries continued to be received from prospective students in a variety of regions throughout new zealand. concenl to nleet the tertiary study needs this group prompted new zeala11d tertiary college to consider the introduction of distajlce leanung as an alternative ulode for delivery of the diploma progralllllle. tius form of delivery met the needs of those students :,h~ l~ad linlited access to tertiary 11lstituh0l1s because of their physical location, family and work collllllitm,ents. according to the literaturey studying at a distance can be as effective as traditional methods of face-to-face instruction provided the nlethods and technologies em.ployed are appropriate to the perfornlance criteria and learning outco.mes of the course design; opportunities are built in for peer interaction; and supportive teacher contact and interaction is readily a vailable to students (moore & thonlpson, 1990; verduin & oarkr 1991). journal learning, vol 7, no 1, 2003 distance education association of new zealand 19 adult learners have a wide variety of reasons for pursuing studies through distance learning. these include constraints of time, distance f-rom. institutions providing early drildhood teacher education progranunes, financial considerations, and the ability to com.e into contact with other students from different social, econolllic, and experiential backgrounds. provision of contact courses (block courses) of twenty hours each, which students attend twice for each stage of the progrannne, goes some way towards gaining llew knowledge and the opportunity for social interaction with other students. distance learning students are encouraged to set up informal networks with other students to share and discuss written nlaterial in study guides, ruld concerns and problenls in dealing with the content and assignments. to reduce feelings of isolation, regular m.eetings of small groups of students in the local area and email or phone contact within this group of students also assist students to deal with their studies nlore effectively. often face-to-face teaching focuses on teacher-centric instruction in which the teacher is the primary interlllediary for transmission of knowledge to the learner. in contrast, distance learning progranlmes need to focus on learnercentric ulstruction in which content is lllanipulated by the leanler, with the teacher actulg as a catalyst and a facilitator of student leanung (sherry,1996). these above considerations were incorporated in the design of the nztc distance learning nlode. this lllode of delivery of the diploma of teachlllg (ece) was introduced in february 1999, and approval for teacher registration purposes was received from the (then) teacher registration board (trb) in march 1999. the author brought a decade of experience in design, coordination, and monitoring of an early childhood djstance learning programme in an australian university to the fonnulation of the nztc distrulce learnulg programme. print materials, plus video material, form the basis of the programnle. each student is allocated a distance learning tutor to provide guidance and support, and regular interaction occurs via phone and enlail. practice teachulg experience fohows the saine pattenl as that required for the field-based ul0de. also, students are required to attend two block courses per stage. attendance at block courses is compulsory and provides students with a face-to-face flexible and individualised programnle that allows for the m.onitoring and assesslllent of student progress, an opportunity for student networking and shared learning experiences, material and knowledge that supplem.ent and complenlent the leanmlg outconles embedded in the courses for the diploma programme, and knowledge related to specific courses that is best gained through experiential learning (e.g., maori courses). these block courses are held in a variety of locations each year. once underway, approximately 100 students were enrolled by the latter half of the second year. this has since grown to more than 200 enrolments in the distrulce learning programme. nztc was concerned to put an effective process for programme evaluation in place. throughout their studies, distailce learning students com.plete an evaluation form on the colllpletion of each course, but the block courses provided an opportu11ity to nlonitor and evaluate the journal lea711ingl vol 71 no 1, 2003 © distance education association of neln zealand 20 perceptions of students about the effectiveness of studying by a distance learning 111.ode. over the past two years while attending block courses held in auckland, rotorua, napier, christchurch, and blenheinl, distance learning students colnpleted a questionnaire designed to evaluate their perceptions of the advantages and disadvantages of studying by distance with nztc. suggestions provided by willis (1993) for evaluating distance learning courses were utilised in the design of the questionnaire. purpose of this study the lnajor goal of this study was to gather data on students' perceptions of the effectiveness or otherwise of study by distance learnjng for the nztc diplonla of teaching (ece). the basic assulllption underlying this was that student perceptions would assist staff in estinlating the effectiveness of delivery of a distance learning progralllllle, and that these perceptions would assist in evaluating student learning and provide data that could inforlll future directions for the delivery of the programme. survey instrument method a questionnaire was designed to gather student perception of distance learning as a ]node of study. these early drildhood students were asked to colllment on the following aspects of distance leanling as a mode of study: q print nlaterial (student handbooks, study guides and assigtlu1ent requirenlents, value of the accompanying readings per course, most helpful lllaterial per course); e degree of support provided by distance learning tutors, colleagues, and parents; it the perceived effect of new knowledge on centre progra1lunes; and individual learner characteristics. they were the overall of studying suggestions delivery. also asked to identify advantages/ disadvantages by distance, and to ll),ake to inlprove progranlme the nlajority of the questions were op(~n­ ended in order to encourage students to consider the issues in s01ne depth. precoded quesuons sought infomlation on students' previous acadenlic studies, age, and gender. description of the sa111ple one hundred and five distance learning students responded to the questionnaire. all students were felnale and were elnployed in either part-tinle or full-time positions in early childhood centres througbout new zealand. forty-eight percent were mature age students. previous acadelllic studies had been undertaken by 26 percent of the students (e.g., nztc early childhood teachers certificate, mit certificate in childcare, nz playcentn~ supervisors c(~rtificate, national naruly progranlme, seacoh certificate or diplom.a, and diploul,a of nursing). several students had conlpleted. som.e papers through massey university, or had overseas early childhood qualifications, or diplomas/ degrees in unrelated areas. results value of print material seventy-five percent of the students rated the student handbooks as useful to very useful as a source of information about the progrmnme (study and practicum journal of distance leaming, vol 7, no 1, 2003 © distanc(~ education association of new zealand 21 requireulents), responses included: "helped ule to get started," "good to keep, i refer to them often/' "helpful on how to write my essays and how to do a bibliography," /i goodj clear guidelines and precise tllstructions/' and "kept it beside my com.puter and used it as a constant guide." a nulllber of students lllade the comment that they were using them llluch more after they were advised to do so while attending block courses. ten percent did not make collllllent on the usefulness or otherwise of the handbooks. fifteen percent said that although the handbooks provided useful information, they thought the handbooks would have been i1nproved if they had been combined into one handbook with one table of contents; that they needed to provide ul0re m.aterial on referencing and citing of resources in the body of an 111 ore information on report writing; provision of samples of student assignnlents which would have helped them understand the grading system. better; needed to be ulore firmly bound; and needed to have included a summary of the content of each course :in the section on the outline of the progrmnme. the general opinion (93 percent) was that the study guides were reasonably easy to follow.! particularly 'when the lllaterial was presented in a standard organisational form.at (where a study guide did not do thisj one student complained that she was colllplete]y thrown by thi':i and had to seek a great deal of help [rom her distance learning tutor). several of the respondents during the first six lllonths of the survey reported several 1/ glitches" in the content of the study guides. these included incorrect page llum.bers for the edition of the texts issued, reference to graphs not included, etc. however, responses recorded later in the delivery of the prograulme were nlore positive. for exaillple ... litook me a while to understand what was involved/' and "should have read through the study guide lllore carefully at the beg:inlli11g, but once i did this i found the task.., and refiection.c; built up knowledge to lip the assigllments/' "very 1nteresting jnd i learned so luuch about childrpn'.., development," "confusing at first hut after reading more carefully the artidl''' included gave ule lots of th.e answ()r~, ,. and "found the accolllpanying readil1f ..... per ulodule very valuable." assigmllent requireulents wt'rt' considered to be clearj although 0111' student clamled they "vere ii ambiglloli .... : several others agreed with the studt'nl who main.tai11ed that the "amount of work in each lllodule v\'"", overwnehning," and another who sd id she "found the questions hard iii understand and struggled to kno\\ what was uleant." the opportunily [ii conlplete reflections and practicum la~k.., interspersed throughout the course stll d ~ guides was seen by 75 percent of lilt' students as livery helpful to understdnd the content/' "helped nlake sellst) pi what i had read/' and "helped ule to l n out new approaches to learning d 11~1 teaching,/f support and interaction provided students were asked to coid111ent 011 lilt' degree of support provided by dislijllt (' leanring tutors, colleagues, and parents. ninety percent of the students were very positive about the help and support they received fronl their di~tance learning tutor and the feedback received on assignnl€llts. tiley said their tutors were easy to contact and retunled their calls journal of distance vol 7, no 1,2003 © distance education association of ne,v zealand 22 prolllptly. they collllllented: "struggled initially, but iny tutor put ille right," "kept having to ask my tutor to explain} but 'this was iny first .lllodule apd rve been away frolll study for a long tinle/' and "should havc~ phoned iny tutor more at the beginning, but once i started doing this found everything so illuch easier.rj a high level of satisfaction was expressed by students concerning the willingness of their tutors to assist thei11 with understanding content and requirem,ents, and being sensitive to different colllmunicatiol1 styles and cultural backgrounds. tutors are expected to contact each of their stu dents by pbone on a regular basis, and to m,ake thenlselves available at set tiines (usually evenings and weekends) for students to contact them. by phone, and lllake regular contact/ visits to therr centres. where centre colleagues provided considerable support for their studies, 22 percent of the students said they valued this highly. this support had included discussing assignment requrrements with them and offering helpful advice and resources; willingness to enlploy relievers to enable students to have study tim.e, to conlplete practicuuls at centres outside of therr houle centres, and to attend block courses; increasing their confidence ill their studies; and being willing to complete questionnaires and take part in surveys being conducted by students as part of their coursework. the support and. interest shown by parents varied considerably. smne parents (10 percent) were reported as having very little knowledge of the programme being c0111.pleted, and several collllllented that the student "must be lllad" to undertake stud y on top of her work commitments. on the other hand, some parents were delighted that students were updating their know led ge, were very willing to have students conlplete child studies with therr dlildren, and were eager to have welltrained staff in their centres. effect of new knowledge 011 centre progra111tnes it was of interest to note that the lllajority of students believed their studies contributed to their work in therr centres and to relationships with the comululuty. they colllll1ented: "in the biggest way-now am, tenfold nlor~ effective across the whole spectrum, "nluch more reflective in illy teaching practice,ff "have gained more awareness of theories to back up illy teaching/' and u our centre is trying out new approaches l1luch nlore and lllaking tilllch dl0re use of te reo with children." lean1er characteristics students vvere asked about their 1110tivati.on for undertaking this ll10de. responses included the following: "to better in yself," jj for personal professional developlllent/' "to gain a higher rate of pay," "to meet ministry, teacher registration board, and nzqa requrreulents," "leanung more that will help iii y own duldren as well/' "to complete a formally recognised qualification/' "improve lny skills, confidence, and self-esteem/' /j to beconle lllore effective in illy role as an bc teacher/' "encouragement and support frolll my enlployer/' "rts round and complements llly role with my family," ji to develop and continue learning and acquiring skins and galn nlore respect as an ec educator," and "to widen illy career options." for these students} and for those who lllade snnilar conllllents (46 percent), motivation centred on enhancing their professional role as early cluldhood educators. journal of distance learning, vol 7, no 1,2003 © distance education association of new zealand 23 most nlature aged students m.aintained that the progranlnle had assisted thenl to add a professional outlook to their experience as nlothers and teachers; that life experiences had equipped thenl well to undertake studies, to understand issues more deeply, and to be selfdisciplined and nlaintain focus on their studies. younger students said they had lllore energy as they had fewer commitnlents in terms of child rearing, housework, and preparation of meals, and had not moved away from the study mode as they had not long left school. those who had completed other tertiary studies before starting the progranlnle felt these experiences had 111em1t they were more confi,dent about lneeting study requirelllents, and were strongly lllotivated to pursue further education that would enhance their perforlnance iii the role of an early childhood educator. future goals with regard to future goals that students had in mind, they comm,ented as follows: lito continue to learn and develop,a 11 gain greater insights on ec teaching," 1i make lllore nloney/' "be able to run my own centre," ij to be a better role m,odel for my own children as well as the children in the centre." twenty-six students indicated their intention of pursuing further studies at degree level, specialising in soule area of eee (e.g., special needs, becom.ing involved in ece teacher training). opportunities to widen their horizons and expelience through teaching iii another country, or to travel and observe children and centres in other countries, were sought by ten students. study habits the study habits of students studying at a distance were of particular interest to staff involved in the delivery of this lllode. these varied frolll conlments indicating that they preferred to study in. conlplete silence and without interruptions to the preference for studying while listening to quiet fiowll1g music. strategies these student'! said they elllployed to study effectively reflected considerable understanding of the factors involved. apart frolll six students who said they preferred to study in the early inornillg (when their brains were fresh), a1nlost all students who responded studied m.ost evenings and weekends, willie sollle indicated that they were fortunate in havi1lg been given a study day a week by their employers. they said that they laid out study tasks for the next night early in the lllorning, tried to set specific goals about what they wanted to achieve iii one session, needed to ll1ull over questions/tasks ahead of study time, formulated plans before doing essays, organised study time to take a break every hour to allow infornlation to sink in mid review the lllaterial covered. even when tired, one student colllnlented that she tried to colllplete at least one task she had set for herself per study sessi.on. this group of students work either fullor part-tinle, and lllany have families of their own, so it was not surprislllg to lean1 that they studied late into the night only when facing pressure ftolll deadlines. many c01l1nlented that they were able to study only when the children were in bed. women in this situation have to be well organised and adopt strategies that will free them to study. tius is evident in comments sudl as the following: "have to keep housework to a '111irrinlu1n when the pressure is on/' 1j need to clean and tidy the house before i can concentrate," and "have one day off a week and use it to the full for study willie the clllidren are at schoo1." several students colnnlented that havi11g a supportive husband or journal learning, vol 7, no i, 2003 © distance education associatioll of new zealand 24 partner was an ijnportant factor in coping with their studies. positive aspects of distance learning seventy-five percent comnlented on the positive aspects of being a distance learning student. these included ii as there is no teacher education course available in my area, it answered the need to colllplete an early childhood qualification," ii great for sollleone who is an independent learner," what i alll learning as i go, not feeling pushed/' "study tilnetable negotiated and organised one-an-one with dl tutor," ii able to work full-tinle whjle gaining a qualification/' and able to work at my own pace and my own tune." two students said it meant there was no need a babysitter. six were grateful there was no need to travel after working hours, twenty-five students said they appreciated access to a quality ulstitution since there was not one available locally, and ten were relieved they could work while studying and coping with a fanlily. a large nunlber of students conlmented on the supportiveness of their dl tutor and said they did not miss contact with other students but enjoyed it very llluch during block courses. the networks established ineant students could discuss and share concerns with a group of their peers on an ongoing basis. an increasing nunlber appear to be m.aking use of enlail for this as well as makillg use of phone contact. the use of free postcards to lllake requests for resources from the nztc library was collllllented on favourably, as were the resouices available tllrough the nztc website, disadvantages of distance learning the major difficulties of studyulg at a distance were seen as having less opportunity for discussion with others, getting hold of extra resources, lack of easy access to resources since local libraries do not always have relevant academi.c book", sense of isolation frolll other students, maintainmg motivation, and tinle managedlent in ter.ms of balancing study with other colllnlitnlents. six students reported they needed a great deal of clarification (regarding concepts/questions) but their dl tutors were very willing to help. however, as two students collllnented, "not all dl tutors know everytlling about every nlodule." concerns and suggestions for intprove111ent in progranune delivery sixteen percent of students lllade no colti.lnents about concerns or suggestions for inlprovelllent. nztc was urged by 48 percent of the students to keep up block course workshops on theorists, resouice nlakil1~ child development, prejudice, d1.ild abuse, te reo. these block courses were seen as a very valuable aspect of their programllle in providing the opportunity to network with other students and getting to know college tutors and gaining ulformation first hand, a further group of students said they would like to view examples of essays tllat have graded at pass! merit, and distinction levels. several others requested nlore contacts with visiting tutors. twelve students asked when nztc would be offering a bachelor of education (ece) programme! and indicated interest in ellrolling ul it. they were pleased that the cost of textbooks was built ulto their fees, but asked for nlore texts to be sent out with each coutse fronl the n ztc library. qui.te a nulllber of students complained about the financial difficulties they experienced because of the requirement ot' three weeks practicunl per stage journal lea.rning, vo17, no 1, 2003 © distance education association of new zealand 25 in a centre other than the one in whidl they were employed. they appeared to be unaware that this was a teachers council. requirement. conclusions in the lllain, students found that print lllaterials ~upported their learning very satisfactorily. the suggestion that sullllnaries of course content should be in the student handbook has now been followed through. print nlaterials have been a significant colnponent in the delivery of . the prograllune by distance lean-ring. pr-mt lllaterials have the advantage of being cost and tune effective to prepare, easy to review and revise (misanchuk, 1994). vvirile the intention is to add to the repertoire of tools tlrrough greater use of ?th~r tedulological developments, print 1s ill(ely to continue to foml the basic feature of future delivery. beare (1989) has pointed out that the provision of a toll-free telephone line, prepaid library request cards, and a satisfactory assiglidlent tutilaround are important factors in distance learning. these facilities were noted and appreciated by the students. an inlpo~tant factor in the effective delivery of distance learning courses is the opportunity for regular interaction with supportive teachers (sherry, 1996). students' comnlents indicated that th(~ir distal:,ce learnulg tutors were usulg effectlve strategies to lllotivate and llleet the needs of students ul terllls of both content and individual needs. for the lllajority of these students, lllotivation to conlplete the progralllme centred on enhancing their professional role as early dlildhood educators. ti,ese c01nments reflect those factors highlighted by schlosser and anderson (1994) as contributing to successful lean-ring at a distance. the differences between adult learners and younger leanlers as described ul tllp _,"> literature are reflected in the student responses. adult learners bring jj a rich background of life and work experience to the dassroom/' and unlike young(lr learners jj are more li1(ely to identify till' skills they wish to acquire" and i,lf"(' lllore likely to have /i an ulcteasvd awareness and appreciation for ]1('\\ knowledge" (needy, niellli, & ehrhard, 1998, pp. 72-73). \!\then codllllenting on the positi \'\' aspects of dl, students stressed t1w importance of ongoulg ulteraction vvilh their ulstructors. this is consistent wilh the colnnlents lllade by christensl'l1. anakwe, and kessler (2001) that sut h ulteraction contributes substanti<llh to the quality of distance learn in)'. progralllmes because of the high levpi (ii support and guidance provided. furtlwr, access to distance learnulg wat.; st'pn as very il11portant to these studpnl ... who have elnploylllent and fami'" responsibilities and calulot travel easil~ to canlpus-based courses. this support.., comnlents lllade by christensl'n. anakwe, and kessler (2001) all llll' growing trend to'wards a gn1 dl\'r percentage of e1l1ployed college studt1lll ... with ulcreased outside conllllitnwn i.., who are seeking other than lht· traditional education nlode in order l\ i meet their trauung needs. o.verall, stud~nts believed studyulg hy distance learlung to be effective. this is in direct contrasl to the f:illdulgs of d study conducted at a nlediulll.-sized university where students seenled to have negative bejiefs about studying journal of distance vol 7, no it 2003 distance education association of nevv zealand 26 by dl and did not see dl as offerijlg nlany benefits (o'malley, 1999). the disadvantages of distance learning indicated by these students included less opportunity for interaction with tbeir peers. to a degree this has been countered by the provision of block courses and the support given to students to develop local networl< groups. nztc has also endeavoured to auocate staff to courses according to their area of expertise to facilitate student understanding of course lllaterial in response to suggestions for improvenlent that were nlade, a recent nztc initiative has been to have current joutilal articles for stage cut to dic;k and m.ade available through the college .library. there have also been im.provelnents m.ade to the college library catalogue a vailable through the nztc \alebsite, and a growing num.ber of research articles (with abstracts and full text available for downloading) are also being added. in his closing address to the distance education association of new zealand (march 2(00), trevor mallard, the nlinister of education, stressed the value of distance leanung as a nleans of improving the supply of qualified early childhood teachers in areas of new zealand that have been hard to staff, particularly northland and th(~ east coast. the nztc distance learning prograllune can be said to have made a considerable contribution to this end. further, the information gained from tlus survey has been invaluable to the college in confirm.ing the value of the design, structure, and organisation of print material provided for this distance learning mode. although it appears to be reasonably effective in ternls of learner satisfaction, it will be subject to ongoing evaluation and revisi.on. design and direction for the progranlllle need to be consciously thought through, unlike classroom teaching where content slll1ply needs to be identified and taught in a face-to-face situation. it needs to be pointed out though that the leanung outco1ll.es, perfornlance criteria, and assignnlents per course are identical across the lhree lllodes of delivery of the diplom.a of teaching (ece). of course, to nleet the particular needs of distance learners, the content/topics covered til ea.ch course are in written forin with a ccolllpanying tea.ching tasks and reflections on the content, colllplenlented by a wide range of readings fronl the literature and workshops and tilteractive sessi.ons offered al the block courses. we have been aware that each section of written inaterial needs to end with questions, tasks, and reflections. these student responses require tutor feedback as it is an important part of the learning process. to assist the learning process, the writ(~rs have enabled students to reflect on their own interests, needs, and circumstances as a starting point. an effective system of guidance for students has been put in place, but student feedback on the effectiveness of these provisi.ons will continue to be sought. it is clear that where d l students are assisted to develop good tune nlanagelnent skills and study skills, they experience reduction of anxiety about assignments. regular phone contacts and/ or enlail contacts initiated by both the tutor and the students will continue to be an nnportant feature of program.llle delivery. continuous support from tutors acting as facilitators of leanung experiences was very inlporlant to this group of learners. opporlru.uties for journal of distance vol 71 no 11 2003 distance edtl~~ation ass('lnation of new zealand 27 social and acadeulic interaction with their peers through networking, local study groups, phone and enwil contact, and content and support provided during the block courses will be nlaintained. print materials will continue to be evaluated and revised on a regular basis (we have a tutors' feedback foylll for noting glitches and confusions, inaccurate infoidlatioll, etc.). although regular telephone contact has been proven to be an effective tool for learner support, tecluuques that need to be considered for ilnplementauon in the future include iticreasingly available lllediabased technologies. the nztc website (http:! jwww.nztc .net.nz) provides information on nztc progrmnnles, location, the application process, the student handbook, [mancial support, and recogrution of prior learning (rpl) procedures. lirlks are provided to a college noticeboard, newsletter, online nztc library, online journals, and proquest journals. a browser window allows students access to a variety of early childhood resources worldwide (e.g., naeyc, eric searches, etc.). further developnlents including the provision and oversight of chat roolns on the web and greater use of audio conferencing are planned. of considerable concern is the degree of access these students have to infonnation and communication teclmologies (ict). a postal survey is presently being distributed to gain information on the proportion of distance learning students who do have this type of access and the amolult of use that is lnade of this. on that basi'), future directions will be sought to incorporate lct effectively 111 the design and delivery of the distance learning curriculum. it is imperative that student knowledge, skills, and attitudes are enhanced through the appropriate and effective use of let. infornlation and comm.unication technologies need to be woven seaullessly into the curriculu111, and driven by educational imperatives rather than by technology. limitations this study was restricted to a survey of the perceptions of nztc students enrolled as distance learners in the diploma of teaching (eee) prog:ratnme. results cannot be generalised to college-based and fieldbased students studying the salne progranlme in this institution, nor to distance learning students a t other tertiary education institutions. aspects of studying by distance leanling selected for the sm"vey were limited to those that nztc had identified as of inlportance in irlfornling directions for future delivery. other factors 111ay well be of ijnportance (e.g., an in-depth exanlination of perceptions of the effectiveness of the progranldle learning outc0111es in enhancing understandings and professional development for the role of an early childhood educator). references beare; p. l (1989). the comparative effectiveness of videotape, audiotape, and telelecture in delivering continuing education. the american journal of distance education! 3(2), 57-66. christensen, e. w., anakwey u. & kessler, e. h. (2001, spring). rechptivity to distance learning: the eff eet of teclmology, reputationr constraints, and learning preferences. journal of research on computing in education. mallard, t. (2000, march). closing address to the distance education association of new zealand. speech archive, new zealand government executive. misanchuk, e. r. (1994). print tools in distance education. in b. willis (ed.), distance education: strategies and tools journal of distance learning, vol 7, no i, 2003 © distance education association of ne,v zealand 28 (pp. 109-129). englewood cliffsj nj: educational technology publications. moore, m. g., & thompson, m. m., with a r, clark, g. c., & goff, g. 111.e effects of dlstance learning: a slimmary of the literatl/te. research monograph no.2. university park: state university, am.erican for the study ~f distancl::~ education (ed 331 321). needy, l., nien"li, l a, & ehrhard, b. j. (1998, novemb(:r). classes going the distance so peopk don't have to: instructional opportunilil~s for adult learners. t.h.e. journal, 7.2-7-1-. o'malley, j. (1999, winter). students' of distance le::arning, online and lhe traditional classroom. distance learning andersoll, m. l. distmlct' edllcation: a review literature. ames: iowa distance state issues in distance lea'ming. from http://www.cudenver .edu/ puhlic/ education/ sherry /pubs/ issues.html j. r, & cla.rk, t. a (1991). distance educatiojl: j1ze foundations of practice. san francisco: j ossey-bass. willis, b, distance education: a pl'actical englewood cliffs, nj: educational ecj.lrhjlo'0:y publications. june keal1 is former academic dil'ector neul zealand tertiary college, auckland, new zealand. journal o.fdistance learning, vol 7, no 1,2003 © distance education association of new zealand 29 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 61 personalised, contextualised, professional learning development: putting it into practice hazel owen, ethos consultancy abstract research, such as that collated as part of the new zealand ministry of education‘s (moe) iterative best evidence synthesis (bes), indicates that regular professional learning and development (pld) for educators can have a positive effect on the quality of teaching and, in turn, on outcomes for diverse students. pld, though, needs to offer flexibility of choice, time and approach, and to value personal theories and experiences. learning should be accessible (both physically and design-wise), cumulative and relevant, and couched within an active community of practice (cop). a pilot to develop a virtual professional learning and development (vpld) model that offered personalised, contextualised pld was initiated by the new zealand moe. the project focused on primary and secondary school teachers, although one tertiary teacher participated. this paper provides an overview of the vpld pilot (2009–2010) while also synthesising main findings from the in-depth evaluation conducted during the pilot and summarising some of the lessons learned. in brief, results suggest that there are affordances built into the vpld model that encourage and enable education practitioners to develop at their own pace, in a supported, supportive environment, with access to all that they need to scaffold their learning journey. thus, if it is accepted that student outcomes can mirror practitioner performance (although this is a somewhat simplistic relationship), it would follow that, if practitioners can be mentored and guided in their own continual development and thinking around learning and teaching, there is potential for the overall learning experience for students to be enhanced. keywords: communities of practice; e-learning; personalised learning; professional learning and development; virtual learning introduction research such as that collated as part of the new zealand ministry of education‘s (moe) iterative best evidence synthesis (bes, see http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/topics/bes), a collaborative synthesis of research evidence developed to inform education policy and practice in new zealand, indicates that regular, lifelong, life-wide professional learning and development (pld) for educators can be efficacious. in this paper, pld refers specifically to the provision of opportunities for all education staff to partake in appropriate professional learning in which the ultimate aim is to enhance student learning experiences. because of its influence on shifts in teaching practice, pld has been identified as a key factor in the achievement of quality outcomes by a diverse range of students (timperley, 2008). http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/topics/bes owen, h. 62 however, pld has been offered in a variety of formats—some of which have proven more effective than others. one common example is a series of institution-wide workshops for which disparate groups come together in a classroom setting for a period of time ranging from an hour to several days (st john & wilkerson, 2006). a number of issues can be observed:  short workshops do not encourage participants to form lasting communities of practice (cops).  when a teacher becomes enthusiastic about an initiative or skill, lack of encouragement from peers can lead to a sense of isolation.  even when workshops use collaborative work there is little authentic knowledge coconstruction, ongoing collaboration, or problem solving.  short exposure to a theory, approach, skill, and/or tool gives only a surface insight into how, when, and where to apply it.  skills learned in workshops are often not practised or applied meaningfully to a personal context during the workshop and are thus forgotten or considered irrelevant.  timetables, location, and workload can make it difficult for teachers to attend face-toface workshops. (adapted from owen & schwenger, 2009) a pilot to develop a virtual professional learning and development (vpld) model that trialled a combination of pld approaches was initiated in october 2009 by new zealand‘s ministry of education (moe), who also funded the project. the project focused on primary and secondary school teachers, although one tertiary teacher participated. the five principle objectives were to: 1. focus on contextualised, personalised learning for educators 2. foster cops that would encourage collaborative relationships and enable co-teaching and co-construction 3. develop an approach to pld that is underpinned by mentoring 4. raise student achievement of learning outcomes, partly by encouraging a strong student focus, as well as through overt links to curricula and national certificates of educational achievement 5. be sustainable (financially and environmentally) and scalable. this paper provides an overview of the vpld pilot initiative (2009–2010), syntheses the main findings that emerged, and summarises some of the lessons learned. literature review research suggests that a range of factors significantly contribute to students‘ improved achievement of learning outcomes (st john & wilkerson, 2006). these factors include (although are not limited to) educators‘ teaching practices and belief systems about learning and teaching (mckenzie & turbill, 1999). in 2003, for example, evidence from research conducted in new zealand indicated that ―up to 59% of variance in student performance is attributable to differences between teachers and classes‖ (alton-lee, 2003, p. v). other literature describes a direct relationship between pld interventions and significant improvement in student achievement of outcomes (adey, 2006; parr, timperley, reddish, jesson, & adams, 2006; thomas & tagg, 2005). however, caution is advised when assuming a direct relationship between shifts in teaching practice and positive learning outcomes for students. for instance, the findings of harwell, gunter, montgomery, shelton, and west (2001), and gottfredson, marciniak, birdseye, and gottfredson (1995), illustrate instances in which teachers reported improvements in efficacy, whereas there were measureable mixed or negative effects on student outcomes. furthermore, there is discussion about what actually constitutes meaningful learning and achievement (timperley, wilson, barrar, & fung, 2007), and there is also a growing body of journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 63 evidence that some approaches designed to measure the effect of pld on student outcomes can be problematic (timperley & wiseman, 2003). it has been reported that pld has resulted in the enhancement of a wide range of desirable teacher outcomes. for example, ham‘s (2009) report, outcomes for teachers and students in the ict pd school clusters programme 2005–2007, indicates that significant outcomes included effects on teachers‘ understanding about principles of teaching as well as their own teaching practice. in turn, there was an increase in confidence and enthusiasm on the part of the practitioners, a better understanding of student-centred teaching, and an augmented ability to meet a greater range of student needs. these results suggest that the teachers who participated in the pld were more aware of, and better equipped to create differentiated learning experiences for, the diversity of learners across new zealand (alton-lee, 2003). the characteristics of pld that are most likely to have the greatest levels of adoption and sustained use, as well as having a positive effect on learning outcomes for the majority of learners (timperley et al., 2007), are contested. effective pld is frequently described as that which is designed around a long-term plan to foster active exploration and application, reflection (shea, pickett & li, 2005)—especially where practitioners are encouraged to consider their students in a new light (timperley et al., 2007)—and development of conceptual frameworks. easy access to peers, mentors, and resources is paramount, as are peer critique (mayes & de freitas, 2004) and involvement in a variety of tasks (kublin, wetherby, crais, & prizant, 1989). these factors can be complemented by computer mediated communication (cmc) in general, and synchronous communication in particular (tu, 2004) because of their ability to empower educators to decide when and with whom they collaborate (sharples, 2000). cognition has been shown to be influenced by emotional, social, and cultural contexts as well as access to information (timperley et al., 2007). sociocultural considerations are therefore inextricable from the design of effective pld; this is particularly so for a practitioner‘s workcontext, which will include history, customs, rituals, and narratives that help define their education community (stoll, mcmahon, & thomas, 2006). contextualised pld has been reported to have a positive effect on student learning outcomes because there is a direct connection between principles of effective teaching and the adaptation of those teaching practices to local circumstances. when such an approach is employed, teachers are more likely to apply strategies to address known issues relating to student learning in their specific learning community (timperley, 2008). also, from a practical stance, given that ―the everyday demands of work are always likely to take precedence over any staff development‖ (milligan, 1999, p. 17), pld needs to be flexible and integrated into what a teacher is already doing, rather than additional to it. communities of practice (cops) are frequently referred to in formal education contexts. the theory of cops was developed in the latter half of the 1980s and in the 1990s by lave and wenger, and has since been extended (e.g., by hildreth, kimble, & wright, 2000) to encompass the notion of ‗situated learning‘ whereby practitioners construct meanings collectively in a community (wenger, 1998). cops are differentiated from other social groups by having a practice and associated communal identity, a shared vision, explicit and implicit roles, procedures and rules, and mutual knowledge and learning (duncan-hewitt, & austin, 2005). when cops are an integral part of pld they can provide formal and informal learning opportunities. they also provide a space for practitioners to participate in conversations about learning and teaching and share practices (brown & duguid, 2000), and to develop supportive professional networks (wenger, mcdermott, & snyder, 2002). owen, h. 64 overview of the vpld programme the vpld pilot was initiated in 2009 by the moe, who appointed a national facilitator. the pilot was formed to develop the capability of 10 new zealand educators and to devise a model that would inform implementation and roll-out of the vpld. the integral principles and aspects of the vpld initiative are described briefly in the following section. the vpld pilot sought to foster the formation of a cop with nine secondary and primary school teachers and one tertiary teacher. these practitioners worked in a variety of locations ranging from kaitaia to canterbury, and were from a range of disciplines (see figure 1). the practitioners were from diverse backgrounds, ethnicities, and cultures. figure 1 vpld participants, locations, and disciplines (underlying image by jayveeare, 2010) http://www.flickr.com/photos/jayveeare/4970153643/ ) this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-sarealike 3.0 unported license. the vpld was designed to offer flexibility of choice, time, and approach, as well as to value personal teaching theories and experiences. theory and practice were connected, while also making professional learning accessible (both physically and design-wise), cumulative, and relevant. encouraging reflection, trial, and practice in a ‗safe‘ environment, sharing experiences, small-group collaboration, and trialling new strategies were included, which, it was felt would, in turn, encourage greater engagement, ownership, and confidence. after the initial formation of the vpld community, the national facilitator, assuming the role of mentor, worked with the 10 educators to develop individual learning plans and to discuss details of mutually agreeable expectations of the quality and nature of participation in the vpld initiative. learning outcomes were negotiated by the participants, and the skills that they identified as important related directly to the students with whom they were working. each educator met with the mentor online using adobe connect (a web-conferencing tool that enables interactive synchronous communication) or skype once a month for 45 to 90 minutes. these exchanges were complemented by interactions in an online social networking space (ning, http://virtualicteltpd.ning.com/), and through access to their own ‗sandpit‘ courses in the moe http://www.flickr.com/photos/jayveeare/4970153643/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/jayveeare/4970153643/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ http://virtualicteltpd.ning.com/ http://virtualicteltpd.ning.com/ journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 65 learning management system, moodle (http://vpd.vln.school.nz/). during monthly meetings a variety of subjects were discussed—including pedagogy, what the educators had been working on with their students, student learning outcomes, and how their students had reacted. participants also identified areas of support they needed. this provided an opportunity to encourage self-access to resources, or to provide ‗just in time‘ tailored feedback, or upskilling using personalised ‗how to‘ videos or audio and written critique. participants were encouraged to record self-reflections (either on the vpld community ning site, or via other platforms of their choice), and urged to offer each other comments, suggestions, and encouragement. participants were also encouraged to submit a short monthly report (150 to 300 words) that gave an overview of their activities, reflections, and ‗next steps‘. there was therefore a focus on awareness of needs, as well as opportunities for co-constructing new belief systems about learning and teaching (bishop, berryman, cavanagh, & teddy, 2007). further research has indicated that an integrated model of virtual professional development that relies on collaborative learning and working is likely to require an initial face-to-face meeting. in part this provides an opportunity to establish working relationships (milligan, 1999), and is especially useful as an aid to social cohesion, especially if educators are unfamiliar with participating in an online community and/or via cmc. as part of the vpld pilot there were two face-to-face meetings—one in december 2009, and the second in june 2010. alongside the faceto-face meetings a variety of community-building strategies were employed, such as sending out a monthly newsletter that highlighted discussions and contributions in the online community ning space and events and issues from further afield, as well as showcasing the work of community members and celebrating successes. there were also all-community webconferencing sessions, either to mark, for example, the end of the year, or with a specific pedagogical and/or skills focus, such as facilitating online web-conferencing sessions in adobe connect. a few members of the wider education community were invited to join the vpld ning and were encouraged to actively contribute. evaluation of the vpld programme the study focused on evaluating the efficacy of the design of the vpld. the main questions underpinning this pilot study included:  how are participants‘ opinions of the value of the vpld pilot affected by participation in the vpld cop?  how does working with a mentor affect participants‘ opinions about their own efficacy and teaching practice?  which external factors have an effect on access to and satisfaction with the vpld pilot programme?  what are the observed effects on participants over the course of the vpld programme?  what are participants‘ opinions about the effects of shifts in their teaching practice on their students‘ achievement and engagement? to explore the questions above, it was necessary to generate a rich, examinable body of data that would permit an in-depth investigation into the design and facilitation of the vpld pilot initiative, including influential external factors. in terms of the whole trial, a process of constant comparison was used to analyse the data. the study collected mainly qualitative data from a wide range of sources, and tools used to collect data included (but were not limited to) online surveys, blog postings, discussion-forum postings, chat history, recordings of the synchronous sessions in adobe connect, and emails. the most comprehensive data was collected via online surveys, adobe connect recordings, and activity in the vpld online community spaces. a full description of the processing of all the data is beyond the scope of this paper. however, the two http://vpd.vln.school.nz/ owen, h. 66 points below briefly describe how the data was processed; they are followed by a more in-depth description of the surveys. 1. the only quantitative data collected was from three surveys (january 2010, june 2010, and december 2010). this data was exported into excel, analysed, and interpreted. 2. a qualitative approach was used to interpret the 1) open-ended survey responses, 2) activity in the vpld online community spaces, and 3) the adobe connect recordings. recurring words were noted as possible emergent themes and used as codes. comparative methods of analysis were used during coding (charmaz, 2008). surveys in january 2010 an initial 9-item survey was administered to all 10 participants to collect information about participants‘ positions in the vpld initiative with regard to teaching/learning situation, philosophy, and technical expertise; to collect feedback that would be used to inform similar future initiatives; to clarify how participants planned to engage in the initiative; and to gauge participants‘ commitment to contributing collaboratively in the online community. in june 2010 a survey was also administered online to, and completed by, all nine teachers who attended the face-to-face meeting in wellington. designed with mainly open-ended questions, the survey aimed to gain a fuller understanding of the experiences of the vpld teachers during the first 6 months that vpld was implemented. it also gathered suggestions for the future model of vpld in general, and the face-to-face meetings in particular. in early december 2010 a final survey was administered online to all 10 practitioners, and was completed by 9. the 15-item survey was designed with mainly open-ended questions that aimed to record the opinions and experiences of the vpld teachers during the pilot vpld initiative, and to encourage reflection about student engagement and achievement of learning outcomes. comments and suggestions for improvements were invited in connection with the vpld model design and implementation. main findings and lessons learned about contextualised, personalised pld the vpld programme was piloted with a variety of approaches and delivery strategies. a number were extremely well received, while others did not work so well. this section examines some of the main findings, and the lessons learned, as well as highlighting some of the issues inherent in a ‗virtual‘ approach to pld. the in-depth evaluation conducted during the pilot charted each teacher‘s learning journey, from a point of initial discombobulation for some to a stage, by the end of 2010, where vpld teachers demonstrated:  a move toward becoming more reflective practitioners (as individuals and as a group)  increased propensity to be professionally self-critical  shifts in teaching approaches and beliefs about learning that influenced facilitation of face-to-face, online, and video-conference sessions, so that sessions became more student-directed and student-led  design and creation of pedagogically sound blended programmes of learning  evaluation/action research of student learning outcomes  increasing engagement of students, partly through experimenting with different approaches and resources with learners and asking for their feedback  contribution to the design and continuation of the vpld model journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 67  trialling of strategies, approaches, activities, and tools recommended/modelled by vpld community members  self-initiation of mentoring within own context(s)  independent formation of cops and/or offer of mentoring and pld to colleagues (7 of the 10 teachers)  upskilling, and associated improvement in confidence, with specific approaches and tools. immersion in vpld while the outcomes listed above may be consistent with any well-designed pld intervention, one positive point of difference was that the vpld—by its very nature (mainly online)— immersed practitioners in a virtual environment. practitioners were part of a learning environment that modelled the principles and facilitation, design, and evaluation approaches that could potentially be applied to enhance their own students‘ learning experience and outcomes. this immersion meant that there were opportunities for ‗learning through doing‘, while also encouraging reflection on issues that can be an integral aspect of online learning. the cop that underpinned much of what happened in the vpld in turn offered a forum for developing strategies that teachers then adapted to suit their own context and students. as such, participants were encouraged to adopt new pedagogies, technologies, tools, and vocabulary partly from the ‗viral‘ effect of sharing effective practices within a cop (moses, 1985); for example, one teacher mentioned that discussions with other vpld participants ―often led to evaluating tools and their impact on student achievement and i have brought that back to my classroom‖. duration and lasting value of vpld the extended duration of the vpld, and the subsuming of the content, tools, and meaning of the pld within each teacher‘s context appears to have had a deep, lasting effect on teaching practice. anecdotal evidence also indicates increased student engagement; for instance, one participant felt that they had altered their teaching practice so that the ―students and teacher [were] working and sharing in an environment that everyone had to cooperate and work together‖. another participant commented that: personally, i only need to see the achievement, attitude and engagement of my students to know that i am on the right track. collectively we have all been finding new tools and techniques that the other team members are not familiar with, and our experiences, while unique, all have a common theme that affirms the purpose and existance [sic] of the group project. while these observations do not refer specifically to the virtual nature of the vpld, there is an inherent recognition of the value of community—a community that was mainly enabled by the ease of synchronous and asynchronous online communication and contribution. it could be argued that participants were influenced by their experience of being part of this community, and at least two have since sought to develop similar experiences for their students: i ―intend using adobe connect more in this mix of synchronous and asynchronous contexts with video clips of tutorials, blog, feedback and feedforward‖. however, it did take some time to recognise that while some teachers immediately started to produce visible, measurable results, others required time to process internally and become a part of the community. during this period the mentor sometimes had the impression that these teachers were less engaged. one participant wrote, ―during the first 6 months i have been slack, as i experienced many hurdles initially. i did not like the fact that i was slack, and because of this i am determined to have a much better next 6 months‖. it was found that with consistent guidance, support, inclusion in the community, and invitations to contribute, levels of visible owen, h. 68 engagement gradually increased in all but one instance. for the one teacher who faced frustrating technical and time barriers, engagement remained limited. in spite of their problems, this teacher chose to continue with the vpld programme at the mid-year point. in retrospect, this was not a positive decision, because by that time the teacher appeared to have lost motivation and momentum, and there was no evidence of shifts in teaching practice or of associated effects on his students‘ learning experiences. a clear example of how well the vpld pilot was received when there were few barriers was, ―thanks for the opportunity. i‘ve learned much and been inspired over time, without pressure of instant results. that‘s what pd should be about‖. however, during the course of the pilot project it became obvious that the vpld teachers did not have equal access to the technology or technical support. this aspect was shown clearly by the responses in the december 2010 survey to the question, ―what, if any, technical issues have you faced during the vpd initiative?‖ while five of the nine respondents had no issues with internet connectivity at their institution or at home, two had intermittent issues with connectivity at the school, one had trouble at home, and two had ongoing issues with both. bandwidth was a problem initially for only one respondent. however, easy access to a computer, webcam, and microphone was an issue throughout the initiative for two respondents, while three had problems with technical skills. two respondents reported issues with accessing the core online spaces used in the vpld project, with one respondent mentioning, ―access to nings was blocked by watchdog 1 for some reason and took a little while to resolve‖. previous studies have shown that external factors such as those mentioned above have an extensive effect on access to, and satisfaction with, learning experiences (for example, owen, 2010). while participants‘ ict skills and experience could be augmented, some negative factors were technical (bandwidth and hardware/software) and could not be resolved by the mentor or vpld community. there were also issues regarding schools blocking essential sites. these factors have several implications for the bigger picture of scaling the vpld model to a nationwide initiative. regular virtual meetings and sessions rely on video, audio, and screensharing. when ultra-fast broadband is rolled out in new zealand, bandwidth should not be an issue. however, suitable functioning hardware (such as microphones, headphones, and webcams) has to be available. there is, therefore, an associated cost implication for the school (shea, pickett, & li, 2005), and education workplaces need to alter their attitude about the rigorous blocking of sites. a barrier that was consistently identified throughout the vpld initiative was lack of time to participate (this is in keeping with the findings of research conducted recently in new zealand— for example, ham, 2009). therefore, it is strongly recommended that the 1-hour funded release time per week (as well as the days for the face-to-face meeting(s) be provided by an educator‘s institution, and that each educator is enabled to choose how they would like to use this release time. effects of participating in an online community of practice although being part of the vpld community was ranked highly by participants, membership was seen as different things by different participants. this became apparent when they were asked, ―what has been the highlight, for you of being part of the vpld community?‖ responses included:  effect(s) on student learning  opportunity to work with a mentor 1 watchdog (previously familynet) is an isp that offers safe internet access to schools, families and corporates. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 69  opportunities to network  provision of platforms for sharing ideas, practice, and experiences  ‗cross-fertilisation‘  access to online spaces/resources  recognition of work and achievement(s). prior to the vpld initiative several teachers felt isolated in their own school community, and were keenly aware of the apparent lack of support for and understanding of what they were attempting to achieve with students. for example, one teacher stated that, ―i stand alone and feel lonely at school … no one knows what i am doing‖. so the sense that they were part of a meaningful community of professional practitioners was particularly important for participants. it was found that such a community enabled personalising the long-term support of participants, alongside building relationships, identifying key needs, and a consequent increase in confidence (―as i have gotten to know people in the group i have become less inhibited in contributing ideas‖), ‗voice‘, and self-direction. furthermore, because the vpld cop formed over time it offered a ‗sandpit‘—a safe environment in which educators could ‗play‘, thereby trialling roles and approaches before trying them with students and direct peers. however, there was also celebration of the robustness of alternative points of view that practitioners from other disciplines and sectors could bring to the community. as such, the eclectic combination of disparate disciplines and sectors helped create a coherent, supportive community. these factors were something that contributed to what dron (2010) refers to as ‗social velcro‘—the elements that help a community to ‗stick‘ together in a way that enables them to learn effectively, but then to unstick and reassemble. the social structures that established were underpinned by agreements about interactions, processes, norms, and rules—although these too were in a constant state of flux, and were re-negotiated, evaluated, and altered. in any self-motivated learning environment, participants have the freedom to choose whether to engage (with or without genuine enthusiasm), and some will decline to embrace the opportunity (bruckman, 2003). the aim with the vpld community was to find a balance or compromise between a self-motivated socio-constructivist environment where engagement and upskilling were the ultimate rewards, and a more traditional perspective where pld was directly linked to performance reviews and promotion. it was challenging to find the right balance, especially as work commitments ebbed and flowed for participants. one solution may be more formal recognition of engagement and contribution on top of the release time currently given (see, for example the becta ‗ict mark‘ and the becta awards). this could help sustain enthusiasm and interest, even when there is a ‗crunch point‘. importance of a convenor in an online cop a reasonable level of personal and professional investment in a cop is necessary for participants to gain a sense of staying informed, and having input around the shape and ‗culture‘ of the community. in the case of the vpld, the online spaces (particularly the ning) provided a central area for discussing ―ideas/concepts with others in the group‖, as well as a place to collate communication and resources. however, the convenor found that the online space did not sustain itself organically, and it was necessary to take an active role in assessing the needs of the community, and to initiate conversations about topics of interest, celebrate the work members were doing, and publicise relevant resources and events. during the pilot the convenor‘s roles included:  facilitating collaboration  showcasing community members‘ work  writing and emailing a monthly newsletter https://selfreview.becta.org.uk/about_this_framework owen, h. 70  locating and evaluating relevant resources made available by other teachers/education organisations  identifying opportunities for special interest groups  assisting with networking with colleagues and other experts  disseminating information (e.g., events, formal learning opportunities, conferences)  raising awareness about topical issues, findings, and theories  coordinating opportunities to participate in online sessions/meetings. one participant commented that ―we would have been headless chooks without someone to knit us together and establish and maintain momentum‖. it was, nevertheless, as hallam (2008) identifies, necessary to not bombard participants with activities, requests, information, and expectations, but rather to establish a balance between too little and too much communication, between facilitated and organic activities and contributions, and between lurkers and contributors. consequences of face-to-face meetings the inaugural face-to-face meeting in december 2009 was reasonably effective, and participants commented that they had enjoyed opportunities to meet each other, revisit personal goals, share strategies and resources, discuss some key issues faced by education, and have input into the proposed vpld community framework and model. however, the group did not gel as well as hoped, energy was rather low, and a few of the participants had a somewhat nebulous sense of why they were there and what they wanted to achieve. sessions tended to be mainly in a large group and participants seemed reluctant to contribute to or ‗lead‘ the discussions. additional issues were the physical restrictions of the venue and the furniture, and the failure of the internet connection. nevertheless, participants did get an opportunity to get to know each other, and engagement in the online spaces increased after the meeting. the lessons learned from the first face-to-face meeting were applied to the second in june 2010, and a participant-centered approach to facilitating the meeting was adopted. this meeting was much more successful, with greater energy and engagement. one participant commented, ―this second session was much more useful than the first in dec 2009. we have had time to try our ideas, to make our mistakes and to reflect upon our success. an overall atmosphere of confidence has given some much-needed direction … and with some meaningful outcomes‖. while it might be ideal to plan and budget for two face-to-face meetings every 12 months with a virtual approach to pld, one well-planned event is likely to achieve the dual aims of social cohesion and professional development. effects on students’ learning vpld participants were urged to evaluate the effects of their shifts in practice on the learning experience as perceived by their students. feedback from the students was to be reflected upon and used for further changes. also, although problematic because of the variety of influences within each learner‘s environment, teachers were encouraged to gather data about any changes in their students‘ achievement of learning outcomes. the main aspects identified by evaluations conducted by teachers included their students‘:  level of engagement  development of ‗soft skills‘ (e.g., time management and sense of self as ‗learners‘)  development of metacognitive skills  development of digital literacy and research/enquiry skills  increased cultural and global awareness journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 71  development of communication skills  self-selected use of a range of multimedia to scaffold learning  creation of a range of own multimedia objects to demonstrate learning and/or practice skills  display of a variety of affective domain outcomes such as motivation, confidence, sense of voice, and sense of belonging. one specific benefit identified and reflected on by participants was the shift in their own role, whereby they ceased to be the main source of assistance and provider of resources. for instance, designing and developing easily accessible online ―links, lessons, assignments, grades‖, rubrics, multimedia scaffolding, and instructions, that were all available ―in one place‖, meant that learners were able to ―use the same lesson resource for their study wherever they are, and whenever they choose‖, and to ―begin their learning before the schedule [sic] classroom lesson‖. one teacher also acknowledged that student self-direction ―independent of the school environment‖ was fostered by providing resources that supported them in ways that allowed for differentiation ―and empowered them to learn on their own terms‖. it is interesting to note that, although two respondents specifically reported improvements in student achievement of learning outcomes (―compared to the performance of previous y10 cohorts the pilot group has collectively outperformed their peers‖), the rest of the effects noticed were affective in nature, and included improved quantity and quality of cooperation, collaboration, and communication between learners. it was nevertheless acknowledged that there was a need for ―more evidence of student engagement in the environment online. … ‖ [emphasis original]. when this was discussed further, the participants felt that they wanted to evaluate whether there was a change in levels of engagement over time, and if similar levels of engagement were observable across cohorts. synthesis and conclusions the pilot illustrated that critical elements of the vpld model are an experience where ‗training‘ in discrete ‗stand-alone‘ skills takes second place to a teacher‘s own learning journey; a personalised, contextualised curriculum; and affective factors—community, belonging, and relationships. many of the factors identified in the vpld pilot link to the wider conversations that are occurring in the education sector in general, and in connection with social learning in particular. questions are being raised about what actually should define a programme of professional learning, as well as the role(s) of educators in social networks and learning. the general shift appears to be toward personalised learning environments, self-paced learning, and social identity. the teachers who are trialling these approaches are discovering the types of skills needed by them, as educators, and their students, as learners. it has been shown that there are affordances built into the vpld approach that encourage and enable teachers to move at their own pace in a supported, supportive environment, with access to all that they need to scaffold their learning journey. thus, if it is accepted that student outcomes frequently mirror teacher performance (although this is a somewhat simplistic relationship), it would follow, that if teachers can be mentored and guided in their own continual professional development and thinking around learning and teaching philosophies, there 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(2008). teacher professional learning and development. educational practice series – 18. international academy of education & international bureau of education paris. unesco. retrieved from http://www.ibe.unesco.org/fileadmin/user_upload/publications/educational_practices/edpracti ces_18.pdf timperley, h., wilson, a., barrar, h., & fung, i. (2007). teacher professional learning and development: best evidence synthesis iteration [bes]. wellington: ministry of education. retrieved from http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/16901/tplanddbesentire.p df timperley, h., phillips, g., wiseman, j. & fung, i. (2003). shifting the focus: achievement information for professional learning: a summary of the sustainability of professional development in literacy—parts 1 and 2. wellington, new zealand: ministry of education. retrieved from http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/7456/pdlitsum.pdf tu, c-h. (2004). online collaborative learning communities: twenty-one designs to building an online collaborative learning community. westport, ct: libraries unlimited. wenger, e. (1998). communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. cambridge: cambridge university press. wenger, e., mcdermott, r., & snyder, w. m. (2002). cultivating communities of practice: a guide to managing knowledge. boston: harvard business school press. biographical note hazel owen ethosconsultancynz@gmail.com hazel owen is an education consultant with an interest in all aspects of ict-enhanced learning and teaching, especially when underpinned by social learning and communities of practice. she is also keen to develop creative ways of scaffolding and empowering learners, and to foster learner-led, culturally responsive, contextualised approaches. � this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 new zealand license. owen, h. (2010). personalised, contextualized, professional learning development: putting it into practice. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 15(1), 61-74. http://www.ibe.unesco.org/fileadmin/user_upload/publications/educational_practices/edpractices_18.pdf http://www.ibe.unesco.org/fileadmin/user_upload/publications/educational_practices/edpractices_18.pdf http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/16901/tplanddbesentire.pdf http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/16901/tplanddbesentire.pdf http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/7456/pdlit-sum.pdf http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/7456/pdlit-sum.pdf mailto:ethosconsultancynz@gmail.com http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/nz/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/nz/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/nz/ microsoft word barnett-te_wiata.docx barnett, s., te wiata, i. 4 māori mentors: expectations and perceptions shirley barnett, massey university ina te wiata, massey university abstract this article is informed by a kaupapa māori methodology and reports on a “by māori for māori” peer mentoring programme. the programme, offered by the college of business at massey university, focuses on māori students who are studying at a distance. we outline the programme and the experiences and perceptions from kanohi ki te kanohi (face-to-face) interviews and discussions with seven māori student mentors who are studying internally. using durie’s (2009) model of māori student success we identify a number of attributes that mentors developed by participating in this programme and providing help and support to distance students. results suggest that mentoring programmes can provide mentors with opportunities to develop in areas such as leadership, which may not have been previously identified and discussed in the literature. keywords: māori students; distance students; mentoring; mentors; tertiary; indigenous; aotearoa; developing attributes; leadership introduction if i could list all the positives about the programme [mentoring māori students studying via distance] i would be writing until the cows come home. i will keep it simple and say that i would recommend the programme to anybody who wants to be a leader, to be able to work as a team, to be able to help someone out. (māori student mentor talking about the mentoring programme) education is vital to enhancing the capability and capacity of the workforce. the benefits gained by māori participating in education have a direct effect on employment, standards of living, health, and income. ongoing education is necessary to recruit and sustain māori across the workforce sectors. according to rawlings (2010) “there is visible evidence that having a degree benefits māori economically as well as having social and cultural benefits” (p. 299). there are a number of māori mentoring programmes operating in the tertiary education sector with the goal of improving student retention and completion. for example: vision 20:20 (2016) at the university of auckland (www.fmhs.auckland.ac.nz), te rau puawai workforce development based at massey university (ratima et al., 2007), ngā kaiārahi mātauranga (2016) at the university of waikato (www.waikato.ac.nz) and the whai ake mentoring programme (2016) at unitec (www.unitec.ac.nz). other tertiary education institutions have run mentoring programmes specifically for distance students; for example, the open polytechnic of new zealand (boyle, kwon, ross, & simpson, 2010). more recently, a study of māori mentoring programmes in tertiary education found that māori students enrolled and receiving support from māori mentors completed a qualification (mode of journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(2) 5 study was not identified), while many of those who did not complete were not enrolled in the mentoring programme (tahau-hodges, 2010). much of the research on māori mentoring programmes has focused on the pass rates of students and the importance of māori cultural values on the student’s educational success (durie, 2005). a māori mentoring programme focusing on māori students studying at a distance was piloted in the college of business (cob) at massey university (mu) in 2014 and continues to operate. the key goals of this mentoring programme are (1) to increase the completion and pass rate of māori students studying via distance in core bbs papers; and (2) to develop leadership skills and abilities among the māori student mentors (who are studying internally). in this article we discuss the experiences and perceptions of the seven māori student mentors who worked with maori students studying via distance in 2015. the mentors’ comments form the basis of the discussion and we use their voices to illustrate the development, or improvement, in their leadership skills and abilities. the findings add to the growing body of knowledge surrounding peer mentoring for both māori and non-māori (see, for example, heirdsfield et al., 2008) but, more importantly, will begin a discussion about the benefits of mentoring for the mentors who participate in the programme. the aotearoa new zealand context the external context in which tertiary education providers operate is becoming more and more regulated. funding from the tertiary education commission has started to take student pass and retention rates into account, and research funding is allocated from the contestable performance based research fund (pbrf). while equity funding (which is based on the number of māori students) is available, this money can be used for a variety of purposes including scholarships, part-funding of māori academic staff positions, or specific student recruitment and retention positions (te wiata, 2016; white & te wiata, 2014). over the past 20 years mu has supported a number of initiatives which have focused on the recruitment, retention, and success of māori students. in the early 1990s a māori learning support position was established in the department of māori studies and, over time every college and campus established dedicated kaitautoko māori (māori support staff) positions. in late 2010, support services in the university were centralised and the te rau whakaara (trw) kaupapa was developed as a university-wide strategy. the overall intent of trw was to provide a guided and seamless pathway into, through, and out of university for māori students. te rau whakaara advisors worked across the study life cycle, from initial engagement to graduation, with prospective students and with new and returning students from all study modes. each advisor worked in the paired roles of recruitment and retention, although some spent more time in one or the other. in 2014, trw was disestablished and staff moved to student recruitment, external relations, to focus solely on māori student recruitment. this resulted in a gap in the area of māori student support, retention, and completion. most māori staff at mu are acutely aware of the need for designated retention and success programmes for māori students, and their support for trw was clear at the 2011 launch. the gap left by the disestablishment of trw is vast. in the following year, to help fill the gap, the cob opted to pilot a mentoring programme with māori students in its core bbs papers. the pilot received funding support from the office of the assistant vice chancellor māori and pasifika, and the national centre for teaching and learning. the cob had a high proportion of māori students (30%), second only to the college of humanities and social sciences. of the cob students, 70% (570) were studying via distance, and approximately one-third of these are enrolled in at least one core bbs paper. by the end of the pilot’s first semester in 2014, a slight barnett, s., te wiata, i. 6 increase was evident in the pass rates of māori students in some of the core papers, and a decision was made to continue with the programme. the māori mentoring programme in operation this programme was established ‘by māori for māori’ and piloted in the cob in semester 2, 2014. the pilot programme showed positive outcomes for māori students studying the core bbs papers via distance with a slight increase in overall pass rates (koia, 2015). this programme has continued. the goals of the programme are: 1. to increase the completion and pass rates of māori students studying via distance in core bbs papers 2. to develop leadership skills and abilities among the māori student mentors. the mentors are māori students studying internally in the cob in their second or third year, and they have passed the eight core bbs papers. the mentoring programme supervisor made the initial contact with them and, if the student was interested in becoming a mentor, they were invited to attend the 2014 end-of-year thank-you function for the previous mentors. this event provided an opportunity for prospective mentors to talk with current mentors, the supervisor, and the facilitator of the programme to get a better understanding of the mentoring role. the mentors for 2015 were selected and confirmed in january. in february they undertook an initial introduction and orientation session where they met each other and māori staff involved in the programme. they were introduced to the manner in which each mentoring session would be conducted: mihi whakatau (introductions), karakia (blessings), kai (food), whanaungatanga (relationships), and the use of te reo māori (the māori language). following this, the new mentors were given training on the systems they would use in the role and in the processes they should use when contacting mentees. role plays were used as part of the training process, allowing mentors the opportunity to practice initiating a conversation with someone they hadn’t met. the debriefing sessions that were part of programme were also explained. mentors began phoning their mentees (allocated by the programme facilitator) 2 weeks before the start of semester. calls were made on wednesday and thursday evenings. a typical mentoring session is: 5:00–5:45 p.m. shared kai and whakawhanaungatanga 5:45–6:00 p.m. facilitator provides updates about processes and systems. 6:00–6:15 p.m. discussion about important dates for mentees in the next 2weeks e.g. assignment due dates or reminder about a test. 6:15–8:00 p.m. calling mentees the primary role of the mentors was to provide a link between the university and the mentees. mentors provided advice and assistance to students in a variety of areas, including navigating the university systems such as the library and stream (mu’s moodle learning platform). they also helped mentees with their time management skills, provided reminders for assignment due dates, and gave information about learning support services. mentors chose when they would work, depending on their study timetables and personal demands so, although every effort was made to ‘assign’ a specific mentor to each mentee, this journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(2) 7 was not always possible. if a mentee asked to be contacted in the future, the mentor explained that someone else might call them, and made a note on the student record to ensure that a followup call was made. the mmp has now been operating in the cob for 3 years (six semesters) and will continue in 2018. mentoring a western perspective western literature provides many different definitions and descriptions of what mentoring is or might be. mentor–mentee pairs can be found in almost every profession—mentoring is evident from academic disciplines to entertainment and popular culture (eby, 2007). interest in mentoring as a scholarly pursuit is often traced to levinson, darrow, klein, levinson, and mckee’s study of human development (1978). in their work a mentor is described as a guide, a teacher, a counsellor, and someone who develops skills in another. levinson et al. also note the influential role that a mentor has in the mentor–mentee relationship—likening it to a parent–child relationship. ainsworth (1989) comments on the role of emotional attachments beyond childhood and the critical nature these play in adult development. other studies focused on the importance that mentoring could play in adult development (eby, rhodes, & allen, 2007); and kram’s (1985) in-depth qualitative study of mentoring in the workplace described a number of key aspects of mentoring relationships, including their functions and phases. educational research during this same time period focused on the interactions and relationships between non-familial adults. chickering (1969) looked at the influence of staff on students’ academic and affective outcomes when the relationships were outside the classroom. other researchers (such as wilson, gaff, dienst, wood, & bavry, 1975; astin, 1977; pascarella, 1980) supported the view that student–staff interaction had a positive influence on a wide range of academic, personal, and career outcomes. in their review of the mentoring literature, eby et al. (2007) highlight the differences and similarities in how people define mentoring. they suggest that, because there are several commonalities among the definitions that can serve as a reference for discussing mentoring, the lack of consensus is not necessarily as problematic as it first appears. these commonalities include that a mentoring relationship is unique; for example, it can be short-lived or last a lifetime. second, mentoring is a learning partnership—although the goals may differ they usually involve the acquisition of knowledge. third, mentoring is a process, and is characterised according to the type of support and functions that are part of the relationship (e.g., coaching, support, and advocacy). fourth, mentoring is reciprocal. although the relationship is not usually equal and the mentor may gain some benefit, the primary goal is to help the mentee in their development. mentoring models can be formal or informal, and the mentoring activity can occur one-to-one or in small or larger groups (tahau-hodges, 2010). in educational institutions mentoring relationships may take any of these forms. they may include students (both undergraduate and postgraduate) and staff. student-to-student mentoring relationships (i.e., peer mentoring) are effective in helping learners to feel they belong in an educational institution (prebble et al., 2004) and these relationships are a particularly important feature for those studying via distance (boyle et al., 2010). barnett, s., te wiata, i. 8 a māori perspective kaupapa māori is a way of life—the thinking and practice of being māori. one of the main principles of kaupapa māori theory is self-determination; that is, māori achieving their aspirations for development and advancement in a manner anchored in māori values, knowledge, and cultural practices (tahau-hodges, 2010). research has suggested that cultural identity plays a significant role in determining the educational achievement of māori students, and that by strengthening identity it might be possible to mitigate the effect of external issues on academic performance (bennett & flett, 2001; durie, 1998; selby, 1996). mentoring is one strategy that has been posited to increase the educational success of students, particularly if it is based on or informed by kaupapa māori theory (clarke, 1998; ratima & grant, 2007; rua & nikora, 1999). the theoretical framework on which our mentoring programme is based is informed by graham smith’s (1990) initial ideas and principles of a model of kaupapa māori (within an educational context). since the 1990s other kaupapa māori theorists including pihama (2001), pohatu (2004), and bishop (2005) have expanded and contributed to the development and growth of the methodology. in a similar manner to kensington-miller and ratima (2015), we included the six key elements of kaupapa māori articulated by smith (1990) in our mentoring programme. 1. tino rangatiratanga the principle of self-determination provides the foundation for our mentoring programme, which was specifically designed, facilitated and delivered by māori for māori students studying via distance. 2. taonga tuku iho cultural aspiration is a living principle. it is embodied in the mentoring sessions, which are conducted according to tikanga māori with karakia to open and close and to bless our shared kai, and mihi whakatau when we have visitors. 3. ako māori 
 the principle of culturally preferred pedagogy is evident in our use of more experienced internal students (tuakana) as mentors for our first-year students studying via distance (teina). although our mentors and mentees have been unable to meet kanohi ki te kanohi (due to geographical distance), regular phone and email contact is maintained throughout the semester. other methods of contact will be trialled as the programme becomes more established (e.g., zoom or skype could enable kanohi ki te kanohi meetings). 4. kia piki ake i ngā raruraru o te kainga the principle of socio-economic mediation is important in the programme as some māori students studying via distance face obstacles and barriers such as financial issues and isolation (e.g., geographical, or being the only one in a whānau doing tertiary study). the mentoring programme, while not alleviating the financial difficulties, provides an opportunity for the mentees to be connected with, and encouraged and strengthened by the mentors so they feel part of the university as a whole. 5. whānau the principle of extended family structure is a foundational concept for māori and, for students studying via distance in particular, whānau (in its many forms, as described by durie, 1994; metge, 1995) plays an integral part in their learning experience. from those living at home with and supporting the students, through to the mentors in the programme, there is a shared purpose in working towards a successful outcome for mentees. the mentors also have their whānau groups with whom they collaborate to ensure they too are not isolated—one being the ‘mentoring journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(2) 9 whānau’ comprising not just the other mentors, but the supervisors and the programme facilitator. 6. kaupapa the principle of collective philosophy is also foundational to our programme and, as outlined above, our purpose is to increase māori student success at university. in providing māori students studying at a distance with a peer-mentoring strategy, we aim to help both the mentees and mentors to work towards the best possible collegial, personal, cultural, academic, and career outcomes (durie, 2009). we have also taken into account two further elements that have added to a kaupapa māori methodology. 7. te tiriti o waitangi (pihama, 2001) the spirit of the treaty of waitangi is demonstrated in that our mentoring programme is conducted by māori for māori, and goes some way to affirming māori rights. 8. āta (pohatu, 2004) the principle of growing respectful relationships has emerged as mentors from each semester have returned to the programme and are able to provide mentoring to both the student mentees and the new mentors. these principles informed the development and implementation of the mmp. however, it is durie’s (2009) best outcomes for māori students model that provides a relevant basis from which to discuss our research with the mentors. according to this model, māori student success must be considered within appropriate frameworks. figure 1 outlines a set of attributes that students might acquire during their studies in order to be equipped with the requisite skills, academic insights, networks, experience, and cultural competencies to begin or further develop their careers, and prepare to take a lead in achieving a positive future for their whānau. implicit in durie’s model is the notion of ‘leadership’ which, very broadly, is the ability to lead or guide individuals or groups. figure 1 best outcomes for māori students (durie, 2009) © mason durie barnett, s., te wiata, i. 10 study design in september 2015 a mixed-methods research study focusing on the māori mentoring programme in the cob was proposed, and ethics approval was sought from and granted by the university. the mentoring programme was piloted in semester 2, 2014, and implemented more formally in 2015. therefore, only mentors, mentees, and staff involved in semesters 1 and 2, 2015, were involved in this study, which involved three phases. these comprised, firstly, kanohi ki te kanohi interviews and discussions with the mentors; secondly, an online survey questionnaire for the mentees; and thirdly, interviews with the programme supervisor and facilitator. in this paper we present and discuss the findings from the interviews and discussions with seven mentors who participated in 2015. we privilege the voices of the mentors by using quotes to show their experiences and perceptions of the programme. to protect the anonymity of the mentors, names and other identifying information have not been included. findings and discussion the cob is in a good position to contribute to enhancing the māori workforce, whether it is in the financial, economic, health, education or other sectors, particularly as māori contribution to the economy was approximately $11 billion in 2013 and continues to grow (nana, khan, & schulze, 2015 in ruwhiu & awatere, 2016). the mmp has shown some positive outcomes for māori distance students and statistical evidence suggests there was a slight increase in the number of māori students passing their core bbs papers in 2015; however, we cannot say with any certainty that this was solely because of the mmp. less easy to assess is the second goal of the mmp—to develop leadership skills and abilities among the māori student mentors. the comments made by mentors in the kanohi ki te kanohi interviews and discussions are considered in relation to durie’s (2009) best outcomes for māori students model (fig. 1). most of the comments made by the mentors fit into three of the five outcomes outlined by durie: these are collegial, personal, and cultural outcomes. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(2) 11 emerging leaders in te ao māori1 and te ao pākehā2 figure 2 is an adaptation of durie’s model. it shows the outcomes that are discussed in this paper and explicitly links the outcomes to leadership development. figure 2 māori mentor outcomes (durie, 2009) © mason durie. adapted with permission. specific academic outcomes (e.g., paper passes and grade-point averages) were not available to the researchers; however, two mentors graduated with their bachelor degrees at the end of 2015. two others switched to distance mode and completed their degrees in 2016. the other three continued their studies and worked as mentors in 2016, completing their degrees and graduating in 2017. at the time of writing, career outcomes could not be discussed as the first cohort of mentors were still studying or in the very early stages of employment. collegial outcomes all seven mentors commented on collegial outcomes, with most focused on interactions with the māori students studying via distance and how they could help them to succeed with their study at mu. the programme also enabled social and e-networks in the mentor cohort—they developed an informal mentoring circle to support each other with their study and their learning about kawa and tikanga. some mentors identified that they wanted to be involved with the programme so they could help others and give something back. specific reasons included: . . . good to help others try to achieve . . . . . . be able to help and make the studying experience easier and more enjoyable . . . 1 the māori world 2 the european world barnett, s., te wiata, i. 12 … help people cope with university life… i have been both an internal student and extramural [distance] and being ‘mature’ am aware of the struggles that our māori students face . . . for me it is a matter of giving back . . . when asked: “what kinds of benefits do you believe mentoring provides to students?” the mentors’ comments fell into two main categories of support/help and confidence. in terms of support/help, comments included: . . . motivator and keeping people on track . . . . . . providing support and advice to students . . . . . . help to develop study skills . . . . . . help students to learn and grow . . . . . . it removes the sense of isolation and creates the feeling of community . . . . . . students become more aware of services available to help with study . . . and . . . help. some mentors felt they had been successful in helping students become more confident with their study, and commented: . . . provide an internal confidence boost for the student . . . . . . help students become more confident with their study . . . i mentored a student who was whakama [shy] and did not want to contact the paper coordinator and struggled with the paper terminology and what was actually required. with mentoring support this student submitted her assignment, if we didn’t help she was going to fail and not submit the assignment. the mentors also benefited from their relationship with the mentees. three comments showed how some felt about their interactions with mentees: most of the positive interactions i had with students where i really felt i was helping them out would have been when the students had personal issues that were interfering with their study and i would give them advice on how to manage their studies in the face of those issues. i felt i was able to inform students of little details [like withdrawing before a certain date in order to avoid financial and academic penalties] that went a long way in terms of saving them money and giving them an option to withhold their study if it was too difficult at this time. having been a kaiako [teacher] before i was aware of the good feeling that came from helping others . . . the ‘buzz’ is seeing or sensing the growth of the individual in who they are, growing in confidence, so that the place their feet stand is stronger. the mentors themselves developed an informal ‘mentoring circle’ in which they supported each other with their study. the format of the mentoring session (shared kai and whakawhanaungatanga) also enabled social networks to develop. a facebook page was set up to facilitate communication between the mentors, supervisor, and facilitator, and the four students journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(2) 13 who are no longer mentors have chosen to stay connected with the programme through this e-network. the two mentors who have graduated are now university alumni and, as others graduate, they will also become part of this university network. personal outcomes the three circles in the model are not totally separate and some of mentor comments relating to collegial outcomes could also relate to personal outcomes (e.g., positive relationships). it could be argued that all good collegial outcomes are based on positive relationships and the choice about where to put individual comments from the mentors was not made lightly. however, the attributes that the students acquired from being mentors all led to the development of their leadership skills. when asked why they decided to become mentors, replies included: . . . looks good on cv . . . . . . able to learn more and add something different to my skill set . . . . . . develop leadership skills . . . . . . develop confidence . . . . . . learn better communication skills . . . mentors were asked: “what are some of the personal positives that you will take away from the programme?” responses included: i would definitely say the satisfaction of knowing that you helped someone with something whether it be their study or letting them know that there’s someone out there to help them. i gained a lot of confidence from being part of the mentoring programme. it has definitely helped me a lot with not only my interactions with students but people in general. the comradeship with those in the team and seeing them develop, and also the positive differences we made. when the mentors were asked specifically about their emotional intelligence (ei), no specific answers were provided. however, in a later discussion, one mentor described an initial conversation with a mentee who was quite emotional and unsure about her study and her ability to do the work required. the mentor asked the facilitator if she could be allocated this particular student in future weeks so that she could keep up the conversation and reassure and help the student whenever possible. this mentor obviously recognised the student’s need to have one contact person and decided to provide this support—showing a high level of emotional intelligence. this statement also demonstrates the mentor’s ability to build a positive and personal relationship with the mentee. during the interviews mentors revealed their ability to build positive relationships with mentees as they became more proficient in the mentoring role. one stated: after the first few weeks i was sweet. i had learnt the ins and outs of the mentoring and i was making more and more phone calls as the weeks went by. i kind of developed my own sort of approach to mentoring as well to make the mentoring more personal to me. barnett, s., te wiata, i. 14 by the end of 2015 all of the mentors were using their own personal scripts and building on the relationships that they had developed with individual mentees. mentors were using different forms of greeting with mentees and discussed different topics depending on the demographic of the mentee. for example, they might start one phone call with “yo bro”, but start another phone call with “kia ora whaea”—demonstrating their ability to adapt the training to best suit them, thus improving the relationship with the mentee. how the mentors greeted mentees differently, acknowledging their status in the whanau, also shows development of their emotional intelligence. the mentors had to learn new computer systems so they could update student records and make notes about the phone calls. this showed their ability to access knowledge. one mentor commented: … gaining more knowledge about the university systems and i didn’t need to check with the facilitator all the time. mentors also had to develop the skill of concise writing as the relevant points from the phone call needed to be written succinctly so that anyone following the student’s record would have all the relevant information. mentors’ comments about cultural aspects of the programme are now discussed as part of the third outcome in durie’s model. cultural outcomes an integral part of the mentors’ training was the principle of taonga tuku iho (cultural aspiration) and the mentoring sessions were conducted according to tikanga māori kaupapa (framework based on māori protocols). the supervisor and facilitator both worked on the initial training session and used te ao māori examples to explain the students’ journey when they began their study. one mentor commented: any journey starts with the first steps, so there was a sense of whānau and shared kaupapa of making a difference. at the initial meeting [the supervisor’s] approach created a very good mauri [life principle] for the mentors. talking about the same training session, another mentor said: i liked the analogy of moving from te kore, through to te pō then te ao marama which charts the journal of the individual.3 the training information given to the mentors at the initial session included copies of karakia (to start and end meetings, and for kai) and a template for a pepeha (personal introduction) which is used at mihi whakatau to introduce yourself through your whakapapa and thereby develop whanaungatanga links with others in the room. some of the mentors had strong links to their whakapapa but others struggled to write a pepeha and had to conduct research with whānaumembers. 3 based on the whakapapa of creation. see http://maaori.com/whakapapa/creation.htm journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(2) 15 the facilitator was present at all of the mentoring sessions and ensured that karakia were said at the beginning and end of all sessions and before kai. if guests had been invited there was mihi whakatau and the use of te reo māori was encouraged among the mentors. whakawhanaungatanga was implicit in all sessions and formed the basis of how the mentors developed relationships with each other and the mentees. some of the mentors had strong links to their whakapapa and whānau as a result of being brought up close to their marae (home place) and hapū (extended family). for others, using te reo māori was intimidating and the tuakana–teina (more experienced–less experienced) model was used in the mentoring sessions to support and encourage those with less knowledge. comments included: i was too scared to read the karakia as i didn’t know how to pronounce the māori words. i liked the use of ako [learning] through the tuakana–teina model. by the end of the first few mentoring sessions all mentors knew a suitable karakia to start, finish, and to bless food. mentors were encouraged to learn and recite karakia but there was no time limit and initially most read from the prepared karakia and began to learn them as their knowledge of te reo māori improved. comments included: i didn’t feel forced to learn the karakia—wanted to do it so that i could feel part of the whanau. it felt good when i went to a hui and i knew a karakia to say for kai. for most of the mentors, learning new skills through a te ao māori lens was a revelation as they hadn’t attended a kohanga reo (māori pre-school) or studied papers specifically related to māori. concepts such as the creation story were new to these mentors. the pepeha was also new to some of them, and they were encouraged to contact whānauto find out their whakapapa and include it into their personal pepeha. given the research involved, there was no pressure on the mentors to fully complete their pepeha but they were encouraged to use part of it (either read or learned) whenever they had to introduce themselves. again this was done in the tuakana–teina environment to lessen anxiety and build whakawhanaungatanga relationships between the mentors. some mentors went back to their marae and hapū to find out about their whakapapa and this enabled them to re-establish contact with whanau: i didn’t realise what i didn’t know. i grew up by the marae until i was 12 but hadn’t taken any notice of the tikanga and things. learning my whakapapa gave me an opportunity to visit some older whānauthat i hadn’t seen in years. there were no specific comments about learning their pepeha; however, at the end-of-year function to thank the mentors for their work during 2015, two mentors used their full pepeha to introduce themselves. they hadn’t been able to do this at the beginning of 2015 (f. palmer, personal communication, 20 november, 2015). at this function the mentors also spoke confidently about the programme, what it meant to them, and how they believed they had helped māori students studying via distance. some mentors barnett, s., te wiata, i. 16 spoke specifically about the mentoring outcomes that would enable them to follow a leadership path in the future, including having more confidence operating in te ao māori and te ao pākehā; building relationships (tuakana–teina); developing social and e-networks with other mentors; and their increased knowledge of pepeha, mihi, karakia, kawa, and tikanga. summary and conclusion the mmp discussed in this paper had two goals: first, to increase the completion and pass rates of māori students studying via distance; and second, to develop the māori mentors’ leadership skills and abilities, to enable them to become future leaders in te ao pākehā and/or te ao māori. we used durie’s 2009 model to discuss the collegial, personal, and cultural outcomes expressed by the mentors. there is ample evidence to show that tuakana–teina mentoring can be of significant value to mentors and mentees if implemented in a culturally appropriate manner. however, success depends on adequate resourcing, appropriate staffing, and a framework conducive to māori values and beliefs. further research on māori mentoring in the tertiary education sector would be worthwhile. this could include exploring mentors’ and mentees’ perceptions throughout their student journey and beyond graduation. this additional research will enrich the growing body of literature relating to peer mentoring generally but, more importantly, it will provide much-needed data about māori mentors and mentoring in the tertiary education sector in aotearoa new zealand. references ainsworth, m. d. 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(1975). college professors and their impact upon students. new york: john wiley & sons. acknowledgements ngā mihi nui to our māori student mentors who helped many of our students studying via distance to succeed in 2014 and 2015. thanks also to those who provided the information which forms the basis of this research paper. we would like to acknowledge jacob tapiata and monica koia for the initial development and implementation of this programme, and dr farah palmer and ruth jackson for continuing this work. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(2) 19 biographical notes shirley barnett s.j.barnett@massey.ac.nz shirley is a lecturer in the school of management, massey university. she has designed and taught courses in human resource management and management for internal, distance, and international student cohorts for over 25 years. shirley also facilitates the māori student mentoring programme in the massey business school. she is from ngāti tūwharetoa and has a particular interest in māori student success in the tertiary sector. ina te wiata ngati raukawa i.c.tewiata@massey.ac.nz ina is senior advisor (teaching and scholarship) in the office of the assistant vice chancellor māori and pasifika, massey university. she has extensive experience and expertise in the area of adult/higher education, having held academic positions in polytechnics and universities in aotearoa new zealand and australia. in her current role ina represents māori on a number of key university committees and advises and works with academic staff in all areas of teaching and learning. her research interests focus on advancing māori student accomplishment in the tertiary education sector. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. barnett, s., & te wiata, i. (2017). māori mentors: expectations and perceptions. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(2), [4–19.]. chellapan, l., van der meer, j., pratt, k., wass, r. 6 to flip or not to flip, that’s the question: findings from an exploratory study into factors that may influence tertiary teachers to consider a flipped classroom model lakshmi chellapan, university of otago jacques van der meer, university of otago keryn pratt, university of otago rob wass, university of otago abstract the term “flipping the classroom” is relatively recent, although elements of the underlying principles have been around for many years. it is generally accepted that the “flipped classroom model” consists of replacing direct instruction, or lectures, with video clips to be watched off campus, and using face-to-face class time to engage students in active learning activities. flipping the classroom has been made easier by access to video technologies. the model was initially adopted for use in secondary education, but is increasingly considered by teachers in higher education. however, there is both confusion and scepticism about the concept, and whether there are any benefits in adopting it. in this exploratory study, the main focus was on identifying what staff in three institutions of higher education in new zealand considered to be the reasons for adopting, and/or for not adopting, or challenges in adopting, this model. in this article, we will report on the findings from the survey part of this mixedmethods study. the findings suggest some respondents saw no value in adopting a flipped classroom model; some considered active learning to be the main idea behind the flipped classroom model (and that this was an old idea in a new guise); and some had or would like to implement the model, but had encountered or were anticipating some challenges in doing so. the findings also suggested a range or lack of common understanding of what the flipped classroom model means. this highlighted the importance of clarifying a definition in any research project and reporting exactly what is meant by “flipped classroom model” in order to avoid conceptual confusion. keywords: flipped classroom model; video clips: active learning; recorded lectures introduction the term, “flipped classroom model”, was first introduced in 2007 by two high-school teachers in colorado. bergmann and sams (2012) used recorded lectures for students who often missed classes due to sports or other activities. both teachers realised they needed to find an alternative to ensure these students did not miss any lessons. at that time, youtube and online video were in their infancy. taking note of these developments, they began to use screen-capture software to record their lectures, and posted them online so their students could access them. this was the beginning of what became known as the flipped classroom model. however, before the term was coined, other teachers experimented with similar activities, using terms such as “inverted classroom” (e.g., see lage, platt, & treglia, 2000). journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(1) 7 in this model, course content is typically introduced—not through live lectures, but through recorded lectures or shorter video clips that the students are required to watch in their own time. after the self-directed activity of watching the video clips, classroom time focuses on engagement with the lecture content through more active learning approaches. “active” means that students do not just “consume” what is delivered didactically from the front of the class— they are actively engaged in making sense of the material. this engagement can be achieved through a variety of approaches such as problem-based activities, brainstorming, or group/pair work. over time, “flipped classroom model” has been defined in many different ways. each definition accentuates different characteristics, which has led to considerable confusion about its defining characteristics. in their scoping study, o’flaherty and phillips (2015) found that there was no agreed model of the flipped classroom model. the flipped learning network (2014) provides the following definition of the flipped classroom: flipped learning is a pedagogical approach in which a direct instruction moves from the group learning space to the individual learning space, and the resulting group space is transformed into a dynamic, interactive learning environment where the educator guides students as they apply concepts and engage creatively in the subject matter. (p.1) this definition does not refer to developments in technology as a prompt for the increasing adoption of a flipped model. however, the studies by o’flaherty and phillips (2015), abeysekera and dawson (2015), and missildine, fountain, summers, and gosselin (2013) did emphasise using technology as typically being one of the defining characteristics of a flipped classroom model, often through the use of video-recorded lecture material. considering the number of ways the term, “flipped classroom model”, has been used, we must clearly define how we have used it in this project. we adopted a definition derived from missildine et al. (2013): the flipped classroom model is a hybrid approach to learning, using video recordings to move lecture-type direct instruction to ‘self-directed’ status and using face-to-face classroom time for interactive learning. we have opted for this definition to guide our research because it specifically refers to the technological affordances provided by video-recording technology, and the general increase of students’ access and use of technology. in this context the term “technological affordance” can be defined as “possibilities for action” (e.g., see limperos, buckner, kaufman, & frisby, 2015). technological affordances may have led to the quick rise and adoption of a flipped classroom model of teaching. although the basic principle of moving lecture material to homework and using contact time for more interactive learning approaches existed before video technology became readily available and students’ access to technology increased, we argue that the rapid rise in technological affordance in the educational space probably prompted the sharp rise and use of the flipped model. our choice to adopt a definition that includes the intentional use of technology also reflects our assumption that using technology can positively affect students’ learning. student engagement and active participation in the classroom increase student success (milman, 2012) and using technology as an instructional tool can be a catalyst for their learning. it may also be particularly attractive to today’s students, who have grown up in a technology-rich environment (pierce & fox, 2012). many institutions of higher learning are increasingly interested in implementing a flipped approach, be it in education, medicine, sciences, or social science (fulton, 2012; roehl, reddy, chellapan, l., van der meer, j., pratt, k., wass, r. 8 & shannon, 2013) with a clear intention of enhancing students’ learning. steen-utheim and foldnes (2018) examined students’ engagement in a flipped classroom and traditional classroom, and showed that students were positive about the flipped methods and developed a better understanding of the coursework. day and foley (2006) described the positive effect of flipped classrooms and reported on the students’ satisfaction and their improved final grades. research by tune, sturek, and basile (2013)—based on the effectiveness of a traditional lecture-based curriculum with a modified flipped classroom curriculum of cardiovascular, respiratory, and renal physiology for first-year graduate students—indicated that active learning and student participation were the primary focus for the flipped classroom. the results from these studies showed that, by having activities such as frequent quizzes and extra time for classroom discussion, students’ performance in flipped classrooms increased more than the students in traditional classrooms. however, despite reported advantages, challenges have also been identified. teachers have identified barriers in implementing flipped classrooms, including an increased workload relating to content preparation, their discomfort with technology, and lack of access to technology (chellapan & van der meer, 2015). overall, research on the challenges and the rationale for adopting or not adopting this model in higher education learning environments is still relatively scarce (abeysekera & dawson, 2015; o’flaherty & phillips, 2015; chellapan & van der meer, 2015). the findings reported in this article are from a small pilot study in three higher education institutions. this study may contribute to the emerging research efforts in this area. in particular, to start developing an understanding of the considerations that come into play when university teaching staff encounter a new pedagogiocal approach such as this model, we sought to understand the rationale of university teachers for adopting or not adopting the flipped model, what they considered to be the challenges in implementing this model in their courses, and whether they had particular views of teaching and learning that led them to adopt/resist the flipped classroom model. we were also interested in finding out whether there is a relationship between general technology use and adoption of the flipped classroom model. in other words, to what extent does teachers’ understanding of, and comfort levels with, technology and related pedagogical approaches determine their adoption or resistance to adopt the flipped model? insights into these questions could also inform staff development in this area, especially when new approaches to teaching are introduced. methodology this paper reports on the survey findings from a larger study that employed a mixed-method design that also included interviews. mixed-methods research is recognised as the third major research approach or research paradigm used today (doyle, brady, & byrne, 2016; klassen, creswell, plano clark, smith, & meissner, 2012). this method has been described in a number of ways, but, in general, it involves using quantitative and qualitative research techniques, methods, and approaches in a single study. the survey in this study asked questions about teachers’ pedagogical practices in relation to the use of technology, lectures (particularly the use of video recordings), and respondents’ possible reasons for adopting or resisting the flipped model. questionnaire the instrument used in this study was a 69-item questionnaire designed to measure university teachers’ current teaching practices, technology use, and preferences for adopting or not adopting the flipped model. the online survey used likert-type questions on a five-point scale, anchored by “strongly disagree” and “strongly agree”. the survey also included a few open-ended journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(1) 9 questions developed through an iterative process by the main researcher’s discussion with a range of staff knowledgeable in this area, and initial feedback from a small group of lecturers. in the first part of the survey, respondents were asked to indicate their level of agreement with statements about technology in teaching and learning; in the second part, their agreement with statements about the lecture mode of teaching; in the third part, their agreement with statements about implementing pedagogical change; in the fourth part, their agreement with statements about their perception of students’ learning and study habits; and, in the last part, their agreement with statements about the use of video technology. to ensure the content validity of the instrument, including the relevance and clarity of the items or wording, the instrument was reviewed by the authors and a number of their colleagues. after multiple revisions, the questionnaire was piloted with 30 lecturers who were not participants in the main study. to ensure the clarity of the questions, lecturers were asked to comment on any ambiguous items. based on the feedback, some questions were rephrased, reworded, or omitted. however, we deliberately left a number of similar questions in the survey to allow the creation of scales that would capture a number of key constructs, and reliability testing of those scales. participants because this was an exploratory study, a convenience sample approach was used. invitations were sent to teachers on the mailing list of colleagues of some of the authors in two new zealand universities, and to staff in the authors’ home institution. a total of 84 responses were received: 27 from one university; 48 from the second university; and 11 from the third university. procedure ethical approval was sought and granted. the questionnaire was administered online with google forms. interested participants received information about the project in their email invitation. participants who clicked on the survey link and completed the survey were deemed to have consented to participate. data analysis the data was statistically analysed using spps version 23. we first analysed the descriptive statistics of the individual questions. we then performed a principal component analysis (pca) to explore and identify the questions that loaded onto different components or factors (jolliffe & cadima, 2016). we then performed a two-way correlation to identify relationships between the factors. lastly, we performed analyses of variance to explore the relationship between the answers on a number of key categorical questions and the scale results. findings descriptive statistics of survey items the survey was designed to enquire into the respondents’ experience and views of technology, their experience and views on teaching, and students’ learning and study behaviour. table 1 shows the descriptive statistics of questions that related directly to technology. as can be seen, most respondents seemed reasonably comfortable with technology. for example, 64.6% agreed with the statement that they were comfortable using a range of technologies in their teaching. chellapan, l., van der meer, j., pratt, k., wass, r. 10 table 1 questions related to technology strongly disagree disagree neutral agree strongly agree 1. i think that using technology improves my overall teaching performance 6.0% 7.1% 28.6% 34.5% 23.8% 2. i am comfortable using a range of technologies in my teaching 0.0% 9.8% 25.6% 30.5% 34.1% 3. interacting with technology does not require a lot of mental effort for me 6.0% 16.7% 26.2% 39.3% 11.9% 4. i believe that i can effectively use technology tools to deliver an engaging course 0.0% 10.8% 16.9% 53.0% 19.3% 5. i am able to use learning technology tools with minimum support and assistance 3.6% 18.1% 27.7% 31.3% 19.3% 6. the availability of technology tools helped me to change my course delivery to a more interactive approach 15.7% 19.3% 24.1% 27.7% 13.3% 7. technology-enhanced pedagogies allow for a more interactive learning environment 10.7% 20.2% 26.2% 31.0% 11.9% the results relating to questions about lectures, as shown in table 2, suggest that, for most respondents, lectures remain an essential part of teaching in higher education: 71.4% agreed or strongly agreed with a statement related to this. however, 42.7 % indicated that lectures might not be the best way to teach students. table 2 questions related to lectures strongly disagree disagree neutral agree strongly agree 8. i prefer the lecture mode as my primary teaching approach 20.2% 17.9% 29.8% 22.6% 9.5% 9. lectures are currently an essential part of my course 8.3% 4.8% 15.5% 32.1% 39.3% 10. lectures have been proven to be the best method to teach students because they enhance students’ understanding of the course material 25.0% 26.2% 31.0% 14.3% 3.6% 11. i am comfortable with continuing with my lectures; they have served me well for a long time 12.3% 25.9% 27.2% 21.0% 13.6% 12. i find it easier to deliver my course content in a lecture-based teaching method. 13.1% 17.9% 22.6% 31.0% 15.5% 13. lecturing is the only way for me to get through the content of the course(s) i teach 36.1% 20.5% 20.5% 15.7% 7.2% 14. the tutorials provide enough interaction in my course — none is needed in my lectures. 48.8% 26.8% 17.1% 4.9% 2.4% 15.teaching formats other than lectures would take too much time in preparing course materials 21.4% 31.0% 21.4% 20.2% 6.0% 16. providing students with video clips of lecture content is just spoon feeding them 37.3% 22.9% 22.9% 10.8% 6.0% 17. lectures are not the best way to teach students 4.9% 14.6% 37.8% 24.4% 18.3% journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(1) 11 responses to the questions about consideration of possible changes, as shown in table 3, suggest respondents had a distinct interest in making some changes, especially in developing more interactive lectures. nearly 80% agreed or strongly agreed that lectures could be more effective if they were more interactive. table 3 questions related to possible changes strongly disagree disagree neutral agree strongly agree 18. most lectures should be abolished and replaced by interactive tutorials or workshops 31.3% 19.3% 15.7% 16.9% 16.9% 19. lectures could be more effective if they would be more interactive 3.6% 3.6% 13.3% 37.3% 42.2% 20. short video clips would be a better way to deliver course material rather than just through lectures 16.7% 16.7% 36.9% 20.2% 9.5% 21. in my institution/department, i don't have enough opportunities and support to develop new teaching approaches 17.1% 32.9% 13.4% 24.4% 12.2% 22. the only reason i lecture is because my institution requires this of me 32.9% 25.6% 24.4% 12.2% 4.9% 23. the only reason i lecture is because other teaching formats take up too much staffing 23.2% 24.4% 29.3% 14.6% 8.5% 24. limitations on available smaller classroom spaces limits my opportunities to make many changes in my approach to teaching 26.6% 25.3% 22.8% 13.9% 11.4% 25. short video clips in addition to one or more lectures would be a better way to deliver course material rather than just through lectures alone. 10.8% 10.8% 31.3% 25.3% 21.7% as can be seen in table 4, respondents were positive about educational technology and its role in enhancing student academic engagement (59.8%) and providing for self-paced instruction (61.3%). table 4 questions related to educational technology strongly disagree disagree neutral agree strongly agree 37. the introduction of technologies in higher education has enhanced students’ engagement 14.5% 10.8% 36.1% 27.7% 10.8% 38. i believe that technology enhanced pedagogies develop a more positive attitude towards learning in students 12.0% 13.3% 38.6% 26.5% 9.6% 39. technology enhanced pedagogies can contribute to students' academic engagement 6.1% 11.0% 23.2% 36.6% 23.2% 40. using technology in teaching and learning is likely to enhance students' motivation 9.5% 15.5% 33.3% 31.0% 10.7% 41. technology use in teaching and learning is likely to satisfy students’ learning needs 8.6% 18.5% 38.3% 24.7% 9.9% 42. technology can provide for a self-paced instructional setting that could support mastery learning for students 3.8% 11.3% 23.8% 38.8% 22.5% chellapan, l., van der meer, j., pratt, k., wass, r. 12 the responses to the questions relating to students’ learning and study habits show an interesting mixture of negative perceptions as well as recognition of the type of teaching that might best serve students’ learning. some of the negative perceptions seem to express a deficit view of students as being lazy, disengaged, not capable, and expecting to be provided with the ‘right’ knowledge. other views seem to express an idea that lecturers need to guide students and plan for their active engagement. table 5 questions related to students’ learning and study habits strongly disagree disagree neutral agree strongly agree 26. most students do not prepare before coming to lectures 0.0% 10.7% 10.7% 33.3% 45.2% 27. students prefer to get a copy of the lecture powerpoint slides rather than attempt to make their own notes 3.6% 6.0% 10.7% 36.9% 42.9% 28. even though students often take notes, i believe that many students do not look at them after class. 11.9% 23.8% 28.6% 23.8% 11.9% 29. most students find it difficult to maintain their attention during lectures if there are no activities. 4.8% 10.7% 19.0% 35.7% 29.8% 30. my experience is that students in lecturebased classes are often disengaged (e.g., texting, sleeping, not bothered to attend to lecture) 7.1% 22.6% 33.3% 23.8% 13.1% 31. students depend on teachers to provide them with appropriate learning materials (e.g., lecture notes/slides, websites with resources, reading materials) 2.4% 6.0% 10.7% 52.4% 28.6% 32. my students prefer to learn through lectures, rather than through active engagement (e.g., brainstorming, discussion...) 15.5% 38.1% 29.8% 15.5% 1.2% 33. most students prefer to be told what they have to know, rather than develop their own understanding of the course materials 8.3% 14.3% 31.0% 27.4% 19.0% 34. many students find it difficult to make good notes in lectures 1.2% 10.7% 38.1% 34.5% 15.5% 35. students learn best by me explaining the material in lectures 13.1% 23.8% 53.6% 6.0% 3.6% 36. a change in pedagogy is necessary as many students in the 21st century do not feel engaged by just listening and taking notes. 9.5% 10.7% 25.0% 34.5% 20.2% lastly, in line with the definition of the flipped model we adopted for this project, a range of questions were asked about the use of and usefulness of recorded lectures or video clips. as can be seen in table 6, respondents overall seemed positive about this particular use of technology to enhance support for students and provide more time in class for other activities. however, respondents clearly felt that video clips, on their own, did not enhance students’ understanding. nor did they believe that students would automatically pace their own learning. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(1) 13 table 6 questions related to video use strongly disagree disagree neutral agree strongly agree 43. pre-recorded lectures enable students to pause and replay video segments to help their understanding 2.4% 6.0% 30.1% 30.1% 31.3% 44. the use of video clips/podcasts for homework allows the class time to be used for activities such as problem solving, discussion and developing students' understanding 6.0% 4.8% 31.3% 30.1% 27.7% 45. activities in the classroom such as solving problems, and peer-led discussions can help students to develop a deeper understanding of the course material 1.2% 1.2% 12.0% 31.3% 54.2% 46. students are responsible themselves for learning from the lecture material 0.0% 4.8% 22.9% 44.6% 27.7% 47. students learn best by active engagement with the material 0.0% 0.0% 4.8% 30.1% 65.1% 48. using pre-recorded/video clips lectures does not guarantee students’ understanding 0.0% 1.2% 12.0% 28.9% 57.8% 49. using pre-recorded/video clips lectures does not necessarily guarantee that students will pace their own learning effectively 1.2% 3.6% 10.8% 28.9% 55.4% 50. a problem with providing video clips might be that many students will be easily distracted while watching the videos 4.9% 18.3% 39.0% 25.6% 12.2% 51. having to watch video clips or podcasts independently may be overwhelming for some students 8.4% 20.5% 31.3% 31.3% 8.4% 52. i don't believe most students have the selfmotivation to watch video-clips by themselves 17.1% 22.0% 35.4% 19.5% 6.1% 53. most first-year students need to receive guidance from teachers into how to become independent learners 1.2% 3.7% 17.3% 44.4% 33.3% 54. the use of video clips with course content may be especially helpful for first-year students as they may find it difficult to make good notes in lectures 7.3% 8.5% 42.7% 32.9% 8.5% 55. the use of video clips with course content may be especially helpful for international students as they may find it difficult to make good notes in lectures 5.0% 6.3% 30.0% 41.3% 17.5% scales the large number of questions, with some apparent duplication, was intended to allow us to reduce them into a number of meaningful scales that would encapsulate some broader concepts, attitudes, or beliefs. to do this, we performed a principal component analysis (pca) with varimax rotation using the variables from table 1–6 that loaded on a component with a value of .40 or above. the kmo measure of sampling adequacy was .624 and bartlett’s test of chellapan, l., van der meer, j., pratt, k., wass, r. 14 sphericity was significant (χ2 = 1585.395, p < .001). from these results we created seven scales with reliability exceeding .70 (see table 7). table 7 scale descriptives to identify any relationship between respondents’ perceptions of pedagogy and technology, and their students’ perceptions, we performed a correlation analysis. the correlation matrix in table 8 shows that respondents’ beliefs and ideas about students’ active learning strongly correlate with positive ideas about technology, being technologically comfortable, not preferring the lectures as teaching mode, and using video clips. positive ideas about using video clips also strongly correlate with a generally positive attitude to technology and not preferring lectures. on the other hand, we can see correlation between a preference for lectures and having a deficit view of students. all of this together may suggest that thoughts about aspects relating to the flipped model may be connected to comfort levels about technology, and respondents’ views of students’ approaches to learning. table 8 scale correlations technology_ positive lecture_ preference student_ deficit techno_ comfortable change_ challenge student_ active_ learning technology_positive 1 lecture_preference -0.77 1 student_deficit -0.013 .263* 1 techno_comfortable 0.111 -0.173 -0.023 1 change_challenge 0.034 0.120 .290* -.231* 1 student_active_learning .526** -.463** -0.119 .292** -0.035 1 video_clip_positive .669** -.310** -0.022 0.164 -0.017 .582** * correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). ** correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). scale name number of items in scale cronbach α n mean technology_positive 8 .93 76 3.19 lecture_preference 8 .87 80 2.86 student_deficit 5 .78 84 3.71 techno_comfortable 3 .84 81 3.55 video_clip_positive 4 .81 80 3.41 change_challenge 5 .76 77 2.57 student_active_learning 4 .82 80 4.09 journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(1) 15 table 9 mean results between respondents who answered yes/no to the question: do you use video clips instead of lectures? *p < 0.05 ** p < 0.01 table 10 mean results between respondents who answered yes/no to the question: do you use video clips in addition to lectures? *p < 0.05 ** p < 0.01 these results suggest that the respondents who used video clips instead of lectures, or in addition to lectures, were not significantly more comfortable with technology than those who did not lecture (mean difference of 0.54, p > 0.05). however, those who used the video clips in addition to lectures seemed more positive about technology than those who used video clips instead of lectures (mean difference of 0.72, p = 0.001). both groups were also more positive about active learning approaches and positive about using video clips. in addition, those who used video clips instead of lectures were less inclined to have a deficit view about students. discussion we sought to understand the rationale of teachers in higher education institutions for adopting or not adopting the flipped model, and what they considered to be challenges in implementing this model in their courses. we were also interested to find out whether there may be a relationship between technology use in general and adoption of the flipped classroom model because of the close relationship between using technology and adopting the flipped classroom model. taken together, the findings of this study suggest that it is not comfort levels with technology, but technology_ positive lecture_ preference student_ deficit techno_ comfortable video clip_ positive change_ challenge student_ active_ learning no mean 3.09 2.99 3.85 3.54 3.29 2.63 3.98 n 61 64 68 67 64 61 65 std. dev. 0.96 0.79 0.73 0.96 0.85 0.83 0.70 yes mean 3.63 2.33 3.14 3.60 3.91 2.31 4.57 n 14 16 16 14 16 16 15 std. dev. 0.88 0.88 0.78 0.81 0.98 1.17 0.65 f value 3.77 8.57** 11.83** .045 6.34* 1.59 8.86** technology_ positive lecture_ preference student_ deficit techno_ comfortable video clip_ positive change_ challenge student_ active_ learning no mean 2.86 2.82 3.81 3.42 3.10 2.65 3.93 n 41 40 42 42 40 39 40 std. dev. 1.04 0.92 0.85 1.04 0.95 0.91 0.75 yes mean 3.58 2.90 3.61 3.68 3.73 2.48 4.26 n 35 40 42 39 40 38 40 std. dev. 0.71 0.79 0.72 0.78 0.75 0.91 0.66 f values 11.83** 1.54 1.42 1.64 10.68** .61 4.41* chellapan, l., van der meer, j., pratt, k., wass, r. 16 general positive ideas about using technology and valuing students’ active learning, that seem to have led respondents in this sample to adopt or consider adopting the flipped model and/or the use of video clips. the respondents in this study seemed to feel comfortable using technology as part of their pedagogical toolbox. however, this did not necessarily translate into an overwhelming use of video clips instead of lectures. few respondents in this survey had replaced lectures with video clips, but seemed to use video clips in addition to lectures. it could therefore be argued that few had fully adopted the flipped classroom model, if the flipped model is interpreted to mean replacing lectures with video clips. reasons for this (as far as the survey results allow for interpretation) could be manifold. the requirement to record lectures, monitor student activity online, prepare materials, and change their teaching approaches may be perceived to have too great an impact on teachers’ workload and time. the responses to questions about adopting the flipped classroom model in their teaching lend some support to these consequences. furthermore, perceived ideas about the value of lectures, and views about students’ motivation and willingness to put effort into their studies, may provide some other explanations for a limited uptake of the fully flipped classroom. the literature about the flipped classroom model seems to confirm some of these findings—that most of those who have adopted the approach in higher education by using video clips do so because of their interest in students’ active learning in the classroom and because they are positive about technology (abeysekera & dawson, 2015). although traditional methods have some flexibility in promoting students’ engagement based on the types of activities that teachers conducted in the classroom, a flipped approach allows for a wide range of variation (lo & hew, 2017). ferreri and o’connor (2013) suggest that teaching approaches that go beyond the traditional method seem to be more effective. students who actively participate in the learning process are more visible in a flipped classroom (siegle, 2014; zappe, leicht, messner, litzinger, & lee, 2009). respondents who had a deficit view of students may have had limited positive experiences with students and the use of technology in their classroom. if students experience technology tools as beneficial, they are more willing to put more time into their study (chen, wang, kinshuk, & chen, 2014). however, for technology to lead to positive learning changes it must be presented in the right way (zainuddin & halili, 2016). lockwood and esselstein (2013) suggested that if teachers explain how videos will be used in the flipped classroom at the initial stage of the course, students will have a basic understanding of the flipped classroom concept and its intention. this might enhance their motivation to participate in their learning. in general, students may be less motivated to engage in activities or a pedagogical approach if they do not have a clear rationale for doing so (van der meer, 2012). hung’s (2015) study respondents reported that they appreciated the videos as a replacement of the lecture because they were able to view the content as often as needed and the classroom time was used for discussions and brainstorming. although creating videos for the flipped classroom seemed to be daunting and challenging for some teachers (unruh, peters, & willis, 2016), those who have adopted the model tend to focus more on active participation and students’ engagement in the classroom (jamaludin & osman, 2014; tucker, 2012) rather than worrying about technology use per se. students’ engagement in the flipped classroom is not just about using videos. it is also about replacing a passive learning approach with a more active learning and collaborative approach in the classroom (bergmann & sams, 2014). those adopting the flipped classroom model are likely to see the classroom atmosphere begin to change because of the greater focus on interactive learning; for example, there is more time for classroom activities such as brainstorming, peer discussion, group discussion, and other more interactive learning activities (moravec, williams, aguilar-roca, & o’dowd, 2010). journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(1) 17 in summary, the survey results of this small exploratory study seem to suggest that levels of technological comfort may be less of a barrier than an interest in the pedagogical benefits of the flipped classroom model. references abeysekera, l., & dawson, p. 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(2012). “i don’t really see where they’re going with it”: communicating purpose and rationale to first-year students. journal of further and higher education, 36(1), 81–94. zainuddin, z., & halili, s. h. (2016). flipped classroom research and trends from different fields of study. the international review of research in open and distributed learning, 17(3). https://doi-org.ezproxy.otago.ac.nz/10.1145/2445196.2445236 journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(1) 19 zappe, s., leicht, r., messner, j., litzinger, t., & lee, h. w. (2009). “flipping” the classroom to explore active learning in a large undergraduate course. in american society for engineering education. american society for engineering education. biographical notes lakshmi chellapan lakshmi.chellapan@postgrad.otago.ac.nz lakshmi is currently in her second year as a ph.d. student in educational technology at the higher education department centre, university of otago. her doctorate thesis focuses on “the pedagogical reasoning underpinning the adoption and non-adoption of the flipped classroom model in the context of higher education”. jacques van der meer, ph.d. jacques.vandermeer@otago.ac.nz jacques is senior lecturer and associate dean at the university of otago college of education. in this capacity he teaches courses related to human development and counselling. he has worked in many sectors of education, including secondary and community education. his research interests relate to first-year student experience, student retention, equitable access, and participation in higher education and peerlearning/student leadership approaches to enhancing student engagement. he is also the associate editor of the journal of peer learning. keryn pratt, ph.d. keryn.pratt@otago.ac.nz as well as being a member of the centre for distance education and learning technology, dr keryn pratt is a senior lecturer at the college of education, and postgraduate and distance coordinator. she has been teaching and researching in the areas of ict and distance education since 2000. her research interests include ict in education and distance learning/virtual schools. rob wass, ph.d. rob.wass@otago.ac.nz rob is a lecturer at the university of otago development of higher education centre. he is interested in supporting the academic development of tutors using video-stimulated recall, effective assessment, and peer learning. he is also interested in student perceptions of good teaching, and effective learning. his previously published research is in the areas of scaffolding for critical thinking, assessment, and academic writing. rob’s research is primarily qualitative and situated within sociocultural and interpretive paradigms. chellapan, l., van der meer, j., pratt, k., & wass, r. (2018). to flip or not to flip, that’s the question: findings from an exploratory study into factors that may influence tertiary teachers to consider a flipped classroom model. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(1), [6–21.]. mailto:lakshmi.chellapan@postgrad.otago.ac.nz mailto:jacques.vandermeer@otago.ac.nz mailto:keryn.pratt@otago.ac.nz mailto:rob.wass@otago.ac.nz chellapan, l., van der meer, j., pratt, k., wass, r. 20 appendix 1: scales items scales questions 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 40. using technology in teaching and learning is likely to enhance students’ motivation v 38. i believe that technology enhanced pedagogies develop a more positive attitude towards learning in students v 7. technology-enhanced pedagogies allow for a more interactive learning environment v 37. the introduction of technologies in higher education has enhanced students’ engagement v 41. technology use in teaching and learning is likely to satisfy students’ learning needs v 39. technology enhanced pedagogies can contribute to students’ academic engagement v 6. the availability of technology tools helped me to change my course delivery to a more interactive approach v 1. i think that using technology improves my overall teaching performance v 8. i prefer the lecture mode as my primary teaching approach v 11. i am comfortable with continuing with my lectures; they have served me well for a long time v 10. lectures have been proven to be the best method to teach students because they enhance students’ understanding of the course material v 9. lectures are currently an essential part of my course v 12. i find it easier to deliver my course content in a lecture-based teaching method v 35. students learn best by me explaining the material in lectures v 32. my students prefer to learn through lectures, rather than through active engagement (e.g., brainstorming, discussion...) v 13. lecturing is the only way for me to get through the content of the course(s) i teach v 45. activities in the classroom such as solving problems, and peerled discussions can help students to develop a deeper understanding of the course material v 42. technology can provide for a self-paced instructional setting that could support mastery learning for students v 43. pre-recorded lectures enable students to pause and replay video segments to help their understanding v 47. students learn best by active engagement with the material v 27. students prefer to get a copy of the lecture powerpoint slides rather than attempt to make their own notes v 33. most students prefer to be told what they have to know, rather than develop their own understanding of the course materials v 28. even though students often take notes, i believe that many students do not look at them after class v journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(1) 21 columns 1: technology_positive 2: lecture_preference 3: student_active_learning 4: student_deficit 5: techno_comfortable 6: change_challenge 7: video_clip_positive this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. 26. most students do not prepare before coming to lectures v 31. students depend on teachers to provide them with appropriate learning materials (e.g., lecture notes/slides, websites with resources, reading materials) v 3. interacting with technology does not require a lot of mental effort for me v 5. i am able to use learning technology tools with minimum support and assistance v 2. i am comfortable using a range of technologies in my teaching v 21. in my institution/department, i don't have enough opportunities and support to develop new teaching approaches v 22. the only reason i lecture is because my institution requires this of me v 23. the only reason i lecture is because other teaching formats take up too much staffing v 24. limitations on available smaller classroom spaces limits my opportunities to make many changes in my approach to teaching v 15. teaching formats other than lectures would take too much time in preparing course materials v 55. the use of video clips with course content may be especially helpful for international students as they may find it difficult to make good notes in lectures v 20. short video clips would be a better way to deliver course material rather than just through lectures v 25. short video clips in addition to one or more lectures would be a better way to deliver course material rather than just through lectures alone v 44. the use of video clips/podcasts for homework allows the class time to be used for activities such as problem solving, discussion and developing students' understanding v http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ bonk, c. 6 keynote: what is the state of e-learning? reflections on 30 ways learning is changing curtis j. bonk, indiana university abstract this paper is based on a keynote talk delivered at the biennial deanz conference at the university of waikato in hamilton, new zealand, in april 2016. as highlighted in that talk, we have entered education 3.0—an age of vast resource abundance and extensive opportunities for learner empowerment. during the past decade, we have seen the emergence of at least 30 different ways in which learning is changing—for instance, it is becoming increasingly collaborative, global, mobile, modifiable, open, online, blended, massive, visually based, hands-on, ubiquitous, instantaneous, and personal. these 30 learning and technology-related changes reflect three distinct “mega-trends”: (1) learner engagement, (2) the pervasive access to learning, and (3) the customisation and personalisation of learning. keywords: distance learning; online learning; futures; learning preferences; social connectedness; blended learning; technology-enhanced learning; oer introduction in this think piece, i will muse on the 30 ways learning has changed (and continues to change) since my initial visit to the university of waikato in hamilton, new zealand, for an e-learning summit in april 2002. back then, i gave an invited presentation entitled “there’s no learning in e-learning.” that particular talk highlighted the fact that, prior to the dot-com crash of 2000–2002, e-learning vendors were loaded with cash but had little to offer in terms of products. e-learning instructors, in turn, were shovelling up the content that they had used in face-to-face classrooms directly to their web-based courses without making any significant changes or adaptations. as a result, limited learning took place in e-learning environments. after revisiting the university of waikato for the biennial deanz conference exactly 14 years later (i.e, april 2016), i am intentionally taking a moment to reflect on the state of learning in this fast-evolving digital age. during the ensuing years, dozens of assorted learning and technology-related trends have somehow, though not totally unexpectedly, started to coalesce. learning has increasingly become more informal, video-based, ubiquitous, collaborative, selfdirected, global, mobile, open, massive, and so much more. from plato to my grandfather given the changes that have taken place over the past 14 years, it’s not too surprising that the world of education is a profoundly different experience for learners today than it was in 2002 when e-learning was still in its infancy. it is even more markedly changed from the learning world that my grandpa george experienced in traditional classroom settings. keep in mind that my grandfather went to school near the turn of the previous century. it is also worth noting that he didn’t go to school much beyond the primary level. in fact, grandpa george told me once that journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 7 he walked into his high school and kept walking through it and out the other side, never to return. it’s clear that my grandfather, like a lot of others of his generation, went into the work world almost immediately after primary school. like my grandfather, who was born in 1907, the fabled rip van winkle would not be able to wake up from his long sleep and recognise the tasks and activities that take place in many schools of the 21st century. nor would plato recognise the academy that he started and the various forms of blended and online learning that now take up so much energy and attention. too much has changed or is in the process of changing. the old joke that plato or socrates could be reborn today and not recognise much of anything in society except schools no longer holds. as detailed in much of the remainder of this article, the forms of learning that take place in schools and universities have been transformed in dozens of ways. though books and lectures still exist, human quests to learn, and the resources that support them in such learning missions, are vastly different. those jokes about schools not changing concern merely what is possible in a classroom. today, so much is possible well beyond it. global forms of collaboration might have been possible back when my grandfather entered school in 1912, but not to the degree, speed, and pervasiveness of today. instead of using postal mail, the telephone, or the telegraph, students in 2016 can send emails, text messages, blog posts, facebook chats, and instagrams to friends as a reminder of an assignment that is due or perhaps to ask for advice on recommended resources or learning technologies. they can even use a webcam to personalise the discussion. or they might write a paper as a team, using an online collaborative tool that allows team members to work on the same document at the same time. their concerns and questions can be inserted as voice or text comments and annotations. and if they are really ambitious, they might later submit that paper as a chapter in a collaboratively written wikibook or resource with others around the world (bonk, lee, kim, & lin, 2009; lin, sajjapanroj, & bonk, 2011). today, thanks to web technologies, education is open, global, and highly collaborative. i am fairly certain, however, that my grandparents did not collaborate with anyone in their classes outside of the greater milwaukee area where they grew up. the same is true for my parents and most of those i grew up with many decades later. times have changed. there is a revolution underway in education. today, learning is more visual, blended, game-based, immersive, digital, comfortable, modifiable, and personal. and that is just the start. while teaching methods that incorporated aspects of coaching, problem-based learning, and simulations may have resonated with my grandpa george and his classmates a century ago, such progressive approaches to instruction were not as readily employed or accepted as they are today. part of the reason is that learners needed skills that included having a storehouse of factual knowledge, being able to follow rules, and listening obediently and quite passively. and passively learn they did. in contrast, today’s learners need enhanced problem-solving, creativity, and decision-making skills. to accomplish such goals, education is in need of a wholesale transformation. we can no longer suggest to today’s educational leaders that they should be happy providing the education that they, in fact, had received (grant, 2016; wagner & dintersmith, 2015). that would not even get someone a job washing dishes. the real world is far too technologically sophisticated. it requires creativity and innovation (gilbert, 2015; kaufman & gregoire, 2015; wagner, 2012). in contrast to relying on well-structured and traditional forms of education, the open educational world of 2016 allows learning to be more informal and on demand. learners can be spontaneous and personally engaged in their learning pursuits. learning can now be sought when and where needed. and, fortunately, much of it is free. bonk, c. 8 learning is changing when i returned to the university of waikato in april 2016, one thing was obvious—the previous roads and pathways to learning that the human species had travelled down for centuries have been permanently disrupted. learners are demanding greater opportunities for play, purpose, passion, and freedom to learn when, where, and how they prefer (duckworth, 2016; wagner, 2012). the role of the instructor has been transformed as well. no longer are instructors simply delivering content to waiting learners and managing the completed credits. the traditional reception models of learning have given way to notions of instructor as concierge, cultivator, consultant, counsellor, and curator of knowledge. these new roles take precedence over the more mindless and rule-following past. this is the age of education 3.0, where learning is about playful and highly engaged design, and where learner creation of products is the new norm, often with the use of digital media. we humans tinker, invent, and find unique ways to express ourselves. in education 3.0, instructors attempt to foster learner autonomy and self-directed learning pursuits by guiding and mentoring their learners (keats & schmidt, 2007). and rather than the closed walls of previous centuries of learning, there is an openness surrounding the learning experiences of education 3.0. resource availability is emphasised over preserving and doling out limited educational resources. however, education 3.0 is not simply an acknowledgement of greater resources; it is a bold pronouncement that the learning age we are living in is a very different place from anything ever experienced on this planet. how learning is changing: mega trends of 2016 human learning has changed in dozens of ways during the past few years. in the paragraphs that follow, i briefly detail 30 of these changes in three different, though not entirely distinct, sets of 10. i will label these “mega trends.” the first set of mega trends relates most directly to learner engagement. the second group involves pervasive access to learning. and the third collection of mega trends concerns the customisation of learning. mega trend #1: learner engagement learner engagement is a key concern across all educational sectors today. fortunately, a wide array of learning technologies has arisen to offer new opportunities for fostering greater learner involvement and concerted effort in the learning process. as an example, nearly everyone reading this article has probably used a mobile device to learn something new that interested them in the past 24 hours, if not the past few minutes. change #1: learning is more mobile as i mentioned at the deanz conference in april 2016, among the changes we see at each moment of the day is that learning is accessible at any moment. our smartphones, laptops, tablet computers, and now smartwatches, equip us with access to a brimming pot of educational resources unlike no other. in effect, the first change that i need to mention is that learning is much more mobile or portable than before. the devices we carry are smaller and yet sturdier than back in 2002. some people even rely on their watches for their learning pursuits (baig, 2015). many believe that, as we humans increasingly rely on mobile, we lose our social relationships. nevertheless, mobile devices let us extend the place, pace, and inherent space of learning. change #2: learning is more visual as can be seen in most formal and informal educational settings today, learners are increasingly learning visually, rather than through text. gigantic video walls are found in many teaching and learning centres, classroom buildings, learning demonstration centres, and conference entrances. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 9 change #3: learning is more touch-sensored as well as learning visually, the learner can often touch or swipe a screen to access content. learning is more haptic and, therefore, reliant on gestures and the sensation of touch. living in an age of pervasive video that you can select or deselect with a simple touch on a screen brings immense power to one’s fingertips and, hopefully, some agility with our minds. change #4: learning is more game-based along with the rise of video-enabled learning, people are begging for learning activities to approximate what they tend to do outside class. such activities often involve games. it’s not surprising, then, that researchers and educators are exploring how games can impact the learning process in a positive manner. the gamification of learning involves using such techniques as points, badges, and other rewards as well as leaderboards, learner control, enhanced sense of interactivity, levels of progress, challenges and goals, competition, and discovery (an & bonk, 2009; legault, 2015). change #5: learning is more immersive the gamification movement has also shown that learners want to be immersed in their learning pursuits. both augmented and virtual forms of learning support learners in such immersion (cohen, 2016; della cava, 2015a, 2015b). augmented reality equips learners with a “super power” to see data and information superimposed on an object. virtual reality allows the learner to feel or experience an event or situation as if one were actually there (della cava, 2016), such as what it is like to be homeless or a minority or an individual with special needs. such technology is intended to help with empathy and perspective taking. change #6: learning is more collaborative another learning engagement trend relates to working with others on online projects. as my colleagues and i showed in a national research project over 25 years ago, online collaboration and teaming had its roots in the early 1990s (bonk, medury, & reynolds, 1994). with the continued emergence of technology tools for collaboration today, including google docs, pirate pad, meetingwords, google hangouts, skype, zoom, wikis, and other forms of document and social exchange, there are immense opportunities for learners to socially interact and share ideas and knowledge. learner progress can be shared instantly with a work team to gather feedback and alternatives. in effect, collaboration is no longer of a local variety, but extends to potential team members located in any corner of the planet. in shared minds: the new technologies of collaboration, michael schrage (1990) chronicled his journeys across the united states in the late 1980s to find and document collaboration and communication tools. during the journey, schrage discovered that, like the napkin or piece of scrap paper, the most promising technologies were the ones that created a mental “shared space.” online communication and collaboration tools promoted new forms of social interaction and productivity. as learners find common ground or exchange shared thoughts, they can more readily negotiate their ideas, as well as build new knowledge or products. when successful, electronic conferencing and collaboration tools open up avenues for such learners to take the perspectives of other people and appreciate their expectations and reactions. given the various global tensions today, it is hard to argue against that. back when i was an auditor and, later, a corporate controller in the 1980s, we accountants worked fairly solo all day. today, people in business collaborate so often it has become the norm. and their collaborative partners are not down the hallway or at a branch location in the same city, state, or country. instead, one’s partners are in pretoria, singapore, rome, reykjavik, and shanghai, and are available for feedback and support in seconds. it is now rare for a document to be shared externally without first being crowdsourced, evaluated and modified by a team of experts. and if one works in a small company, that document will be bonk, c. 10 reviewed by nearly everyone who works there. an advertisement in a training magazine a decade ago had a man holding up a picket sign that read “collaborate or die.” collaboration is the new standard of excellence for information management professionals and chief information officers. the same holds for all educators and training professionals. collaboration tools will continue to emerge and morph in innovative ways during the coming decade. learning teams will form and function in parallel with work-related needs. records of learning will be shared, added to, augmented, and critiqued. change #7: learning is more social in parallel with the emergence of collaboration technology is the notion that learning is more social. the russian psychologist lev vygotsky (1978, 1986) argued long ago that learning was first a socially interactive process. from this perspective, what is learned on an interpsychological plane is later appropriated and internalised on an intrapsychological plane. social media such as facebook, twitter, instagram, and pinterest in north america, kakao talk in korea, and qq and wechat in china are prime examples of how such sociocultural principles are now commonly instantiated in our social media activities. suffice to say, learning is more social for all of us since 2002. change #8: learning is more digital and resource-rich quests for more engaging online education are now possible, in large part, because we have entered a time wherein learners have immense digital resources to learn from and share. they can learn from video, text, audio, and other forms of learning content. instructors and learners can select from various media and learning formats for content delivery, including animations, simulations, video lectures, canned tutorials, powerpoint slides, audio recordings, maps, timelines, guide sheets, and so on. the problem today is not a lack of resources, but the inability to find the resources appropriate for one’s needs. of course, instructor’s timely curation and sage advice on resources becomes increasingly important in such an age. in these times of resource abundance, new ways to blend often appear in the blink of an eye. when scientific findings are reported by major news networks like the bbc and cnn (e.g., smith-spark, 2015), there are often more detailed announcements from the lead scientists themselves or simultaneously published research articles in prominent journals like nature (haile-selassie et al., 2015). it is clear that learning is increasingly available in a digital format, and it is research rich. change #9: learning is more adventurous another aspect of learner engagement is inquiry-based learning and learning adventure. professor aaron doering at the university of minnesota exemplifies this change in learning more than anyone i know. he is just as likely to be in the arctic tundra as in one of his graduate seminars in minneapolis or st. paul. doering’s professional website, chasing seals1 documents his journeys around the planet, generating highly engaging k–12 resources like the polar huskies project, geothentic learning, earthducation, and north of 60 (doering & veletsianos, 2008; miller, veletsianos, & doering, 2008). every one of these projects and activities is unique. and each actively engages learners in schools throughout the world as they track and interact with explorers, researchers, educators, and others. suffice to say, wherever humankind has traversed, learning is soon to follow. change #10: learning is more hands-on the proliferation of maker spaces and labs in schools and universities is a sign that learning is more hands-on today than ever before (meyer, 2016). learners want to tinker, design, and make something tangible. while i was completing this article, in fact, the obama administration 1 see http://chasing seals.com/ journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 11 unveiled several new initiatives as part of a “national week of making” (chang, 2016). as part of such efforts, school districts around the united states were embracing this movement with maker labs and projects. mega trend #2: pervasive access the next set of 10 learning and technology trends relates to our ability to increasingly access learning anyway and anytime. it is perhaps this notion of pervasive access to learning and education, more than anything else, that has educators, politicians, and learners adopting a more optimistic outlook when it comes to the human race. change #11: learning is more online underpinning many of the first ten ways in which learning is changing is the fact that learning is increasingly occurring in online settings. whether you are interested in school-based learning, higher education, or corporate training, the enrolment numbers are often staggering (e.g., allen & seaman, 2013, 2015). whereas online enrolments continue to grow by 5 or 10 or 20% per year, on-ground (i.e., face-to-face) instruction remains flat or merely edges up 1 or 2%. clearly, learners of the 21st century enjoy the flexibility and convenience of online instruction. not only is the growth of online learning connected to the first 10 changes mentioned above, it is also linked to everything below. change #12: learning is more video-based a key part of the pervasive access to education is the fact that learning has become more videobased. with the increase in storage capacity and bandwidth as well as decreasing storage costs, we can accumulate more video content on the internet. youtube, ted talks, the khan academy, and so on have moved us quickly from an age of wikipedia to videopedia. change #13: learning is more global pervasive access to learning is highly apparent when engaged in global forms of education. recently, someone coined the notion of the “skype classroom” (shea, 2015) where teachers find unique projects and people to connect their students to—often on a weekly basis. today, it is increasingly common to bring in experts from around the planet for live cultural demonstrations, discussions, and reflections (lee & bonk, 2013). this change in learning is actually a key part of why i quit my job as an accountant and cpa and went to graduate school—to enhance learner perspective taking. influencing the social cognition of learners around the planet is perhaps the one learning change that will have the most effect. change #14: learning is more immediate learners no longer have to wait 3 or 4 years for a scientific finding to enter into course content. instead, young learners in schools are often learning about new discoveries, scientific techniques, and inventions at the same time that most experts are hearing about them. technologies such as google glass exemplify the instantaneous nature of learning and discovery. in effect, science is now immediate. such immediacy not only engages learners in the lesson or unit, but can spark future interest in stem fields as a career option (bonk & khoo, 2014). change #15: learning is more direct from experts another momentous change in learning is that experts can appear directly where and when needed. learning is now direct from experts without the need for an accredited middleman. no longer must one sign up for a live class or training programme to find expert advice or mentorship. now a learner can turn to web resources such as noodle, udemy, and the expert café to locate an instructor or mentor in an area of interest. one can also use video resources at the khan academy. want to learn how to play a guitar? there are many instructors and courses available at any of these sites. instructors can even be found on your mobile devices as you sit in a subway or take a rest while climbing a mountain. bonk, c. 12 change #16: learning is more synchronous such experts can also appear in real time (synchronously). during the past decade, the cost of synchronous or real-time technology has decreased significantly, while storage capacity has shot up. for more than a decade, we have become accustomed to taking webinars via synchronous conferencing systems such as blackboard collaborate, adobe connect, gotomeeting, webex, and so on. today, there are dozens more such tools including zoom, skype, google hangouts, and others. reaching out to an expert through real-time technologies is quite commonplace. and now instructors often supplement their courses with optional synchronous experiences during which learners might meet book authors, researchers, leading experts, and students who were previously enrolled in the course. change #17: learning is more open there remain at least four more ways in which learning has changed during the past few years in terms of pervasive access. first of all, learners as well as instructors have greater access to open educational resources (oer) and open courseware (ocw) from other institutions (carson, 2009; caswell, henson, jensen, & wiley, 2008). whether one is a yak herder in tibet, a researcher studying the water flow in the arctic, a young child living in an orphanage in mongolia, or an 80-year-old retiree in texas attempting to obtain a college degree, open access to educational contents can change your life (mangan, 2012). those are just a few examples of life impact from open education. as these cases indicate, the learning world has become increasingly open during the past decade (bonk, 2009). still, there are concerns about faculty member awareness and use of such open educational resources for learning (allen & seaman, 2014). change #18: learning is more free openness is a key part of the equation to greater access to educational content. but openness is not enough. extensive amounts of learning content must be free for education to truly be transformed. as an example, openstax brings free textbooks to secondary and college students (nagel, 2014). from a personal standpoint, i have added to the free and open learning catalogue by offering a digitally available book on online motivation and retention2 as well as 27 free video primers for teaching online, and a free and open mooc on this same topic. change #19: learning is more informal given the wealth of resources available today, and the constant need for upskilling and reskilling, it’s not too surprising that most of our learning has shifted from formal educational settings to informal ones. a decade ago, jay cross (2007) posited that informal learning had already risen to a point wherein more than 80% of learning was accomplished outside formal educational settings. today we gather our health, finance, travel, legal, cultural, and political information from online sources rather than traditional textbooks and instructor-led classes. as my recent research illustrates, people often find pleasure when they can search for and uncover needed information on their own, rather than rely on an expert (bonk, lee, kou, xu, & sheu, 2015). wikipedia, cnn.com, youtube, ted talk, and the khan academy are just the start. here in the age of education 3.0, informal learning continues to shift the balance of power from instructors and textbooks to the individual learner. change #20: learning is ubiquitous as a result of the tremendous growth of fully online and blended learning as well as informal and mobile learning, opportunities for humans to learn have entered every aspect of society. recently, there has been a push for the development of new technologies (e.g., drones and highpressure balloons) that will enable those in rural parts of the world to enjoy greater internet access. there are also technologies that help send contextualised information and signals to one’s mobile devices (e.g., the ibeacon). in the coming decade, we will probably enter an age wherein 2 see http://tec-variety.com/ http://tec-variety.com/ journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 13 the internet is available wherever human presence exists on this planet. this is the age of ubiquitous computing. as members of the learning century, such pervasive access is essential for our very existence as well as our continued evolution as a species. that wraps up the second set of ten learning-related trends from my talk in april 2016 in hamilton. while many of these trends and changes are quite exciting for learners and instructors, it is perhaps the final set of 10 that is currently receiving the most media attention. mega trend #3: customisation finally, we are in the midst of an age filled with opportunities for the customisation and personalisation of learning. these are is described below, with ideas about how to blend our learning pursuits as well as ideas about self-directed learning. change #21: learning is more blended as learning resources and forms of delivering content continue to expand in virtual spaces, instructors and instructional designers are increasingly embracing blended forms of learning. we can combine face-to-face and online experiences in unique ways to take advantage of these enhanced resources as well as expert availability and accessibility to guide one through them. today, nearly all instructors, from those in elementary and secondary schools to college to corporate training, are relying on some type of blended learning experience to enhance, extend, and perhaps even transform their classes. as barbara means and her colleagues at stanford research institute found in their meta-analysis of the literature on online and blended learning, blended is often the best option (see means, toyama, murphy, bakia, & jones 2010). change #22: learning is more self-directed as learning resources shift from formal to informal contexts, learners are becoming accustomed to initiating their own learning. self-directed learning is becoming the norm, rather than the exception. the problem is that most learners have been taught in an educational age which was teacher-dependent. consequently, millions of people are accessing online learning environments without the skills necessary to learn on their own. there is a dire need for greater research and frameworks or models of self-directed online learning (song & hill, 2007) in response, some of my own recent research has shown that learners aspire for environments that are rich in resources, learner freedom, choice, control, fun, and personally driven goals (bonk, lee, kou, xu, & sheu, 2015; song & bonk, 2016). as we enter the age of education 3.0, there will be increasing opportunities for learners to assume more control over their personal learning pursuits. change #23: learning is more competency-based another sign of these transitional times in adult education is the intensifying call for competency-based education (berrett, 2014). in such an approach, learners can obtain credit for what they know (if they can successfully pass the requisite exams), instead of sitting through lectures on material that they already have mastered. in our present climate of increasing educational costs and mounting needs for lifelong education, such a change in learning opportunities is potentially transformative for higher education. the result of such changes is that a college education is no longer something that takes place strictly between the ages of 18 and 22. change #24: learning is more on demand in such an age, learners want access to learning resources, tools, and experts where and when they need them. in effect, to function effectively in this world, learning must be on demand. given that universities often cannot react fast enough to new learning goals and expectations, companies like coursmos have sprung up to fill in the gaps. coursmos uses its more than 50,000 video lessons to create thousands of micro-courses, typically of extremely short durations of bonk, c. 14 under 3 minutes (wikipedia, 2016). as such, it is part of the micro-learning movement (lomas, 2013). change #25: learning is more massive much of this recent emphasis related to learning being more on demand and modular is highly linked to the emergence of massive open online courses or moocs (bonk, lee, reeves, & reynolds, 2015). without a doubt, the growth of moocs over the past several years from just a few in 2011 to over 4000 in the spring of 2016 has been incredible (online course report, 2016). recent data from class central indicates that more than 35,000 million people signed up for at least one mooc in 2015 and more than 570 universities were engaged in offering them (shah, 2015; wexler, 2015). in terms of class size, one study found a median enrolment for moocs of nearly 43,000 learners (ferenstein, 2014). given such data, it is clear that learning is much more massive than what transpired a mere decade ago. change #26: learning is more modular paralleling this rise in moocs and on-demand learning is the recent push for micro-credentials or nanodegrees (waters, 2015). young people as well as more experienced adults see the value in obtaining credentials that translate into well-paying jobs such as web developers, creative writers, digital marketing experts, big-data analysts, python programmers, graphic designers, mobile applications developers, and so on (see specialisations from coursera [coursera blog, 2016]). the time to pay-off in these specialisations is typically much shorter than that found in most higher education paths. not too surprisingly, unique partnerships are being formed between corporations (e.g., at&t, google, etc.) and universities (e.g., arizona state university, georgia tech [e.g., demillo, 2015]) and other educational entities (e.g., the khan academy, udemy, udacity, and coursera). in the process, a badge or certificate might be offered to someone as a sign of competence. at the time of this writing, the u.s. state department had formed a unique partnership with coursera to offer moocs to refugees for free for 1 year, including certification options (camera, 2016). it is likely that in a couple of decades the vast majority of people on the planet will learn in this fashion on a regular basis. change #27: learning is more communal as mentioned earlier, much of learning today is social in nature. in response to the sheer size of moocs, there has been a recent trend to create spaces wherein people can meet to discuss their learning within the mooc. coursera, for instance, has created “learning hubs” (coursera blog, 2014) which enable those enrolled in a mooc to meet with one or more instructors or content experts as well as fellow peers. in this way, learning becomes more connected and blended. as an example, based on extensive travelling to meet his mooc participants around the globe, charles severance (2015) from the university of michigan argues that only in this way can the mooc instructor ever really get to know the participants in their course. the communal aspects of learning today can be found in the sharing that is taking place in moocs (kim & chung, 2015), in collaborative documents (mentioned earlier), and in mooc-related meet-ups and events. change #28: learning is more modifiable we members of the “learning century” or learning age are beginning to make new demands on the spaces in which we learn (kim & chung, 2015). today, learners demand to rearrange their learning spaces to approximate their informal spaces such as in a café or lounge. simply put, they want their learning spaces to be more modifiable and, in effect, more comfortable than ever before. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 15 change #29: learning is more flipped as video storage has increased, learning has become more flipped. instructors can employ video content in unique ways that allow their learners to watch the lecture before class and then come to class for problem solving, case-based learning, and other interactive exercises. change #30: learning is more personal finally, there are currently many advocates of personalised learning. with the wealth of learning resources now available, there is a growing need to personalise the learning process. such personalisation will not come easy. as someone who is currently leading a research project on the personalisation of moocs, i realise that it is a difficult concept to define and assess. to help in these efforts, my team and i have currently defined the personalisation of a mooc as, “how you adapt your course and teaching to meet students’ individual learning needs”. recap and reflection that is a quick walk through 30 trends in human learning with technology today. in part, these learning trends relate to greater engagement of learners (i.e., learning is more mobile, game-like, collaborative, adventurous, hands-on, and much more). at the same time, various technology innovations have provided us with pervasive access to education (i.e., learning is more free, global, open, and online). finally, many recent trends highlight the need for greater customisation of learning. in the third set, we saw that learning is much more blended, competency-based, self-directed, massive, flipped, and personalised. these three mega trends of enhanced learner engagement, pervasive access, and customisation of the learning process offer much hope for better learning tomorrow. and, given the novelty of these learning technologies, this is just a starter list. such is the state of e-learning in 2016. there is no longer “no learning in e-learning” as was the case 14 years ago. the human condition has dramatically changed, hopefully for the better, since my first sojourn to new zealand in 2002. remember my difficulties defining the state of e-learning back then? now we can just call it “learning” again, without the silly “e.” importantly, it’s unlikely that these 30 changes and trends will fade any time soon. in fact, any of these 30 trends could have been the focus of this entire article. what remains clear is that learning has changed for all of us. it is dramatically different—not just at the university of waikato, but at nearly every learning station, hub, or centre. needless to say, it is markedly different from the types of learning available to those of us attending school back in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s—and even more jarringly different from what my grandfather encountered more than a century ago. there will undoubtedly be many more such learning trends and technologies emerging in the coming decade to enhance, extend, and transform your learning. it’s clear that learning is now in a state of significant flux. during this flux, we have entered the age of education 3.0. it is a time for instructors to give voice to their learners and to grant them multiple opportunities and pathways to learn. as this occurs, learning in the remaining decades of the 21st century will be full of exciting ways to personalise learning and the learning process. in the process, more intelligent forms of technology will enable greater use of adaptive forms of instruction and associated learner feedback on performance. as part of this effort to create personalised and adaptive learning, learners themselves will be able to instantaneously share their learning pursuits and setbacks with experts around the planet for their keen observations, candid encouragement, and sage advice. the state of learning will then be more emotionally rich, cognitively effective, physically unending, and volitionally transformative. i definitely look forward to such an age. i also anticipate, with great pleasure, my revisit to the university of waikato in the year 2030. i will be most delighted if i get an bonk, c. 16 opportunity to offer my views on the state of human learning at that time—whether it be on a radio or television programme, or during a conference or summit. note: the video recording of curt’s keynote speech given during the deanz2016 conference on 18th april 2016 is available at http://bit.ly/2e8yfso references allen, i. e., & seaman, j. 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(2016). keynote: what is the state of e-learning? reflections on 30 ways learning is changing. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2), [6–20]. mailto:cjbonk@indiana.edu http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ abstract introduction from plato to my grandfather learning is changing how learning is changing: mega trends of 2016 mega trend #1: learner engagement change #1: learning is more mobile change #2: learning is more visual change #3: learning is more touch-sensored change #4: learning is more game-based change #5: learning is more immersive change #6: learning is more collaborative change #7: learning is more social change #8: learning is more digital and resource-rich change #9: learning is more adventurous change #10: learning is more hands-on mega trend #2: pervasive access change #11: learning is more online change #12: learning is more video-based change #13: learning is more global change #14: learning is more immediate change #15: learning is more direct from experts change #16: learning is more synchronous change #17: learning is more open change #18: learning is more free change #19: learning is more informal change #20: learning is ubiquitous mega trend #3: customisation change #21: learning is more blended change #22: learning is more self-directed change #23: learning is more competency-based change #24: learning is more on demand change #25: learning is more massive change #26: learning is more modular change #27: learning is more communal change #28: learning is more modifiable change #29: learning is more flipped change #30: learning is more personal recap and reflection references wikipedia. (2016). coursmos. retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/coursmos biographical notes curtis bonk journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(1) 45 learning te reo māori via online distance education: a case study maree jeurissen, university of auckland abstract despite some gains in the regeneration of te reo māori, the indigenous language of aotearoa new zealand, its long-term survival remains threatened. one avenue for regeneration seldom considered is the english-medium secondary school. this article reports on a case study where students in one such school chose te reo māori as an option and, and, because no face-to-face teacher was available, opted to continue via online distance education. their experience over a year was documented and analysed through the lens of willems’ (2012) quadripartite model of resilience. despite high levels of motivation, the students encountered considerable difficulties from which educators and education policy makers can learn important lessons. keywords: te reo māori; māori language; online distance education; language introduction students enrolling in english-medium secondary schools who choose to learn te reo māori as a subject may, for a range of reasons, opt to enrol in an online distance programme. in 2012 this was the case for approximately 430 students throughout new zealand (ministry of education, 2014). these students included six from one school that was the site of a previous study that investigated factors relating to the uptake of te reo māori as a subject (jeurissen, 2014). these six students, who were to some extent motivated to learn te reo māori as an outcome of being participants in the previous study, chose this language option because there was no teacher available to teach national certificate of educational achievement (ncea) level one at their school. as the researcher in the previous study, i felt some responsibility for the students’ decisions and so wanted to document their experiences while providing any support that i could. moreover, i wanted to investigate whether learning te reo māori via online distance education could realistically contribute to existing regeneration efforts. willems’ (2012) quadripartite model of educational resilience provides a theoretical framework with which to view the students’ experiences. it also provides a framework for school managers and educational policy makers to consider when offering online distance education for learners of te reo māori and other subjects. the status of te reo māori despite some substantial gains, te reo māori remains in a critical state: “the proportion of māori who were fluent māori speakers declined markedly over the last century” (social report, 2010). jeurissen, m. 46 moreover, the number of māori reporting they could hold an everyday conversation in te reo declined from 25.2% in 2001 to 23.7% in 2006 (te puni kokiri, 2011. the decline is concerning, particularly in light of aspirations reported at national hui (meetings) in the 2011 report, te reo mauriora,, that the language could be considered safe only if 50% of māori spoke it (cited in te puni kokiri, 2011). the same report recommended that 80% of māori should speak te reo daily by 2050. for these figures to become real rather than aspirational, measures for language regeneration, in addition to those currently in place, must be afforded attention. jeurissen (2014) argued that english-medium secondary schools be considered fertile ground for regeneration, not least because of sheer numbers: according to 2011 roll return data for years 7 to 13, the number of māori students in bilingual/immersion schools was 5.4%, with the other 94.6% of māori students attending english-medium schools (ministry of education, 2015). although the number of māori students attending english-medium schools is high, fluent teachers of te reo are scarce. consequently, some students who want to learn te reo as a secondary school subject can do so only by online distance education. distance education in the primary and secondary sector in new zealand in distance education “learners are physically separated from the institution that sponsors the instruction” (schlosser & simonson, 2006, p. 4). new zealand has a long history of distance education (barbour & wenmoth, 2013). the first provider of distance education for primaryaged students, the new zealand correspondence school, was established in 1922 to provide for those children who lived in remote areas, were unable to access education due to ill health, or were in small schools and unable to obtain tuition in some subjects. in 1929, secondary-level courses were added (tate, 1981). as more courses were included, the school became one of the largest in new zealand, and it remains an important education provider with approximately 14,000 students enrolled in 2012 (te aho o te kura pounamu, 2012). in 2009, the school adopted the name te aho o te kura pounamu (te kura). at the time of this study, te kura’s courses and programmes were sometimes alongside and sometimes collaborating with other providers of online education in secondary schools “approximately 20 virtual learning networks (vln) e-learning clusters; three regional health schools; 13 urban-based regional loops; and some tertiary institutions” (barbour & wenmoth, 2013, p. 3). some of te kura’s students were dual-enrolled with both a traditional face-to-face school and a distance education provider such as te kura. developments in technology and distance education have made it possible for students to maximise learning opportunities and engage in distance education for some subjects while attending their regular (mainstream) school. in the early years, distance education consisted entirely of print-based material sent by post. in the current distance education model, delivery might combine weekly videoconferencing classes; hard-copy materials and resources provided by an e-teacher; interactive video conferences; support material provided online by means of a learning management system; and, in some cases, face-to-face meetings between student and teacher (bennett & barbour, 2013). this mixture of classroom, vocational, and distance education modes is increasingly described as blended learning (pullar & brennan, 2008). in online distance education, students are separated from the teacher by distance, and communicate through an online learning management system. the students in this study were experiencing a blended learning environment by being dual-enrolled in their mainstream face-to-face school and a distance education provider. they were involved in online distance education for the purpose of learning te reo māori led by a distance teacher, while learning their other subjects more traditionally with face-to-face teachers. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(1) 47 online distance education and language learning for school-age students there is considerable literature and research detailing online distance education for adults; however, in comparison, research with students in the primary and secondary sector is somewhat lacking (lopes, o’donoghue, & o’neill, 2011). when describing the australian situation, lopes et al. lament: “given that distance education has been employed with school-aged students . . . for almost a century, it is surprising how little this phenomenon is understood” (2011, p. 176). tiakiwai & tiakiwai (2010, as cited in bennett & barbour, 2013) feel these voices echo strongly in new zealand, where literature dealing with online distance education and māori students or māori contexts is also sadly lacking. one study, with a vln of schools in the remote northern region of new zealand, investigated māori students’ perceptions of their online learning experience (bennett & barbour, 2013). recommendations included systematic collection of data from students, and professional development for e-teachers so they can become more cognisant of research about engagement with māori. another early paper describing distance education for isolated māori secondary students concluded that distance education can be modified successfully for delivery to māori students, despite the fact that the “instructional design based on generally accepted principles of distance education and of individual delivery” (amaru, rae, & shadbolt, 1995) is incongruent with indigenous people’s preference to learn collaboratively and cooperatively. these investigations have some relevance for the current context but they did not specifically investigate language learning. moreover, there remains a noticeable lack of research into learning indigenous languages, including te reo māori, via online distance education. otsuka and stevens (1997) conducted a study of language learning by distance in new zealand with 14 students who were learning japanese. the authors reported both positive and negative features of the students’ experiences. on the positive side, they liked having few distractions when learning, and they appreciated the flexibility and independence of studying with te kura. they also felt that the tutor “was particularly attentive and provided them with detailed comments on their work” (otsuka & stevens, 1997, p. 29). aspects the students did not enjoy included the lack of peer interaction, feeling isolated, and the lack of access to a face-to-face teacher. moreover, students reported that they were not gaining mastery of the language. three recommendations emerged from this study: first, that there be frequent face-to-face and telephone contact with the distance teacher; second, that textual materials be improved (with more pictures and drawings to help students understand complex grammatical explanations); and third, that language recordings that could be played at varying speeds should be developed (to support students who found it difficult to adjust to the speed of spoken japanese). the japanese case study exemplifies problematic areas for learning a foreign language by online distance education, and these prove to be similar for the students learning te reo māori in the current study. however, as already mentioned, no studies detailing the learning of indigenous languages via online distance have been found. learning an indigenous language that is also endangered adds another layer of complexity to the delivery and experience of online distance education. when students choose to learn a language that is threatened, rarely spoken in their school and community, and possibly not valued, their chances of success are jeopardised by the context. given the shortage of te reo māori teachers, many students in mainstream secondary schools who wish to learn the language may have only the option of enrolling with an online distance provider. there is therefore some urgency to investigate the nature of their experience. jeurissen, m. 48 methodology the purpose of this study was to observe and document the experience of six students undertaking ncea level one 1 te reo māori via online distance education. because the study was concerned with a single instance (one group) of a bounded system, a case study was an appropriate methodology (cohen, manion, & morrison, 2000). in documenting students’ experiences, the aim was “to portray ‘what it is like’ to be in a particular situation, to catch the close-up reality and ‘thick description’ (geertz, 1973) of participants’ lived experiences of, thoughts about and feelings for, a situation” (cohen et al., 2000, p. 182). the specific research question was: what factors constrain and enable students’ learning when undertaking te reo māori via online distance education? participant selection in a case study demands careful attention, and in most cases sampling is purposeful (richards, 2003). in this instance all students who chose te reo māori as a an option for ncea level one in 2012 were invited and agreed to participate. table 1 displays relevant details for the students, all of whom were 15–16 years old. table 1 participants’ details name (pseudonym) ethnic group languages spoken and understood jane nz european, nz māori english ana nz european, nz māori english sarah scottish, german, samoan english hana nz european, nz māori english tyla samoan english, understands but does not speak samoan kyla tongan english, tongan most of these students were participants in a previous study that investigated factors relating to the uptake of te reo māori as a subject in an english-medium secondary school (jeurissen, 2014). they were interviewed as year 10 students because they were considering studying te reo māori in year 11. although they were learning with a face-to-face teacher at that time, this would not be an option in year 11; hence the decision to proceed with online distance education. my professional interest was that of a teacher–educator specialising in second-language acquisition. personally, as an indigenous new zealander who has not learned te reo, i was also motivated to improve opportunities for the younger generation. whānau 2 concepts of generosity, cooperation, and reciprocity were prioritised, and so a māori world view underpinned the research process. in the bicultural context of new zealand, transparent and culturally responsive engagement with stakeholders must be a priority for educational research (taiwhati, toia, te maro, mcrae, & mckenzie, 2010). in this study, culturally responsive engagement included the provision of support for students as the study progressed. i did not deem it ethical to document students’ experiences without providing help when they reported difficulties. the support provided to them is referred to in subsequent sections of the article. 1 ncea is the new zealand national certificate of educational achievement—the official qualification for senior secondary school students. level one is the first level of this qualification. in general, students work through levels one to three in years 11 to 13. 2 extended family or family group journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(1) 49 the data-collection methods comprised two focus-group interviews, one early (fg1) and one later (fg2) in the year (appendices a and b). the purpose of the focus groups was to explore students’ experiences in some depth. i believed that the students would provide rich descriptions as they interacted with one another and, as a result, the participants’ rather than the researcher’s agenda would predominate (cohen et al., 2000). finally, individual interviews (ii) (appendix c) were conducted at the end of the year with all but one student who was unavailable (overseas) at the time. (after they had participated in two focus groups, i wanted to give the students the opportunity to talk openly about their individual experiences). a guided interview approach was chosen to increase the comprehensiveness of the data, make the analysis somewhat systematic, and increase the comparability of responses (cohen, et al., 2000). all interviews were audiorecorded and transcribed in full before the data was analysed. willems’ (2012) model of educational resilience provided the framework for analysing the data. educational resilience is often linked to student success or failure, particularly when attempting to theorise outcomes for at-risk students and those involved in distance education. literature in psychology that deals with resilience includes the following terms for relevant attributes: ‘optimistic’, ‘zestful, ‘curious’, and ‘open to new experiences’ (tugade & fredrickson, 2004, p. 320). however, in the field of education, waxman, gray, and padron (2004) explain that resilience should not be viewed as a “fixed attribute of some students, but rather as an alterable process or mechanisms that can be developed and fostered”(p.14). willems concurs and elaborates, arguing that “framing resilience in terms of either a personal attribute or deficit without considering the context and communities within which that distance learner is embedded is flawed, as an individual’s responses cannot be dissociated from the context within which they are located” (2012, p. 14). rather than placing the responsibility for educational resilience solely on the individual, a quadripartite model is suggested. in this model, responsibility for educational resilience is shared by four stakeholders: the student, the educator/supervisor, the institution, and the broader social community. (willems, 2012). as data were analysed, responses were assigned to a particular stakeholder. it emerged that each had a significant influence on the students’ experiences and assessment outcomes. findings and analysis findings are reported and analysed in terms of willems’ (2012) quadripartite model of educational resilience. although each stakeholder both positively and negatively influenced students’ resilience, these influences were not evenly balanced. it is acknowledged that a limitation of the study is that the contribution of each stakeholder is reported from only the students’ perspectives. students’ results for level one te reo māori are provided at the end of this section. the students students were extremely motivated and determined to succeed; all participants indicated they enjoyed te reo māori and could see a purpose for learning the language. i took it because last year i really enjoyed it and i kinda thought that if i took it [again] it would really help me with my career and uni. (tyla, fg1) while tyla was motivated by career aspirations (she was considering teaching), others had deeper, perhaps more emotional motivations. . . . but also cos of my dad; he always wanted to learn it . . . so yeah . . . (ana, fg1) i wanted to further my knowledge about my culture and heritage. (jane, fg1) jeurissen, m. 50 the fact that these six students had chosen to take te reo māori in year 11, despite there being no face-to-face teacher available, indicates high levels of motivation. this is further evidenced by one student’s determination even in the face of opposition from family members. the following interview extract illustrates kyla’s mother’s opposition to her choice. kyla: it wasn’t easy [to choose te reo māori as a subject] because my mum didn’t want me to take it. researcher: why was that? kyla: i don’t know. she reckoned like, i can’t get anywhere with it. r: right, and yet you still decided to take it? kyla: yes because i liked it and . . . i reckon it can help me with what i want to do like later on, so yeah . . . it was pretty hard. (kyla, fg1) students also overcame concerns about studying by distance and choosing te reo māori over other attractive subject options. it was really difficult for me [choosing te reo māori] because i had lots of subjects that i was looking at and i could only pick three so it took a lot of thinking about things. (sarah fg1) i knew that i wanted to take it but when we found out that it was by distance then that made it a really difficult decision cos i didn’t want to study it by distance. i’d like spoken to xx who took it before and she said it was real hard and all that kinda stuff so yeah, that made it hard. (ana, fg1) the determination to succeed with te reo māori continued as the year progressed, even when students encountered difficulties. difficulties, referred to by willems (2012) as “invisible fences” (p. 22), included a lack of specific support for completing assessments, technology failures, and being unable to contact the correspondence teacher. despite these issues, all students interviewed at the end of the year indicated they would consider choosing te reo māori the following year, although they were unanimous they would do so only with a face-to-face teacher. when asked why she was still considering te reo māori, tyla explained: because i can see like everything you can do after school. there’s so many jobs that, you know, require bilingual speakers or trilingual speakers and it’s good to have māori, like to be able to speak māori and either go on to teaching or anything. it would just help me get a job or help me with my career when i finish school. (tyla, ii, 3/12/12) while attitude and motivation are extremely important factors when considering the student’s role, ability or proficiency as a learner is obviously significant. as previously mentioned, a limitation of the study is the lack of reliable student assessment data (although students volunteered their results which are reported later in the article). students were asked about progress in their other subjects and how this compared with their progress in te reo māori. all stated that te reo māori was the subject they were finding most difficult. this is not surprising as it was the only subject being learned online and by distance. students varied in the success they reported in relation to other subjects. hana said she was passing some subjects, and the other five girls reported passing everything. whilst these responses do not provide an in-depth account of the students’ academic proficiency, they indicate the girls were not failing; it appeared that they were achieving at, or above, expected attainment levels in other subjects. despite this, the girls found the level of language in the online course challenging. whilst this could be viewed as a problem with the course, data from the previous study (jeurissen, 2014) signalled that the number of hours instruction that students had received in te reo māori before journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(1) 51 year 11 was insufficient. moreover, one of the students in the current study, sarah, had not taken te reo in year 10 at all. thus, the students lacked the necessary prior knowledge in te reo māori to progress easily in the year 11 course. tyla explained, and all students agreed: . . . it’s like a big step up from last year . . . this requires more than just the basics to understand . . . we’re still like learning the basics and they’re trying to feed us all this new information . . . (tyla, fg1) these findings suggest that the students’ motivation and attitudes contributed positively to their resilience. moreover, all girls were academically capable of achieving. unfortunately, levels of prior knowledge in te reo māori appeared to have negatively affected their resilience. the educator/supervisor the educator/supervisor was the online distance education tutor. two key findings emerged in relation to this stakeholder: communication was inadequate in terms of frequency and content, and communication improved in the later stages of the course. the students were frustrated by not being able to contact their tutor, especially at the beginning of the course. when asked how they contacted him they all replied: we email and stuff/we do try to ring/but he’s never there [overlapping]. (fg1) students also commented about delays in responses. for example: by the time he replied you were onto the next thing. . . . it got to a point where no one really bothered to ask him anything cos he’d just reply so late that you wouldn’t get any other work done if you kept waiting for him. (hana, ii, 13/12/12) students commented on the nature of the feedback they received. tutor feedback consisted of providing answers without explanations, and dealt with surface features of students’ work. kyla explained: we can ask him to translate for us and he’ll translate the whole story but it doesn’t help us. sometimes we want help with a story but he’ll just give us the answers. he won’t like show us how to do it; he’ll just tell us how to do it straight away. (kyla, fg1) sarah commented: i sent my speech through and . . . i asked for feedback but all he did was put the macrons on top of my letters and i already knew i couldn’t do that on the computer . . . that wasn’t helpful. (sarah, fg2) data from the second focus group and individual interviews showed that communication with the tutor had improved. this may have been a result of communication from the mainstream school that students were experiencing difficulty and/or the tutor’s own realisation that students were finding the course difficult. students reported receiving more timely responses and more helpful feedback. xx was always gonna be there now, like whenever we emailed him, he would always email back, like fast and yeah it was helpful when we were doing our speeches. (tyla ii, 3/12/12) xx is better. he doesn’t just tell answers but makes us work it out for ourselves. (kyla, fg2) willems (2012) asserts that the educator needs to consider connectedness and timely responses when promoting educational resilience. these students did not feel a connection with the tutor, jeurissen, m. 52 nor did they receive timely responses, particularly in the first part of the course. lentell’s contention that the tutor’s role in distance education is little understood (2003) may explain these findings. moreover, it may be that staff connectivity was “diminished for the sake of economic rationalism” (willems, 2012, p. 21). further research into the role of the tutor in online distance education is needed to investigate these possibilities. the institution the students were enrolled in two institutions: the online distance education provider and their mainstream school. for the purposes of data analysis, the online distance provider is considered the institution in this study, with the mainstream school being part of the broader social community. pechenkina and anderson (2011, as cited in willems, 2012) found that institutional support structures have considerable influence on educational resilience, and these findings are reflected here in terms of course content, course structure, and course systems. students indicated that they found the course content difficult, repetitive, and poorly scaffolded. the following interview extract provides an example. jane: i just feel like we’re just stopped. cos we just keep on doing the same thing over and over. researcher: you keep doing the same thing over and over? why is that? jane: like, it’s just questions. we just answer questions about stories, about different stories and yeah that’s what we do. r: ok so you gotta read stories on the screen? and the questions you have to answer are in māori? all: yes. (jane, fg1) the exchange below illustrates the students’ need for additional scaffolding such as english explanations and illustrations. jane: so now we’re like still doing term one work and it’s the end of term two and like the stories that we have to get, it’s just they read a whole story, there’s no pictures and stuff, and i’m a visual learner so i can’t, i look at the words . . . r: so you’ve got stories that you have to read . . .? jane: yep, and it reads it aloud to you and it’s also on the screen. then you have to interpret the story and answer the questions that they ask you. r: and the questions are in māori as well? jane: yep. r: and there’s no pictures or . . . ?and how do you know what the story’s about? jane: just have to try and work it out. sarah: you have to translate the words that you don’t understand. r: so there’s no pictures or anything and no one to speak to you in english first to say “this is a story about . . . all: no. (fg1) journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(1) 53 students perceived a lack of structure in the course, particularly in terms of a timeline. r: right, i wonder why you haven’t done any assessments yet? ana: oh we can choose when we do it. [overlapping] tyla: it’s up to us. hana: we don’t have dates. ana: we can choose when we do it. r: so it’s not very structured? all: no. tyla: it’s just really messy. when you’re learning in the classroom you like work your way through step by step, like each subject or topic. but with correspondence it’s all over the place. you jump from one story or topic to another. like you know, back and forth . . . (fg1) students also reported that the online education provider’s systems were not in place at the beginning of the year and that there were difficulties with technology. jane: well at the start of the year we started about 5 weeks late because of the xxxx (name of school), so when we did start we were behind so now we . . . hana: they like didn’t send us our login and then they shut their system down for like, two or three weeks. (fg1) comments about inadequacies of the system are reported from only the students’ personal perspectives and it was beyond the scope of this study to investigate their claims in depth. however, their reports were consistent, and conversations with school management reinforced them. it appeared that institutional support structures were, as pechenkina and anderson (2011, as cited in willems, 2012, p. 20) described, “an impediment to educational resilience.” the broader social community the community component of the quadripartite model incorporates “not only the distance learner’s broader academic community, including their peers, who might also be geographically dispersed, but also the community in which the distance learner lives, encompassing their networks of family and friends” (willems, 2012, p. 22). factors which emerged as significant influences for the students in this study were whānau, the school curriculum, systems and values, and members of the broader school community. whānau both positively and negatively influenced students’ resilience. only one student, kyla, was discouraged from learning te reo māori at school by her parents because they believed it would not be helpful in the future. however, for the remaining five students, the strongest positive influence lay in the favourable attitudes of both immediate and extended whānau. when discussing reasons for learning te reo, māori students reported feeling encouraged by whānau either directly or indirectly. both sarah’s and tyla’s parents encouraged them because they felt the language would be good for future career opportunities. other students were encouraged by whānau members’ own aspirations, as illustrated by these interview extracts: [i took te reo māori] . . . also cos of my dad; he always wanted to learn it so yeah . . . (ana, fg1) jeurissen, m. 54 . . . my nana she’s always like been really passionate about it so like i was, ok i’ll do it. (hana, fg1) although all but one whānau had positive attitudes towards te reo māori, none of the students had family members in their homes who spoke the language. some reported having extended whānau they could talk with, but this occurred only occasionally at family gatherings. the absence of te reo māori speakers in the students’ daily lives negatively affected their resilience. two of the six students lived in homes where pacific languages were spoken (tongan and samoan), and although this did not give them access to specific support for their te reo māori, it signals positive attitudes towards language learning. moreover, there are many similarities between pacific languages and te reo māori in terms of rhythm, intonation, and some phonemes, so the bilingual home lives of these students positively influenced their resilience. the reo māori curriculum experienced by the students in the mainstream school before the uptake of the year 11 online distance course was significant. findings relating to students’ inadequate prior knowledge reported in the previous section can be attributed to the curriculum that was delivered before year 11. in years 7, 8, and 9 te reo māori was compulsory for one school term (approximately 10 weeks), and the content was introductory, seldom going beyond basic vocabulary and greetings. year 10 students were exposed to more advanced learning and increased hours; however, the te reo māori year 10 teacher interviewed for the previous study (jeurissen, 2014) admitted that the school curriculum lacked the required hours to prepare students for studying te reo māori in year 11. ana’s comments are indicative of those made by all six students. [we needed] . . . more classes in the junior school – not enough classes to build up the understanding needed to get ready for the year 11 course. one term in year 10 is not enough to get you ready for year 11. (ana, fg2) support systems in the mainstream school were inadequate, particularly at the start of the year. the students were not aware of a specific person at the school being their supervisor or edean, although the part-time te reo māori teacher for the junior students gave support where and when she could. it was not only the online distance provider’s technology systems that were problematic, so too were those of the mainstream school. students reported computers and/or the internet worked only sporadically, and access to a printer was difficult. their comments indicate considerable frustration. there’s heaps of computers in the room but some of them have technical issues and all that kind of stuff and that’s just real difficult. (ana, fg2) sometimes it takes me like half a lesson to log on to my account, not the xxxx (online distance school) website. . . . it’s cos we share them with the international students and stuff. (kyla, fg1) when asked if any measures were taken to deal with technical issues, students explained there was support, but unfortunately problems recurred. referring to the school technician, students stated: yes, he’s been in heaps to help. (ana, fg1) he fixes them all the time. (tyla, fg1) changes in the way the students were grouped part-way through the year were reported by the girls as having considerable impact on their learning. at first, all of the students were in one classroom and each had access to a computer (albeit not always working). in response to the journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(1) 55 technical issues, students were moved to work in pairs in three separate work spaces (in other teachers’ classrooms). students reported that, on the whole, this change was detrimental because they were able to draw on only their partner for support, whereas the whole group had previously been a resource. when we were together it was more helpful, because if we were just with our one partner they kind of made us go together in levels, or not levels. i was with ana and we were practically the same level so we can’t really go higher or lower [than they are]. so we couldn’t really help if i was stuck she was obviously stuck because we were the same level, but if i was with someone else it would’ve been like better. (jane, ii, 6/12/12) less tangible, but no less significant from the students’ perspectives, were their perceptions of the extent to which the school valued te reo māori. when asked, students unanimously responded that the school did not value the learning of te reo māori. they believed the school wanted to be seen to support te reo māori, but that the support was merely ‘tokenistic’. this excerpt from focus group two illustrates their feelings. ana: and i think it’s just like, they sorta just want to be known as like a māori, not a māori school but they want other schools to know that you know xx [name of school] does have this . . . they want places like yy [name of neighbouring school] and that to know that oh they have a kapa haka 3 group, they have a year 11 class but we don’t like they sorta just – jane: use us when they need us, kind of? ana: yeah, they use us when they need us. tyla: that’s so true. ana: and not trying to be mean, but it’s sorta the same with the kapa haka group – jane: they’re not going to use you until they need a gym opening and stuff – ana: unless there’s something important that they need done to show that they’re like – jane: māori. ana: then they’re just like, kapa haka—what? like it’s not a big issue. . . (fg2) the school curriculum and the systems put in place to support the delivery of te reo māori by online distance learning were inadequate in many ways, thus negatively affecting students’ resilience. recognition of a supervisor or edean in the school was noticeably lacking. this role is often referred to in the international literature as that of ‘facilitator’; it has been argued that in online distance education contexts, it is frequently underestimated and misunderstood (davis & niederhauser, 2007), and that appears to be the case in the current study. moreover, the students perceived that the school did not value te reo māori. however, as the year progressed, some support was provided from a range of sources within the school and broader community. students talked about four specific components of support which were put in place during the year: provision of bilingual dictionaries and workbooks; a parent volunteer helper; a bilingual teacher assistant; and the opportunity to attend a hui with other students learning te reo māori in the local area. bilingual dictionaries were provided for each student. however, during the first focus group it became clear that, apart from these, students relied solely on the online material, and they 3 a māori cultural and performing group jeurissen, m. 56 indicated that it would be helpful to have some other hard-copy resources. as stated earlier, as the researcher, i assumed some responsibility for students studying te reo māori, and so offered to purchase language workbooks, in the hope that they would be of some assistance. although they did not solve all the problems, students said these hard-copy resources were good for ‘some bits’, including ‘speech writing’. a community member and fluent speaker of te reo māori (a parent with a child at the school), volunteered to tutor the students. although the help was not regular or frequent, students agreed that it was extremely valuable. oh yeah, when she came in she was really good. translating our paragraphs, that was the best part. (hana, ii, 13/12/12) further support was provided in the form of a bilingual teacher assistant. the school employed the assistant on a casual basis, and although sessions occurred a little more frequently than those with the parent volunteer, the girls’ timetables (based on a 6-day rotation, and thus different each week) made it difficult to schedule more regular sessions. students’ responses indicated this support was valuable. for example: oh yeah, she was helpful . . . yeah she was, definitely (hana, ii, 13/12/12) near the end of the year, through my university networks, i learned about hui being held for students from local secondary schools preparing for ncea external examinations. these were organised voluntarily by local teachers and university academics. the distance education students were invited to attend and three were able to take up the opportunity to attend one of the hui. for these students the hui, held at a local marae, 4 was invaluable. and one of the teachers [at the hui] came and helped us and that was really helpful because he explained what it is and how to get the answer. like “look for the key words that you know”. and that kinda helped in the exam as well. it really helped in the exam, cos of . . . like that kinda exercise was in the exam. so by doing that we kinda knew how to look at it and try get that answer. that was really helpful. (ana, ii, 6/12/12) in summary then, components of the students’ communities had positive as well as negative effects on resilience. for most, whānau attitudes to their learning te reo māori were positive, although there was no practical support because immediate whānau did not speak te reo māori. hard-copy resources provided some support although, on their own, these did not appear to significantly help the students. they felt most supported by the face-to-face help from the parent volunteer, the bilingual teacher assistant, and teachers at the hui. this reflects simpson’s assertion that supportive communities can provide “very real encouragement for distance learners” (2003, as cited in willems, 2012, p. 22). the school curriculum, some school systems, and the perception that the school did not genuinely value te reo māori were negative influences on students’ resilience. although the students were ‘overseen’ by several staff members, no one acted consistently as an advocate for them or facilitated their studies as recommended by davis and niederhauser (2007). what did the students learn? all of the students were disappointed with the amount of te reo māori they learned. sarah’s comment is indicative of those made by all: 4 an open area in front of a meeting house; often also the complex of surrounding buildings. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(1) 57 it’s been really hard and i haven’t learned as much as i wanted to and i struggled like, the whole year. yeah, and the work was way too hard for me and the communication between the teachers was like terrible. (sarah, ii, 3/12/12) students’ actual achievement results are not available through the new zealand qualifications authority for reasons of privacy; however, these students willingly volunteered their results of both external and internal assessments. these results are displayed in table 2. table 2 participants’ ncea level one standards attempted and gained name internal assessment standards attendance at end of year external exam external assessment standards jane 6 listening credits achieved yes reading: not achieved writing: not achieved ana 6 listening credits achieved yes reading: not achieved writing: not achieved sarah 6 listening credits achieved yes reading: not achieved writing: 6 achieved hana 6 listening credits achieved no not applicable tyla 6 listening credits achieved no not applicable kyla 6 listening credits achieved yes reading: 6 achieved writing: not achieved in total, students can attempt five standards at level one. each of these is worth six credits (i.e., there are 30 possible credits). in this study, five students achieved six credits and two achieved 12. (readers not familiar with ncea should be aware that students can: not achieve, achieve, achieve with merit, or achieve with excellence. therefore, the students in this case study who achieved received the minimum passing grade.) at the school in this case study, achieving 12 credits is the minimum required to continue te reo māori at level two. the ncea system is complex, and space precludes an explanation here, but in simple terms, only two students, sarah and kyla, gained enough credits to ‘pass’ level one. none came close to achieving the 30 possible credits. discussion and implications there is no disputing that te reo māori is an endangered language: the waitangi tribunal (2011, as cited in the royal society of new zealand, 2013) identified that “restricted use of te reo in public contexts, and uneven attention in the education system, have led to concerns that te reo māori is approaching a crisis point” (p. 5). the mainstream school in which this research took place is one in which te reo appears to receive uneven attention. students who wanted to learn te reo māori were able to do so only by online distance education. this research sought to explore whether they were able to progress in their learning when this was the only option. ncea assessment results show that the students achieved very few credits, and most were not able to progress to level two. these results are reflected in the interview data, which revealed students’ own beliefs that they learned very little. studying te reo māori via online distance education did not result in successful learning outcomes, satisfaction, or enjoyment for the students. while i hesitate to generalise based on one case study it seems that, in its current form, online distance education is not a viable option for te reo māori regeneration in secondary schools unless each of the four stakeholders takes responsibility for making some changes. willems’ jeurissen, m. 58 (2012) quadripartite model of resilience helps us to understand why this is the case, but more importantly, the model signals the many layers of support students studying online and by distance require if they are to experience success, satisfaction, and enjoyment in their learning. we are warned that: overemphasis on the individual disguises the fact that individual issues have a social basis, that multiple factors are at play, and that any discussion of educational resilience needs to factor in the learner’s social, economic, and cultural context . . . (willems, 2012, p. 17). thus, when offering online distance education for students in secondary schools, educators and education policy makers should consider the following questions. do the students have the necessary prior knowledge to realistically engage with the course, and are they deeply motivated to succeed? does the online tutor understand the importance of ‘connectedness’ with the students and do they have the capacity and tools necessary to enable this connectedness? does the online distance education provider have proven and robust systems to enable effective and timely delivery of resources? do the students have access, within their broader social community, to practical support and advice? (in the case of te reo māori, this support should ideally include fluent speakers in the immediate whānau.) if the answer to any of these questions is ‘no’, serious consideration should be given as to whether the students would benefit from taking the online course. the role of the supervisor in the students’ face-to-face school is vital, and professional development is required to support those given this task to understand the nature and scope of the work. with “the growth of the internet and the proliferation of computers and home and in educational settings” (compton, 2009, p. 73) it is no wonder that substantial shifts in teachers’ roles and responsibilities are required to provide optimal educational experiences for students involved in all the various modes of online distance education. essentially, a supervisor needs to understand that they are “responsible for providing immediate, personal, face-to-face communication with students; engaging in local problem-solving of many types; and mentoring students” (davis & niederhauser, 2007, p. 14). guidance for ways in which supervisors and distance teachers could work together would be valuable, as would opportunities for them to meet, even if only once or twice a year. it is recommended that specific professional development be extended to the distance teachers of languages and this should include ways to build relationships with students. teaching language online is different to teaching other subjects online because “the subject matter is communication” and at the lower level there is a need “to focus on the form of the interaction as well as the content” (hamper & stickler as cited in compton, 2009, p. 73). compton’s recommendations for online language-teacher professional development could be usefully combined with amaru, rae, and shadbolt’s (1995) recommendations to examine and adapt the delivery of courses to recognise both majority and minority cultures. one of the strongest findings to emerge was the value of the face-to-face support the students received from within their broader social community. this reflects otsuka and steven’s (1997) findings with learners of japanese. whilst online distance education might not generally imply face-to-face support, advancements in the field are making this more possible. for example, synchronous video conference or skype links could be arranged periodically, and in-depth study days for clusters of students from different schools could be scheduled before internal assessments and external examinations. online tutors and study groups (pullar & brennan, 2008) are other possibilities. schools should also investigate employing teacher assistants, particularly for teaching languages. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(1) 59 conclusion online distance education plays an important role in ensuring equitable learning opportunities for students living in remote areas and those unable to access subjects in their mainstream school— as is often the case for students who choose languages when numbers are small and teachers scarce. however, more research into the experiences of students learning by online distance in secondary contexts needs to be carried out. lapointe (2005) laments the fact that the field of distance education has not made research a central focus, and the effects of this have been detrimental. furthermore, barbour (2009) explains that we need a better understanding of the skills learners need to be successful in a “largely independent, technology-mediated environment” (p. 19). online distance delivery for learning te reo māori requires further specific research. the current study has barely scratched the surface and, due to its limitations, has perhaps raised more questions than answers. online tutors need to find ways to connect meaningfully and effectively with students. in addition, ways in which the distant teacher and school supervisor can connect and collaborate must be improved. in this study, the supervisor’s role was underestimated and/or poorly understood and it would be worthwhile investigating the breadth and depth of this issue. the findings of this study add weight to bennett and barbour’s (2013) recommendation that e-teachers need support to develop effective pedagogies for working with māori students in an online environment. poor-quality online experiences such as those experienced by the students in this study must be eliminated for others to be encouraged to learn their indigenous language with a distance teacher. on a positive note, despite the constraints of learning te reo māori via online distance education, three of the six participants in this study continued to learn te reo māori in 2013. the mainstream school, recognising the difficulties the students had faced with online distance education, found and employed a reo māori teacher with the necessary skills to teach senior classes face to face. hana successfully repeated the level one course, and sarah and kyla went on to successfully complete level two. at the time of writing, kyla is working on level three. the determination and subsequent success of these students can be attributed to their high levels of motivation and the support from their whānau and mainstream school. references amaru, l., rae, m., & shadbolt, p. 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(2004). introduction and overview. in educational resiliency: student, teacher, and school perspectives. greenwich, ct: information age. willems, j. (2012). educational resilience as a quadripartite responsibility: indigenous people participating in higher education via distance education. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 16(1), 14–27. biographical notes maree jeurissen m.jeurissen@auckland.ac.nz maree jeurissen lectures in teaching english to speakers of other languages (tesol) at the university of auckland. her research interests include learning language and learning through language, particularly for those students who are typically marginalised in monolingual english-speaking contexts. appendix a focus group interview one (fg1) 1. why did you choose te reo as an option for year 11? 2. was this a difficult or easy decision for you? why? 3. what do you hope to achieve this year, with your te reo māori? 4. what do you think will help you to achieve these goals? 5. what might make it difficult for you to achieve these goals? 6. how did you feel when you learned you would need to do the subject by distance online? 7. what has it been like so far? 8. are you finding the learning easy, or difficult to manage? why? 9. are you getting help and support other than what is provided by the online distance education provider? 10. what has been good so far about taking this subject? 11. have there been any downsides to taking this subject and, if so, what are they? 12. is there any way things could be made better/easier for you, in terms of learning te reo? 13. even though it’s only the beginning of the year, thinking ahead, is it likely or unlikely that you will continue with te reo in year 12? why? appendix b focus group interview two (fg2) 1. how has your learning been going? 2. are you on track to reach your goals with your learning? why or why not? 3. have your goals changed in any way? why or why not? 4. what has been helpful for your learning? jeurissen, m. (2015). learning te reo māori via online distance education: a case study. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(1), [45–62]. mailto:m.jeurissen@auckland.ac.nz jeurissen, m. 62 5. what has made your learning difficult? 6. at this school, do you think learning te reo is valued? why or why not? 7. how are you feeling about taking te reo next year? appendix c individual interview (ii) 1. tell me what it’s been like for you learning te reo online this year. 2. how do you feel about what you’ve learned this year? 3. what has been helpful for you, in terms of learning te reo? 4. what has made it difficult for you? 5. have you been able to use your knowledge of te reo at other places/times at this school? if so, in what ways? if not, why not? 6. have you been able to use your knowledge of te reo at other places/times outside of school? if so, in what ways? if not, why not? 7. are you intending to take te reo next year in year 12? why or why not? this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ microsoft word editorial 21(1).docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1) 1 open, flexible, and distance learning in a post-truth world alison fields, editor-in-chief, open polytechnic of new zealand maggie hartnett, associate editor, massey university niki davis, associate editor, university of canterbury abstract the times they are a-changin’. it’s a prophetic song, and one that’s been around long enough to attest to times that are always changing, because very little stands still for long. this editorial notes many changes, including changes in the editorial team, changes in the profile of this journal, and changes in the way open, flexible, and distance learning are both given and received in the post-truth world. increased skills in information literacy and digital literacy have become fundamental in this new landscape, enabling able learners to navigate their way in this new world with an open mind and a critical eye. there will be changes for educators as well, as we try to manage teaching and learning in this new educational setting. keywords: open learning; post-truth; information literacy; digital literacy introduction sir peter gluckman, chief science advisor to the prime minister of new zealand, has outlined his advice on science and information this year: most of us would hopefully accept that governments will make better decisions if they use well-developed evidence wisely. at the same time however, evidence can be ignored, manipulated or even falsely constructed for particular ends. the ability for misleading information to become the basis of political advocacy, strategy and policy making is not new but it has now become much more apparent and is creating great concern. nor is this a crisis of knowledge or expertise as some would argue. rather, what has changed is the nature, speed and pervasiveness of communication and the ease with which individuals can themselves generate and transmit information, whether it is true, altered or false. (gluckman, 2017) gluckman is speaking of the post-truth world that we now find ourselves in: not as something new, but as something happening on a scale not seen before. in this editorial we provide a glimpse of what this means to open, flexible, and distance learning––and to all in the information age. alongside this insight sits the journal’s business as usual: two announcements and a look at the papers in this issue. change in editorial roles we are pleased to announce alison fields has taken the role of editor-in-chief of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning, following the excellent work undertaken since 2014 by distinguished professor niki davis. alison, of the open polytechnic of new zealand, has been working in the role of associate editor alongside fellow associate editor dr maggie hartnett of massey university. she is now fields, a., hartnett, m., & davis, n. 2 taking the helm as niki davis of university of canterbury steps back to take on an associate editor role, and to focus on other work outside the journal. we thank niki for the care and expertise she has provided to both the journal and the editorial team and look forward to continuing to work with her in this new role. alison is a senior lecturer at the open polytechnic of new zealand, where she teaches information and library studies. she is a fellow of lianza (library and information association of new zealand aotearoa) and has served six years on their professional registration board. her research areas encompass e-learning, library services, and continuing professional development. her research background includes previous editorship of the new zealand library and information management journal, joint editorship of the book informing new zealand (5th ed.), and numerous articles and papers. this development of the expertise in the editorial team will ensure that the journal will continue its current high standards, and ably serve the growing needs of the flexible learning communities in aotearoa new zealand, the pacific rim, and worldwide. inclusion of jofdl in the directory of selected journals in online and distance learning contact north | contact nord is a distance education and training network that operates from ontario, canada, and is described as providing: over 4 million ontarians in 600 small, remote, rural, indigenous and francophone communities across the province … [with] online and distance programs and courses from ontario’s 24 public colleges, 22 public universities, 76 district school boards, and 250 literacy and basic skills and training providers without having to leave their community… [it is also acting as] an advocate, catalyst and facilitator of innovation in online and distance learning.” (contact north|contact nord, 2017) in this second role of building the resources that are needed for facilitating distance education, contact north|contact nord has recently released a range of new searchable directories in the area of online learning. these resources, which have been described as ground-breaking, are all available through teachonline https://teachonline.ca/, and include: • directory of online, open & distance learning associations and consortia throughout the world https://teachonline.ca/tools-trends/directory-online-open-distance-learningassociations-consortia • searchable directory of selected journals in online and distance learning https://teachonline.ca/tools-trends/journals (includes more than 60 selected journals in online and distance learning) • searchable directory of 75+ edtech startups https://teachonline.ca/tools-trends/bestpractices-around-world-including-ontario/edtech-startups-directory • directory of vendors of online learning products and services https://teachonline.ca/tools-trends/directory-vendors-online-learning-products-andservices (more than 2,400 vendors of online learning products and services worldwide) • upcoming conferences from around the world https://teachonline.ca/trainingopportunities/upcoming-conferences (over 1,700 upcoming education and technology conferences, including a good selection of new zealand conferences among the global coverage). journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1) 3 it’s good to see that the flexible learning association of new zealand is one of the 81 associations listed in the directory of online, open & distance learning associations and consortia throughout the world, confirming its place in the global arena. equally notable is that the journal of open, flexible and distance learning is listed among the more than 60 select journals in online and distance learning, indicating the journal’s global recognition as one of the limited number of journals identified and listed in this area of education. open learning in a post-truth world every year oxford university, through its oxford dictionaries, announces its word of the year. last year, in 2016, the word of the year was ‘post-truth’ (oxford university press, 2017c). in fact ‘post-truth’ echoed so loudly in the ears of the world that it was chosen by oxford as both the united kingdom word of the year and the united states word of year. it has certainly risen to prominence quickly and convincingly, and has become one of the key phrases appearing in news reports, official and unofficial communications, blogs, tweets, and other social media. oxford defines ‘post-truth’ as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief” (oxford university press, 2017b). we were tempted to dissect this definition and analyse it phrase by phrase, but just don’t have the heart––or the stomach–– to do so. and in the wake of ‘post-truth’, there are more new words and phrases barraging the landscape, including the now-widely known ‘alternative facts’ and ‘fake news’. these concepts introduce a whole new world and change many boundaries that until now have seemed sacrosanct in education. the education sector, along with others, has been swift to react to this post-truth world: many articles, presentations, editorials, blogs, and other items have been written; some courses now being taught actively cover this phenomenon or identify ways to combat it; and researchers and students are being explicitly guided in ways to identify quality information sources. resources are being developed and shared widely to help people navigate their way safely in this post-truth world. for example: • how to spot fake news. a step-by-step guide by factcheck.org for determining the quality of an information resource. http://www.factcheck.org/2016/11/how-to-spot-fakenews/ • framework for information literacy for higher education. based on the idea of information literacy as an education reform movement, this framework guides the teaching and use of information literacy to find, understand, and use quality, reputable information. http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework • news: fake news: a library resource round-up. offers links to quality webinars, library guides, and resources, news, and further reading. http://www.programminglibrarian.org/articles/fake-news-library-round google searches present a bewildering array of reading: at the time of writing, ‘post-truth’ identified 450,000 search results, ‘alternative facts’ identified 3,730,000 results, and ‘fake news’ identified a huge 32,000,000 results. given the wealth of information now available about how to navigate in the post-truth world, it is easy to get immersed in the rhetoric and not look beyond the immediate. so here is the question that we need to think about: what does this mean for open learning’? or, in the words of sepp fields, a., hartnett, m., & davis, n. 4 (2016), “for educators, the question is not ‘when will this go away?’, but ‘how do we educate young people to be sufficiently active in their civil engagement?’” ‘open learning’, according to the oxford english dictionary (2017a), is defined as “learning based on independent study or initiative rather than formal classroom instruction”. again, we won’t dissect this definition phrase by phrase, but note that––as a bare definition––this looks solely at the process of learning, and quite rightly so. but in the post-truth world, does unmoderated open learning produce quality education results? this also raises more questions than answers––what are quality education results? do they matter? and who moderates the learning? everything is so very open to interpretation, and there are fewer boundaries around open learning than there are around many other forms of instruction. open learners are more responsible for their own learning, direction, understanding, and implementation of new knowledge. in a post-truth world, open learning has become more difficult to navigate. while flexible and distance learning are not at the extreme of the vulnerable end of post-truth influence, we do need to exercise more caution. analyses and approaches to managing the new landscape are helpfully offered from multiple authors and sources, although even these need to be taken with a pinch of salt. campbell (2016) provides an analysis in which he concludes “many others have also come to the conclusion that increasingly, truth doesn’t matter”. he also looks at information behaviour and states that “the information age has provided an endless stream of information that people now use to confirm what they believe. rather than ushering in a new enlightenment, more information has led to greater ignorance” (campbell, 2016). sepp’s (2016) approach is to offer guidance on ways to navigate this new world: in response to his own question about how to manage “in an education setting”, he offers pointers and discussion on using multiple perspectives, assessing credibility, using critical inquiry and analysis, deferring to experts, and guiding and discussing. so what can we do about learning in this new environment? the editors of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning are facilitating open access to quality content on open, flexible, and distance learning within the journal’s scope. the journal carries peer reviewed, referenced, and professionally edited articles and items. we highlight issues involved in open learning in a post-truth world through the editorials. readers should take advantage of this and other opportunities to keep themselves informed of changes affecting the education world, and to ponder some of the issues raised in the editorials and articles. everyone, including learners themselves, are now more responsible for their own assessment of the quality of their education and learning. it is time to get educated about getting educated! articles in this issue the five articles in this issue all originate from the flexible learning association of new zealand (flanz) 2016 conference. each started as a conference submission and has since been developed into a full journal article. the first article, by alahmadi and drew, describes research undertaken to evaluate the accessibility of several top-ranked university websites for students with disabilities in the oceanian and arab regions. data was gathered for the years 2005–2015, and results indicate there was no noticeable improvement during this period. there is still considerable work to be done to improve online learning materials for students with disabilities. osborne and dibben’s article reports on a university of tasmania initiative, in which “breadth units” have the dual purpose of developing transdisciplinary approaches to interpreting the complex challenges of the real world and, in the process, evidencing student experience. the paper highlights some of the success and issues of adopting this kind of approach. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1) 5 in the third article, adam returns to a theme featured in recent issues, that of culture. adam argues that teachers’ pedagogical and technological practices cannot be fully understood without considering social and cultural norms. with that in mind, this research specifically explores teacher educators’ practices in a maldivian university context. results indicate that culture influences pedagogical and technological practices and the author presents an emergent model named the pedagogical and technological cultural habitus (patch). the fourth paper in this issue is by moore and greenland, who present the findings from a large qualitative study from australia’s largest online tertiary provider, open universities australia (oua). the authors were interested in exploring assessment policy practices as they related to student attrition––in particular, dropout in relation to unavoidable employment-related circumstances (which was highlighted by students as a major reason for non-completion of online courses). results indicated many institutions that are part of oua do not identify workrelated issues as a valid reason for requesting an assessment extension. the study also highlighted a bigger issue––that assessment policies may be more suited to traditional on-campus students and may not be fit for purpose for part-time online students who require flexibility in their studies. the final article in this issue also highlights the importance of context for learning. in this case, physical context is explored by tull, dabner, and ayebi-arthur. here, the authors report on findings from several studies that identified resilient practices at the university of canterbury as a result of christchurch earthquakes in 2010 and 2011. results demonstrated that combining the use of social media and e-learning for teaching, learning, and communication encouraged resilience not only among students but also among staff and throughout the organisation. conclusion the journal of open, flexible and distance learning is working to address the challenges in the education environment arising from the post-truth world and the change to information distribution and usage patterns that come with it. sharing information and bringing ideas to the fore for consideration by the wider open, flexible, and distance learning community is just part of this. sustaining scholarship at a steady level and continuing with peer review and considered editorial practice is another. the contribution of the authors in this issue highlights expertise in individual areas that are shared with all who read and use this journal. this rounded issue seeks to serve the open, flexible, and distance learning community by freely sharing this information. references campbell, a. (2016). teaching and learning in a “post-truth” world. retrieved from http://www.cea-ace.ca/blog/andrew-campbell/2016/11/4/teaching-and-learning%e2%80%9cpost-truth%e2%80%9d-world contact north | contact nord. (2017). about us. retrieved from https://contactnorth.ca/about-us gluckman, p. (2017). scientific advice in a troubled world. retrieved from http://www.pmcsa.org.nz/blog/scientific-advice-in-a-troubled-world/ oxford university press. (2017a). open learning. retrieved from https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/open_learning oxford university press. (2017b). post-truth. retrieved from https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/post-truth fields, a., hartnett, m., & davis, n. 6 oxford university press. (2017c). word of the year 2016 is … . retrieved from https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/word-of-the-year/word-of-the-year-2016 sepp, s. (2016). the role of education in a post-truth world. retrieved from https://medium.com/ed-tech-tattler/the-role-of-education-in-a-post-truth-world-1005112a821c biographical notes alison fields alison.fields@openpolytechnic.ac.nz alison is a senior lecturer at the open polytechnic of new zealand where she teaches information and library studies. she is a fellow of the library and information association of new zealand aotearoa (lianza). her research areas encompass e-learning, library services, and continuing professional development. alison is an executive member of flanz and is the editor-in-chief of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. maggie hartnett m.hartnett@massey.ac.nz maggie is a senior lecturer in the institute of education at massey university, new zealand, where she teaches in the areas of e-learning and digital technologies. her research interests include motivation and engagement in digital environments, teaching and learning with digital technologies, electronic portfolios, support for digital learners, digital places, and spaces of learning. maggie is an executive member of flanz and an associate editor of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. niki davis niki.davis@canterbury.ac.nz niki is distinguished professor of e-learning and director of the e-learning lab in the university of canterbury college of education, health and human development in christchurch, new zealand. in addition to researching e-learning in teacher education and professional development, niki teaches and researches about change with digital technologies in education and related areas of scholarship. niki is an associate editor of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. fields, a., hartnett, m., & davis, n. (2017). open, flexible, and distance learning in a posttruth world. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1), [1–6.]. 404 not found journal insides v1.indd © distance education association of new zealand 77 andrew higgins auckland university of technology auckland, new zealand stacey, e., & gerbic, p. (eds.). (2009). effective blended learning practices: evidence-based perspectives in ict facilitated education. information science reference: new york (pp. 359). current writing about blended learning falls largely into two categories: practice and strategy. most falls into the practitioner category, as does this book. in australasia, blended learning found a natural home, perhaps because so many learning institutions have engaged in distance education. consequently, staff are more comfortable using a range of alternative teaching strategies than might be the case elsewhere. as we would expect, this book about effective blended learning practices has some signifi cant contributions from academics working in australia and new zealand. the health of the university depends on, among other things, a close and effective cooperation between those who make policies and administer the institution, and those whose task it is to perform the essential functions of teaching, research, and community service. this book alerts senior managers to current activity in university blended learning. it is important to let senior managers in universities know what the current developments are, because it is they who make high-level strategic decisions and allocate substantial human and fi nancial resources to meet the institution’s strategic aims. in some universities, staff engage in signifi cant aspects of blended learning at the school and individual teacher level, as this book so well demonstrates. in due course, innovations such as blended learning reach ‘take-off’ and become ubiquitous. serious buy-in is enforced on the management. examples in this book show that staff and student demand for blended learning affects human resource managers, chief fi nancial offi cers, and information technology directors, who often only fi nd out about them after the event. effective blended learning practices alerts them to these developments in advance. as the authors also demonstrate, some universities seek mandated top-down blended learning implementation. but this approach is less effective than journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 77–85 b o o k r ev ie w s © distance education association of new zealand 78 a more random uptake. regardless of the approach used by institutions to engage with blended learning, this book shows how teachers form communities of practice using modern technologies to support and inform one another’s endeavours. the range of such strategies is well covered. effective blended learning practices, as with all similar academically based books, provides us with an excellent foreword and preface as to the nature and purpose of the work. chapter 1, written by the editors, introduces ideas of blended learning practices to facilitate and support adult learners in different contexts. the concept of blended learning is introduced to a discussion by defi ning the term. the defi nitions provided in the fi rst chapter are necessary and suffi cient. if i have one criticism of the book’s structure, it is that the defi nitions carefully and extensively canvassed in the fi rst chapter draw upon works that are repeated in defi nitions of blended learning in almost all of the other chapters. as a result, there appears to be a great deal of repetition of the defi nition of blended learning practices, drawing very often upon the same set of authors. would it have been better to canvass the various defi nitions in the fi rst chapter, and identify one or two defi nitions that would cover all the other chapters? much of the repetition could have been excised from the following chapters, allowing them to focus more immediately on the issues. of course, some academics enjoy discussions on the detailed points of defi nitions. but i think it would be fair to say that most school teachers and university academics are aware that blended learning involves some faceto-face activity and some use of digital communications technologies, and i wonder whether lengthy debates on the defi nition of blended learning add much to its practice. the conclusions to this book cover the contents of its preceding chapters well. the recommendations for practice note that blended learning is indeed a practical matter, and the research within the textbook is highly applied. the editors particularly recognise the need for research into blended learning activities. universities have taken to blended learning for a number of reasons. philosophically, blended learning helps to meet some of the main points of the social justice agenda, such as access, equity, and participation. digital technologies give people who might not otherwise have done so access to study at tertiary level. equity means we can treat students who have different backgrounds, understandings, and cultures more appropriately to achieve the learning outcomes. in terms of participation, those of us who have taught seminars have seen many students sitting quietly and saying journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 77–85 b o o k r ev ie w s © distance education association of new zealand 79 nothing—perhaps because of shyness, a language barrier, or simply because they are inarticulate. using digital technologies within communities of practice or within communities of learners allows these students to have a voice and to express themselves in their own time and in terms of what they regard as appropriate consideration of ideas, language, and expression. it is sometimes said that changes in pedagogical practice move at the speed of a glacier. conservative arguments often require that we conduct research into an activity before choosing to adopt it. if we have no research we can’t adopt, and if it’s not adopted there’s nothing to research. blended learning has spread like wildfi re throughout the tertiary sector in the western world. it has done this not only for the philosophical reasons given above, but also for the practical ones—because teachers can now reach out to their students in many different ways using digital technologies. this book is a valuable addition to the growing number of works on blended and electronic or digital learning strategies within the tertiary sector. it should be strongly recommended to those who work in the fi eld, and all those who wish to work in the fi eld of tertiary teaching using digital technologies. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 77–85 b o o k r ev ie w s © distance education association of new zealand 80 mark nichols laidlaw college auckland, new zealand conole, g., & oliver, m. (eds.). (2007). contemporary perspectives in e-learning research: themes, methods and impact on practice. london: routledge. the title of this book, and the reputations of the editors and publisher (routledge), all promise a rewarding experience. however, mine is a mixed response. the 15 chapters, each written by a team of authors, vary in their coverage and frequently overlap. while the opening and closing chapters provide very useful theoretical discussion, much of the middle seems disjointed and many important theories and studies in e-learning have been completely overlooked. the book opens with a tantalising list of research questions on pages 16 to 20. many of these questions have been considered in journals over the last decade or so and, in my view, each deserved at least a one-paragraph discussion and some explanation of where research has already provided some answers. that said, chapters 2, 14, and 15 do provide useful material for those seeking to perform e-learning research and evaluation. chapter 3 was a personal highlight, as it deals with policy matters and provides a useful insight into the heritage of e-learning. chapter 5, which covers organisational metaphors and includes a commentary on the changing role of e-learning professionals, is thought provoking and a useful pointer to where any ‘career’ in e-learning might go. contemporary perspectives in e-learning research adopts the approach of a central narrative in each chapter, with ‘dissenting voices’ offered in callout boxes from time to time. the use of dissenting voices is commendable, as the call-outs provide opportunity for refl ection. brief case studies also add fl avour to the coverage. however, many of the middle chapters made questionable claims, and others provide somewhat patchy coverage or focus on very narrow avenues of research. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 77–85 b o o k r ev ie w s © distance education association of new zealand 81 one example of a questionable claim is in chapter 8. here, laurillard’s criticism of the design of learning materials is questioned because underlying her critique is: the presumption of a defi cit model of learning where the student is not yet considered to be an expert; and the presumption that completeness will be possible in the expression of a learning objective (p. 122). laurillard’s proposal that, fi rstly, students should be regarded as future rather than current experts and, secondly, that learners following a particular learning process can achieve particular learning outcomes, seems to me fundamental to the purpose and role of higher education. if the student is to be treated as an expert … well … i am reminded of a quote in nation (1991, p.101), who cites leslie’s (1987) comment that “if learners are so capable of self-direction … do they need teachers?” unfortunately this book does not begin with an analysis of what formal education is concerned with, and the valuable role that structured learning plays in a student’s lifelong learning journey. patchy coverage is evident across chapters 7, 8, and 9. in each case, learning objects are central to the discussion. it is a pity that a separate chapter was not allocated to learning objects, perhaps freeing space for discussion about instructional design and the use of multimedia in e-learning. even across three chapters, it is disappointing to fi nd no critical treatment of learning objects. attention is given to their inherent (or rather, potential) benefi ts and the metadata standards that have emerged, but the pedagogical and learning design diffi culties learning objects give rise to are barely mentioned. an example of the narrowness of some chapters is chapter 10, which deals with e-assessment. here the focus is on only those forms of assessment where the uploading, marking, and return of assessment are automated. so optical character recognition (ocr) is mentioned, but uploading, automatic plagiarism reporting, and insertion of digital comments by markers on student essays is completely overlooked. rather than being ‘markers’, faculty become ‘monitors’. possibly the most disappointing aspect of contemporary perspectives in e-learning research is that it is largely a platform for the (often very specifi c) research focuses of its contributors. this signifi cantly limits the discussion. for example, the book makes no mention of laurillard’s conversational framework, anderson et al.’s community of inquiry framework, salmon’s five stage model, web 2.0, e-portfolios, or multi-user virtual environments (muves). however, substantial attention is given to learning objects. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 77–85 b o o k r ev ie w s © distance education association of new zealand 82 this book is not written for beginners to e-learning; it is more suitable for researchers. readers with very specifi c areas of interest that overlap the rather narrow perspectives offered in the central chapters will fi nd parts of this book very useful; those with a more general interest might be advised to read the fi rst and fi nal few chapters. in summary, i think it a pity that the book offers perspectives and does not really seek to provide any form of synthesis. the contrast between the opening page (where “a synthesis of research” is promised) and p. 217, where it is stated that “research cannot be readily synthesized”, is telling. even if such a synthesis of research fi ndings is not possible, an attempt to do so might have proposed further avenues of inquiry. given the lack of comprehensive coverage by the middle-chapter authors, who achieved depth in narrow areas rather than breadth across their themes, a lack of overall synthesis in the volume is hardly surprising. reference nation, d. (1991). teaching texts and independent learning. in t. evans & b. king (eds.), beyond the text: contemporary writing on distance education (pp. 101–129). australia: deakin university press. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 77–85 b o o k r ev ie w s © distance education association of new zealand 83 dr keryn pratt university of otago dunedin, new zealand abrioux, d. a. m. x., & ferreira, f. (eds.). (2009). open schooling in the 21st century. perspectives on distance education. commonwealth of learning: vancouver (pp. xii, 204). when i saw the title of this book i was excited, as the issue of open schooling is very topical. i was, however, a little alarmed and disappointed when i read the fi rst line of the preface. its emotive nature did not suggest open schooling in the 21st century (which is part of the perspectives on distance education series) would provide the balanced and supported views on distance education and open schooling in the 21st century that i was hoping for. reading on, i was reassured, as it seemed that this book would not be an emotive appeal, but rather, as it claims, a “carefully prepared and thoroughly researched book” (p. vi). overall, however, i found that the book failed to live up to this promise. while arguments were well reasoned, i was disappointed at the lack of reference to other research and discussion on this topic. while interesting points were raised, no support was provided for them, so the reader has no way of following up on the information presented. open schooling in the 21st century consists of 11 chapters written by 14 international authors. part i introduces the book, while in part ii three chapters cover three themes associated with open schooling. these themes are then revisited in the six case studies in the third section. the case studies were chosen for their variety and to refl ect the three themes, and are based on examples from a variety of commonwealth countries. the fi nal section presents a conclusion. the introductory chapter defi nes open schooling and provides context for the book. it introduces the three themes, which have been chosen because they “are of fundamental concern to policy-makers and senior bureaucrats” (p. 8), and outlines the six case studies. the fi rst theme discussed is that of policy. du vivier and ellis identify levels at which policy may be formulated, and then focus on the role played by intermediate levels of government (national, state, or provincial). they make a reasoned argument for this level of journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 77–85 b o o k r ev ie w s © distance education association of new zealand 84 government being involved in setting policies, and propose a cyclical process for doing so. they describe the steps they believe those involved in setting policies should take, and what should be involved in the policies. haughey and stewart’s chapter focuses on the use of information and communication technologies (ict) in open schooling. their chapter is general rather than specifi c in nature, as they note it is important that “government policy-makers review research studies… and ensure they keep up-to-date with current projects in their own and similar countries” (p. 38). as such, while this chapter provides general background on issues that need to be considered with regard to using ict in open schooling, few specifi cs are given. they identify issues that need to be considered with particular regard to infrastructure (including support) and pedagogical approaches. in chapter 4, rumble explores issues related to the costs associated with open and distance learning. he provides a broad overview of the types of costs involved, factors that affect these costs, and the implications of these for policy-makers. in the third part of the book, six case studies are presented. in each case study, the focus is on the themes identifi ed in the previous section. the authors provide the context within which the organisation was developed. they then outline aspects of the organisation related to the themes, including governance, funding model, degree of openness, pedagogy, use of ict—and the challenges faced in each of these areas. the organisations described vary widely, and include the following cases from developing countries and from four continents: botswana college of distance and open learning• namibian college of open learning• open access college, south australia• open college, papua new guinea• national institute of open schooling, india• vancouver learning network, canada• the institutions also vary widely in the approaches they have taken to open learning. the range of approaches is interesting; however, i found the wide variety in context limited the relevance of the approaches taken and lessons learned. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 77–85 b o o k r ev ie w s © distance education association of new zealand 85 another disappointment with this book was the formatting. although it is available as an e-book, it has not been designed for this format. for example, odd and even pages have different margins, which is disconcerting when read on a screen. considering the topic of the book, i found this disappointing. on the whole, open schooling in the 21st century is very general, with a lack of depth in the discussions of the issues, and limited reference to literature where readers can gain further discussions of the issues. as such, it is of limited value to those who are already familiar with the research on open learning. it is also limited as an introductory book for those new to open learning, because of its focus on three themes. although the case studies are varied, they were chosen to illustrate the three themes, resulting in a lack of breadth. it must be noted, though, that the issues chosen are of “fundamental concern to policy-makers and senior bureaucrats” (p. 8) and, as i am neither, i may be underestimating the value of this book for this audience. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 77–85 b o o k r ev ie w s book reviews 64 book review online, blended, and distance education in schools rachel whalley, vln primary school clarke, t. & barbour, m.k. (2015). online, blended, and distance education in schools: building successful programs. sterling, va: stylus publishers. (pp. 256). in the series foreword to this book, michael moore reflects on the development of distance learning, noting that the research focus that was once mainly on the tertiary sector now includes the school sector. at the same time, the perspective of online and distance learning being an enriching add-on to traditional schooling has changed. it is now regarded as an alternative way of learning in its own right. however, moore cautions that teachers should not be swept up in their enthusiasm for new technologies without learning about best practice in online and distance education. these are timely messages for the education sector in new zealand, where online and distance education are no longer considered to be the sole domain of tertiary institutions or te aho o te kura pounamu (until 2009 this was the correspondence school [davis, 2015]). for more than a decade there has been steady growth of online and distance learning across collaborating primary and secondary schools (barbour, davis, & wenmoth, 2011; roberts, 2009). michael barbour is well placed to edit this book, having been involved with k–12 online learning for almost two decades as a researcher, evaluator, teacher, course designer, and administrator. michael also has experience in the new zealand educational setting, having a role in research supported by the ministry of education and flanz in this area (e.g., barbour, davis, & wenmoth, 2016), and he currently sits on the governance board of the vln primary school, which is led by the author as an eprincipal. editors michael barbour and tom clark have brought together 27 contributors—mainly from north america—but contributors from australia, south korea, nepal, and the united kingdom add a global perspective. the book is divided into four parts. in her foreword cathy cavanaugh highlights how e-learning’s inherent flexibility can improve access to education globally — by providing students with access to courses, qualified teachers, and opportunities to learn at their own pace and place. underlying this potential is our challenge to develop successful practice and research and to share this globally. in part one barbour and clark give an overview of the themes and case studies to be covered in the book. they provide background to the rapid growth of k–12 online learning and highlight the nature of blended learning, which is now bringing online learning into the mainstream. this growth in turn creates the need for new policy and programme development. under the general heading of research and policy, part two provides more detail on each of the themes: quality in online teaching; instructional design; technology, infrastructure and tools; and research. these themes are discussed and shown to be key considerations for online and blended journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 65 programmes. part two also has a chapter on cyber charter schools as an alternative to traditional schools, and a chapter on ensuring equity and access in online learning. part three presents case studies that illustrate the themes explored in part two. many of the case studies are from north america and are in the context of virtual schools, but public, district, and private schools are also represented. these case studies describe a range of policies and practice, including the development of an online teaching endorsement programme, and evaluative approaches for virtual schools. for example, the nexus academies have designed and built schools that have enabled them to transition from online to blended learning. global case studies follow. the first focuses on nepal and the barriers to online learning in developing countries. perhaps deliberately positioned first, this chapter discusses the current educational setting in nepal, the potential of online learning to improve access to learning, and what the international community can do to help achieve this potential in a systemic and sustained way. after the recent catastrophic events in nepal, this work may have become an aspect of the national rebuild. there are other case studies from the united kingdom, where virtual learning environments (vle) are used to personalise learning; from australia, where the sydney centre for innovation in learning is showcased and policy is seen to be variable and not very supportive across different states; and from south korea, where the cyber home learning system is a public education initiative for all school students. in many of these case studies there is evidence of the need for a balance between the level of policy support provided and the development of good practice for online teaching and learning. in south korea the education system has strong policy support but educationalists are now looking at how they can make their programmes more learner-driven. finally, in australia, schools are struggling to develop innovative practice in the field at the ‘grass roots’, without policy support from state governments. part four summarises and discusses future trends of online, blended, and distance learning in schools. in their discussion of issues of policy and practice, barbour and clark note the need to better prepare and train teachers to teach online, to improve the quality of resources and course material, and to extend the use of technologies to support learning and improve management of online programmes. in their summary they suggest strategies for making these improvements. also of significance is the need for a greater focus on student performance, and for programme developers to take this need into account early in their planning so that data that identifies student achievement can be gathered. the future trends identified by barbour and clark are for online, blended, and distance learning in schools to become more global, blended, teacher-facilitated, personalised, open, adaptive, mobile, and evidence-based. in reading this book i was constantly making comparisons with, and critiques of, my own educational setting. it was interesting to see where new zealand sits in relation to policy and practice internationally, and that many of the successes and challenges faced worldwide are similar. those new zealand schools that are in collaborative clusters have established systems to support and coordinate online learning. (these clusters include the vln primary, netnz, and regional community clusters such as farnet and volcanics.) practice continues to develop throughout these organisations, although there is plenty of scope for improvement (barbour & wenmoth, 2013; barbour et al., 2016). policy that initially helped to establish this work (e.g., see powell, 2011) is now falling behind what is needed to ensure these developments are sustainable. this book will help practitioners, administrators, researchers, and policy makers to examine effective practice and future policy developments. it would be great to see a chapter with a new zealand perspective included in any future editions. this book is accompanied by a wiki that would be useful as part of a course of study or for those undertaking research in this area. the wiki includes chapter 1, abstracts of the other chapters, book reviews 66 and links to related literature and other resources. more resources are likely to be added, making this an enormously valuable site for researchers working on k–12 open flexible and distance learning (see https://onlineblendedschooling.wikispaces.com) references barbour, m. k., davis, n. e., & wenmoth, d. (2011). primary and secondary e-learning: examining the process of achieving maturity. [christchurch], new zealand: distance education association of new zealand. retrieved from www.vln.school.nz/file/download/114023 barbour, m. k., davis, n. e., & wenmoth, d. (2016). primary and secondary virtual learning in new zealand: examining barriers to achieving maturity. international journal on e-learning, 15(1), 27–45. barbour, m. k., & wenmoth, d. (2013). virtual learning as an impetus for educational change: charting a way forward for learning in new zealand. christchurch: core education. retrieved from http://digitalcommons.sacredheart.edu/ced_fac/93/ davis, n. e. (2015). new zealand’s development of ultrafast broadband in schools including the largest nationwide school. in p. twining, n. e. davis, & a. charania (eds.), developing new indicators to describe digital technology infrastructure in primary and secondary education (pp. 67–70). montreal, ca: unesco institute for statistics. powell, a., & barbour, m. k. (2011). an examination of government policies for e-learning in new zealand’s secondary schools. journal of open, flexible and distance learning,15(1), 75–89. retrieved from http://www.jofdl.nz/index.php/jofdl/article/view/17 roberts, r. (2009). video conferencing in distance learning: a new zealand schools’ perspective. journal of open, flexible and distance learning 13(1), 91–107. retrieved from http://www.jofdl.nz/index.php/jofdl/article/view/40 biographical note rachel whalley is eprincipal of the virtual learning network primary school. her expertise is in blended and online learning, project planning and development, online learning communities, pedagogy, and curriculum development for online teaching and learning. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. whalley, r. (2016). book review: online, blended, and distance education in schools. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1), [64-66]. https://onlineblendedschooling.wikispaces.com/+++home http://www.vln.school.nz/file/download/114023 http://digitalcommons.sacredheart.edu/ced_fac/93/ http://www.jofdl.nz/index.php/jofdl/article/view/17 http://h http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ book review online, blended, and distance education in schools biographical note journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(2) 1 editorial: back to the future—predicting possibilities in open, flexible, and distance learning maggie hartnett, associate editor, massey university niki davis, editor-in-chief, university of canterbury alison fields, associate editor, open polytechnic of new zealand abstract in 2010 ako aotearoa, the national centre for tertiary teaching excellence, prompted deanz, our national association for open, flexible, and distance learning, to look towards the future in 2016. reminiscent of the 1985 movie back to the future, the scenario set produced foresaw a range of practices in aotearoa new zealand. papers in this issue describe and illustrate the scenario set and related trends. these include our increasing cultural diversity and adoption of social media to offer more learner-centred education that also increases engagement with employers, professions, and iwi. a review of dron and anderson’s (2014) book supports our view of the trends and is recommended to readers. keywords: futures; scenarios; initial teacher education; cultural dimensions; professional inquiry; social media; blended learning; online learning introduction in this editorial we look to the future of open, flexible, and distance learning—particularly in relation to the tertiary education sector in aotearoa new zealand. given how quickly digital technologies are changing, it is not surprising that many people are interested in the next “new thing”. this is particularly true of educators and we, as editors of the journal of open, flexible, and distance learning (jofdl), are no different in wanting to gain some perspective of where we might be heading. the new zealand government is also interested. following the innovations in tertiary education delivery summit in 2014, the government requested that the productivity commission investigate how trends in technology, among other factors, could drive future changes in tertiary education provision, and the extent to which these changes could improve the quality of that provision. an issues paper outlining the proposed approach for the inquiry is expected to be available in february 2016 and submissions will be sought from interested parties. the final report to government is due in february 2017 (new zealand productivity commission, 2015). the reports published by the new media consortium (nmc) are a growing resource that proves useful when trying to get some sense of what is to come. the nmc is an international community of researchers, educators, and digital technology experts who pool their expertise and combine their understanding and evidence of the ways in which digital technologies are influencing education. the community produces the yearly horizon report series (including the higher education edition) and, led by larry johnson, has done so for over a decade. the hartnett, m., davis, n., fields a. 2 experts who contribute to these reports come from a diverse range of backgrounds, sectors, countries, and regions. however, reflections on past predictions can also reveal unexpected aspects that enable us to identify other possibilities. in this issue, the article by davis and higgins reports on the deanz2016 scenario set project. one critique of that research was that it did not predict the extent of the disruptive force of massive open online courses (moocs). this omission occurred even though davis and higgins’ project capitalised on “two horizon report workshops that led to the publication of a regional new zealand horizon report in 2011” (davis & higgins, this issue, p. 16).the publication of a regional report highlights the important role played by our own new zealand leaders and experts in informing the conversation on the future of open, flexible, and distance learning—many of these people are members of deanz and support jofdl. indeed, given the increasingly rapid evolution of education and digital technologies, everyone influences the local and global future (cline, 2014). the three original research articles and the book review in this issue fit with this future-focused theme to enhance several strands of possibilities for using new technologies. this issue explores of some of the possible future scenarios for tertiary education in new zealand, and the use of blended learning opportunities in tertiary education, which is a key trend identified in the most recent nmc horizon report for higher education (johnson, adams becker, estrada, & freeman, 2015) and in our work in the school sector supporting unesco institute of statistics (e.g., twining, davis, charania et al., 2015). we also recognise the increasing importance of cultural dimensions of tertiary online learning (which are aligned to future demographics) and the increasing trend of using social software in online learning, including formal tertiary learning settings. papers in this issue the future-focused flavour is borne out through the three articles, and the book review, that make up this issue. the paper by niki davis and andrew higgins reports on the deanz2016 scenario set that was developed as a response to a challenge posed by ako aotearoa leader, dr. peter coolbear, at the 2010 deanz conference. the project developed a set of four possible future scenarios (see figure 1) that were further developed into a resource for institutional leaders and academics who recognise the need for guidance about what tertiary education might look like in future. the scenario set has also been applied by ict leaders in the schooling sector. the set provides an interesting opportunity to classify the other articles in this issue that describe practice in two different universities. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(2) 3 figure 1 the deanz2016 scenario set graphic, created in 2011 to inform strategic planning of future tertiary education in new zealand in 2016 (davis & higgins, this issue, p. 13). the next two articles report research conducted with teacher education students in online and blended learning contexts. the first of these, by anne-marie hunt, reports on a blended course for initial teacher education students undertaking their own research by inquiring into the practice of teaching in new zealand schools and the e-tools and strategies that can support this process. empowering teachers to research their own practice is certainly a future-focused endeavour. the third article, by tony hunt and sue tickner, also focuses on teacher education. the authors investigate cultural dimensions of online learning to gain a better understanding of the learning needs of an increasingly diverse student population. in an earlier issue (fields, davis, & hartnett, 2015), the editorial team highlighted that many indigenous languages, cultures, and associated knowledge are increasingly endangered—including te reo māori, the indigenous language of aotearoa new zealand. we also pointed out that, contrary to popular opinion, people from indigenous cultures are adopting flexible and distance learning with blended approaches that enable personal connections. the current article builds on this argument, indicating the growing need for intercultural awareness as ethnic, cultural, social, and linguistic diversity increases in the new zealand population. evelyn lewis’s review of jon dron and terry anderson’s 2014 book, teaching crowds: learning and social media rounds off this issue. although blended learning has been around since the turn of the 21st century (garrison & vaughan, 2008), it is notable that the nmc horizon report (johnson et al., 2015) identifies the hartnett, m., davis, n., fields a. 4 increasing use of blended learning as a short-term trend that will drive the adoption of educational technology over the next one to two years. vaughan, cleveland-innes, and garrison (2013) offer reasons for this increasing adoption, arguing that blended learning environments create new ways for teachers and students to engage, interact, and collaborate. anne-marie hunt’s article presents research into the very challenging context of a professional’s first inquiry for distance learning—an online blended course to support student teachers’ inquiry into their teaching practice. based at the rotorua regional centre of the university of canterbury, hunt describes several successful strategies, in which a range of e-learning tools are deployed. these tools include the university’s learning management system and freely available web 2.0 tools that the emerging professionals can use in their practice in schools. the findings from this study will help to inform course and programme redesign, incorporating blended learning elements that ultimately encourage student teachers to develop their own networks of practice during their preservice tertiary education. the third article in this issue, led by tony hunt and his colleague sue tickner, sets out to explore the cultural dimensions of learning in online teacher education offered by the university of auckland. the need for this research is clear, as the royal society of new zealand (2013) highlighted with the term “superdiversity”: over the last two decades new zealand has become one of a small number of culturally and linguistically superdiverse countries (spoonley & bedford 2012). superdiversity indicates a level of cultural complexity surpassing anything previously experienced. new zealand is now home to 160 languages, with multiethnic depth forecasted to deepen even further (statistics new zealand 2011). … this superdiversity is especially visible in urban centres such as auckland, which is now one of the most diverse cities in the world. (pp. 1–2) naturally this language and cultural diversity affects tertiary institutions in aotearoa new zealand, which are facing increasingly diverse student populations. with this in mind, and with the trend towards increased online learning in more traditional tertiary institutions, hunt and tickner explore the extent of existing research on culture and ethnicity in online and flexible learning. using the cultural dimensions of learning framework (cdlf), which was developed by parrish and linder-vanberschot (2010) and builds on the seminal work of hofstede (1980), the authors set out to determine whether the responses from students and staff participating in online courses supported the eight cultural dimensions proposed by the model. the results indicate that “there may well be differences in the way people from different cultures approach learning, but it’s not a simple matter” (hunt & tickner, this issue, p. 39). it is clear that online lecturers and course designers need to be increasingly aware of the cultural values promoted in these environments and of the complexity of the underlying theories when interpreted in our bi-cultural nation, where indigenous perspectives and equity are better appreciated than in most other countries (as explained in our earlier editorial this year [fields et al., 2015]). as mentioned in the 2014 issue two editorial, book reviews, coordinated by book review editor una cunningham, are also a regular feature in jofdl. in this issue evelyn lewis presents a review of the 2014 book by jon dron and terry anderson, called teaching crowds: learning and other social media. until his retirement in 2014, terry anderson was editor of the wellrespected open access online journal, the international review of research in open and distributed learning (irrodl). his keynote to the 2008 deanz conference was very well received, giving members of the association an historical perspective on open and distance learning, in addition to possibilities about a future that has now arrived. anderson remains a member of the jofdl editorial advisory board. this book draws on anderson and dron’s extensive years of experience as online distance educators in the tertiary sector. the authors argue that social software’s ability to “aggregate the actions and behaviours of many people” (dron & anderson, 2014, p. 62) is changing the nature of online learning and it will therefore journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(2) 5 become an important part of online learning. for those less familiar with the plethora of social software available, dron and anderson start by providing an overview of available social software and its potential educational uses. anne-marie hunt’s article illustrates, with practical examples, ways in which several of these social media tools can be applied in blended learning environments. dron and anderson also provide an overview of learning theories, pedagogies, and technologies that apply to social online learning environments. while tools and theories provide useful background information, the central focus of the book is the discussion of the conceptual model, which categorises different types of online interactions that the authors label as groups, nets, sets, and collectives. helpfully, dron and anderson have provided open access to the book and individual chapters, in addition to the opportunity to purchase a printed copy. lewis recommends the book to all jofdl readers. conclusion davis and higgins had expected that tertiary educational practice in aotearoa new zealand was likely to become a mix of the four scenarios by 2016—and that appears to be true already. anne-marie hunt’s illustration of the university of canterbury course, in which student teachers undertake their first inquiry into the practice of teaching, appears to fit a combination of two scenarios—articulation and self-determination. her course has been articulated with an offering through online/blended learning, and the use of e-learning has increased student choice and led to more flexible use of space and staff. in addition, as in the self-determination scenario, learning environments have been somewhat customised to learners’ needs. learners are provided with contextualised support by mentors (from the schools) who collaborate with tertiary education advisors and staff. therefore, it is possible to see that: …e-learning has been deployed in ways that encourage self-determination by learners, who enhance their learning and develop digital portfolios to showcase their knowledge and skills. mobile technologies are used by learners to access resources and to gather more evidence about their learning. digital technologies are also used by learners to contribute resources that support their programme of study and/or their authentic contexts. (davis & higgins, this issue, p. 16) the book review also suggests support for two scenarios. by emphasising the increasing number of social media tools for learning and the possibilities for aggregation of such interaction, dron and anderson (2014) indicate that learning ecologies can be usefully designed to support more learner-centred approaches. these are the quality branded consortia and self-determination scenarios. our final reflection comes from another future-focused publication that predicted what life could be like in 2016. the 1985 movie, back to the future, provided many images of life in 2016, including flying cars and hoverboards. the current discussion about the movie in the media has drawn attention to a key innovation that was omitted: namely, the internet. the internet has changed our field enormously. today, it is scary to consider what educators may fail to foresee and influence in the near future (particularly for niki davis, who aims to publish a book on changing with digital technologies in education next year). will our current view be dated in only a few years? an early step on our journey to the future will be to help the productivity commission to investigate how trends in technology, among other factors, could drive future changes in education. we will also continue to support nmc and other more global reviews, and collaborate with other international journals and agencies such as unesco. we look forward to the next decade of open, flexible, blended, distance, and distributed learning and the ongoing changes to education in aotearoa new zealand and globally—whatever they bring. hartnett, m., davis, n., fields a. 6 references cline, h. f. (2014). information communication technology and social transformation. london: routledge. dron, j., & anderson, t. (2014). teaching crowds: learning and social media. edmonton, alberta, canada: athabasca university press. fields, a., davis, n., & hartnett, m. (2015). editorial: open access—our golden route in academic publishing in an increasingly open world. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(1), 1–11. garrison, d. r., & vaughan, n. (2008). blended learning in higher education: framework, principles, and guidelines. san francisco, ca: jossey-bass. hofstede, g. (1980). culture’s consequences: international differences in work-related values. newbury park: sage. johnson, l., adams becker, s., estrada, v., and freeman, a. (2015). nmc horizon report: 2015 higher education edition. austin, texas: the new media consortium. new zealand productivity commission. (2015). productivity growth for maximum well-being. retrieved from http://www.productivity.govt.nz/news/new-inquiry-new-models-of-tertiaryeducation parrish, p., & linder-vanberschot, j. a. (2010). cultural dimensions of learning: addressing the challenges of multicultural instruction. international review of research in open and distance learning, 11(2), 1–19. retrieved from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/809/1553 royal society of new zealand. (2013). languages in aotearoa new zealand. retrieved from http://www.royalsociety.org.nz/media/languages-in-aotearoa-new-zealand.pdf twining, p., davis, n. e., & charania, a. (2015). developing new indicators to describe digital technology infrastructure in primary and secondary education. retrieved from http://www.uis.unesco.org/statisticalcapacitybuilding/workshop%20documents/communica tion%20workshop%20dox/paris%202014/ict-infrastructure-schools-en.pdf vaughan, n. d., cleveland-innes, m., & garrison, d. r. (2013). teaching in blended learning environments: creating and sustaining communities of inquiry. edmonton, canada: au press. retrieved from http://www.aupress.ca/index.php/books/120229 http://www.productivity.govt.nz/news/new-inquiry-new-models-of-tertiary-education http://www.productivity.govt.nz/news/new-inquiry-new-models-of-tertiary-education http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/809/1553 http://www.royalsociety.org.nz/media/languages-in-aotearoa-new-zealand.pdf http://www.uis.unesco.org/statisticalcapacitybuilding/pages/communication-ict-paris-2014.aspx http://www.uis.unesco.org/statisticalcapacitybuilding/pages/communication-ict-paris-2014.aspx http://www.uis.unesco.org/statisticalcapacitybuilding/workshop%20documents/communication%20workshop%20dox/paris%202014/ict-infrastructure-schools-en.pdf http://www.uis.unesco.org/statisticalcapacitybuilding/workshop%20documents/communication%20workshop%20dox/paris%202014/ict-infrastructure-schools-en.pdf http://www.aupress.ca/index.php/books/120229 journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(2) 7 biographical notes maggie hartnett m.hartnett@massey.ac.nz maggie is a senior lecturer in the institute of education at massey university, new zealand, where she teaches in the areas of e-learning and digital technologies. her research interests include motivation and engagement in digital environments, teaching and learning with digital technologies, electronic portfolios, support for digital learners, digital places, and spaces of learning. maggie is an executive member of deanz and an associate editor of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. niki davis niki.davis@canterbury.ac.nz niki is distinguished professor of e-learning and director of the e-learning lab in the university of canterbury college of education, health and human development in christchurch, new zealand. in addition to researching e-learning in teacher education and professional development, niki teaches and researches about change with digital technologies in education and related areas of scholarship. niki is editor-in-chief of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. alison fields alison.fields@openpolytechnic.ac.nz alison is a senior lecturer at the open polytechnic of new zealand where she teaches information and library studies. she also sits on the professional registration board of the library and information association of new zealand aotearoa (lianza). her research areas encompass e-learning, library services, and continuing professional development. she is currently enrolled in edd studies at the university of otago. alison is an associate editor of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. hartnett, m., davis, n. e., & fields, a. (2015). editorial: back to the future—predicting possibilities in open, flexible, and distance learning. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(2), [1–7]. mailto:m.hartnett@massey.ac.nz mailto:niki.davis@canterbury.ac.nz mailto:alison.fields@openpolytechnic.ac.nz http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ the financial benefits of elearning introduction technology is viewed in many sectors as an aid to productivity. its ability to lower costs and increase output through automation, fast information processing, and improved communications makes it an important competitive tool. in education, technology (and more specifically, eleaming) is looked upon as a means for making · teaching and learning potentially more interactive, effective, efficient, and accessible. in tertiary institutions, cost issues are of paramount importance to course creation and delivery. indeed, financial analysis of education design and delivery is "central to the planning and development of education systems" (rumble, 1997, p. 2). while the productivity benefits of eleaming for corporate training are well known (see for example rosenberg, 2001 and rueda, n.d.), little work has been done on the financial benefits eleaming makes possible in the education sector (rumble, 2001). according to cukier (1997), most existing studies are more concerned with the cost-effectiveness of distance education as compared with face-to-face education, although exceptions do exist (boeke, 2001). in the main, institutions fund eleaming at the strategic level and tend to require little financial accountability beyond the setting of an annual budget. eventually, mark nichols universal college of learning p almerston north, new zealand however, it is likely that tertiary institutions will be asking financial questions of their eleaming initiatives. while this may be desirable, a complicating issue for eleaming teams is the fact that eleaming projects have very high fixed costs and very low variable costs,· meaning that the initial costs of development are extremely large and financial benefits can take time to accrue. many costs of eleaming are also difficult to isolate from the overall course design and delivery costs. adding to the complexity of tracking cost for many institutions is the need for diverse eleaming projects, ranging from course adaptation to the development of simulations and digital media. each project is a unique mix of scope and cost. this paper draws on approaches taken by corporate trainers when costing eleaming initiatives, and explores ways in which eleaming departments within tertiary education institutions (teis) can proactively and transparently account for their activities. tel versus corporate elearning corporate training eleaming budgets tend to be substan­ tially larger than those of typical teis because of the substantial savings that result, particularly in the areas of travel, less disruption to productivity, and flexible scalability (rosenberg, 2001). of journal of distance learning, vol8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 25 particular interest to commercial trainers is the "td,-ne to competency" (rueda, n.d.), the time it takes for a trainee to become proficient at their job, which is significantly reduced when elearning is applied in place of traditional workshops. teis are only able to benefit from these same advantages if they are able to use technology to offer self-paced training packages designed to teach skills, although this can be at odds in tertiary contexts that have cognitive development as a prerogative. rosenberg puts this well: in business, learning is a means to an end. generally speaking, that end is enhanced workforce performance, which in tum reflects its value-better products and services, lower costs, a more competitive posture in the marketplace, greater innovation, improved productivity, increased market share, etc. (2001, p. 4) financial considerations are still important for teis. however, the relative worth of elearning expenditure can be harder to quantify than it is for commercial trainers. elearning can be justified based on its contribution to the four major criteria for business performance identified by hammer and champy (as cited in rosenberg, 2001): cost, quality, service, and speed. the same criteria can be applied for justifying elearning investment by teis. " cost: the relationship between financial investment and financial return, the focus of cost-benefit analysis (cba) and return on investment (roi). • quality: better meeting and exceeding client expectations. improved quality can lead to an enhanced reputation, with the further benefits of increased client loyalty and market share growth. "' service: elearning can lead to better responses to customer needs and improve satisfaction. this can lead to better differentiation in the marketplace and improve access for clients, leading to higher emolments by part-time clients in particular. • speed: elearning makes communications and information updating possible in real-time and, particularly with asynchronous commun­ ications, enables flexible learning. not all are easy to quantify for education providers; however, all affect the long-term financial performance of an institution. what does elearning cost? costs of development, delivery, and associated overheads should be considered when evaluating elearning costs (rumble, 2001). in spite of these clear categories, however, budgeting and controlling elearning expenditure is made extremely difficult. little is known about the specific financial dynamics of elearning, although general principles are emerging, such as these from boeke (2001, p. v): • technology-mediated delivery is more expensive than face-to-face delivery. " communications costs and course design are the major costs that make technology-mediated delivery so expensive. • institutions that are not experiencing high costs in communications or course design are probably not leveraging the technology well. journal of distance learning, vol 8, no 1, 2004 © distance education association of new zealand 26 .. planning costs substantially reduce development costs. " mentoring and other �upport functions do . affect course completion rates. .. people costs are generally the most significant costs for elearning design and delivery. further, information transferability of financial data in literature is complicated by a general lack of reporting in the following areas: • the actual scope of the recorded costs. for example, in the creation of a website, does the cost of development include the writing and proofing of the editorial content, or does it solely consider the development of the web interface? does the cost include the scoping or evaluation of the product? • the mix and management of personnel, and their respective skills and experience at elearning design. • the learning process required of students from the resource. one student hour, for example, might involve reading a specially written topic summary or completing step-by-step tasks, both of which will cost different amounts to develop. other resources may point the student to external websites, while others may require the preparation of fully interactive simulations. • the level of the course being prepared. • the level of overhead, which differs from institution to institution. some costs may ignore overheads altogether. • the actual quality or level of professional input into the finished product. for example, the footage taken for digital video might be of cinematic quality, home-video quality, or any point in between the two. • the ammmt and state of pre-existing material used in the design. teis are best to create their own cost system if they desire reliable estimates for forecasting purposes. one of th'e benefits of tracking the internal cost of elearning is that it enables the formulation of an hourly rate that can be used to budget projects. of course, such a figure should be designed to reflect costs adequately rather than accurately, as costing is an area that can cause "paralysis by analysis." there is a very real trade-off between what works and what is perfect in terms of budgeting and forecasting. the advantage of internal costing is that it allows for better comparison between internal real costs of production and the costs of outsourcing. considering overheads in the hourly rate permits a truer view of the actual cost of elearning development than does consideration of only direct costs, as the latter may make elearning development appear to be cheaper than what it truly is. a project management approach a project management approach to elearning design is likely to help in the allocation of limited resources and accountability. each project follows a formalised design process, which is carefully managed and justified. ideally, the justification for each individual project should be described in terms of: 1. the student learning/ access needs it will help to meet. 2. the advantages of the elearning solution over the status quo. 3. the raw materials and resources already in place that can be used in the elearning solution. journal of distance learning, vol8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 27 4. the potential financial value of the project (cost/benefit). 5. an itemised budget that includes an allowance for unforeseen costs and rework, and projected roi (return on investment) or cba (cost-benefit analysis). 6. an overview of what is already available for purchase or license, including strengths and weaknesses and costs. even if the project is not likely to make a positive financial return, the reality should be acknowledged before the money is committed. larger projects might be broken into independent phases. a project may be the development of an entire course or the creation of an elearning element within an existing course. the nature of elearning projects is as diverse as elearning itself. projects with a broad application are able to justify higher levels of investment. joint ventures or partnerships with other institutions might be considered at the justification stage if the numbers do not add up within a comfortable margin. determining value with cba and roi the attractiveness of an elearning project should be determined at least in part by the undertaking of a projected roi and cba. both have always been major considerations for commercial training projects, although it is important that they be used for planning and not as a measure of success, because with both it is possible to manipulate the result by reducing the level of investment and compromising on design. roi and cba should be treated with some caution. ----------------the roi is usually determined after an intervention has been implemented. roi is the profit or surplus resulting from the intervention (benefit less cost) divided by the amount invested to make the intervention possible (cost). it can be used to compare the return of one intervention with that of another. an roi of 0.125 would indicate that every $1 invested into a project resulted in a surplus of 12.5 cents. the cba divides the estimated benefit of the intervention by the cost of design, development, implementation, and evaluation. an intervention that results in a return of $125 and cost $100 to make has a cba figure of 1.25. the roi on that project would be 0.25. as can be seen, both figures are very similar; which one is used is largely a matter of preference. either can be calculated before a project is started to help justify expenditure and both rely on financial measurements for cost and benefit. costs all money invested into a project contributes to the costs of that project. costs include both direct (real) and indirect (associated) expenditure. for example, an employee would be a direct or real cost; the electricity they consume, the wear and tear on the computer equipment, and the cost of the software they use during the project would be indirect costs. indirect costs are also commonly known as overhead costs. overhead costs should be based on the total budgeted department expenditure during the year for overheadexpenses, divided by the number of hours that can be used for production. the result can be used to set an internal hourly rate for projects __ that can be used as the basis journal of distance leaming, vol 8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 28 for :internal charges or else as a basis for departmental account:ing. overhead costs tend to be higher than actual costs of production and development, and so it is best to show the actual overhead as a separate figure rather than bundling it to an hourly rate. overhead could thus be represented as a multiplier based on the direct costs of development. explicitly confront:ing overhead costs in such a way adds :incentive to see them reduced and controlled. rumble (1997, p. 62) describes overheads as "burdens that need to be decreased" (emphasis original). there are many ways :in which costs can be categorised (see for example bartolic-zlomislic & bates, 1999; sjogren & fay, 2002), but splitt:ing costs between fixed costs (those that rema:in constant regardless of output) and variable costs (those that :increase or decrease in direct relation to output) is typically 'sufficient. for a course written :in an eleaming mode, the costs of developing the course would be fixed; the costs of delivering the course would be variable. table 1 lists the actual categories of expenditure required for a typical eleaming project (based on barfoot, et al., 2001). table 1 categories of typical elearning expenditure salaries of elearning staff internal personnel outsourcing additional costs-staff development, etc. costs of releasing subject experts for the project external designers i programmers management overhead costs of sourcing raw materials/ content for the project administrative costs institutional services-premises, security, cleaning, desks, etc. asset costs and depreciation--equipment purchase, maintenance, upgrading, etc. administrative costs, such as telephone, stationery, etc. it should be noted that using an additional internal person in a project will incur more than just the cost of their salary. overhead costs will also need to be increased to cover the costs of their desk space, computer use, electricity use, etc., as well. clearly, calculat:ing the departmental overhead based on the overall budget for the department divided by hours of productivity has the advantage of expressing the real cost of an internal staff member at an hourly rate that includes more than just their salary. the projected costs will need to consider all stages of the project from needs assessment right through to implemen­ tation and evaluation. benefits rosenberg's (2001) four criteria (cost, quality, service, speed) provide a useful framework for determining the value of eleaming interventions. for the calculation of cba and roi it is important to be able to somehow quantify the benefits from journal of distance learning, vol8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 29 each criterion. benefits that should be quanti_,_ij.ed include all potential flow-on benefits, such as: cost: • reduced costs associated with face­ to-face classes, including room rental and travel costs (if any). if these costs are likely to rise, they should be included in the analysis also. • reduced wear and tear on physical teaching resources. " justifiable fee/materials charges through added value. " potential on-selling revenues. quality: " enhanced institutional reputation. • better student satisfaction and retention. service: " improved learning. • increased access and emolments. • increased capacity through reduced use of physical teaching space. " subject matter expert (sme) and development team professional development. the subject matter expert development may seem like a false benefit, however experience with smes who work in lecture environments has demonstrated that reworking their existing resources helps them to better understand and express main points. speed: • enhanced delivery through flexibility. " increased adaptability and updating of course materials. this is a general list, and not all of these benefits will apply for each elearning project. those benefits that do apply to a particular project should be quantified if at all possible. financial benefits should be calculated over the projected life of the course or learning object, as not all benefits will be realised in the year the elearning initiative is created. elearning initiativ�s require significant levels of investment up front, however their benefits are enjoyed for a number of years. when justifying elearning projects it is therefore prudent that financial benefits are prepared based on three categories of benefit: direct (the "cost" category of direct financial benefits); indirect (the estimated financial benefits from "quality," "service," and "speed" categories); and on-selling. because rosenberg's (2001) cost category is the only one that can be used as a firm basis for quantification and not all institutions will be comfortable with the thought of on-selling their elearning materials, it is frequently necessary to create cba and roi figures that gradually include each form of benefit. indirect benefits are extremely difficult to empirically ascertain and should therefore be used cautiously; however, they are very real to the institution. worked example the universal college of learning (ucol) has created a photography learning object (simulation) which is used twice a year for a small number of students (about twelve). it is estimated to have a six-year life span. the learning object explains the concept of portrait lighting and permits students to experiment with different lighting arrangements on a virtual subject. students can also test their understanding of the relationship between light source and shadow. before the learning object project was approved, the following justification was prepared (based on the six justification criteria outlined earlier): journal of distance learning, vol 8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 30 1. students have conceptual difficulty understanding the effect that lighting can have in portrait photographs. this is · because it takes time to develop the sample shots they take with slr (single lens reflex) cameras and the difficulty of making sufficient studio time available to small groups so they can experiment with different lighting effects. 2. the elearning solution will enable students to conveniently experiment with different lighting arrangements, and will test their ability to associate a particular portrait with the light positions used for that portrait. 3. some content material can be adapted and included in the solution. 4. there are no similar solutions commercially available. the potential value of the project and an itemised budget are detailed below (note costs are in nzd). direct benefits: • reduced materials cost (film, processing, and paper) for teaching the topic; potential savings of $20 per student x 12 students = $240 per offering. " freeing up of studio, cost of 1 hour x $50 per offering = $50 per offering. <> less wear on equipment (lights, etc.), estimated at $20 per offering. 1 indirect benefits: .. enhanced face-to-face contact and reinforcement of concepts, estimated at $20 per student for a total of $240 per offering. • staff development for content material and exercises: $200. gathering generating " staff development for project team: $400 (although it may actually be more, as each project builds up needs-based expertise that can be later exploited further). • enhanced institutional reputation as innovative, both for students and industry: $600. on-selling benefits: • potential sales of 10 copies at $500 per institutional license. direct savings: ($240 +$50+ $20) x 12 (number of offerings) = $ 3,720.00 = $ 4,080.00 = $ 5,000.00 = $12,800.00 indirect savings and additional benefits: ($240 x 12) + $200 + $400 + $600 on-selling revenues (potential): 10 x $500 total potential return on investment over six years ($2,133.33 pa): note: this ignores the effects of interest and inflation, both of which will affect the value of future estimates. however, for the sake of internal controls, ignoring future dollar values is acceptable provided inflation is not running rampant! the actual budget for the project was approximately $8,100.00 including allocations to all internal overheads. the budget was prepared based on prior experience of simulation projects. the actual cost of the project was $8,935.00. the difference of $835.00 was mainly additional expenses related to programming, which had the additional benefit of furthering the programmer's skill repertoire. journal of distance learning, vols, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 3 1 table 2 financial analysis budgeted anticipated return benefits cost cba per $1 invested (roi) direct $ 3,720 $8,100 0.4-6 -0.54 +indirect $ 7,800 $8,100 0.96 -0.04 + on-selling $12,800 $8,100 1.58 0.58 table 3 budget stage no. of hours cost (@ $90ph) preliminary phase (initial assessment, solution analysis, 15 $1,350.00 proposal preparation and approval) management phase (actual creation of the intervention) 50 $4,500.00 implementation and evaluation phase (contextualisation 15 $1,350.00 of intervention, distribution, formal evaluation) unforeseen costs and rework total however, this is all only part of the story. a case is made for the intervention to be created, but the following issues are not fully addressed: • might the money be better spent elsewhere? perhaps, but the amount to be spent on this project is at least justifiable. typically, decisions on major budgets are made at a level above that of the institution's elearning function. it is also of significance that the project does consider its generous contribution to overhead costs, which must be covered regardless of whether or not the project is approved. • what about the effect of increased use on facilities such as computer labs and servers? typically this is not an issue for the elearning team, as most institutions do not link their infrastructure costs to their 10 $ 900.00 90 $8,100.00 elearning budget. there is also an institutional desire to increase the use of computer labs. • what about the fact that most of the costs are already absorbed into the elearning team's salaries? at least a return can be demonstrated, and the investment in elearning salaries is shown to have a potential return beyond maintenance of existing elearning systems. conclusion for any elearning development project, costs and benefits need to be expressed as fully as possible so that a true picture of the financial situation can be given alongside the teaching and learning benefits that may arise. an effective system will continuously measure real costs and benefits, . and adjust budgets and journal of distance learning, vol8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 32 projected savings accordingly. even if an elearning department is not required to account for its institutional budget . · in detail, such knowledge will assist in the efficient use of institutional funds and provide important considerations for the expansion or outsourcing of elearning activities. roi and cba are useful tools for providing financial analysis on elearning activities; however, their use often requires arbitrary quantification of qualitative benefit. while it may seem that this arbitrary quantification is merely an attempt to help improve roiand cba-based justification of a project, many of the financial benefits of elearning are indirect and would otherwise not be sufficiently considered. tracking costs within individual projects has the additional benefit of revealing potential bottlenecks or fine-tuning the outsourcing of tasks. once a history of actual project costs is developed, it can be used as a contributing factor to buy-in/make decisions also. while these may not be fully accurate, they will be indicative and therefore of pragmatic use in justifying and illustrating the use of eleaming budgets. references barfoot, j., brown, m., butts, j., cenedella, k., duckworth, m., herrod, j., et al. (2001). ideas for improving technology resource allocations. retrieved january, 2002, from http:/ /www.learningpeaks.com/ delta_project/ resource.pdf bartolic-zlornislic, s., & bates, a. w. (1999). assessing the costs and benefits of telelearning: a case study from the university of british columbia. retrieved february, 2002, from http:/ /research. cstudies. ubc.ca/ nee /edst565. pdf boeke, m. (ed.). (2001). technology costing methodology casebook 2001. boulder, co: western cooperative for educational telecommunications (wcet). retrieved june, 2002, from http:/ /www.wiche.edu/ telecom/ projects i tcm/tcm..t.casebook_ final. pdf cukier, j. (1997). cost-benefit analysis of telelearning: developing a methodology framework. distance education, 18(1), 137-152. rosenberg, m. (2001) , e-learning: strategies for delivering knowledge in the digital age. new york: mcgraw-hill. rueda, m. (n.d.). e-learning economics: expanding our understanding of the traditional roi. retrieved june, 2002, from http:/ /www.hptcorp.com/pdf/ econornics.pdf rumble, g. (1997) . the costs and economics of open and distance learning. london: kogan page. rumble, g. (2001). the costs and costing of networked learning. journal of asynchronous learning networks, 5(2), 75-96. retrieved june, 2002, from http:/ i www.aln.org/publications/jaln/v5n2/ v5n2_rurnble.asp sjogren, j., & fay, j. (2002) . cost issues in online learning: using "co-opetition" to advantage. change, 34(3), 53-57. mark nichols is an elearning consultant at ucol. his experience, research, and practice interests combine in the study of elearning and learning design for open and distance education. he is currently convenor of the institutes of technology and polytechnics of new zealand elearning forum, an executive member of d eanz, and director of course design for the centre of distance learning, bible college of new zealand. journal of distance learning, vol8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 33 microsoft word jofdl editorial v20 no1.docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 1 promoting open, flexible and distance learning in increasingly challenging times niki davis, editor-in-chief, university of canterbury alison fields, associate editor, open polytechnic of new zealand maggie hartnett, associate editor, massey university abstract although the potential to increase equitable access to education is threatened by economic and technical developments, the journal of open, flexible and distance learning is working to address these threats. this editorial describes actions over the lifetime of one leader in the field and the lifetime of this journal. our move to align with and take advantage of the public knowledge project in canada is the most recent action. the articles and book reviews in this issue also provide a number of illustrations of the open scholarship that is working to increase equitable access for adults and children in this region and around the world. keyword: open scholarship introduction the potential to increase equitable access to education is threatened by economic and technical developments. however, when our field was young it was easier to naively imagine that things would be better in the future, when digital technologies would become ubiquitous. our field of open, flexible, and distance learning—and our choice of an open access platform—is based on equity, which is expressed by our sponsoring professional association the flexible learning association of new zealand (flanz), as “making ako accessible to all/kia hora nga mahi ako ki te katoa” (flexible learning association of new zealand, n.d.). this editorial therefore looks at our work to promote research and its application in increasingly challenging times. our changing world there is increasing awareness that “the compelling ideology of the web as a public good” (introna & nissenbaum, 2000, p. 178) is naive. economic changes cause stress in many places, including in aotearoa new zealand where a productivity commission is currently reviewing tertiary education to inform policy development. the new zealand government has commissioned the productivity commission to investigate “how trends in technology, internationalisation, population, tuition costs and demand for skills may drive changes in models of tertiary education” (new zealand productivity commission, 2016). this inquiry follows the 2014 “innovations in tertiary education delivery summit”, which considered emerging models of tertiary education provision and discussed challenges to more traditional models. massive open online courses (moocs) were a central theme of the summit, and were perceived by many participants to indicate increasing threats to the viability of existing models. a number of the flanz executive contributed to that summit, bringing the association’s research to bear— including the research that produced future scenarios for tertiary education in new zealand and davis, n., fields, a., hartnett, m. 2 brought them to the notice of tertiary leaders (davis & higgins, 2015). the current inquiry focuses on how new zealand’s institutional and policy settings help or hinder the adoption of new models of tertiary education, and is undertaking a broad review of new and potential future models. this matter is of interest to nations worldwide and draws upon international scholarship in our field. the flanz executive drew on their collective expertise to make a submission that will be available on the association’s website (stein et al., 2016, in press). the submission concludes with this summary and recommendations: competitive funding drives margins lower and, while this may be seen as efficient, the consequences could equally be compromised student support and increasing cost of quality assurance (liefner, 2003). it has been shown that funding awards based on development plans rather than performance will have more equity (tadjudin, 2007). there is a tenuous connection between growing numbers of graduates and productivity. in part, this can be explained by policy settings that prioritise full time youth students and produce graduates that often have no previous connection with the industry workplaces they will be going to. to produce dividends of productivity from education investment, policy must support greater integration of industry with education. [recommended ways forward are to:] • invest in, rather than fund education. invest in collaborative infrastructure such as data sharing, common platforms and support. • move from central control to sector control. support increased collaboration with iwi/community/industry and between teos. • value vocational, distance, part time and lifelong learning: measure outcomes over longer periods and using rubrics generated and agreed with the sector(s). • recognise the increasing potential of workplace learning/training through flexible elearning • support workplace based and part time students to study at a pace that suits them by removing minimum course requirements for financial support. • recognise and support diversity within clear high-level frameworks; including allowing a proportion of nz qualifications to be defined by institutions through collaboration with iwi/ community/ employers. • support systems that provide for movement of students between providers. competitive funding encourages behaviour that seeks to retain students regardless of the fit with students’ profiles that can change over time. • accept some national responsibility for risk in the sector. for example, replace the eft target achievement with less punitive measures of funding management that better enable teos to adapt to contracting markets. (stein et al., 2016, p. 16, in press). this editorial continues by celebrating a significant birthday for the journal, and awards that celebrate past achievements in the school and tertiary sectors in australasia and beyond. jofdl turns 21! the journal of open, flexible and distance learning (jofdl) celebrates its 21st birthday this year, so it has truly come of age! since 1995 we have contributed to the current body of literature on distance learning and, more recently, on open and flexible learning, with a strong focus on material from the pacific rim. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 3 our story begins with deanz (now flanz) being established in 1984 and using “publication as a vehicle to disseminate information about distance education” (mcilroy & hearn, 1995, p. 2). the deanz newsletter, bulletin, and flier were used for this purpose and in 1991 “the need for a professional journal of international calibre was identified” (mcilroy & hearn 1995, p. 2). there was only a handful of journals in this subject area in the world at that time, so for deanz to establish their own journal was a world-class step. the process took a little while to set up, but the first issue of the journal was published in 1995 by its first editor, terry hearn, under the title journal of distance learning. in the following years the journal appeared annually, with a succession of editors—and others— ensuring content continued to reach its audience in this growing area of education. sweeping changes were made to the format and delivery of the journal in 2008 when the new editor, mark nichols, began to take the journal online and make it open access. mark worked with copy editor kate hunt to raise the standard of copy and strengthen the quality of the published journal. in 2010 the name of the journal changed to the journal of open, flexible and distance learning, and the occasional themed issue was introduced to highlight specific areas of flexible learning. in 2011 ben kehrwald joined mark, and the editorial team’s work continued. in 2013 the deanz executive commissioned peter albion to review jofdl, and to give both strategic direction and practical advice to further strengthen the quality of the publication. following this review and a call for editors, the current editorial team of niki davis, maggie hartnett, and alison fields was appointed and has carried out many of the recommendations from the albion report. the journal now publishes quality content twice a year, meets regularly with its strong international editorial advisory board, and is more visible through a growing number of indexing services and access points. it is committed to the principles of open scholarship and publishes under the creative commons attribution 3.0 license. in addition to thanking those in in the association who had the foresight to create and support the journal, all of the editors have made a significant contribution to the direction and success of the journal. we also thank authors, reviewers, and the editorial advisory board, all of whom have contributed their research and thought to assure the quality of the content that promotes scholarship in the theory and practice of open, flexible, and distance learning in this part of the world. we look forward to seeing what the next 21 years brings for this journal. deanz lifetime achievement award: andrew higgins past president andrew higgins was honoured with the flanz lifetime achievement award at the recent deanz/flanz conference in hamilton. the award was presented at the conference dinner following an engaging account of andrew’s career-long contributions to the field of open, flexible and distance learning, which was read by current flanz president sarah stein. andrew’s early contributions to the field were based on his work in rural australia, where distance education remains a necessity for many children due to sheer remoteness (higgins, 1994). having trained as a teacher and completed a doctorate that considered the education of isolated children, andrew worked for the queensland department of education to improve practice. this work included secondary teaching in rural schools, restructuring of the australian correspondence school, and the rural secondary school support scheme. he also developed an education training programme for the queensland police service, and gained a prestigious police commissioner’s award for this work. the succession of appointments at universities, government organisations and associations that followed eventually brought him to new zealand as a deputy vice chancellor of otago university. among these roles he found time to become involved with deanz, and became deanz president and later the deanz secretary. andrew’s additional roles with the commonwealth of learning and other organisations helped deanz to build strong relationships with global organisations, and these partnerships continue davis, n., fields, a., hartnett, m. 4 today. subsequent service included many international projects, forums, commissioned reports, and advisory bodies—too many for us to list here. andrew’s lifetime achievement award citation sums his achievements up in its concluding sentence: “it would be fair to comment that andrew, in his roles of president and secretary of deanz, advanced the association’s cause and reputation and helped transform how students in remote, rural as well as on-campus students learn. perhaps that is what a teacher is supposed to do.” we agree. that is, indeed, making ako accessible to all. congratulations andrew! jofdl best paper awards 2016 the journal’s editors also take the opportunity provided by the association’s biennial conference to recognise the authors of the best papers published in jofdl every two years. in addition to acting as a reward for the best work, this recognition enables the editors to signal exemplars of particular aspects of research and writing. this year, two papers published in jofdl in 2014 were selected as joint winners of the jofdl best paper awards 2016 because they provide exemplars for different types of article. the two papers selected are: • software literacy and student learning in the tertiary environment: powerpoint and beyond, by elaine khoo, craig hight, bronwen cowie, rob torrens, and lisabeth ferrarelli, jofdl 18(1) 2014. these authors were recognised for their well-written article that reported high-quality research on the relationship between students’ software literacy and their subsequent engagement and knowledge in a range of disciplines. • the disruptive potential of the massive open online course: a literature review by jean jacoby, jofdl 18(1) 2014. jacoby was recognised for her high-quality literature review, which provided a valuable overview of the influence of moocs in higher education using disruptive innovation theory, and relating this clearly and purposefully to the new zealand context. jofdl moves overseas to join the public knowledge project as noted earlier, jofdl has come of age—if the journal were an kiwi adult it might be expected that ‘she’ would value some overseas experience (oe)—and jofdl is now enjoying her oe in canada! however, the real reason that jofdl has moved to join the public knowledge project (pkp) open journal systems (ojs) platform in canada is that new zealand does not have sufficient open journals to justify the hosting service in this country. jofdl’s move to be hosted in the northern hemisphere is, therefore, the result of an economic challenge. jofdl and flanz are fortunate to be supported by ako aotearoa, the new zealand center for tertiary teaching excellence (ako aotearoa, n.d.). since 2011, ako aotearoa has enabled jofdl to be an open access journal by hosting the journal on its website (on a server provided by catalyst). ako expected a number of journals to join jofdl on the catalyst ojs server, but that did not occur, so it was with regret that catalyst gave notice that the service would be discontinued. the editors consulted and searched to see if it was possible for the journal to remain in new zealand, but no alternative host could be found. supportive discussions with other new zealand editors identified the issue as economic, and related to the volume of publishing in the region. it is more efficient for a large number of journals to be hosted by one service than for them to be scattered across services, and so we are delighted to have been supported by ako aotearoa to move the whole journal and its archive to join the prestigious pkp project and its stable of high quality open access journals in canada. jofdl is in good company that spans the world. examples of relevant journals and related services that jofdl has joined include: journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 5 • the australian computer society (acs) digital library • aishe-j (the journal of the all ireland society for higher education) • higher learning research communications jofdl is delighted to be hosted by pkp, a service that shares our equitable mission of access for all. according to pkp’s website: pkp is a multi-university initiative developing (free) open source software and conducting research to improve the quality and reach of scholarly publishing … pkp was founded in 1998 by john willinsky in the faculty of education at ubc [university of british columbia], with pacific press professorship endowment, dedicated to improving the scholarly and public quality of research. (pkp, n.d.) (https://pkp.sfu.ca/about/history/) open journals systems is the world’s most widely used journal management and publishing system. it was released as open source software in 2001, version 2 was released in 2005, and version 3 is emerging. a number of articles have been written on the beneficial effects of pkp, including ojs (e.g., owen & stranack, 2012). articles in this issue articles in this issue of jofdl raise awareness of the challenges of increasing accessibility alongside the continual development of systems and technologies. the article by parton reports on using youtube auto-generated video captions to meet the needs of deaf students. this software’s potential to increase access for all has not been realised—at least, not yet. this original research focused on the use of such video captions for weekly news updates in an online course. results showed that auto-generated sub-titles are not accurate enough on their own to meet the needs of deaf students and parton recommends more attention be paid to this strategy. in a recent guest lecture on universal design for learning (udl) and e-learning at the university of canterbury, united states expert ray rose (2016) was asked about the issue by his host, the first author. ray responded that youtube clearly states that the subtitling provided is 50 to 80 per cent accurate. he also provided details of other software and indicated that enabling access for all students is a responsibility increasingly enshrined in law. actions have been taken against harvard university and massachusetts institute of technology in the united states, citing the lack of subtitles in their moocs. in new zealand, human rights law has not yet been cited in this way, but it may be only a matter of time. in the first of two articles, past deanz president mark nichols reports original research that compares two online learning systems (moodle and the new iqualify platform) from the perspective of users in the context of the open polytechnic of new zealand. nichols’s second article is a review of the literature relating to on-screen reading from the perspective of good online learning design. the final article, by una cunningham, who is an expert in computer assisted learning (call) and teaching, sets out a position for the flipped class in tertiary language teaching and learning that will be valuable to all teachers who aim to support the development of their students’ languages. language learning is also part of study skills for many students for whom english is not a first language. these original articles are followed by the first two book reviews to be edited by jofdl’s new book review editor, adrienne moyle. the first is by well-known flanz member and past president, bill anderson, who reviews the recently published book by jofdl’s associate editor, maggie hartnett. titled motivation in online education, this book explores the nature of motivation of learners learning online, including a range of considerations that can influence motivation. a second book review is contributed by flanz treasurer, rachel whalley, who has extensive experience of open, flexible and distance learning in her role as eprincipal of the virtual learning network primary network of schools. (this collaborative community of schools davis, n., fields, a., hartnett, m. 6 throughout new zealand is working to provide improved educational opportunities for students through online learning. the community aims to meet the needs of students in the primaryschool sector for the first 8 years of schooling and includes all types of schools.) rachel reviews the 2015 book, online, blended, and distance education in schools: building successful programs, which is edited by tom clark and michael barbour. rachel recognises the growing interest and research in online and distance learning in the compulsory schooling sector— particularly in the united states—and sets that research and developing practice within her own context. conclusion although the potential to increase equitable access to education is threatened by economic and technical developments, jofdl is working to address these ongoing challenges. this editorial has celebrated jofdl’s 21st birthday and higgins’s flanz lifetime achievement award for service to our association, which includes reviewing for this journal. with support from our association and ako aotearoa, jofdl has moved to be hosted by pkp alongside many other openly accessible journals. the articles and book reviews have also provided a number of illustrations of open scholarship, which is working to increase equitable access for adults and children in this region and around the world. references ako aotearoa. (n.d.) retreived from https://akoaotearoa.ac.nz/ako-aotearoa davis, n. e., & higgins, a. (2015). researching possible futures to guide leaders towards more effective tertiary education. journal of open flexible and distance learning, 19(2), 8–24. flexible learning association of new zealand. (n.d). retrieved from http://www.flanz.org.nz higgins, a. (1994). a background to rural education schooling in australia. journal of research in rural education, 10(1), 48–57. introna, l. d., & nissenbaum, h. (2000). shaping the web: why the politics of search engines matter. information society, 16(3), 169–186. jacoby, j. (2014). the disruptive potential of the massive open online course: a literature review. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 18(1), 73–85. khoo, e., hight, c., cowie,b., torrens. r., & ferrarelli, l. (2014). software literacy and student learning in the tertiary environment: powerpoint and beyond. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 18(1), 30–45. mcilroy, a., & hearn, t. (1995). editorial. journal of distance learning 1(1), 2–3. new zealand productivity commission. (2016). new models of tertiary education. retrieved from http://www.productivity.govt.nz/inquiry-content/tertiary-education owen, b., & stranack, k. (2012). the public knowledge project and open journal systems: open source options for small publishers. learned publishing, 5(2), 138–144. pkp. (n.d.). retrieved from https://pkp.sfu.ca/about/history/ rose, r. (2016). universal design for learning and e-learning. lecture presentation for the university of canterbury, presented august 3, 2016. slides retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/raymondrose journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 7 biographical notes niki davis niki.davis@canterbury.ac.nz niki is distinguished professor of e-learning and director of the e-learning lab in the university of canterbury college of education, health and human development in christchurch, new zealand. in addition to researching e-learning in teacher education and professional development, niki teaches and researches about change with digital technologies in education and related areas of scholarship. niki is editor-in-chief of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. alison fields alison.fields@openpolytechnic.ac.nz alison is a senior lecturer at the open polytechnic of new zealand where she teaches information and library studies. she also sits on the professional registration board of the library and information association of new zealand aotearoa (lianza). her research areas encompass e-learning, library services, and continuing professional development. she is currently enrolled in edd studies at the university of otago. alison is an associate editor of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. maggie hartnett m.hartnett@massey.ac.nz maggie is a senior lecturer in the institute of education at massey university, new zealand, where she teaches in the areas of e-learning and digital technologies. her research interests include motivation and engagement in digital environments, teaching and learning with digital technologies, electronic portfolios, support for digital learners, digital places, and spaces of learning. maggie is an executive member of deanz and an associate editor of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. davis, n., fields, a., & hartnett, m. (2016). promoting open, flexible and distance learning in increasingly challenging times. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1), [1–7]. scanned document keegan, d. (2000). distan ce training: ,,' taking stock at a time of change. routledge falmer studies in distance education. london: routledge falmer (pp. xiv, 152). the growth of virtual and distance learning was recently summed up by sir jolm daniel of the u.k. open university: not long ago we all wished that the world would take more interest in what we did and show more appreciation of the virtues of distance learning. today we must often wish we could be released from the close embrace of wall street, the technology companies and the media. (1999, p. 34) with increasing interest in the development of distance learning by educational institutions, the media, technology companies, corporations, and people wishing to improve their education or qualifications, this volume, written by a well-known figure in the field, is very welcome. keegan will be known to many distance educators as the author of the foundations of distance education (routledge, 1996, 3rd ed.) and as the founder of the journal distance education. in this volume, aptly subtitled taking stock at a time of change, keegan has provided a brisk and concise overview of the state of the field of training at a distance at the turn of the twenty-first century. the purpose in writing this book, in the words of the author, is to address: reviews the tensions and interfaces in the evolution from d-learning to e-learning to m-learning. d-iearning is distance learning, e-learning is electronic learning and m-learning is mobile learning based on the wireless teclmologies of the 21st century. a great deal of attention in this voiulll!' has been given to the provision pi careful definitions and the drawin" of boundaries. keegan makes the usd l: i distinction, for example, betwpl'n distance training that is group-based and for full-time students and that which i., for part-time students. it is this attenlipi1 to the demarcation of boundaries in l hi' field that provides the reader with a good understanding of the current domains pi distance training. i found this book provided uspfui insights into ways in which the fip id is changing and developing. i found keegan's position on the shift from dlearning to elearning to mlearn in l', particularly interesting because i usp l1w term "mlearning" in canada to llh'dll something else-moderating oniinl' learning. the idea of learning bpin)" mobile, though, is something that thosl' in the fields of telelearning, distant l' learning, and open learning ha vi ' possibly not considered until now. 111 what keegan terms the "mobilp revolution," interesting statistics an' provided on the growth in ownership of mobile phones (e.g., in late 1999 there were approximately 500,000 mobile phones in the world and by 2004 there will be one billion). these figures give journal of distance learning, vol 7, no 1, 2003 © distance education association of new zealand 68 anyone involved in the electronic delivery of education reason to reflect on where we are going and what this sort of development portends. for example, this growth of personal mobile phones will make it possible to teach face-to-face at a distance and, as keegan notes, "to restore eye-to-eye contact electronically." keegan's chapter on the internet is rich in boundary demarcation and the provision of definitions . mcgreal's database is highlighted (1999) in which seventeen levels of training online are outlined. keegan proposes a simpler set of five classifications which distance trainers will likely find interesting. the author's notion of "kernels" intrigued me . keegan explains kernels (pp . 102-103) in the following way : institutions fa ced with the decision to transfer some or all of their face-to-face and/ or distance training provision to the web, face further choices on the shell or kernel to run their web-based training system. these decisions have far-reaching implications for the didactic strategies of the institution, and for the continuing costs of the training system. there are three options: rent a kernel from one of the leading providers; adapt an existing kernel for use in one's own system, or develop one's own system. distance training: taking stock at a time of change is a brisk, authoritative introduction to the field of distance training and an excellent reference for anyone seeking for clarification of terms that are often used interchangeably. i anticipate keegan will be widely quoted from this volume in future. references daniel, j. (1 999) . speech es of the vicechancellor of the open university . retrieved from http: // www .open.ac. uk/ ou/news/ vc. html(1 / 12.1999) keegan, d. (1996). foundations of dista1lce education (3rd ed.). london: routled ge. mcgreal, r. (1999) . teleeducation database of online courses. retrieved from httf / / cuda. teleeducation.nb .ca/ (1 .12.1999) ken stevens memorial univ ersitlj of newfoundland newfoundland, canada lockwood, f., & gooley, a. (eds.) . (2001). innovation in open and distance learning: successful development of online and web-based learning. london: kogan page (pp. 224). in the foreword of this book, fred lockwood discusses student-centred learning approaches and constructivism. he sees ict as a means of achieving these : academics questioning the very basis of learning and, consequently, how they teach. essentially this is the thrust of the book. this book, a cooperative venture between australia and england with a smattering of international contributions, has authors already known to many in the field (bernadette robinson, bruce king, aiu1e gooley), but equally includes new blood, and in particular a broad range of australian contributors brought by gooley. it also features a chapter by new zealand's cathy gulu1 and claire mclachlan-smith. journal of distance learning, vol 7, no 1, 2003 © distance education association of new zealand 69 chapters include umovation ul distributed learnulg, the uuluence of teacher beliefs, developulg low-cost enviromnents, generic structures, ultegrated environments, flexible toolboxes, lifelong learnillg, student recruitment and retention, n etworking tools, mentorulg, onlille assessment, and professional development. there are also specifics on pictorial materials, video, and lotus learnmgspace. there is good coverage with a mixture of research and case studies. it is good to see student support, m entoring, and change management addressed ul a broad-based approach, as well as the specifics of online and web-based learnulg. although you may need to look for them, several themes appear woven through this book: distributed learnul~ funds and resources, orgcll1isational issues, human resources, and appropriate media . each of these brulgs its own challenges and issues. but ul general the book is heartenulg. it reports a range of uutiatives, some high profile, others low cos t, but all that either describe success or identify how problems that have been faced may be addressed by others new to onlille and web-based learnulg. several of the chapters deserve greater attention. mclaclllan-smith and culm's "promotulg hmovation and 01ange ul a ' traditional' uluversity settmg" will clull many new zealanders. after describulg two illitiatives with varyulg degrees of success, they state: in conclusion, these flexible courses have been successful essentially agaulst the odds: due ul part because they met the needs of their niche market and ul part to the time and d edication of the "early adopters" who coordillated them. (p . 50) they go on to say that the uluversity of auckland should look to far greater resourcmg and support for uutiatives if ,,' future success is to be guaranteed. it was the champions and their enthusiasm that led to the successes described. but tlus is ul contrast to what seems to be happenulg elsewhere other contributors to tlus book report an ulstitution-wide conunitment to funds to support olullle and web-based learnulg. bruce king will b e known to many through ius keynote address at the 1995 deanz conference ul auckland. killg's "makillg a virtue of necessity: a lowcost, comprehensive olullle tead1illg and lean1illg environment" describes and reflects upon the development of unisanet, an olume environment for teachillg and learnillg. what the university of south australia wanted is familiar-a common front-end, consistent use of authorulg and communication tools, and acadenuc, tecluucat and student support-all designed to readily allow acadenucs and others to readily and easily place materials olume. although largely descriptive and short on reportillg results, killg's chapter does ulclude a useful brief evaluation of the project by an uldependent expert. chris morgan and andre snut ul "mentorulg ul open and distance learnillg" focus on "the somewhat neglected area of mentorulg ul open and distance learlung contexts where opportunities can be created to ellllance student ulteractiolls, learnillg and well-beulg" (p. 160). they use soot's three-dunensional mentormg model to evaluate specific opportunities for distance learners: creatillg multiple journal afdistance learning, vol 7, no 1, 2003 © dis tance education association of new zealand 70 discourses; helping overcome isolation; enabling the development of workbased competencies; providing higher levels of flexibility; creating dialogue between theory and practice . case studies are used to explore types of mentoring relationships among distance learners and they in turn are evaluated in terms of the model. this is a wellwritten, informati ve chapter with practical application. in "professional development in distance education: a successful experiment and future direction," ulrich bernath and eugene rubin present data and experiences and provide some general evaluation of three virtual seminars on professional development. each of the seminars contained modules that were hosted by an expert in their field and involved one to two weeks on a designated topic, where an introduction was drafted contailung pre-prepared contributions from the leaders and an outline of the structure for the following discussion. typically, individuals would make conmlents, and leaders would respond with a summary that was posted at the end of each week. thought was given to the smooth transition from one module to another. modules covered included the foundations of dis tance education, institutional models, theory, orgcmisational trends, applications, teclulology, support, and instructional design. the last two seminars included standardised modules. a goal was cross-cultural sharing of experiences, ideas, and opinions. the broad base of opinion led to a more comprehensive analysis and understanding of critical issues, particularly with reference to low tech and high tech teclulology. otto peters observed that "knowledge building conmmnities" had been established where public as well as private knowledge structures flourished. helmut fritsch reported "witness learners ." he described how analysis showed that many of those enrolled did not actively participate, but instead wih1essed the interactions of others. when contacted many had actually witnessed on a daily basis and had learned from the conmlents, statements, and questions of others. mind you, $us580 is a high price to pay to be a silent witness! although few new zealanders took part in these seminars, those that did reported favourably. however, numbers participating globally have remained constant in the low forties. the contributors to tills book are realistic. not all initiatives and projects gave positive results, but whether they did or not, each has something worthwhile to say and of interest to new zealanders in the odl community. this is a useful book worthy of buying and a useful contribution to kogan page's open and dis tance learning series. jay reid auckland universih) of technologj) auckland, new zealand nichols, m., & ucol (2001). teaching for learning: designing resource-based learning courses for the internet age. palmers ton north, nz: trainlnc.co.nz (p. o. box 872, palmers ton north, nz) . how long is it since a new zealander working in the field of flexible learning has produced a text/resource on best practice for local and international use? mark nicl10ls from ucol stululed those at the 2001 odlaa conference by setting up a stand in the corner of journal of distance leaming, vol 7, no 1, 2003 © distance education association of new zealand 71 a large meeting hall and promoting this cd-rom. at first sight it is interesting and easy to navigate. there is both a word and acrobat version with plug-ins to download if you don't have the ability a' to view the cd-rom from existing software. you can also email the author or go to the "book's" website. the outline is familiar. there is an introductory section (pretty much what you would find in any book). then part one deals with principles of teaching and learning (the need for effective teaching and learning; universal principles of teaching and learning; resource-based learning as a term; and v aries an introduction to this acronym for the approach to course design that nichols advocates), so often missing from many texts on flexible learning. part two is in greater depth, and devotes six chapters to clarifying and extending the v aries concept (variety, access, reflection, interactivity, explicit, and support). part three is on developing the course of the future (integrating the principles; the role of education managers). nichols uses anecdotes and case studies frequently to make his points. in part one he gives particular attention to deep learning and the tl1eories of ramsden, principles of adult learning (and knowles in particular), learning styles (with an emphasis on honey and mumford), and motivation. he does this well. in this section i would have liked to have seen a more explicit analysis of the role of constructivism in resource-based learning, and even here it would have been worthwhile to have mentioned the use of technology in supporting this. where, too, is the analysis of the social basis of learning and how this mode of learning may simulate that of the classroom's interaction? he makes li11ks with lifelong learning and devotes considerable space to flexibility, prompting us to ask "flexible for whom? for whose ends?" he acknowledges institutional and other constraints and spends time on elearning as a subset of resource-based learning. finally, this first section looks critically at assessment. much is written about summative assessment, though there is less on diagnostic, ipsative, or formative assessment. in part two, the concept of v aries is expanded greatly. although each of the elements introduced is explored in a different chapter, there is a conscious effort to integrate each of them. it would, however, be useful if each section here included its own references and bibliography. in the section on variety, many examples of variety are given, covering delivery, assessment, and presentation. face-toface teaching is included. attention is given to synchronous and asynchronous interaction. listservers are addressed . . a table that addresses the merits of various teclu1ologies is introduced so that decisions regarding media to use are made easier. the section on access is realistic and critical in its view of access. delivery teclu1ologies are assessed in terms of access and emphasis is given to mediating teclu1ologies. the section on reflection is carefully written. it makes clear colu1ections with interactivity, revisits surface and deep learning, and li11ks with earlier work written about the nature of learning journal of distance learning, vol 7, no 1, 2003 © distance education association of new zealand 72 styles and adult learnin g. kolb's experiential learnin g cycle is introduced, and there is a separate section on preparing students for reflection. a disappointing feature of the section on interactivity is that there appears to be little acknowledgement of the social nature of learning and maybe the need to simulate the normal classroom interactions that students have with each other. interactivity is defined as "a process of being changed as a result of one's actions," really an inadequate explanation. there are, though, passages on a range of interactive teclmologies and special attention paid to hyperlinks and self-assessment. explicit(ness) is the name given to the section that deals with what has traditionally been called course design. this section is detailed, with a sound introduction that discusses being explicit in design , expectations, and instructions . a distinction is made between core elements and core documents and all the important aspects that we would expect to see are addressed. the last section, support, is written well. the roles and responsibilities of tutors and learners are addressed, attention is given to the expensive nature of quality support, and there is agreement that support is additional to many expected workloads . there is considerable emphasis on support and the role of technology in its deliver y. the customisation of support is an interes ting topic discussed. part three of the cd-rom revisits v aries in terms of a systems approach to the design process, describing how the mix of the elements of v aries is determined by internal and ex ternal factors that affect the design process itself. a complete section is devo ted to policy, bes t practice, strategic and financial implications, and the roles and deployment of staff. the final paragraphs are on institutional commitment. there is strength in nichols's work, in his enthusiasm and energy, his commitm ent to resource-based learning, and the con cept of varies which he introduces and expands well. he clearly unders tands a rational model of the design process, technology, and its applications in resource-based learning. i would have liked to have seen a greater acknowledgement of the social nature of mos t learning, greater attention to copyright issues, and a more visual presentation throughout (clearly a cdrom lends itself to this) that breaks up tex t and tables. this is an interes ting publica tion and as new zealanders we should support it. it is a us eful guide to course design and resource-based learning. jay reid auckland universihj of teclmologjj auckland, new zealand picciano, a. g. (2001). distan ce learning: making connections across virtual space and time. columbus, oh: merrill prentice-hall (pp. xviii, 253). this is an excellent text for providing teachers and educational institutions considering distance learning with an introduction to the current sta te of the field. anthony picciano's writing is direct, easily understood, current, and grounded in the research literature. each chapter concludes with a summary of journal oj distance learning, vol 7, no 1, 2003 © dis tance education association of new zealand 73 the content that has been covered, followed by a case study or two, which effectively illustrate the issues raised in the preceding pages. the teclmology of distance learning is summarized in ways that enable the reader to make comparisons (e.g., print, audio, video, ,,> computer-digital) and there is a dis cussion about blending teclmologies for teaching and learning. this leads to what for me is the most interesting part of the book, in which picciano introduces some challenging views about pedagogy and distance learning. in his chapter on instructional design for distance learning, he notes "a general pedagogical theory for distance leanung does not exist now and will not likely exist in the near future ." a variety of debates about the nature of distance education are briefly reviewed (keegan, 1993, 1996; wedemeyer, 1977; moore, 1994; peters, 1988). picciano poses the question (p. 66), "in searching for or developing a pedagogical theory for distance learning, a major question to be addressed is whether or not it is a distinct form of education. " he notes that shale (1988) considers that the process of education and learning is the same regardless of whether teacll er and student are face-to-face or at a distance. this debate is introduced but not discussed in any detail by the author. picciano takes the position that "major societal forces such as the demand for greater educational opportuluty and lifelong learning, and rapidly evolving teclmological advances are changing the nature of distance learning." the result is that distance learning is becoming more decentralized and more student-centered and is "routinely being offered in conjul1ction with traditional academic programs." a new form of education is emerging: it is quite possible that distance learning is, in fact, becoming more traditional willie traditional learning is using techniques formally associated with distance. virtual sys tems may be the velucles whereby traditional learning and distance education begin to merge and form a new paradigm for education. (p. 67) unfortunately, picciano does not spend a lot of time on this promising llile of thou ght which is likely to be of interest to distance educators. this book, nevertheless, is a first-rate guide to the preparation of courses at a distance, the use of web pages for instruction, the place of instructional development, synchronous and asynchronous communication, and various types of interaction between students and teachers . this is a book that is intended for the distance learning practitioner, although the author provides some challenging scholarly insights into the direction of the field. it should find wide acceptance and use by those wh o are preparing to consider the "new paradigm." references keegan. d. (1993). tileoretical principles of distance education. london: routledge. keegan, d. (1996). foundations of distance education (3rd ed.). london: routledge. moore, m. (1994). autonomy and interd ependence. tile ame1'ican journal of distance education, 8(2), pp. 1-5. peters, o. (1988) . distance teaching and industrial production: a comparative interpretation in outline. in d. sew art, d. keegan, & b. holmberg (eds.), distance education: international perspectives (pp. 95-113). new york: ro utledge. shale, d. (1988). toward a reconceptualization of distance education. the jozlrnal of distance learning, vol 7, no 1, 2003 © distance education association of new zealand 74 american journal of distance education, 2(3), pp. 25-35. wedemeyer, c. (1977). indep endent study. in: a. s. knowles (ed.), t11.e international encyclopaedia of higher education (pp. 21142132). boston: cihed. ken stevens memorial university of newfoundland newfoundland, canada journal of distance learning, vol 7, no 1, 2003 © distance education association of new zealand 75 microsoft word bassett-robson.docx bassett, m., robson, j. 20 the two towers: the quest for appraisal and leadership development of middle leaders online martin bassett, unitec institute of technology joanne robson, core education abstract this paper sets out to examine the role of middle leaders and their quest for effective appraisal and leadership development online—the two towers. research that focuses on the role of middle leaders, in terms of their appraisal and leadership development, suggests there is a crisis in the ‘middle’. currently, middle leaders do not have access to a specific national programme that focuses on leading from the middle. moreover, they are not supported by those who are able to assess the gap in their leadership needs and provide the appropriate development. a lack of effective appraisal of middle leaders, and significantly deficient leadership development, suggest the need for an immediate call to action. consequently, this paper explores the need for an online middle leadership programme that provides accessibility for these leaders in the unique contexts of their organisations, schools, and kura. keywords: middle leadership; online professional learning; middle leaders; leadership development; performance appraisal introduction the role of school middle leaders continues to increase in both scope and workload. middle leaders are responsible for the pedagogical leadership that impacts on student learning, yet they often feel unprepared for this complex role. when combined, appraisal and leadership development have the potential to equip leaders to carry out their role more effectively. research conducted by bassett (2012) and robson (2012) highlighted that neither appraisal nor leadership development were being used to evaluate middle leaders’ ability or to develop their practice, yet middle leaders are expected to appraise and develop their own teams. this paper presents the need for an online middle leadership programme that is accessible to these leaders in the unique contexts of their organisations, schools, and kura. appraisal is intended to provide accountability and development for leaders (cardno, 2012), with the end goal of improving student outcomes. in referring to teachers, the latest oecd (2016) report states: “[effective] appraisal . . . will deliver best results if it is linked to professional development . . . based on a culture of professional inquiry . . . to improve practice” (schleicher, 2016, p. 56). this proves challenging when appraisal is ineffective or, worse still, not happening at all. missed opportunities for ongoing professional conversations and leadership development, alongside the conflicting purposes of appraisal, result in the perception that appraising middle leaders is an undervalued and ineffective practice (cardno & robson, 2016). to ensure that appraisal is meaningful and empowers middle leaders, it should be embedded in the culture of the school, have a clear purpose, and provide coherence between policy, process, and the practice itself (cardno & piggot-irvine, 1997). while middle leaders conduct appraisals of their own journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(2) 21 teams, principals need to ensure that those leading in the middle also receive appraisal and leadership development. leadership development is a specialised form of professional development focusing on building the capacity of leaders (cardno, 2012). leadership development can take the form of training, education, or support and should be context specific (bush, 2008). although the role of middle leaders has expanded (fitzgerald, 2009), there is still a lack of leadership development to equip them with the required skills. due to the challenges and complexity of middle leadership, it is imperative that middle leaders are provided with leadership development to enable them to effectively perform their role. bassett (2016) asserts that the “middle leader’s role demands a set of leadership and management skills which requires specialised knowledge and training” (p. 106); hence the need for the provision of a specific middle leadership programme. the role of middle leaders in the more than two decades since the introduction of educational reforms that led to selfmanaged schools in aotearoa new zealand (wylie, 2012), there has been significant expansion of the role of senior educational leaders (cardno, 2012). principals have become chief executive officers with direct responsibility for managing their schools, and are also accountable for the quality of teaching and learning (brundrett, fitzgerald, & sommefeldt, 2006). a survey of secondary principals confirms that their workload has not eased (wylie, 2013). consequently, responsibilities and leadership tasks that were once considered the domain of senior leaders have been distributed or delegated to those at other levels of the school hierarchy (adey, 2000; fitzgerald & gunter, 2006). as a result, the middle leader’s role has evolved from that of subject specialist to having responsibility for monitoring and evaluation, contributing to wider school policy, evaluating teaching programmes, developing organisational relationships, ensuring quality assurance, and liaising with senior management (bennett, woods, wise, & newton, 2007; fitzgerald, 2000; glover, miller, gambling, gough, & johnson, 1999). in aotearoa new zealand, middle leaders are identified by a variety of terms such as head of department, head of faculty, middle manager (bennett et al., 2007; busher, 2005) and, more recently, middle leader (blandford, 2006; fitzgerald, 2009). middle leaders receive a time allowance and financial management units as remuneration. this recognition is based on the school size and the set of responsibilities (fitzgerald, youngs, & grootenboer, 2003). busher and harris (1999) assert that middle leaders are the “interface between the whole school domain and that of the classroom” (p. 6). this means the role of middle leaders in the school structure is unique; they are not solely teachers, yet they are not part of the senior leadership hierarchy (fitzgerald, 2000). the ministry of education (2012) outlines an extensive range of tasks that middle leaders are expected to carry out. these include leading pedagogical change; ensuring that teaching staff understand their role in implementing the school’s vision and policies; providing culturally responsive leadership; working to establish reciprocal relationships implicit in the treaty of waitangi; working with students’ families, whānau, hapū, iwi, and caregivers to share information and solve problems; providing a safe and orderly school environment; managing and appraising teachers; mentoring and coaching other leaders; leading and participating in professional development; building professional, trusting relationships; resolving conflicts; and promoting innovation. this exhaustive list highlights the increasing expectations put upon middle leaders and confirms the view of dinham (2007), who contends that the role of middle leader is complex, intensive, and challenging. these additional leadership tasks, for which middle leaders are now responsible, also create significant challenges. one of the most significant is that of carrying out their role in the time bassett, m., robson, j. 22 allocated to them. despite the allocation of extra non-contact time to undertake leadership functions, middle leaders often claim this time is not sufficient to perform their role effectively (wise & bennett, 2003). the post primary teachers association (ppta) (2015) states middle leaders are left “without enough time and energy to do an excellent job as both a leader and classroom teacher”. this echoes earlier research by fitzgerald (2009) who found middle leaders were overburdened with compliance tasks to such an extent that the role dominated their time. another significant challenge for middle leaders is evaluating their colleagues’ performance (bennett et al., 2007). appraisal of teachers is intended to benefit both the individual and the organisation by affirming that performance expectations are being met, and by identifying areas of development for improvement (cardno & piggot-irvine, 1997). paradoxically, although they have responsibility for appraisal (fitzgerald et al., 2003) their “extra management responsibility [means] they are less likely to have sufficient time to effectively enact their school’s appraisal process” (p. 102). in fact, fitzgerald and gunter (2008) observe that while middle leaders lead others, they are still positioned below the senior leaders, and they question whether power has been equally distributed. the increased responsibilities of middle leaders make it necessary for them to gain new knowledge and skills to effectively carry out their role. despite acknowledgement that effective leadership requires specific professional development (cardno, 2012), many middle leaders perceive themselves to be ill-equipped and under-prepared to meet the challenges of their role (dinham, 2007). similarly, when middle leaders move into their new leadership roles they may experience uncertainty (fitzgerald, 2009). bush (2008) contends that “being qualified for the very different job of classroom teacher is no longer appropriate” (p. 29). he asserts there is a moral obligation to develop those who move from the role of teacher into leadership positions. the broader concern is that the training and development of school leaders continues to be inadequate, and is focused at a system level to the detriment of providing individual leadership development (lovett, dempster, & fluckiger, 2015). in aotearoa new zealand, leadership development has been aimed at principals and those aspiring to be principals (brundrett et al., 2006; bush, 2010), whereas leadership development for middle leaders has not been forthcoming at a national level (chetty, 2007). in turn, the onus is on senior leaders of organisations, schools, and kura to provide adequate leadership development to equip their middle leaders to effectively carry out their complex role. therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore the notion of a specific online middle leadership programme that would enable middle leaders across aotearoa new zealand to meet these challenges and undertake their roles effectively. the practice under scrutiny: the two towers of appraisal and leadership development this paper draws on two separate qualitative research studies (robson, 2012; bassett, 2012) that examined appraisal of middle leaders and leadership development of middle leaders respectively. as experienced secondary-school middle leaders, these researchers had received neither effective appraisal nor leadership development. the lack of research was the impetus for conducting this research to examine middle leaders’ experience (or lack of experience) of appraisal and leadership development. middle leadership has the potential to significantly affect student learning outcomes and yet, without leadership training and preparation, and without personal appraisal, the multifaceted role is fraught with challenges. appraisal of middle leaders appraisal’s dual purpose of accountability and development has the potential to mutually benefit individuals and educational organisations. in robson’s (2012) small-scale qualitative study in three large secondary schools, in which there were at least 15 teachers across three schools who journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(2) 23 held designated middle leader positions, 26 respondents completed an online questionnaire containing both open and closed questions, and five middle leaders participated in semistructured interviews. each school’s personnel policy and appraisal process were analysed concurrently, to capture as much reality as possible. by employing triangulation and multiple methods of gathering data, the accuracy of the study was strengthened “to shore up the internal validity” (merriam, 2009). using an interpretive approach, the open-ended questions and interview data were coded thematically in broad categories that were already established from recurring themes in the literature on appraisal and leadership development. the findings of the research exposed that middle leaders perceive they are not effectively appraised by their senior leaders. there was a notable absence of evidence of appraisal practice that specifically targeted improving the practice of middle leaders. in addition, analysis of each school’s documentation highlighted a lack of specific mention of appraisal for middle leaders, or who should appraise them. many middle leaders felt frustrated at the lack of personal appraisal, particularly as they had to prioritise their time to conduct meaningful appraisals with their own staff. for the majority of middle leaders interviewed, appraisal was merely a compliance exercise, if it happened at all. this frustration was expressed by two of the middle leaders interviewed. one stated that appraisal was: to check that i am doing the job … a tick-box exercise, with little obvious appraisal of me as a leader. the other felt their appraisal as a middle leader was not viewed as important: the importance seems to be from middle management down, not middle management up. rather than addressing both purposes of appraisal, a tick-box, compliance approach has resulted in the practice being perceived as undervalued and ineffective. this research emphasises the need for principals to develop and implement appraisal policy and practice that specifically targets middle leaders. building a school culture of improvement where professional conversations are formalised, alongside provision for middle leadership development, will lead middle leaders to feeling valued, developed, and empowered. leadership development of middle leaders bassett’s (2012) research set out to examine middle leadership development practices in five secondary schools by examining the perspectives of eight members of the boards of trustees, senior leaders, and middle leaders. for the purpose of this study, middle leaders were defined as subject heads, heads of departments, and heads of faculties. because only one research instrument was used, the sample needed to be large enough to provide valid data. a qualitative online questionnaire was sent to 145 school leaders, and 60 questionnaires were returned (eight from boards of trustees’ members, 15 from senior leaders and 37 from middle leaders), providing an overall response rate of 41 percent. respondents were asked their views about the role and challenges of middle leadership in their schools, and the purpose and provision of middle leadership development. findings reveal middle leaders are expected to perform an extensive range of leadership functions, including leading the curriculum, developing staff in their teams, and implementing school-wide goals. furthermore, most respondents at all levels emphasised the goal of improving student results. however, nearly half of the middle leaders in this study did not feel supported or adequately trained to carry out their role. their frustration was expressed in comments such as: there is an expectation that you know how to do it all and are able to cope regardless of training. bassett, m., robson, j. 24 it seems expected that you know what you are doing and often terms like ‘sink or swim’ and ‘trial by fire’ are used when talking about going into leadership roles. despite middle leaders’ perceptions that they were not well supported, most respondents had participated in some form of leadership development in their current school. this contradiction of perspectives may be explained by the way leadership development is conceptualised in schools. the majority of respondents in this study expressed the need for specific, contextualised, and supported middle leadership development to enable middle leaders to face the challenges of their role. it’s possible that the leadership development received by these middle leaders did not fit their definition of leadership development and, consequently, they felt they had not been developed. this clearly highlights the need for a specific leadership development programme that is contextualised and relevant to each middle leader. in the absence of a national middle leadership programme, the responsibility falls to senior leaders to implement formal, planned leadership development for middle leaders to ensure they have the capability and capacity to undertake their complex role. evidence suggests this is not happening in many schools. therefore, the quest for a leadership programme that is specifically designed for middle leaders is urgent. an online programme would provide accessibility and ubiquity. the quest for appraisal and leadership development of middle leaders online although the robson (2012) and bassett (2012) studies were conducted in 2012, the perception of a crisis in the middle remains. the oecd report (schleicher, 2011), recent education review office reports (2014), and the ppta (2015) working paper reiterates the need for robust school improvement measures that include appraisal and effective leadership development. the continuing lack of leadership development programmes that specifically target middle leaders creates a sense of urgency for equipping middle leaders with the skills they need to enact the ever-increasing demands of their leadership roles. an online middle leadership programme could locate effective leadership development in the practice of meaningful appraisal, to ensure middle leaders are valued and empowered to carry out their role. for a leadership development programme to be successful (whether it be online, in-school, or with a tertiary provider), it must be underpinned by key principles. significant aotearoa new zealand research (timperley, wilson, barrar, & fung, 2007), identified seven effective contexts for promoting professional development. these are: an extended period of time to engage in learning opportunities; access to external expertise to provide support and challenge; engagement with learning opportunities; a challenge to prevailing discourses in order to surface underlying assumptions; an opportunity to participate in a professional community of practice; informed by, and consistent with current research findings; and active support from school leaders. the conception of an online middle leadership programme takes heed of this research, and acknowledges the potential challenges of working in an online environment. regardless of how much time and effort goes into planning and creating a programme, martin (2009) suggests that there can be challenges in gaining interest and tapping into the participants’ intrinsic motivation. he suggests that the lack of face-to-face contact, teacher presence, and technical support are partly to blame for this, alongside the learners’ lack of experience in an online learning environment, and their ability to be self-regulating. on the other hand, nichols (2016) found that learners are capable of, and willing to, engage in an online learning environment with no significant negative effect on their learning. however, in terms of benefits, an online programme provides ubiquity, connectedness, and flexibility, regardless of geographical location, size of organisation, and so forth. such a programme has the potential to journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(2) 25 address the challenge of lack of time identified by middle leaders because it could enable leaders to participate anytime, anywhere, in their own context. when crafting an online learning experience, the capability of the participant and the role of the facilitator both need to considered. to ensure a high quality programme which is responsive and empowers its leaders, it is essential to have an awareness of how to develop and nurture social presence, engagement, and retention online. gedera, williams, and wright (2015) assert that “motivation can be a prerequisite for learner engagement. . . . student motivation and engagement are closely related elements of student learning that can have an impact on learning outcomes” (p. 14). a professional inquiry presented at the distance education of new zealand (deanz)1 conference by mclaren, robson, and whiting (2016), explored the steps taken by facilitators to engage with both the learning design team and the participants. these steps involved ongoing technical support; building meaningful relationships; and evaluating activity logs to ensure participants were connected, involved and working collaboratively to foster an engaging, vibrant learning culture. as a result, retention rates and completion numbers were higher than for the equivalent course from the previous year. consideration of these factors in both the design and facilitation of an online middle leadership programme would therefore contribute to empowering middle leader participants to be engaged and supported. an online programme we propose an online middle leadership programme of four modules, providing participants with adequate time to engage in a series of iterative learning cycles in which they examine their own assumptions about leadership. the modules will explore four key areas: self, team, organisation, and community. 1. self will focus on participants’ leadership roles and their perspectives of leadership, how they relate to others, their place in their organisation, and how their views compare with current leadership research. 2. team will encourage participants to critically examine their roles as leaders of their teams, and consider the part they play in creating a positive culture for teaching, learning and leading effectively. 3. organisation will examine the wider organisational issues in which middle leaders contribute. participants will explore middle leadership through a strategic lens so they can step back from their immediate context to consider the bigger picture. 4. community encourages participants to evaluate their place in the larger professional community of school leaders. according to bush (2010) there is an “increasing recognition of the importance of culture and context in designing leadership development programmes” (p. 115). by undertaking the four modules as outlined, middle leaders will be equipped to explore not only their own context and culture, but that of their school and their wider learning community. the four modules: self, team, organisation, and community will be designed to support the professional learning of each participant by being responsive, inclusive and contextually relevant. a combination of interactive webinars, provocations, online discussion forums, and curated resources will challenge middle leaders and provide them with a supportive middle leadership development programme. middle leaders may also wish to undertake individual mentoring. in an online environment, participants will have access to a field of expert facilitators and lecturers, and have authentic opportunities to forge connections with communities of leaders across aotearoa new zealand. 1 deanz is now the flexible learning association of new zealand. the name change was ratified at this conference in 2016. bassett, m., robson, j. 26 a learning framework drawing on van velsor and mccauley’s (2004) model of leadership development, a learning framework has been adopted. this comprises three elements: 1. assessment—the analysis of data to identify gaps between capacity and performance. 2. challenge—the range of experiences leaders engage with that take them out of their comfort zone and encourage them to question their own practice. 3. support—the people who provide reassurance, coping strategies, and an attentive ear to leaders undergoing difficult experiences. these three elements provide a suitable framework in which to locate middle leadership activities. in each module participants will undertake an assessment of their current capabilities to identify gaps in their knowledge and practice. the challenges will be part of an ongoing, rigorous, and robust middle leader inquiry. the purpose of inquiry is not to prove, but to improve, practice, and this will be no exception. as timperley, kaser, and halbert (2014) state: “innovation floats on a sea of inquiry . . . and curiosity is a driver of change” (p. 3). in this context, participants are encouraged to inquire (with curiosity) into their own leadership practice, with a view to challenging their existing skill set, assumptions and capabilities. sinnema and robinson (2007) assert that an inquiry-based, reflective appraisal approach has a positive effect on teaching, leading, and learning. figure 1 conceptualises a model of middle leader inquiry. it situates an iterative cycle of middle leadership learning within a balanced strategic approach of appraisal and leadership development—the two towers—ultimately for improvement. figure 1 middle leader inquiry model journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(2) 27 by using a collaborative spiral of middle leader inquiry, participants will be empowered to improve their leadership practice by building on their learning, and so ultimately affecting teaching, leading, and learning outcomes. consequently, by focusing on the two towers of appraisal and leadership development, the online middle leadership programme aims to build middle leadership capability and capacity in schools, kura, and across communities of learning. conclusion middle leaders believe that, while their role is rewarding, it is both multifaceted and demanding. a balanced approach to middle leadership appraisal and development will ensure that, at the crux of the matter, there are improved student outcomes for all. the practice of leading from the middle is currently perceived as undervalued, undeveloped, and unprepared. middle leaders need to seek opportunities to ensure they are both held accountable and professionally developed. the proposed online middle leadership programme is the answer. until a national policy is implemented, the onus is on school leaders to realise the value of those leading in the middle. by providing an online middle leadership programme that is accessible, ongoing, contextually relevant, and inclusive, middle leaders across aotearoa new zealand will be equipped with the knowledge, dispositions, and skills to inquire into their own practice, while being held accountable and, ultimately, developed specifically as a middle leader 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(2007). the leadership of teaching and learning: implications for teacher evaluation. leadership and policy in schools, 6(4), 319–343. timperley, h., kaser, l., & halbert, j. (2014). a framework for transforming learning in schools: innovation and the spiral of inquiry. melbourne: centre for strategic education. timperley, h., wilson, a., barrar, h., & fung, i. (2007). best evidence synthesis iterations (bes) on professional learning and development. wellington, nz: ministry of education. van velsor, e., & mccauley, c. d. (2004). our view of leadership development. in c. d. mccauley & e. van velsor (eds.), the center for creative leadership handbook of leadership development (pp. 1–25). san francisco: jossey-bass. wise, c., & bennett, n. (2003). the future role of middle leaders in secondary schools: a survey of middle leaders in england. retrieved from http://dera.ioe.ac.uk/4935/1/the-future-role-ofmiddle-leaders-in-secondary-schools.pdf wylie, c. 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(2013). secondary schools in 2012: main findings from the nzcer national survey. wellington. nzcer. biographical notes martin bassett mbassett@unitec.ac.nz martin bassett is academic leader of postgraduate educational leadership and management programmes at unitec institute of technology. martin has many years of teaching and leadership experience, both in pastoral and curriculum areas, across a number of new zealand secondary schools. his current research interests include the professional development of middle leaders. joanne robson joanne.robson@core-ed.ac.nz joanne robson is a consultant at core education. she has extensive experience as an educator and leader, and now works with schools, leaders, and practitioners to empower change and provide ongoing professional learning support. joanne is passionate about future-focused education, developing the capabilities of middle leaders and, collectively, ensuring we prepare our learners for their future. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. bassett, m., & robson, j. (2017). the two towers: the quest for appraisal and leadership development of middle leaders online. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(2), [20–30.]. microsoft word alexander bennett.docx alexander-bennett, c. 24 keynote: farnet ten years on—the past, present, and future for distance learners carolyn alexander-bennett, farnet abstract this think piece by carolyn alexander-bennett is a reflection of her keynote speech at deanz2016 conference, which was held from 17–20th april at the university of waikato, new zealand. in her speech carolyn revisits the issues, developments, and technology trends that led to the birth of farnet (an online cluster of schools catering for the teaching and learning needs of rural secondary schools located in the far north of new zealand). farnet eventually became part of the wider new zealand virtual learning network community (nzvlnc). adopting a strong māori cultural underpinning in her role as e-principal of farnet and a founding member of the nzvlnc, carolyn describes current developments in farnet and how the work at farnet is informed by two key perspectives—davis’s (2013) ‘arena of change’ and fullan’s (2015) new pedagogies for deep learning (npdl). she then outlines the opportunities and challenges offered through online and digital technologies to support teachers and learners in farnet and the vlnc, and encourages the wider educational community to partner in their work to ensure the equity and success of future online school students. keywords: online learning; virtual schooling; vlnc; distance education; e-learning introduction for those of us who commenced our teaching journey in the last century, it is important to remember where we came from and what is important to us, and to possess the courage to revisit that place where we first became passionate about our teaching. identifying why we took up teaching is also important for teachers who trained in this century. although we are in the 16th year of the 21st century, many new zealand schools are still struggling to identify and develop the skills and knowledge that learners need for the future. after 30 years of teaching in the mainstream schooling system i realise i didn’t become passionate about teaching—to the extent i am now—until 10 years ago. before that, like many others of my age, i entered teaching because i was inspired by one of my own teachers and was told it would be a good profession to have when i had a family. so teaching was a means to an end. however, i recall the day the fire in my belly was lit for online learning—the day i realised we could do things differently, and do them better, for our students in our rural schools. in 2004, when i was first introduced to video conferencing, i immediately saw the future potential for our students. back then i had the opportunity to return to my old school in a leadership position, which was both life changing and challenging. i was forced to become familiar with my own cultural identity and realised the barriers that many of our rural schools, learners, and communities were facing. i learnt quickly the importance of who we are, where we come from, the journeys we have travelled, and the need to consider the future. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 25 i also learnt the importance and significance of taking the time to learn about not only our own cultural identity but also the cultural identity and journeys of those we work with and are entrusted to teach. as the e-principal of farnet and a founding member of the new zealand virtual learning network community (nzvlnc), it was key for me to reflect on how we emerged as a community, the purpose of our community, and our current and future journeys. the vcln was an early adopter of digital tools to deliver online learning in new zealand, and is often referred to as the pioneer in delivery of online teaching by video conferencing to rural communities, which was a significant shift from the traditional correspondence model of teaching. this said, pedagogy—rather than the tool—must be the driver for any change. niki davis’s (2013) “arena of change”, for example, describes how educational organisations’ ecosystems change and become more complex to impact on stakeholders, partner institutions, community, and whanau1 with the introduction of digital technologies in education. at the heart of this, the change must be underpinned by a sound view of teaching and learning and considerations for the new opportunities that technologies can offer. davis (2013) also suggests that the leader of an educational organisation needs to have a bird’s-eye view of the organisation to observe the change theories relevant to innovations with digital technologies in education and training. fullan (2015), for example, introduced us to new pedagogies for deep learning (npdl), which challenge online teachers to seek more engaging and effective ways to harness digital technologies in supporting learners to acquire deeper understanding. as more and more educators realise that they cannot continue to teach in the same way, using the same tools, there is an imperative to consider innovative ways to share the professional capital in schools. new zealand is currently experiencing a crisis in the teaching profession, due not only to the average age of teachers being 55 and their planned retirement, but also because there is a dearth of specialist teachers in science and mathematics graduating from university. one outcome of this shortage is that schools prepare fewer students to enter universities in those subject areas. eventually this results in evenfewer qualified teachers. access to digital technologies makes it easier for universities and other institutions to support learners and teachers in rural schools through networks such as farnet. our farnet context and the power of relationships māori, the indigenous people of aotearoa new zealand, are highly represented among our online students in farnet. the research informs us that what works for māori will work for all learners, although the reverse is not always true: what may work for non-māori learners, does not always work for māori (bennett & barbour, 2013; bishop & berryman, 2005). so in our practices, cultural responsiveness takes precedence over rushing into the content and curriculum. the cultural concept of whakapapa2 is important in māori culture. in māori culture everyone can trace their heritage. bishop and berryman’s (2005) findings from the te kotahitanga project show the importance of relationships—relationships between teachers, their students, and their whanau—and the relationships between students and their peers in an online environment. once these relationships are formed, learning can take place in a way that is conducive to learners. farnet can trace its own whakapapa back 16 years, when it began in isolated schools in tai tokerau (northland, which is the region at the northern tip of the north island) that were connected through a project which aimed to improve their telecommunications and videoconferencing facilities. established in 2001, farnet was one of the digital opportunities projects that were set up as partnerships between government and leading information and 1 an extended family or a community of related families living in the same area. 2 whakapapa is genealogy, the links and connections between people and their relationships over time. alexander-bennett, c. 26 communication technology (ict) companies to bridge the digital divide. following that project, farnet was supported by a ministry of education innovative fund. nine schools in the far north were each provided with a dedicated set of video-conferencing equipment that is still operational and continues to work alongside other platforms providing web-based video conferencing. a community will only work in a high-trust environment, and a high-trust model is the “glue” that enables the farnet model to work. at the start of classes, discourse will take place between the class members, and the kaupapa3 will be set by the community, for the community. the teacher initially takes the role of the moderator in the conversations but moves eventually to privileging students’ voices. our teaching practices in farnet show that when students have a voice in the way their classroom operates, they respect and value the opportunity. farnet today by the end of the final farnet project funding in 2006, the ministry of education had recognised the need to support a fully funded full-time leader to manage each online cluster— a strategy that had been successful for two years for farnet. since 2006, farnet has grown from 9 to 25 schools, which have used their operational budgets to continue to support the cluster to have a full-time leader. the business model therefore has a sustainable economy of scale. a national movement, which includes farnet, has emerged. called the new zealand virtual learning network community (nzvlnc), this network became a charitable trust in 2008. it consists of clusters of schools that include online in their offerings—members include farnet, harbournet, volcanics, bay link, welcom, and a small cluster from the wellington loop. two other clusters, netnz and vln primary, also work with the vlnc. through collaboration, cooperation, and a great deal of goodwill, the vlnc share their human and institutional resources. as a result, learners from all over rural new zealand (and, more recently, urban and city schools) are learning together through a range of video-conference platforms and online digital tools. each learner has access to the best of our teaching profession and is no longer isolated or alienated by having to work alone in a subject where they may be the only student at their school studying that course. learners can also collaborate and interact synchronously and asynchronously with their teacher and fellow class members. no longer must these learners choose between subjects with conflicting timetables, or enrol with the nationwide correspondence school te aho o te kura pounamu.4 in the past, if there were insufficient numbers to run a class or a school didn’t have a specialist teacher in that subject, students’ choices were limited. now most subjects are available through the vlnc in clusters such as farnet. learners from across the country can link for an hour a week to a video conference with other learners and a teacher, and they have easy access to a wide range of learning resources throughout the week. through farnet, students get regular teacher feedback and opportunities to discuss their learning with their teachers and peers. this online mode of delivery has made learning more student-centric. the teacher often becomes a learner alongside their students and is also a mentor, problem-solver, and support person (bennett & barbour, 2013; jeurissen, 2015). teaching and learning equity in these rural communities, distance learning through farnet has provided opportunities for students to remain at their own schools, in their own communities, with the support of their own families, to study an extensive range of curriculum subjects delivered by passionate teachers outside the four walls of their classrooms and school. online learning provides equity; having the choice of living and learning where and when they want and with whom. having ultra-fast 3 a set of values, principles and plans that people have agreed on as a foundation for their actions. 4 see http://www.tekura.school.nz/ journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 27 broadband across a network managed by the ministry of education has thrown a lifeline to many rural schools. students no longer need to struggle to use devices and digital tools. by using farnet, rural schools can maintain a sustainable school population without threat of closure. specialist teachers can continue to teach the subject they are passionate about, and share their expertise with a number of schools. the impact for these teachers is often huge; in the past, many teachers left smaller rural schools to teach their subjects. we recognise that learning online does not suit all learners and that using digital tools is not easy for some teachers. although students learn quickly that they need to manage their own learning (a core skill in new zealand), some students prefer to be ‘spoon-fed’. however, we know that we are heading for a complete transformation in education for the digital age, and those teachers and learners may need a little more coaxing and pastoral care to move forward. the vlnc model: a moral purpose according to barber and fullan (2005), moral purpose in education involves the commitment of stakeholders to raise the bar and close the gap in student achievement. educators need to be prepared to not just look outside the box, but to “bend the straight line”. leading with a moral purpose entails being committed to making a difference in the lives and outcomes of students as a result of their experiences at school. the model used by the vlnc exemplifies the moral purpose among our member schools and clusters. the initial experience of teaching a course online, even for our most experienced classroom teachers, is said to be similar to the experience of a first-year teacher. everything is so new: the technology, the online pedagogy, the digital tools, seeing the class only once a week, the close relationships that need to be built between teacher and students, the need to incorporate more student-centred approaches in their teaching… the list goes on. however, the challenges of becoming an online teacher have recharged many of the older teachers in our schools who might have otherwise left teaching a long time ago. these challenges have provided extensive professional learning for them and their colleagues. the benefits of teaching online appear to outweigh the disadvantages as there are very few online teachers who stop teaching this way. with an increasing range of digital technologies at our fingertips, learners and teachers can join the online class from anywhere. we no longer face the financial barrier of expensive hardware preventing schools from engaging with online learning through the vlnc. this moral purpose supports our teachers to commit to the best of their practice to bring about the best of learning outcomes from their learners. davis’s arena of change niki davis (2013) suggests that leaders need to take a bird’s-eye view of the organisation to observe the changes and apply theories that are relevant to innovations with digital technologies in education and training. this perspective has been very important for each of the existing online clusters. the technology changes rapidly and, as a community, we need to continually be aware of these changes—but not rush into changing practices and pedagogies just because they are the latest tools or apps. learners must always be central to the ecosystems, and meeting their needs is paramount. any changes need to be made and adopted with students’ needs in mind. drawing from davis’s (2013) arena of change, farnet’s leaders were able to identify the huge changes that have occurred since farnet’s establishment, and appreciate the complexities of what was initially a simple arrangement for 10 schools, supported by the ministry of education, to work together. now a successful self-funded initiative for this school cluster and the wider nationwide networks, the vlnc is auditing its ecosystem to accommodate the future growth of online learning and to ensure that it remains relevant to learners and online communities. alexander-bennett, c. 28 new pedagogies for deep learning michael fullan, a key person in the npdl consortium,5 believes that there are currently powerful push–pull factors in schooling. the push factor is that school is increasingly boring for students, and alienating for teachers. the pull factor is the potentially motivational and engaging aspects of digital technologies. fullan believes the push–pull dynamic makes disruptive changes inevitable. the npdl six cs (listed below) are the most important critical competencies needed by 21st century learners, regardless of where they live. the npdl invites international partnerships, and farnet is one of these through its fund-holder school, bream bay college. farnet has adopted the six cs, which are: 1. character: building resilience, empathy, confidence and wellbeing 2. citizenship: global knowledge, cultural respect, environmental awareness 3. communication: getting students to apply their oral work, listening, writing, reading in varied contexts 4. critical thinking: designing and managing projects which address specific problems and arrive at solutions using appropriate and diverse tools 5. collaboration: working in teams so students can learn with/from others 6. creativity and imagination: developing qualities including enterprise, leadership, innovation. (fullan, 2013) where to next? if, 10 years ago, i had tried to predict what online learning would look like, i would have been right about some areas but not others. the technologies are now far more sophisticated and easier to use than anyone could have imagined. perhaps, as a community, the vlnc has operated under the radar for too long and it is time for us to let everyone know who we are, what we do, and what we have achieved. whether we kept a low profile because we were pioneers and wanted to get our practices and processes right before we shared them with the world, or because we operated with limited human and financial resources, we simply met the needs of our existing communities who understand and appreciate what we do. perhaps it’s because that’s who we are—a group of schools finding a solution to a local problem and learning to fix the problem ourselves. in the past we have been called a ‘cottage industry’ which is true in that we started by meeting the needs of our regions, but we have now turned into a national community through the vlnc. the downside of keeping under the radar and not sharing our successes has its disadvantages. for example, although farnet clearly operates as one of the new zealand ministry of education’s communities of learning because we collaborate among our member schools and with other communities of learning, we are not able to access the funding that accompanies the ministry’s current model. however, the farnet leadership sees a very bright future in harnessing the digital technologies that are available, and continuing to provide great educational opportunities for our learners. although the ministry of education has played a big part in funding and supporting our development thus far, and continues to provide some of the services through the videoconferencing bridge (to ensure all schools are connected) we hope we will also be recognised for our part in providing a digitally based education service. the ministry of education has recently announced changes that will allow school-aged students to enrol in full-time or supplementary online study with an accredited online learning provider as a “community of online learning” 5 see http://npdl.global/making-it-happen/tools-and-processes/ journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 29 (cool) instead of attending school in person (jones, 2016). we know that we have a role to play in preparing schools to work online. wenmoth (2016), for example, has blogged about the potential for such online learning in new zealand6 and our vlnc leaders have been invited to engage with the ministry of education team responsible for setting up the cools. this is a very positive sign that the ministry wishes to build on the work we have been doing in this online space. farnet is very fortunate to have partnerships with some universities that recognise that we are worthy of financial investment. these institutions have included farnet in a number of projects, giving our learners and teachers access to online resources that will help to address the shortage of students enrolling in university stem subjects.7 such innovative partnerships are based on the strong networks and technologies already being used in our schools. further to this, other universities have offered online learning through the vlnc for many years. this strategy helps learners to build a relationship with the university, and often results in the student enrolling as an undergraduate. implications for the future: what can we contribute to the journey ahead? students who have studied online while at school can be better equipped to manage their own learning and transfer their online learning competencies to meet the demands of the workplace or further study. before the announcement of the cools, the vlnc clusters were approached by a number of schools that were dissatisfied with traditional models of distance learning. with cools on the horizon, do we need to stand guard against overseas providers that could flood the online space, offering courses online that are not based on the new zealand curriculum, and have non-new zealand registered teachers? all teachers need to reflect on how they deliver content to their learners and the best way is to identify which of the technologies best meets the needs of those learners. learners must remain central to schooling. learners’ needs don’t often change; they are one of the few constants in our ecosystems. what does change are the skills they need for an increasingly uncertain and complex future. as the educational, social, political, and economic landscape continues to change, educational leaders continue to reflect on our practices and modify them to meet those needs. this means we also become learners and are mindful that individuals have differing learning needs. although we don’t have a magic bullet, farnet continues to look for ways that best engage our online students and raise their achievements through online environments. as the concept of the cools is further discussed and planned, the vlnc recognises that we play an important part in the discussion and have much to offer. the traditional african proverb, “it takes a village to raise a child” has been widely quoted in education, but in our connected world, in which some schools don’t have enough specialist classroom teachers to offer the full curriculum, we need to take responsibility for educating all of our learners—not just those within the walls of our brick-and-mortar schools. note: the video recording of carolyn’s keynote speech given during the deanz2016 conference on 20th april 2016 is available at http://bit.ly/2e8yfso 6 see derek’s blog, http://blog.core-ed.org/derek 7 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics alexander-bennett, c. 30 references bennett, c., & barbour, m. k. (2013). the farnet journey: perceptions of māori students engaged in secondary online learning. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 17(1), 83–98. barber, m., & fullan, m. (2005). tri-level development: it’s the system. education week, 24(25), 32–35. bishop, r., & berryman, m. (2005). te kotahitanga: improving the educational achievement of māori students in mainstream schools. wellington, new zealand: ministry of education. davis, n. e. (2013). niki davis introduces the “arena of change”. retrieved from http://wikieducator.org/change_with_digital_technologies_in_education/arena_of_change/vi deo_signposthttp://wikieducator.org/change_with_digital_technologies_in_education/arena_ of_change/video_signpost davis, n. e., eickelmann, b., & zaka, p. (2013). restructuring of educational systems in the digital age from a co-evolutionary perspective. journal of computer assisted learning, 29(5), 438–450. fullan, m. (2013, spring). the new pedagogy: students and teachers as learning partners. learning landscapes, 6, 23–29. fullan, m. (2015). leadership from the middle: a system strategy. education canada, 55(4), 22–26. hargreaves, a., & fullan, m. (2013). the power of professional capital. journal of staff development, 34(3), 36–39. hargreaves, a., & fullan, m. (2012). professional capital: transforming teaching in every school. new york, ny: teachers college press. jones, n. (2016, august 23). students to learn online and skip school. new zealand herald. retrieved from http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11699382 jeurissen, m. (2015). learning te reo māori via online distance education: a case study. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(1), 45–62. wenmoth, d. (2016, august 25). schools, cools and kids. derek’s blog [blog post]. retrieved from http://blog.core-ed.org/derek/2016/08/schools-cools-and-kids.html biographical note carolyn alexander-bennett carolyn.bennett@farnet.school.nz carolyn has had 30 years’ experience in new zealand secondary education with over 20 years in senior leadership roles. she became the e-principal of farnet in 2006 following her role as deputy principal at northland college, kaikohe. she is an experienced online teacher, specialising in ncea accounting. she is also a member of the nz virtual learning network community, a member of the network for learning (n4l) advisory group, a member of the primary principals and teachers association ict committee (ppta), and is currently a member and president of the northland secondary school principals’ association (nsspa). journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 31 this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. alexander-bennett, c. (2016). keynote: farnet ten years on—the past, present, and future for distance learners. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2), [24–31]. microsoft word liu-clayton.docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning,20(2) 45 measuring technical vocational education and training (tvet) efficiency: developing a framework guimei liu, qingdao technical college john clayton, waikato institute of technology abstract the growing demand for an increasingly skilled competitive workforce and the associated demand for change and responsiveness in the provision of technical vocational education and training (tvet) has led to the development of stronger links between new zealand and the people’s republic of china. a collaborative model programme project aims to improve tvet provision in the two countries through curriculum re-design, joint programme development, and the delivery of quality new zealand qualifications in china. because there is there is often a gap or disconnect between policy intent and classroom reality, a critical activity of the model programme project aims to identify and measure when, how, and where this disconnect occurs. this paper identifies the performance indicators that are used to measure learner and institutional success, highlights the strategies used to evaluate the learning environments created, and reports on the development and validation of a userdriven, flexible, internet-based, learning environment instrument for use in multi-national tvet settings. it argues that this instrument provides model programme stakeholders with sufficient data to understand, economically and efficiently, the actual effect of change at the point of delivery. keywords: online learning; distance education; e-learning; distance learning; technologyenhanced learning; flexible learning; flexible delivery; open learning; open education; open educational resources; online support services context there is international acknowledgement that the ability of individuals, industry, and nations to meet the competitive challenges of an increasingly global economy is irrevocably bound to the tertiary vocational education and training (tvet) policies that have been implemented to establish an adaptable, highly-skilled and knowledgeable workforce (cheong & lee, 2016; alagaraja, kotamraju, & kim, 2014; maclean & lai, 2011; powell & solga, 2010). it is also acknowledged that these standards cannot be raised in national isolation. participants in vocational programmes and further training need to have opportunities to transfer seamlessly between learning environments (including national and international educational institutions) to improve their employability and quality of life (spöttl, 2013). in this context, the people’s republic of china and new zealand are collaborating on initiatives for workforce development for, firstly, an ongoing extension of the workplace skills and abilities of employees and trainees and, secondly, a review of formal tvet courses and programmes (clayton, 2015; hutchings, zhu, cooper, zhang, & shao, 2009). in 2010, new zealand and the people’s republic of china began investigating strategies to develop stronger links between the two countries with the aim of developing the capabilities and liu, g., clayton, j. 46 capacities of tvet teaching staff, and to support stronger institutional relationships in tvet programmes. at the same time, china’s changing attitude towards vocational training, the establishment of exemplary tvet institutions to demonstrate best practice in tvet education (model polytechnics) and a broader recognition that vocational study was an acceptable educational outcome, opened up partnership opportunities between the new zealand institutes of technology and polytechnics and the people’s republic of china model polytechnics (ministry of education of the people’s republic of china and the new zealand ministry of education [moe prc/nz], 2015). the new zealand–china vocational education and training model programme (known as “the model programme”) was agreed to as a commitment in the strategic education partnership arrangement, which was signed during prime minister john key’s visit to beijing in 2013. since then, tvet institutions in new zealand and the people’s republic of china have actively collaborated to learn from each other’s experiences. this collaboration includes curriculum design, joint programme developments, and the delivery of quality new zealand qualifications in china (moe prc/nz, 2015). in periods of educational change and reform it has been noted there is often a gap, a disconnect, between policy-makers’ stated intentions and the actual experience of the learners when that policy is implemented (ng, 2008). in other words, there is a gap between policy rhetoric and classroom reality (atai& mazlum, 2013). for example, transnational agreements between people’s republic of china and english educational institutions promised economic efficiencies and large learner cohorts. however, these efficiencies and student numbers were affected by declining numbers of school leavers, expanding provision in the people’s republic of china, and competition from other international providers (zhuang & amelia, 2012). multi-nation initiatives such as the model programme project therefore have the potential for a disconnect between what is intended and what is experienced. this paper identifies techniques and strategies to manage any such disconnect. firstly it reviews the performance indicators commonly used to measure learner and institutional success; secondly, it describes a framework measure performance in tvet learning environments; and finally, it describes the development and validation of an instrument that is aligned with the framework to achieve the purposes of the model programme. framework for measuring performance measures of performance play a dual role in educational environments. firstly, they are used to assess whether the initiatives implemented meet the desired indicators or outcomes (asif & searcy, 2014). secondly, they are used to examine processes and foster an environment of continuous improvement (al-turki & duffuaa, 2003). measuring outcomes measuring outcomes (the performance of the proposed changes on actual learner success) is generally achieved with standardised performance indicators. for the model programme project, it was decided to use established new zealand tertiary education commission indicators. these include: • successful completion of courses: this indicator shows the proportion of courses in a given year that are successfully completed. courses are usually parts of qualifications and are sometimes referred to as ‘papers’. • completion of qualifications: this indicator shows the proportion of students in a given year who complete a qualification. it provides a good indication of how successful tertiary providers are in helping their students to complete qualifications. journal of open, flexible and distance learning,20(2) 47 • student progression to higher level study: this indicator shows the proportion of students in a given year who progress to study at a higher level after completing a qualification at levels 1–4. it shows how tertiary providers help successful students move to higher levels of tertiary education. • students retained in study: this indicator shows the proportion of students in a given year that complete a qualification or re-enrol at the same tertiary provider in the following year. (tertiary education commission, 2016). using these established measures allows the managers of model programmes to identify any disconnect between policy intention and reality, highlight areas that need to be addressed and, importantly, benchmark the success of their newly designed curricula against traditional, established new zealand programmes. measuring process measuring process—the intended versus actual classroom experience of learners—is more complex and challenging. a number of factors (e.g., the tutor, the learner, the classroom, the workbooks, and the assessments) need to be considered. in essence, the participants’ actual learning experience will be determined jointly by the individual and their environment (fraser, 1983). this approach, where indicators are not generated by the person or their environment separately (but rather by their fit or congruence with each other) is based on a person– environment fit (p–e fit) theory (edwards, caplan, & harrison, 1998). in educational settings, performance measures (referred to as learning environment instruments) have been created using p–e fit theory. these instruments are developed with the formula, b=f(p,e) where behaviour (b) is considered to be a function of (f), the person (p), and the environment (e) (clayton, 2009; fraser, 2001). for the model programme project it was decided that development of a tvetspecialised, internet-based, learning environment instrument to gather data on the perceptions of learners would provide the following benefits: • it enables programme designers to measure the actual impact of change at the point of delivery. • the data generated by the instruments enables stakeholders to identify potential reasons of misalignment during delivery. • early identification of specific gaps between intention and experience, and rhetoric and reality, means adjustments and refinements can be implemented during delivery. learning environment instruments can be used to explore the association between learner outcomes and the designed environment, investigate the differences between learners’ perceptions and tutors’ intentions, and determine whether learners are successful in environments that suit their preferences (koopman, teune, & beijaard, 2012; law, meyer, 2011). the feedback generated from the data can be used to guide changes to physical spaces, facilitate improvements in actual practice, and monitor the effectiveness of educational innovations (fraser, 2012). an instrument developed to investigate the learning environments created in tvet contexts through the model programme initiative would be a valued tool. this instrument is the focus of the next section. instrument development and delivery although the nature of the social environment or change that the psychosocial instruments might investigate can vary markedly, instrument developers take great care to ensure the instruments are soundly developed and rigorously tested (fraser, 2012). specifically, in the field of learning environment research, there is an accepted methodology for developing and validating liu, g., clayton, j. 48 instruments. first, researchers identify the salient dimensions and individual items that relate to the field of study. second, they ensure the individual dimensions and items adequately cover the three social climate dimensions identified by moos (i.e., relationship, system maintenance and system change, personal development) (moos,1976). finally, the instrument is field tested and validated (li, kong, & chen, 2015; walker & fraser, 2005). instrument development although these three stages have been identified, they are neither linear nor independent. indeed, the stages can be seen to be interwoven, interdependent, and overlapping. for example, it would be wise to refer to social climate dimensions when identifying salient scales, and field testing a draft instrument with a limited audience may be an integral part of individual item identification. to accommodate this integrated nature of instrument development, two research concepts— content and construct validity—are used. in content validation, researchers check against the relevant knowledge of the domain (in this study, this knowledge is tvet practices and techniques), and ensure all aspects pertinent to the domain are identified (lovrić et al., 2016). construct validity (the degree to which inferences can legitimately be made from the research) requires ensuring that the scales and items measure the construct identified (i.e., convergent validity), and that individual scales measure only a single construct (i.e., discriminant validity) (li et al., 2015; trochim, 2006). delivery the ready availability of cloud-based electronic databases and the development of intuitive user interfaces for these databases has enabled researchers with limited technical knowledge to generate web forms to collect responses from participants. these dynamic web forms connect with responsive databases, making it possible to centrally collect, store, manipulate, analyse and report the data generated from multi-nation sites (wright, 2005). the process of internet-based learning environment instrument development and administration is illustrated in fig. 1. figure 1 digital learning environment instrument procedures journal of open, flexible and distance learning,20(2) 49 planning and development of the instrument to measure performance in the model programme in the development of an internet-based learning environment instrument to investigate the effect of change driven by the model programme tvet initiative at the point of delivery, three key work-streams have been identified. work-stream 1 workstream 1 identifies salient dimensions and items relating to the changes in teaching and learning as a result of introducing the tvet model programmes. these changes may relate to the curriculum, assessment design, approaches to teaching and learning, moderation and evaluation, and engagement with industry. salient scales and items created are reviewed by all stakeholders of the environment to be investigated (managers, designers, teachers, and learners) and by external educational researchers to ensure the scales and items used are adequate, suitable, and relevant. work-stream 2 workstream 2 establishes a flexible digital instrument development platform, with an integrated database. this flexible platform is based on the concept of modular build, which allows stakeholders to create, from a specified library of validated scales and items, an instrument to investigate identified aspects of the environment. the creation engine and associated instructions are designed to ensure sufficient dimensions are included in all of the instruments used to interrogate the three general categories of socially constructed environments (i.e., personal growth; relationships; and systems, maintenance and change). this platform provides stakeholders with the functionality to design instruments to investigate specific changes to tvet, it allows them to make the instrument available to participants in multiple locations, and it creates a secure space for data to be gathered, securely stored, structured, retrieved, analysed, and compared. work-stream 3 workstream 3 covers field testing and analysis. stakeholders can: • review and comment on the scales and items • test the instrument generation and deployment environment • assist with piloting the internet-based instruments • review the efficiency of the databases • evaluate the validity of the process to identify the impact of change at point of need • validate the content and construct validity of the instruments. implementation two common strategies will be used to identify the salient scales and individual items that will be used to construct the tvet model programme provision instrument. first, guided by previously validated scales and relevant items, model programme designers from new zealand and the people’s republic of china will conduct an extensive literature review of current and emerging practices in tvet courses and programmes in both countries. second, this literature review will be enhanced by extensive engagement with tvet teaching specialists, tvet educational researchers, and past and present tvet learners to confirm current practice and emerging trends. these two strategies will ensure that the dimensions, scales, and individual items that tvet stakeholders regard as salient, are covered (fraser, 2012; walker & fraser, liu, g., clayton, j. 50 2005; fraser, 2001). it is anticipated five broad themes will influence the identification and selection of specific scales and items. these themes are: 1. learner–physical environment interaction (the extent to which the student feels comfortable and enjoys learning in the physical space provided) 2. learner–learner relationships (the extent to which students work together, know, help, support and are friendly to each other) 3. learner–tutor relationships (the extent to which the tutor guides students in their learning and provides sensitive, ongoing, and encouraging support) 4. learner–resource interaction (the extent to which class activities are clear, well organised, stimulating, and assist student comprehension) 5. learners’ reflection activities (the extent to which reflective activities are encouraged and how students enjoy learning and participating in this environment). when building a digital instrument development platform, all of these scales and their associated items will be arranged as assets or modules, in the appropriate social dimension categories, and in an interactive web form. these dynamic web forms will be designed with intuitive “what you see is what you get” (wysiwyg) software applications that are seamlessly integrated with an intuitive database (clayton, 2009). using these modular built web forms and integrated database software brings a number of advantages: • tvet learning environment instruments and associated databases can be created quickly and efficiently. • instruments can be made available immediately and across distributed locations. • some data-entry activities (which are often tedious) are eliminated, providing greater assurance that the data is free from common entry errors. • because there is no separate data-entry phase, tabled results are available for analysis immediately after the data collection phase. • the costs in terms of both time and money by presenting the instrument on the web are low, compared with costs associated with conventional surveying methods (liu & clayton, 2016; wright, 2005). during the field testing and analysis phase, a range of instruments will be developed and tested with a sample of the target population. this testing will ensure the instruments are economical in terms of the time needed for participant completion and stakeholder administration. the data generated during this phase will be reviewed and statistically analysed to determine the internal consistency and discriminant validity of each of the scales used (lovrić et al., 2016; li, kong, & chen, 2015; trochim, 2006). tentative conclusions about the effects of the change will be drawn from the data and provided to stakeholders for review and comment. all stakeholders participating in this field-testing phase will be asked to provide feedback on the efficiency and effectiveness of the instrument development platform, the data collected, and the reports generated. the project team has created a demonstrator environment to review the technical requirements and to confirm the processes to create the instruments. this demonstrator environment is within an established learning management system. it is based on an editable web form that has three sections: relationship, system maintenance and system change, and personal development. the web form uses standard questionnaire functionality, that enables a responsive database (i.e., one for each instrument) to be generated as the instrument is built. tentative scales and items, which are based on previous learning environment research, have been created as web assets and are aligned with the identified dimensions. these web assets can be added to the identified sections. journal of open, flexible and distance learning,20(2) 51 when each section contains at least one scale, the instrument can be published. the next phase of development is to work with tvet specialists to confirm scales and items. test pilot instruments will then be created and made available to tvet learners in the people’s republic of china and new zealand. discussion in responding to government demands for a highly skilled workforce, tvet institutions in new zealand and the people’s republic of china are actively collaborating to learn from each other’s experience. one of the outcomes of this collaboration will be to establish an infrastructure to design, develop, and deliver joint model programmes. to ensure the success of model programme provision, and to identify and address the potential disconnect between intention and reality, decision makers in both countries must have timely, reliable evidence on the impact of the model programme on learner and institutional achievement. they need to have the right information, at the right time, to make the right decisions. this paper argues for a framework— supported by measures of outcomes and process—for gathering this information. outcome measures outcome measures, which are based on established performance indicators, enable decision makers to benchmark the success of their newly designed curricula against traditional, established tvet programmes. however, because these quantitative measures focus on the outcomes achieved, they can be considered to be post-event indicators. although they identify a disconnect between intention and experience, the measures do not identify when this disconnect actually occurred. in essence, the data generated by outcome measures cannot adequately measure the details of the learning process or the impact of change in tvet provision on a participant’s engagement. process measures process measures acknowledge that both the environment and its interaction with personal, individual characteristics are potent determinants of human behaviour and, ultimately, success. learners form, and hold, persistent views on the tvet learning environment they engage with, and these established views affect the way they engage with the learning activities, materials, and assessments. identifying these views at the point of delivery provides researchers with “duringthe-event” indicators. these indicators help to identify when a disconnect occurs, and provide insights into how this disconnect can be addressed during delivery. developing a validated psychosocial instrument and measuring students’ perceptions of the effect of a specific model programme change on their learning at the point of delivery provides managers, designers, tutors, and learners with a consistent method of gathering, sharing, and analysing data. this consistency enables model programme partners to make informed decisions on the type and timing of the adjustments needed to ensure the change affects tvet provision in the manner intended. it appears logical that the features that are successfully explored in learning environment research (the perceptions of learners of the environment and the social and psychological factors) will be of equal importance to research in tvet environments. therefore, the development of an online perceptual measure investigating aspects of the tvet environments is timely, and can make a significant contribution to teaching, learning, and research in this area. liu, g., clayton, j. 52 four recommendations follow. 1. tvet educators who are developing joint courses for delivery should be careful to ensure participants (both learners and tutors) are comfortable in, and benefit from, the learning environment. the availability of an interactive modifiable tvet instrument, and speedy access to data generated by its application, will highlight the practices that assist learners and tutors to adjust to the changing environment, and those that create barriers to learning. 2. the availability of changeable web assets in the tvet instrument will enable researchers to target specific changes and economically monitor these changes for effectiveness. 3. validating the effectiveness of the instrument in two countries that have significant cultural differences will help to demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of the instrument across cultures and countries. 4. as the instrument progresses through validation procedures it could contribute significantly to the larger research field of learning environment studies and tvet provision. conclusion the growing need for a skilled competitive workforce, the demand for change and responsiveness in tvet provision, and the growing demand for continually upskilling a lifelong learning workforce are making vocational education and industry training increasingly viable, attractive, cost-effective, and valued. this continued growth of tvet provision needs to be matched by a similar growth in educational research that focuses on the specific learning environments created for these tvet worlds. the development, validation, and refinement of a framework that measures the efficiency of tvet provision will go some way to address these research needs. references alagaraja, m., kotamraju, p., & kim, s. (2014). a conceptual framework for examining hrd and nhrd linkages and outcomes. european journal of training and development, 38(4), 265. al-turki, u., & duffuaa, s. (2003). performance measures for academia departments. the international journal of educational management, 17(6), 330–338. asif, m., & searcy, c. (2014). a composite index for measuring performance in higher education institutions. the international journal of quality & reliability management, 31(9), 983. atai, m., & mazlum, f. (2013). english language teaching curriculum in iran: planning and practice. curriculum journal, 24(3), 389–411. cheong, k., & lee, k. (2016). malaysia’s education crisis: can tvet help? malaysian journal of economic studies, 53(1), 115–134. clayton, j. (2009). evaluating online learning environments: the development and validation of an online learning environment instrument. koln, germany: lambert academic. clayton, j. (2015, july 15). the new zealand–china vocational education and training model programme: research project report. tianjin: sino-nz model programme committee. journal of open, flexible and distance learning,20(2) 53 edwards, j. r., caplan, r. d., & harrison, r. v. (1998). person–environment fit theory: conceptual foundations, empirical evidence, and directions for future research. in c. l. cooper (ed.), theories of organizational stress (pp. 28–67). oxford: oxford university press. fraser, b. (2012). classroom learning environments: retrospect, context and prospect. in b. fraser, k. tobin, & c. mcrobbie (eds.), second international handbook of science education. netherlands: springer international. fraser, b. (2001). twenty thousand hours: editor’s introduction. learning environments research: an international journal, 4(1), 1–5. fraser, b. j. (1983). use of classroom environment instruments in person–environment fit research. canberra: australian education research and development committee, april 1983. hutchings, k. k., zhu, c. j., cooper, b. k., zhang, y., & shao, s. (2009). perceptions of the effectiveness of training and development of ‘grey-collar’ workers in the people’s republic of china. human resource development international, 12(3), 279–296. koopman, m., teune, p., & beijaard, d. (2012). how to investigate the information processing strategies of students in competence-based pre-vocational secondary education: selection of the right instrument. quality and quantity, 46(6), 1931–1946. law, d. c. s., & meyer, j. h. (2011). relationships between hong kong students’ perceptions of the learning environment and their learning patterns in post-secondary education. higher education, 62(1), 27–47. li, b, kong, s., & chen, g. (2015). development and validation of the smart classroom inventory. smart learning environments 2(3),1–18. liu, g., & clayton, j. (2016, april). developing instruments to measure perceptions of technical vocational education and training (tvet) model programme provision. in n. wright, there and back: charting flexible pathways in open, mobile and distance education. deanz conference proceedings, hamilton, waikato university. lovrić, r., piškorjanac, s., pekić, v., vujanić, j., ratković, k., luketić, s., … žvanut, b. (2016). translation and validation of the clinical learning environment, supervision and nurse teacher scale (cles + t) in croatian language. nurse education in practice, 19(july), 48–53. maclean, r., & lai, a. (2011). the future of technical and vocational education and training: global challenges and possibilities. international journal of training research, 9(1/2), 2–15. ministry of education of the people’s republic of china and the ministry of education of new zealand. (2015). work plan to operationalise the vocational education and training model programme in place between ministry of education of the people’s republic of china and the ministry of education of new zealand. retrieved from http://tvet.ac.nz/?page_id=1213 moos, r. h. (1976). the human context: environmental determinants of behaviour. new york: wiley-interscience. ng, p. t. (2008). education policy rhetoric and reality gap: a reflection. the international journal of educational management, 22(6), 595–602. powell, j. w., & solga, h. (2010). analyzing the nexus of higher education and vocational training in europe: a comparative-institutional framework. studies in higher education, 35(6), 705–721. liu, g., clayton, j. 54 spöttl, g. (2013). permeability between vet and higher education: a way of human resource development. european journal of training and development, 37(5), 454–471. tertiary education commission. (2016). what the indicators mean. tertiary education commission. retrieved from http://www.tec.govt.nz/learnersorganisations/learners/performance-in-tertiary-education/what-the-indicators-mean/ trochim, w. m. (2006). the research methods knowledge base [electronic version]. retrieved from http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/index.php. walker, s. l., & fraser, b. j. (2005). development and validation of an instrument for assessing distance education learning environments in higher education: the distance education learning environments survey (deles). learning environ research, 8(3), 289–308. wright, k. (2005). researching internet-based populations: advantages and disadvantages of online survey research, online questionnaire authoring software packages, and web survey services. journal of computer-mediated communication, 10(3), 00. zhuang, l., & amelia, x. t. (2012). sino–uk transnational education in china: rhetoric versus reality. journal of technology management in china, 7(2), 218–234. biographical notes guimei liu meiguiliu8888@163.com liu guimei is a lecturer in qingdao technical college, shandong province, p.r. china; she holds a bachelor degree of literature in english and business administration, a postgraduate diploma of economics in project management. she has also published 4 articles focusing on english language teaching, language assessment and student learning engagement. she obtained the third prize of shandong provincial informational teaching competition in 2015, and the third prize of national flipped class teaching competition in 2015. john clayton john.clayton@wintec.ac.nz at the time of writing this article, dr john clayton was the director of the professional and vocational education research facility at wintec. he continues his work in tvet and quality assurance as a research fellow for the sino-nz model programme project. in july 2016 john was appointed as the mark laws endowed chair at te whare wānanga o awanuiārangi. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. lui, g., & clayton, j. (2016). measuring technical vocational education and training (tvet) efficiency: developing a framework. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2), [45–54]. garrison, d. r., & anderson, t. (2003). e-learning in the 21st century: a framework for research and practice. london: routledge falmer (pp. 167). in e-learning in the 21st century, garrison and anderson have provided an excellent resource covering the impact of elearning on higher education and society. intended for researchers, practitioners, and senior administrators who may be looking at implementing or reviewing elearning in their institutions, this book has a sound research base and draws on the rich experience and enthusiasm of these two leaders in their field. in that respect i would also recommend this book as a text for graduate students who are working in the field of elearning. in their preface, garrison and anderson warn that elearning not only provides enormous opportunities-it also provides correspondingly high risks for higher education. their goal in this book is to examine the technological revolution in such a way that there is a clear framework for understanding the possibilities and applications for elearning. through their extensive research they are able to look behind the hype of these revolutionary technologies and not only address the pedagogical and organisational perspec­ tives, but give practical models and exemplars of good practice as well. the book is divided into two parts, initially looking at the conceptual framework around elearning followed reviews by a more practical application of the framework with the focus on a wide range of learning activities conducted through online electronic means. the link between elearning theory and the practice is one of the strengths of the book that i believe will set it apart from other publications in this area of distance education. the authors' notion of elearning as something driven by the needs of teachers and learners rather than the technology is most refreshing. this is not about solutions looking for problems to solve, but an emphasis on developing effective online teaching and learning cultures of inquiry. the authors are unashamedly enthusiastic about online learning and this positive energy comes through strongly in their writing. garrison and anderson highlight the importance of developing a critical community of teachers and learners using a constructivist collaborative approach. they believe that facilitating, constructing, and validating understand­ ing can develop capabilities that will lead to further learning. i liked the way they explore social presence, cognitive presence, and teacher presence with their optimistic view that "the role of the teacher will change-but for the better" (p. 65). this examination of teaching roles acknowledges its multifaceted nature and the need to be "a subject matter expert, an educational designer, a social facilitator, and a teacher" and how "the liberating frame of e-learning significantly alters journal of distance learning, vol 8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 50 how these responsibilities are fulfilled" (p. 65). this book does not disappoint the reader who is keen to know more and gives clear, authoritative information about what we will all need to be aware of as elearning administrators, researchers, and practitioners. i found this book provides particularly useful insights into assessment and evaluation, with chapter nine offering a good general overview of the topic. many people question how assessment for traditional learning is different to elearning and this is an aspect that could well have been explored a little further. if there is in fact little or no difference, then maybe this needs to be made clearer, but the suggestion is that elearning offers enhanced opportunities. the authors do highlight different modes of assessment provided by the online environment and this provides some models of good practice that teachers will find most useful. in the area of assessment and evaluation, one important issue that garrison and anderson raise is the reliability and validity of the content analysis of online discussion. while a lot is written in the elearning literature about the importance of assessment to encourage discussion participation, how this assessment takes place and the methods used for analysis are open to question. the methodological issues associated with the content analysis of online group discussion transcripts are explored in appendix b, a paper written with liam rourke and walter archer. this paper examined nineteen different computer-mediated communication content studies and raised issues that clearly need to be addressed as part of the online assess­ ment of class discussion participation. if you are looking for a book that will give you a good theoretical justification for the development and teaching of · online courses, then this book would be an excellent starter. it will show that elearning is not just another learning technology; it has the potential to enable those working in higher education to transform their teaching and learning. this is a book that should find wide acceptance from educators who are trying to meet the challenges of elearning in their institutions. nola campbell university of waikato hamilton, new zealand moore, m. g., & anderson, w. g. (2003). handbook of distance education. mahwah, new jersey: lawrence erlbaum associates (pp. xxiii, 872). this book has been sitting on my desk for a few weeks while i have been finding the time to write this review. during that time i have found myself dipping into it as a particular issue arose or when i have had to prepare a report for a meeting. so my initial thoughts are that it is useful to have a copy within easy reach. it is not a book that you will lose easily on your desk, as it is weighty (containing 872 pages divided into 7 parts with a total of 55 chapters) and in its dark grey cover with gold text it looks like an authoritative reference. i was more in danger of losing it to other people as they came into the office, took an interest, flicked through its pages, and wanted to borrow it. the seven parts, which cover just about the whole range of issues in distance journal of distance learning, vol 8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 51 education, are: historical and conceptual foundations; learning and learners; design and instruction; policies, administration, and management; differ­ ent audiences in distance education; the economics of distance education; international perspectives. the number of chapters varies in each part, with most having eight or nine but part six (economics) having only three. each author was asked to consider three common questions: (1) what is the current state of your special research area in contemporary distance education in america?; (2) what knowledge about this is based on empirical research evidence?; (3) what further research is needed in light of the changes that are occurring? part one takes us through a series of contributions that cover the history, theory, and philosophy of distance education. (contributors: farhad saba; von pittman; charles feasley; ellen bunker; don hanna; borje holmberg; otto peters; randy garrison, terry anderson, walter archer; terry anderson.) part two focuses on learning and learners and includes nine contributions with significant parts of them dealing with support for learners by institutions and instructors. (contributors: chere gibson; randy garrison; daniel granger, maureen bowman; robert curry, donald winiecki; kayleigh carabajal, deborah lapoints, charlotte gunawar­ dena; connie dillon, barbara green; michael hannafin, janette hill, kevin oliver, evan glazer, priya sharma; cheris kramarae.) part three, which is the one i mostly referred to, is on design and instruction. more than half of the chapters deal primarily with web-based or online instruction. (contributors: rick shearer; diane davis; alan chute; robert wisher, christine curnow; curt bonk, vanessa dennen; som naidu; richard hall, steve watkins, vicky eller; susan mcknight; morris sammons.) part four covers some important issues for both individuals and institutions, such as quality assurance, intellectual property, leadership, evaluation, global­ ization, equity, and access. (contributors: lucille pacey, erin keough; michael simonson, tamara bauck; amy kirle lezberg; annette sherry; peter dirr; tomas lipinski; ryan watkins, roger kaufman; michael beaudoin; andrew w oudstra, marco adria; linda wolcott; melody thompson, modupe irele.) the chapters in part five examine the role of distance education for diverse organisations in widely disparate corporations (the armed forces, community colleges, and high schools). (contributors: diana oblinger, sean rush; zane berge; kathy perdue; philip westfall; steven jones, larry blevins, wanda mally, james munroe; michael freeman; christine dalziel; tom clark.) part six is a short section that deals with the cost-effectiveness of different modes of distance education. it is kept as a separate part as it one of those perennial questions often ignored by practitioners. (contributors: greville rumble; insung jung; alistair inglis.) journal of distance learning, vol8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 52 part seven includes discussion on the effect of issues such as culture and globalisation, and how institutiohs such as unesco and the world bank are contributing to teaching and learning around the world. (contributors: robin mason; charlotte gunawardena, penne wilson, ana nolla; terry evans, daryl nation; jan visser; john daniel, wayne mackintosh; michael foley.) i have listed the contributors here as moore assures us, in the preface, that they are all authorities on their subjects. on this basis i would have liked to have seen a short biography of each contributor, as there is an assumption that everybody in distance education will know who they are. however, in the overview moore does give us some insight into the background of a number of the authors, as he has "worked to a greater or lesser extent with every one of them" (p. xi). despite the title it is really a handbook of american distance education, even though there are some non-us contributors. as moore states in the overview, this book grew out of suggestions to bring his earlier book, contemporary issues in american distance education, up-to-date. on scanning through the titles of the chapters, it is quickly seen that many deal with elearning and the use of the web. as expected there are a number of chapters that consider the uses of technology which is timely considering the high profile of this area. there is something for everyone in education, including those outside of distance education who are currently looking at distance educators to see how they manage the issues that they ·are facing by going online. to quote moore: if the present volume serves to temper some of the more impetuous enthusiasm and replace it with well-grounded understanding of the costs involved and of the need for substantial investment, training, reorganizing of administrations, monitoring and evaluation of learning, and support of learners-of the need, that is to say, for careful and long-term planning and development of new and different delivery systems-the authors jointly will have made an extremely valuable contribution. (p. x.,'<iii) these are definitely aims that we all should be working toward, and this text will certainly help to guide us on the way. moore makes much of the use of the book as a "source of enlightenment" (p. xi) for students, researchers, practitioners, and policymakers, so expect to see it cited many times in forthcoming articles. also, it recently received the charles e. wedemeyer award of the (united states) university continuing education association for the outstanding book of 2003. trevor billany massey university palmerston north, new zealand journal of distance learning, vol8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 53 reeves, t., & hedberg, j. (2003). interactive learning systems evaluation. englewood cliffs, new jersey: educational technology publications (pp. 297). the authors are passionate about the evaluation of interactive learning systems, believing they are an essential component of quality of learning systems. they have written this book in the hope that it will raise awareness and ensure effective evaluation procedures are undertaken. it is aimed at "project managers, instructional designers, and implementers of interactive learning systems" (p. 3) to help with decision­ making, the most important criteria in evaluation. i believe they have achieved their goal. about the authors professors thomas reeves and john hedberg are experts in the field of multimedia and education, with diverse academic experience and publications. what makes this book especially useful is that the authors conducted a number of evaluations for clients while writing it and used drafts as readings for their graduate students. i was one of those students. i found the information very useful while studying evaluation with hedberg, and have since found it extremely useful for educating staff at my institution about evaluation techniques. hence both practical experience and feedback from clients and students have shaped the book. the book is an easy­ to-read mix of theoretical information on evaluation, linked to practical examples and solutions for effective evaluation. each chapter has objectives listed at the start to alert the reader to what they can expect to gain from reading its contents. overall book organization to begin with the reader is introduced to a website that accompanies the book, where very useful templates of evaluation plans, sampling instruments, questio:rlnaires, checklists, sample eval­ uation reports, and much more can be found: http:/ /it.coe.uga.edu/ �treeves/ ilse.html. it is evident that the authors want to share their knowledge and spread the word about evaluation, and they provide the tools to encourage and help others do it well. this is more than just a book; it is also a how-to manual, but a very professionally written and theoretical manual that is well researched, and aligned with both historical and current practices in multimedia-based learning (i.e., including cd-rom and web-based delivery). there is a mix of theoretical and practical information, beginning with a definition of interactive learning systems, paradigms and models of inquiry, functions of evaluation and planning, and managing the evaluation process. the reader is then taken carefully and in great detail through the different types/functions of evaluation: review, needs assessment formative, effectiveness, impact, and maintenance evaluation. evaluation reporting and how to enhance evaluation through research complete the twelve chapters. the detail is always just right and always applied to real-life examples. for example, in chapter four, all stages of the actual evaluation plan used by reeves and hedberg for the evaluation they conducted on the science of amazon exploration interactive cd­ rom are presented, and there are very journal of distance learning, vol8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 54 realistic solutions for managing an evaluation project. the main theme throughout the book is that evaluation must drive decisions. the second theme is that the ultimate aim of using effective evaluation techniques is to produce interactive learning systems, albeit cd-rom or web-based, which provide educationally sound learning experiences for the intended audience. the message is that a professionally produced innovation is more likely to be marketable than a shoddy composition that has not been adequately tested and altered accordingly. chapter by chapter much of chapter one is devoted to interactive learning, and models of interactive learning are examined. the models of taylor and papert, proponents of computers as "tutor, tool, tutee" (p. 6), are discussed, and mention is made of the move toward communication­ mediated interaction as more effective learning tools. schank and cleary's five teaching architectures for interactive learning systems are critiqued in some detail and aligned to case examples of best practise multimedia, and mention is also made of other worthy examples (jasper woodbury and stagestruck). there is mention of learning theories and their relationship to interactive learning, and some detail about delivery methods used for interactive learning systems. all this sets the scene for best practice and what needs to be examined through evaluation. chapter two is devoted to inquiry paradigms and evaluation models, and the writing is refreshingly frank about the authors' preference of the "eclectic­ mixed methods-pragmatic paradigm" and their belief that several models of evaluation need to be used to obtain an effective evaluation. by the time readers have perused chapters three through five, they are well prepared to decide on the type of evaluation to be undertaken, have clear definitions of the six functions with hypothetical examples, and are equipped with a clear plan on how to go about it. throughout the book, the authors use tables and diagrams to illustrate concepts, models, sample questions, procedures, and steps in a process. this makes it easy to read and to flick back to for reference. i particularly like the way the hypothetical evaluation plan in chapter four is "chunked" in well-defined boxes of information. chapters five through ten are each devoted to one type of evaluation function (review, needs assessment, formative, effective­ ness, impact, and maintenance) and provide readers with practical ways to conduct each type, the reasons for it, questions to be asked, theories, sample tools and practical examples. for example, in the chapter on effectiveness evaluation, readers are introduced to implementation logs as a basis for interpreting system outcomes being measured. additionally, the chapter provides very useful information about the design and pedagogy associated with effective learning systems. penultimately, in chapter eleven, readers find out how their evaluation findings can be presented in an evaluation report. the requirements for each section of the report are described and supported with examples. we are given samples of decisions and the questions that need to be asked to make them, e.g., the decision, "what learning styles should be accommodated by the web-based journal of distance learning, vo!s, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 55 training (wbt) system?" is accompanied by questions such as, "what are the individual characteristics of the target audience?" and "what learning styles can be accommodated by the design of wbt?" (p. 251). finally, chapter twelve takes us on a journey looking at evaluation and research in educational technology, with recommendations for development research to be carried out rather than the basic and applied research which has dominated the field so far. it is not clear how development research differs from action research or if it does differ at all but has been renamed, and that would be the only criticism i have of the book conclusion i would highly recommend this book's use as a course text as well as a guide on how to conduct evaluations. it removes all excuses and provides the means for action regarding the evaluation of interactive learning systems. throughout, the authors are generous with their knowledge, and provide practical and user-friendly solutions and templates to get readers started on using effective evaluation techniques. this is a remarkable and very useful text and stands out on its own in the sea of how-to elearning texts that are swamping the market. make a wise decision, read it! bronwyn hegarty otago polytechnic dunedin, new zealand journal of distance learning, vol 8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 56 ·· .. ·.� journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(1) 1 editorial: open access—our golden route in academic publishing in an increasingly open world alison fields, associate editor, open polytechnic of new zealand niki davis, editor-in-chief, university of canterbury maggie hartnett, associate editor, massey university abstract open access (oa) publishing — that is, the immediate, online, free availability of research outputs without many of the restrictions imposed by traditional copyright agreements — is changing the landscape of scholarly publications. the journal of open, flexible and distance learning (jofdl) is well positioned in the changing world of publishing with its focus on making high-quality research in the asia–pacific region readily available to all. the recent inclusion of jofdl in the directory of open access journals highlights this commitment to accessibility. with that in mind, the three articles in this issue of jofdl explore the experiences of learners in three separate and distinct educational contexts in aotearoa new zealand. two of the articles are situated in the schooling sector, where research on students learning at a distance is urgently needed to inform the development of more equitable practice worldwide. the third paper explores student engagement at the tertiary level, continuing the theme from the 2014 deanz conference relating to the ‘e’ in engagement. using the article by jeurissen as a focus, the editorial highlights the role of open, flexible, and distance learning revitalising te reo māori, the new zealand indigenous language. the philosophy and methods of open access publishing are also discussed. keywords: open access; open learning; distance learning; open publishing; doaj; green and gold routes; te reo māori; indigenous language revitalisation introduction in this editorial we explore the world of open access (oa) publishing, and celebrate the journal of open, flexible and distance learning (jofdl)’s recent inclusion in the directory of open access journals (doaj). open access is at the heart of open, flexible, and distance learning because, as stated by swan and chan: open access provides the means to maximise the visibility, and thus the uptake and use, of research outputs. open access is the immediate, online, free availability of research outputs without the severe restrictions on use commonly imposed by publisher copyright agreements (swan & chan, 2009). the editorial continues our exploration of what makes jofdl such a distinctive international refereed journal, and further updates readers on our progress to increase access to this journal. the editorial team’s first two editorials summarised the ‘state of play’ of the journal after the 2013 journal review and the appointment of the new editorial team (davis, fields, & hartnett, fields, a., davis, n., & hartnett, m. 2 2014a) before valuing more open and equitable approaches to practice and research in this field (davis, fields, & hartnett, 2014b). the three original research articles in this issue also fit with our distinctive mission, which is aligned to that of deanz, our national association of open, flexible, and distance learning. the association’s byline is “making ako accessible for all: kia hora nga mahi ako ki te katoa”. (deanz, n.d.). we also situate the most urgently needed research on high school students’ perspective of their distance learning experience of indigenous language learning (te reo māori) in aotearoa new zealand. papers in this issue the three papers in this issue report on strategically important research for open, flexible, and distance learning globally, but particularly in our bi-cultural nation of aotearoa new zealand. the two articles situated in the schooling sector report research on students learning at a distance and highlight areas in which research is urgently needed to inform the development of more equitable practice worldwide. specific points noted are the need for a distance course to teach our endangered indigenous māori language for students in high schools, and the design of distance programmes for middle school students. the third paper provides an institutional perspective at the tertiary level. this continues the theme that emerged from the 2014 deanz conference theme of the ‘e’ in engagement, which has resulted in a very rich series of papers in this journal. the topic of maree jeurissen’s paper is, in the editor in chief’s opinion, so strategically important that we have taken space to highlight the context of indigenous language revitalisation and bring additional key new zealand literature to readers so they may appreciate why learning te reo māori via online distance education is so significant. we also learn of some developments since jeurissen gathered her evidence in 2012. but first, we introduce the other two papers. keryn pratt’s research into online postgraduate programmes offered by distance from her university department continues research to improve student retention and engagement that streamed out of the 2014 deanz conference. pratt applies simpson’s (2008) proactive motivational support model (pams) to inform our understanding. it is interesting to see how complementary her findings are to a paper, recently published in distance education, which uses narrative enquiry on australian students’ experience of similar virtual environments framed by pittaway’s engagement framework (o’shea, stone, & delahunty, 2015). these findings can be used to inform and improve teaching and learning strategies at course and programme levels in tertiary education, and they are probably also relevant to the schooling sector. the original research by nathaniel louwrens and maggie hartnett focuses on the experience of middle school students who study at a distance in aotearoa new zealand. through careful consideration of three dimensions of engagement (behavioural, cognitive and emotional) the authors clarify the importance of their findings to explain why courses that simply aim to deliver content and skills can fall far short of a good educational experience. the importance of both the design of online activities and the context in which engaged learning takes place are clarified in ways that will be recognised by teachers in schools and tertiary education. the current context for these 11–15 year old school students when learning online in a distance school setting is described in the next section. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(1) 3 open, flexible, and distance learning, and revitalisation of te reo māori most or all indigenous languages are increasingly endangered and, with them, we risk losing their cultures and ancestral knowledge. unesco, an agency of the united nations, clarified this fact on a web page that includes an interactive map of endangered languages: it is estimated that, if nothing is done, half of 6000 plus languages spoken today will disappear by the end of this century. with the disappearance of unwritten and undocumented languages, humanity would lose not only a cultural wealth but also important ancestral knowledge embedded, in particular, in indigenous languages. however, this process is neither inevitable nor irreversible: well-planned and implemented language policies can bolster the ongoing efforts of speaker communities to maintain or revitalize their mother tongues and pass them on to younger generations. (unesco, n.d.) te reo māori, the indigenous language of aotearoa new zealand, is one of these endangered languages. it is situated in the only nation in the world with a treaty (te tiriti o waitangi) that recognises the importance of enabling the indigenous people to live their own way, and promotes this for all of its peoples. the royal society of new zealand (2013) identified the nation as linguistically ‘super diverse’, while also having urgent language issues. the urgent need to pass language on to younger generations, plus the lack of speakers of these languages, indicates that open, flexible, and distance learning is likely to have an important role for the indigenous people of this country and others in the pacific region. for this reason it is important for this journal to correct a common misconception that indigenous people do not wish to adopt distance learning. in his keynote at the 2010 deanz conference, prominent māori scholar and leader professor sir mason durie drew our attention to the māori sports academy that depends on partnership with the nationwide te aho o te kura pounamu, previously known as the correspondence school (te kura tcs). based on oecd experience and emerging trends in the world of māori, he had also described four future scenarios of schooling, one of which depended on flexible and distance learning. because this keynote is little known and relatively inaccessible, we quote durie’s description in full. te hononga ipurangi suppose, in this scenario, that māori have embraced communication and information technology with enthusiasm. imagine also that by 2015 māori television has become a major player in educational television, has formed a partnership with te huarahi tika, the māori spectrum charitable trust, and also with cisco which has by now overtaken microsoft word as leaders in academic networking. together māori television, te huarahi tika and cisco will have created an environment where māori learners can be part of national and international networks for learning. the virtual classroom pioneered through kaupapa ara whakawhiti mātauranga, crs education and paerangi in the early 2000s will have become the norm. though students will still attend schools, most learning will be through the internet. being a small school will no longer prevent students from studying a wide range of subjects, including those where there is a national shortage of teachers. by then all teachers will have been required to obtain a first degree in ict and will be expert in helping students gain maximum benefit from worldwide networks. (durie, 2011, p. 135) jeurissen, as a teacher educator specialising in languages and pedagogies appropriate to learners with english as a second language (esl) in new zealand, is better placed than most to research and interpret the experience of those learners in english medium new zealand schools who enrol in online distance learning to gain qualifications in the language before leaving high school. her earlier paper, which was published in the australian journal of indigenous education, was also fields, a., davis, n., & hartnett, m. 4 drawn from this research and enhances the indigenous quality assurance. according to editors nakata and mackinley: in the language revitalisation area, maree jeurissen addresses a significant oversight within the schooling sector in the quest to increase the numbers of te reo māori speakers to ensure survival of the māori language; namely, the potential role of english-medium schools. she reports on a case study that investigated the relevant factors in one english-medium secondary school, to elicit more understanding of what inhibits the process. (nakata & mackinley, 2014, p. iv) jeurissen’s (2014) study gathered evidence from all the students who chose te reo māori as an option for ncea level one in 2012 in one english medium high school, so it is important not to assume that their challenges are the same for today’s students. for example, the nationwide te kura, which offers courses and whole programmes nationwide, has been working since then to increase its use of online tools and enhance the learner experience. they are managing this through increased support for supervisors in schools where students are dually enrolled, and advisory sessions for those who study their whole programme at a distance (davis, 2015). the experience for te kura students may have also been enhanced by their previous experience with networked schools, including primary schools, where online learning has been introduced through the virtual learning network (vln) to enhance a number of subjects, including te reo māori. rachel roberts, eprincipal of these networked schools, reported in the december issue of the deanz magazine: virtual rumaki are classes that support the learning of te reo māori and tikanga māori. these classes have grown from a collaboration between four gisborne area schools motu, waerenga o kuri, tiniroto and waipaoa stations who were part of an ict professional learning cluster. we began working with their kaiako koka jules o’donnell as their contribution to participation in the vln primary school activities. since this time waipaoa station school has closed but koka jules continues to work online with 75 tamariki in 20 different schools from rakiura to great barrier island. now that rural broadband has come to the village of whatatutu near gisborne, jules has been joined by nan peetikuia wainui to teach our total immersion te reo māori class. koka jules & nan peeti are a taonga to our schools. from a parent: our culture is important to us, so the tikanga that comes with the lessons as well as the songs they learn and also being able to have conversations with other maori students, are very important to us. [my child] started with koka jules and has progressed to the advanced classes with nan peeti. these teachers are fluent maori speakers and live the maori culture and tikanga, so they bring that extra heart to the classes. they have earned the children’s respect. …. for me, as a maori person and parent, it is really important to expose my child to this level of maori language and tikanga learning. i value the classes very highly. in our community all the kaumatua has passed away, they were our big supporters who taught our children. (roberts, 2014, p. 4) the jofdl editors would be particularly delighted to receive further papers in the area of te reo māori and/or to hear from a potential guest editor for a special issue on this topic. open access publishing there is a growing shift in the way scholarly publishing is managed, located and accessed; it affects what scholars can find and how, and it has implications for where scholars will choose to publish. it is open access publishing, and it is a disruptive force on the traditional model of journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(1) 5 commercial scholarly publishing. for those of us working in the area of open learning, the term has been around for over a decade, but for those in some other academic areas it is just now coming to the fore. the popularity and reach of the concept of open access is growing hugely and appears unstoppable at this point—it cannot be ignored any longer. jofdl’s editor in chief recognises that the editorial team are fortunate to include one of new zealand’s leading information scientists, alison fields, who is leading the journal’s journey into more equitable open publishing—including the writing of this editorial. the ideology behind open access: the budapest open access initiative in 2012 the budapest open access initiative (boai), which provided the recognised founding statement defining oa, celebrated its 10th year and started to revisit its original ideology and objectives. the initiative reaffirmed its original 2002 definition of oa without alteration: by “open access” to [peer-reviewed research literature], we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. the only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited. (budapest open access initiative, 2012) the purpose of the initiative is to make “the research publicly available to everyone—free of charge and without most copyright and licensing restrictions—[it] will accelerate scientific research efforts and allow authors to reach a larger number of readers” (budapest open access initiative, n.d.a). to achieve this goal, two strategies were identified: self-archiving and open access journals. self-archiving of peer-reviewed research literature usually comes in the form of authors or institutions placing their work in discoverable repositories or archives, such as institutional repositories. users can then access copies providing they can find them. open access journals are a new generation of journals that sit outside the traditional subscription-based access through commercial journal vendors, and instead provide free, immediate, and permanent online access to peer-reviewed research literature. jofdl falls within this latter category, and complies with the declaration of the budapest open access initiative. literature about oa is also growing, and for those new to this area, useful overviews are presented by suber (2013) who is director of the harvard office for scholarly communication and the harvard open access project, and björk et al. (2010) who provide a solid description and analysis of oa journal literature. other useful resources are listed on the doaj site under open access information. doaj and its growth and quality the directory of open access journals, which began in 2003, is the pre-eminent listing of oa journals: the aim of doaj is to increase the visibility and ease of use of open access scientific and scholarly journals, thereby promoting their increased usage and impact. the doaj aims to be comprehensive and cover all open access scientific and scholarly journals that use a quality control system to guarantee the content. in short, the doaj aims to be the one-stop shop for users of open access journals. (directory of open access journals, 2015a) the steady growth of oa peer review journals being produced and listed with doaj indicates the growing acceptance and now preference for oa journals as a publishing medium. the chart fields, a., davis, n., & hartnett, m. 6 in figure 1, which is taken from heather morrison’s dramatic growth of open access series, shows the unrelenting rise of oa journals listed in doaj. figure 1 the growth of journals in doaj copyright © heather morrison, the imaginary journal of poetic economics, http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.co.nz/2015/04/dramatic-growth-of-open-access-2015.html used with permission. there are some interesting points to note about this chart.  the chart shows the growth of the numbers of journals listed with doaj. each journal has many issues, each issue has a number of peer-reviewed scholarly articles, and each journal continues to publish articles after it lists with doaj. so, although it appears that there is a steady rate of increase (of journals), the real rate of increase (of peer-reviewed scholarly articles) is exponential. current statistics on the doaj site in june 2015 show listings of 10,600 journals and 1,913,457 articles. in only 10 years, the landscape of academic publishing has changed.  there is an ongoing programme of quality control at doaj, with the latest major effort requiring that all journals accepted into doaj before march 2014 reapply for inclusion. this means that every journal is being thoroughly re-checked for quality, compliance, and currency to maintain the quality of oa journals listed in doaj. this review has had the effect of keeping journal numbers down in doaj, but the overall growth rate remains steady. jofdl was added to doaj on 8 april 2015, and its entry contains the green tick ‘accepted after march 2014’, showing it has passed the new entry criteria for inclusion. traditional commercial journal vendors are now having to consider changing the way they deal with such open access journals. some, including those listed on the doaj site, are embracing this change in the field of academic literature and the challenges and opportunities that arise from it, while others are still negotiating their way in this new territory. quality control of oa journal standards http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.co.nz/2015/04/dramatic-growth-of-open-access-2015.html journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(1) 7 listings of oa journals in doaj would be of little value if there were no quality control over inclusion. rest assured there is a lot of quality control, and issues are being identified and dealt with as they arise. the principles of transparency and best practice in scholarly publishing is a joint statement from the committee on publication ethics, the doaj, the open access scholarly publishers association, and the world association of medical editors. the statement is “an effort to identify principles of transparency and best practice that set apart legitimate journals and publishers from non-legitimate ones and to clarify that these principles form part of the criteria on which membership applications will be evaluated” (directory of open access journals, 2015b). a nature article by van noorden (2014) outlined doaj’s move to reassess all journals in its current listing, describing it as an effort to “weed out ‘predatory journals’: those that profess to publish research openly, often charging fees, but that are either outright scams or do not provide the services a scientist would expect, such as a minimal standard of peer review or permanent archiving” (p. 17). in the same month, anderson (2014) referred to van noorden’s article and explained more of doaj’s position, including its review of the inclusion criteria. the review was planned in december 2012 as part of its ongoing quality control systems. this cleaning process is now well underway and is a way of ensuring the integrity and value of doaj. methods of providing oa: green and gold routes as mentioned above, two main strategies were identified for making open access scholarly literature available: self-archiving and open access journals (budapest open access initiative, n.d.b). these two approaches are complementary, and are often referred to as the green and gold routes (suber, 2012). the green route of self-archiving research literature is usually achieved by making copies of research outputs available in institutional, subject, or other repositories. the gold route of publishing in an oa journal makes the articles openly available. as far as authors are concerned, there are currently three types of gold route journals: those that are free to submit to, those that require an author payment (author processing charge or apc) and hybrid models that may include both of these. jofdl is a gold route oa journal that does not charge authors for submissions, and has held this status since 2011. some oa journals require apcs as a method of funding the journals, since oa journals do not gather any income by requiring readers or libraries to pay subscriptions or pay-per-view for their content. kozak and hartley (2013) estimate around 28% of the journals listed in doaj require scholars to pay apcs to have their journal articles published. journals not requiring apcs need to find other sources of income to fund the costs of publishing quality peer-reviewed scholarly literature, and often turn to institutional, organisational, or external funding. jofdl currently relies on its scholarly association plus free hosting of the journal on the website of ako aotearoa, new zealand’s national centre for tertiary teaching. the editors provide their services for ‘free’ without editorial support except for the final copy editing, which is to say that their institutions also share in the support of this journal. a good deal of research is starting to emerge on how apcs are affecting the choices that scholars make in selecting where and how to publish their work, and how this new model of funding is affecting institutional, library, and personal budgets. from new zealand, recent research reports on this new model for scholarly publishing, acknowledge that: “in the uk the finch report (working group on expanding access to published research findings, 2012) and rcuk policy (rcuk, 2013) recommended gold open access and block grants be made available for researchers in uk universities for their payment” (angelo & lund, 2014, pp. 2–3). however, there is no equivalent fund available at present for researchers in new zealand. angelo and lund (2014) conducted research to determine how researchers at the university of canterbury have responded to gold open access publishing and how much is being spent on apcs. their research indicates that of the scholars who published in oa journals that have apc’s over a 2 ½ year period, 138 papers were published at an average cost of nz$1365.80 per paper (angelo & lund, fields, a., davis, n., & hartnett, m. 8 2014, p. 6). the funds for these payments were taken from research grants, other departmental budgets, researchers’ own funds, and other sources. the research also identified the main reasons these researchers had for choosing an oa journal and how likely they would be to pay apcs in the future. their discovery that “70% thought it likely or very likely they would pay apcs again” (angelo & lund, 2014, p. 8) indicates a general acceptance of this new model of publishing. in the united kingdom, woodward and henderson (2014) have conducted research on the total cost of ownership, which considers payments to journals for both journal subscription licences and apcs. they discovered that calculations on costs are difficult to determine because payments are made at a number of points in the publishing process, some attract vat, and others may be eligible for refund if outside the united kingdom, payments may also come from various sources and be made by a variety of people, pre-publication details of articles are sometimes difficult to positively identify as titles, and content may change prior to publication. they concluded the only way to effectively manage these costs was to form cross-departmental teams that include university areas such as “the research office, finance, hr and library” (woodward & henderson, 2014, p. 5) all facilitating the collection of information from scholars about their research publications and the various payments required. but even this does not guarantee an effective system. the wealth of oa research now available as oa publishing evolves and becomes more established and entrenched in the world of scholarly publishing, more research will come forth about its merits and management. two examples are worth mentioning. the first of these is laasko and björk (2012), who conducted a large-scale longitudinal study: . . . to measure the volume of scientific articles published in full immediate oa journals from 2000 to 2011, while observing longitudinal internal shifts in the structure of oa publishing concerning revenue models, publisher types and relative distribution among scientific disciplines. (abstract) the second is björk and solomon (2012), who sought to determine: whether the proliferation of open access (oa) publishing would damage the peer review system and put the quality of scientific journal publishing at risk … by comparing the scientific impact of oa journals with subscription journals, controlling for journal age, the country of the publisher, discipline and (for oa publishers) their business model. (abstract) these, along with numerous other studies, are helping to inform both the publishing world and those facilitating access to scholarly literature (e.g., academic libraries) of the impact of oa and how to negotiate the changing landscape of scholarly publishing. for those wanting to be involved or to keep up to date, there are articles, blogs and other resources listed in doaj’s open access information page (https://doaj.org/oainfo). there are also a number of conferences and meetings dedicated solely to oa practices. many of these are on the open access directory wiki (http://oad.simmons.edu/oadwiki/2015) conclusion open access publishing has been a reality for over a decade, and in that time has begun to disrupt and change the face of traditional commercial scholarly publishing. jofdl deliberately chose to become an oa journal in 2011 and has proved that it is able to serve its readers and authors well in this form. https://doaj.org/oainfo http://oad.simmons.edu/oadwiki/2015 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(1) 9 open access without author charges is the gold standard we have chosen because it is most equitable and extends its reach to more of those who have fewer resources. this fits well with the aim of deanz, the academic association for which we are the scholarly flagship. the aim of this association is to “foster high standards in the practice of distance education in new zealand . . . by ensuring that the spirit of partnership embodied in the treaty of waitangi, te tiriti o waitangi, and the articles of that treaty are honoured by deanz” (deanz, n.d.). we use open access publishing to promote equity for all with information that is free to submit, free to access and free to use; and the ‘spirit of partnership’ promotes equity in indigenous education for te tangata whenua māori as the first people as well as equity in education for all. we look forward to the next decade of oa publishing, and the inevitable and continuing changes to the world of scholarly publishing. references anderson, r. 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(n.d.). endangered languages. retrieved from http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/endangered-languages/ http://deanz.org.nz/ https://doaj.org/about https://doaj.org/bestpractice http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/jie.2014.14 http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.co.nz/2015/04/dramatic-growth-of-open-access-2015.html http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.co.nz/2015/04/dramatic-growth-of-open-access-2015.html http://www.royalsociety.org.nz/expert-advice/papers/yr2013/languages-in-aotearoa-new-zealand/ http://www.royalsociety.org.nz/expert-advice/papers/yr2013/languages-in-aotearoa-new-zealand/ http://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm http://www.openoasis.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=130&itemid=390 http://www.openoasis.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=130&itemid=390 http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/endangered-languages/ journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(1) 11 van noorden, r. (2014, 06 august). open-access website gets tough. nature 512, 17 doi:10.1038/512017a woodward, h., & henderson, h. (2014). report for jisc collections on total cost of ownership project: data capture and process. kirkcudbright, uk: jisc. retrieved from https://www.jisc-collections.ac.uk/global/news%20files%20and%20docs/ipl-jisc-totalcost-of-ownership-data-capture-report.pdf biographical notes niki davis niki.davis@canterbury.ac.nz niki is distinguished professor of e-learning and director of the e-learning lab in the university of canterbury college of education, christchurch, new zealand. in addition to researching e-learning in teacher education and professional development, niki teaches and researches about change with digital technologies in education and related areas of scholarship. niki is editor in chief of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. alison fields alison.fields@openpolytechnic.ac.nz alison is a senior lecturer at the open polytechnic of new zealand where she teaches information and library studies. she also sits on the professional registration board of the library and information association of new zealand aotearoa (lianza). her research areas encompass e-learning, library services, and continuing professional development. she is currently enrolled in edd studies at the university of otago. alison is an associate editor of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. maggie hartnett m.hartnett@massey.ac.nz maggie is a senior lecturer in the institute of education at massey university, new zealand, where she teaches in the areas of e-learning and digital technologies. her research interests include motivation and engagement in digital environments, teaching and learning with digital technologies, electronic portfolios, support for digital learners, digital places, and spaces of learning. maggie is an associate editor of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. field, a., davis, n., & hartnett, m. (2015). editorial: open access—our golden route in academic publishing in an increasingly open world. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(1), [1–11]. https://www.jisc-collections.ac.uk/global/news%20files%20and%20docs/ipl-jisc-total-cost-of-ownership-data-capture-report.pdf https://www.jisc-collections.ac.uk/global/news%20files%20and%20docs/ipl-jisc-total-cost-of-ownership-data-capture-report.pdf mailto:niki.davis@canterbury.ac.nz mailto:alison.fields@openpolytechnic.ac.nz mailto:m.hartnett@massey.ac.nz http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ microsoft word parton.docx parton, b. 8 video captions for online courses: do youtube’s auto-generated captions meet deaf students’ needs? becky sue parton, morehead state university and walden university abstract providing captions for videos used in online courses is an area of interest for institutions of higher education. there are legal and ethical ramifications as well as time constraints to consider. captioning tools are available, but some universities rely on the auto-generated youtube captions. this study looked at a particular type of video—the weekly informal news update created by individual professors for their online classes—to see if automatic captions (also known as subtitles) are sufficiently accurate to meet the needs of deaf students. a total of 68 minutes of video captions were analysed and 525 phrase-level errors were found. on average, therefore, there were 7.7 phrase errors per minute. findings indicate that auto-generated captions are too inaccurate to be used exclusively. additional studies are needed to determine whether they can provide a starting point for a process of captioning that reduces the preparation time. keywords: online; distance education; deaf; accessibility; videos; captioning; subtitles; youtube literature review captions, once a rarity, are now prevalent in today’s media, especially in television programming. they are sometimes referred to as subtitles and are generally considered to be a textual representation of a video’s audio message (caption it yourself, n.d.) this definition is not entirely accurate because captions can also translate visual languages such as american sign language (asl) to a written language such as english (matthews, young, parker, & napier, 2010). in these cases there might be no audio track. however, for the purposes of this discussion, the focus is on captions that represent spoken languages. in addition to televised shows, captioned films are available in some movie theatres and many captioned videos are available on the web. there are two styles of captioning—open captions and closed captions. open captions are integrated with the video and cannot be turned off, whereas closed captions are read by the media player and can be turned on or off according to the user’s preference (clossen, 2014). captions are usually regarded as a tool to benefit people who are deaf or hard of hearing although many other groups of learners, including second-language learners, also use them (collins, 2013). the focus of this discussion will be on web-based videos, especially those used in higher education settings. using videos in higher education the number of colleges and universities offering online classes continues to increase; 32% of students in the united states are reported to be enrolled in at least one (sheehy, 2013). many universities have fully online degree programmes and the trend towards fully online courses is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. in addition, there has been an increase in the number journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 9 of massive open online courses (moocs) offered by universities. moocs are free online courses that are offered without admission criteria (anastasopoulos & baer, 2013). traditional classes and moocs often use videos to encourage students to establish connections and share content. the videos in these courses vary greatly—from professionally created and edited lectures, to informal announcement-style ‘talking heads’, to screencast tutorials. many courses also embed videos that are available in popular media—for example, from ted talks, khan academy, and others (fichten, asuncion, & scapin, 2014). online courses are not the only ones affected by the issue of captioning videos. for example, some face-to-face classes use a technique called lecture capture to record live lectures and make them available electronically for students to use as a review or, in some cases, as a substitute for class attendance (newton, tucker, dawson, & currie, 2014). these multimedia presentations often include the presenter’s audio and accompanying presentation slides. many current approaches to lecture captioning do not provide captions for the video components (newton et al., 2014). rationale for captioning videos in higher education many faculty members want to create courses that are accessible to all their students, but the issue of captioning videos goes beyond individual concern and has become a legal matter for universities. two laws in the united states provide a guideline for educational institutions. section 504 of the rehabilitation act 1973 prohibits a college from denying disabled individuals any benefits. title ii of the americans with disabilities act 1990 says that individuals with disabilities may not be excluded or denied the benefits of the service of public universities and colleges (anastasopoulos & baer, 2013). although both of these laws were written before the explosion of web-based multimedia, they are the basis for the us department of education’s office for civil rights’ policy “… that an institution’s communications with persons with disabilities must be as effective as the institution’s communication with others” (anastasopoulos & baer, 2013, p. 2). there is also some ambiguity about the practical interpretation of “undue burden”. this term is defined in the americans with disabilities act as “significant difficulty or expense” (americans with disabilities act 1990, title iii), but is ambiguous in certain circumstances. in addition, the world wide web consortium has established web content accessibility guidelines, and one of their recommendations is that all pre-recorded audio be captioned (anastasopoulos & baer, 2013). there are legal ramifications for universities that do not provide captioning for videos. a recent lawsuit by the national association of the deaf (nad) accused harvard and mit of offering moocs and many individual videos to the public without captioning (“lawsuits ask harvard”, 2015). the nad reported that video captions for moocs run by harvard and mit were often missing—or present but inaccurate to the point of being unintelligible—so violating the americans with disabilities act and the rehabilitation act. one way to relay the audio information in a video is to provide a script, usually in the form of a word document or a pdf file. however, that solution does not take into account the benefits of synchronising the video and verbal content (clossen, 2014; parton & hancock, 2009). therefore, “if transcripts are the letter of the law … then captions are the spirit [of the law]” (clossen, 2014, p. 32). creating captions as videos become commonplace in online courses offered by institutes of higher education, and there is a legal and ethical need to caption those videos for the benefit of all students (but especially those who are deaf and hard of hearing), the issue becomes one of how to provide the parton, b. 10 captions. the full range of options for creating captions is outside the scope of this article, but a brief overview of popular techniques will serve the discussion. first, universities can choose to outsource the role of captioning to a professional company. this option can be expensive and requires lead time. it might work for key lectures, but might not be feasible for more frequent and informal communication (johnson, 2014). pay-per-use services such as synwords (dubinsky, 2014) have similar limitations. second, a professor can choose to manually caption videos using one of several tools that are available for free or purchase. the process typically involves synching a script (pre-existing or created on the fly) with time points in the video. media access generator (magpie) was the original free caption-authoring tool—although robust, it does require a relatively steep learning curve (parton, 2004). subtitle workshop is another popular free tool that can be downloaded and used to create a caption file (caption it yourself, n.d.). amara, which is browser-based, is easy to use. the user interface design is typical of caption-authoring tools and provides a space for the captions to be entered and a timeline to sync the captions with the audio. third-party tools usually create a separate file for the captions, although amara instead publishes the new captioned video on their own server. the need for these and other tools has diminished since youtube integrated its own captioning tool. users can now add a language track to their youtube videos (carlisle, 2010). the ongoing development of the you tube auto-captioning tool has created a third path for professors and the focus of the current study. instead of manually captioning videos, they can now take advantage of youtube’s auto-captioning feature in which text-to-speech software generates the captions without human intervention (fichten et al., 2014). this method of captioning is the quickest option available to professors, but the issue of accuracy has been debated. in a recent panel discussion during the it accessibility in higher education conference, students noted that professors were relying on youtube’s auto-generated captions and expressed concern about accuracy (bennett, wheeler, wesstrick, teasley, & ive, 2015). still, a national study of deaf students (n=95), found that 85 of the participants preferred to watch videos with captions generated from automatic speech recognition than to have no captions (shiver & wolfe, 2015). this scenario leads to a situation where auto-generated captions may be seen as an acceptable alternative by deaf users, but “deaf advocacy groups could be concerned that organizations may attempt to substitute automatic captions [for professionally created ones] in order to meet legal obligations” (shiver & wolfe, 2015, p. 237). auto-generated youtube captioning feedback the us department of education’s office for civil rights lists “accuracy of the translation” as one of their criteria for determining whether a university’s communication is effective for people who need captions, such as those who are deaf or hard of hearing (anastasopoulos & baer, 2013). there is limited and varying research in the literature on the accuracy of youtube’s autogenerated captioning in educational settings. johnson (2014) reports “[t]he automatic captions are notoriously inaccurate, leading to the creation of an internet meme known as ‘youtube automatic caption fail’ wherein users post humorous examples of youtube captions that don’t match the actual audio content” (p. 11). in response to an article on moocs (anastasopoulos & baer, 2013), a deaf reader responded that she was devastated to see how many videos in these courses were relying on youtube’s auto-captioning because they were full of errors and did not have proper timing. other researchers have been less critical. while still acknowledging the limitations of the tool, they report it is an easy solution that reduces the timeconsuming work of manually creating the captions, but that the results are sometimes unintentionally humorous (clossen, 2014). suffridge & somjit (2012) have found “[w]hile youtube captioning is not 100% accurate, it does do a fairly good job” (p. 3). a frequent journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 11 recommendation is to start with the auto-captions and then edit to reduce the number of errors and fix any timing issues (clossen, 2014; johnson, 2014). the study the guiding question for this research study was: do auto-generated youtube captions meet the needs of students? in the spirit of universal design for learning (udl), captions can be beneficial to a wide range of students (clossen, 2014); however, this study focuses primarily on this question through the lens of a deaf student. the term ‘deaf’ here refers to individuals who are both culturally deaf (i.e., individuals who self-identify as part of a cultural and linguistic minority) and/or those who are physically deaf or hard of hearing. the term ‘meet the needs’ is rather ambiguous and is a topic for further discussion but in practical terms, and in this context, it refers to the accuracy of the captions. although online college courses use many types of videos, the ones chosen for this study were casual weekly videos made by one professor. weekly videos make students feel more connected to the instructor and are easy to produce with a cell phone or web cam (suffridge & somjit, 2012). while the videos might not contain critical course content, they do provide an important social presence between professors and students. it would not be feasible, in terms of time or cost, to professionally caption these videos, yet they often contribute significantly to the positive atmosphere of an online course and must therefore be accessible. methods the first step in this study was to obtain a series of bi-weekly videos that were professor-made and used in online courses. because they met the study’s criteria, the author’s own materials were selected. all of the announcement video links were supplied for three graduate-level courses in the 15-week spring semester of 2015. the total number of videos created for the semester was 21 (seven per class). there was a total of 68 minutes of video in the 21 segments. all of the videos were made on a laptop with a built-in webcam and built-in microphone. no editing was performed on the videos other than adding basic border frames. the videos had been uploaded to youtube and then embedded in blackboard, the course management system. no attempt was made to use or check the auto-generated captions because no deaf students were enrolled and no other students expressed a need for captions. the next step was to analyse each video and its auto-generated captions for errors. the literature did not reveal a standard approach (in legal or practical terms) for determining the criteria for considering the captions’ accuracy. although errors could be minor misspellings or text such as filler words (e.g., “um”) that did not exactly match the speaker, those issues do not commonly affect comprehension in isolation. therefore, the decision was made to look at phrase-level errors—those that altered the meaning of the message or made the message unintelligible. thus, as each video was played, a record was made of each phrasing error, but grammatical errors, misspellings, and minor word changes were omitted. although there was some subjectivity in this approach, it provided a holistic view of the state of the videos’ captions and allowed researchers to focus on the critical components. results the number of phrase errors in the video captions was substantial. a total of 525 such errors were recorded during the 68 minutes. this means that for every minute there were 7.7 phrases parton, b. 12 that were unintelligible or altered the meaning of the message. table 1 shows 50 of those errors. the complete list of 525 errors can be viewed as raw data in the project data spreadsheet.1 table 1 sample caption errors audio phrase captioned phrase spring semester springs the minister i’ve taught this one topless one atom one wonderful kitty wonderful kidding to reply to a classmate to rip apply to a classic am a movie chat session move in chess session classroom for the deaf classroom for the debt new edition new dish not getting paid from amazon have had making paper metal kinda dating myself there and can and a mess up there i had to code ahead to coat where i learned adobe premiere world anti-doping from here do something fun get to the summit bar did for deaf president now that they didn’t protect president now and keep building on that can’t keep billy gave you link for didn’t foreign still unit look at 10 to 15 of them like unit in anti-government and good stuff on blackboard it’s tough black dr. martin luther king jr. with the key engineer now we think laptops and cell phones our with the game at pops open and all that kind of good stuff and iraq and stuff can always email me can only mailman and i think it relates and at the gate i wanted to i lied to but i encourage you bankers you google chat people jet narrow anything down row anything to him here are my thoughts have here’s carol come apart from cost associated with some pasta associated with used my student loans miss you london to all of you i love you 1 see captioningerrors https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1izvi74wujh4hk9ol_2gqlfizacyjfzoi9drezdrbdb4/edit?pref=2&pli=1#gid=0 journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 13 alright, enjoy rn injury happy valentine’s day heavy bond on and i [swear word inserted instead] i choose itunes lesson plan let them play ‘em hi folks hyper x active presenter active prisoner some of our own students the maroons didn’t then doing over spring break overseas hi guys white guys the big conference, iste the camera is steve 1 more module 1 more macho 5 of them will be for but i don’t know be four critiques, you are going to put straight on crunchy chicken constraint fun chapters punch actors towards the end toys into the for some doc interviews person docking abuse taught a whole course have tomahawk or you can uk inch the end indian the errors were produced in all of the videos—none had notably more, although the number ranged from 2.5 to 13.3 errors per minute. table 2 breaks down the data per video. table 2 video caption errors per minute video id length of video # of phrase errors errors/minute (rounded) 1 7:25 55 7.3 2 9:41 73 7.5 3 4:52 52 10.4 4 3:03 40 13.3 5 7:01 60 8.6 6 1:22 11 7.3 7 1:49 16 9.1 8 4:11 25 5.9 9 2:24 21 8.4 10 2:01 7 3.5 11 2:00 5 2.5 parton, b. 14 12 3:08 15 5.0 13 1:56 10 5.0 14 3:02 15 5.0 15 2:05 16 8.0 16 1:58 7 3.5 17 1:31 20 13.3 18 2:54 34 11.3 19 1:47 14 8.0 20 2:46 18 6.5 21 0:58 11 11.0 68 minutes 525 errors 7.7 avg errors/min the types of errors found in this analysis reveal serious issues in the auto-captioning process. see figure 1 for a sample of screenshots depicting the inaccurate subtitles. figure 1 sample of captioning error for the audio message: “you can always email me. i have the due dates.” edtc628-majorproject1_spring15 retrieved from https://youtu.be/l-84wctzvru © becky sue parton in two of the 525 cases, the youtube subtitle showed a swear word that was clearly not said by the professor. in other cases the captions were similar to the audio, but the meaning was altered significantly by a minor error. for example, the phrase ‘3 to 5 questions’ was shown as ‘35 questions’. some of the errors were to be expected due to the use of proper nouns for names and places, but these did not comprise a substantial proportion of the phrase-level errors. many of the errors, as one might expect, occurred when a wrong word was substituted for the right one because they sounded alike—such as ‘the end’ becoming ‘indian’. these associations make no sense to an individual who is deaf and does not read by ‘sounding the words out’. in addition to the phrase-level errors, the grammatical and syntactical errors were too numerous to consider for journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 15 this study. the filler word “um” was often displayed as “am”, spellings were at times displayed as short cuts (e.g., “r” for “are”), tense was often shown wrongly, words such as “two” and “to” were used as though they had the same meaning, and so on. discussion and limitations some limitations to this study might have affected the generalisability of the results. only one professor’s videos were analysed; the study does not, therefore, take into account other speakers’ accents, which could influence the phrase error rate. the sound quality and the equipment used to record the videos was typical of the setup that a professor would use to record weekly news updates, but different software, microphones, and speaker positioning could lead to a different rate of accuracy for the auto-generated captions. the issue of sound quality could be the basis for a future study. in addition, this study focused solely on bi-weekly informal videos, but professors often create a wide range of materials for their classes, including narrated screencasts, mini lectures, and feedback clips. it would be interesting to see how other types of video compare in an analysis of captioning errors. a recommendation for a future study would be to involve deaf individuals in the evaluation process to provide feedback and insight. professors are often under time constraints when developing and/or teaching a course (freeman, 2015) so it is imperative to find a balance between the need for reliable captions and the ability to provide those captions quickly. however, results from this study indicate that, in most situations, auto-generated captions might not ‘meet the needs’ of deaf students in terms of providing accurate subtitles. in practical terms, the 7.7 phrases per minute that were unintelligible or altered the meaning of the message meant that the essence of the message was not understandable. the errors were so frequent that they were more than distracting—they were a barrier to communication. without editing, the auto-captions would not appear to meet the office for civil rights criteria for communication that is as effective for people with disabilities as for those without. universities are therefore unlikely to be meeting their legal obligation to provide accessible material. although captions created entirely by a human may be ideal—especially when the content is highly technical—edited auto-generated captions could play a role in conversational-style, weekly news videos created by professors. more research needs to be conducted to see if the time requirement for editing the auto-generated captions is feasible compared with manual captioning. although the concept of crowdsourcing captioning (whereby other students in the class modify auto-generated captions) is a very new idea, it could also play a role in future discussions on time management and legal ramifications (deshpande, tuna, subhlok, & barker, 2014). it would also be interesting to study the degree to which speech-to-text engines have become more accurate over time (it is 5 years since youtube introduced the auto-captioning feature). an investigation could look at videos that have produced inaccurate captioning results in the past and see if the same errors occur if they are re-captioned today. an additional study could focus on the accuracy of the translations that are used in subtitles for other languages. broader implications this study looked at captioning and accessibility primarily in relation to the needs of deaf individuals. however, there are implications for a far wider range of students. the concept of universal design for learning (udl) is that course materials are set up ahead of time to incorporate learning paths for everyone, rather than accommodating a specific user later on (poothullil, sahasrabudhe, chavan, & toppo, 2013; tobin, 2014). the three principles of udl are: 1) to provide multiple means of representation; 2) to provide multiple means of action and parton, b. 16 expression, and; 3) to provide multiple means of engagement (three principles of udl, n.d.) these principles can also apply to the concept of captioning. according to tobin (2014, p. 17) “[c]aptions can help the vast majority of students”. tobin identifies some of these students as second-language learners, those who are studying in quiet places such as a library, and those who process content better via text. accessibility affects students of every nationality. while many countries have legal requirements for captioning for both the general public and students, others do not. in india, for example, there is no mandatory captioning (poothullil et al., 2013), although there is recognition of the benefits of captioning—including as a tool for reading practice to combat the high illiteracy rate (poothullil et al., 2013). one can see that, if captions are to be used in this manner, they must be accurate. time and cost, however, remain a concern for many. for example, in japan’s corporate sector there is a desire to provide real-time captioning that is not as costly as a stenographer. one current research study seeks to combine automated speech recognition software with manual editing that can be accomplished by a non-expert rather than a trained stenographer (takagi, itoh, & shinkawa, 2015). this scenario appears similar to that of the professor (a non-expert) combining their manual edits with the auto-captioning results. another broad implication of this study relates to the idea of meeting the needs of students. does the (in)accuracy of video captioning truly embrace that concept? even accurate captions will not meet students’ needs if they cannot read and comprehend them. “producers of captions and educators have both been concerned whether individuals who are deaf are able to understand captions that are presented at relatively fast speeds and that sometimes contain complex grammatical forms” (stinson & stevenson, 2013, p. 453). the limited reading proficiency of some people who are deaf, and for whom english is often a second language, has long been noted to correlate with their ability to comprehend captions (cambra, silverstre, & leal, 2009; stinson & stevenson, 2013). multiple studies have focused on modifying captions to address this issue; for example, by reducing language complexity in the captions, slowing the caption rate, and embedding expanded information in the captions. this extra information might be hyperlinks to define key words, or to provide illustrations (stinson & stevenson, 2013). other researchers have argued that the way to ensure effective communication is to provide an interpreted video when the student’s primary language is asl (parton & hancock, 2009). (an interpreted video is one in which a human signer or, in some cases, an animated avatar, translates the audio content into a particular sign language.) although such efforts are outside the scope of the current study, it is worth considering whether captions—auto-generated or not, much like script files, may be serving the letter, but not the spirit, of the law. in practical terms, these extended measures are probably too complicated to perform on routine weekly video updates produced by professors who often have little or no technical background or experience in working with individuals who are deaf. thus, given the time and technical constraints, youtube’s auto-generated captioning may be a viable start to a solution for professors who want to create informal, accessible video updates. however, because it would not meet the legal requirements established by universities in many countries, nor fulfil the spirit of udl, it is only a partial solution and should not be relied on exclusively. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 17 references anastasopoulos, n., & baer, a. m. (2013). moocs: when opening doors to education, institutions must ensure that people with disabilities have equal access. new england journal of higher education, july, 1. retrieved from http://www.nebhe.org/thejournal/moocs-whenopening-the-door-to-education-institutions-must-ensure-that-participants-with-disabilitieshave-equal-access/ bennett, c., wheeler, k., wesstrick, m., teasley, a., & ive, t. (2015, february). disabilities, opportunities, internetworking, and technology panel: student perspectives. presented at the it accessibility in higher education capacity building institute, seattle, washington. cambra, c., silverstre, n., & leal, a. (2009). comprehension of television messages by deaf students at various stages of education. american annals of the deaf, 153(5), 425–434. caption it yourself: basic guidelines. (n.d.), retrieved from https://www.dcmp.org/ciy carlisle, m. (2010, march). using youtube to enhance student class preparation in an introductory java course. presented at sigcse—the 41st acm technical symposium on computer science, milwaukee, wisconsin. clossen, a. (2014). beyond the letter of the law: accessibility, universal design, and humancentered design in video tutorials. pennsylvania libraries: research & practice, 2(1), 27–37. collins, r. k. (2013). using captions to reduce barriers to native american student success. american indian culture & research journal, 37(3), 75–86. deshpande, r., tuna, t., subhlok, j., & barker, l. (2014, october). a crowdsourcing caption editor for educational videos. frontiers in education conference (fie), madrid, spain. dubinsky, a. (2014, september). syncwords: a platform for semi-automated closed captioning and subtitles. paper presented at interspeech, singapore. freeman, l. (2015). instructor time requirements to develop and teach online courses. online journal of distance learning administration, 18(1). fichten, c., asuncion, j., & scapin, r. (2014). digital technology, learning, and postsecondary students with disabilities: where we’ve been and where we’re going. journal of postsecondary education and disability, 27(4), 369–379. johnson, a. (2014). video captioning policy and compliance at the university of minnesota duluth. unpublished master’s thesis. university of minnesota duluth, minnesota. lawsuits ask harvard, mit to change closed-captioning policies. (2015, april). asha leader, 20(4), 16. matthews, n., young, s., parker, d., & napier, j. (2010, june). looking across the hearing line?: exploring young deaf people’s use of web 2.0. m/c journal, 13(3). retrieved from http://www.journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/266 newton, g., tucker, t., dawson, j., & currie, e. (2014). use of lecture capture in higher education: lessons from the trenches. tech trends, 58(2), 32–45. parton, b., & hancock, r. (2009). accessibility issues for web 2.0. in t. kidd & i. chen (eds.), wired for learning: an educator’s guide to web 2.0 (pp. 333–342). u.s: information age. parton, b. 18 parton, b. (2004, february). captioning in a nutshell. paper presented at the texas computer education association (tcea) conference, austin, texas. poothullil, j., sahasrabudhe, s., chavan, p., & toppo, d. (2013). captioning and indian sign language as accessibility tools in universal design. sage open, 3(2), 1–16. sheehy, k. (2013, january 8). online course enrollment climbs for 10th straight year. u.s. news. retrieved from http://www.usnews.com shiver, b., & wolfe, r. (2015). evaluating alternatives for better deaf accessibility to selected web-based multimedia. in proceedings of the 17th international acm sigaccess conference on computers & accessibility (assets ’15). acm, new york, ny, usa, 231– 238. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2700648.2809857 stinson, m., & stevenson, s. (2013). effects of expanded and standard captions on deaf college students’ comprehension of educational videos. american annals of the deaf, 158(4), 453– 467. suffridge, d., & somjit, p. (2012, august). bridging the distance with intro videos and weekly update videos. presented at the 28th annual conference on distance teaching & learning, madison, wisconsin. retrieved from http://www.uwex.edu/disted/conference/resource_library/proceedings/62238_2012.pdf takagi, h., itoh, t., & shinkawa, k. (2015). evaluation of real-time captioning by machine recognition with human support. proceedings of the 12th web for all conference, 1–4. three principles of udl. (n.d.). retrieved from http://www.udlcenter.org/aboutudl/whatisudl/3principles tobin, t. (2014). increase online student retention with universal design for learning. quarterly review of distance education, 15(3), 13–24. biographical notes becky sue parton drbeckysue@gmail.com dr becky sue parton has a phd in educational computing and a masters in deaf education. she is well published and has presented at over 80 national and international conferences. she was co-recipient of the national center for technology innovation 2010 bright idea award and the technology educator of the year for 2011 in louisiana. dr parton has received over $500,000 in grant funding, primarily to conduct research on instructional technologies for deaf students. she is currently an instructor at walden university and an associate professor of educational technology at morehead state university in kentucky in the united states. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. parton, b. (2016). video captions for online courses: do youtube’s auto-generated captions meet deaf students’ needs? journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1), [8–18]. hunt, a-m. 48 blended online learning in initial teacher education: a professional inquiry into pre-service teachers’ inquiry projects anne-marie hunt, college of education, university of canterbury abstract online and blended learning bring opportunities and challenges, including more opportunities for authentic activities (gikandi, morrow, & davis, 2011). blended online environments are now a common mode for pre-service teacher education, providing interesting opportunities to develop and showcase alternative approaches that blend with practice in the field. this paper presents a case study of an online course that supported 55 student teacher inquiries into the practice of teaching. the author describes some successful strategies, using a range of e-learning tools, including the university’s moodle learning management system, in the professional inquiry focused course that she led. the study informs course and programme redesign to encourage student teachers to develop their own networks of practice during pre-service tertiary education. keywords: inquiry learning; online teacher education; preservice teacher education; professional inquiry introduction high-quality engagement in learning can result when learners are supported to creatively study issues of immediate and future concern (bransford, brown, & cocking, 2000). learners who are studying to become teachers also need to become familiar with common practices in their profession, including teacher inquiry. “inquiry based learning” and “teaching as inquiry” (ministry of education, 2007a, p. 35) are gaining momentum in teacher education and the teaching profession as a whole. a study (mackey & evans, 2011) in online postgraduate courses designed for teachers as professional learners illustrates engagement with authentic learning activities, and promotes meaningful learning and transferability to their communities of practice. in these postgraduate courses, the online course community was blended with the school communities in which the students practice (mackey, 2009). the importance of promoting teacher learning was recognised in the recent british education research association (2014) report on building the capacity for a self-improving education system: [this self-improving education system] is about empowering teachers, school and college leaders, and all who work with them, to better understand how they might enhance their practice and increase their impact in the classroom and beyond. in short, it is about developing the capacity of teachers, schools and colleges, and education systems as a whole journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(2) 49 to self-evaluate and self-improve, through an ongoing process of professional reflection and inquiry. . . . a focus on inquiry-based practice needs to be sustained during initial teacher education programmes and throughout teachers’ professional careers, so that disciplined innovation and collaborative inquiry are embedded within the lives of schools or colleges and become the normal way of teaching and learning, rather than the exception. (p. 6) the many roles of digital technologies in preservice teacher education were described by davis (2010) as including opportunities to develop knowledge and skills, with integrated communication and technology, and including online study and inquiry. however, little is known of how student teachers can be supported to begin such inquiry-based learning during their studies before they begin to practice in schools, which may be particularly challenging for students whose main mode of study is online. this paper illustrates how such inquiry learning can occur and, in doing so, illustrates the many roles played by digital technologies in initial teacher education today. the author shares ways in which an empowering shared group experience enabled university of canterbury (uc) students and staff to be connected, confident, and collaborative learners and teachers. she provides a case study of her work as the coordinator and teacher of a graduate course that included four personalised inquiry learning and teaching learning outcomes (see below) for a cohort of 55 primary student teachers in the distance mode of a larger programme. tep1360 learning outcomes 1. identify and select from a range of appropriate resources and inquiry processes for gathering information in response to the ‘big question’, which was formulated for their inquiry at the conclusion of the tepi260 course. 2. critically examine and process the gathered information to create meaningful outcomes to present to an audience, in a format to be negotiated with a mentor. 3. actively contribute to their mentor group learning community through regular meetings and feedback, including their presentations. 4. articulate and record in their journal their developing understanding of how inquirybased experiences link to best classroom practice and to the processes inherent in authentic learning. the overarching research question thus became: what were the effective blended e-learning strategies and tools that enhanced this personalised inquiry-based learning and teaching experience? research methodology this workplace case study was stimulated by richardson and st pierre’s (2005) work on writing as a method of qualitative inquiry. the approach to the research was a professional inquiry (timperley, wilson, barrar, & fung, 2007) into the author’s work as an experienced practitioner in online and blended teacher education over several decades. according to larreamendy-joerns and leinhardt’s (2006) literature review, maturity can inform online education. for example, hunt et al. (2011) describe the culturally sensitive blend of online initial teacher education of the university’s parallel 3-year degree programme, to which she has contributed since 1997. hunt has been a leading teacher educator in the uc rotorua centre, working mainly in new zealand’s north island in an environment that includes blended online and campus-based studies. this paper reports on the teaching and leadership of a professional inquiry course that took place in the final 2 months of a 15-month graduate diploma of education in 2014. most of the enrolled hunt, a-m. 50 students aimed to become provisionally registered primary school teachers in new zealand. eight students were invited to give consent for the inclusion of a selection of screen shots and/or comments from their inquiry presentation and contextual statement, which they uploaded and shared in the online learning management system (lms) course site in late february. in her email message well after the close of the course, in which she invited students to participate, hunt told her students: “the reciprocal peer and teaching (ako 1 ) learning that was observed and experienced was highly significant and hence late in semester one i decided this inquiry process was worthy of sharing with an international educational audience.” the university granted ethical approval during the semester following the course. of the eight students invited to volunteer their material to be included in this research, seven responded and agreed. the paper shares a sample of ‘big questions’ and ‘presentations’ that these students created in their professional inquiry course, led by hunt. the sample includes current topics of innovation in new zealand classrooms, such as modern learning environments, bring your own device (byod), i-pads in the classroom—and more general professional needs of teachers, such as catering for specific-need learners and enhancing learning and teaching in the arts. the paper also includes a document analysis of student comments from the consenting participants’ reflective contextual statements and some anonymous end-of-course student feedback statements that were submitted and fed forward online through the uc centre for evaluation and monitoring (cem). a blended context for inquiry learning in initial teacher education in 2014 the 55 students in the 2014 distance cohort were spread throughout aotearoa new zealand— from auckland in the north, to invercargill in the south. a few of these students had transferred from being on campus in the previous semester. the mode of study was mainly online, complemented with experience in primary schools. all students were experienced users of the university’s moodle lms, named learn. when they entered this teacher education programme in february 2013, the students knew that they needed to complete a personalised inquiry assessment before their final professional practice placement in a primary school at the end of the graduate diploma in 2014. during their 2 weeks on campus at the start of the programme in february 2013, all students were also able to experience some of the previous cohort’s inquiry presentations. this enabled the students to visualise the process, start to think about their own area of inquiry, and consider how they might present it to a group of their peers. during 2013 the students explored and reflected on possible inquiry topics. they tended to focus on topics about which they had an emerging curiosity or developing passion, and which they felt were needed (by themselves or their peers) as they prepared for teaching. in november 2013 each student used the moodle assignment tool to submit a brief inquiry proposal in the understanding that they could change it over the summer. in this way the students could, during their 2-month summer break, immerse themselves in their selected topic and begin recording their emerging questions as “wonderings”. some wonderings from one student’s journal page were: “what ict is there in schools?” “is it being utilised?” “how can it be used to its potential?” “how and where are the resources for teachers to upskill in ict?” when students arrived for the 3-day intensive on campus in christchurch at the start of 2014, most had decided on the platform they intended to use for their inquiry journal. a large paper scrapbook was the most popular form of journal (see figure 1 for an example). google documents were used by one pair collaborating on an inquiry, and another student used weebly. 1 ako is grounded in the principle of reciprocity. both the teacher and learner give and receive taking responsibility for their own learning and that of māori learners (ministry of education, 2008) journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(2) 51 figure 1 an example of a student’s initial wonderings blended e-learning a blend of online and face-to-face learning and teaching is a characteristic of all courses offered by uc. this cohort was enrolled in the university’s distance mode called the flexible learning option (flo). students had had 2 weeks on campus at the start of their graduate diploma and, at the time of this course, were in their third semester of the graduate diploma in teaching and learning (primary) qualification. the third on-site intensive gave students and lecturers the opportunity to collaboratively explore the inquiry course’s site. hunt had spent considerable time restructuring the course site since july 2013 when she became coordinator of this course; to do so, she had leveraged her 17 years of experience in supporting and actively listening to flo students. she was therefore able to confidently (with the support of an e-learning advisor) ensure that the learn site had the scaffolding that flo and on-campus students required throughout 2014. (see figure 2 for the course home page in learn.) figure 2 learn home page hunt, a-m. 52 the sections in the left-hand menu that were relevant to this inquiry project were: assessment information, inquiry communication & flo peer support, inquiry module, inquiry weekly expectations, inquiry learning scaffolds, and inquiry resources. typical comments in the anonymous end-of-course teaching cem survey showed that students found the design useful: you put all of our material on learn in a logical way and then showed us exactly where we could find it. (cem survey) everything was clearly laid out under specific headings on the learn site. (cem survey) suggested edits or updates were promptly made to the learn site by hunt as course coordinator. the learn course and the on-site intensives enabled students to get to know hunt and a new oncampus lecturer who observed and provided support. during the 3 days of the intensive the students formed mentor groups that would provide communication and support over the next 4 weeks of personalised inquiry. during the first intensive day, students supported each other as they launched further into inquiry, sharing immersion experiences, crafting individual (or paired) emerging big questions, and sharing possible experts from their personal networks. the peer relationships established during the two earlier semesters contributed to the strength of the group dynamics and the success of the 2014 inquiry experience (observations recorded by hunt). the students recorded their experiences, findings, and reflections in a journal of their choice and continued their inquiry journey and mutual support online after returning home. mackey and evans (2011) consider the role played by participants in determining engagement and connections in and across the boundaries between online learning communities and professional practice. they promote socially networked learning, and emphasise the role of the learner in defining their learning pathways. this course supported mackey and evans’s argument that there are strong links between formal online learning opportunities and authentic learning in such communities of practice. learning to learn inquiry learning is often equated to learning to learn. strozzi-heckler (2014) states: learning how to learn is one of the most powerful ways of dealing with the changes of today’s world. in this time of accelerated change learning to learn gives us a competitive advantage. to succeed in the future, we must be learning individuals in learning organizations. (p. 1) according to strozzi-heckler (2014), many possibilities open for us when we learn how to learn. we see that we can change and we see how we can coach others to change. the possibilities for coordinating with others are enhanced and we become more capable of producing a future that takes care of our concerns. although pohl and dixon’s (2005) “lift off to learning” inquiry rocket was the original course designer’s model of choice (see figure 3), students were encouraged to draw on an alternative model if they found one that suited them better. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(2) 53 figure 3 pohl’s model as used for students’ inquiries © m. pohl http://www.thinkingeducation.com.au/ one 2014 student drew in her journal a visual representation of her own inquiry model as it emerged during her inquiry. such journal reflections were powerful evidence of personal growth and a developing understanding of the inquiry process. many students also commented on how the experience of a personal professional inquiry prepared them to understand what their learners might experience when using inquiry learning, and what they might feel when undertaking teaching as inquiry (ministry of education, 2007a, p. 35) in their future careers. the students’ ‘so what?’ questions were just as important as their big questions. hunt asked students to ask themselves: “how could my inquiry make a difference for myself, my peers and my future learners?” a response to this question was expected in their hard-copy or online journals immediately after their big question. in 2014 some examples of the big questions and related so what? questions were: what ipad applications currently enhance classroom learning?  so what? give back a database of ipad apps that myself, my peers and current practitioners could refer to when we needed them in the classroom to enhance a lesson, unit or inquiry. what are modern learning environments and will they impact student's learning?  so what do we, as beginning teachers, need to know to work successfully in a mle? how can mobile devices and apps be used to engage students in literacy?  so what? learners achieving understanding through “telling it their own way—in a way that’s relevant to them”. online support weekly synchronous chat session times were scheduled in learn before the students left the campus. in 2014 these sessions became optional rather than a requirement because student feedback showed that online chat was overwhelming for some. in 2014 the student:staff ratio was 40:1, which was a dramatic increase over 2006 when the mentee:mentor ratio was 9:1. other communication tools were also used. regular skype calls were preferred by the pairs working together on an inquiry and by several individuals supporting each other. emails were also used http://www.thinkingeducation.com.au/ hunt, a-m. 54 for peer and lecturer support. in addition, hunt used her professional judgement and would occasionally phone a student to listen to and discuss their needs. a speedy response to student emails was seen as vital, and was always provided on the same working day. written anonymous student feedback supports hunt’s view: prompt phone calls to answer questions—very, very helpful during inquiry. (end-of-course written feedback) regular checking of emails/[lms] to ensure timely feedback & answers to questions was greatly appreciated. (end-of-course written feedback) expert networks xiaodong, schwartz, and bransford (2007, p. 68) report that “multiple perspectives of experts point out a number of important features that the students did not notice”. therefore, for the “how will i find out?” stage of pohl and dixon’s (2005) inquiry model (see figure 3), the students were expected to seek out a few varied experts, and to gather information and perspectives for the big question of their inquiries. many engaged with experienced teachers, some of whom were past mentors or associate teachers for that student or for a peer. school leaders were also popular experts, and a few education consultants made themselves accessible. peers also used each other as experts and sought their perspectives. websites, articles, and library books were also considered to be experts in this context of inquiry. these resources were helpful during the ‘immersion’ and ‘how will i find out?’ stages of student inquiry, and when they were waiting for a response or the availability of their human experts. some students found themselves going back and forth in the inquiry model stages and reflecting, in their journal, on the need for flexibility. for example, one student wrote: “i feel that i have experienced the process of inquiry in my own way and i am now in a much more powerful position from which to teach it”. the strategies that students chose to gather information from experts mostly emerged around week 2 of their structured 4-week inquiry process. interviews in person, by skype, or by email were most common. many also used online surveys (survey monkey). students felt empowered by using such online tools, often for the first time, and the resulting skill development was clearly evident in many journal reflections. students found expert websites, articles, and twitter extremely helpful, especially when faced with the probable and expected roadblocks that commonly affected their progress. students had been warned that these roadblocks were highly likely—and that the most common would probably be lack of response from an expert. how to get around these roadblocks was discussed while on campus and throughout the following 4 weeks. the reality of busy teachers and principals (who were likely to be experts) at the beginning of the school year was often not appreciated until personally experienced. online forum participation in learn was another strategy to support students and their peers through the frustrating times: the forums set up allowed students to contribute to each other’s inquiries and promoted active participation. (end-of-course written feedback) self-, peer and occasional lecturer support and/or feedback were encouraged throughout these 4 weeks. guidelines were provided for the 4 weeks in learn’s weekly expectations. students found these guidelines useful when they hit a roadblock and to set their weekly goals and next steps. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(2) 55 contextual statements, presentations and peer feedback “requiring us to present our inquiry to all on line was excellent and is a great resource for us all.” (student reflection) during the fourth week, each student (or pair) uploaded a one-page summary (a contextual statement), with their visual presentation, into learn. this contextual statement was an overview of their inquiry journey. it helped the students to reflect on their inquiry journey and put the presentations and reflections into context for their peers and the staff. some students also chose to offer their peers support materials, such as a page of tips or a pamphlet, for easy reference. students were provided with an online template and required to give written feedback to at least six peers. a range of presentation tools was used. powerpoints were popular; however, the availability of such tools as prezi (which the author and course leader modelled during the on-site intensive) and some forms of presentation such as weebly and animate (new to most students), were also used. figure 4 shows weebly as used by one student to present her inquiry into “experienced teachers’ advice for a beginning teacher”, which included sections such as the first day, routines, relationships, management, and the physical environment. figure 4 a student’s inquiry: “starting with your own class . . . wondering how to get off on the right foot . . . i spoke to teachers with over 75 years of teaching experience between them.” presented with weebly in figure 5 the student’s presentation of their big question: “what’s the big deal about bullying?” was presented with animate to create a cartoon as a role play. the student said: my inquiry led me to explore bullying issues as well as inquiry itself, how it fits into the curriculum and what it essentially looks like in the classroom. (end-of-course written feedback) hunt, a-m. 56 figure 5 an inquiry presentation using animate discussion: teaching as inquiry in the future one of the recommendations in the 2014 british education research association report on building the capacity for a self-improving education system, was to revise the “framework for initial teacher education . . . such that enabling teachers—and future teachers—to engage with research and inquiry becomes one of the hallmarks of ‘outstanding’ practice” (p. 31). such evidence-based research and student feedback support this student’s feedback: i believe some of the other courses could be more effective if they were structured in the same way as inquiry. (end-of-course written feedback) when asked which courses they thought could use the inquiry process, the students’ common response was “literacy”. the students felt literacy was a huge topic to get to know in a short time and, if they had been able to select an aspect to explore through inquiry and then share the topic with their peers, they might have got a greater, deeper, and richer understanding. hunt promptly shared this perspective with the programme and literacy course coordinators. such inquiry learning experiences in pre-service teacher education are most likely to prepare graduates to continue their inquiry-based learning journeys in their profession. teaching as inquiry (ministry of education, 2007b) includes a visual statement (see figure 6), promoting “teaching [and learning] as inquiry” (ministry of education, 2007a, p. 35) as recommended by timperley et al. (2007). figure 6 teaching as inquiry (ministry of education, 2007b) © the crown journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(2) 57 since 2014, increasing numbers of new zealand schools have expected their teachers to implement this approach (personal observation). many new zealand teachers who select an area of inquiry and use this process, individually or collaboratively, use online and digital tools to record and share their inquiry journeys and findings with colleagues (see for example mackey, davis, & stuart, 2015 submitted; ripp, 2014). the concepts of personalised, collaborative, and co-constructed inquiry learning emerged in this study. timperley, wilson, barrar, and fung (2007) proposed a sequence of inquiries for teachers’ professional learning and development that combine the elements in such a coand self-regulatory learning cycle. they explain “coand self-regulatory” thus: teachers collectively and individually identify important issues, become the drivers for acquiring the knowledge they need to solve them, monitor the impact of their actions, and adjust their practice accordingly. . . . a key assumption underpinning these coand selfregulatory learning cycles is that for inquiry to be effective it needs to occur at three interrelated and parallel levels: student, teacher, and organisation. (p. 44) this uc pre-service teacher education inquiry project has shown such co-construction throughout the past decade. furthermore, hunt argues (as a key theme for this paper), that blended e-learning is the future— not just for students at a distance from a university campus (as emphasised in this case study), but also for on-campus student teachers and practicing teachers in aotearoa new zealand schools. mackey and evans (2011) extend this theme by suggesting there is considerable potential for online learning communities to support teachers’ professional learning in schools. a key to realising this potential will be the redesign of online courses to encourage participants to develop their own networks of practice in and beyond the course parameters. such redesign will need to value learning that is synchronised with, and situated in, professional practice; encourage learners’ often invisible interactions with those outside the formal course structure; promote the sharing of work and school-based examples in the online environment (especially cross-sector interaction); and facilitate critical reflection that focuses on the links between theory and practice, and between new and existing beliefs, attitudes, and practices. conclusion further developments in the uc college of education are already underway. they will extend our knowledge of e-learning in primary pre-service teacher education (see, for example, abbiss & astall, 2014; dabner, 2015). reflective inquiry and the early establishment of student teachers’ own networks of practice, including e-learning, will continue to be developed. student teachers who experience an inquiry process in their pre-service teacher education programmes are now better prepared, as learners and teachers, to meet the challenge of using it in their own teaching practice. hunt has observed increased motivation for personal learning by both students and staff during all 4 of the years she has facilitated this course. personalised learning and ownership of an inquiry are powerful motivators. we need to enable student teachers to select more of their own big questions and learning pathways in more courses and assessments. tertiary staff who provide support and scaffolding through blended e-learning facilitate a deeper engagement and the opportunity for a wider range of new and relevant learning. an inquiry process is an empowering group experience that models the effective teamwork expected of student teachers in their future employment. the reciprocal learning and teaching experienced by peers and staff was significant throughout this study. peer support and guidance created a quality group experience. the semester 1, 2014, group were, for hunt, significantly hunt, a-m. 58 strong, connected, confident, collaborative learners and teachers with clear reciprocal roles. this was ako. ako has been evident through the last decade; however, in 2014 ako has been part of a future focused, inclusive and modern practice. students showed increased motivation to put this learning into practice as beginning teachers in their professional practice. as new qualifications are designed globally, and blended e-learning courses are updated, hunt recommends that student feedback be continually fed forward to ensure courses are engaging, and to maximise the learning for all involved. the author also recommends inquiry learning and teaching to other programmes and professions within aotearoa new zealand and globally. acknowledgement the author acknowledges the students who contributed to this course and those who gave permission for their learning to be observed, analysed, and reproduced. references abbiss, j., & astall, c. 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(2015). weaving digital citizenship within pre-service teacher education: preparing graduate students for high-quality educational practices within modern learning environments and the virtual world. las vegas, nevada, us: society for information technology & teacher education international conference (site), 21–25 mar 2015. site conference proceedings 2015(1) 3115–3121. davis, n. (2010). technology in preservice teacher education. in p. peterson, e. baker, & b. mcgaw, (eds.), international encyclopedia of education 8, pp. 217–221. oxford: elsevier. gikandi, j. w., morrow, d., & davis, n. e. (2011). online formative assessment in higher education: a review of the literature. computers & education, 57(4), 2333–2351. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2011.06.004 hunt, a-m., mackey, j., dabner, n., morrow, d., breeze, d., walker, l., & davis, n. 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(2009). virtual learning and real communities: online professional development for teachers. in e. stacey & p. gerbic (eds.), effective blended learning practices: evidencebased perspectives in ict-facilitated education (pp. 163–181). hershey, pa: information science reference. http://www.thersa.org/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/1543450/bera-rsa-research-teaching-profession-full-report-for-web-2.pdf http://www.thersa.org/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/1543450/bera-rsa-research-teaching-profession-full-report-for-web-2.pdf http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2011.06.004 http://www.deanz.org.nz/home/images/newsletters/may11.pdf journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(2) 59 mackey, j., davis, n., & stuart, c. (2015, submitted). leading a future focused school. set: research information for teachers. mackey, j., & evans, t. (2011). interconnecting networks of practice for professional learning. international review of research in open and distance learning, 12(3): 1–18. ministry of education. (2007a). the new zealand curriculum. wellington: learning media for the ministry of education. ministry of education. (2007b). teaching as inquiry. retrieved from http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/curriculum-stories/case-studies/teachers-as-learnersinquiry/teaching-as-inquiry ministry of education. (2008). ka hikitia—managing for success: the māori education strategy 2008–2012. wellington, n.z.: ministry of education. pohl, m., & dixon, m. (2005). lift off to learning in inquiry-based classrooms: by linking thinking and information literacy. moorabbin, victoria, australia: hawker brownlow education. richardson, l., & st. pierre, e., (2005). writing: a method of inquiry. in n. k. denzin & y. s. lincoln (eds.), the sage handbook of qualitative research (pp. 959–978). thousand oaks, ca: sage. retrieved from http://depthpsychotherapy.pbworks.com/f/writing+a+method+of+inquiry.pdf ripp, p. (2014). education musings, technology and lessons: my life as a teacher. retrieved from http://pernillesripp.com/2014/10/31/6-changes-toward-personalised-learning/ strozzi-heckler, r. (2014). the art of somatic coaching. human resources magazine. retrieved from http://www.strozziinstitute.com/resources/articles/learning+to+learn timperley, h., wilson, a., barrar, h., & fung, i. (2007). teacher professional learning and development: best evidence synthesis iteration (bes). retrieved from www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/series/2515/15341 xiaodong, l., schwartz, d., & bransford, j. (2007). intercultural adaptive expertise: explicit and implicit lessons from dr. hatano. human development 50, 65–72. doi: 10.1159/000097686 http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/curriculum-stories/case-studies/teachers-as-learners-inquiry/teaching-as-inquiry http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/curriculum-stories/case-studies/teachers-as-learners-inquiry/teaching-as-inquiry http://depthpsychotherapy.pbworks.com/f/writing+a+method+of+inquiry.pdf http://pernillesripp.com/2014/10/31/6-changes-toward-personalized-learning/ http://www.strozziinstitute.com/resources/articles/learning+to+learn http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/series/2515/15341 hunt, a-m. 60 biographical notes anne-marie hunt anne-marie.hunt@canterbury.ac.nz anne-marie is a lecturer and the regional co-ordinator at the rotorua university of canterbury (uc), college of education centre. she teaches the professional inquiry and practice courses in rotorua and in the uc flexible learning option that is available throughout aotearoa new zealand. her research interest areas are in blended e-learning and māori education. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. hunt, a-m. (2015). blended online learning in initial teacher education: a professional inquiry into pre-service teachers’ inquiry projects. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(2), [48–60]. mailto:anne-marie.hunt@canterbury.ac.nz http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ journal insides v1.indd © distance education association of new zealand 6 distributed learning in british columbia: a journey from correspondence to online delivery tim winkelmans manager, e-learning programs unit british columbia ministry of education1 victoria, british columbia, canada tim.winkelmans@gov.bc.ca barry anderson solte consulting victoria, british columbia, canada barry.anders@shaw.ca michael k. barbour assistant professor, instructional technology wayne state university detroit, michigan, united states of america mkbarbour@gmail.com canada is characterised by a large geographic area, rugged terrain, and many rural communities whose schools cannot offer the same educational opportunities as their urban counterparts. the province of british columbia exemplifi es this situation. since 1919, british columbia has embraced open and distance learning to provide education opportunities across the vast province. british columbia now has over 50 public and independent (i.e., private) schools offering distributed learning to almost 60,000 students in primary and secondary education. 1 this paper does not necessarily refl ect the policy of the ministry of education, british columbia. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 6–28 © distance education association of new zealand 7 despite the extensive use of distance education in british columbia, most of the literature on canada’s k–12 distance education has focused on two provinces—alberta, and newfoundland and labrador (barbour & stewart, 2008). beyond a series of evaluations and reports prepared on behalf of the british columbia teachers’ federation (see kuehn, 2002; 2003; 2004; 2006; hawkey & kuehn, 2007), there has been almost no published literature on the k–12 distance education experience in british columbia. in this article we address this gap in the literature and explain how distance education is used at the k–12 level across canada. we then describe the geography, population, and governance of the k–12 education system in british columbia. finally, we discuss the three historical phases of development of distance education at levels k–12 in british columbia, with a view to explaining its recent rapid growth. k–12 distance education in canada canadian jurisdictions have used distance education at the k–12 level for almost a century. british columbia began using correspondence education in 1919 (stack, 1990), and introduced virtual schools around 1993 (barbour & stewart, 2009). canada is a world leader in using distance education to improve educational opportunities for k–12 students, although other large or dispersed nations are also well known for their efforts in this arena. online learning began at the k–12 level in british columbia with the creation of new directions in distance learning (dallas, 1999) and the ebus academy (see http://www.ebus.ca) in vanderhoof around 1993. this was quickly followed by district-based k–12 online learning programmes in manitoba, ontario, alberta, and newfoundland and labrador (barker & wendel, 2001; barker, wendall, & richmond, 1999; haughey & fenwick, 1996; stevens, 1997). in their national survey of k–12 online learning, o’haire, froese-germain, and lane-de baie (2003) reported that alberta had the most students engaged in online learning, but british columbia also had a signifi cant number of district-based and consortium programmes. k–12 education in british columbia every jurisdiction creates a system unique to its context: small, densely populated, fl at places have different options from large, sparsely populated, and geographically rugged and isolated areas. because demography and geography interact with social trends in politics, economics, and education to shape educational services, british columbia’s context is very important. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 6–28 © distance education association of new zealand 8 geography at 95 million hectares, british columbia is larger than most countries. located on the pacifi c coast, it is canada’s westernmost province, and the third largest, comprising 9.5 percent of the country’s total land area. there are only 30 nations in the world larger than british columbia. from south to north, the province stretches 1200 kilometres; and from east to west, as much as 1050 kilometres. its deeply indented, island-dotted coastline extends 7000 kilometres.2 the topography of the coastline and rugged mountain ranges divides the province into fi ords, islands, and isolated river valleys. these geographic features have supported farming, fi shing, mining, and forestry, although many of the settlements that supported these industries were too small or isolated to build schools or transport their children to schools in nearby communities. once described as “a sea of mountains”, british columbia’s geography has shaped the pattern of its population settlement and its education system. population british columbia’s current population is about 4.4 million (government of british columbia, 2008a). most (64 percent) live in large metropolitan areas in the south-east corner of the province (statistics canada, 2008). there are 105 communities with fewer than 10,000 residents, 43 with between 10,000 and 100,000 people, and 10 cities of over 100,000. in 2007–2008, the 17 urban boards of education enrolled about 383,000 students (66 percent of the total public school student population), or an average of 22,500 each; 43 rural boards of education enrolled almost 200,000 students (34 percent of the total public school student population), or an average of about 4600 each. this population distribution makes it extremely diffi cult to provide all students with high-quality choices. governance of k–12 education each canadian province is responsible for its own education system. the primary infl uence of the national government is in the areas of aboriginal education and bilingualism. when british columbia established canada’s fi rst elementary correspondence school in 1919 (dunae, 2006; stack, 1990), the province affi rmed its jurisdiction over education by assuming responsibility for educating children in remote areas, including the federal government’s lighthouse stations. since 1919, provincial education policy has refl ected the interplay between provincial and federal rights and responsibilities. 2 geographic characteristics obtained from http://www.britishcolumbia.com/information/ details.asp?id=38 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 6–28 © distance education association of new zealand 9 british columbia is currently divided into 60 public school districts. each district is managed by a locally elected school board that is funded by the provincial government to provide free k–12 education. to support quality and equity around the province, local school property taxes are collected provincially, melded with other provincial revenues, and redistributed to the boards of education according to a formula. in 2008, the province provided over c$4.3 billion to boards of education, or c$8118 per full-time equivalent student (government of british columbia, 2009). the province funds independent schools at up to 50 percent of the funding level provided to public schools, regulates them, and allows them to charge tuition fees. in 2007–08, independent schools enrolled 68,934 students (10.6 percent of the student population) (government of british columbia, 2008b). according to a recent service plan (government of british columbia, 2006a): the ministry of education co-governs k–12 education with school boards—education services are delivered locally through school boards, public schools and independent schools, while the ministry provides leadership, develops policy and legislation, oversees system governance, sets results-based standards and develops accountability frameworks (p. 4). with one exception,3 each board of education represents a geographic region of the province. snapshot of the k–12 system the annual summary of key information summarises the school system’s demographic and achievement information (government of british columbia, 2008b). table 1 provides demographic comparisons between the full student population and distributed learning population in 2007–2008. 3 the francophone education authority has province-wide jurisdiction over students with francophone rights, which are protected under the canadian charter of rights and freedoms (department of justice canada, 1982). journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 6–28 © distance education association of new zealand 10 table 1 british columbia enrolment profi le: all students and distributed learning, 2007–2008 category all students distributed learning students # % # % student population 651,625 100 19,603 3.0 female 319,296 49 10,819 55.2 male 332,329 51 8784 44.8 aboriginal 62,806 9.6 1946 9.9 special needs 56,849 8.7 336 1.8 english as second language 62,980 9.7 33 0.2 adult 14,882 2.6 5867 29.9 francophone authority 3964 1.5 n/a n/a note: these numbers include public and independent schools that are the reporting schools for students. they exclude supplemental distributed learning course enrolments.4 for example, the francophone distributed learning students are reported through a bricks-andmortar reporting school. the 6-year completion rate5 for all students was 79 percent, although for aboriginal students the rate was only 47 percent. students are deemed to be of school age from 5 until their 19th birthday. normally, the school year begins in september and ends in june, the major school vacation is in july and august, and there are shorter spring and winter vacations in december and march. five-year-olds attend kindergarten for half of each day, and are provided with activities based on the provincial curriculum. after kindergarten, students proceed from grade 1 to grade 12, and most students graduate from secondary school in their 18th year. the provincial curriculum is usually divided into elementary (kindergarten to grade 7) and secondary (grades 8 to 12). the fi nal 3 years of secondary school constitute the graduation program, and the student’s fi nal school transcript includes their fi nal marks for all graduation program courses. 4 supplemental courses are part time. 5 the graduation rate of all students in a cohort 6 years after they entered grade 8, calculated by tracking each member of the cohort for 6 years. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 6–28 © distance education association of new zealand 11 elementary programmes tend to be organised as class groupings with a main teacher, running from september to june. secondary schools usually organise students into courses with separate teachers, and may run through the school year or as two semesters: september to january, and february to june. the province establishes prescribed learning outcomes for all compulsory and signifi cant elective courses from kindergarten to grade 12, but boards of education may also offer local courses that meet provincial guidelines. distributed learning distance education in british columbia is referred to as distributed learning. legislation in 2006 defi ned distributed learning as “a method of instruction that relies primarily on indirect communication between students and teachers, including internet or other electronic-based delivery, teleconferencing or correspondence” (government of british columbia, 2006b, c–12). in june 2008 there were nearly 49,000 school-age and adult students taking at least one distributed learning course from 50 public and 13 independent distributed learning schools. this represents about 7.5 percent of the entire student population. table 2 provides a comparison with several other jurisdictions. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 6–28 © distance education association of new zealand 12 ta bl e 2 p a rt ic ip a ti o n a n d c o m p le ti o n r a te s c o m p a re d f o r se le c te d j u ri sd ic ti o n s fo r th e 2 0 0 7 – 2 0 0 8 s c h o o l y e a r br it is h co lu m bi a fl or id a id ah o ill in oi s m ic hi ga n u ta h n ew z ea la nd to ta l st ud en t po pu la ti on 6 5 1 ,6 0 0 2 ,7 5 4 ,0 0 0 2 7 1 ,0 0 0 2 ,1 2 5 ,0 0 0 1 ,7 3 8 ,0 0 0 5 5 9 ,0 0 0 7 5 9 ,9 0 0 d is tr ib ut ed le ar ni ng st ud en t po pu la ti on 4 9 ,0 0 0 7 2 ,8 8 0 9 ,4 6 0 3 ,4 0 4 9 ,2 0 0 6 ,7 6 3 1 3 ,0 0 0 pa rt ic ip at io n ra te 7 .5 % 2 .6 % 3 .5 % 0 .2 % 0 .5 % 1 .2 % 1 .7 % co ur se c ou nt 1 2 7 ,6 0 0 1 2 1 ,7 6 5 6 6 1 9 6 0 1 2 11 ,0 0 0 7 5 0 0 n o t fo u n d st ud en t co un t m et ho d p a rt ic ip a ti o n c o m p le ti o n r e g is tr a ti o n r e g is tr a ti o n p a rt ic ip a ti o n c o m p le ti o n r e g is tr a ti o n co ur se co m pl et io n ra te k – 7 : 9 0 % 8 – 1 2 : 6 4 % 8 0 % 7 0 % n o t fo u n d 7 5 % n o t fo u n d t h e c o rr e sp o n d e n c e s c h o o l: 5 0 % v ir tu a l l e a rn in g n e tw o rk : 8 5 % n ot e: t he d at a in t hi s ta bl e sh ou ld n ot b e co n si de re d de fi n it iv e. t he a ut ho rs a ck n ow le dg e th e la ck o f co n si st en cy i n t he v oc ab ul ar y, d efi n it io n , in te rp re ta ti on , a n d ca lc ul at io n o f th es e m ea su re s, b ut b el ie ve t ha t da ta i n t hi s fo rm at w il l pr om ot e di al og ue , t ra n sp ar en cy , a n d ev en tu al a do pt io n o f n ew r ep or ti n g st an da rd s by n at io n al s ta ti st ic al a ge n ci es . c ou rs e co u n t: o n e co ur se r ep re se n ts o n e st ud en t in a f ul lye ar ( c ar n eg ie u n it ) co ur se . journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 6–28 © distance education association of new zealand 13 figure 1 shows that british columbia’s distance learning enrolments grew more than 2000 percent between 2001 and 2008. figure 1 changes in public and independent distributed learning school headcount enrolments in british columbia from september 2001 to june 2008 (winkelmans, 2008) a large number of supplemental enrolments in british columbia account for the enrolment growth observed in figure 1. of 46 boards of education with distributed learning agreements, 30 (64.8 percent) are rural and 16 (35.2 percent) are urban. the student population in british columbia is about 41 percent rural and 59 percent urban. the proportions are nearly reversed for distributed learning—60 percent of the distributed learning students enrol in rural districts and 40 percent enrol in urban districts. although all students in the province can access distributed learning courses, the system appears to focus more on rural students. students enrolled in distributed learning can access these opportunities from a school or their own homes. programmes follow the provincial curriculum and are led by certifi ed teachers. students receive regular report cards, and are subject to conditions associated with regular schools. a separate classifi cation, home-schooling, is reserved for situations in which parents assume responsibility for curriculum, instruction, assessment, and other educational activities. these students are not included in offi cial journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 6–28 © distance education association of new zealand 14 statistics for those enrolled in distributed learning opportunities. in september 2007 british columbia had 2791 registered home-school students who were not included in the distributed learning enrolment statistics (government of british columbia, 2008b). the number of students being home-schooled has dropped since the introduction of distributed learning programmes. british columbia’s population, geographic features, and political circumstances have produced an education system that blends central oversight with a high degree of student choice and local programme autonomy, and that is best exemplifi ed through its distributed learning strategy. this strategy evolved over decades, in response to and enabled by the changes in publishing tools, information and communications technologies, and the pedagogical approaches discussed in the next section. evolution of distributed learning in british columbia distributed learning in british columbia developed in three phases. the fi rst used correspondence education provided by the provincial government. in the second phase (1980s), delivery of distributed learning became more decentralised as the ministry of education created a regional model to administer and deliver k–12 distance education. the third phase began about 1990, when the ministry began to exert more oversight. however, programmes became more decentralised as more schools offered services over the internet. 1919 to 1984: centralised correspondence education dunae (2006) indicated that british columbia’s fi rst elementary correspondence school opened in 1919 with 86 students—13 of whom were in lighthouses. this school grew to over 600 students by 1929, when the secondary correspondence school opened. both schools operated as separate units within the education department (later the ministry of education) until 1968, when they merged into the correspondence education branch. nearly every aspect of this service (course development, marking, inventory, and staffi ng) operated from central offi ces in victoria from 1919 until 1984. until 1984, british columbia’s size and terrain prevented consideration of other distance education technologies such as radio, television, or telephone. indeed, most students who received their education through the correspondence school were unable to attend schools. after 1984 the correspondence school began to broaden its scope to include students in small and rural schools who needed additional courses, as well as students who could not attend regular schools. local school superintendents approved all enrolments in correspondence education. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 6–28 © distance education association of new zealand 15 all through this period, technological innovation addressed the mechanics of postal service, learning material design and production, and administration. signifi cant effort went into designing systems that could track intricate relationships between student activities, inventory shipments, markers, and local test supervisors. by the 1980s, course developers had to have teaching credentials. technology was inconsequential in the student learning process. the correspondence school competed with other government departments for operating funds from the province’s general revenues. the amount requested was based on a per-student operating cost, which was often much lower than the cost of educating students who attended school. this practice created an expectation that correspondence and distance education would be a lowercost alternative to regular schooling. by the 1980s, procedures were so precisely defi ned that the ministry created a comprehensive computer program to coordinate administrative tasks. although the program no longer exists, its echoes remain in successors that manage today’s distributed learning services. 1984 to 1996: decentralised distance education administration in the 1980s, provincial government initiatives to regionalise services included correspondence education, based on the success of a small regional offi ce established in pouce coupe in1941 (dunae, 2006), and then dawson creek (stack, 1990). the ministry of education divided the province into nine regions; each had its own regional correspondence school, which was operated by one of the school boards in that region (government of british columbia, 1992; south central interior distance education school, 2009). each regional correspondence school contracted secondary markers and hired its own principal and elementary teachers. the boards were responsible for providing administrative staff with terminal access to the ministry’s correspondence administration software program, and for providing a regional service and material distribution facility (which was often surplus space in the school district). the ministry of education retained responsibility for course development, central warehousing of printed course modules, learning resources and materials, funding, and policy (including fees for students who needed supplemental correspondence courses). this fi rst regional correspondence school opened in 1984, and by 1990 all nine schools were established (stack, 1990). initially, the ministry had signifi cant control over the regional correspondence schools, including approval of the school principal. however, by 1994 this control had shifted to the boards, and the schools operated their own computerised administration journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 6–28 © distance education association of new zealand 21 8 for the 2006–2007 school year, the british columbia ministry of education calculated distributed learning course success rates for elementary and secondary programmes. for the latter, results have been further organised by enrolment cohort and age status (school age or adult). elementary success rates were nearly 90 percent, and overall secondary rates were 64 percent. however, as table 3 shows, there was a general decline in secondary success as the student group aged and the school year progressed. table 3 distributed learning course success rates in three secondary school cohorts (2006–2007) 1 jul–15 oct 2006 16 oct 2006– 15 feb 2007 16 feb–30 jun 2007 1 jul 2006– 30 jun 2007 (full school year) n success rate (%) n success rate (%) n success rate (%) n success rate (%) all grade 8–9 6691 78 4191 67 1967 56 12,849 71 all grade 10–12 14461 67 17,071 63 12,142 56 43,674 63 school age grade 8–9 6576 78 4086 68 1899 57 12,561 72 school age grade 10–12 12,038 71 14,779 64 10,489 57 37,306 64 school age grade 8–12 18,604 74 18,865 65 12,388 57 49,857 66 adult grade 8–12 2,157 48 2,121 57 1,228 57 5,506 52 note: the legal school year starts on 1 july, but the traditional school year for most schools begins in early september. schools organised into two semesters usually have their break in early february. 8 active courses meet participation criteria to be eligible for funding; courses in progress are open-ended courses that students are still working on when course completion data is collected. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 6–28 © distance education association of new zealand 22 one reason for the negative trend may be the changing nature of the student—later in the school year, a higher proportion of the students were using distributed learning as a second chance or credit recovery option after failing a course at their local school. nearly all of the adults were taking courses towards secondary school completion because they did not fi nish grade 12 by their 19th birthday (i.e., they were more likely to have been unsuccessful as school-aged students). one major policy domain remains unresolved for both the ministry and distributed learning schools. distributed learning programmes are limited to serving students who reside in british columbia, with minor exceptions. however, interest continues to grow in these distributed learning programmes from students outside the province who are not ordinarily resident therein. conclusion british columbia’s history has created a culture in which high-quality distributed learning services can grow. since 1919, and especially since 1984, distributed learning policy in british columbia has promoted decentralisation coupled with government oversight; access to educational programmes from anywhere in the province; and the use of publishing, communication, and information technologies to improve processes and establish entirely new delivery systems. some interesting lessons are emerging from the british columbia experience. for example, the importance of policies that encourage online delivery is shown clearly in the sharp increase in enrolments that followed the policy changes to encourage student and parent choice by offering fl exibility through distributed learning. the enrolment changes in british columbia also illuminate the importance of funding systems that encourage the operation of distributed learning systems. once the growth opportunities were clear to school boards and administrators, there was a rapid increase in the ‘supply’ of courses and services available to students. there are obvious implications for the support needed to develop, categorise, evaluate, and organise appropriate pedagogical content for delivery to students and teachers. british columbia has seen many examples of duplication and overlap in local efforts to undertake these tasks. developers of funding and organisational policies are fi nding it particularly diffi cult to assess the funding implications of modern technologies. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 6–28 © distance education association of new zealand 23 people and companies trying to sell technology-based services to the system face equally puzzling circumstances. for example, what is the meaning of a ‘school district license’ if the school can use a licensed product outside its boundaries (as all districts and schools in the province can now do, at least within british columbia)? technology allows much better tracking of student performance, and for courses to be broken down into much smaller units. in this regard, we see the beginning of educational systems that have the potential to break down classroom-based models of organisation and governance. school and classroom-based models were adopted by the education system at a time when it needed to serve large numbers of students who (for the most part) could be economically gathered at central locations. in those locations, knowledge (in the form of teachers and books) could be delivered and results assessed with a high degree of effi ciency. technology is also breaking down organisational barriers between k–12 and post-secondary education. british columbia already has mixed-age classes; for example, some students in grade 6 take and pass grade 10 and 11 courses. the logical extension of this practice will be for students who are funded and managed as conventional secondary students to take a mix of secondary and post-secondary classes. who is responsible for these students? who pays? the distributed learning environment also enables quality control and improvement. educational audits and distributed learning standards are important foundations for improving quality, but techniques of continuous quality improvement can be used in the distributed learning environment. this means that parts of courses may be improved; or that poor schools or courses may be de-authorised and their students re-directed elsewhere. there are improvements for teachers too. because large groups of students can be aggregated from the province, teachers no longer need to teach multiple courses to obtain a full teaching load. discipline problems are also greatly reduced in online courses. canada does not coordinate e-learning or distance education policies and services nationally (canadian council of learning, 2009). according to barbour and stewart (2008), british columbia has been the most active and progressive province in creating specifi c legislation and regulations to govern journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 6–28 © distance education association of new zealand 24 distance learning at the k–12 level outside brick-and-mortar schools. that said, british columbia can, and does, share its knowledge and experience with other jurisdictions. through dialogue, initiative, partnership, and organisations like the council for ministers of education in canada, british columbia contributes to, and learns from, the evolving global classroom. references barbour, m. k., & stewart, r. 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(1997). an overview of virtual schooling in north america and europe. victoria, bc: open learning agency. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 6–28 © distance education association of new zealand 28 biographical notes tim winkelmans tim winkelmans is currently manager of the e-learning programs unit of the ministry of education in british columbia. he has been associated with public service technology and distance education initiatives in british columbia since 1989. tim is currently completing his doctorate in educational leadership from the university of calgary. barry anderson barry anderson is executive director of the virtual school society, an organisation dedicated to increasing access to high quality online educational services in british columbia. a graduate of the ontario institute for studies in education, former professor of education at washington university in st. louis, and former executive with the british columbia ministry of education, barry brings his experience with a wide array of research, fi nancial, policy, and administrative approaches to the support of online education. michael k. barbour michael barbour is an assistant professor in instructional technology at wayne state university. he has been involved with virtual schools in canada and the united states for the past decade as a researcher, teacher, course designer, and administrator. michael’s research focuses on rural k–12 students learning in online environments. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 6–28 microsoft word nichols 2.docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 33 reading and studying on the screen: an overview of literature towards good learning design practice dr mark nichols, director of technology enhanced learning, the open university abstract as distance education moves increasingly towards online provision, and because of the benefits provided by online approaches, students will be expected to engage with more resources available on screen. contemporary forms of reading from the screen include reading from tablet devices, lcd monitors, and smartphones. however, print remains the preferred means of reading text, and student preference for print is accentuated when reading involves thorough study (ackerman & lauterman, 2012; foasberg, 2014). education providers face an interesting challenge. although many learners prefer having access to printed materials, on-screen reading can improve education’s convenience, portability, media-richness, engagement, support, and data-evidenced practice. in this context it is timely to consider the potential for on-screen reading from the perspective of learning design. this article considers studies related to reading on screen, and suggests good practice principles for on-screen-only learning design. keywords: cognitive load; learning design; online-only; on screen; print introduction the screen is an everyday part of life for most people. cell phones have evolved into smartphones, and telephony now serves only a minor role. tablet devices are ubiquitous. tablet sales are tipped to surpass traditional laptop and desktop sales in 2016, and mobile (and smartphone) sales will go well beyond both (gartner, 2015). banking, travel, retail, and multiple service sectors are all transformed as a result of online technology, and are further shaped by mobile devices and access. information access is rapidly shifting on screen.1 over time, reading from the screen has become the norm for a number of activities. the vast majority of people, for example, read and respond to emails without first printing them. most adults in the united kingdom now access newspapers and magazines online (sweney, 2013), probably as a result of the uptake of tablet devices and smartphones. books and academic journals are also increasingly electronic. in 2014, e-books comprised some 30% of all book sales in the united states (bercovici, 2014); from january until august 2012, amazon.co.uk sold 114 kindle books for every 100 printed books (malik, 2012). while evidence suggests the overall proportion of e-book to printed book purchasing may be stabilising at about 1:3 (wallop, 2015), increasing investment in e-books and electronic journal services by higher education institutions means access to academic titles and articles is increasingly online. according to a jisc survey, online journals have now largely replaced print versions for faculty research purposes 1 the term ‘on screen’ is used here deliberately instead of ‘online’. online implies the need for consistent internet access. ‘on screen’ assumes that material might also be available offline – either by downloading or preloading the resources. nichols, m. 34 (housewright, schonfeld, & wulfson, 20132). ready access to academic e-books is also improving, although title availability is not sufficiently ubiquitous and licencing arrangements are too challenging to make academic e-books a comprehensive solution for academic libraries at present (walters, 2013). on-screen opportunities the emphasis on the electronic word, the rapid uptake of tablets and smartphones, and the availability of internet connectivity provide substantial opportunities for providers of distance education. on-screen reading is no longer as inconvenient as it once was, and reading applications continue to develop. over the last decade or so, resource-based providers of distance education provided printed materials to students in the form of printed learning guides and readings, complemented with online discussion forums, media (frequently on videotape, cdrom, or dvd), and external internet links. additional learning materials can also be available online, although usually in a printable format. as the on-screen world becomes more familiar and central to academic research, an on-screen-only approach to education can be considered a step forward rather than a retrograde one—particularly if an on-screen approach involves more than simply converting a traditional print resource into an electronic format. an enhanced on-screen-only provision of education provides multiple additional benefits: • effective on-screen reading skills are important for 21st century professionals. • on-screen text can be seamlessly complemented with additional resources and references such as feedback activities, illustrative media, and glossaries. • on-screen information is extremely portable (limited only by the device used to access it), and can be made available and synchronised across various devices. • development of on-screen text is streamlined and more efficient, as print materials tend to be produced electronically and then require additional formatting, pagination, publication, storage, and distribution. on-screen information can be readily, immediately, and cheaply distributed and amended. • on-screen text can be manipulated and annotated by the end-user, and user notes can be easily shared. the user can manipulate text size and (frequently) font, colour, and contrast. • searches can be made for keywords across the whole text. • electronic accessibility services such as read&write for google chrome, and close captioning services, can be used by the reader (depending on the format). • user activity can be passively tracked through analytics. it is clear from this list that making print material available on screen (in the form of, say, pdf or epub files) is neither the point nor the objective. while on-screen text certainly is cheaper to distribute, the potential advantages to tertiary education institutions and their students go well beyond this. a deliberate and leveraged on-screen approach to learning design results in a learning experience that goes well beyond the limitations of a print-based paradigm. from the perspective of online distance educators, one of the more important aspects of onscreen reading is that of learning analytics, defined as “the measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, for purposes of understanding and optimizing learning and the environments in which it occurs” (solar 2011, in ferguson, macfayden, clow, tynan, alexander, & dawson, 2014, p. 121). such data, already captured in virtual learning environment (vle) transactions, becomes more powerful and discerning as more 2i used to print articles but read them on screen. however, paper provided me with security rather than focus, and this year i have stopped printing articles—although i do rotate my external monitor for a portrait view. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 35 detail is provided. but although analytics data captured from individuals might provide insight into tutorial interventions—even where on-screen reading is not required—little can be gleaned about the design of the course. at the level of the individual student, analytics are completely meaningless if students print their course materials or read them outside the vle. with onscreen reading analytics, “new ways of understanding trends and behaviours in students . . . can be used to improve learning design, strengthen student retention, provide early warning signals concerning individual students and help to personalise the learner’s experience” (de freitas et al., 2015, p. 1175). improvements in the availability of analytics data will have a profound influence on the student experience for online and distance learning. unprecedented insight into student behaviour in on-screen courses—at the collective level—will assist learning designers to craft materials based on actual use, resulting in more discerning, evidence-based and learning-friendly course materials. for example, analytics of the average time spent on a particular page, and the number of times students return to that page, can provide important clues as to the clarity of the material provided. the average study time and the influence of feedback exercises on average study time, can both be measured. as should be clear, the exercise does not aim to just garner better ways of presenting printed material on screen; instead, the intention is to optimise a text, media, and activity mix based on actual and objective feedback from collective use. on-screen materials, therefore, provide not only better access to richer materials but also their own feedback loop and evidence base. the passive collection of analytics data through on-screen engagement with materials alone provides significant potential to improve learning, and on-screen reading gives an immediate and detailed view of student progress and behaviour. a print orientation to learning design results in a catch-22. if learning designers develop for a printable world, they are unable to model design approaches that demonstrate print independence. it is a courageous institution that seeks to adopt an on-screen approach to education, particularly because students have a negative perception of the institution merely passing on the costs of printing, and the well-documented evidence of student preference for printed materials (ackerman & goldsmith, 2011; ackerman & lauterman, 2012; baron, 2015; foasberg, 2014; lauterman & ackerman, 2014; liu, 2005; noyes & garland, 2005; vandenhoek, 2013; woody, daniel, & baker, 2010).3 ultimately, however, the question of onscreen versus print transcends that of student preference. learning designers must seek to provide an on-screen learning experience that goes well beyond what is printable. (this is not to suggest that nothing ought to be printed, as outlined later.) student success and learning should be central to the debate of on screen versus print. if an onscreen learning experience is designed so that it improves educational outcomes and support, debate of on-screen versus print takes on a different tone and purpose. the potential benefits of on-screen learning to students, and whether on-screen learning results in cognitive impairment, are central to this revised debate. the benefits have already been disclosed. to further advance the debate, this article now overviews the literature relating to cognitive impairment from onscreen reading, and explores the conditions for how on-screen learning approaches might better support students. the article concludes with some recommendations for developing effective onscreen learning resources. 3 this perspective aligns with student feedback from both open polytechnic and the open university. as i prepared this paper, there were no published studies identifying the percentage of students who prefer an on-screen-only education experience, but independent research conducted by open polytechnic indicates that it could be up to 20% of its adult distance learners. nichols, m. 36 comparing on screen with print outcomes from literature comparing the comprehension of readers reading print and on screen are mixed, although a meta-theme of no significant difference (nsd) can be broadly applied. this conclusion is straightforward enough, but it glosses over some important details. dillon’s (1992) sentiment that the differences between reading from screen and paper defy single variable explanation remains valid, although some key themes can be discerned. the nsd finding has a consistency about it. in the late 1980s, in an early study comparing reading from crt monitors with reading print, “no significant difference was found in either reading speed or comprehension between screen and paper, or between dark and light character displays” (oborne & holton, 1988, p. 1). according to dillon (1992), early studies were unanimous that comprehension is not affected by on-screen or paper reading.4 in addition to measuring reader comprehension, early studies were concerned with the influence of hypertext (that is, text that links to other sections), which tended to have a negative effect on student comprehension (dillon, 1992). a meta-study, prepared some 15 years after dillon’s work, concluded that: . . . total equivalence [for reading from paper vs screen] is not possible to achieve, although developments in computer technology, more sophisticated comparative measures and more positive user attitudes have resulted in a continuing move towards this goal (noyes & garland, 2008, p. 1352). noyes and garland’s review considers the findings from multiple studies concerned with reading speed, accuracy, and comprehension. the authors conclude that “the situation is changing and it is probably fair to conclude that greater equivalence is being achieved today than at the time of dillon’s (1992) literature review” (noyes & garland, 2008, p. 1371). the variability of studies noted by dillon, and noyes and garland, is more recently confirmed by jabr in a sweeping summary of literature: [in studies] published since the early 1990s . . . a slight majority has confirmed earlier conclusions, but almost as many have found few significant differences in reading speed or comprehension between paper and screens (jabr, 2013, para. 6). echoing noyes and garland, jabr concludes that “[p]erhaps, then, any discrepancies in reading comprehension between paper and screens will shrink as people’s attitudes continue to change” (ibid., para. 28). even baron, nostalgic to the point of heavy bias for print reading, concedes that “[n]early all recent investigations are reporting essentially no differences” (2015, p. 12). indeed, several recent studies considering e-readers alongside paper and computer screens are emphatic that there is no difference in comprehension, whether you read on screen or from a printed page (margolin, driscoll, toland, & kegler, 2013; subrahmanyam et al., 2013). a further study suggests that familiarity with tablet devices makes a positive difference to deep-level comprehension, and concludes that tablets are superior to computer displays (chen, cheng, chang, zheng, & huang, 2014). another study reveals evidence of no cognitive performance difference between using printed textbooks and electronic ones when overall grades and perceived learning are considered (rockinson-szapkiw, courduff, carter, & bennett, 2013). growing familiarity with reading from tablets and smartphones seems to be making a difference. importantly, computer vision syndrome (cvs) does not seem to be a factor against on-screen reading, as reading from the screen is no more physically demanding than reading from paper. 4 it is useful to note here that ackerman & goldsmith (2011) also found no difference across subjects reading from crt and lcd displays. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 37 according to one meta-analysis, cvs is more likely to be caused by the position of the screen than by reading from it (koslowe, waissman, & biner-kaplan, 2011). nsd findings a number of studies are unambiguous in their nsd findings (margolin et al., 2013; rockinsonszapkiw et al., 2013; subrahmanyam et al., 2013). margolin et al. (2013) found no significant difference—for either recall or comprehension—between paper, computers, and e-readers. the study by subrahmanyam et al. (2013) indicates that requiring critical engagement with material can improve comprehension. the study investigated simple, medium, and complex tasks that included recall, comprehension, and report writing for samples using print and on-screen sources; it also considered reading speed and comprehension for print, computers, and tablets while testing for the influence of user multi-tasking. while it took multi-tasking readers longer to engage with the passages, “there was no effect of medium on reading comprehension” (p. 11). the study found that even students reading from paper tend to be distracted by technologies, with texting and talking on cellphones being most common. in the second part of their study, subrahmanyan et al. tested the rubric scores of one-page essays created by students who were provided with articles in print or by computer; or a computer, printer and internet combination. in the words of the study, “no significant differences were found between any of the three conditions for efficiency and output quality as measured by the [marking and grading] rubric” (p. 18), despite most respondents indicating they would prefer to engage with print. subrahmanyam et al. also found no significant difference between paper, laptop, and tablet in reading or report-writing tasks. finally, rockinson-szapkiw et al. (2013) found that e-textbooks are equivalent to print textbooks in terms of perceived learning and grades. it is anticipated that technology will continue to improve the nature of the on-screen reading experience (rockinson-szapkiw et al., 2013). indeed, in the rockinson-zsapkiw study, 90% of the 19.7% of students (n=106) who self-selected to use an e-textbook accessed it from a mobile device. it is also likely that the tools that are increasingly available to the on-screen reader (including note-taking, highlighting, social notes, enhanced displays, glossaries, and online links for further information) will continue to improve the effectiveness of on-screen reading (subrahmanyam et al., 2013). while previous studies may have been concerned with comparing texts that are in a page fidelity format (that is, a printed page compared with a pdf version of that same page), the adaptive and enriched potential for reflowable texts (text that reapportions itself based on screen and font size) will probably result in on-screen options becoming more popular and effective. further, there is evidence that students are becoming more familiar with digital annotation tools – to the extent that on-screen readers are more likely to type notes at source than to hand-write notes on printed materials (rockinson-szapkiw et al., 2013). contrary studies considered the literature associated with on-screen and print reading is beset by different study design in terms of both demographics and methodology. although the conclusion of nsd is a defensible one when literature is synthesised, some recent studies comparing computer screens and print clearly find in favour of print (mangen, walgermo, & brønnick, 2013; wästlund, reinikka, norlander, & archer, 2005) or else provide more nuanced results (ackerman & goldsmith, 2011; ackerman & lauterman, 2012; chen et al., 2014; lauterman & ackerman, 2014). two prominent reasons for these differences are overconfidence and cognitive load. several studies (ackerman & goldsmith, 2011; ackerman & lauterman, 2012; lauterman & ackerman, 2014; liu, 2005) have identified overconfidence (when a person’s subjective confidence is higher than it should be for effectiveness) as a feature of how on-screen readers tend to approach their reading tasks. nichols, m. 38 this overconfidence can be partly attributed to the reader’s familiarity with processing brief onscreen readings such as email (which varies in its formality) or news items. genre of use (that is, an internal sense that reading from the screen is a more casual and rapid exercise than reading from print) may be an important factor in overconfidence (ackerman & goldsmith, 2011; ackerman & lauterman, 2012; liu, 2005). the ackerman and goldsmith (2011) study found nsd in cognitive performance for on-screen and print reading when performance was subject to a limited time. however, when the two groups were permitted to self-regulate time, the on-screen group were overconfident and did not perform as well. on-screen readers invested less time, and their performance in tests was lower than that of print students although most had made notes by marking up the document as they read. however, the subsequent study of ackerman and lauterman (2012), using the same methodology, reversed these findings; when given free time with suggested time guidance, on-screen participant scores were no different from those of paper participants. under time pressure, though, the on-screen group did not perform as well. again, overconfidence was a factor in the relatively poor performance of the on-screen group, and there was evidence that reader preference for reading print or on screen also played a part. such findings indicate that there is nothing inherently disadvantageous in on-screen reading except that readers tend to approach it differently. as the ackerman and goldsmith (2011) study notes, “although people are reluctant to study on screen, they can potentially do so as efficiently as on paper” (p. 27). on-screen readers are possibly not aware of the reading strategies that would assist their learning, or are not sufficiently experienced with on-screen reading for it to work for them. lauterman & ackerman (2014) found that “the consistent screen inferiority found in performance and overconfidence can be overcome by simple methods, such as practice and guidance on in-depth processing, even to the extent that some learners become able to perform as well on screen as on paper” (p. 462). students for whom on-screen reading might impair cognitive performance can learn to read effectively on screen. cognitive load, the extent to which a reader’s limited short-term processing memory is engaged with a task, is the second prominent reason for differences in study findings on on-screen and print reading. it is claimed that the cognitive load demanded by on-screen reading is greater than that for print, either from a lack of physical clues regarding progress, haptic familiarity (not having the same ability to engage with the page by touch), or the need for readers to engage with additional navigational activity such as scrolling (destefano & lefevre, 2007; lauterman & ackerman, 2014; mangen, 2008; mangen et al., 2013; margolin et al., 2013; wästlund, norlander, & archer, 2008; wästlund et al., 2005). paper-based text has a definite fixity compared with on-screen text, and the physicality of a book or printed work provides additional navigational clues as to how far the reader has progressed. in contrast, e-reading forces a more virtual sense of navigation. it is theorised that this difference in navigability requires an e-text reader to focus on both progress and comprehension at the same time (jabr, 2013; mangen et al., 2013). however, cognitive load can decrease as tasks become more familiar and as strategies are made available, and learning strategies that improve cognition can also be suggested (kalyuga, 2009); worked examples and effective diagrams are two additional means whereby the cognitive load of learning may be reduced (ayres & gog, 2009). optimising page layout can also reduce the mental workload required for reading on screen (wästlund et al., 2008). cognitive loading is not an inevitable outcome of on-screen design strategies. reader distraction, primarily as the result of increased cognitive load, is also often cited as a disadvantage of on-screen reading (baron, 2015). studies confirm distraction has a detrimental effect on comprehension, whether it is from the temptations of social media (receiving an im, or opening a browser to see the latest news) or heavily hyperlinked text (tempting a reader to click elsewhere on a related theme, and breaking their reading flow). it is particularly clear that use of hypertext increases cognitive load, and hypertext should be minimised if applied at all (destefano & lefevre, 2007). education designers must take care to ensure that on-screen journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 39 reading takes place with as little distraction as possible. innovations such as reading view in the microsoft edge browser are specifically designed to reduce the cognitive load of reading web pages. literature suggests that, where comparative findings for on-screen and print reading find in favour of print, overconfident on-screen reading and cognitive loading are culpable. both of these factors can be addressed through deliberate learning design. making on-screen learning work the literature is clear that there are differences to the actual experience of on-screen reading, even if (ultimately) an nsd applies. generally, literature confirms that: • extended text of more than 1200 words can be more difficult to engage with on screen. • on-screen reading is typically perceived by readers of a genre to be not conducive to serious study. • there are navigational and tactile differences between books and on-screen readers; onscreen text lacks the familiar physical markers readers use to assist with navigation and progress (resulting in haptic dissonance and increasing cognitive load). • on-screen reading may require more mental effort (cognitive load), depending on how it is designed. these differences indicate the means by which learning designers can improve the on-screen reading experience. in the words of ackerman & lauterman (2012), “computerized learning suffers not necessarily because the medium provides a less supportive technological environment, but because learners do not recruit enough cognitive resources to succeed in the task (e.g. attention, memorizing strategies, self-examination)” (p. 1817). nor do comparative studies consider how the same learning outcomes might be addressed by print and a leveraged on-screen experience that includes analytics-based support, embedded media, social engagement, and feedback opportunities. ultimately the solution lies in how learning designers leverage the on-screen experience to transcend what is possible in print. if on-screen materials are to truly transcend print, a suite of learning design practices ought to be adopted. having text on screen is not the goal. the literature indicates the following general learning design practices for effective on-screen learning, and to minimise cognitive load and improve student outcomes. • orientate students to the potential dynamics of on-screen reading, making them more deliberate and focused about their reading behaviour by: o contrasting reading as finding information, and reading as contemplating for understanding o encouraging electronic highlighting and note-taking to paraphrase and query the text o promoting focused reading, with all online distractions (such as twitter feeds, browser tabs, skype channels and im clients) closed during the reading session o encouraging readers to monitor their progress against learning objectives, and to be deliberate about their understanding. • if extended text is unavoidable, prompt the students as to how they should engage with it in the form of lead indicators (e.g., “be sure you fully understand the context surrounding the diagram on p.13”, “pay specific attention to the method used in the study”, or “be sure you understand the main reasons behind the argument. it will be helpful for you to list them”). • scaffold the cognitive load that is appropriate for the level of the student. recognise that students taking early courses will probably need more guidance and feedback. nichols, m. 40 • use a clean, reading-friendly on-screen interface without clutter and distraction. • minimise scrolling as a reader behaviour, so that text can be read in a more stationary way. • be deliberate in the design of on-screen text by: o chunking text logically, in similar sizes as much as possible o preparing on-screen text to optimise the on-screen display in a reflowable manner, to maximise flexibility o providing as much textual land-marking as possible, including diagrams, summaries, and position indicators o embedding activities and additional media in the text as part of a consistent presentation o as a guide, providing activities every 1000 words, to provide feedback and help reinforce key ideas and concepts (excepting book chapters or articles, which frequently cannot be edited) o minimising in-text hyperlinks and ensuring that any used are of direct relevance. • if pdf formats cannot be avoided or extended text cannot be edited (for example in book chapters or articles), make these resources available through a print on-demand service, or provide versions that are easy to print. importantly, there should be a print option for extended narratives such as book chapters and scholarly articles. given that such narratives are not easily broken up for activities, nor provide effective analytics data beyond when a student may have started or finished them, and because such files are often not screen-size friendly, there appears no good reason for print to be withheld. the challenge for learning designers is to ensure that such readings are essential, and not better summarised or alternatively presented. whether such readings should be provided on enrolment or on demand, and who should pay for the printing, become interesting operational questions for institutions to answer. conclusion the debate as to whether distance education materials should be provided in print or on screen is demonstrated to go well beyond arguments of preference, and into the area of learning design. the literature largely confirms that there is no significant difference to learner comprehension if they read from print or on screen. those studies that do find a significant difference cite overconfidence and additional cognitive load as being responsible for the lower efficacy of onscreen reading, and both of these factors can be addressed through a deliberate approach to educational design. ultimately, the questions of on screen versus print come down to how an onscreen experience can be provided to maximise student success and equip students for the future. student orientation and designing for reduced cognitive load are foundational to their successful on-screen learning experience. learning designers must build on these foundations to further enhance student success in the form of analytics-based support interventions, evidence-based learning design, and improved learning activities. institutionally, the added reach and convenience of on-screen education enables further strategic possibilities while, at the same time, demanding more of its online systems. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 41 references ackerman, r., & goldsmith, m. 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(2013). screen reading habits among university students. international journal of education & development using information & communication technology, 9(2), 37–47. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 43 wallop, h. (2015, january 9). the kindle is dead, the book is back. or is it? retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/11335718/the-kindle-is-dead-the-bookis-back.-or-is-it.html walters, w. h. (2013). e-books in academic libraries: challenges for acquisition and collection management. portal: libraries and the academy, 13(2), 187–211. http://doi.org/10.1353/pla.2013.0012 wästlund, e., norlander, t., & archer, t. (2008). the effect of page layout on mental workload: a dual-task experiment. computers in human behavior, 24(3), 1229–1245. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2007.05.001 wästlund, e., reinikka, h., norlander, t., & archer, t. (2005). effects of vdt and paper presentation on consumption and production of information: psychological and physiological factors. computers in human behavior, 21(2), 377–394. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2004.02.007 woody, w. d., daniel, d. b., & baker, c. a. (2010). e-books or textbooks: students prefer textbooks. computers & education, 55(3), 945–948. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2010.04.005 biographical notes mark nichols mark.nichols@open.ac.uk at the time of writing this article dr mark nichols was executive director of education design services at open polytechnic. in february 2016 he began work as director, technology enhanced learning with the open university, united kingdom. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. nichols, m. (2016). reading and studying on the screen: an overview of literature toward good learning design practice. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1), [33–43]. empowering an indigenous rural community: local teachers for local schools john delany christchurch college of education christchurch, new zealand origins of polo in the hokianga 1996 the christchurch education received il rt)quest a group of schools to provide a pre-service teacher education [or people in the hokianga region, llli1ny of whom were already working in schools in various capacities, and ti.l.ost of whom were not able to lllake thf~ comlllitnlent to travel away fronl the an:a to a college of education or other tertiary institution to complete the qualification. the main point of contact was panguru area school (and a history of approaches lllade to other institutions and to the ministry of education are also acknowledged as origulating there). there was strong support for this project from all l(;:vels, including senior officials in the m.il1istry of education, and the local m.p., jo]ul carter. the response of the college was to offer the prunary open learning option (polo) as a way of addressing this need. polo is essentially print-based with suppleulentary audiovisual resources. it lnvolves attendance at campus-based derek wenmoth the correspondence school wellington, zealand residential schools and conlpletion of periods of full-tinle work in schools. the dialogue and negotiation that followed! ulvolving the christchurch college of the hokianga schools, and the ministry of education, saw a further of the polo progrmnnle that to address the following: (a) schoolf' in the hokianga region had been experiencing a critical teacher supply and retention problenl for soule time. the schools have long recognised the potential of a nuulber ,of people in this area to be excellent teachers. tius exciting proposal will enable these people to make a valuable contribution as teachers in the local schools, while at the sanle tinle gaining satisfaction frolll a worthwhile place in the workforce. it is hoped that this local initiative nlay also help inspire other young people to have confidence to escape the toumal learning, vol 7, no 1,2003 distance education association of new zealand 5 insidious trap of u11enlploynlent endenlic in hokianga. gill paaka, ex-principal panguru area school, june 1996) (b) the 111ajority of those for wholl1 the progralllme was to be targeted were m.ature students who had not studied at a tertiary level for a long lime, if at all. it was seen as desirable that these students have support at a local level to assist thenl in their study and provide a certain level of ii expert" input. (c) as there would be a cluster of students frolll the same geographic region involved, it 11leant it would be possible for these people to m.eet together on a regular basis for support and guidance, rathel' than study in isolation. (d) a 11lajor need in the area is for teachers who are skilled in te reo and tikanga maori. many local schools operate llllmersion or bilingual progranulles, and there is a high percentage of maori students in most of the local schools. differentiating features up until 1995 the christchurch college of education's diploma of teaching was available only to students who attended face-to-face lectures oncampus in christchurcll. following the recommendations of the 1994 report widening the delivery (weml10th & mander), the progrmnme was translated for distance delivery, signaling a nl0ve towards a 111 ore open and flexible approach to pre-service teacher education in new zealand. fronl 111id1995 an initial teaching qualification would be available to students who for reasons of geographic location, financial viability, falllily colllulitments, or preferred learning style wished to ''''1' undertake teacher education without attending on-campus classes. the establishm.ent of a "regional initiative" was a further step along the path of developing flexible deli very options that account first and foremost for the needs of students rather than the traditional conscious or subconscious priority given to the needs of the institution itself. a significant aim of flexible delivery is the reu10val of physicat econou11c, and institutional barriers to leanting. in the case of hokianga it was recognised that even the provision of the newly developed polo option would not necessarily achieve this ailn. a ulore effective solution was to identify the characteristics and needs of this particular group of potential students and adapt the delivery lnodel accordingly. thus, while the prograulme in hokianga rem.ains the christchurch college of education diploll1a of teachingr delivered using the polo model of distance delivery, various features have been adapted to best l11.eet regional needs specific to this group of students. these features, or points of difference that distinguish the regional initiative fronl both polo and on-cau1pus delivery, are expanded upon in the ren1ainder of this paper. they have contributed ularkedly to the success of the prograulme, and willie they have provided the catalyst for the enlpowerment of individuals as well as a whole colllmu11ity, they have also been the source of considerable tension. attention to the student profile essential to the development of a l'egional initiative that could clam1 to address the needs of journal learning, vol 7, no i, 2003 © distance education association of new zealand 6 its students is a thorough understanding of the students theulselves, their lllotivation to beconle teachers, and the culture within which they are iinnlersed. current critiques of distance education systems colllmoluy draw attention to the l{eed to focus on the iilstructional needs of students in terms of age, cultural and socioeconolllic backgrounds, interests and experiences, educational levels, and fanliliarhy with distance education lllethods and delivery (sherry, 1996). evans (1994.) the importance of "knowing" our students, and the difficulty of generalising about the /i typical" student due to the diversity of personalities}' previous experience, abilities, and circumstances. previous with polo students supports the view that they exhibit needs, characteristics, and nlotivations that are different from those of on-campus students, and that program.nws and support need to be developed with this miild (delany, 1998). the scattered comnlunities surrounding the hokianga harbour are alllong the most geographically isolated and sodoecononlically depressed in new zealand. frolll the settlenlent of panguru where the regional initiative is centred, it is a one-and-a-half-hour drive on hilly, unsealed roads to the nearest town, kaitaia (population approx. 5,000), which acts as a service centre for the far north region. the early post-european settleulent economy of the hoki,anga revolved around the extraction of native tinlber. with the end of this n011sustainable industry in the first half of the twentieth century t and the 111.ore recent ,...."f"i'''~.a of the exotic tinlher industry, the lllail1ly indigenous maori popuiatioll is left with very few local enlploy111ent opportunities. many depend on a lifestyle of su bsistence farnllilg and fishing. fmnjjy i11collle rates are anlong the lowest and unemployulent rates al1long the highest figures in the country. a nulnber of reports identify the region as problelnatic iil ternls of housing, health, and education. (factors influencing school effectiveness, ero, 1998; don't blmne it all 011 teachers l turner, 1998; food and nut-rition education for maori and pac~fic islanders in the auckland area1 king & tustin, 1989). in particular, the 1999 report of the educational review office (ero), good practice in far north schools, highlights nlajor educational issues to do with standards of teaching and availability of qualified teachers. students in the hokianga initiative are predolll:inantly maori and predominantly feulale. of the students who have prot,rressed to the third year of their teacher education, only one identifies herself as being of european etluuc origin, and only one is a nlale. they are described by professional studies lecturer gill paaka) as women who did not graduate with any qualifications when they left school. they have raised fanlilies and most of thenl have children that have finished school. a lot of them still have soine children at school aild there is no way they could have left their fanlilies and gone to town for three years. student ages range £rodl nlid-t\-venties to nlid-fifties, and despite the rural isolation of the hokianga conlllluluty there is quite a breadth of life experience witlllil the group, one describi11g herself as having "traveled all around the world and then journal of distance learningj vol7t no 11 2003 © distance education associatiol1.o£ new zealand 7 returned to settle in the hokianga and marry the boy down the road." another student i.lllmigrated to new zealand from the philippines. more characteristically however they tend to be people who have been born and ,,~ bred in the hokianga and while they may have spent varying lengths of tinle seeking employn1ent in the nearest city, aucklandi' some five hours' drive to the south.r their experience of the rest of the world is lln1ited. as might be expected, illost have little experience of study beyond the secondary school level, and none had experienced study by distance. two have gained degrees through previous on-calupus tertiary study, qualifications that enabled their diploma of teaching programn1e to be shortened by one year. of significance however is the all10unt of tinle most of these students were spending in schools prior to conlm,enclng the programme, employed as teacher aidest relieving teachers, and even as full-time or part-time (but unqualified) classroom teacbers. this is an indication of the extent pride and comn1itm,ent to their maori culture and langua ge a belief that they have a role to play in the betterlllent of their region through addressing the educational needs of their children as maori. and as locals, rather than continuing to rely on intervention froln outside the region, a strategy that has proved unsuccessful in the past. this belief has motivated these students to undertake the progran1me, and drives thenl to succeed in a conlmmuty that has a proud history of proactive change to improve the lives of new zealand's indigenous people. (dalne whina cooper, respected for her leadership til the land rights campaigns of the 19705 to 1980s, was born, brt:d, lived, and is buried in panguru.) the students. then1selves articulate this 1notivation clearly: who better to teach our own maori children than ourselv(~s? 1 know where i cou1e ft01ll, who i anl descended {rolll. i have' always had that identity. that is a normal thing for a lot of maori people here. but young people i m,et down in the city were so lost i said to them, "wbere do you c0111e fron17" they said, ii i don/t know, r just live in auckland." for 1118 it's importanc having that identity, to be ablp to teach a maori child who they are, where they belong, and find they actually enjoy and take il on board as part of their own life skills. 111,e reason i anl on thig course is because in this coll1n1uiuty 99 percent of the population anj uneu1ployed alld i don't think that's a good envirolunent to bring up our children. i enjoy being with children and i just didll/t realise that. i b(::,lieve i have a lot to offer thenl and to offer in a professional way. that's what keeps me going. (maria, edited frolll interview transcript) participation in the prograll1111e hj~ contributed powerfully to the students' own sense of "who they are" and their role in their comnlu1uty, and til lllany cases has been the catalyst for therr own personal enlpoweru1ent as individuals. journal o/distance learning, vol 7, no 1, 2003 distance education association of new zealand 8 self-esteenl has been enlivened and horizons have been expanded. i have been there, i have seen the bottom. i want to go to the top now, and j want to gel on and do what i nlally want to do. people like ourse·lves, who have worked hard for what we have got, can make il into schools and teach childn~nf clnd be enlightened as to what call happen along the way. (mary-ann!.), interview transcri r t) if it were not for course there were no options. unless i wanted to remain on the uuuae, or spend my lift' looking al the beach. (maria) i would just be relieving at my local school and not thil:u(ing about 111 y future. i would probabl y hd ve been happy to stay home by the beach. at the end of it there would be not 111.uch at all but to be on the dole. i always wanted to do sonlething and i guess this is it. qean) purthennore, students who the progrmnnle with a strong conlulitment cmd nlotivation to contribute to their local conlulunity were within a year realising they were studying for a nationally recognised qualiiication and thenlselves as potentially havlllg a contribution well beyond the hokianga region. i would like to be teaching in three or four years tilne. i am. not quite sure where, but i would like to teach in the schools that we are going to at the 1110111ent ... . but then, because i will be certificated, 1 could go anywhere in new zeala11d! (mary~alule) i could go anywhere! ... but would rather be with nly own people. (richalene) participation in the progranmle has contributed to the breaking down of sexrole stereotypes and provided a catalyst for change. sherry (1996) notes that adult learners have a wide variety of reasons for pursuing leanung at a distance: constraints of rune, distance, and finances, the opportunity to take courses or hear outside speakers who would otherwise be unavailable, and the ability to c0111e ill contact willl other students froll1 different social, culturat econou11.c, and experiential backgrounds. as a result they gain not only new knowledge but also new social skills. in the nlothers' t.raditional role of childcare has been challenged as w0111en undertaking full-tinle study are forced to a sigrrificant proportion of that role to their 1l1.ale partners. indeed they have denlanded in nlany cases the support of their partners in what has becoll1.e a change of lifestyle necessary to ill.eet the c0111m.itments of the progranune. such a challenge does not conle without a price, and while individual enlpowerment is a significant outcome of the regional initiative, the tensions created are of equal significance. the feelings of guilt at neglecting one's, own children, the deulands made on £antily and whanau (extended fmnily) for journal oj distance learning, vol 7, no 1,2003 © dlstance education association of new zealand 9 support, and the financial sacrifice of being unable to earn an income while coillluitted to [u,l1-tiine study all mean that there is considerable family and coillillunity expectation to succeed. this pressure, coillbined with the need to adapt to a form, of study that is not only at a higher level than any undertal<en previously, but also comes in the form of distance (:'!ducatioll, illakes it likely that only the very coillillitted and well-supported students will colllplete the progralllllle. vve had this course platmed so well, very excitillg. but half way through there are changes we have to m,ake. like clwnging illy husband, george, to go shopping and teach hitn how to pay bills . ., . half way through the course i thought no i can't hack this because llloney is always a prohlelll, and the kids are here and i would conle home fronl professional practice and this one needs som,ething and this one needs solllethlllg else, and i would fee] that i was letting theill down. i was feeling guilty because they had to sacrifice a lot. they had to give up a lot of things. (gloria) for ille the course has m,eant a whole change of lifestyle. my whole lifestyle including giving up tilne with luy children, especially illy baby. giving up work, havi11g a husband worki11g away from holne-like we're just sort of eyes passlllg. you have to work it out between your family and yourself. the main pressure for ule was financial, but because it's what r watlt to do you have to work it out and find ways to overcolne these things. i have 100 percent support frolll nly husband with a finger behind pushing ule au the way out the door and saylllg how are you coping, and what do you have to do today" and have you posted this assignnlent and have you posted that assignment. that's what keeps ule going. (richalelle) local teachers for localj schools the drive for the development of a pre-service prinlary teacher education progralllllle in the holdanga was an internal one rather than sonlethillg im,posed frolll outside the region. this local owne,rship of the regional lllitiative has been an important factor ill the way iii which the prograll1ll1e was set up, the inajor local factors being a local lllanagelllent group of prillcipals and other representatives of local sdlools, and the enlploynlent of a local identity as the group coordinalor responsible for the face-to-face delivery of the professional studies course and oversight of school practicums. (this person has 11 ved ill the hokianga for over thirty years and is a respected ex-principal of pal1guru area school.) the educati01wl comnluluty iii the hokianga was well aware of the shortage of qualified teachers in the region and the coulpoundillg effect of tlus shortage on teaching standards in general. there was a strong lllotivation to find a solution to this problelll even before the 1998 ero report highlighted the issues publicly. we realised that we had around us the answer to our problel1l. vve had suffered ,fronl a shortage of quality teachers for some years. we had been em,ploying untrained relief teacllers who journal learning! vo17! no 1,2003 © distance education association of new zealand 10 seenled to us to 11a ve the skills necessary to beconle good teachers. we couldn/t see why we couldn't sonlehow train those people to beconle teachers. that's how our quest to .find sonle sort of local teadler training started. oohu mckenzie, co-principal, panguru area school) representatives of ho'kian ga schools proactively set about finding a way to address the need they had recognised to train local teachers for local schools. christchurch college of education is situated 1,000 kilolneters south and on a different island to hokianga; there are many eloser institutions that offer preservice teacher education. the approach to christchurch was initiated by the people of hokianga themselves following up their own research, the polo probrramme could meet their needs. community initiative and support means the success the regional initiative has contributed to the empowernlent of the conmlunity as a whole. like nlany other rural schools we have a great deal of difficulty attracting and retaining teachers in this area .... this gives access to local people to work in our local schools. it's been a great local initiative. (terry rogers, principal, opononi school) the them_e of "local teachers for local schools" goes deeper than sllllply nleeting the need to fill teaching vacancies. 1110se doing the programm,e see it as an enlpowering factor that reaches beyond their own personal c:iltunlstances and into the whole conlnlul1ity. we've had teachers who were highly qualified but insensitive to our culture. it's imperative that our people qualify because they see the needs of our children. teachers ,from outside the area cannot cater-i've seen it-i've s(~en it as a parent. they don't 1astthey're here two m.onthsthey're gone. they are so far apart from our children, frolll the way we live, from our culture. (maria) there is general recognition of the wideranging benefits the regional :initiative can brulg to collldlumty 11l0tivation and self-esteem. it's not just the teacher trainees that benefit. our school benefits inlmensely while the training is taking place. our teachers are belllg refreshed, the comulunity is upskilling itself. in a colnmunity like ours, to have six or seven people tranullg for the diploma of teaching is a trenl{~ndous bonus. with teacher training happening successfully this way the colnnluluty nlay see other as possible. we lllay see a -..':lc:'-n-,.,rya1"\ro of post-sellool trainblg occurring here. 001111 n1ckenzie) internal ownership and dlotivalion for the teadier education progradlllle also collles at a price: there is the tension created by the fact that the funding for such a prograulll1e is external. vvhile the imposition of funding is not likely to be questioned, there iq the danger that along with external funding com,e imposed attitudes as well, such as the potential journal oj distance learning, vol 7, no 1, 2003 © distance education association of ne'ln zealand 11 institutional attitude of jl we know what's best for you." however, a strength of the regional initiative is the fact that regional students are colllpleting the same progranlllle as any other christchurch college of education students studying for the diplollla of teaching, whether oll-ca1npus or by distance. on graduation these students will be qualified to leach in any prnnary school in new zealand, not just in the hokianga. the regional students are studying for a nationally recognised qualification, not a watered-down version allowing thenl restricted teaching opportunities under supervision. thus the progranllle i" not just traij:ung local teachers for local schooisl and the academic standards ii unposed" need to be seen to be the same standards as those required of christchurch college of education students anywhere in the country. 11lis realisation of the value of their programme has been an inlportant lllotivation to students, who have had to work hard to reach the academic standards being asked of them .. the specialism while the hokianga students are conlpleting a nationally consistent quahfication, the regional initiative was established to address i.dentified local needs, and is differentiated by the part of the progrmnm,e known as the if specialislll," locally inentored and delivered face-to-face. moon (1997) identifies the need to cater for local conditions and circumstances when developing a framework for delivering teacher education progralllllles (rather than sijnply "borrowing" resources developed in a different context), perra ton (1993) discusses the .,'" inlportance of sensitivity to the needs of students and responding to particular conditions they nlay be working under, ij.1cludillg social and cultural contexts. the specialism, is a custolllised part of the regional programnle designf'd to account for the learning styl('c., traditionally found withlil the pn ,dominantly indigenous maori cultut() ()! the group, and addresses the need fpr graduates intending to teach in l hi' hokianga to be well versed in th.! t culture and language. there is a high likew1.ood of teaching bilingual chijdn '!1 in hokianga schoo]sl and in sollle schoul ... specially designed bilingual or full llllllersion maori language programn1l'''' are in operation. the specialism is delivered in face-to-fth t' sessions and increases the alllount of lilt' whole programme delivered in this wd,\ to 35 percent. the content is desigm·d lp address identified local needs to do wilh equipping these locally trained teacher ... to teach in local schools with lhl'lr characteristically high proportion (ii indigenous bilingual students well versl'd in the cllstonls and traditions of llw maori far north. the lllode of deuv('r\ (face-to-face) takes account of a rh'l'~1 to lllediate the distance delivery t \ i the majority of the progranune with opportunities for cooperative tl nd collaborative learningr perceived .i" being lllore characteristic of tradition.ll nlodes of learning in the maori cultun', especially when the facilitators of th('~(' sessions are held in high regard for their knowledge of tikanga maori. research lllto factors influendng the success of distance education programnles indicates the importance of student support, including teacher mediation, to enable students to nlake the journal of distance learning, vol 71 no'12003 © distance education association of new zealand 12 transition frolll u'aditional classroom learning to a more self-directed mode. many current distance education projects "incorporate cooperative learning, collaborative projects, and illteractivity withill groups of students" (sherry, 1996). owens and straton (1980) developed the i.dea of a "local instructional theory" which would recognise the alternate learning styles of students and match these to the content to be learned with if a greater prospect of success than a general instructional lheory intended to function satisfactorily in a variety of settillgs." the spedalisll1, with its nlelding of local learning styles and local content into an instructional theory designed to address the particular needs of hokianga schools, cuhninated in a day waka (maori canoe) trip around the hokianga harbour that was initiated, plaluled, and illlplemented by the students thenlselves. in addition to being a ,further boost to their self-esteem, this venture served to highlight to the students how far they had collle ill two and a half years, and was seen by nlany of thenl as an allegory of their progress through the teacher education progranll:n,e so far. is increasing recognition by distance educators of the significance of developing independent learners in evaluating the effectiveness of a distance learning progrannne. willie distance progranmles need to provide effective conditions for independent study aj.ld break down barriers to learning, they also need to develop each student's capacity to identify and address their own learning needs (paut 1990). the specialism, with its locally developed but institutionally approved learning outcollles and content, provides the conditions necessary for to occur, and prevents the programme fronl becollling sim,ply an external set of resources developed ill a context well rellloved [rolll the needs of local teacher trainees and local sdlools. systems for student support the recognition of the need for enlpowerm,ent of independent learners creates a tension between the role of the learner and the role of tlw institution, or prograll1me provider. in the hokianga the enlpowernlent of individuals and the colllnlunity as a whole has come about through opportunities to initiate and participate in a nationally recognised teacher education pl'ogrmnnle that has the potential to improve the educational opportunities available 1nlocal schools. for the tranling provider there is a balance between providing a student support structure that underpins and enhances this empowernlent, and one that detracts from it the alln must be to support students in independent learning and in vol ve them, as active participants in the learning process. support systenls that work for on-ca1upus students do not necessarily take account of the needs of di':)tance students, and the needs of distance student') 1l1.ay differ from one location to another. finding the balance between support that empowers by renloving genuine barriers to learnlilg, and support that covertly reillforces them, has been a nlajor challenge faced by acadelllic and adnlillistrative personnel working at a distance with students in the hokianga. support structures that elllpower include; e supplementing print-based courses delivered at a distance with face-to-face lecturer contact for negotiated course com.ponents; journal of distance learning, vol 7, no 1,2003 © distance education association of new zealand 13 o ease of access to conununication provision of collllllunication technologies including internet access, elllail, fax, p01ycolll, and 0800 nulllber; qi integration of the local educational community through participation in tutoring of students, associate teacher .,> training, student practicull1s, hollleschool relationships, and use of school resources; • enlphasis on quality written feedback with lllarked assigmnents; • an understanding of the specific personal circunlstances of the studentsthe stu dent who has no telephone at houle, whose home is destroyed by flooding, who travels two hours each way to attend weekly group sessions or whose daily travel to professional practice placem.ent includes crossing the hokianga harbour by car ferry, for whom. near fllll-tiule elllployment :in addition to fu,ll-time study is an econolllic necessity; and ii recognition of the local cultural context as previously described. barriers to learning can be reinforced both by failing to reeo gnise these features and by overconlpensating for thenl to the extent that student seifresponsibi.lity is removed. empowerment beyond the hokianga: appi,ying tl-ie lessons learned the eulpowerulent of the indigenous rural commullity of the hokianga through a pre-service teacher education programule has itself been the catalyst for developnlents in other regions throughout new zealand. the nationwide shortage of qualified prilnary teachers of the mid-1990s has been largely addressed in the major urban centres apart frolll south auckland, but a shortage persists in ulany rural areas and sulaller regional centres; in solne of these, schools or school clusters have grasped the opportunity to be involved with the education of local peoplt~ as teachers for local schools in partnership with the christchurch college of education using a lllodel of delivery similar to the regional initiative in hokianga. tile estabhshulent of the hokianga regional initiative was closely followed in 1997 by other regional initiatives in rotorua, gisbome, and greyll1outh, all of which are centred in regional areas awayfrol11 daily comuluting distance of tertiary 'institutions that offer pre-service teacher educatjoll, and where there were significant teacher shorta ges. a further regional group was established at te araroa in 1999, and the college is presently considering approaches from, four other regions in addition to lllaintaining further intakes of students in the existing initiatives. the key to the success of the hokianga lllitiative lies in ineeting the needs of a local region by llleeting the needs of a group of local student teachers. it was recognised from the start that this would not be achieved by transplanting an on-canlpus prograulme delivered iii illl urban environment to students who are in the lllajority pakeha and aged less than twenty-five, to an isolated and economically depressed rural environment with students who are ulalllly maori, with little previous experience of tertiary study, and whose average age is forty. sinlilarly, the regional initiative iii hokianga cannot snnply be picked up and transplanted to another region. por the same expectations of success, the journal of distance vol 7, no 1, 2003 © distance education association of new zealand 14 principle of identifying and nh~eting ~ocal needs lllust apply. while the regional initiativ(~ is not "transplantable" in this sense, the application of a set of unportant principles developed as a result of thp hokianga experience tnakes the regional uutiative concept lughly "transportable." the successful establishmenl of a local group and the potential for students' acadenlic succ~ss are enhann~d by the following characteristics 1 which have proved as enlpowering (or the progranlnle provider as for the slulh~nts thenlselves: 1. local initiative. the unpetus for the establishment of a regional group needs to come from within the region itself. 111 the hokianga the approach to set up regional teacher edll co ti 011 was a local initiative rather than all inrposed one. the choice of partnership wi tll christchurch college of education was a choice and '[.otis undertaken by the local numagement group. 2. local involvement and ownership. there needs to be significant and real local inpul into the progtanlme that is offered. in the hokianga, the face-to-face components of fte programme (professional st'udies and ule specialism) are mentored by local professionals, and the1'e is clo~e cooperation and consultation with schools in the region 'who are represented on a local management committee. 3. identifying and addressing the needs of students. there needs to be careful attention to the student profile which lllust flow transparently ulto progranllue design and delivery_ needs of students will be different £rolll region to region, and within regions. the hokianga specialism is designed to meet needs arising from local culture and circumstances/ and there is a balance of modes of delivery, with print-based distance courses supported by regular face-·to-face sessions in addition to cornmunicatiol1 technologies. other specialism courses have been designed to spec~fically meet ale needs of other regional groups. 4. developing independent learners. support structures need to reflect the student profile ul a way that contributes to the developulent of strategies for selfmanagement and lifelong learning. in the hokianga/ particular attention is directed at facilitating an appropriate balance of student-lecturer communication and overcoming reticence on the part of both 'without increasing learner dependence. 5. flexibility. flexible options need to reflect the fact that the student population is not static and that any needs assessment is a snapshot rather than a defuutive description of a perm,anent situation. hokianga students can conhnue their programme any7.dhere in nell) zealand, including on-campus in christchurch/ or with other regional groups. they also have the abilihj to h'al1~fer between filii-time and part-time status and to take ternporary leave from their studies. conclusion the application of these principles is relevant to the ulany rural col11,llluluties in new zealand and australia struggling to find or retain qualified teachers. successful pre-service tead't.er education that is elupowering for uldividual stu dents/ local comllluluties/ and indeed the institutional progranune provider can be established regardless of geographic isolation or socioeconomic conditions, there was a high dropout rate £roul aulong the thirty students who uulially registered mterest ul undertaking the journal ~f distance learning, vol 7, no i, 2003 © distance education association of new zealand 15 progranlm,e in the hokianga, a reflection of the significant inlpact of life events on the persistence of distance students. in decelllber 2000 a graduation cerem,ony was held on the local marae for the fourteen students who have so far seen the progranlnle through to conclusion. althou gh this seellls a sm,ail nulllber of successfll] graduates, the iillpact on the hokianga collllllunlty is huge. for the first time a pool of local people is available to fill the 111any teaching vacancies in local schoo lsi principals and school boards of trustees have the novel experience of being able to employ fully trained and qualified teachers in front of their classes instead of having to fiji the gaps with unqualified relief teachers or teachers frolll outside the region who are unlikely to renlain for lllore than a few months. even lllore significant, and of relevance to isolated rural areas where there is difficulty attracting and retaining qualified teachers, is the level of local knowledge, colllmitment, and understanding of local culture and custonl these new teacl1ers bring to their teaching positions. they are local teachers, grounded, owned, alld accepted in their local community. they were not required to uproot themselves and theit fanlilles in order to train for teaching, and their comnlitnlent to their local region rem.ains intact. rather than attelllpting to tilallufacture a colllmitlnent to teach in such isolated areas fronl graduates who would llluch prefer to renlain in the big cities, the answer at least in part lies in educating local teachers for local schools. references delany, j. (1998). l!vho are our students? choice and opportunitlj in accessing rn'eservice teacher education by distance. ,,' management project for the national diploma of educational managemenl, christchurch college of education, christchurch, new zealand, education review office, new zealand. (1998, november). factors influencing school effectiveness. institute of policy studies newsletter, 56, 21-24. education review office, new zealand. (1999, winter). good practice in far horth schools (nu1l1ber 4). retrieved from http://www.ero.govt.nz/publications/ eer81999/ gpfn.htm. evans, t. (1994). understanding learners i11 open and distance education. london: kogan page. king, c, & tustin, g. (1989, may). food and nutrition education for maori and pacific islanders in the auckland area. proceedings of the nutriho11 society of new zealand, 14, 143-147. moon, r. e. (1997). open learning and new technologies in teacher education. european journal of teacher educatlojzj 20(1), 7-32. owen.s, l., & straton, r g. (1980). the deve]opnl.ent of a cooperative, competitive, an.d individualised learning preference scale for students. british journlll of educntiofwi psychology, 50, 147-161. pauly r (1990 1 february). towards a new measure of success: developing independent learners. open leal'l1ingj 31-37. perraton, h. (ed.). (1993). distance education for teacher training. london: houtledge. sherry, l. (1996). issues in distance learning. intel'lwhol1al journal of educational telecommunications, 1(4), 337-365. turner, h. (1998, august 30). dodt blame it all on teachers. sunday star timesj p. c6. 'nenmoth, & mander, t. (1994). widening the delivery: integration of dislance education and primary programmes at the christchurch college of education. report of the }vorking parhj. journal a/distance learning} vo17} no 1,2003 © distance education association of ne'w zealand 16 john delany is coordinator open learning christclmrcll college new zealand. derek wemlloth is manager of elearning development at the correspondence school, wellington, new zealand. journal of distance learning, vol 7, no 1, 2003 © distance education association of new zealand 17 microsoft word hoffmann duminenski.docx hoffmann-dumieński, k. 66 professional development across the islands of the south pacific: a perspective of a blended learning facilitator kamila hoffmann-dumieński, linköping university abstract access to information and communication technology (ict) is becoming an increasingly important factor for education and training in the south pacific region. while many studies have examined the attitudes and understanding of educators towards using ict in their profession and for their professional development, studies that specifically deal with these matters in the socio-economic and cultural context of the south pacific island states are rare. this study aims to address the gap in the literature by examining the professional development of blended learning facilitators working in remote and isolated communities of the cook islands. the research outcomes of this study are based on the analysis of in-depth, semi-structured interviews, and the theoretical foundation of this project is grounded in the social and situated theory of learning. the central finding of the study suggests that participation in online communities of practice offers ongoing opportunities for learning and development, and reduces the feeling of isolation associated with the geographical conditions of the south pacific region. keywords: qualitative analysis; ict; blended learning; facilitator; professional development; identity; communities of practice; online communities of practice; south pacific island states and territories introduction the idea of professional development has come to the forefront of the current debates on adult education and training (billett, harteis, & gruber, 2014; evans, hodkinson, rainbird, & unwin, 2006). individuals often see professional development as a way to move forward and thrive in their careers. employers view it as a way to enhance competitiveness and productivity, while governments view it as a way to sustain regional growth and political expansion (milana, 2012). yet the term remains vague and often refers to a wide range of formal and informal learning opportunities that are generally directed at promoting skills development and transformation. while face-to-face development formats (such as individual or group coaching, experiential onthe-job learning, or the creation of learning communities) remain valuable and offer ongoing opportunities for professional development, the increase in access to information and communication technology (ict) and online learning creates opportunities for those who do not have easy access to traditional face-to-face forms of learning. given these opportunities this study attempts to understand the professional development of practitioners who are enabled to work and learn predominantly through ict. the study focuses on a small group of facilitators working in remote and isolated communities for te kura uira (tku)—the digital school of the cook islands—and, accordingly, aims to answer the following questions: • what does professional development for tku facilitators look like? journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 67 • how do tku facilitators perceive their work environment and their professional roles? • what challenges have tku facilitators come across and what support have they received in their daily profession? • what role has an online community played in the facilitators’ professional development? the key argument of this paper is that professional development is a dynamic and complex process of learning, identity formation, and participation in both online and offline communities of practice. this argument will be advanced by examining the facilitators’ perspectives of their work environment, professional roles, and factors that supported and hindered their professional development. this argument will be grounded in the social and situated theory of learning. context: bridging the gap for isolated communities the south pacific region spreads across 33 million square kilometres and is divided into three groups of islands known as melanesia, micronesia, and polynesia. together, these three groups consist of 22 small developing states and territories that are made up of thousands of islands and atolls. the south pacific polities vary not only in size and population numbers (from niue, with 1400 people, to papua new guinea with over 7 million), but also in their social and economic development levels, cultures, and languages (west, 2008). what’s more, their distance from global economic centres makes these islands some of the most remote places in the world. information and communication technologies are already having remarkable effects on these islands and offer potential solutions to many of the region’s geographic, economic, and social challenges (cave, 2012). access to ict is also an increasingly important factor for education and training in the south pacific region in particular (pacific islands forum secretariat, 2009; unesco, 2015). the cook islands are part of the polynesian group. they are an archipelago of 15 islands spread over two million square kilometres of the south pacific ocean and divided into three regions: rarotonga, the southern group, and the northern group. the country is a sovereign, selfgoverning parliamentary democracy in free association with new zealand. the people of the cook islands have automatic rights to new zealand citizenship and can freely access the new zealand and australian labour markets (ministry of foreign affairs and trade, 2007). this freedom has resulted in a decline in resident populations as many cook islanders move from the outer islands to rarotonga, and then to new zealand or australia. to decrease the emigration rates and overcome many of the local obstacles such as the isolation of the outer islands, reduced access to education, or short supply of teaching resources, the country has invested in a number of nation-wide educational programmes. te kura uira (tku)—the digital school of the cook islands—is one such educational initiative. it aims to provide the most isolated islands with access to teachers who have specialised skills, and enables students to work collaboratively with their peers from the other islands (crouch, 2013). what’s more, the school offers some of the few professional development opportunities available to the island facilitators responsible for programme coordination (scott, 2015). although many studies have examined online and blended learning environments and the factors that supported and hindered professional development of educators working in such environments, few publications deal with these matters in the socio-economic and cultural context of south pacific islands states. furthermore few, if any, studies have examined the perceptions of educators working on the islands of the south pacific towards the use of ict in their profession for their professional development. this study aims to address the gap in the literature by providing new insights to better understand what it takes to facilitate and develop professionally while working in remote and isolated communities of the south pacific. hoffmann-dumieński, k. 68 methodology the study employed a qualitative research approach. for several reasons, a qualitative approach was deemed the most suitable to answer the research questions. unlike the quantitative method, qualitative research design employs an inductive orientation to the research data to understand, interpret, and explain the social phenomena and the meaning people have constructed (bryman, 2012). such a qualitative inductive approach permits in-depth and experience-based investigation, and generates richly descriptive findings (merriam, 1998). it therefore provided opportunities for the comprehensive reconstruction of the ‘multiple realities’ of the participants’ perceptions and understanding of their work context. what’s more, by grounding the study in situated and social theory, it sought not to test, but to elaborate and add to the field’s understanding of the adopted theoretical concepts. the collection method included using semi-structured interviews, allowing exploration of the perceptions and understanding of the five purposefully selected participants. selection was based on participant expertise and experience in the area of blended learning, their diverse locations, and their participation in an online professional development course run by tku. this targeted selection focused the inquiry on the participants who had time to reflect on and develop their perceptions about their work and its online community. all sampled participants were females aged between 20 and 60, and employed at tku. they were a diverse group in terms of their family status, professional experience, and educational background. because all five participants were located on the remote islands of the cook islands, all interviews were conducted via skype and lasted approximately 60 minutes. a semi-structured interview guide (which was designed and tested in advance to ensure all relevant areas were covered) directed the conversations and kept them focused, but also allowed flexibility to adjust questions and create a comfortable atmosphere. each interview began with an informal chat, followed by a brief introduction to the project. participants were then informed about the purpose and direction of the interview, had a chance to ask questions, and gave their consent to participate. the interviews were carried out in a conversational style, with different types of open-ended questions to gain in-depth understanding of the context and to explore participants’ perceptions (bryman, 2012). the interview started with broad entry questions followed by more descriptive, structural, and hypothetical questions. the interview covered the participants’ perceptions of their professional development, work environment, professional roles and responsibilities, and their online work community. descriptive and structural questions provided a way to reconstruct specific events or experiences, and to comprehend how participants organised their understanding. an example of a descriptive question used for the interview was: “can you please describe a typical day at work?” hypothetical questions allowed participants to reflect on situations that they may encounter. an example of such a question was: “what would you do if you had a similar problem again?” hypothetical questions provided more data for analysis and generated further opportunities to explore participants’ dimensions of meaning. data obtained from the five interviews were recorded, transcribed, and later analysed using thematic analysis. thematic analysis enabled the researcher to find significant patterns and encode the interview data into themes. it also helped to arrange the key findings and relate them to the context of lave and wenger (1991) and wenger’s (1998) theory of the social and situated theory of learning. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 69 findings the following paragraphs offer an illustration of the study’s key findings. appropriate verbatim quotations from the research participants have been used to deepen understanding, show participants’ perceptions, and illustrate themes that emerged from the data analysis. complex role of the island facilitator the island facilitators came from and worked in sparsely populated villages on the remote islands of the cook islands. they represented a diverse group in terms of their life experiences, interests, professional and educational background, and age. apart from working for the virtual school, they were involved in local initiatives, shared passion for education, and willingness to support and contribute to learning on their islands. i wanted to do the job here because i am an ex-student of the school and i did some studying overseas and i wanted to use the knowledge that i have to help the kids here. my way of showing the kids—if i can do it, they can do it. (participant 1) when describing their professional roles and work environment, the facilitators stressed the job’s complexity, which required them to constantly juggle between offline duties (e.g., classroom management) and online duties. i get the connections done, i set up my laptop and as soon as i can, i chat with rarotonga to let them know that i’m here and then my kids come. i want to make sure that they are ready to go. everyone knows what they are doing, [then they] settle down and then i have a moment to think and prepare for our live lessons. (participant 2) the extract above, and other data gathered in this study, suggest that the facilitators have created tools and routines around which their offline and online practices have evolved. for example, one of the online routines reported in this study related to the informal tradition of saying ‘hello’ to everyone in the morning. this served to say ‘i am ready to go’ and motivated other facilitators by showing one’s presence and willingness to be there for the others. one example of an offline routine related to regular meetings that facilitators held with educators from their local schools. the research also revealed that a complex working environment such as this requires facilitators to perform a number of roles, which they all viewed through five lenses. figure 1 complex role of the island facilitator local island representative mentor coordinatorteam member learner hoffmann-dumieński, k. 70 all facilitators saw themselves as local island representatives. they all emphasised the significance of being based on the ground on their island and one noted that being local helps both their islands and the virtual programme to communicate and understand each other better. we are on the ground with the kids so we really know the children. i am acting in the place of someone here on the ground [and i can] perhaps understand what’s being asked of the children by liaising with rarotonga, and then helping the children to get started on their work. (participant 2) the facilitators also emphasised that one of the major parts of their role is about being a mentor, guiding and assisting their students with their work. as a facilitator my role is to point the children in the right direction so they can discover or find the answers and build understanding. (participant 3) furthermore, all facilitators noted that a big part of their role involves being a coordinator, communicating, passing on information, and mediating between their local school (rarotonga) and their colleagues on the other islands. i am supposed to let rarotonga know what my students are up to, what they are working on, and communicate with them and the rest of the team on a regular basis. (participant 4) the facilitators also highlighted that, as well as all their professional tasks and responsibilities, their role involves being a team member, being part of the tku team that shares similar tasks and works together to achieve the shared goals of educating the islands’ students. we’re all aiming for the same goals—to help the children as far as possible to facilitate the teaching programme that has been brought to them. (participant 2) finally, all facilitators also acknowledged that a big part of their role involves being a continuous learner. learning takes place online, where they interact with other facilitators, and in their daily work routines. working for tku is a great opportunity given to me. as the saying goes, you learn every new day and learning never stops until the day the lord calls you. (participant 4) in summary, the findings not only showed the complexity of the facilitator’s role, but also demonstrated how facilitators have combined their offline and online duties and the tools and routines they have created as a result of their practice. professional learning: online participation and on-the-job learning the facilitators have been working together, talking and “meeting” virtually every day using canvas (their learning management system [lms]), skype, email, telephone, or texting to communicate. the lms has been used mainly for announcements, notices, and asynchronous work-related collaboration. subjects that required more urgent attention were normally discussed informally via telephone or at arranged skype conference meetings. skype has been the main tool for both formal and informal synchronous conversations and as a ‘meeting place’. te kura uira facilitators have spent a lot of time chatting, catching up, and discussing both workand non-work-related matters. so what does their professional development look like? based on the findings, an understanding of their professional development can be divided into two themes: online participation and onthe-job learning. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 71 all respondents reported on participating in an online professional development training course before their first term at school. they stressed that during the training they had a chance to get to know each other and make friends, discuss their roles and responsibilities, and learn to use a variety of online tools that they later used at work. they also noted that during the training they were online every day to work individually, in pairs, or as a group on various tasks. they reported that at times they took work home, watched or read additional resources, or reflected on or added extra thoughts on discussion forums. what’s more, all respondents noted their continuous interaction and collaboration after they took part in the online course and started to work. they emphasised their engagement in their daily conversations and catch-ups and revealed that they had even been contacting each other during the weekends or holidays. we gave each other our private mobile numbers, so over christmas we wished each other “merry christmas” and promised to keep in touch with what was happening. (participant 2) the findings thus indicate that the facilitators’ professional development has been an ongoing process of online participation and collaboration, affected by their engagement and enthusiasm to learn. however, the data analysis also revealed that a big portion of the facilitators’ learning took place offline and on the job. they stressed that they have been continuously learning a variety of new skills and techniques by experimentation and observation. i’m still learning, trying to get the most productive setup. when it’s time to do work then i think it’s best to put them [students] in groups, so if one asks a question i answer the two or three. so, i don’t have to keep repeating myself, you know. (participant 3) challenges, support and the importance of online community the requirement to mix and combine the offline and online responsibilities in a blended learning environment inevitably created a number of challenges for the facilitators. findings revealed some prevalent themes relating to these challenges and the type of support they received in their daily profession, and the importance of online participation for their professional development. challenges all facilitators reported two broad types of challenges that they had come across in their profession. these challenges related to technology and academic work. table 1 challenges tku facilitators encounter in their profession challenges technology academic • learning to use educational technologies • being able to fix technical problems • slow and unreliable internet • students’ lack of focus due to connectivity issues • students not used to having a facilitator • students not used to technologyenhanced learning facilitators reported dealing with technology every day. technology has enabled them and their students to participate in classes and communicate with those on other islands. it thus required the facilitators to become familiar and comfortable with the digital technologies being used by tku, and to be able to fix them when they went wrong. all facilitators reported on the initial challenges they experienced while learning to use previously unfamiliar educational and collaborative software. when i first started training with tku it was very challenging—especially when i started playing with canvas—that’s when my first challenge was. (participant 3) hoffmann-dumieński, k. 72 the facilitators also reported the need to improve their it-related skills, due to the lack of it support on their islands. now that i have the equipment, i really need to know how to get things to work, get things fixed, because we don’t have any it person here. i actually enrolled at the [the university of the south pacific] to do a paper in it. (participant 1) however, the major technology-related challenge experienced by all respondents was the lack of fast and reliable internet connection, which has prevented teachers and students making full use of the collaborative software and toolkits that have been prepared for class delivery. slow and unpredictable internet connections have also been reported as the major cause for delayed material, disorganisation, and lack of students focus. the service is the biggest challenge, because i just lose pace and focus of the students. (participant 4) academic challenges, such as student management, comprised the second theme to emerge from the data analysis on what has hindered facilitators in their day-to-day work. the respondents stressed that they had initial struggles with their students, who were not used to technologyenhanced learning and having a facilitator. my students were so used to not having a teacher at school. so when i came i was invisible! so in a way i’m glad our equipment didn’t arrive on time. i had time to get to know my students and create the bond between us. (participant 1) surprisingly, the remoteness and isolation of the islands and the lack of physical support were not reported to be major challenges. all facilitators stressed that ongoing communication with tku teachers and their island colleagues had reduced the feeling of remoteness. support and the importance of online participation all facilitators reported that, as well as trying to address the challenges they had faced by themselves,1 they asked for and received support from others. the major source of assistance came online in an online form, from the tku team on rarotonga or their island colleagues. when dealing with issues that were more local, the facilitators stressed that they had received help from their local schools. most importantly, however, all respondents highlighted the significance of their daily online interactions as the predominant source of support, comfort, and learning. i know that i’ll be working alongside great facilitators that i can turn to and ask for help when i’m having difficulties… [we can] share, work together, and pursue some common interests and enjoy each other’s comments, words of encouragement, and support. (participant 4) they also stressed that the online community had helped them reduce the feeling of remoteness and isolation associated with their remote locations. even though i’m here by myself, physically, that’s about the only place where i am by myself at any moment because i have the other ladies to trouble shoot and share my problems with. (participant 2) the findings thus revealed the significance of online participation and collaboration for the facilitators. these connections have not only provided them with continuous opportunities for 1 for example, three facilitators enrolled at the university of the south pacific to do a course relating to the area they needed to improve or develop. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 73 learning and support, but also with a feeling of comfort and belonging to a team of blended learning professionals. discussion the aim of this research is to understand and describe professional development of facilitators working in blended learning environments in remote and isolated communities of the cook islands. by applying the situated and social theory of learning (lave & wenger, 1991; wenger, 1998), the study provides useful context on how facilitators learn and how their professional identity is constructed. online tku community of practice the literature suggests that belonging to an online community of practice provides its members with opportunities for sustainable and continued learning and development (dede, breit, ketehult, mccloskey, & whitehouse, 2005; holmes, signer, & mcleod, 2010). the tku facilitators began their professional study when they participated in an online training course and started interacting daily, using both asynchronous (lms and email) and synchronous (skype) communication tools. this contact led to the emergence of the online tku community of practice, a social construct with a sense of common purpose which has given the facilitators support and opportunities to continue to share their experiences, learning, and expertise. wenger (1998) stresses the significance of physical and conceptual tools, artefacts, and routines that turn common understanding into practice. as such, members of the tku community of practice have adopted, developed, and used tools and artefacts around which they have built their history and organised their participation. for example, the participants highlighted how they communicate, collaborate, and ‘meet’—both formally and informally—using skype, sometimes even after hours. the findings thus indicated that skype is a meaningful and essential tool, and is an artefact that enables the members to participate in their shared practice, cultivate their routines, and build their history. the concept of a community of practice is based on a situated and social theory of learning, which views learning not as a process of knowledge transmission and assimilation but as a process of peripheral legitimate participation in a community of practice with no distinction between learning and participation (lave & wenger, 1991; wenger, 1998). such learning usually occurs when new members become more competent and move from the periphery into full participation leading to the development of new practices and understanding in the community. literature on blended learning stresses the importance of continued professional development through membership of a community of practice as a way to enhance educators’ learning (garrison & vaughan, 2008; stacey & gerbic, 2008). the findings in this study indicated that the online tku community of practice is an essential context for the professional development of its participants. its members learn continuously by interacting, sharing knowledge, and developing new practices and tools that help them and the community to grow. lave and wenger’s (1991) concept of learning is therefore a valuable approach to understanding how members of the online community develop professionally. however, the outcomes of the study also demonstrated that learning can be self-motivated and does not always require a new member to be introduced to a community. this study, like the hodkinson and hodkinson study (2003), revealed that learning is something that takes place continuously and may also happen when old members engage in new practices in the same community. hoffmann-dumieński, k. 74 identity, community, and wider context it has been argued so far that professional development of tku facilitators happens through ongoing learning, interaction, and participation in the online tku community of practice. because the key findings of the research suggest that a facilitator’s professional evolution is not an isolated phenomenon, this perspective needs to be expanded. the design of the online professional development course began to form the facilitators’ professional identity and provided them with skills and knowledge that were soon ready to be employed and contextualised. they understood what it meant to be a tku facilitator, to belong to the online tku community of practice, and to have access to the community’s shared repertoire. when asked about their role, facilitators’ responses were compatible. furthermore, the facilitators’ perception of what their role required from them aligned with the examples from previous research on educators working in blended learning environments (armes, 2012; burton, 2012; horn & staker, 2012); namely, the need to: • be adaptable, flexible, motivated and constantly willing to learn • be open to new teaching and learning strategies • become a skilled technology user • possess good classroom management skills to accommodate their students working on different skills at their own pace. the review of literature also suggested that professional development can be seen as a dynamic and complex process of identity formation; it is a relationship between an individual, their professional life, and their work context (billett & pavlova, 2005; hodkinson & hodkinson, 2003; nyström, 2009). accordingly, the findings from this research showed variation in terms of the facilitators’ personal interests, goals, or expectations of themselves and others, experiences, backgrounds, or life stages. what’s more, in line with wenger’s (1998) concept of a nexus of multi-membership, the findings also indicated that the facilitators’ professional identity was not only a result of their belonging to the online tku community of practice, but also of an interplay between their past, present, and future experiences and aspirations which were affected by their belonging and participation in various communities of practice, such as their local school communities. challenges and struggles working in blended learning environments, participating in a number of workand non-workrelated offline and online communities of practice, and the issues that arise from the constant learning involved in both, can at times be a challenging process that involves more than identity renegotiation. the literature suggests that educators working in blended settings face many significant obstacles. these obstacles include learning new technologies (smyth, houghton, cooney, & casey, 2012; voos, 2003), planning and facilitating personalised learning classes (johnson, 2002), building a learning culture where students can take control of their own learning, frustrated and disengaged students as a result of technical problems or slow internet connections (hara, 2000; smyth et al., 2012; welker & berardino, 2005), and lack of support (bendavid, 2014; burton, 2012; mcelroy, 2012). accordingly, tku facilitators emphasised the technological challenges they faced regularly, as a result of their location, unpredictable weather, and poor infrastructure. they stressed the amount of work required to become skilled technology users. they also emphasised the many methods they needed to explore to develop the best ways to meet their students’ needs and learning styles, to boost their students’ engagement, and to motivate them to become self-directed learners. findings suggested that by delivering such individualised material—supported through a number of educational technologies—the facilitators and the tku school have adopted the online-lab journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2) 75 model of blended learning. this model is often associated with programmes that have teacher shortages, and they rely on online class delivery provided by remote, trained online teachers (horn & staker, 2011). in such learning environments, students complete their courses online but in a brick-and-mortar laboratory or classroom, under the supervision of an adult facilitator who usually has little content expertise. implications and recommendations could these findings be relevant and have value for other contexts of professional development? because the findings are based on a small sample, it is difficult to draw specific and definite recommendations for other projects. however, a number of general suggestions can be offered for the consideration of those running and designing online professional development courses in other contexts. because this study focused on professional development of facilitators working in blended learning environments across the cook islands, it can provide data for designers of online training courses for educators, especially in the context of the remote south pacific island states. the findings suggest that participation in an online community of practice reduces feelings of isolation associated with the specific geographic conditions of the south pacific region, and that such participation offers ongoing opportunities for learning, development, support, and reflection. it also facilitates smoother and faster encounters in a work context. these findings could therefore also be of value to policy makers debating the importance of ict for the south pacific island states. the findings of this study could, finally, be of interest to researchers studying issues of professional development and identity formation in relation to working in blended learning environments in general. although the study provides meaningful insights to understanding how facilitators working in blended learning environments across the islands of the south pacific develop professionally, its shortcomings should also be considered. a possible limitation of the study could relate to its demographics, since it had only five female participants. this unequal gender distribution was, however, neither random nor intentional. at the time the study was conducted, the digital school had only five female members of staff available to participate. the gender distribution, and the fact that more staff have been employed since the original interviews, opens up opportunities for conducting further research on issues that relate to gender, age, and other possible power relations. it could also be possible to employ a more participatory and longitudinal methodology. this could allow an examination of the development of the online community and a deeper understanding of how other local communities of practice affect the facilitators’ professional development. finally, it would also be interesting to see whether the findings could be generalised to the professional development of a larger group of educators working across the south pacific island states and territories. conclusion the key conclusion of this research project is that a facilitator’s professional development is a continuous process of learning, participation in an online tku community of practice, and a process of dynamic identity formation and renegotiation. this development is affected by facilitators’ belonging to a number of different communities, their professional and personal experiences, and their aspirations. in this study, the tku facilitators’ professional development began when they took part in an online training course and started interacting every day. this interaction led to the emergence of the online tku community of practice, which has given the facilitators support and opportunities to continue to share their experiences, knowledge, and expertise. the online participation has also reduced the feeling of isolation the facilitators feared could be associated with their remote locations. the findings thus confirmed that learning is indeed a social process. the study also demonstrated that learning can nevertheless be deliberate and does not always require a new member to be introduced to a community. furthermore, the hoffmann-dumieński, k. 76 research indicated that a facilitator’s professional evolution can be seen as a dynamic, ongoing, and complex process of professional identity formation. this identity formation is affected by (a) interaction and belonging to various communities of practice (such as the facilitators’ local islands schools communities), and (b) the facilitators’ increased professional knowledge, experience, aspirations and perceptions of their professional roles, as well as the relationship between their professional, private, and personal life spheres. acknowledgement kama the author acknowledges the contributions of the facilitators who participated and inspired the study. references armes, c. 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(2008). pacific islands. in encyclopædia britannica. retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/place/pacific-islands biographical note kamila hoffmann-dumieński kamila.hoffmanndumienski@gmail.com kamila is a learning and development specialist with several years’ experience in the public, private, and non-government sectors in europe, south america and asia-pacific. she was involved in the development of te kura uira—the digital school of the cook islands, and is currently working as a learning and development consultant at vodafone new zealand. with a b.sc. in psychology (london metropolitan university) and an m.a. in adult learning (linköping university, sweden), kamila is interested in researching learning design, organisational and professional development, online communities, and collaborative technologies. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. hoffmann-dumieński, k. (2016). professional development across the islands of the south pacific: a perspective of a blended learning facilitator. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2), [66–78.]. scanned document learning and teaching in a changing world fred lockwood learning and teaching unit, manchester metropolitan unnersity manchester, united kingdom introduction in his audiotap ed agenda, david hawkridge (19951 id~ntified five issues worthy of discussion: globalisation, electronification, commodification, domination, and liberation. each of these relates directly to learning and teaching in a changing world. globalisation: hawkridge asked if distance education was becoming a truly global aclivity, rather than the collection of local or national activities seen at that time. he asked if there was any evidence of a growing number of learners in one colliltry studying in another, of policies to recruit learners to study at a distance from other countries. while he acknowledged the cooperation represented by regional illuversities, like the uluversity of the south pacific and the uluversity of the west indies, he wo.nder:? as to the prospects for mega uluverslties. he also speculated as to the creation of other institutions, like a uni versity of southern africa or an arab open uluversity. electronification: the term "electrollification," coined by hawkridge in 1995, has not been adopted by others. however, the developments he foresaw in multimedia delivery and online learning/ e leanling have been dramatic. hawkridge asked how soon the whole world would be wired and whether such electronification would be merely a first world dream in that access to e learning in terms of hardware cos ts and software licences, of training staff in the use of appropriate media and its delivery, as well as the it skills of learners, would need substantial investment. without such investment he suspected that the hopes of increased access and equity would be compromised. commodification: it was evident in 1995 that within individual countries and regions educational institutions were competing for students. often the cos t of courses for nationals was subsidised by central govenmlents wluch made overseas recruitment problematic or a two-tier pricing policy cumbersome. hawkridge wondered as to the growth in the sale of knowledge products, not just within an individual colliltry but across national boundaries. indeed, in his taped agenda hawkridge invited listeners to consider where to place a £10,000 investment among commercial distance learning providers, an industry in its infancy. domination: hawkridge suggested that globalisation, electrollification and commodification can readily lead to domination. powerful educational journal of distance learning, vol 7, no 1, 2003 © distance education association of new zealand 30 providers, like the mega universities and even larger commercial providers, can so easily dominate the provision of smaller, perhaps less well resourced institutions. in such environments customers are typically asked to consider the economics of investing the resources required to develop learning materials for sud1 relatively small groups of learners when the purchase of existing materials would be more cost effective. however, he wondered if there is a danger of the ideologies embodied in the purchased materials being transmitted from one culture to another or imposed on them. would the recipient cultures be in danger of being deskilled in terms of materials design and system development? would progressive commitment to a commercial provider irretrievably commit an institution and make them dependent? liberation: hawkridge asked if globalisation would assist u1 the meeti11g of a worldwide need, one that would improve access and equity. he asked if electronification would overcome the disadvantages of not only place and time but also access to a world of resources. he wondered if, u1 a predomll1antly market economy, commodification would drive down prices of learnu1g materials and support systems. he asked if distance learnu1g would ukrease understandi11g of mu10rity cultures and not swamp them. globalisation in his book mega universities and knowledge media (daniel, 1996), the former vice chancellor of the open university stated tl1at merely to maintau1 the present proportion of the world population tl1at benefit from a muversity level education "a sizeable new muversity would now be needed every week" (p . 4) . a new muversity is not beu1g opened every week, but the opportmuty to study and the resources available are expandu1g daily-probably equivalent to a new uluversity each week. search for any item of acadenuc u1formation on the web or u1 specialist databases, and marvel at the vast number of sites and resources available. the international centre for distance learnu1g (icdl) (http://icdl.open.ac.uk) has assembled and mau1tains a database of over 35,000 distance learnu1g courses from over 1,000 institutions u1 100 countries. there are courses available from accoul1tancy to zoology, and numerous subjects u1 between. subject areas that were once thought could only be taught u1 a conventional semu1ar, laboratory, workshop, or cli1ucal setti11g are now available at a distance . it is possible to follow a distance learnu1g course u1 perfumery or acupulkture, sport and exercise science, or midwifery the scope is enormous. other databases such as the distance learnu1g course fu1der have a record of 60,000 elearnu1g courses offered by 131 countries (http://www .dlcoursefu1der .com). the database reveals that one can study for a master of busu1ess admiiustration from the uluversity of athabasca or indira gandlu national open uluversity, fyom monash university or harvard or an onli11e business course from the 2,700 currently on offer (http://www.mba-course-finder.com).in tlus context it is estimated there are 500 million internet users at the present time and the growth shows no sign of abati11g (ryan, et al., 2000). prestigious ii1stitutions like tl1e massachusetts institute of tedmology u1 the umted states are makii1g their tead1i11g materials freely available on the web (the manchester institute of technology journal of distance learning, vol 7, no 1, 2003 © distance education association of new zealand 31 likewise). but, of cours e, if learners want the qualification that ratifies their learning they will need to register as students and pay the fee! it is evident that a global market exists .. ' for open, distance, and flexible learning courses with consortia being . formed to pool their resources and make them even more accessible. for example, thos e institutions that form universitas 21 (http://www.universitas21. com) collaborate in a whole range of ways from the interchange of students and researchers to course materials. similarly, the global university alliance (http://www.gua.com) illustrates how new groupings are being formed to pool their expertise and resources and make them more widely available. most recently eleven u.k. and u.s. universities have aligned themselves to form the worldwide universities network to develop and market graduate courses for online delivery (http:/ /www.wun. com). increasingly these consortia are being formed to maintain and extend their competitiveness and secure market share. they promote and sell a product developed in a ",;,estern culture, one that may not be appropriate in other cultures. the courses assembled by universities are not restricted to adults but are increasingly being made available to able school pupils and to industry. for example the open university recently conducted a pilot scheme where its courses were available to sixth-form students. it was so successful that the sch eme is to be ex tended to another 100 specialist schools in the united kingdom. the scheme will further strengthen the competitive edge enjoyed by the open university and will sit alongside the growing list of internal and ex ternal providers, a point acknowledged by peters: "even the conventional student of the future is likely to be en gaged in elearning from more than one provider as the barriers b etween further and higher education and schools continue to break down" (2001, p. 4). a product of globalisation is, of cours(', competition, where entrepreneuri,ti institutions seek to attract the nationals {11 one country onto courses developed <lnd offered by another. this competition (.1 11 be fierce and often targe ts particu 1.1 r groups of learners rather than offerin)" the full range of courses enjoyed hy d national of the host institution. f(lr example, in the tiny island state of fiji . which hos ts the meun campus of lh. , university of the south pacific, then' .1 n ' fifty external providers who l<lit.' ,[ business studies and inforlll a li(lil tedmolo gy. furthermore, almost half (ll the business schools in south afric<l .1 r. , external providers and there is n, ' shortage of competing institutions withll1 the pacific fum. when the op(,11 university of hong kong was establishl'd it had over 100 external providl'r-. competing for learners in hong kon)" (wong & todd, 2001). it was only b\ careful targeting of courses, red ul in)', costs yet improving quality that tl1l' university was able to resist this press ii r. , and subsequently overcom e it. electronifica tion electronification is not a term in comm(l11 use in open and distance learning, but it-. impact since 1995 has been drall1jt" and is set to be even more dramatic. at the time of the icde workshop tony bates predicted, "those countries th a t harness the power of multimedij coll1lllunications for edu ca tion and training purposes will be the economic powerhouses of the twenty-first century" (1995, p. 249). journal of distance learning, vol 7, no 1, 2003 © distance educa tion association of new zealand 32 within my own institution, manchester metropolitan university, there were no online courses in 1995. however, in the academic year 2001 to 2002 there will be 335 active course areas and approximately 8,000 learners online; over 100 acddemic staff will be actively involved in dssembling online materials for their ledrners . this increase is mirrored plspwhere in the united kingdom dnd dfound the world. indeed, it is estinldll'd that ill the united states 72 percenl of leenagers will be online by 2003 (sldnlon, 2000). the cosls of computer equipment, peripherals, dnd software are major determillanls of the use of it ill teachillg dnd learnillg, especially ill developillg countries. however, there are developllwnls lhat offer hope to those who wish lo use the teclmology but caimot afford it. a typical desktop computer wi lh vdu, prillter, aild modem coj1lwction could cost £1000 ill the united kingdom. however, each day hundreds of machilles that are broken, damaged, or considered obsolete are either consigned to the "breakers yard" for recycli1lg or to landfill sites. a typical ilutiative provided by preston college, a u.k. further education college, is also evident elsewhere . the college has developed a trailidlg scheme ill wluch it receives such mach:ij.les free of charge, teaclles course participants how to repair and refurbish them to a base1:ij.le standard, and then sells them for £200one-fifth of the cost of a new mach:ij.le! a rather different ilutiative has been made ill india where the sinlputer trust has developed the simputer (http://news.bbc.co.uk/lu/ english/ sci/ tech/ newsid_1560000/1560771.stm) . tms newly designed handlleld computer, wmch has the facility to colmect to the internet and to other devices such as keyboards, prillters, scalmers, etc., was to be launched ill november 2001 and available ill four indian lailguages at a cost of us$200. with a separate smart card it is possible for a group of illdividuals to purchase the sinlputer, exchange and draw upon the il1fomlation available on the internet, and yet retaill the privacy of their own il1formation. iil contrast the americail military is plamidlg to launch, ill 2003, its own ol1li11e provision for 111ilitary persolmel. based on a consortium of twenty-four illstitutions, the programme (http:/ / www.earmyu.com) will have an estinlated 90,000 learners. they will be provided with a laptop computer, prillter, internet comlection, aild books to study anywhere ill the world at any time. it is expected that the u.s. navy will mount a silnilar prograllllle. commodification there is an illternational marketplace for teach:ij.lg and train:ij.lg materials alld the meails of delivery; it is one that is growillg daily. like all products the cost is related to volume the more units produced the lower the unit cost thus favourillg large orgaiusations and/or those who can secure a large population for their courses. a major economic argument ill favour of distance leanidlg is that its graduates can be produced cheaper thall those from conventional illstitutions (rumble, 1997). for example, in the uluted kingdom the open university claims to produce graduates at less than half the price of other u.k. uluversities (a claim that other u.k. uluversities are begiluidlg to challenge). this is possible because of the limited range of courses that the open university offers aild the large student populations enrolled ill its courses. however, it acknowledges that other illstitutions, journal of distance learning, vol 7, no 1, 2003 © distance education association of new zealand 33 such as the indira gandhi national open university, produce lugh quality courses even more cheaply. in tills international m arke tplace the learner is a client who is free to purchase whatever course they wish, from whatever provider they wish. to mee t tills market huge orgaiusations are being formed orgaiusations that will represent formidable competition for even the larges t mega uluversities . in january 2000, time warner and aol amloulked their plaiuled merger to becom e the fifth biggest company in the world. in the same month, ill the united kingdom, yet another lugh-street electrical retailer offered its own fre e internet service, and ownership of microcomputers ilkreased even furth er. in japan mobile videophones becam e available, and from all online order amazon.com could d eliver a book halfway aroulld the world ill a few days. in february 2000 the british mobile phone compai1y vodofone aiuloulked a massive takeover of the german company maiulesmaiul to become the largest mobile telephone operator ill the world, with 54 million customers ill britaill, germai1y, and the united states . (v odofone is currently experimentlllg with the latest g3 phones ill japail prior to worldwide distribution.) in aj.1l10ulkillg tlus takeover the chief executive commented upon the role of mobile phones ill providillg access to the internet aild worldwide conmluluca tion, puttlllg access ill the hands of the users. with resources like these, the potential of the knowledge m edia to create learnillg envirollllents coupled with talented teachers, the next seven years is likely to see many more ilulovations . consider for a moment a major resource ill any course: a book, or more recently e-books. international publishers are currently developillg their e-booklists at an amazillg rate. tlus illcludes not merely illdividual titles but the opportmuty to download parts of books, aild to p ay ,,> for only the parts a p erson wants. the am erican association of publishers es timates that the e-book market is likely to be a us$2.3 billion illdustry by 2005. powerful consortia are beillg assembled to develop/exploit tlus growth. for example, price waterhouse coop er, inter trust teclulology, aild adobe systems are workillg together to provide access to e-books via adobe's portable document reader format (pdf). while adobe acrobat software may b e fre e, the cos t of the e-books is ulllikel y to be so that is assumillg the learners have the ability aild equipment to download, prillt, and purchase this material. countries around the world are recogmsmg the opportuluties that are becoming illcreasillgly available and are plamidlg for a growth not only ill lugher education but also ill illdustry, commerce, aild the public services. withiil the uluted kingdom there has been a significant illcrease ill the use of self-illstructionallearnlllg materials ill the workplace: ilkreasillg from 43 percent ill 1999 to 63 percent ill 2000 (department for education and employment, 2001a) . all predictions suggest tills will contlllue to illcrease, with uluversities ilkreasillgly competlllg with national aild illternational commercial providers . domina tion there is much talk of the knowledge economy, of the knowledge media (eisenstadt & villcent, 1998), and of ilwestment ill a country's major asset-its people. but who will provide the fuel for the knowledge economy, who will exploit the knowledge m edia, who will provide the materials journal of distmlce learning, vol 7, no 1, 2003 © distance education association of new zealand 34 from which the knowledge and skills can be acquired? govenlllents will undoubtedly lead through policy initiatives and are doing so. for example, in support of learners over nineteen years of age the u.k. govenilllent provides individual learning accounts (ilas) worth £150 to any learner who is prepared to contribute £25 towards a course provided by an accredited provider. it also allows learners to obtain an 80 percent discount of the cost to purchase the training required. (unfortunately, due to widespread fraud the scheme was suspended.) despite these problems, u.k. mnversities and commercial institutions are begiluting to meet tins need. in april 2001 in the ulnted kingdom, the open uruversity and the ulnversity for industry (ufi) signed a memorandum of understanding. amle wright, the clnef executive for ufi, subsequently stated: "between us, our complementary missions and good working relationships will ensure that the u.k. is a world leader in flexible and lifelong learning and application of new technologies" (ufi, 2001, p. 1). tins world leadersmp is obviously intended to benefit u.k. learners. however, it is also likely to be the base from wmch these institutions retain a competitive advantage (see dainel, 1996), and secure a return from the investment by the british government by selling tins expertise overseas . furthermore, it is evident that developments with the u.k. euruversity will involve a partnerslnp of educational aild conmlercial providers . commercial orgarusations are compeling to transform your existing material into self-instructional material (increasing online teacmng materials), but at a cost. for example, knowledge pool (http://www.knowledgepool.com) develops materials via a traditional course team approach, but also includes all accounts manager. the company will not only transform your materials into online materials but will provide online tutors, assemble frequently asked questions, and provide online assigilllents. in a follow the sun network of staff, knowledge pool also offer 24 hour, 7 days per week, 52 week per year support for the systems aild your learners. other conmlercial orgalnsations such as pearson education (http://www .pearsoned.com) and educational multimedia corporation (http://www .educationalmultimedia.com) offer similar services. pearson education will provide the plug-in cassette that provides an instant online course developed elsewhere but winch, they claim, will map onto your course objectives. the claims for such commercial orgainsations are great. for example, educabonal multimedia corporation's website states, "we ensure an increased return on your learning investment by maximising knowledge retention through continuous interactions" (2003). for those wislling to exploit the new media, all early decision will involve deciding wmch virtual learning envirollllent (vle) to adopt or whether there is a need to create your own. willie guidelines and criteria are available that will allow users to assess winch vle is likely to be most appropriate for them (inglis, ling, & joosten, 1999), conlllercial compaines are working hard to maintain and even increase their market share. you may benefit from the competition between providers such as blackboard, lotus learningspace, first class, web ct, etc. the benefits of a staildard, supported platform journal a/di stance learning, vol 7, no 1, 2003 © distance education association of new zealand 35 with features resulting from massive investment in the vle may need to be balanced agaillst the learnillg and teachillg restrictions they impose. however, the recent report from the commonwealth of learnillg (farrell, 2001) argues that developil1g countries may fail to exploit the potential of onli1le learnmg due to the lack of a reliable communications ililiastructure. we will wait to see whether wireless communication systems like bluetooth (http://wwwericsson.com/bluetooth/ default. asp ) will offer a solution. liberation access to higher education and the ability to study u at any time, at any place, and at any pace" can be liberatillg. it not only can provide the knowledge and skills that the workplace requires, which may secure a better future for those who benefit from it, but can provide illsights that can change a person's life forever. the sheer number of opportunities available to learners is staggerillg. in the 1960s higher education ill the united kingdom, as ill many countries, was an elitist system; about 8 percent of eighteen-year-olds entered university. by the 1980s ill the united kingdom this had risen to about 15 percent, and today it is about 30 percent. the u.k. government target is to expand provision to such an extent that 50 percent of eighteento thirtyyear-olds will have benefited from higher education by 2010. in many developing countries, with a population profile that illdudes a significant proportion of people aged under thirty, a silnilar target will be difficult to achieve. to meet this target, u.k. universities will have to recruit learners without the traditional qualifications and from other than upper socioeconomic groups. furthermore, fillancial support for u.k. learners is such that only the poorest receive grants-judged by many to be illadequate for the purpose-while others receive loans they will need to repay. the challenge is dear: universities ,> will have to recruit from previous]v . disadvantaged and under-represente~l groups, and reconsider the fillancid i support of learners, if these targets <hl' to be filled and if an illcreased proportioll of the population is to be given till' opportunity to experience and succeed ill higher education. the u.k. government's drive to wid('1l participation has resulted ill sewr,d ilntiatives to raise awareness of till' benefits of ingher education, illc]"('d"i' recruitment and retention, and ens 1i n . student progression. the higlwr education fundillg council for eng],lild (2001) illvited all illstitutions of higlwr education to submit their wideni 11i' participation strategies and action pi,li;' the three-year fundillg period will bl' marked by the specification of speeifll targets, milestones, and procedures til molntor performance. in addition, llll' drive to encourage doser li11ks betw('('11 schools, colleges of further educali(lll and higher education, is beillg fund('d also by the u.k. government via ll1l' excellence challenge, a £150 mill i (ill scheme ilntiated ill april 2001 to bri dr," the current divide and ease progression . however, two factors may milildtl' agail1st these aspirations: the skills lhl' learners need to succeed ill higlll'r education and the fundillg of it. functional literacy and numeracy, and illcreasillg1y it literacy, are key skills; they are major determillants of progression and success ill further and hlgher education, and subsequently to success ill work and day-to-day life . journal of distance learning, vol 7, no 1,2003 © distance education association of new zealand 36 developed countries like the united kingdom do have extremely high levels of literacy, numeracy, and it skillsbut they are not universal indeed recent findings from the basic skills agency (department for education and employment, 2001b) revealed that in the united kingdom seven million adults are functionally illiterate and enumerate. of these four million are aged between twenty-six and fifty-five years the very group that one would expect to be the most productive members of any commurrity. these adults are a significant part of the population who risk exclusion. to meet this need the u.i<:. govenmlent is investing £1.5 billion over three years to redress this deficiency . the strategy, based on an orientation interview, will be to provide a combination of face-to-face teadring, drop-in centres, and selfinstructional material for use in the home. the recently established provider learndirect is providing a range of self-instructional and onliile' courses for these learners. it estimates that since its inception it has provided teaching and training materials for over one million learners . in concert the national institute of adult continuing education (england and wales) launched a campaign in 2001 to provide 5,000 bite-sized courses. it was intended that the courses would be free, typically one to three hours of study time, and targeted at adults. they succeeded in assembling almost 20,000 such courses in less than two months (http://www .learndirect.co.uk/bitesize)! lack of literacy, numeracy, and it skills is likely to inhibit the learners (mcmahon, et ali 1999). others have demonstrated (kirkwood, 1995) that access to low-tech media, television, radio, audiocassette playback-in a home setting where there are family demands on this equipment-can hinder study. this problem is compounded where learners may not have ready access to computing equipment. indeed, in a study involving 800 university students (mcmahon, et al., 1999) it was reported that ready access to a computer accounted for 50 percent of the variance of student attitudes to online learning. students who do not have ready access to computers are frustrated and the result is negative attitudes to online learning (crotty, 2000). an increasing proportion of learners take part-time employment during their study to offset the cost of sludy. this obviously puts them under increasing pressure to make time for study. in a recent report from the open university centre of higher education research and information and the university of central england centre for research into quality ("students strive to stave off debt/' 2001), it was revealed that 60 percent of u.k. students work during the academic year in an attempt to reduce the cost of their study. they worked approximately eleven hours per week in term time, with 80 percent working in vacations. furthermore, those students from poorer backgrounds, identified as in the bottom two social classes, formed a majority of those undertaking work. other studies at northumbria university ("student jobs may be cause of failure/' 2001) indicated that less affluent students were more likely to work in term time, were from lower socioeconomic groups, obtained lower grades, and were twice as likely to fail their course. conclusion since the agenda presented by hawkridge, there have been sigrrificant changes it' the education environment. these include funds expended, participation, and impact of the new media. the u.s. journal of distance learning, vol 7, no i , 2003 © distance education association of new zealand 37 brokerage house merrill lynch es timated that the global expenditure on education and training increased significantly to us$2 trillion in 2000, with 50 p ercent spent in europe, 33 p ercent in the united states, and 15 percent in developing countries. furthermore, the global number of learners is set to more than double in the nex t gen eration from an estimated 70 million today to 160 million by 2025 . among these it is es timated there are four million distance learners. open, distance, and flexible learning is not only a global activity, offerin g a huge increase in the opportunities available to learners, but one that is increasin g. electronification has proceeded at a pace. the robustness of web-based systems now means that learners can study from any place on the globe, combining media that are most appropriate to their needs . the development of wireless conmmnication (such as the bluetooth system) may offer opportunities and flexibility previously associated with science fiction. however, as globalisation and electronification increase so d oes commodification. the cornucopia assembled by the universities and commercial providers of the world appear to be available to those who can afford it. there remains the fear that powerful institutions, and their consortia, may become even more powerful. furthermore, there is a danger that those ideologies embodied in teaching and training materials provided by external institutions may come to dominate vuhlerable cultures. however, there are developments that suggest the future is indeed bright. for example, in the united kingdom, learndirect (http://www.learndirect .co.uk) collated almost 20,000 fre e courses, in bite-sized chunks, to over one million learners and demonstrates that distance learning can contribute to the liberation of learners in giving them access to a world otherwise dosed to ,,> them. the learning and skills development agency ("youth will get learning call on the mobile," 2001) launched its three-year m-learning project, based on a mobile phone and design ed to deliver key skills, links to education and training, and careers advice to six teento twentyfouryear-olds. it aims to redress poor literacy and numeracy amongst this non-participating group of learners . in the llltervening p eriod slllce 1995, it was argued: the ques tion is becomlllg, not whether flexible learnlllg can enhance the cost effectiveness of traditional teadmlg (important though that queslion is), but whether a university will survive and prosper iii the next century without rapidly llltegratlllg the various dimensions of flexible leanmlg lllto its process, culture and values. (moran, 1997, p. 181) perhaps it should be added that if access and equity were to remain key items on our agenda, the provision of open and distance learning material to provide skills of numeracy, litera cy, and it would be the major m eans of adnevlllg tins . references ba tes, t. (1995). technology, open learning and distance educa tion. london: ro utledge. crotty, t . (2000) . construc tivist theory unites distance learning and teacher education. retrieved from http://edie.cprost.sfu .ca/ it/ constructi vist-learning daniel, j. (1996). mega universities and knowledge media. london: kogan page. journal of distance learning, vol 7, no i , 2003 © dis tance education association of new zealand 38 department for education and employment. (2001a, april) . learning and h'aining at work 2000 (rr269). london: author. department for education and employment. (2001b, tanuary). skills for life: the nati01wl sh'ategy for improving adult literacy and 17umeracy skills (sflln) . london: author. educational multimedia corporation. (2003). retrieved from http: // www.educationalmultimedia.com/af/ learningcentre/ solutions/ it_training .html eisenstadt, m., & vincent, t. (1998). the knowledg" web. london: kogan page. farrell, g. (2111h). the changing faces of virtual edllcation. retrieved from the commomvealth of learning website: http: //www.col.org/virtualed hawkridge, d. (1995). trends and directions visioll statl'll/ellts. pre icde workshop. higher education funding council for england. (2001, may). widening participation ill higher education (29). bristol, uk: author. inglis, a, ling, p. , & joosten, v. (1999). deliverijlg digitally. london: kogan page. kirkwood, a. (1995). over the threshold: media technol ogies for home learning. in f. g. lockwood (ed.), open and distance leamillg today. london: routledge. knowledge pool. (2003). retrieved from http: //www.knowledgepool.com/ elearning/ custom.html lockwood, f. g. (ed.) (1995). open and distance learning today. london: routledge. mcmahon, j., gardner, j., gray, c., & mulhern, g. (1999). barriers to computer usage: staff and student perceptions. journal of computer assisted leaming, 15,302. moran, l. (1997). flexible learning as university policy. in s. brown (ed.), open and distance learning: case studies from indush'y and education. london: kogan page. peters, g. (2001, august 17). praise for initiative that offers au study to bright-spark pupils. the times higher education supplemmt, p. 4. rumble, g. (1997). the costs and economics of open and distance learning. london: kogan page. ryan, s., scott, b., freeman, h., & patel, d. (2000). 11le virtual university: the internet and resource-based learning. london: kogan page. sew art, d. (ed.). (1995). one world tuany voices (vols. 1 & 2). milton keynes, uk: the open university. stanton, t. (2000, march 26). wired for future . the tampa tribune, pp. 6-8. student jobs 111.ay be cause of failure. (2001, september 7). 11le times higher education supplemmt, p. 5. students strive to stave off debt. (2001, august 17). 11le times higher education supp lement, p. 3. university for industry. (2001, april 2). press release from ufi press office. retrieved from http://www .ufi .com/ press/ releases/ aj2001/ wong, d., & todd, c. y. (2001). student recruitment and retention in a selffinancing university. in f. g. lockwood & a. gooley (eds.), innovation in open and distance learning. london: kogan page. youth will get learning call on the mobile. (2001, october 5). 11w times higher education supplement, p. 12. fred lockwood is director of the learning and teaching unit, manchester meh'opolitan university, manchester, united kingdom. joumal of distance learning, vol 7, no 1, 2003 © distance education association of new zealand 39 microsoft word nichols-meuleman.docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(2) 31 reflections of a new educational designer mark nichols, the open university, united kingdom nicky meuleman, open polytechnic of new zealand abstract educational design is an area of growing significance in tertiary education. however, the career pathway to educational design is varied. because few specific qualifications are available, educational designers (eds) tend to take up their roles with little experience or indepth knowledge. the purpose of this study is to investigate one new ed’s development from new-to-role to experienced practitioner, in order to identify what new eds might expect as they develop. in the early stages of her role nicky meuleman, ed at the open polytechnic of new zealand, captured significant encounters and recorded ongoing reflection. this paper summarises and discusses the key themes from those reflections, providing insight into one ed’s journey from beginner to proficient practitioner. keywords: educational design; instructional design; learning design; online learning; professional development introduction according to maclean and scott (2007, 2011) the terms “instructional design” and “learning design” are international synonyms. ‘educational design’ is arguably one also, although it is a term more deliberately situated in a formal education setting. studies indicate that educational designers require a broad set of foundational competencies in the areas of communication, knowledge of instructional design models, problem-solving, and knowledge of technology (kenny, zhang, schwier, & campbell, 2005; liu, gibby, quiros, & demps, 2002; maclean & scott, 2011). education design is an activity requiring a great deal of situational judgement and problem-solving (gray et al., 2015; liu et al., 2002), which are difficult skills for a new educational designer to bring to an organisation. teamwork and relationships management are also vital components of educational designer work. instructional design models provide conceptual frameworks of practice rather than rigid prescription (kenny et al., 2005); as such, models do not define the educational designer’s role. higher education is providing more and more opportunities for educational designer (ed) roles (“instructional designers in higher ed, 2016); however, training opportunities for those seeking to become eds are fragmented. although educational design is clearly an area of professional expertise, there is no established career pathway. up to 20% of eds have no specific training for the role (maclean & scott, 2007); in australasia, some 50% have up to an (unspecified) bachelor’s degree as their highest qualification (ibid.). many eds are drawn to their craft without really knowing what to expect and with little direct experience. the journey of a new ed is not well understood, and various works central to instructional design practice (dick, carey, & carey, 2005; gagné, 2005; gibbons, 2014; richey, klein, & tracey, 2011; smith & ragan, 2005; wiggins & mctighe, 2005) must, by necessity, assume a context of activity that does not necessarily match that of the practitioner. learning ‘on the job’ requires new eds to learn their nichols, m., meuleman, n. 32 craft quickly, and in ways that align with institutional practice and constraints (gray et al., 2015). similar challenges arise for those academics who need to take a more deliberate approach to educational design (jones, 2005). learning the principles and potential of educational design can be achieved by reading, sharing good practice, and learning through a professional community of practice. learning the actual practice of educational design requires settling into a team of practitioners that has a set ways of doing things, in an institution with its own set of expectations. this paper describes the experiences of a new ed who joined the education design services team at new zealand’s open polytechnic in mid-2015 with no previous experience. nicky (coauthor) came to the role with an mba and some teaching experience in china as a result of her certificate in teaching english as a foreign language. qualified teachers and those with teaching experience are typically attractive choices for employers of eds. given the trend toward more potentially capable yet inexperienced appointments to educational designer roles, and a desire to help orientate such eds, the authors agreed to collaborate on a project to explore what a new ed might expect and how they might best develop proficiency. the collaboration, in the form of mentor (mark) to mentee (nicky), was later formalised through the ascilite community mentoring programme of 2015. educational design at open polytechnic educational design as an activity is practiced across a variety of contexts. educational design might be considered both an art (giving the designer opportunities for creative flair and innovation) and science (reflecting good practice based on pedagogical evidence); various core texts describe the role and its methods (brown & green, 2016; dick et al., 2005; laurillard, 2012; reigeluth, 1999; wiggins & mctighe). the degree to which an ed can practice artistically depends on the demands of the client or commissioning agent. many formal providers of higher education have an institutional house style and a need for consistency alongside the nuances of the preferences of other design team members. the role of an ed is, in its broadest sense, summarised in the study of maclean and scott (2011), who draw on a variety of international competencies and standards. educational design work can involve multiple responsibilities spread across tasks such as project management, needs analysis, preparation of aims and learning objectives, technical writing, assessment preparation, client management, team work, and research. the actual tasks of an ed are influenced largely by the responsibilities assigned to them in any specific institutional and team context. open polytechnic is new zealand’s largest dedicated distance learning provider, and is part of new zealand’s institutes of technology and polytechnics (itp) sector. based close to the country’s capital, wellington, the government-owned and funded institution delivers courses throughout new zealand and internationally. every year, more than 34,000—mainly adult—students enrol to gain the skills they need to help them advance or change their careers (seelig & nichols, 2017). at open polytechnic the role of the ed broadly follows that of maclean and scott (2011), although some of the specified tasks overlap with contributions made by other specialists. the polytechnic, which recently celebrated 70 years of operation, has a well-tuned and largely centralised approach to course design, development, and delivery with a strong emphasis on distance education models. course development generally follows five stages. initially, a new qualification is proposed via concept then business case. if approved, the curriculum (programme and course aims, and learning objectives) are formalised along with the methods of student and lecturer/tutorial support that will be applied. once the curriculum is formally endorsed, an educational design document (a programme design and delivery document, or pd3) is agreed. this document outlines the major instructional decisions for courses in the programmes leading journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(2) 33 to the qualification. in the fourth stage, a schedule for course development is set up and personnel are confirmed. roles for a course generally include a writer and reviewer (one of which is likely to be a member of open polytechnic faculty), ed, editor, and media producers. this group liaises with programme leaders, project managers, and the senior educational designer (sed) responsible for the pd3. assessments and more detailed views of course coverage are agreed at this point. finally, each course is developed in accordance with the design and project plan. the role of an open polytechnic ed is neatly summarised by nicky in an initial piece she wrote as a self-reflection, 4 months after starting her employment: i basically transform the learning material provided by a subject matter expert into an interesting course for the students. an educational designer does this by taking the learning to the next level so that students will enjoy taking this course, have a good retention of information, have good results and are happy to continue to study. . . . this process involves working closely together with many different parties, such as the senior educational designer, the video team, the content reviewer, the writer (subject matter expert), the editor and in some cases the head of school and the bicultural reviewer. (initial self-reflection) a project manager is also a central member of a courseware development team. in my (mark, co-author’s) estimation, nicky is a very successful and talented ed. despite not having a specific qualification she grew into her new responsibilities extremely quickly. throughout the mentoring period, and only 1 year after her initial appointment, nicky was involved in orienting new eds into their roles. her growth and development reflects her willingness to learn and grow, as evidenced again in her initial self-reflection: my role can be quite challenging, especially as a new ed with very little related prior work experience. there is a lot of information coming your way and the responsibilities can be quite daunting. however, i love this job because it gives me a new challenge every day. i think i am growing every day as an ed because of these challenges. . . . for me, being an educational designer means that i have a real influence on the learning experience of the students. with the job i do, the better i do it, the better it will be for the students. since i am a firm believer in lifelong learning and i consider myself a lifelong learner, i know how important studying as an adult can be. i am very proud of the fact that i am now helping others do the same. (initial self-reflection) this project traces nicky’s development as she draws on her account of experiences on the job, and her regular reflection points. method the methodology of this study is that of narrative inquiry, with a population of one, subject to categorical analysis. nicky is the subject and sole source of data. the project relies on a semistructured series of written journal entries. the limitations of the approach, a single set of reflections based on a single new ed, are clear. however, the method serves to provide a case study—illustrating the challenges and development that a new ed may experience in their role— as a guide and encouragement to others. nicky’s lessons were shaped by her prior experience and her openness to new experiences as much as the context in which she is employed; real-life variability across both individual and organisation mean that nicky’s experiences are illustrative at best. further, the reflections themselves were not an absolute account of everything that happened. analysis is therefore restricted to those events that were on the top of nicky’s mind during any period of reflection. nichols, m., meuleman, n. 34 after writing an initial piece describing her context as an ed, nicky undertook to prepare a series of accounts of her experience (reflections based on experiences she considered meaningful to her role and development) and fortnightly summaries of her development. fortnightly summaries used the headings: “what i did well”, “what i learned”, “what i need to be able to do better”, and “what i need to know more about”. reflections were up to 500 words. in all, nicky prepared 37 reflections. each was regularly uploaded to a shared dropbox folder. i (mark) would reflect on each post and add comments, often probing nicky’s account or providing ideas for her to consider. we met twice (early december 2015, mid-january 2016), with a third synchronous contact by skype (end of april 2016). each session had a particular focus, with conversation often leading to suggested readings and articles based on nicky’s experiences and expressed interests. reflections were analysed using constant comparison analysis, which is useful when an overarching understanding of data is sought (leech & onwuegbuzie, 2008), and recursive analysis, with an interim set of codes confirmed with nicky following the first 20 reflections. the final code set resulted from multiple passes over the data, although only one rater (mark) applied the final codes. mentoring approach because most of nicky’s development as an ed took place as a result of her work, i (mark) was conscious that she may not get much exposure to some of the important underlying theories and frameworks which, for the most part, determined her work context. however, nicky’s later reflections indicated that some valuable peer professional development did take place. for example, at one stage this internal pd programme required nicky to research and present an overview of robert gagné’s work. our first meeting focused on experiential learning and reflection in preparation for the project. kolb’s experiential learning cycle served both as a discussion point for the mentoring relationship and as an introduction to adult learning theory in general. during this meeting we also agreed on the project’s parameters. during the second meeting we explored nicky’s ongoing professional development and potential options for further study following the project. i recommended the introduction and the first chapter from parer’s developing open courses (parer, 1993). parer’s introduction squarely contextualises the role of the ed in terms of the classic distance education themes of industrialisation, guided didactic conversation, and “adult students who take responsibility for their own learning” (parer, 1993)—neatly introducing the main ideas of peters, holmberg, and moore. parer also introduces the role of the ed (‘educational developer’ to parer) as a pedagogical specialist. concluding his first chapter, parer notes that: study materials are a complex mix of pedagogical and personal teaching methods and are not simply the replacement of lecture notes . . . study materials must contain all the dynamic elements that are present in the traditional face-to-face teaching. . . . the educational developer works to ensure that students have a clear overview of the learning pathway. (p. 11) in the third meeting we discussed one particular comment among nicky’s reflections, and how we would consolidate themes from the 19 reflections and experiences to date. i suggested three further articles to help give more description of the role of an educational designer (miller & stein, 2016), and a sense of open polytechnic’s institutional identity as it relates to pedagogy (nichols, 2011a; 2011b). journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(2) 35 miller and stein found that the instructional designers they surveyed, who mainly worked in face-to-face higher education, were involved in: • providing both pedagogical and technology training, sometimes simultaneously and sometimes separately • moving courses between learning management systems • creating new online courses or transitioning face-to-face courses to online formats • producing video and other multimedia • supporting a variety of software that faculty want to use to create their courses or have their students learn • training faculty to teach more effectively using technology • supporting students using lmss • ensuring that courses meet federal requirements for accessibility • lobbying for funding for faculty who are taking time to create online courses • creating challenging assessments to minimize cheating (2016, para. 8) the purpose of these specific readings was, in part, to help nicky anchor her role among historical and international practice and, in part, to reassure her that she had entered a profession with a knowledge base and ongoing scholarship. mentoring also took place in the form of challenge questions and feedback on nicky’s various reflections. ongoing mentoring included reference to the work of gray et al. (2015), liu et al. (2002), and kenny et al. (2005) to provide further insight into the breadth and development of the educational designer role. nichols, m., meuleman, n. 36 findings thirty codes emerged following multiple passes over the data, and these codes were organised into three sections (see table 1). table 1 sections and codes from the data, with frequency development, growth and knowledge experience personal traits • co-worker appraisal (14)1 • developing confidence (19) • developing context (30) • developing personal style (30) • interdependence (41) • intuiting student needs (12) • learning new things (41) • rationalised expectation (14)2 • seeking guidance (19) • self-confident collegiality (22) • self-determination in uncertainty (10) • contextualised frustration (33) • contributing to decisions (20) • discovering areas of uncertainty (14) • institutional knowledge (10) • managerial support (28) • politics (12)3 • workload planning (5)4 • sense of being appreciated (13) • technical tools (32) • active inquisitiveness (24) • approach to change (22) • frustration (16) • helpfulness (35) • optimistic exploration (13)5 • personal boundaries (24) • productivity awareness (29) • sense of responsibility (30) • straightforward expectations (9)6 • willingness to extend (20) although some data from the reflections had multiple codes applied, the highest level of cooccurrence (where two codes were used to describe the same excerpt) was 38%. codes were not mutually exclusive, though they are exhaustive. all codes are important elements of nicky’s reflection. findings are further considered based on a classical content analysis and a chronological appraisal of development, with high-level abstract themes. following subsequent analysis of nicky’s personal traits drawn from the data, advice for new eds is provided. classical content analysis classical content analysis involves identifying those codes that were most frequently applied to the data. here, analysis is restricted to the seven codes with a frequency of 28 or more (excluding ‘personal trait’ codes, which are discussed later in this paper). a simple count of codes was applied to the data to gain insight into the main themes of nicky’s experiences and reflections across the time of data capture. 1 applied when nicky mentioned her impressions of colleagues. 2 applied when nicky found she was unable to act in accordance with her preference or expectation, yet was able to articulate and understand the reason. 3 applied when a situation involving office politics was mentioned, whether across the institution or unit. 4 such planning was not always because of too much to do; twice the code was applied to situations where a lack of deadline or pressure led nicky to reflect on her productivity. 5 applied when nicky was tasked with something she was not immediately familiar with, but agreed to undertake out of interest. 6 applied when nicky expressed how she anticipated things to be in a situation she described—usually in the context of that situation being different to how she thought it ought to be. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(2) 37 of the 30 codes ‘interdependence’ (41 mentions) and ‘learning new things’ (41) were applied most often. broadly, these are two key themes for new educational designers as they settle in to their responsibilities: finding their place in a collegial team, while developing the skills and knowledge they require for their work. the frequency of the codes demonstrates the importance to a new ed of peer relationships and engagement with new ideas and ways of doing things. an example of ‘interdependence’ is where nicky offered to consolidate a file list to help settle a dispute: “i offered to look at the folders for the eds, the writers and the content reviewers. i was going to look at all the documents we should provide them with, and get rid of all the extra files.” the action recognised the need for a clear set of files to assist with teamwork. ‘learning new things’ included references to professional development workshops as well as deliberate actions to get a better sense of context: i am starting on a new programme and i need to know more about how different programs have different needs and it is not a one size fits all across all the programs that we offer. i need to give myself the time to go through the [qualification design document] so that i understand what is expected of all courses and how i can create continuity, even when i am joining when the program is halfway through completion. the next two most frequent codes applied were those of ‘helpfulness’ (35) and ‘contextualised frustration’ (33). the former is discussed later in this paper in relation to nicky’s apparent personal traits. the latter code was applied when a frustrating situation was described along with an explanation of its cause, which provided an awareness and acceptance of the situation. a candid example is given here: i need to shake off this feeling of things not being fair. i am having difficulties coping with the fact that as an ed you are working with other eds. some of these are perfect. some of these just seem downright lazy. . . . i am getting frustrated over things that will never change, which is very unhealthy. i need to let it go and just do my best. the code frequently indicated resilience and an ability to rise above the situation being faced. a new ed is likely to be faced with many situations where things do not work out as they perhaps ought to; tracing causes to their root will probably provide a satisfactory, if not satisfying, explanation. the codes ‘developing context’ (30) and ‘developing personal style’ (30) were applied when there was clear evidence of nicky’s growing awareness of her immediate work environment, and of her awareness that she was developing or deciding on a particular approach to her role as an ed. here is an example of ‘developing context’: there are certain aspects of my job that i haven’t had to do yet, but they are coming up now as i am about to finalise the first course i did from start to finish. i need to know more about: copyright, readings, marking schedules, writing the intro page for a course, checking if the assessments meet all the learning outcomes, checking if the learning material gives enough information for the students to successfully do their assessments, making sure i have all the documentation before i let the writer know that their job is done. ‘developing context’ differed from ‘institutional knowledge’ (10) in that the latter was concerned with the broader work environment. for example: “[i had an experience where someone went] behind the back of their manager to get something done, so that they could try and force the issue because they were not getting the outcome they wanted.” the ‘sense of responsibility’ code, also applied 30 times, is an apparent personality trait. a new ed will be in a formative situation whereby they learn the dynamics of their workplace and deliberately situate their approach to their role. nichols, m., meuleman, n. 38 three additional high-frequency codes were ‘technical tools’ (32), ‘managerial support’ (28), and ‘productivity awareness’(29) (the latter also an apparent personality trait). the prominence of ‘technical tools’ is both an indication of the importance of technology to educational design, and an indication of the changes taking place with authoring tools at open polytechnic. nicky was frequently at the forefront of the changes because of her technical knowledge, and would sometimes be asked to explore new features and present them to the wider ed team. ‘managerial support’ (28) was applied when managerial assistance was either helpful, or (sometimes) disappointing. the relatively high frequency of this code indicates the significance of managerial encounters for new eds. chronological development and abstract themes over time, nicky’s reflections indicated changing stages of development. the emergence of key codes followed a particular progression across analysis, suggesting a chronological development confirmed by multiple passes across the data. the stages identified in bold type might also be considered the major, abstracted themes of the codes in table 1. broadly speaking, the seven stages and major themes of nicky’s experience are: 1. initial excitement and bewilderment, helpfulness and eagerness; a new job, in an exciting area. 2. frustration at her lack of knowledge alongside developing confidence and independence in the role; a natural fit, yet self-consciousness about her need to grow. 3. increased awareness of her collegial and institutional context; increasing awareness of the political and organisational culture. 4. rationalisation as to how much she could contribute (following a time of real pressure); setting personal boundaries for work hours, while still mindful of her responsibilities. 5. recognition as a technical expert and contributor to new initiatives; the result of prior knowledge, and a willingness to get involved constructively. 6. satisfaction as to the results of her work and her development as an ed; seeing the results of her work, and maintaining a student focus alongside an increasing awareness of the constraints of her role. 7. disillusionment and questioning about the role as a career; experiencing the repetitiveness of much of the work, understanding the constraints of institutional tools and project focus, the call of other options. (this was at the end of the period of data collection.) these stages were often accentuated by specific events as well as the time nicky had spent on the job. it is also important to note that subsequent correspondence reveals that disillusionment is not necessarily the last stage; other opportunities within the role have opened up, providing nicky with a fresh sense of purpose. overall, nicky could be said to have undergone an initial stage of excitement and bewilderment, followed by times of self-consciousness, increasing awareness of context, rationalisation, satisfaction, and disillusionment. these stages certainly overlapped but were clearly discernible in the data. personal traits nicky’s reflections revealed a range of apparent personality traits that assisted in her development. as table 1 shows, ‘helpfulness’ (35) and ‘sense of responsibility’ (30) were two discernible characteristics; both reveal a particular orientation to her ed role. helpfulness is exemplified in comments such as “i helped out one of my colleagues with one of her courses, since she was struggling. it is nice to know that i can already be helpful with ed work, even though i am a relatively new ed.” ‘productivity awareness’ (29) was applied when meeting deadlines or time on task were mentioned; the comment “it will happen more often over time that i will need to work on a programme that i haven’t worked for before, so i also need to figure out journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(2) 39 the best way to find my way around a new programme in the shortest amount of time possible” illustrates that nicky had an acute sense of deliverables and dedication to task. ‘active inquisitiveness’ (24) was another high-frequency characteristic, sometimes linked to the ‘learning new things’ (41) code mentioned above. nicky’s natural approach toward something she did not know was an eagerness to learn about it: i am still a bit in the dark on what an ed does during which stage of the development . . . if there would be a good summary out there somewhere, i would eat that thing up. i don’t like this feeling of not knowing exactly if you are doing a good job and if you are meeting people’s expectations. ‘personal boundaries’ (24), another frequent code, applied when nicky’s reflections indicated she had deliberately chosen to adapt her decisions because of a particular situation or ongoing effect: i still need to learn how to let go on some of my standards. i want to do everything perfect but there just aren’t enough hours in the week to actually do this. this makes me stressed out and i will try and put in more time, even though that is not possible. my standards are apparently pretty high and they are not achievable in the structure and time planning that we have right now. this code was sometimes applied along with ‘developing personal style’ (30), although more in the sense of nicky determining what she would pull back from in a form of self-management. advice to new educational designers educational design work requires much more than a knowledge base of models and theories. for new eds, obtaining knowledge about models and theories must take place alongside getting to know new colleagues in a new workplace. in addition, they need to work out how the institutional expectations of their role shape their practice and aspirations. all the while, they must also work to develop the perspective required for decision-making and problem-solving required of eds, and the additional confidence required to contribute to a team environment. from nicky’s reflections and code frequency analysis it seems her personal traits made the most significant difference, as it was primarily these traits that provided the experiences linked to her development as an ed. the experiences demonstrated an appreciative sense of change and frustration (as long as the standards of change are constructive and lead to improvement); a willingness to try new things; a dissatisfaction with current knowledge; a collegiality that focuses on task; and a keen sense of productivity. by way of meta-reflections on the data nicky provided, the following advice is promoted for new eds: 1. relax, because the context will come. that you were appointed shows you have potential. expect to be bewildered and feel out of your depth from time to time. eventually you build knowledge of the task, and the inter-relationships and workings of the organisation you’ve joined will gradually make sense. 2. trust—and challenge—your instincts. often your gut sense about design is a good guide, but be open to your instincts being further shaped and improved by others. you will often need to apply your own judgement, because not everything will be clear. learn when to take your own initiative, and when to ask for guidance. 3. expect to change. even your standards will change over time; they will not necessarily get worse, but they will be tempered by productivity, available technical solutions, institutional style, and the good practice you encounter in the work of others. you will eventually understand that productivity is not necessarily the antithesis of good design. nichols, m., meuleman, n. 40 4. be realistic about your workplace. temper your expectations. not everything will be perfectly outlined or systematised. as much as you can, adopt an appreciative and constructive approach to such situations. expect a political environment, and be deliberate about your response to it. adopt a flexible approach to situations; even with good management deadlines will change, stakeholders will change, and the courses assigned to you will change from time to time. 5. learn the rhythm of the role. there will be peak times when you are likely to get frazzled, frustrated, and fed up; there will also be times when you can celebrate achievements. from time to time things will slow down, giving you an opportunity to develop further. 6. foster good relationships with all. educational designers always work in a team. rely on and support your colleagues and other project members. 7. be deliberate about self-development. learn, learn, learn. master the tools of the trade, both technical and pedagogical. these enhance both your practice and potential. expose yourself to new experiences as much as possible. these will provide ample means of learning, while boosting your confidence and independence. develop an instinctive mastery of soft skills. related to this is an additional element of advice, consider keeping a reflective diary as a valid and useful form of professional development: a. what did i do well this last fortnight? what am i proud of? b. what did i learn this last fortnight? what was new to me? c. what do i need to know more about? how can i further extend myself? 8. the same questions can be posed as a prompt to reflection after a significant, unusual or important experience. self-development also involves rereading diary entries every 2 months or so. as nicky reflected after reviewing the first draft of this paper, re-reading a diary will assist new eds to “see how they are growing in their role. it has certainly helped me a lot with acknowledging that i actually have improved a lot over the last couple of weeks and it is quite satisfying to see that development.” keeping a learning diary is also a wonderful means of transitioning from beginner to reflective practitioner. this advice to new eds recognises the importance of professional development in the institutional context, which is an important part of developing the situational judgement, problem-solving, teamwork, and relationships that are critical to the ed role (gray et al., 2015; kenny et al., 2005; liu et al., 2002). the advice is also a relevant means of assisting inexperienced eds into a new area of expertise (maclean & scott, 2011). conclusion literature provides clear insight into the sorts of skills eds require to perform their roles (gray et al., 2015; maclean & scott, 2011; miller & stein, 2016). less understood is the journey new eds must take in developing these skills. as more opportunities for ed work become available, and with few specific training and professional development opportunities available (maclean and scott, 2011; miller & stein, 2016), orientation and self-development become important activities. such orientation must go beyond the underpinning technical models, into the softskills and institutional contexts that also determine successful practice. ‘interdependence’ and ‘learning new things’ were top of mind in nicky’s first-year reflections on the job, followed by ‘developing context’ and ‘developing personal style’. learning about an ed’s organisational responsibilities, house style, and internal processes takes place alongside learning the more technical elements of the role. the institutional context, technical tools of the job, and quality of management are important elements shaping the experience of new eds. this journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(2) 41 case study also affirms the personal traits of helpfulness, sense of responsibility, and productivity awareness as contributing to rapid growth as an ed. while a case study of one is no basis for generalisation, new eds can benefit from maintaining a reflective journal and by anticipating ‘real life’ ups and downs. the self-awareness promoted by journalling, with the feedback and support provided through mentoring, assisted this new ed to become proficient in a timeframe of less than a year. nicky’s apparent success from inexperienced beginner to proficient practitioner is probably a reflection of the personal traits of ‘helpfulness’, ‘sense of responsibility’, and ‘productivity awareness’ she brought with her into the role. nicky’s journey of development illustrates how a new ed might go from bewilderedyet-excited newcomer, through the challenges of learning how things work, into a collegial and trusted practitioner who is well positioned for an ongoing career. references brown, a., & green, t. d. 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(2016). finding our voice: instructional designers in higher education. educausereview, (monday, february 8). retrieved from http://er.educause.edu/articles/2016/2/finding-our-voice-instructional-designers-in-highereducation nichols, m. (2011a). articulating e-pedagogy for education. in j. barrett (ed.), open learning for an open world: reflections on open and distance learning and teaching at the open polytechnic of new zealand (pp. 321–333). lower hutt: the open polytechnic of new zealand. retrieved from https://repository.openpolytechnic.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/11072/1381/seelig_et al_2011 book-open_learning_for_an_open_world.pdf?sequence=1&isallowed=y nichols, m. (2011b). distance education at the open polytechnic: the “institutional” approach. in j. barrett (ed.), open learning for an open world: reflections on open and distance learning and teaching at the open polytechnic of new zealand (pp. 15–30). lower hutt: the open polytechnic of new zealand. retrieved from https://repository.openpolytechnic.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/11072/1381/seelig_et al_2011 book open_learning_for_an_open_world.pdf?sequence=1&isallowed=y parer, m. s. (ed.). (1993). developing open courses. churchill, victoria, australia: centre for distance learning, monash distance education centre. retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed362771.pdf reigeluth, c. m. (1999). instructional-design theories and models: volume ii—a new paradigm of instructional theory. mahwah, nj: lawrence erlbaum. richey, r., klein, j. d., & tracey, m. w. (2011). the instructional design knowledge base : theory, research, and practice. new york: routledge. seelig, c., & nichols, m. (2017). new zealand: open polytechnic. in c. latchem (ed.), using icts and blended learning in transforming tvet (pp. 103–116). vancouver: commonwealth of learning and unesco-unevoc. retrieved from http://oasis.col.org/bitstream/handle/11599/2718/2017_latchem_using-icts-and-blendedlearning.pdf smith, p. l., & ragan, t. j. (2005). instructional design. hoboken, nj: j. wiley & sons. wiggins, g. p., & mctighe, j. (2005). understanding by design. alexandria, va: association for supervision and curriculum development. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(2) 43 biographical notes dr mark nichols mark.nichols@open.ac.uk dr mark nichols is director of technology enhanced learning with the open university, uk. previously, he was executive director of education design services with the open polytechnic of new zealand. his eportfolio is at http://tinyurl.com/mnichols. nicky meuleman nicky.meuleman@openpolytechnic.ac.nz nicky meuleman is an educational designer at the open polytechnic of new zealand. she obtained her certificate as a teacher of a foreign language and spent some time in china as an english teacher before coming to new zealand. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. nichol, m., & meuleman, n. (2017). reflections of a new educational designer. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(2), [3143.]. pratt, k. 12 supporting distance learners: making practice more effective keryn pratt, university of otago college of education abstract this paper reports on a qualitative evaluation of the postgraduate courses offered by distance in one university department. the types and amount of support provided to students was evaluated and compared with simpson’s (2008a) proactive motivational support model (pams). while students were largely satisfied with the support they received during their studies, their perceptions of the levels and effectiveness of that support varied. they also perceived a variation in the levels of support between individual courses. a number of areas where support could be improved were identified, including those that met the characteristics of the pams model. keywords: distance learning; support; motivation; pams; expectations introduction the numbers of students involved in distance courses at the tertiary level is relatively small in new zealand, but distance education is an important feature of our education system (guiney, 2014). as is the case worldwide, distance education offers opportunities to people who would not otherwise be able to participate in tertiary education due to their location, or because of work or family responsibilities (guiney, 2014; newberry & deluca, 2014). distance learning is perceived to impose additional demands on the learner (lai, 2002). these demands have been categorised in a number of ways. for example, lai (2002) referred to cognitive and social demands, while sherry (2000) divided the areas into learner, organisational, and technological factors. kazmer (2000) separated the demands further, identifying seven areas associated with this form of study: planning, technology, workload, social issues, the integration of life and study, administrative adaptation, and effort and rewards. despite these varying categorisations, recognition of a range of reasons why distance students might not succeed is common to all models. it is also notable that, in comparison with on-campus students, distance students tend to be older and are more likely to be studying part time, often due to family or work responsibilities (allen & seaman, 2014; guiney, 2014). these responsibilities can exacerbate the difficulties associated with studying by distance. this is especially true for those who are new to online learning, and therefore have to negotiate not only the content, but also the entire learning experience (mcquaid, 2010; reisetter, lapointe, & korcuska, 2007). a key aspect of alleviating and overcoming the difficulties faced by distance students is the provision of appropriate and effective support (boyle, kwon, ross, & simpson, 2010; guiney, journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(1) 13 2014; heyman, 2010; mills, 2003; park & choi, 2009). support needs to cover all aspects of students’ experiences (heyman, 2010), and be provided when students need it (newberry & deluca, 2014). simpson (2002; 2013) divided the types of support students required into two categories: academic support (the knowledge relating to the specific course and general academic skills) and non-academic support (affective and organisational). these two types of support are summarised in table 1. table 1 types of support required by students (adapted from simpson, 2002, pp. 6–7) type of support areas of support academic defining explaining assessing chasing progress developing skills exploring enriching non-academic advising assessing (in non-academic areas) advocating agitating acting administering in a contrasting approach to considering non-academic support, moisey and hughes (2008) classified such support in terms of when it was needed. for example, before the course, learners need support to help prepare for and make decisions about their course, and during their course they need support with academic, administrative, and technical issues. simpson (2008b) recognised a need for theories that explore and explain the role of student support in distance learning, and developed his proactive motivational support (pams) theoretical model based on motivation. it includes the strengths approach theory from positive psychology (e.g., boniwell, 2005, and dweck’s 1999 self theory; both cited in simpson, 2008b). applying these theories with what is known about effective motivation, simpson (2008b) described the pams stance as being proactive and motivational. it would be: 1. individual (focus on individual student needs rather than a top-down one-size-fits-all approach) 2. interactive (allow learners to interact with their support rather than a take-it-or-leave-it approach) 3. motivational (be informed by, and use, both self theory and the strengths approach (p. 168). contacting individual students allows support to be individualised, and making contact by phone or email allows for interaction during which staff can identify and help the student understand their strengths. during this contact, staff should remind students that, with effort, they can succeed at the course. staff can also get to know students as individuals, identifying aspects of pratt, k. 14 their personalities and habits that can be strengths in distance learning (see simpson, 2008a, for an example of how to apply pams with new students). from the strengths approach came a focus on the strengths students brought to their study, rather than their weaknesses. applying this approach to distance learning involves distance teaching staff finding out about the personal lives of their students to identify their strengths (boniwell, 2003, as cited in simpson, 2008b). for example, a student who is juggling work and family life may have strengths at managing multiple tasks and needs, and in managing time. helping them to realise this, and then applying it to their study, can be motivational. dweck’s self theory (1999, as cited in simpson 2008b) proposed that people view their intelligence as fixed or as having the potential to be enhanced through effort. simpson (2008b) believed students and staff involved in distance learning need to be convinced of the latter approach, so students can be encouraged to persevere to succeed and overcome barriers. when applying this theory, staff need to praise effort over achievement. recognising the complexity of support systems, simpson (2002) identified twenty-one questions that he recommended institutions providing distance education use to review student support. he clustered these questions in four groups: support activities; materials; support staffing; and supporting students in practice. one final additional question asked students whether they always had the support they needed when they needed it, and how this could be improved. this research aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the current support strategies implemented in programmes offered by one university department using the pams model. context the university department in which the study was based has offered distance courses in education, largely at the postgraduate level, since 1994, and online courses since 1997. at the time the research was conducted, seven postgraduate qualifications could be completed wholly online. most of the students taking these courses are mature students who are working full time and studying part time. in most cases they are teachers who are undertaking the courses to upgrade their qualifications and/or enhance their understanding of a variety of educational issues. the online programmes were delivered through the moodle learning management system, with support provided by individual lecturers through their course website, and by the university’s central support services. students were sent the book, distance learning information and support at the start of that year’s courses. they were directed to a variety of internal resources, and to external resources on topics such as referencing and searching. at the start of each course they received a course pack comprising a hard-copy version of the coursebook and a cd containing electronic copies of the coursebook, the assignment coverpage, a video of an endnote tutorial, and readings that could be distributed without breaching copyright. this research project aimed, firstly, to determine students’ perceptions of the current levels and kinds of support; secondly, to consider the degree to which we were effectively providing all areas of support previously identified; and thirdly, whether the characteristics of pams were being met. it was part of a continuing research programme aimed at enhancing the distance programmes (e.g., lai, 2002; lai & pratt, 2004; lai & pratt, 2006; pratt, 2009). data reported here is from the qualitative phase of a larger mixed-methods study. method ethics approval was sought and granted from the university. at the start of semester 1, all students taking semester 1 and full-year courses were invited to participate in an interview journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(1) 15 exploring student support. eight students agreed to take part in an interview at this time. this was repeated in semester 2 and included those students who were enrolled in semester 2 and full-year courses who had not previously been invited to participate. two more students participated in interviews at this time. a total of ten students were therefore involved in the project: eight in group one, and two in group two. because the researcher was involved in the delivery of the distance education programme, an independent research assistant conducted the interviews. students were interviewed by phone or skype, depending on their preference. interviews took 20–30 minutes, and were audio recorded. the interviews were semi-structured and based on simpson’s (2002) questions. the questions covered three of simpson’s four topics. additional questions were also used for the larger study (see appendix a). to protect the anonymity of those who participated, the research assistant replaced names of staff, students, and courses with codes, and removed other identifying information before passing the transcripts to the researcher. the recording failed in one interview; however, the interviewer took notes, which she passed on in lieu of the transcript. transcripts were analysed thematically using both inductive and deductive codes. a priori themes were identified from the literature and used in conjunction with codes developed from the data. findings simpson’s (2002) themes are used to present the findings. support activities the questions in this category focused on how and when communication between students and staff occurred, and whether support was proactive or reactive. in general, students reported that most of their communication occurred through email or discussion on moodle, although other options were available. only to, to email, to . . . clarify things, so that’s all really. (student c) email works very effectively for me. i . . . can’t really think what else. i mean quite often on an email if it’s something that they can’t clarify by email, they’ll give you a phone number and you can give them a call. (student d) two students indicated they had also been to see at least one of their lecturers to clarify issues, but one indicated that even if it were physically possible, he would not have done it. i’ve gone and talked to lecturer l twice, and i think we’ve emailed a couple of times. (student a) the only real communication i had was on moodle and one or two emails. i don’t even think, that [meeting the lecturers in person] felt like an option . . . i wouldn’t have felt that i could have just rocked up to the university. (student h) one student commented on the difference meeting their lecturers in person had made to their experience. this is my fourth year, and this year i’m full time and . . . the first year i didn’t contact the lecturers except through the moodle stuff, and so kind got the bare minimum. and you know, maybe that was more up to me than them, i’m not sure. . . since then, i’ve made a point . . . of actually going up and meeting my lecturers and that’s face to face. and that’s really changed my interactions. (student f) pratt, k. 16 another felt meeting lecturers was of such value that we should consider making it a compulsory part of the course. . . . i’ve met up with three of them . . . probably personalities, more than anything i think it’s good, yes. it’s worthwhile doing, if it can happen . . . i think a close to compulsory [face-toface meeting] would be really good, i mean people can’t always make it, but . . . it would be excellent to have one. and i mean you’d want a meet and greet, not just a short, quick one but . . . like an hour and a half, two hours, afternoon tea, something like that . . . it’s up to us out-of-towners to travel and, if it was on i would have gone down. (student a) another student agreed, noting that in a previous class they had talked about the possibility of having face-to-face interaction, but identified issues with it. we talked about face-to-face interaction, and face-to-face communities and then online communities. and, we all sorta came up with the idea . . . that it would be a good idea to have a boot camp sorta thing. where you meet for two or three days and actually meet each other, and have a quick chat and get a bit of face-to-face talk going, and then, then go away and get into the online stuff so that you’ve got that initial connection . . . it’s a great thought, but i don’t know whether it’s practical really, to do that. i mean you do distance learning because, you’re distance, you’re normally away from the place, where you can’t get to the university to go lectures, don’t you? (student e) others agreed that meeting the lecturer and their classmates was a good idea in principle, but identified problems with it. i think it’s always a good idea, but the downside becomes if . . . someone like me is doing the [course], and i can’t get to the day, then you actually, i mean i teach [a course] online so . . . if you can’t get all your participants together, it’s not worth doing it. because they then establish a left-out feeling. (student h) well, from my experience, it would have been completely impractical for me because i was in another country . . . it’s a nice idea, but it strikes me as impractical for quite a few of the students. (student g) students were also asked about their lecturers’ responsiveness. in general students reported that emails were answered quickly: “within six hours” (student d), “within a couple of days, same day sometimes” (student e). responsiveness in other areas was more mixed. it depends on the lecturer. i’ve had one [course] this year where it’s been slow and a bit difficult cos the lecturer’s been away. so the response time [has] been slower and getting stuff . . . online . . . hasn’t been as prompt as i’d like it to be. (student f) one of my [courses], they were very good at getting the grades up, so i could follow grades over the course of the year, whereas another couple of my [courses] . . . didn’t keep up to date so effectively with that, so it would be interesting to be able to see that and to make sure that was kept up to date. (student g) students had similar perspectives on whether support was provided proactively, reactively, or both. they’re very proactive, they anticipate problems and they get them sorted before they happen . . . it was good, you just knew exactly where you stood. . . lecturer g, she’s just amazing, she emails on a monday, she outlines her expectations for the week, and then always has the opportunity to contact her if needed. so, it’s just been really proactive communication, ‘is there anything i can do?’, ‘do you need me?’, ‘how can i help?’ it’s just been really good. (student d) journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(1) 17 essentially it’s reactive cos i start it. i contact them and say ‘hey, this’ and . . . when you get there they are really welcoming and when you ask them stuff they are really helpful, but it’s . . . cos i’m a distance learner you kinda don’t know how often to ask or you’re a bit nervous about it. (student f) i think to start off with, to make sure everybody’s up and running, it’s proactive, and then it’s just, like i s’pose it should be, it’s up to the individual, if they want to find out more information . . . i’m the one that goes searching for it . . . if i’m struggling with something or i need something clarified, i have no problem in you know, ringing round or emailing round to find the person that can help me. (student b) in line with the varied perceptions of whether support was proactive or reactive, different students reported needing help at the beginning, the middle, or two-thirds of the way through the course. students who were new to studying online, or who were coming back to study after some time away, felt that they needed support at the beginning of the course. probably, before and at the beginning. i mean i hadn’t studied for some years so just the whole process of getting myself enrolled and then getting back into a daily routine of studying and doing essays and that kind of thing. (student g) for me probably at the start, because i needed to understand what the expectations were, when they were expected by and what level they were to be expected at. and i definitely received that at the start. now it’s just a matter of doing the stuff really. (student d) other students needed support further through the course. maybe they could do a bit of a check-up, around i don’t know, maybe in april or something, would probably help, if the lecturers just wanted to, take the time just to send out an email would be a good idea . . . and then again, the equivalent the second semester. (student a) for me, personally it’s the middle. it’s kinda like you get halfway through and you’re ‘ah, god, what have i done?’, ‘why the hell have i done this?’, and it’s just that motivation. (student b) probably between the middle and the end . . . i think it was just, you know that two-thirds and you were like . . . typical stress. (student h) one student commented that they needed help in choosing the appropriate courses. someone who runs the department . . . should contact you and say ‘hey, where are you heading with this, what are your plans? have you this or this?’ like i said maybe i should have got off my bum and done that myself. but it’s kind [of], you know, that real catch, who should do it. but i think it would be nice if the uni . . . sent you a message and said ‘hey, do you want to catch up about this?’, and then at least you have the option to turn it down. (student f) materials the second area of questioning asked about the materials that were provided to students. we asked about the coursebook, the resources in moodle, and resources provided by the wider university. students were generally happy with the coursebooks, although one confessed they had not really read it (student a) and another preferred the online version to the hard-copy version, commenting that the coursebook was “too wordy” (student b). most, however, felt the coursebook included the appropriate material. pratt, k. 18 the handbooks at the start of the year are very clear, good guidelines about expectations . . . they were clear and they were concise and they completely told me . . . (a) what the course involved, (b) what i needed to and how to do it and when it was all due. (student d) one student noted that while the coursebook was good, more information was needed during the course itself. you need to know not just what they are, but how . . . to get there and more importantly what to do when things go astray. cos you’ve got so many things . . . in your life and with your distance, you know it’s not like you can regularly turn up once a week and go ‘ah, actually i’m two weeks behind’. (student j) students also felt the moodle website was easy to use. despite this, very few reported having used the links to resources that were available on moodle, although one student reported “the resources they put up are fabulous” (student d). this pattern of not using resources continued when students were asked about their use of the support provided by the wider university. one student used the information technology services service desk for help with endnote, and four students reported using the remote library services, but the others said they had not needed them. one student explained that this may have been, in part, because “i didn’t actually know what they were” (student h). the students who did use the remote library service reported it was excellent, and that the librarians were excellent, “really prompt and terribly efficient” (student f) and “incredibly helpful” (student d). students identified three key areas where they felt additional support would have been useful. three wanted more information on referencing and avoiding plagiarism, and access to a plagiarism checking tool. two students referred to themselves as “older students” and wanted more technical support, while one wanted help in using the library databases more effectively. appropriately, given that much of the information students wanted was already available, one noted that rather than emailing the lecturer for information: if we actually knew a wee bit about the services . . . [we] could go direct to the thing that [we] needed. (student h) supporting students in practice supporting students in practice covers the support for and experience of students from their initial enrolment to the end of their study. students generally found enrolling in a university programme to be complex. if it was their first year, they had to apply for the programme, register with the university, and then go through a course approval process. returning students also sometimes had difficulty, particularly as each stage had a deadline and late fees applied if the deadlines were missed. most students commented on not really knowing the people in their class, and needing an understanding of the personalities of those commenting in order to put comments in context. they suggested either meeting face to face or at least having some synchronous contact to aid with this. you can’t replace human interaction, you know. whereas over the internet, even when you’re, emailing in the group sessions and things like that, it’s isolated, you know . . . you always find that you need a bit more, i think, we’re at distance, you always feel a bit more isolated when you are in need of more information or clarification, it’s that kind, it’s more intense kind of confusion. (student j) you build up that trust, because . . . some of the things that you want to say online, because you don’t have that background knowledge of a person, you can interpret it so differently. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(1) 19 but just by having that, like a real time contact, sometimes just helps to break down those barriers and stuff like that . . . to be kinda online for an hour together and have kinda like a discussion like that, you know build up the class, . . . the kinda the whanau feeling really when you’re in a programme of learning. (student h) a number of students also commented on the effect the lecturer and their participation had on their experience of studying. the [courses] i’ve enjoyed more, have been when the lecturers have participated regularly. i’ve got one lecturer this year who sets up the questions at the start of the fortnight, comments at the middle and then sums up at the end . . . it’s probably extremely helpful but they’re a bit far apart. the lecturers who have been a bit more engaged online, and participated a bit more often . . . i’ve probably got a bit more out of. (student f) the other awkward thing is when you’ve got a lecturer away and then [they come] back half way through a semester or something . . . and it changes the whole flow of the pattern. you’re used to working with one lecturer, and then a second one arrives back from holiday and starts going off on different tangents. it doesn’t help in the least. (student a) it was just that . . . kinda that willingness to help us succeed and to . . . see us in every day contexts. and also . . . he made sure that he commented on everyone’s posts as well. so you didn’t feel . . . i’m doing all this work and everyone else is, but you’re just . . . choosing one or two. even if it was just ‘well, done. what do others think?’ that at least, let me know that he was looking at it. (student b) there was similar variation in students’ experiences of assessment. some students found the assessments and criteria to be appropriate, while others wanted more detail. one student reported that not all coursebooks included marking criteria for the assignments, and they were not satisfied with this. the marking criteria is quite broad, but [so are] the assignment types. so yes, the marking criteria meets the assessment objectives and it’s definitely linked to learning outcomes. but i think it’s the nature of the study and because [it is] very personalised, i can relate everything back to nursing education which is what i work in, and they’ve had to create a course that meets such a vast range of education across the sectors. . . . [b]y default their assignments and marking criteria have to be quite broad to encompass that, and i think they’ve done that really well. (student d) students had similar experiences in terms of the speed of return of assessments. one student commented it had improved since the previous year when they had to submit a third assessment before the first two were returned. mostly, though, students reported both the timeliness and quality of feedback as being “really good” (student e) or “really awesome” (student h). one student commented that it was: not too bad really, i mean they’ve got a heap, if they’re going to do a good job . . . i wouldn’t expect them to rush, rush through it. (student a) overall support the last of simpson’s (2002) questions was an overarching one. encouragingly, most students had positive things to say about their overall experience, noting it was “good overall”, “excellent”, “brilliant”, “quite successful”, and they had “really enjoyed it”. one student described the overall experience as being: outstanding. excellent tutors, excellent contact, like they’re always available . . . just phenomenal, it’s been excellent. the handbooks at the start of the year are very clear, good pratt, k. 20 guidelines about expectations and constant contact, if i’ve got any questions, it’s just been great. (student d) one student noted that “you get what you give” (student f), while another said that as an adult student, they did not expect “a huge amount of support”. another student went on to explain that this was a hard issue to comment on, as: if i think about it all the information is there pretty much . . . the reality is, if you miss some information and you’re not actually using the technology properly, you don’t think that you’re getting that support, but it actually is there. (student e) in thinking about their courses and how they were supported, most students also commented on their experience as a distance student. in general, they reported finding it “demanding” and challenging”, both due to their learning preferences and having to balance the multiple demands of work, home, and study. students also varied in their expectations of the courses and each other, and this affected both their experience and their perceptions of support. a number of students reported on their expectations of themselves and their classmates as postgraduate distance students. at times difficulties arose when their expectations differed from those of their lecturers, but in general most students reported that they needed to be fairly independent as learners. i believe at postgraduate level you’ve got to be taking a lot of self-responsibility for things and, and i believe you set up right at the start to know that and undertake that. (student d) when you’re doing distance learning obviously we’ve got to be responsible at our end to keep regular contact with what’s happening on the forum, and, you know, lecturer h’s putting stuff up there and we can see there’s a new post that we haven’t read, and we need to read them. (student e) discussion the results clearly show that students’ experiences were individual; they appeared to vary in terms of their own needs and expectations, and those of their lecturer(s). students differed in their perceptions of whether support was proactive or reactive, when they needed help, and the degree to which they believed their lecturers were responsive. despite the differing perceptions, and the areas in which they felt improvements could be made, students were generally very positive about the course and the support provided. one student acknowledged that while they wanted more help, it was available if they chose to access it. based on the findings, three key issues appeared to be common. firstly, overall, students did not seem to feel that they were part of a community. students’ sense of community was not the focus of this project, but given previous research indicating that distance students who feel part of a community of learners tend to be more satisfied and learn more effectively (e.g., see garrison & akyol, 2013; moore, 2014; sadera, robertson, song, & midon, 2009) it is certainly an issue that needs further exploration. the fact that one student did not feel he could visit the lecturers was also a concern; although these are distance courses, students are encouraged to meet with lecturers if they are in the area. the second issue that arose for a number of students was that many were either not aware of the resources that were available for them, or how they could use them to enhance their experience. in general, though, it appeared that resources were provided to cover a wide range of needs and experiences, and that students could pick and choose what was appropriate for them. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(1) 21 thirdly, it appeared that staff and students had differing expectations about being a postgraduate student and a distance student, and what was involved in completing a distance course. for example, in some cases lecturers would work with individual students to provide them with the support they needed to be successful, within the parameters of the course requirements, while others did not. as one student noted, it was particularly difficult when lecturers, and hence expectations, changed within one course. ensuring that staff and students had similar expectations would reduce the opportunities for misunderstanding. it was clear, though, that students had preferences for the kinds and amounts of support provided, so it would seem likely that they would prefer to have at least some staff provide those levels of support rather than having consistent but lower levels of support. while recognising the need for staff to run their course as they wish, it would seem appropriate for a department to have an agreed set of standards. these standards should be implemented throughout all courses, and staff and students should be aware of them before a course starts. it was not clear where staff’s varying expectations regarding the level and kind of support that they should provide to students arose; they may have been a function of staff beliefs about intelligence, as described in self theory. alternatively, these expectations may have varied as a function of johnston and simpson’s (2006, as cited in simpson, 2013) characterisation of staff types. these types are:  the darwinista, who believes students’ lack of success is due to some fault of their own, such as not working hard enough, or not having the necessary intelligence  the fatalista, who believes students do not succeed due to factors external to the course  the retentioneer, who believes students do not succeed because they were not supported proactively. if staff are either of the first two types, they might believe that they cannot do anything that will make a difference to students’ performance, and so providing additional support would not be effective. a further possibility is that staff have expectations that, as postgraduate students and adults, students will identify and provide for their own support needs. exactly why there are variations in terms of provided support is not clear. however, it is clear that the levels of support, and variations in these, can have a negative effect on students’ distance learning experiences. while the questions asked in the interview did not specifically ask whether the support provided aligned with pams characteristics, it was expected that these characteristics would be apparent through students’ responses. in general, though, this was not the case, with only one student mentioning motivation specifically. perhaps students did not consider motivation to be the role of the department, or perhaps they did not think to mention it when asked more generally about support. detailed exploration of students’ comments showed that, while the support provided met some of the characteristics of pams, it did not meet them all. the first characteristic of pams is that it focuses on the needs of individual students. in general, the support available appeared to be generic, available to all students, rather than based on consideration of individual students’ needs. further investigation would be needed to determine the extent to which staff drew individual students’ attention to support that was particularly relevant for them, or whether they individualised the support they provided. it may be that the support students are reporting as being available for all students was, in fact, available only for them, in recognition of an individual need; but individual students did not know this. the second characteristic of pams is that it be interactive. in most cases it appeared that the support provided in these courses was not interactive, but was simply provided for students to pratt, k. 22 use or ignore. similarly, while some students mentioned meeting or talking with their lecturers, such suggestions appeared to occur at the student’s behest; so, while it may be have been interactive, it was not proactive. however, there did appear to be some exceptions, with mention made of regular emails to students — these may have provided an interactive opportunity. the content of the email, however, would need to be analysed to determine the extent to which it encouraged interactivity, rather than simply being an information-dispersing mechanism. the final characteristic of pams is that it be motivational, in line with the strengths approach and self theory. as such, support needed to:  focus on students’ strengths  acknowledge what they, as individuals, brought to their study  identify students’ view of intelligence, and encourage them to recognise that they can do better by working harder  focus on praising effort over achievement. again, these issues were not addressed directly in the questions but it would appear that, in general, much more work could be done in this area. without initial individual and interactive contact with the student, it is difficult to see how individual strengths could be acknowledged as helping with their study. having said this, one student did note that in contrast to her experience in the previous year, her “previous different point of view and my different experiences have been celebrated, and encouraged” (student b), suggesting that the lecturer in the course had identified the strengths she brought based on her experience, and encouraged her and her peers to recognise them. similarly, there appeared to be room for improvement in terms of the remaining characteristics of pams. no students mentioned receiving information about differing views of intelligence, or encouragement to focus on working harder over a focus on intelligence. in general, too, no students mentioned their efforts being praised, and one student noted that in assignment feedback there was “more on the wrong than what you do right”, which is contrary to the pams model. limitations before drawing conclusions based on the findings of this research, it is important to acknowledge its limitations. this is a small-scale study, conducted with a small number of students from one university department. as such, it is not clear to what extent the findings were peculiar to this group of students. in addition, the questions asked were based on the identified areas in which support was needed, rather than relating specifically to pams. this reduces the certainty regarding the degree to which the support provided to these students is in line with the pams approach. future research needs to address these issues (including looking at the content of the support being provided) to identify the extent to which the provided support addresses the key pams characteristics. research also needs to be conducted with the staff involved in distance learning to determine their understanding and expectations regarding both the needs of distance students, and best practice when providing support. conclusion despite the limitations of the research, a clear finding of this study is the value of implementing a set of expectations for staff and students, based on research. expectations would cover a wide range of issues, including:  the importance of creating a sense of community  ensuring that students feel welcome to contact staff journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(1) 23  clearly identifying the support (physical resources and support from the lecturer) that is available  ensuring staff understand the importance of proactive motivational support as described in the pams model, including the characteristics and how these should be applied. overall, then, it appears that while students in these programmes were largely satisfied with the support they received, there are many areas in which it could be improved, and attention to the pams characteristics is particularly recommended. however, pams alone is not sufficient: other forms of support are also valued, both in terms of timing and focus. additionally, when developing support strategies and materials it is best to include all staff who are involved in teaching and supporting students to ensure they understand the theory behind the support being provided. as a result, students are more likely to have a consistent and more positive experience across all courses. as one student explained: going by this year’s experience, i love it. i just thought it was brilliant and i know that was down to the course coordinator, the lecturer, and the way he handled it and the way he delivered the course. (student b) acknowledgements the author wishes to acknowledge funding support for the study from the university of otago, and the participants who willingly gave their time. references allen, i. e., & seaman, j. (2014). grade change: tracking online education in the united states. babson park, ma: babson survey research group. boyle, f., kwon, j., ross, c., & simpson, o. (2010). student–student mentoring for retention and engagement in distance education. open learning, 25(2), 115–130. garrison, d. r., & akyol, z. (2013). toward the development of a metacognition construct for communities of inquiry. the internet and higher education, 17(0), 84–89. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2012.11.005 guiney, p. (2014). extramural students’ participation and achievement: trends, patterns and highlights. wellington, new zealand: ministry of education. heyman, e. (2010). overcoming student retention issues in higher education online programs. online journal of distance learning administration, 13(4). kazmer, m. (2000). coping in a distance environment. retrieved from http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue5_9/kazmer/index.html lai, k-w. (2002). web-based learning: some success factors for tertiary students. in proceedings of the 6th global chinese conference on computers in education, volume 1 (pp. 664–670). beijing: beijing normal university. lai, k-w., & pratt, k. (2004). online learners: who are they? in l. cantoni & c. mcloughlin (eds.), proceedings of the world conference on educational multimedia, hypermedia and telecommunication (pp. 5142–5147). norfolk, va: association for the advancement of computing in education. lai, k-w., & pratt, k. (2006). online teaching: teaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence. paper presented at spotlight on teaching at otago: sharing innovation, best practice and research. dunedin, new zealand. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2012.11.005 http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue5_9/kazmer/index.html pratt, k. 24 mcquaid, j. w. (2010). using cognitive load to evaluate participation and design of an asynchronous course. american journal of distance education, 24(4), 177–194. doi: 10.1080/08923647.2010.519949 mills, r. (2003). the centrality of learner support in open and distance learning. in a. tait & r. mills (eds.), rethinking learner support in distance education: change and continuity in an international context (pp. 102–113). london, england: routledgefalmer. moisey, s. d., & hughes, j. a. (2008). supporting the online learner. in t. anderson (ed.), the theory and practice of online learning (2nd ed., pp. 419–439). athabasca, canada: au press. moore, r. l. (2014). importance of developing community in distance education courses. techtrends, 58(2), 20–24. newberry, r., & deluca, c. (2014). building a foundation for success through student services for online learners. journal of asynchronous learning networks, 17(4), 25–40. park, j. h., & choi, h. j. (2009). factors influencing adult learners’ decision to drop out or persist in online learning. educational technology & society, 12(4), 207–217. pratt, k. (2009). the fence at the top of the cliff: a proactive approach to student support. distance education symposium, dunedin, new zealand: university of otago. reisetter, m., lapointe, l., & korcuska, j. (2007). the impact of altered realties: implications of online delivery for learners’ interactions, expectations, and learning skills. international journal on e-learning, 6(1), 55–80. sadera, w. a., robertson, j., song, l., & midon, m. n. (2009). the role of community in online learning success. merlot journal of online learning and teaching, 5(2), 277–284. sherry, l. (2000). the nature and purpose of online discourse: a brief synthesis of current research as related to the web project. international journal of educational telecommunications, 6(1), 19–51. simpson, o. (2002). supporting students in online, open and distance learning (2nd ed.). london, england: kogan page. simpson, o. (2008a). guide to proactive motivational student support (pams). retrieved from http://www.mrsite.co.uk/usersitesv31/94669.mrsite.com/wwwroot/userimages/proacti ve%20motivational%20support%20guide%20non%20ou.pdf simpson, o. (2008b). motivating learners in open and distance learning: do we need a new theory of learner support? open learning, 23(3), 159–170. simpson, o. (2013). student retention in distance education: are we failing our students? open learning: the journal of open, distance and e-learning, 28(2), 105–119. doi: 10.1080/02680513.2013.847363 http://www.mrsite.co.uk/usersitesv31/94669.mrsite.com/wwwroot/userimages/proactive%20motivational%20support%20guide%20non%20ou.pdf http://www.mrsite.co.uk/usersitesv31/94669.mrsite.com/wwwroot/userimages/proactive%20motivational%20support%20guide%20non%20ou.pdf journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(1) 25 biographical information keryn pratt keryn.pratt@otago.ac.nz keryn is a senior lecturer and the postgraduate and distance coordinator (education studies) at the university of otago college of education, new zealand. she teaches mostly online, in the areas of ict in education and quantitative research methods. her research interests include all aspects of ict in education, but she has a particular interest in distance learning at both tertiary and compulsory schooling levels. appendix a: student interview schedule overall, how have you found studying by distance through the college of education? what support have you had, and how did you find it? how would you rate the level and kind of support you have received? what improvements could be made? what communication types (e.g., email, phone, in person, skype, im etc) have you used to contact people from the college? did they work? were there any issues? are there other types you would like to use? have you had accurate and fast responses to any queries? have you felt that there is proactive support? can you explain this? what kind of support, for what, how effective was it? how could this be improved? when did you feel you need support, and what kind? pre-enrolment/starting courses/finishing courses how do your needs change throughout the course? out of all the support services available to you, were there any that you thought were unnecessary? what other support services do you feel are required? what did you think of the support materials? did you read the coursebook? pratt, k. (2015). supporting distance learners: making practice more effective. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(1), [12–26]. mailto:keryn.pratt@otago.ac.nz pratt, k. 26 did you follow up any of the sources of support identified in it? how much did you explore the moodle site? did you explore the links/information in this to support activities? have you used any of the university support providers (e.g., student learning development/centre; student computing services/its; distance/remote librarian)? how was that experience? what else could we be doing to help ensure your study is successful? any other comments? this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 11 establishing a sense of connectedness amongst theology students in distance education nigel v. smith, laidlaw college charles erlam, laidlaw college naomi quirke, laidlaw college grace sylvester, laidlaw college abstract student engagement is required for effective distance learning. amongst other things, it is built by fostering connectedness amongst tutors, academic advisors, and students, and by providing high-quality content and materials through appropriate technologies. students are more likely to succeed when they experience these different aspects as a coherent whole in their learning environment. previously, laidlaw college’s centre for distance learning refined its systems for course design and evaluated its provision of academic support. the present paper reports findings from a survey which explored student learning experiences by measuring perceptions of connectedness with tutors, advisors, and their fellow students; perceptions of an orientation event; and preferences for a variety of technologies through which students access course materials. the findings tentatively suggest that students experienced their study as an integrated whole. while there was significant variability in individual preferences relating to the use of technology, expectations that different demographic groups would have different preferences were not supported. keywords: distance education; social connectedness; technology; student preferences; transition pedagogy introduction high student engagement has been established amongst the many factors that contribute to effective distance learning (kuh, 2009; volery & lord, 2000). academic and tutor support, transition programmes and technologies used to deliver course materials and facilitate student learning aim to increase student engagement. optimal feedback, appropriate tutor expectations, and effective interactions between tutors or advisors and students all play a part in maximising learning (for example, see carini, kuh, & klein, 2006; pascarella, terenzini, & feldman, 2005). however, rather than viewing the provision of support as a series of transactions to be optimised, the ‘transition pedagogy’ articulated by kift, nelson, and clarke (2010) provides an integrated whole-of-institution approach. briefly, kift et al. (2010) outlined the evolution of an approach to managing students’ first-year experience. this research showed that three central features that appeared to promote engagement: (1) integration of curricular and co-curricular learning experiences, (2) the ‘curriculum’ functioning as a central connecting concept for both students smith, n. v., erlam, c., quirke, n., & syvester, g. 12 and faculty, and (3) active partnerships between academic and professional staff in the institution. on the other hand, garrison’s (2007) model of social, teaching, and cognitive presence identifies three core determinants of the student experience (akyol & garrison, 2013; cui, lockee, & meng, 2013). when social presence, teaching presence, and cognitive presence are all high, student engagement is also likely to be high—resulting in improved performance by the students and their tertiary organisation. social connectedness, which refers to the feelings of connection, trust, and interdependence within a group (or between different people in a learning community) is also considered to be a key aspect of student engagement (benjamin, 2013; mccormick & plucker, 2013). perceptions of social connectedness amongst students (rovai, 2002) might reasonably be expected to relate to the social presence dimension of garrison’s model (2007). similarly, perceptions of connectedness with tutors seemed to have the potential to reference teaching presence, while perceptions of connectedness with academic advisors might reasonably be associated with cognitive presence. conceptualising student engagement and experience in this way was used to design a study of the experience of students in a tertiary organisation with the aim of improving the performance of the organisation as well as student success. in the context of distance learning, technology also plays a role in establishing, building, and maintaining student engagement by fostering cognitive development (herrington & kervin, 2007). further, well-designed materials actively contribute to effective learning (norton et al., 2012). technologies that enable higher degrees of interactivity (devlin & samarawickrema, 2010), and more control by the student over the order of engagement with learning materials (christou & dinov, 2010), have also been noted as further improving learning outcomes. the main research questions therefore were: 1. did the pattern of student perceptions about social connectedness indicate an integrated experience of the organisation as a whole? 2. what were the student preferences for the different types of technology, including more interactive formats? the context of the study the study took place at laidlaw college, which has students at campuses in auckland and christchurch, and distance students who study through the centre for distance learning (cdl). most of these students live throughout new zealand, although a few are based overseas. laidlaw college is one of the larger private tertiary education (pte) providers in new zealand, and is a typical pte in that it focuses on a small number of disciplines compared with universities and polytechnics. laidlaw college’s distance learning programme is the largest distance theological education programme in australasia. the research team consisted of the cdl manager, two cdl academic advisors, and a lecturer who was based in laidlaw college’s school of education. this group came together to find ways to make further improvements to student experiences of study through cdl. previously, documentation and course designs were revised (cowie & nichols, 2010). since 2008, cdl has employed advisors specifically to provide support for students in a range of areas judged to be outside the responsibility of course tutors (nichols, 2010). these interventions had significantly improved student experience, engagement, and performance (see appendix a). the present study sought to explore how well student experience was integrated, in order to identify areas for possible further improvement. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 13 all students at cdl are expected to attend an online orientation event before the start of their first semester of study. each course within a student’s programme has its own tutor, who provides course-related support, moderates online discussions, and grades student work. in addition, cdl employs two part-time advisors who provide integrated learning support for all enrolled students on a wide range of matters that are related to their study, but beyond the scope of the tutors’ responsibilities. these matters include programme planning, course selection, and developing academic skills such as assignment writing. method participants all enrolled students at cdl (n = 250) were sent an email about 3 weeks after the start of the semester, inviting them to participate in an online survey. the sample obtained consisted of n = 114 respondents (40% response rate), of whom 51% were male and 49% were female. the respondents’ ages were relatively evenly distributed, ranging from those in their 20s to those in their 60s. english was the first language for 88% of respondents, and over half held at least an undergraduate degree before enrolling in their current course of study. measures a number of constructs were measured in a self-report survey that also included questions covering age, gender, and prior educational achievement. qualitative data was also collected about each construct via open responses to a question. the quantitative measures generally used 5-point likert-type scales labelled from strongly disagree through to strongly agree. the students’ sense of connectedness with other students, tutors, and academic advisors was assessed through a number of items selected and adapted from the community of inquiry measure developed by arbaugh et al. (2008) and the classroom community scale (rovai, 2002). a number of further items were developed by the research team to measure perceptions of value about different technologies used to access course content, including printed and electronic readings and other digital media provided via cd-rom and the internet. when the intent was to measure a construct through a number of quantitatively rated items, the selected items were checked for coherence as a single construct by using factor analysis (principal components analysis with varimax rotation). a harman test (podsakoff, mackenzie, lee, & podsakoff, 2003) was used to confirm unidimensionality (eigenvalues > 1 for primary extracted components only; no significant loading on secondary extracted components). reliability of the constructed variables was also checked. when qualitative responses were sought from respondents, the responses were gathered and read over by the research team. the research team conducted a simple content analysis by noting particularly salient themes and phrases, and applying them to interpret the data. the full questionnaire is included in appendix b. findings the statistical analyses are presented first, followed by consideration of the two research questions. the following unidimensional constructs were supported by the adequate factor analytical results shown in table 1: 1. perceptions of connectedness with other students 2. perceptions of connectedness with tutors 3. perceptions of connectedness with academic advisors smith, n. v., erlam, c., quirke, n., & syvester, g. 14 4. positivity towards the orientation programme for each of these constructs, all the potential items loaded on to the first extracted component in each respective factor analyses. the additive combination of all potential items is used from this point on as a measure for each of these constructs. table 1 component loadings for the four constructs produced by exploratory factor analysis (n = 114) component loadings 1st extracted eigenvalue variance explained cronbach’s alpha perceptions of connectedness with other students 2.02 53.4% .82 i feel comfortable participating in the course discussions. 0.59 i feel that i’m getting to know some course participants. 0.55 i feel connected to some course participants. 0.61 i feel comfortable disagreeing with other course participants. 0.51 i feel that my point of view is heard by other course participants. 0.52 online discussions are valuable in helping me appreciate different perspectives. 0.68 perceptions of connectedness with tutors 2.36 61.6% .87 the tutor reinforces the development of a sense of community among course participants. 0.69 the tutor provides feedback in a timely fashion. 0.51 i feel that i'm getting to know the tutor(s). 0.71 i feel connected to the tutor(s). 0.71 i feel that my point of view is heard by the tutor(s). 0.56 i feel comfortable disagreeing with the tutor(s). 0.55 perceptions of connectedness with academic advisors 2.39 62.8% .90 academic advisors… are easy to get in touch with. 0.52 give me as much time as i need. 0.57 encourage me to contact them for help. 0.53 encourage me to express my thoughts and feelings. 0.59 give me accurate information about course requirements. 0.47 consider my personal abilities and interests when advising me about courses or programmes of study. 0.69 help me make important educational decisions. 0.68 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 15 positivity towards the orientation programme 2.48 71.6% .85 my transition into study was smooth. 0.64 my transition into study was enjoyable. 0.62 my transition into study was stressful (reverse coded). 0.93 my transition into study was confusing (reverse coded). 0.9 research question 1: did the pattern of student perceptions about social connectedness indicate an integrated experience of the organisation as a whole? students were generally positive about how connected they felt to advisors, tutors and other students (see table 2). respondents were also generally positive towards the transition programme, although there was a larger variability amongst respondents. table 2 descriptive statistics for students’ perceptions of social connectedness (n = 114) advisor connectedness tutor connectedness student connectedness positivity towards transition mean * 4.14 3.92 3.85 3.71 s.d 0.58 0.63 0.58 0.78 note: * scores represent a mean from 5-point ratings, ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree significant correlations were observed between each of the measures of connectedness respectively, as well as with attitudes towards the transition programme. most notably, the relationship between perceptions of connectedness with tutors and perceptions of connectedness with other students was moderately strong (r =.67; p <.01) (see table 3). no differences between perceptions of connectedness and age, gender, or prior education were observed. table 3 correlations between the four measures of social connectedness positivity towards transition student connectedness tutor connectedness advisor connectedness 0.38 ** 0.34 ** 0.34 ** tutor connectedness 0.28 * 0.67 ** student connectedness 0.31 ** note: ** p <.01; * p <.05 research question 2: what were the student preferences for the different types of technology, including more interactive formats? there was significant variability amongst students’ preferences for different formats for the delivery of learning resources, although printed formats were preferred more strongly than either cd-rom or online delivery (see table 4). other findings included a strong preference for cdrom for delivery of video materials (51% preferred cd-rom and 16% preferred online), a strong preference for the use of tablets over smartphones for accessing learning materials, and a moderate interest in seeing the development of more interactive materials (25% rated more interactivity as a significant potential improvement over the status quo). it was notable that almost no differences or relationships emerged between gender, age, or previous education on smith, n. v., erlam, c., quirke, n., & syvester, g. 16 any of the variables of interest, including preferences for different technologies. a modest negative correlation between age and preference for online materials (r =.22; p =.03) was observed. table 4 descriptive statistics of students’ preferences for different types of learning resources (n = 114) overall rating for preference of format of materials mean s.d. printed 4.44 0.85 cd-rom 3.43 1.15 online 3.32 1.23 % who preferred specific format to access video resources * no response 13% no preference 20% cd-rom 51% online 16% % who felt that fully interactive materials would improve their learning experience * no response 13% no significant improvement 32% small improvement 29% significant improvement 25% % who would access material via tablet or smartphone ** learning guide course readings multimedia clips tablet 37% 41% 40% smartphone 21% 20% 22% note: * respondents chose one option only; ** respondents could select several options discussion there were few relationships between demographic variables (such as age, gender, or prior education) and other variables of interest. students experienced their study through cdl in broadly similar ways (individual differences notwithstanding), irrespective of gender, age, or level of education. this resonates with other findings that individual variability in preferences for technology is generally larger than differences between different demographic groups (bennett, maton, & kervin, 2008; smith, 2013). figure 1 observed univariate correlations and tentative relationships between the four measures of student perceptions perceptions of transition perceptions of advisor support perceptions of connection to other students perceptions of tutor support 0.31 0.34 0.34 0.67 0.38 0.28 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 17 students’ sense of being connected with advisors related to their sense of connection with tutors and other students. in garrison’s (2007) terms, the perception of social presence related to perceptions of both cognitive and teaching presence. those who experienced the transition programme positively were also more likely to feel connected to advisors, tutors, and other students (see figure 1). these findings tentatively affirm that students do experience their study as an integrated whole, as conceptualised within the ‘transition pedagogy’ of kift et al. (2010). it is therefore important for educational institutions to align staff interactions with students throughout the process of their learning. our relatively small context may have enabled such alignment due to the small number of staff involved, and their shared working environment. larger institutions are recommended to ensure that structures shaping the interactions of both tutors and advisors with students facilitate an aligned experience, rather than one where student experiences are incongruent or fragmented. in relation to preferences for technology, it was clear that printed formats are still preferred for the type of study that is typical at cdl. this was observed for both genders, all educational backgrounds and, in general, across a wide range of ages. however, older respondents were slightly less likely to prefer online materials than younger respondents, despite the fact that no age-based differences emerged on any other technologyor format-related questions. this pattern of results may suggest that, in a given student body, some individuals will naturally gravitate to electronically delivered content, and some to more traditionally delivered content (i.e., print), thereby modestly supporting critiques of the ‘digital native’ hypothesis (bennett et al., 2008; prensky, 2001). an assumption that most students will eventually prefer electronically delivered resources is unlikely to be warranted because other individual or personality factors are likely to be more important than age. the observed preference for printed formats may relate to the nature of theological study, which involves reading long texts. comprehension of high-level content in long texts is greater when they are printed than when the student is reading from a screen (mangen, walgermo, & brønnick, 2013; sanchez & wiley, 2009). however, it is not yet clear whether these preferences relate uniquely to theological study or to theological students, or are shared with other similar disciplines in the humanities. a comparison between the present context and other contexts would be one way to explore this. we would therefore recommend that, where engagement with long texts is required, the potential advantage of traditional formats for understanding complex concepts is considered. other learning tasks involving searchable text clearly require electronic formats. a balance based on the mix of learning tasks expected of students and the media is important. it was also interesting that, amongst our respondents, few indicated that they preferred to access video content online. the use of cd-rom for this purpose remains the most highly preferred option by a wide margin. respondents’ comments regarding the cost of data via capped internet might indicate the cause of this, supporting more general observations made elsewhere (mirza & beltran, 2014; paynter & chung, 2003). it will be interesting to see whether the uncapped internet plans that are starting to become available in new zealand have any effect on this preference. it is also possible that being able to access video content immediately from a local computer is preferable to a streamed viewing via the internet, particularly if networks are problematic. the relative lack of interest in using smartphones for accessing course materials suggests that these phones are not considered by many to be a serious tool for tertiary study. however, the much higher interest in tablet computing suggests that designing course materials with the mobile learner in mind is increasing in importance. smith, n. v., erlam, c., quirke, n., & syvester, g. 18 given the exploratory nature of this study, these findings should be treated with caution. although the sample size is sufficient for the kinds of analysis that have been undertaken, a larger sample would provide more confidence regarding the relationships observed. in addition, as with all invited samples, a degree of self-selection is likely to have occurred, although the demographic distributions of the sample generally matched the variability in the target population (as known from administrative records). as with all self-report-based studies, there is likely to be a difference between how respondents actually feel and how they report their feelings. we noted in the qualitative data that some respondents did not appear to accurately distinguish between tutors and academic advisors. this could be interpreted as further evidence of a holistic student experience. however, if some respondents did not make this distinction when answering the quantitative questions in the survey, then the magnitude of the intercorrelations reported in figure 1 may be inflated. conclusion and future research the student learning experiences that were explored in this study with a survey measuring perceptions of connectedness with tutors, advisors and their fellow students, perceptions of an orientation event and preferences for a variety of technologies through which students access course materials, suggest that students did experience their study as an integrated whole. while there was significant variability in individual preferences relating to the use of technology, expectations that different demographic groups would have different preferences were not supported. the lively discussion at the biennial conference of deanz (the national association for open flexible and distance learning) indicated interest in this topic. theology distance students at laidlaw college’s cdl feel generally positive about their experience of study, and they experience their study as a generally integrated whole. students’ preferences for technology are more variable than differences of demographic groupings such as age or gender. while there is some support for innovation towards newer technologies, older technologies are preferred by a significant proportion of respondents—possibly because of the lengthy nature of the documents studied, and lack of robust internet access in some locations. there are some suggestions for future research drawing on the findings and the literature reviewed earlier in this paper. while this study sought to explore student perceptions of their experience of study, we did not examine the perceptions of staff. comparing staff perceptions with those gained from students could more comprehensively illuminate whether kift et al.’s (2010) transition pedagogy is being implemented. one notable feature of the present context is that students interact with both academic advisors and tutors throughout their studies. exploring tutors’ and advisors’ perceptions of course integration could help us to understand how well those who ‘teach’ and those who ‘support learning’ are working together towards student success. in addition, students’ views of this tutor-or-advisor dynamic could also be a valuable extension. other possible avenues for future research include exploring patterns of engagement through a semester and/or performance outcomes such as grades. another useful possibility would be to examine whether students’ purpose in studying contributes to their sense of connectedness or preference for different technologies. acknowledgements the authors wish to acknowledge the support provided by the editorial team at the journal of open, flexible and distance learning in preparing this article for publication. reviewers’ comments were constructive and helpful and significant improvements were made as a result of the peer review process. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 19 references akyol, z., & garrison, d. r. 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(2000). critical success factors in online education. international journal of educational management, 14(5), 216–22 http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-6209-149-8_9 http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-6209-149-8_9 http://jip.vmhost.psu.edu/ojs/index.php/jip/article/viewarticle/159 https://edocs.uis.edu/departments/lis/course_pages/lis301/papers/how_college_effects_students_534-545.pdf https://edocs.uis.edu/departments/lis/course_pages/lis301/papers/how_college_effects_students_534-545.pdf http://eprints.qut.edu.au/53695/ journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 21 biographical notes nigel smith nsmith@laidlaw.ac.nz nigel is a senior lecturer in the school of education at laidlaw college in auckland, new zealand. he previously worked as a research coordinator at aut university and has taught history, psychology, and theory of knowledge in k–12 schools in new zealand and the philippines. his research interests include justice issues in cross-cultural encounters, the effect of internet technologies on society, and the centrality of relationship to effective teaching and learning. charles erlam cerlam@laidlaw.ac.nz charles has a background of electrical engineering in the telecommunications industry. charles joined the teaching staff of laidlaw college in palmerston north in 2001. he assumed leadership of the centre for distance learning at the beginning of 2003. charles’s research interests include distance learning technologies and the emerging church movement. naomi quirke nquirke@laidlaw.ac.nz naomi is an academic advisor working with laidlaw college’s distance learning students, guiding them with programme planning and study skills. she also works with subject-area experts in the design and review of laidlaw’s distance learning courses, and in the online learning management system team. grace sylvester gsylvester@laidlaw.ac.nz grace joined laidlaw college as a part-time student support coordinator in the centre for distance learning in 2008. she has extensive experience in the new zealand tertiary sector, particularly in teaching and learning, curriculum development, and review. her current interest is in providing an integrated approach to the student learning experience. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. smith, n. v., erlam, c., quirke, n., & sylvester, g. (2014). establishing a sense of connectedness amongst theology students in distance education. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 18(2), [11–28]. mailto:nsmith@laidlaw.ac.nz mailto:cerlam@laidlaw.ac.nz mailto:nquirke@laidlaw.ac.nz mailto:gsylvester@laidlaw.ac.nz http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ smith, n. v., erlam, c., quirke, n., & syvester, g. 22 appendix a: improvements in cdl course completion rates from 2007 to 2013 (based on nichols, 2010) journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 23 appendix b: student experience questionnaire (derived from a number of sources including arbough, 2008 and rovai, 2002). welcome. laidlaw college wants to have a better understanding of your experience as a student. this survey is part of our effort to continue improving how you experience studying through cdl. first, could you tell us a little about yourself. 1) what gender are you? male female 2) what age range are you? under 20 yrs 20 30 yrs 30 40 yrs 40 50 yrs 50 60 yrs over 60 yrs 3) what is your highest level of educational achievement (not including your current study at laidlaw)? completed primary school completed ncea level 1 (or equivalent eg. school certificate) completed ncea level 2 (or equivalent eg. 6th form cert. / university entrance) completed ncea level 3 (or equivalent eg. university bursary exam) completed a tertiary qualification up to level 4 (eg. certificate) completed a tertiary qualification at levels 5 or 6 (eg. diploma) completed undergraduate degree (eg. bachelors or graduate diploma) completed postgraduate degree (eg. masters or phd) 4) are you currently studying through cdl? yes no 5) is english your first language? (including if you have native-level proficiency in english) yes no thinking now about your experience of studying through cdl so far, please rate the following in terms of how much you agree or disagree with each statement. smith, n. v., erlam, c., quirke, n., & syvester, g. 24 6) with reference to academic advice and support such as enrolment, course selection, and study skills, please rate your agreement with the following statements: cdl academic advisors; strongly disagree disagree neutral agree strongly agree are easy to get in touch with 1 2 3 4 5 give me as much time as i need 1 2 3 4 5 encourage me to contact them for help 1 2 3 4 5 encourage me to express my thoughts and feelings 1 2 3 4 5 give me accurate information about course requirements 1 2 3 4 5 consider my personal abilities and interests when advising me about courses or programmes of study 1 2 3 4 5 help me make important educational decisions 1 2 3 4 5 7) what could your advisors do to improve the quality of your learning experience? 8) with reference to the tutor(s), and the interactions you have with them through online discussions, about assignment grading and other in-course matters, please indicate how strongly you agree with the following statements. strongly disagree disagree neutral agree strongly agree the tutor reinforces the development of a sense of community among course participants. 1 2 3 4 5 the tutor provides feedback in a timely fashion. 1 2 3 4 5 i feel that i'm getting to know the tutor(s) 1 2 3 4 5 i feel connected to the tutor(s) 1 2 3 4 5 i feel that my point of view is heard by the tutor(s) 1 2 3 4 5 i feel comfortable disagreeing with the tutor(s) 1 2 3 4 5 9) what could your tutor(s) do to improve your learning experience? journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 25 10) with reference to other participants in your course(s); strongly disagree disagree neutral agree strongly agree i feel comfortable participating in the course discussions. 1 2 3 4 5 i feel that i'm getting to know some course participants. 1 2 3 4 5 i feel connected to some course participants. 1 2 3 4 5 i feel comfortable disagreeing with other course participants. 1 2 3 4 5 i feel that my point of view is heard by other course participants. 1 2 3 4 5 online discussions are valuable in helping me appreciate different perspectives. 1 2 3 4 5 next, we'd like to find out a little about your experience of beginning study through cdl. 11) please rate your transition into studying through cdl, with reference to the statements below strongly disagree disagree neutral agree strongly agree my transition into study was smooth 1 2 3 4 5 my transition into study was enjoyable 1 2 3 4 5 my transition into study was stressful 1 2 3 4 5 my transition into study was confusing 1 2 3 4 5 12) how could we further improve your experience of starting study for the first time through cdl? 13) when you began studying through cdl, did you upload the orientation assignment on time? yes i uploaded an assignment after the due date no i don't recall any orientation assignment 14) if you're in your first year, can you tell us a little about your first week of study. what were the things you remember about your 'start' with cdl? smith, n. v., erlam, c., quirke, n., & syvester, g. 26 15) thinking now about how you engage with the readings or textbooks you are provided with, please rate each of the following statements in terms of how much you agree or disagree. strongly disagree disagree neutral agree strongly agree i have a purpose in mind when i read. 1 2 3 4 5 i preview the text to see what it’s about before reading it. 1 2 3 4 5 i decide what to read closely and what to ignore. 1 2 3 4 5 i take notes while reading to help me understand what i’m reading. 1 2 3 4 5 i highlight information in the text to help me remember it. 1 2 3 4 5 i write summaries to reflect on key ideas in the text. 1 2 3 4 5 when a text becomes difficult, i read aloud to help me understand what i’m reading. 1 2 3 4 5 i use reference materials such as dictionaries to help me understand what i’m reading. 1 2 3 4 5 i check my understanding when i come across conflicting information. 1 2 3 4 5 16) are there any other comments you'd like to make about engaging with readings? 17) thinking now about the learning guide that accompanies each course, please indicate your level of agreement with the statements below: strongly disagree disagree neutral agree strongly agree i can identify important course goals in the learning guide. 1 2 3 4 5 i can identify important due dates/time frames in the learning guide. 1 2 3 4 5 discussion questions increase my interest in course issues. 1 2 3 4 5 reflection on course content and discussions helps me understand fundamental concepts. 1 2 3 4 5 18) how could we further improve the learning guides we produce to accompany each course? your cdl course materials are delivered to you in a variety of formats. we would like to find out more about how you engage with these various formats. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 27 19) thinking about how you access the learning guide, please indicate your preference for each of the formats below. i don't like this format at all neutral i like this format a lot in printed form 1 2 3 from a cd-rom 1 2 3 online via moodle 1 2 3 20) thinking now about the course readings you are provided with, please indicate your preference for the formats in which they are offered. i don't like this format at all neutral i like this format a lot in printed form 1 2 3 from a cd-rom 1 2 3 online via moodle 1 2 3 21) some cdl course materials make use of audio or video recordings. these are usually available via cd-rom, and sometimes also online via moodle. given that accessing video over the internet demands a high quality broadband internet connection, which platform for delivering audio or video content do you prefer? i prefer to access media content via cd-rom i prefer to access media content online via moodle i have no preference about how i access media content the digital formats we currently use are generally like a collection of files or documents. this is the case whether they are stored on a cd-rom, or arranged in folders in moodle. we are considering developing course materials that are more fully interactive, like a web page where you would be able to click hyperlinks throughout the text to access content that is related to what you are looking at. 22) how much of an improvement would fully interactive course materials be over what you currently receive? this would not be a significant improvement for me this would improve my learning experience a little this would improve my learning experience a lot 23) we are considering optimising our course materials for delivery to mobile devices, such as tablets or smartphones. please indicate which of the following you would use to access course materials, if they were optimised for that platform (tick all that apply). i would access the learning guide via a tablet i would access the learning guide via a smartphone i would access course readings via a tablet i would access course readings via a smartphone i would access multimedia clips via a tablet i would access multimedia clips via a smartphone note that moodle is available on these mobile platforms already, but materials may not be optimised for high quality display. finally, we have just a few more questions about you. 24) is studying through cdl your first experience of distance learning? yes smith, n. v., erlam, c., quirke, n., & syvester, g. 28 no 25) which of the following best describes how long you have studied through cdl? i'm in my first year i'm in my second year i'm in my third or later year 26) what level or levels of study are you currently enrolled in at laidlaw? (select all those that apply to you) level 5 level 6 level 7 27) please indicate whether you study part-time or full-time. i study part-time i study full-time 28) lastly, if you would like to go into the draw for a $100 book voucher, please enter your name here. in order to maintain anonymity, we will not connect your name to any of your responses to this survey. it will only be used for the purpose of selecting the lucky winner of the draw. zeglen, e., rosendale, j. 22 increasing online information retention: analysing the effects of visual hints and feedback in educational games eric zeglen, pennsylvania state system of higher education joseph a. rosendale, indiana university of pennsylvania abstract although online education offerings continue to grow in the higher education marketplace, issues of student achievement and course rigour still challenge the underlying instructional model, and alignment with institutional missions. pedagogically, instructors and course designers can mitigate these issues by leveraging technology to further enhance students’ cognition and knowledge retention within the online domain. this study analysed the effects of visual hints and elaborate feedback embedded in serious educational games to determine the effects on student learning and information recollection. using a quasi-experimental design and quantitative testing methods based on differing forms of feedback in the game, significant differences were found among three groups of students in an online educational environment. mean scores on comprehension tests indicated that participants who were exposed to elaborate feedback and visual hints performed better than control groups in an online learning environment. this supports the underlying framework of information processing theory. keywords: online learning; visual hints; educational games; distance education; delayed feedback introduction online education is a fundamental and systemic variation from traditional forms of higher education and is, in part, a response to an exponentially changing global marketplace. distancebased instruction has become ubiquitous in twenty-first century college and university teaching and, as growth projections estimate a 13.9% increase in overall higher education enrolment by the year 2022 at degree-granting institutions (national center for educational statistics, 2014), the numbers of fully online education programmes will continue to rise. further, recent data reported by the babson survey research group shows that student enrolment in online education in the united states has increased (3.7% in 2014 and 3.9% in 2015). in addition, 63.3% of academic leaders reported that online learning is critical to their long-term strategy (babson study, 2015). innovation lies at the heart of higher education, and leveraging technology to enhance access to learning experiences while maintaining institutional quality will be the next wave of systemic change and strategic planning (cavanagh & thompson, 2016). while overall total institutional enrolment has stagnated recently in higher education in the united states, the distance education segment is one consistent area of growth (national journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(1) 23 center for educational statistics, 2014). however, ensuring online courses deliver the same (or higher) quality learning experience as face-to-face classes is a key issue. from the perspective of potential employers and hiring personnel, one of the main challenges to online and open educational offerings at present is the rigour and veracity of the offerings and overall student learning and outcomes (adams & defleur, 2006; rosendale, 2017). similarly, the one-size-fitsall instructional pedagogy predominantly found in asynchronous online courses results in significantly less knowledge retention than does the personalised instruction common in traditional face-to-face courses (lindsey, shroyer, pashler, & mozer, 2014). one way to counter claims of reduced efficacy in online classes is by integrating meaningful, curriculum-supported educational games which can enhance critical thinking, provide more flexible interaction, and increase overall course performance when used with other pedagogical strategies (betts, bal, & betts, 2013). at present, much of the literature regarding the use of games in online education focuses on the engagement or motivational value rather than the achievement of learning objectives. of greater importance, however, is the legitimacy of online games in better facilitating class content and the achievement of course objectives. thus, the purpose of this report is to determine whether exposure to specific learning strategies during incourse game play has any effect on an individual’s ability to retain information. related literature this paper emphasises the need for user-controlled learning in online environments and focuses on asynchronous learning. using feedback juxtaposed with instructional content at the process level—when learners are actively learning—helps to focus the learners’ information processing, which can be more effective for the student (hattie & timperley, 2007). in a systematic review of studies researching the use of feedback, hattie and timperley (2007) identified several major themes—one of which was the most effective timing of feedback to promote learning. building on this research and methodology, this study placed elaborate feedback in the instructional module rather than providing feedback in the formal assessment. in a study of post-graduate students who were participating in an online course, coll, rochera, and gispert (2014) found that elaborate feedback tended to promote knowledge building when the complexity of feedback was varied. coll et al. (2014) targeted post-graduate students, who would have had more declarative and conceptual knowledge than the subjects of the study in this dissertation, who were traditional undergraduate students in their first year or two of postsecondary education. as such, the undergraduate participants might be expected to gain more benefit from experiencing a gaming environment to deliver the instructional material and elaborate feedback. additionally, the use of feedback in an online environment can be influenced by intermediary variables such as self-regulation. when instructional designers include feedback as a learning strategy to assist with reducing detrimental variables, learning can be enhanced (lee, lim, & grabowski, 2010). the study by lee et al. (2010) speaks to one of the foundational aspects of this study by understanding the effect of learning strategies by course developers. providing elaborative feedback after a student fails a question can yield more positive results in desired behaviour than allowing students to repeat the task while receiving only verification feedback (narciss et al., 2014). the methodology used by narciss et al. (2014) tested the effect of elaborate feedback; however, this was measured against the effect of repeated attempts by subjects who received only verification feedback. effects of such feedback ripple beyond the positive consequences for student learning. a study conducted by espasa and meneses (2010) found that improvement in student achievement was accompanied by increased levels of overall satisfaction with the course. although not measured in the current study, the gamification of the instructional module should also increase student engagement and satisfaction. zeglen, e., rosendale, j. 24 the dynamics of feedback affect the instructor and learner in three main ways: feedback can motivate learners to improve their performance; learners can use feedback to validate or change their response; or feedback can satisfy a learner’s need for positive reinforcement (kulhavy, white, & topp, 1985). underlying these factors is the cognitive process that occurs in the learner to transfer knowledge from working memory to long-term memory, thus facilitating an understanding of the material for future retrieval (buchwald & rapp, 2009). moreover, elaborate feedback that scaffolds information from an entire online learning module has been found to increase student test scores more than verification feedback and isolated or single-unit elaborate feedback (lin et al., 2014). the methodology used in this study builds on these findings by using a gaming environment with questions and associated elaborate feedback. the material is grouped according to the progression of the instructional material. segedy, kinnebrew, and biswas (2013) conducted a study to find out whether feedback in a contextualised and conversational format in a computer simulation had any effect on student achievement. they found that contextualising the feedback for the goal of the simulation, and providing feedback in a conversational format, resulted in a significant increase in the students’ ability to understand the material. the findings of this study support the concept that elaborate feedback that is not verbal or face to face can be effective in the teaching and learning process. if immediate feedback in online learning is important, the concept of educational gamification is equally so. indeed, games can function as a motivational rehearsal to increase a student’s interaction with the instructional material. to achieve this outcome, games must be sustainable, meaning they must be designed to challenge and entertain students, allowing them to remain motivated and focused on the material (eseryel, law, ifenthaler, xun, & miller, 2014). similarly, burguillo (2010) concluded that features such as quests, fantasies, and challenges in an educational game had a positive effect on students’ learning abilities and knowledge construction. a study conducted with high-school-aged students used a video game to teach them how household electrical appliances use electricity, how to calculate energy consumption, and the facts of basic energy conservation. when tested on their conceptual understanding of the topic, the study concluded that students playing the game significantly outperformed those who did not (dorji, panjaburee, & srisawasdi, 2015). educational games can also benefit upperdivision undergraduate students when they are used in online instruction. research conducted with upper-division medical students found that learners using a game-based learning module performed significantly better on cognitive knowledge tests than those who were not exposed to the game-based learning module (boeker, andel, vach, & frankenschmidt, 2013). literature on gaming is just beginning to shift focus from motivation-, engagement-, and entertainment-based games to serious educational games. as gaming in online education has become more prevalent over time, serious educational games have been developed and the research has shifted towards games that are developed purposefully for education. however, much of the research today still focuses on the merits of games in education and not on the educational effect the game design has on achieving desired learning outcomes for each specific course. a mixed-methods approach conducted to study the effects of using a game-based course for american history found that students using the game spent more time reviewing the course material than those in the control group (who used a non-game-based online course). the increase in time spent with the course material led to a significant performance difference between the two groups. qualitative findings indicated that the story and presentation of the instructional material contributed to student motivation (hess & gunter, 2013). further, students using a serious educational game to learn british literature performed better than students learning the same material without the game (mansour & el-said, 2009). the researchers observed that the game increased the social interaction among the students, who initiated game play outside the formal classroom. they concluded that this increase in social interaction about journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(1) 25 the instructional material contributed to the performance differentiation between the two groups (mansour & el-said, 2009). serious educational games have also proven to be effective in achieving targeted behaviour beyond the classroom. using games to teach adolescents the negative consequences of alcohol and drug use has been shown to be effective in reducing use. this research not only provides evidence that learning outcomes can be improved by using games, but also that attitudes and behaviour can change as a result of serious educational games (rodriguez, teesson, & newton, 2014). the research in this study does not presume to address all of the gaps in the available research. however, it does attempt to shift the focus from gaming’s motivational and entertainment qualities to its capacity to promote learning, and to advance the field by unifying traditional learning strategies and digital gaming environments. bellotti, kapralos, lee, moreno-ger, and berta (2013) identified three requirements for a serious educational game. firstly, a game needs to be fun and entertaining. secondly, the game needs to be educational. and lastly, the game must enable students to be assessed on the instructional material incorporated in the game. the researchers’ assessment of serious game research also suggests that, as hardware and software advance, further research should be conducted to keep pace with changing possibilities. similarly, pløhn (2014) hypothesised that, if designed well, an educational game can motivate students to spend time working on the instructional material outside the classroom. he used a mixed-methodology approach to further understand students’ interaction with an education quest game called nuclear mayhem. findings supported his hypothesis: 87% of the logins occurred outside the classroom when no formal class activity was taking place. student interviews identified the storyline, plot, and realistic nature of the game as their main motivation for playing the game outside the formal teaching environment. theoretical framework the main theoretical lens through which this study is informed is information processing theory. the basic premise of this theory is that the way the human brain processes information is similar to the way a computer processes information and, when presented with extraneous information, the human brain will use working memory and associated processing to shift its focus from the desirable educational material. this causes cognitive overload, information loss, and the inability to transfer information to long-term memory. cognition necessitates the processing of information, and information processing theory helps us to model and predict how humans receive, interpret, and store information. as a theory of cognitive architecture, information processing theory is similar to, and contributes to, models of communication theory. communication theory identifies a sender, a message (over a specified medium), and a receiver. during this process the message is encoded, and then decoded by the respective participant. noise can affect the message or the decoding. information processing theory helps us understand and predict how the receiver processes the information, and so bridges the gap between communication theory and cognition (piccinini & scarantino, 2011). designing digital teaching materials for use in modern online enhanced courses can be challenging. perspective alone is not adequate; individuals designing a course using multimedia resources need to understand how the human mind processes information. according to riuji (2012), online teaching resources can only be developed for maximum efficiency and effectiveness under the guidance of information processing theory and learning theories. the mind’s ability to process a finite amount of new information or cognitive load is closely linked to information processing theory (paas & ayres, 2014). when working memory processes zeglen, e., rosendale, j. 26 new information, it has a capacity of three to five units for about 30 seconds. during this time, working memory accesses long-term memory to provide additional information. if the new information is not processed into long-term information within these limitations, the new information will succumb to information decay, and is therefore lost. digital materials presented in online learning environments can enrich learning, but they can also prevent information from being processed by appropriating the learner’s working memory and contributing to cognitive overload. instructional material designers must consider cognitive overload by reducing the amount of noise when communicating information, thereby making the most efficient use of learning strategies (kalyuga, 2012). information is processed through visual and auditory senses. according to taylor (2013), instructional designers who incorporate visual aids and text in the same instructional module should integrate the two artifacts. this means the learner does not need to use the text to acquire information from the image, and so avoids the unwanted noise that contributes to cognitive overload. additionally, the module should not be designed to address multiple learning styles (e.g., by using visual aids and audio prompts). information should be delivered primarily in one channel, whether auditory, physical, verbal, or visual, to avoid interference that commonly occurs if multiple channels are used at once. research has shown that combining text, visuals, and audio in the same module increases cognitive load (clark & mayer, 2011). methods this research used a quantitative data collection approach. materials were adapted from the program of systematic evaluation (pse) printed resources (experimental instructional materials [eim]), which were initially developed by francis dwyer and later modified by richard lamberski to include visual images to reinforce the textual components (dwyer, 1982). dwyer’s protocol intended to examine the instructional effects of visualisation and instructional training environments on student information acquisition and retrieval. for this study, the main researcher used the desire to learn (d2l) learning management system and created a quest-style educational game called heart university. in this game, participants used a predesigned avatar to travel through a fictitious university campus, stopping at online campus buildings (the defined waypoints) to complete activities that were designed as a series of course-based educational questions. the focus of the game was to explore how embedded games in online learning might affect users’ information retrieval and learning comprehension. to minimise the study’s technical needs and to reduce their extraneous cognitive load, each learning module and associated image was adapted to be displayed in the d2l environment. the alternative was to use a presentation application such as microsoft’s powerpoint or a newly developed adobe flash environment. however, the researchers determined that having subjects leave the d2l course might lead to subject confusion and confound the results of the study. in addition to the original instructional module, the researchers used d2l’s gamification module to study the effects of learner behaviour in a gaming environment. the original eim instructional unit (common to all groups), the newly developed game, a demographic survey, and the associated eim assessments were combined to form a course in d2l. by changing only the game in the course to apply the experimental treatments, the research had three courses for this study: the control group used course 1; treatment group 1 used course 2; treatment group 2 used course 3. participants in this study were college-aged students attending a mid-size public university in the atlantic region of the united states. from a total of 415 students identified in a purposeful sampling method, 65 completed the protocol for this study. students were randomly assigned to the control group (22 students), treatment group 1 (22 students), and treatment group 2 (21 students), respectively. table 1 shows how the groups were treated. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(1) 27 table 1 treatments applied in heart university game treatment brief description full description of heart university game control group instructional game with no learning strategies applied subjects were not informed of the correctness or incorrectness of their answers but had knowledge of their overall achievement in the game. treatment group 1 instructional game with elaborate feedback subjects received elaborate feedback after each game activity. each game activity contained 1–5 questions. after completing an activity the subjects reviewed each question. they knew whether they were correct or incorrect and had elaborate feedback as to why. this group had an opportunity for rehearsal of the eim instructional material with the additional reinforcement of elaborate feedback. treatment group 2 instructional game with visual hints and elaborate feedback subjects received elaborate feedback after each game activity. when presented with a question during game play this group also received a visual hint. subjects were given the visual reinforcement (hint) before they answered the rehearsal question; they also received the same elaborate feedback as treatment group 1. this group was given the same visual/image during the assessment phase. this study employed a post-test-only experimental design to investigate the effect that delayed elaborate feedback and visual hints might have on the achievement of learning objectives in a gaming environment. the study examined the effect of several independent variables—the learning strategies (delayed elaborate feedback and visual hints) in the game, and any interactionspecific demographic variables (age, gender, class standing, gaming experience and credits earned) which may have affected the game results. the study’s dependent variables were achievement of learning objectives of each group, based on their performance on the identified three criterion measures and a comprehensive score. a subject’s achievement of the learning objectives was measured by the individual and total scores of three assessments: an identification assessment, a drawing assessment, and a comprehension assessment. the total of all three assessments (a comprehensive score) was a fourth criterion measure. participants completed a confidential demographic survey and were then asked to read twenty online d2l units that contained instructional content adapted from the eim materials on the parts and functions of the human heart. after reviewing all the instructional material, the subjects launched heart university in d2l. the game presented the subject with 1–5 questions in each game activity. each multiple-choice question had four or five possible answers, only one of which was correct. to select an answer, the student would select the “record answer” button and, depending on their answer, may or may not receive points toward a digital badge. as noted in table 1, treatment groups 1 and 2 could review their answers and received elaborate feedback after the entire activity (1–5 questions) had been completed, while the control group received no feedback during gameplay. results and analysis the main research question of this study investigated the effects on achievement of adding delayed elaborate feedback and visual hints in a gaming environment. to examine these effects, one-way analysis of variance (anova) tests were conducted. the results are illustrated in tables 2–4. zeglen, e., rosendale, j. 28 the first test was used to examine the scores on the comprehension test across the treatment groups. levene’s test was not significant (2.228); thus, an f-test was used for the anova. results of the anova test did not show a significant difference between the groups, indicating that feedback, or visual hints with feedback, does not significantly affect comprehension. however, the mean score (m = 11.32) of the group that was exposed to elaborate feedback and visual hints was higher than the other two groups. table 2 one-way analysis of variance for comprehension scores treatment group n mean std. dev. std. error f-value sig. control 22 9.59 3.838 .818 .966 df = 2,62 .386 feedback only 21 9.76 4.392 .958 feedback & visual hints 22 11.32 5.241 1.117 total 65 10.23 4.527 .561 note: levene’s = 2.228 (df = 2,62) p = .116 the second statistical test investigated the scores on the identification test across the treatment groups. just as in the test for the comprehension scores, the levene’s test was not significant (.613); thus, an f-test was used for the anova. however, as shown in table 3, there is a significant difference between the three groups, revealing that the learning strategies used in the game did affect the transfer of information from working memory to long-term memory. students who were given a visual hint and elaborate feedback scored significantly higher than students in the control group who were given neither elaborate feedback nor visual hints. table 3 one-way analysis of variance for identification scores treatment group n mean std. dev. std. error f-value sig. control 22 9.50 3.827 .816 3.724 df = 2,62 .030 feedback only 21 10.00 3.347 .730 feedback & visual hints 22 12.55 4.585 .978 total 65 10.69 4.127 .512 note: levene’s = .613 (df = 2,62) p = .545 as with the comprehensive and drawing tests, table 4 shows no significant difference among the groups. however, the mean scores of the control group and feedback group (treatment group 1) are close, and the group exposed to the feedback and visual hints (treatment group 2) has a much higher mean score. this could indicate that the effect of using elaborate feedback and visual hints in a gaming environment could affect transfer of information from working memory to long-term memory. considering the significance level shown in table 3, a larger sample size might yield a significant finding. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(1) 29 table 4 one-way analysis of variance for comprehensive scores treatment group n mean std. dev. std. error f-value sig. control 22 32.86 9.548 2.036 1.839 df = 2,62 .168 feedback only 21 32.10 11.045 2.410 feedback & visual hints 22 38.14 13.058 2.784 total 65 34.40 11.460 1.421 note. levene’s = .788 (df= 2,61) p = .459 taking the small sample size into consideration, the overall results suggest that including delayed elaborate feedback and visual hints in a gaming environment does have a significant effect on transferring information from working memory to long-term memory. specifically, these results indicate that, when students are given pedagogical reinforcement in a serious educational game, they are more likely to retain information and achieve the learning objectives. additional statistical testing was done to determine whether demographic variables had any mediating effects on overall student learning achievement. tests conducted on variables such as age, gender, class rank, and prior exposure to gaming environments, did not produce statistically significant findings. conclusion driving forces such as technological advancement and pressures from many private, public, and governmental sectors to increase the education attainment rate in the united states have created an environment in which post-secondary institutions are spending more resources on online learning. to meet demands for high-quality academic programmes, and to make judicious use of resources, faculty and instructional designers must consider findings like those reported in this study. one such finding is that, to mitigate questions of learning outcome achievement and the overall veracity of online education, using serious educational games, visual reinforcements, and delayed feedback in an online learning environment should be considered. the prevalence and growth of online technology for supplementing face-to-face education, and for fully online education, has provided more opportunities for faculty and learners. to ensure a quality experience and education, instructional designers and faculty must design the content in a manner that takes advantage of technological features and uses reliable pedagogical approaches. in support of this assertion, the findings in this study illustrate that the combined use of delayed elaborate feedback and visual hints in online courses do have a significant effect on an individual’s ability to process information from working memory to long-term memory. by organising and presenting material in an environment that is familiar, engaging, and motivating, faculty and instructional designers can optimise learning modules to provide better opportunities for information to be transferred from students’ working memory to long-term memory. practitioners such as faculty, instructional designers, and games-based learning creators should work together to further research on the use of specific learning strategies in serious educational games. zeglen, e., rosendale, j. 30 future research much of the research examining the use of digital games in education investigates the motivational and engaging effect such games have on learners. the research draws connections between student engagement, motivation, and the ability for students to learn. however, more research needs to be conducted, similar to this study, focusing on the qualities of the game that directly promote learning. the underlying question asked in this report is whether learning occurs as a result of the game’s design. breaking the design components of a game into smaller elements and investigating the effect of each component on the potential to promote learning provides specific information that may lead to more concrete strategies for faculty and instructional designers. research such as that in this study needs to be repeated as technology changes. as a result of shifts and advancements in technology, users will naturally experience extraneous cognitive load. for this study, the manner in which elaborate feedback and visual hints were delivered was constrained by the current technological environment. other factors typically found in games (such as competition facets) can increase engagement and motivation, which could produce a significant effect when mixed with elaborate feedback and/or visual hints. a more longitudinal study conducted over multiple semesters where other aspects such as personal achievements are combined with elaborate feedback and visual hints could, over time, reduce extraneous cognitive load and have more of an effect on 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(2013). cognitive load theory: sometimes less is more. journal on school educational technology, 9(1), 61–68. biographical notes eric zeglen, ph.d. ericzeglen@hotmail.com eric is currently the executive director of academic programs and assessment for the pennsylvania state system of higher education. previously he has served in roles such as director of assessment and academic technology, assistant vice chancellor for academic technology, and chief information officer. his research interests include the application of online tools (such as virtual gaming and the use of learning objects) to traditional education. joseph a. rosendale, ph.d. j.a.rosendale@iup.edu joe is assistant professor of management in the eberly college of business at indiana university of pennsylvania. his main areas of instruction include business communications, organisational behaviour, and general management. his current research focuses on digital communication and higher education instruction as it pertains to workforce development and organisational training. mailto:ericzeglen@hotmail.com mailto:j.a.rosendale@iup.edu journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(1) 33 this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. zeglen, e., & rosendale, j. a. (2018). increasing online information retention: analysing the effects of visual hints and feedback in educational games. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(1), [23–33.]. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ journal insides v1.indd © distance education association of new zealand 29 social presence and online communication: a response to mersham benjamin kehrwald senior lecturer, online and distance education school of curriculum and pedagogy massey university college of education palmerston north, new zealand b.a.kehrwald@massey.ac.nz introduction in the preceding issue of this publication, gary mersham (2009) asserted views drawn from communication theory to offer alternative perspectives on understanding, describing, and scrutinising online communication. in doing so, he challenged educators to consider the effects of technology on the processes of online communication and interaction, which are key components of certain types of technology-enhanced learning (tel). his case presented a number of confronting issues with the design, implementation and conduct of tel. clearly, there is merit in examining the use of technology in order to raise awareness of these points as tel moves increasingly into the mainstream. moreover, including a communication theory perspective inevitably enriches our understandings of communication in the context of distance education. nevertheless, aspects of mersham’s (2009) case undermine its effectiveness and may promote misunderstanding. in particular, mersham focuses on the challenges of computer-mediated communication (cmc) and various problems with the conduct of online learning, citing (a) the need to develop particular communication skills and the relative ignorance of these needs on the part of learning designers and managers; (b) the diffi culties caused by an “absence of presence” and absence of physical proximity; (c) missing codes of communication in cmc; (d) questions of integrity, reality, and authenticity in online communication; (e) problems arising from a lack of communicative context, including the particular “autobiographical and journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 29–46 © distance education association of new zealand 30 sociocultural circumstances” (p. 59) of the communicators; and (f) potentially dehumanising effects of mediating technologies. however, while the context for the discussion is clearly distance education in general and technologyenhanced distance education in particular, mersham excludes important work from the fi eld of distance education, including research on communication theory in the context of distance education. the result is an incomplete or limited view of the issues in question and little, if any, acknowledgment of potential solutions to the problems highlighted in the article. thus, there is an opportunity to respond to mersham (2009) with reference to literature from distance education and related fi elds to answer mersham’s critical assertions about online communication and to clarify the relationships between communicative problems in tel and good practice by e-educators. the case below identifi es an approach to these issues via participant experiences with technology-mediated communication and interaction. it responds to mersham’s assertions regarding direct versus mediated experience, relational communication in cmc, online learners’ experiences of the reality and authenticity of online communication, the creation of communicative context, the operation of social presence, support for ‘the human moment’ in interactive processes, and the development of learners’ communications skills for use in cmc. the article concludes with implications for practice in tel situations involving cmc. approach central to this discussion is the mediating role of technology. after canvassing a number of issues related to the effects of mediation, mersham concludes with the question: “how does the process of mediation shape our lived teaching and learning experiences?” (2009, p.70). this question provides a focal point for my response. this article seeks to move conversations about online communication beyond identifying potential communication diffi culties to a point that includes contemporary understandings of cmc that address communicative problems and inform good practice with cmc in education. specifi cally, this article refers to users’ experiences with presence, social presence, and the social dynamics of technology-mediated environments to respond to issues raised by mersham (2009), including (a) the alleged primacy of face-to-face communication; (b) “real” and “authentic” communication in the context of tel; (c) the establishment of communicative context in cmc, and (d) the development of participants’ communication skills, including ways of interpreting online communication. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 29–46 © distance education association of new zealand 31 in addressing these issues, the case draws extensively from research that is situated in participant experiences of cmc in authentic contexts. the rationale for this approach is two-fold: first, the focus on participant experience and activity foregrounds a view of human agency over technology and mitigates views that technology determines human behaviour. given the focus on learner activity, learner-centeredness, and agency in contemporary tel, this point is especially signifi cant. second, as outlined by walther (1992; 1995), there is a clear difference between experimental studies of mediated communication and those drawn from fi eldwork. the implications of this point are that communication in authentic (open, real world) situations is different from communication in laboratory (controlled, closed) situations and that there is an important role for subjectivity and human agency in communicative processes. if we consider only theoretical perspectives and those drawn from controlled research situations, then we ignore the role of human agency and the richness of “the human moment” (mersham, 2009, p. 57) that results from the meeting of two human subjects. the combined focus on human agency, human experience, and authentic activity supports conclusions that are highly relevant to the practice of tel. terminology like mersham (2009), i am critical of the term e-learning, which is too often a catch-all. in this article, i prefer to use the term technology-enhanced learning (tel), which implies a favourable view of technology. in doing so, i risk springing the trap of casually exchanging education for learning, as highlighted by mersham. this is a calculated risk, based on a view of tel that emphasises learning activity as central to the questions of meditated experience highlighted by mersham and echoed in this response. also, in using the term tel, i acknowledge the existence of a wide variety of tel contexts, including those that do not involve dynamic human–human communication, as in the use of cdand dvd-based materials. therefore, my discussion of issues of communication in tel refers particularly to a subset of tel that includes online communication and interaction. this subset has historically been referred to as ‘online learning’, but has expanded to include variants such as networked learning, combinations of online and offl ine learning, and a myriad of forms under the banner of blended learning. the key feature in question is the use of cmc to support and facilitate learning. this article refers to a growing body of evidence that identifi es benefi ts of the ‘technology-enhanced’ view of education. aided by hard-won experience, continuing research, and the increasing ubiquity of cmc, educators have journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 29–46 © distance education association of new zealand 32 laboured to realise the potentials of tel by continually improving their practice. the focus on the future of tel has clearly shifted from defending the viability of technology in education to acknowledging the potential afforded by the technology. research illustrates continued efforts to identify good practice in the design (e.g. bruckman, 2004; ganesan, edmonds, & spector, 2002; gunawardena, 1998; jona, 2000; jones & asensio, 2002; ravenscroft & mcalister, 2006; sims, 2006), development (barab, makinster, & scheckler, 2004; de laat & lally, 2004; schlager & fusco, 2004; steeples, jones, & goodyear, 2002; wiley & gurrell, 2009) and implementation of online learning (e.g., overviews by coomey & stephenson, 2001; garrison & anderson, 2003; mayes & de freitas, 2004). as tel has matured, it has become clear that using technology has not changed the nature of learning. rather, what has changed is how educators facilitate and support learning with technology as an enhancement (spector, 2002). so, although the choice of the term tel is value-laden, it provides an entree to discussions that include both theoretical and practical considerations in the use of technology in support of education. a paradox critics suggest that technology-mediated education is diffi cult, impersonal, and even dehumanising. as highlighted by mersham (2009), participants are physically removed from one another. they experience other participants only indirectly, as mediated by the available technologies. channels of communication are restricted, and communicative cues present in faceto-face communication are fi ltered out by the mediating technology. mersham alludes to these problems in identifying missing aspects of online communication, diffi culties with communicative codes in cmc, and questions of real and authentic communication online. these claims are neither new nor original. media richness theory (daft & lengel, 1986; daft, lengel, & trevino, 1987) and early social presence theory (short, williams, & christie, 1976) both premised assumptions about interpersonal communication on a ‘cues fi ltered out’ view of media. despite this view, which emphasises the limiting qualities of various media, a signifi cant portion of users of text-based communication, including early online user communities (rheingold, 1993), interest groups (baym, 1998), and online learners (kehrwald, 2008; in press) report overwhelmingly positive experiences with online communication. they refer to interpersonal connection, richness of interactions, and productive qualities of their online relationships as indications of the power of networked media and their ability to connect people. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 29–46 © distance education association of new zealand 33 this paradox suggests that cmc and interaction can be a rich, rewarding experience that is highly engaging and even ‘addictive’. how is this possible given the apparent limitations of the medium? a growing body of literature on tel suggests that a response to this paradox lies in understanding the role of human agency in the use of technology. more specifi cally, social presence operates as a form of human agency in which users of cmc use existing communication skills, adapt to new or unfamiliar conditions, expand their communicative repertoire to overcome the perceived limitations of cmc, and achieve successful communication (kehrwald, 2010). a response to mersham mersham (2009) posits a key question regarding cmc in his examination of the potential of online interaction: “is interpersonal communication, for so long held up as the ideal type of dialogic, synchronous communication, really the philosophical benchmark we have made it out to be?” (p. 56). he goes on to construct a case against technologies that fi lter out social and contextual cues. while the points about differences between face-to-face and technology-mediated communication are well taken, they ignore current understandings of the nature, role and function of social presence and the important role of human agency and adaptation in mediated communication. in particular, contemporary understandings of the nature, role, and function of social presence address a number of mersham’s criticisms of online communication. the illusion of direct experience presence refers to the extent to which mediated experiences seem unmediated (kumar & benbasat, 2002; selverian & hwang, 2003). presence theory is concerned with the effects of mediation on experience “especially as our awareness of the mediation oscillates, fl ickers and sometimes fades” (biocca, burgoon, harms, & stoner, 2001, p. 1). in other words, presence creates the illusion of direct experience (sometimes called ‘reality’) in mediated situations. there are three particular types of presence: telepresence, which refers to the experience of a technology-mediated place or situation as though the experience were not mediated; co-presence, which refers to the notion of being there together; and social presence, which extends copresence to specify the presence of another salient social actor—thus creating an opportunity for meaningful interaction and related social activity (nowak & biocca, 2001). journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 29–46 © distance education association of new zealand 34 identifying and relating to communicative partners in cmc short, williams, and christie (1976) defi ned social presence as “the degree of salience of the other person in a mediated interaction and the consequent salience of the interpersonal interaction” (p. 65). notably, this defi nition predates widespread use of cmc. over the last 30 years, defi nitions of social presence have increasingly emphasised relational aspects of communication, including a sense of individuals’ abilities to (a) perceive others (collins & murphy, 1997); (b) gauge the tangibility and proximity of others (mcleod, baron, & marti, 1997) and (c) project themselves into an online social unit (caspi & blau, 2008; rourke, anderson, garrison, & archer, 2001) by signalling their willingness and availability for communicative exchanges (kehrwald, 2008). more recently, research into online learners’ experiences has identifi ed two key aspects of social presence: fi rst, that there is an ‘other’ party present in the environment as evidenced by their contributions; second, that the ‘other’ exists and is identifi able as a real person—a human being, with all the characteristics thereof, including personality, emotion, personal history, and context (kehrwald, 2008). real and authentic communication questions of the reality and authenticity of cmc that are premised on a cues-fi ltered-out view, including those raised by mersham (2009), are at odds with the relational view of social presence described above. research shows that while various media affect the way communication is experienced, individuals are adept at overcoming the perceived limitations of a particular communicative situation and making themselves understood (slagter van tyron & bishop, 2009; walther, 1992, 1995). despite assertions of a cuesfi ltered-out view of online communication, users of cmc not only experience one another through online communication, but they perceive one another as real, human actors and viable partners for interaction (caspi & blau, 2008; kehrwald, 2008; swan & shih, 2005). notably, this determination of other participants as real was seen to be a foregone conclusion by experienced online learners (kehrwald, 2008). furthermore, online learners are seen to experience one another in ways that lead to rich, engaging, and productive interaction (thorpe & godwin, 2006; tu & mcisaac, 2002; wallace, 2003). questions of authenticity of online communication appear to be based on the likelihood that participants represent themselves accurately as genuine communicative partners. in tel, this point is addressed though appreciation of tel as a purposeful endeavour. it is important to note that in many (though not all) tel situations, learners have made conscious journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 29–46 © distance education association of new zealand 35 decisions to study in a technology-enhanced mode or have chosen to do so because of perceived advantages of such systems. such conscious choices defi ne tel situations as a particular type of goal-directed activity. because participants in these situations have a shared goal of learning, the instances of negative behaviours, including assertions of false identities or “playful and performative assertions” (mersham, 2009, p. 55) are greatly diminished. rather, participants in tel situations are more likely to be united by shared purposes that are related to learning in particular courses, or to performing specifi c tasks (kehrwald, 2008). creating communicative context the relational view of social presence is supported by communication theory, which suggests that there are two dimensions of communicative messages: fi rst, the topical content, which includes the subject under discussion and, second, the relational content, which defi nes the nature of the relationship between the sender and receiver of the message (walther, 1992). in face-toface encounters, relational information is conveyed by a variety of verbal and non-verbal cues including voice, facial expressions, gestures, and other body language. by indicating the nature of the relationship between parties, the relational aspects of communication provide contextual information that allows messages to be situated and inevitably infl uences the interpretation of messages (burgoon & la poire, 1999). relational information includes communicators’ “autobiographical and sociocultural circumstances”, identifi ed by mersham (2009, p. 59) as critical to the development of communicative context, as well as skills, abilities, beliefs, levels of experience, indications of willingness for ongoing interaction, signs of personality and demeanour, and regular demonstrations of attendance in the online environment. messages without relational information are more likely to be misinterpreted due to a limited amount of communicative context. these effects are particularly signifi cant in text-based cmc because of the limits of text-only communication. owing to a lack of non-verbal cues, textual messages must convey both topical and relational aspects of messages via text (riva, 2002). social presence cues provide the mechanism for cmc participants to enhance the meaning of their messages and improve the likelihood of successful communication. such cues include instances of personal disclosure, which provide contextual information about the communicator; affective statements, which establish the humanity of the communicator, support his or her salience as a potential partner for interaction, and provide information about his or her willingness to communicate; interactive statements which invite further communication; journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 29–46 © distance education association of new zealand 36 cohesive statements which indicate the state of the relations between communicators; and other contextual information that may be specifi c to the communicative situation (see kehrwald, 2008; rourke et al., 2001; swan & shih, 2005). the operation of social presence social presence cues are part of a complex system of social information processing that allows individuals to receive and interpret information related to social situations and to respond accordingly (slagter van tyron & bishop, 2009). this processing is achieved through a combination of the projection of social presence by communicators and the interpretation of messages by recipients. this interpretation involves not only reading available social presence cues but also adapting existing communication skills to overcome diffi cult or unfamiliar communicative conditions. first, social presence is projected by communicators through a variety of communicative cues. although the channels of communication are diminished and non-verbal cues, for example, may not be present in cmc, other cues such as emoticons (i.e., ‘smileys’), forms of address, acronyms, and other specifi c written conventions are available to signal participants’ intentions, dispositions, and understanding. second, recipients of messages identify and interpret the cues present in online communication to evaluate social situations, and respond accordingly. if the information provided is incomplete or insuffi cient to provide communicative context, the recipients exercise subjective agency in interpreting the messages. one way they may do this is by adapting existing communication skills from other contexts. in this situation, “participants… attempt to adapt to the new social environment and proceed in processing any social information available even if that information is in the absence of many of the social cues participants are accustomed to” (slagter van tyron & bishop, 2009, p. 292). they do this through both ‘projecting’ particular characteristics into the unknown situation, and fi xing the meaning of messages by relating them to previously experienced communicative situations (kehrwald, 2010). recipients also learn to make sense of incomplete messages by studying the communication modelled by more experienced peers to extend their communicative repertoire. in most online learning environments there is a space for discussions amongst the group of learners. this space provides an important venue for modelling effective online communication and norming communicative behaviour. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 29–46 © distance education association of new zealand 37 while certain cues may be fi ltered out in cmc, the negative effects of this fi ltering are mitigated by the combination of (a) textual cues that replace the missing cues and (b) communicators’ ability to effectively ‘read between the lines’ through subjective interpretation to fi ll communicative gaps. a higher incidence of social presence cues and greater communicator skill in both projecting and reading social presence both result in richer communication. from absence to presence and the “the human moment” social presence is not an either/or proposition involving the ‘presence’ or ‘absence’ of other communicators. there is a continuum of presence, which includes various states of presence—from ‘absence’ to the establishment of presence and mutual relations and on to more involved levels of psychological and behavioural involvement (see figure 1) (see also biocca, burgoon et al., 2001; biocca, harms, & gregg, 2001; kehrwald, 2010). increasing operation of social presence absence telepresence co-presence co-location potential for feedback projection into a group access to another mind development of relationships intersubjectivity interdependence mutuality psychological involvement behavioural involvement figure 1 continuum of social presence (adapted from kehrwald, 2010) at the left side of the continuum is ‘absence’, an extreme lack of social presence. at the right is ‘interdependence’, a complex relational state involving strong interpersonal connections that affect individuals’ behaviours as part of collaborative activity. in between (left to right) are states of increasing connection and involvement related to the operation of social presence. the continuum of presence foreshadows a myriad of possibilities for the development of authentic online communication that includes not only basic communication, but also interpersonal interaction, social connection, networks of interpersonal relations, and the development of complex social structures. participants’ social presence, including indications of their willingness and availability for interpersonal transactions, is an important consideration in cmc. the issues of others’ attendance in the online environment, attention to online communication, and awareness of other individuals as potential communicative partners, all promote a sense of immediacy that supports successful online communication. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 29–46 © distance education association of new zealand 38 mersham (2009) argues that “the human moment”, based on authentic psychological encounter involving “engagement through emotional and intellectual attention” (p. 56) is a feature of high-quality learning experiences. i agree. the point of difference between mersham’s view and my own relates to the assertion that “physical presence is a necessary condition for teaching and learning” (p. 56). at the heart of the human moment is the ability for two (or more) individuals to realise interpersonal connections that are suffi ciently rich to (at the very least) include psychological involvement and affect changes in one another’s attitudes, beliefs, skills, or knowledge. some have suggested that this the very defi nition of learning (see spector, 2002). notably, mersham allows that the detrimental effects of a cues-fi ltered-out view can be addressed if “communicators are able to compensate for such losses” (p. 57). i assert that social presence provides such compensation and humanises tel by promoting interpersonal interaction, the development of relations between individuals, and the social and psychological involvement that underpins ‘the human moment’. social presence and the related development of interpersonal relations that promote collaboration represent online participants’ efforts to humanise their learning experiences and realise the potential of online learning as an active, social process that leverages the technological connectivity, but overcomes the limits of the mediating technologies, to create productive social connectivity (kehrwald, in press). the development of e-learners’ communication skills given a relational view of social presence and the continuum of presence described above, there are key questions about the development of e-learners’ abilities to establish, cultivate, and use social presence in cmc. the participant–dependent nature of social presence means that it can be learned by individuals or cultivated amongst a group of users. recent research has shown that although novice online learners do not come to tel with the skills of experienced online learners, they can apply the social skills they have derived from face-to-face communication, adapt those skills to fi t new communicative situations (slagter van tyron & bishop, 2009), and develop new communication skills based on the extent and quality of their experience with online communication (kehrwald, 2008). these communication skills can be grouped into two broad types. the fi rst type includes those skills that involve conveying social presence. online journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 29–46 © distance education association of new zealand 39 learners must learn to project themselves as viable communicative partners with identities that include relevant personal characteristics. considerations in the cultivation of an online social presence include the contexts in which the communications occur and the type of communicative task (conrad, 2002; rourke et al., 2001; yoo & alavi, 2001), as well as the particular traits of the individuals involved including communication skills (kehrwald, 2008; tu & mcisaac, 2002), cultural dispositions toward particular types of communication (gunawardena, 1998; tu, 2001), or particular skills such as literacy or keyboarding skills (tu, 2002; tu & mcisaac, 2002). the second type of skill includes the abilities to read and interpret social presence cues—recognising familiar social cues, learning about new types of cues, reading available information in a nuanced way, and fi lling in information gaps through various forms of subjective interpretation including projection and ‘seeing as’, in which readers of social presence interpret available information and fi x the meaning of ambiguous or unclear messages (kehrwald, 2010). cultivating these skills should be viewed as a developmental process. novice online learners bring existing communication skills to cmc situations and learn through ongoing interaction and experience. good communication is modelled by online teachers and more experienced learners. novice online communicators expand their communicative repertories with the benefi t of guidelines in study materials, the modelling of online facilitators and more experienced learners, and the benefi t of increasing experience of online communication. implications for practice the case above is signifi cant insofar as it extends the conversation begun by mersham (2009) to inform online teaching and learning practice. at the outset, i referred to mersham’s key question: how does the process of mediation shape our lived teaching and learning experiences? while the pursuit of best practice in tel is ongoing, the ideas above provide guidance for a range of tel practitioners including online learners, online teachers, course designers, and staff who support both teaching and learning in technology-mediated situations. first, we consider learners. learners who are new to cmc need help to develop online communication skills. these skills relate not only to establishing and maintaining a social presence, but also to reading and making sense of journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 29–46 © distance education association of new zealand 40 the social presence of others. given the dynamic nature of online learning environments and the nature of the interactive processes that constitute learning activity in these environments, the ability to skilfully read and send social presence cues is likely to have a considerable effect on learners’ experiences of tel, when online communication and interaction are integral to the learning process. as i have argued elsewhere, online learners must have the ability, opportunity and motivation to communicate and interact online (kehrwald, 2008). regrettably, most novice adult online learners do not come to online learning environments with the skills to establish and cultivate an online social presence. therefore, tel programmes that use cmc and online interaction should include a developmental approach to ‘learning to learn online’. activities should be structured to (a) provide models of good practice in online communication, including the cultivation of social presence; (b) motivate learners to establish and cultivate a positive social presence; (c) create explicit opportunities for all participants to establish an online social presence; (d) generate interpersonal interaction that supports ongoing demonstrations of presence and the development of relations between individuals; and (e) structure relatively low-risk experiences from which learners can learn to both convey an ongoing social presence and read the presence of others. while it is common practice amongst skilled online facilitators to create an introductory ‘getting-to-know-you’ task, the particulars of such a task are important. introductory activities should be structured so that they require learners to provide information that is relevant to establishing a social presence, including identifi ers (preferred name), personal context (educational history, professional background), instances of personal disclosure (personal circumstances, interests, motivations for study), and opportunities for personalisation (images and other media such as an audio introduction, a personal profi le). the particular parameters of each introductory task should be tailored to elicit the information that is necessary to promote the establishment and cultivation of social presence. the rationale for such establishment tasks should be explicit so that learners can see value in completing them. whenever possible, existing relationships should be identifi ed and promoted alongside the establishment of new ones (kehrwald, in press). interaction should be initiated as soon as possible. introductory tasks should include a clear reason to respond to others. this may be tied to the introductions, as in the case of welcoming new peers, or may be a separate task, as in a discussion activity on group norms or the particulars of the course environment. notably, the opportunity to interact is not suffi cient. learners need to see a clear benefi t from the time and effort they invest journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 29–46 © distance education association of new zealand 41 in interaction. for example, foreshadowing the opportunity to self-select collaborative partners may motivate learners to invest in early interaction. next, there are important roles for online teachers and designers of tel. both should be aware of the pitfalls of online communication and interaction as well as the role of social presence to support more complex social activity. although learning tasks frequently include collaboration, the social dynamics of the course are often overlooked. there is potential for a mismatch between the intentions of the learning task and the existence of a supportive social infrastructure within the course. designers and teachers must avoid assumptions about participants’ abilities and willingness to establish and maintain an online social presence, read and understand the social presence of others, participate in ongoing interaction, or reach a state of productive collaboration. if participants do not have an established social presence or there is no form of ongoing interaction within which interpersonal relations can develop, the likelihood of productive collaboration is greatly diminished. in particular, online teachers must develop a repertoire of online communication skills, including the ability to project themselves into online environments and to read the nuances of textual communication from novice online learners. in terms of helping learners read social presence cues, teachers should model the establishment and maintenance of an appropriate social presence through their own communications and ongoing interaction. moreover, they should draw on experienced online learners to lead and model appropriate social activity. for experienced teachers who have carefully honed face-to-face presentation skills and the ability to skilfully project themselves into physical spaces, developing an equal mastery of online communication can be a challenge. institutions need to be mindful of the time and energy required to develop and maintain online teaching skills. conclusion online communication is at the very core of much tel, which draws upon the connectivity of networked technologies to create opportunities for interpersonal interaction at a distance. social presence is a critical element of such tel systems for its role in supporting online communication and related processes of interpersonal interaction, collaboration, and the development of social structures such as communities. while technology and media have potentially detrimental effects on human communication, social presence is an important form of human agency that humanises participants’ experiences of technology-mediated social activity. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 29–46 © distance education association of new zealand 42 in closing, i want to emphasise my support for mersham’s efforts to initiate discussions of online communication in this publication. the issues he raises are relevant to both scholars and practitioners of distance education. the case above extends the conversation. it is my hope that readers of this journal will continue it further as they apply these ideas in their work, and that they will report back as the relationships between social presence, online 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(1995). relational aspects of computer-mediated communication: experimental observations over time. organization science, 6(2), 186–203. wiley, d., & gurrell, s. (2009). context and catalyst: a decade of development. open learning: journal of open and distance learning, 24(1), 11–21. yoo, y., & alavi, m. (2001). media and group cohesion: relative infl uences on social presence, task participation and group consensus. mis quarterly, 25(3), 371–390. biographical note benjamin kehrwald benjamin kehrwald is senior lecturer, distance and online education in the massey university college of education where he coordinates postgraduate programmes in e-learning. he has been working with learning technologies since 1992 in the usa, japan, australia, and new zealand. he specialises in the design, development, implementation, and research of online learning with a particular emphasis on technologymediated social processes. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 29–46 converging modalities for distance education in professional communication: implications froin flexible delivery rayarchee school of communication and media, university of western sydney nepean, new south w ales, australia shirley saunders faculty of education, university of technology sydney, new south wales, australia introduction tile ability to communication education to lear~ers at a distance through adopting flexible ll:arning lnethods using conv(~rgil1g modalities (induding print matpriais and web-bas(~d learning) is significant for colnnlulncation educators given the (:~xplicit links betwefm course (:on~ent and rapidly pvolving comnlu:mcatlotis tt~chnology and telecolnmunicatiolls .media. the content ~)f c01nmunication subjects dealing with lllterpersonal relations, teamwork and organisational communication has been directly affected hy how (~lectronic coidlnunication is used in the workplace. for those working in educational institutions it is aim osi inlpossible not to teach on-campus or by dishmce without some form of technological content and support. in fact it has been argued that incorporating elt~ctronic technology into course design can gi ve credibility and relevance to the study of professional colnnlul1ication (craig & carlone 1998' la:mbrecht, 1999; sto~k, 1998). a' ulajo; issue for all educators i., that although "students lllay like the f]t.~xibility offered by di"tance learning, there continues to be concf'.nl about the quality of those programsfy (sonner, 1999, p. 243), there may be trade-ous in if)annng pxperiences and outcom(:~s embedded in distance l{~arning (beattie & james, 1997), delivery methods in com.munication studies need to offer means for cbalk:nging students to inanage c01nplexity and uncertainty, to encourage critical ,md reflective inquiry and to examine practical applica lions of learning about coln.munication. our analysi~ of recent trends in learning colnmunlcation at a distance is based on findings from the lilerature on flexihle delivery (uld {our case studies of our own f~xperi<:'nct~s of conununication education in undergraduate and postgraduat0 courses in professional comnlunication (durham, vvithnalt & harris, 1998; ticehurst & ross-smith, 1998) in australia in the school of communication and media al the journal learning, vo16, no 1, 2001 ((:) distann~ education association of n<'w zealand 5 university of '!vestetil sydney, nepean (uwsn) and the faculty of education at the university of technology, sydney (uts). we explore the growing myth that the experience of teaching and learning communication in £lexiblt~ modes promising asynchronous interactions and leatiler autonomy is essential and desirable for both learners and educators regardless of distance constraints. w(~ note that flexible learning can incorporate a range of quite diverse indicators such as: flexibility of access; flexibility of participation; flexibility of content; flexibility of teaching and learning methods; flexibility of response; flexibility of assessment; and flexibility of resources (uts, 1999b). in our four case studies we aimed to develop flexible modes of learninpy including distance education with a student-centred approach (trigwell, 1999), to assist students to extend the theory and practice of communication, to dem,onstrate expertise in dealing appropriately with tf1chnology and people and to be prepared to use problem solving' creatively and persistently in work envirolunt'~nts. the four case studies are briefly outlined as follows: 4& subjects in the school of communication and media, uws, nepean: electronic research methods (undergraduate) and visual rhetoric (postgraduate ); e subjects in the faculty of education, uts: language, culture and communication (postgraduate) and adult communication management and team work (postgraduah~). the forms of flexible delivery and flexiblf'. learning available :in the subjects electronic research lvlethods and visual rhdonc included: face to face lecturesi tutorial sessions in computer laboratories; printed learning guide covering content and support material; online subject outline and assessment requirements, weekly modules and web resources; interactive relay chat (irc); interaclive web~based learning through subject web-site; e-mail class list. students were free to utilise any or all of these available forms of leanling. they were not required to attend classes at the mliversity cam.pus. students who did not have home conlputers could use the university com.puters at a time of their own eboice. the nature of assigrtments to be submitted for assessment was set by the lecturer. students could send assignments to acadenlic staff electronically bye-mail, to a web site or submit assignments on paper by post or at the university. each subject ifj one semester in duration. for the case study on electronic research methods in 1.999 evaluations wer(~ collected from 207 students ovf~r two selnt~sters. h11999 visual rhetoric was completed by 16 studt~nts including students visiting from overseas. at uts stud(~nts nominatt~ their attendance pattern (part-tim.e or fuutirne~) and then in a separate catt~gory their preferred mode of learning that includes: weekly; distance; block oncam,pus; mixed; block-off cam.pus; sulnmer/wint(~r intensive. the subjects tanguage, culture and communication and adult communication management and team work were available as "a distance learning 11lode" adlninistered by the flexible learning unit in the faculty of educalion, uts. the term f1 distance h1.arning mode" ref(:'!rnjd to 11 a inode of learning whf~re students arc not obliged to attend on cmnpus, although some campus activities luay be offered" journal of distance learning, vol 6, no i, 2001 ~;) distmkf' educ<'ltion association of n~'w zealand 6 (slade, 1999a). a distance learning mode nlay include self-managed learning (sml) as a learning tool (not a delivery mode), while ufl~~xible" refers to many kinds of m.odes (slade, 1999a). forms of flexible delivery and flexibl~~ learning in. these two uts colnmunication subjects included: face to face orientation (saturday session); orientalion session in computer laboratories (saturday session); three printed h~arning guides subject profile, subject learning guide, readings covering subject outline, content, support material and copies of suggested readings; online li"tserve; e-mail; h~lephone. students were free to utilir;e any or all of thes(:: available forms of leanling. criteria and requirements for assessment wen~ set by the lecturer and included negotiated learning contracts. students were asked to send assignmentr; to acadelnic staff on paper by post. each subject is one semester in duration and to date approximately 3d sludents have participated in each of these subjects. these case studies are part of rapidly developing initiatives in flexible delivery at both universities. for example, 1n the faculty of educabon at uts in 1997-1998 35 to face subjects were developed for c..i.istance learning by 42 academic staff supported by educational designers, editors and desktop publishers. in 1999 there were m.ore than 40 subjects available in eight courses (slade, 1999b). thp nwnagmnent systpm includpd top class nnnputer software. at uws, a varj(~ty of web-based packages is being used. for one of the authors, such proprietary systems have several shortcolnings, that becolne obvio'u.'i after one or two semesters of trialling s11ch software. probh?lns such as rigid interfaces, and uu\vid.dy nativp conlmunication services, have led to the alternative of installing freeware and shareware software, whicn are easily available on the internet. these programs include a variety of bulletin board systems, chat rooms and electronic filespace systems that allow for muchneeded flexibility and irmo valion, which is somewhat lacking in the proprietary programs. in summary, there are many possible combinalion.') of the forms of flexible learning that commujucalion educators mi.ght con.c;;ider (uts, 1999b; uwsn, 1999). in the next sl~ction we draw on these case studies to explore seven main themes for facilitating f.lt~xible modes of distance education: (1.) learning style; (2) personal contact with academi.c staff; (3) interactivity and leanung commu1lities; (4) technical and other support; (5) conlputer-mediated colrununication and learning; (6) student proble.ms with technology; and (7) im.plications for academic staff. our focus is to identify a nulnber of implications for professional conlmunication education. (1) learning style tht~ potential to usp converging media for distano' pducation in communication studies may cn~ah~ a new p(~dagogy where diverse leanung styles (honey & mumford, 1992; kolb, 1985) are addressed and a new relationship is formed b(~tween teacher and studcml. implications are that teachr~rs will inov(~ from setting individual assig111nents to collaborative projects; leal1ung nwthods accommodating diffpn~nt learning styles will be' introduced; resources for iparning will be expanded and the ii teacher-s tu dent hierarchy" will be broken down as lithe studpnt moves from passive re((~ptadp to self-m.otivated managers of their own journal of distal'u:e vol 6, no i, 2001 ({) distance education as..<;ociation of nt'w b:ahmd 7 learning [and] teachers move from oracle and lecturer to consultantl guide, and resource provider'" (markel, 1999, p. 208). ill the four communication subjects previously referred to in thi" paper, we have consistently used a variety of materials and methods in teaching to increase m_otivation, to add interest to the learning experience, to cater for different learning styles and to promote experiential learning of comm.unication principles and skills. using converging modalities in recent years has resultfld in some noticeable differences in the type of interactions between students and teachers. we have noticed a trend towards more independent and personall.y responsible learning by students. relationships between lecturer and student tend to be more collaborative;) and less hierarclrical markel (1999) regarded the potential of dis tilllc e education to break down the teacherstudent hierarchy as a very tenuous claim because, ultimately, the students are graded by the teacher. in spite of the existence of this role and power differential ill our comlnmucation subj(~cts we have found that contributions to fortnightly ire are less formal, nlore colloquial in terms of language used, more abbreviated in fornls of language used, greater use of humour, inore friendly, supportive types of chat, more self disclosure and possibl y lllore dynamic engagement than a face to face class session. the ire environment seemed safer, more equalising illld less inhibiting than conventional m.eetings. ire was an attempt to cater for different learning styles as engageluent was determined by each student who could prepare in advilllce§ think before posting a contributionl focus on applications, actively participate in a spontaneous form of debate, follow th(~ debate without contributing or not log on at all leonard (1996b) argued that a web based form of delivery characterised discovery lear.ning because the hypermedia design characteristics of the web emphasise the associative thinking patterns of an active learner. leonard (1996a, 1996b) advocated discovery learning m.odes especiall.y for postgraduate students. we have found varying degrees of lack of confidence among graduate students to set goals for self discovery learning by designing their own negotiated learning contracts as their major form of assessm.ent. an article on guidelines for this type of discovery learning is availablt~ for our students and face to face), e-mail, fax or telephone contact with an acadelnic advi<;er is provided. nevertheless, a more structured form of assessment n~quiring critical annotation., to produce a themed bibliography followed by a detailed case study has been welcom.ed by many postgraduate distance students. not all distance students embraced self directed learning with confidence and enthusiasm. lambrecht (1999) pointed out that it seems that learners with a learning orientation rather than a performance orientation do better when a problem becomes difficult and a degree of p(~rsistence is required. the ability to pursue problenls that are not inunediately solvable is an important attributp for communication students to possess. indeed not all students possessed the:~ computer literacy required to engage in flpxible learning using the web. in our case study on the undergraduab:~ subject electronic research methods student evaluations paradoxicauy indicated that only about half of the stu.dents acluall y journal afdistance learning, vol 6, no 1, 2001 (~) di"tal1c(~ education association of n.,w zealand 8 i"eported that flexible delivery (where on. cam,pus attendance was not requirt~d) was m;eful to them. one possible n~ason. for this was the fact that students had the option of studying in traditional classrooms and computer laboratories or studying via web-based weekly modules. in addition, almost exactly half the class rated their computer skills as "novice" at the start of the semester. the more advanced students opted to try a number of learning modes especially web-based modules, willie the mote anxious students went to class every week ti1us this study tended to confirm that novices unfamiliar with the sp(~d.fic subject content and computers prefer to attend face to face! methods (lectures and tutorials) where a hands on approach guidf~d by an lllstructor can be used. a handful of students foidld u.nrestrict(~d choice and lack of nlo1utoring of student attendance to be detrimental: "i really didn't like this flexible learning idea. 'th(~ fact that attendance was made optional made i.t a little too f)asy to fall behind at times" . although the flexible menu catered for diffef(~nt lean ling styles th(l,re was potential for some stud(~nts to fail to complete the subject because they de::pendt)d 011 external monitoring, lacked time managenlent skills and wen\ not used to m,ethods of learning that gav(~ students a degree of autonomy. pressun~s of the requirf~ments of other subjects and other responsibilities tende~d to take precedence so that flexible nlodes of distance learning were in fact nol utilised. for tl1(' subj(~ct electronic research methods this applied to 10-15~) of students. in terms of learning style:~, for some students flexible delivery incorporating distance modes was an asset and for others it was di')counted and (~ven prov(~d to be a distinct liability. overall, it is our experience that learning style also has nluch to do with employment context and familial responsibilities. whilst we would agree that individual learning styles are important considerations, these styles are changed when you inlroduce the stresses of modem day living replete with long hours of work and unremitting parenting. flexible distance learninl~ perfectly suits these situations in many cases. (2) personal contact with academic staff opportmuties for personal contact with academic staff are lughly valued by students and the quality of academic in45truction is said to be one of the most im,portant factors for student selection of a university (phillips, 1998). students tend to judge expressive, warnl and involved instructors as being enthusiastic, well-organised and knowll)dgeable (frynlier, 1995; guerrero & miller, 1998; nussbaum, 1992; smithson, 1998; wanz(~r & mccroskey, 1998). responsiveness from academic staff in the form of timely and appropriate feedback is very important to studl~nts. over 80% of stud(~nts in the electronic research a1ethods subject reported that face to face contact with staff was beneficial to their progress. this figure may be biased because of the technical nature of this subject such as using the hlternet, authoring w~~b pages and using t)soteric software. postgraduate students at uts w(~re satisfied to resolve issues with staff by telephone and, more importantly, by e-mail. it is our finding that the more teduucal the subject nlatler the:) more thal staff will be valued. journal vo16r no 1,2001 «:'" distance education associatioll of new zealand '> (3) interactivity and learning con'lmunities our communication subjects have provided electronic and face to face opportunities and structures for interactivily and creation of learning communities. ire and access to an e-mail listserve are two examples. at uts students are encouraged to enrol in a. register of learning partnerships administered by the coordinator of the flexible delivery unit. an orientation day held in the faculty of education at uts in february 1999 atlracted 140 distance students,. although few attended who were enrolled in coidnlunication subjects by distance. we nob.~ that considerable technical and administrative support has been requif(~d to provide the variety of interactivity to form leanung communities (as a whole group or a number of paif(~d partnerships) at both our universities. we also have found along with other colleagues that a significant num.ber of distance students prefer to complete the subject on their own. while some students enjoy the opportuniti(~s for interactivity, others do not. we have not required students to engage in these interactive modes as part of the assessment for our subjects. neither have we monitored the alllount of interactivity and engagement/ contributions by individual students. a culture where academic staff and students regularly use wt"!b-based conierencing is still developing in our universities. we are aware of the limits of access to web-based conierencing for nlany students who may have internpt facilities at work but are unable to use these for private study. as one colleague remarked: lilt is one thing for students to have an e-mail address and access to the internet either at work or via a friend¥ it is another to be able to use these for private study at times of their choosing" (uts; 1999a). one further note on illteractivity is concen1.ed with providing regular interaction between staff and student via combination') of communication media. we have consistently off(:~red timely interaction retunling marked assignments usually witll1n a week and replying to e-mails on the same day or within one to two days. it is quite common for students to thank us for these liprompt replies" and for the personal attention they receive. we do note, however, the following comment by an academic on the pitfall" of quicker¥ easier and even cheaper coitllllumcation: "it is ad vised to not send assesslnent feedback the same day an assignment is received [by email]. students have complained that the lecturer has not given sufficient time to assess sonu>.thing tll{~y have been working on for s(-'veral weeks" (uts1 1999a), (4) technical and other support til(~re is unanimous agf(~el1wnt in the lib~ratun~ thal flexible distance learning iniliativ(~s are only feasible given adequate technical and other support (alexand{~rf 1997i atkin.c:;on, 1999; cashion, 1998i lynott, 1998; rice, -1998; scott, 1996; thompson,. winterfield, & flanders, 1998). when software or hardware is not installed, or if software is not configured propprly, then students and acadelnics alike will becom.e frustrated and disgruntled, devaluing the whole (j.xercise. in our universiti{~s teaching and learning work'ihops have b{~en conducted attended by both acadenlic and technical and administrative staff to collaborate on interaction stratpgies to support learning journal of distance learning, vol 6, no 1, 2001 distann> education association of nt~w zealand 10 at a distance. needs analyses have been undertaken by acadenlics to identify concerns of other academics using one to one interviews. updates 011 technical innovations and syst(~m changes are given regularly to all staff bye-mail. gradually staff are becoming fam.iliar with current technological language and the potential of electronic communication media for teaching and h~arning strategies. design ad vice and documentation support, for example given by the flexible learning unit in the faculty of education at uts, were vital for the translation of teaching and learning nlaterials into a print form suitabll' for di9tance learners. in novembt~r 1999 th(~ print-based m.aterials for the postgraduatl~ subject language, culture and communication (saunders & dryden, 1998) were reviewed by an indepe~ndent consultant according to the following criteria: .. clc:~ar statements oj learning! objectives outcom.es; ii structure of l~,~arning units support(~d by introduction and summary; .. the effective integration and focusing of rpading tasks; • the use of a variety of activities and feedback to support different leanl:ing styles and self assessll1el1t; ii tht~ use of effective typographic layout and devices to enhance accessibility and ftulctionality (slade, 1999c). the authors were able to take advantag(~ of the specific support provided by the flexible delivery unit to produce printbased materiab evaluated to be of high quality that ii could b(~ used as exemplars or nlodels to guide the developm<:mt of other sml materials" (maonullen, 1999, cited in slade, 1999(1 p. 1). tius degree of quality was facilitated by the level of design, policy, procedural and processing support provided to the academic writers. while students appreciated adequate technical and administrative support such as receiving information and resources in a timely fashion, flexible forms of distance learning were also supported by a range of other factors. desanctis and sheppard (1999) found that the executives taking their business adm.inistration course were successful if they were able to gain support from superiors and subordinah~s at work for allocating sollle time for coursework7 if the family was supportive, if they developed a team of other students to rely on for needed help, and if they could establish a pattt~m of rune dedicated to doing coursework. for exanlple tht~ communication subjects at uts are supported by procedures for forming optional learning partnerships as part of the services of the flexible delivery unit. studies have shown that student learning in ctistance modes is supported whf~n networks allowed for both realtime and asynchronous exchange, when a clear procedure for document exchange is provided, when assessmt~nt requirelnents are explicit and when the technology has convenient student access (lopt~z & nagelhout, 19951 cited in tiilton & kameda, 1999). hl addition, duin and archee (1996) concluded that studt~nts felt safer using (~-mail than talking in person and wef(~ .more willing to take linguistic chances over the intenlet than when spea.king or writing. this was important for their multicultural courses in communication where students conunul1icatt~d with peers across cultun)s to achieve journal yo] 6, no 1, 2001 ~) distimer: education association of ne~w zealand 11 learning outcomes. graduate students in the subject visual rhetoric at uws experienced real-time and asyndrronous communication, designated student access to tedmology on campus and from hom.e conlputers cmd clear procedures for document exchange. these support features helped to build a collaboralive learning environment where individual and group work flourished assisted by multi m,eilia and extensive web-based resources. the lecturer added to the subject web site weekly in response to student leanling needs. the intention was to engage the group in a dynamic form of web-based learning rather than offering students a static web site set up in its entirety at the commencement of the subject to facilitate paced learning. learning outcomes related to professional comrnmtication such as problem solving, teamwork, resource location and sharing, creativity and innovation in work produced were enhanced by these kinds of technical and other support. (5) computer-mediated colnmunication and learning th.e literature contains reports of numerous advantages:in using computermediated communication (cmc) in instruction (gregor & cuskeily, 1994; shedletskyi 1995; wilson & vvhitelock, 1997; witmer, 1998). in terms of cmc we make a distinction between realtime applications such as computer chat and desktop videoco.nferencing, and asynchronous e-mail and bulletin boards. the llge of these modalities is not clearly understood in the literature. assum.plioll has been that ad communication mediated by computers is the same, more or less. it is worth noting that at both of our instilutions, student use of irc if) actively discouraged as a distraction to real work a rune-wasting activity. whilst every student has a right to electronic mail access, the opposite is enforced for electronic chatting over the internet. similarly every reference to the word ir chat" is denied by one of our universily's web proxy servers deeming thi" mode of cmc as unworthy of even perusal by students. in contrast, archee (1.993, 1.994) found that if given the dl0ic(~ many students will dloose real-time conferencing over asynchronous exchanges for brainstorming and decision making ta'1ks, reserving e-mail and bulletin boards for information and document exchange. in 1999 the popularity of the fortnightly ire sdl~~duled for two hours at a designated time in the subject visual rhetoric at uws was evident. th(~ lmnlediacy of real-time "chat" closely rest~nlbles the interaction and outcomes of real dif)cllssions and is a valuable alternative of ajl flexible dic;tance leanting courses. (6) student problej1ts with technology in the subject electronic research methods at uvvs undergraduate comlnunication students wpre specifically taught how to prepare a home page aj1d conlputer literacy was not a requirement for the subject. novict~s generally reported that l<:~arning about electronic research methods was difficult either on campus or by distm1ce. student evaluations showed that inany students did not develop computer literacy easily. for exmnple, 8% reported "advanced" com.puler competence at the beginning as opposed to 20% at end of subject theil' stru ggl(~s are a signal that course designers should not expect that students these days are com.fortable and oriented to com,puter-based leanung and that online deliveri(~s will facilitate flexible journal of distance learning, vol 6, no i, 2001 @ distanc(' education associa.tion of new zealand 12 learning for most students or enable students to learn at a distance. we found indicalions that, even after successful completion of a subject such as elech'onic research methods, many students are not confident or comiortable about using online forms of learning. a question that we have seldom s(~en asked is whether or not contenlporary forms of flexible distance learning are wholly acceptab}(~ in terms of the cullure of the participailt. scollon and scollon (1994, 1995) highlight religion and culture as significant factors for det(~rmining a student's acceptability of student-centred, flexible distance learning. in many cultures institutional learning is a didactic exercise whereby the teacher-student relationship is alnlost wholly one-way communication. in many asian, bastenl european, and islanlic countries the teacher is totally responsible for student learning. the recognition of que'stions and feedback is not a unive~rsal educational precept. when inb;~mational stud€:!nts enrol in our course~s are we in fact forcing western . values, albeit educationally sound ones, upon them? we also recognise with sheridan and silnons (1998) that a web site! can be titechnically brilliant and cultmall y -inc01n pe tent" . when courses in distancp education cross cultural boundaries and are mediated by technology tht~ possibiliti(~s [or mi"understanding increase dramatically (saunders & arch(:~(~, 1999). (7) jnlplications for a.cadetnic staff r(~actions of acadenl.ic staff to di'itanc(~ learning initia lives reporb~d in the literature have been enthusiastic as well as cautious. educators have admitted that inruly distance learning options will nol suit academic staff and that significant staff development and additional technical and administrative resources and systems m.ay be necessary before some options are feasible. the roles of academic staff as fadlitators of learning in more collaborative modes may be new and uncomfortable to staff (aitkenj 1995). leonard (1996b) reported responding to more than 40 e-mail messages daily as well as increased telephone calls to distance students. asynchronous methods of learning mean that students may contact academic staff over 24 hours day and night including weekends. expectations of immediate feedback may need to be negotiated between learners and academic staff. at uts in the faculty of education distance learning study guides deal explidtly with communication expectations from the staff and students' points of view. educators have assessed the time and effort required for developing course nlaterials for flexible distance learning as excessive and resourced. these efforts add to an academic workload and not necessarily to appropriate rewards and recognition, including protection of int(.lllectual property, hence the caution expressed by some educators. the current widespread bureaucratic optimis:m for flexible leanling/ delivery and distance education tends to discount any notions of staff/student training (thompson et al., 1998), data inanagement infrastructures, or recurrent technological costs. distance education may be m neh less cost effective if tht:s(~ (~xtra costs are factored into the equation. acadclnic staff will be asked to contribute fllore, not less, time in order to implelnent flexible distance delivery. our role as communication educators has been to provide distance education that i~ not inappropriate or alienating and that :includes sound journal of disl"ance lf:'arnmg, vol 6, no i, 2001 <£.\ distance education association of new zealand 13 pedagogy including options for face to face interaction and fitting use of converging modalities. concluding remarks what is ~he sc?pe and feasibility of using hexlble distance learning and delivery to educate professional commmucators in the areas of applied com,municalion and communication management? while distance education offers advantages of access to courses and self managem,ent of learning a purely correspondence mode, is likely to limit the learning expene~ce of students studying professlonal communication. the potential of electronic media to offer a variety of types of interaction with other people is valuable for com,munication students, both technologically and il1terp~rsonally. print-based learning m,atenals sent to distance sludents or posted on the internet need to be carefully designed to take accotult of different learning styles, to provide clear statements of learning objectives and outcome~s, to integrate and focus readfug and aclion learning tasks, to suggqst a variety of learning activities" to give constructive feedback, to facilitate self assessment and to enhance acces~ibility and functionality through effective typ 0 graprucal layout. at present vve have found that it is umealistic to expect that students will be able to nlaster communication teclulology used in applied communication areas such as journalism by following web sites as self directed learners. similarly, the development of communication managem,ent strategies for listening, participating in teams, managing llleetings, negotiating with colleagues and clients and working in colnplex organisations requires reflection on engaging in human interaction in real tinle and place. willie knowledge of com,munication theory can be learnt from published works" intenlalisation of applied conlmunication skills and mindiul communication" responses benefit from testing ideas and skills in consultation with other people and participating in experiential methods of learning (see mohan, mcgregor, saunders, & armee, 1997; saunders, 1997a, 1997b, 1998), ultimately flexible distance learning for professional communication might consist of combinations of patterns of delivery of content and opportunities for practice that respect the personal learning goal') of adults and accommodate diverse cultures, lifestyles and responsibilities. our experiences as com,munication educators e~lldorse the potential of converging m,odalilies inclu.ding electronic fonns of comlllunication to continue to provide significant assistcmce to future initiatives in di'itance learning in professional communication. the patterns of distance learning illld flexible delivery chosen for conunumcatioll education will ail require dedicaled teclmkal and ad.nlinistrative support for pveryonp involved in the h~arnjng process. references aitken, j. e. 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(1998). introduction to computer-mediate)d conununication: a mastor syllabus for teaching communication technology. communication education, 47(2), 162-173. ray archee is coordinator of the professional communication [<esearch croup and school of communication and media, university of western sydney, nepean. he has worked with undergraduate and postg"raduate students in communication studia, specialising in electronic forms of education for over fifteen years. telephone: +61 2 9678 7141. fax: +61 2 96787399. email: r.a1.cltee@uws.edu.au. shirley saunders is senior lecturer, faculty of education university of technology! sydneyi and is coordinator of a major sequence of study in communication development studies in the bachelor of education in adult education and the masf'er of education by coursework. she has worked for over twenty years in vocational education and training in the tertiary sector. telephone: +61 2 9514 3321. fax: +61 2 951.4 3939. email: shirley.saunders@uts.edu.au. journal of distance learning, vol 6, no 1/2001 @ distanc(~ education association of new z{>aial1d 17 microsoft word alamahdi-drew.docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1) 7 accessibility evaluation of top-ranking university websites in world, oceania, and arab categories for home, admission, and course description webpages tahani alahmadi, school of ict, griffith university; school of cis, princess nora university steve drew, tilt, university of tasmania school of ict; griffith university abstract evaluating accessibility is an important equity step in assessing the effectiveness and usefulness of online learning materials for students with disabilities such as visual or hearing impairments. previous studies in this area have indicated that, over time, university websites have become gradually more inaccessible. this paper relates findings of a quantitative, comparative study of university website accessibility for students with disabilities. sampling comprised a random selection of 20 universities from each of the academic ranking of world universities top 100, oceania region top 50, and arab region top 50 ranked universities. achecker evaluations of three types of website from each university—the home page, the admission page, and a course description page, revealed a total of 30,944 accessibility related home-page errors among the 180 evaluated webpages. comparison with earlier studies reveals no significant improvement in the accessibility of university websites between 2005 and 2015. there were also no differences in accessibility levels amongst the selected top-ranking universities in the world. therefore, there is a growing need for universities to improve accessibility of online learning materials for students with disabilities. keywords: accessibility; lms, students with disabilities; evaluation tool; achecker; university website introduction as the use of e-learning systems increases, so distance learning and learning management systems (lms) are used more and more to distribute information. at the same time, the number of university students with disabilities has increased dramatically. although developers have facilitated accessibility and provided new tools and features for web applications, these systems still have limitations, and gaining access to online content and web-based resources is increasingly complicated for students with disabilities. the socially preferred view of university website accessibility is one of equity—an environment in which all students, including those with disabilities, have full access to the websites. educational websites facilitate academic success for users with disabilities if the websites are designed for accessibility. online courses provide enhanced solutions for students who experience barriers to attending traditional courses because of sensory or physical disability (paciello, 2000). as a group, visually impaired individuals are most affected by inaccessible educational systems (paciello, 2000). a study by fichten, jorgensen, havel, and barile (2006) evaluated university website accessibility for students with disabilities, and indicated that almost half of the population of students with disabilities have more than one disability. this finding is alahmadi, t., drew, s. 8 consistent with other literature, which shows that a significant number of students suffer from double impairments (fichten et al., 2006). most students with disabilities in this study indicated that they need adaptive assistive technologies to effectively interact with a university website. examples of such adaptive innovations are writing software such as wynn and texthelp, and screen-reader software such as readplease and jaws. many students who use adaptive technologies confirm using more than one type of technology; these individuals are usually concerned about compatibility requirements for these technologies (fichten et al., 2009). fichten et al. (2009) explored website issues for canadian universities as reported by 223 students with disabilities, 58 campus disability service providers, 28 professors, and 33 educational developers. online questionnaires were administered to the participants. the results showed that the principal accessibility problems exhibited by university websites that used lmss were a lack of accessible digital audio and video materials, inflexible time limits for online exams, lack of accessible powerpoint slides, extensive use of inaccessible pdf-based course materials, and lack of essential adaptive technologies. the students highlighted technical difficulties such as problems downloading and opening files, webpages that do not load, and slow downloading of videos. the disability service providers identified the professors’ lack of practice in using educational websites, and the lack of accessible course materials. the educational developers also discussed the inaccessibility of digital course materials. the professors commented on their own lack of knowledge about working with an lms, and also identified the problems raised by the other groups. student achievement and lms interaction are strongly related. educational data mining of the time spent on online resources and digital contents shows the effect of log-on time on student achievement. (jo, yu, lee, & kim, 2015). analytical studies of lms databases have proven that students who interact regularly with lms components achieve higher grades than those who do not (baker & inventado, 2014; peña-ayala, 2014). moreover, ringlaben, bray, and packard (2014) used accessibility evaluation tools achecker and bobby to evaluate 51 special education department websites in the united states. they found that most (97%) of the pages examined had accessibility problems, many of which (39%) should be regarded as high priority issues needing urgent resolution. hackett and parmanto (2005) highlighted the need to increase accessibility rates in higher education websites in tandem with the increasing complexity of web content. zap and montgomerie (2013) found that only 0.7% of 383 canadian post-secondary websites achieved ratings of ‘free of priority 1 errors’ and ‘free of priority 2 errors’ based on the bobby evaluation tool. harper and dewaters’ (2008) evaluation results showed that one-third (33%) of all the university websites examined did not comply with any of the bobby evaluation tool’s priorities, and no home pages met the world wide web consortium (w3c) guidelines. the use of web-automated evaluation tools is popular because they facilitate the elimination of accessibility barriers (vigo, brown, & conway, 2013). most automated evaluation tools, such as achecker, classify accessibility errors into “known”, “likely”, and “potential” errors. for example, providing descriptive text for non-text elements can be classified as a known error when it does not have the ‘alt’ attribute in the html code for embedded media in webpages. this situation can also be classified as a likely error if the ‘alt’ attribute exists but does not contain adequate descriptive text. potential errors are detected when the accuracy of descriptive text is low (achecker adaptive technology resource centre, 2015). this study evaluates the current state of the accessibility of university websites from the topranking universities in the world, oceania, and arab regions.1 the results of other studies from 1 this group includes harvard university, cambridge university, and the university of tokyo; the remaining members of this category are a random selection of university sites from those ranked 1–100 in the world. universities in oceania and arab regions are a random selection of universities ranked in the top 50 for those respective regions. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1) 9 different periods are compared to show statistically whether enough attention has been paid to accessibility issues by these university systems. a review of the literature from 2005 to 2014 shows the need to improve university website accessibility. findings from those studies are compared with the findings from the present study to determine if this is still the case. the remainder of this paper is presented in four sections. in the first section, the problem of accessibility in australian higher education is discussed (australia is part of the oceania region). the second section describes the study design. the third section reports findings from the study and the fourth section presents a discussion and set of general conclusions that can be drawn from the study with suggestions for future research. participation of students with disabilities in australian higher education the 2012 survey of disability, ageing and carers (australian bureau of statistics, 2012) showed that 1.5 million people with disabilities in australia need formal assistance from an organised service provider for at least one activity of daily living. for a proportion of these people, this includes assistance with communication. the number of australian students with disabilities has been increasing in recent years. in 2014, the percentage of these students in australian universities was around 10% (australian government, department of education and training, 2015). students with disabilities in australia continue to be disadvantaged in terms of access to, and participation in, higher education. in 2012, 41% of the population in the 15-to-65year age group completed a bachelor degree or better in australia. this was made up of 15% who had disabilities and 26% of non-disabled (see fig. 1) (australian disability clearing house on education and training, 2016). increasing access to university websites through policy formulation, practice, system design, and implementation that are specific to users with disabilities aims to advancing their achievement in higher education institutions. fig. 1 individuals aged 15 to 65 with higher education qualifications in an investigation of the population of students with disabilities at one australian university, we found a significant growth in the number of students with disabilities between 2011 and 2014. for example, fig. 2 shows the number of students with visual or hearing impairments at one university from 2011 to 2014. the graph reveals a slight increase in the number of students who have hearing or visual impairments in 2014, and a decrease in the number of individuals with both visual and hearing impairments in the same period. alahmadi, t., drew, s. 10 fig. 2 number of students suffering from visual, hearing, and visual–hearing impairments (2011–2014) also, in 2014, 31.63% of students with disabilities left university without completing their degree programmes. only 18.42% of such students completed their degree programmes, and approximately half of all students with disabilities graduated with a grade point average (gpa) of less than 5 out of 7. table 1 presents some of the achievement details of students with visual or hearing impairments. the table shows a considerable rise in the percentage of visually impaired students who successfully completed their degree programmes from 2011 to 2014. for example, 28% of students completed their degrees in 2012 whereas, in 2014, about 21% of such students acquired their degrees. from 2011 to 2013, the percentage of retreating students (i.e., those who withdrew from the university) rose considerably from 21% to 31%, but decreased to approximately 19% in 2014. in addition, the percentage of hearing impaired students who successfully completed their degree gradually increased from 2011 to 2013, and then slowly declined to 2014. the percentage of retreating hearing impaired students gradually rose from 23% in 2011 to 30% in 2014. overall, these percentages show that, in 2014, the proportions of achieving and retreating students were almost equal whereas, in 2013, the number of achieving students was higher than that of retreating students. attention should be paid to more effectively supporting students with disabilities, including accessibility of educational websites. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1) 11 table 1 performance of students with visual or hearing impairments (2011–2014) visually impaired students 2011 2012 2013 2014 percentage of visually impaired students who successfully completed their degree programmes 14.49% 27.66% 18.56% 20.75% percentage of retreating visually impaired students 21.43% 25.00% 31.43% 18.57% hearing impaired students 2011 2012 2013 2014 percentage of hearing impaired students who successfully completed their degree programmes 18.85% 22.14% 30.23% 29.50% percentage of retreating hearing impaired students 22.62% 23.60% 24.71% 29.63% assistive technologies such as braille output systems, modified keyboards, screen enlargement utilities, voice output utilities, and other technologies allow students with disabilities to have better access to information on educational web-based systems. on the other hand, the content and resources of many systems has become more complex, especially with the emergence of web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, multimedia, and wikis; therefore, much information cannot be accessed with assistive technologies, software, and hardware alone. there is growing evidence to suggest that universities have failed to keep up in addressing accessibility errors, whether they relate to assistive technology issues, multimedia content, or document files. this study highlights the number of accessibility errors commonly found in 60 university websites across three regions. addressing them will benefit students with disabilities, and professors, by providing a general overview of the current accessibility errors. finally, findings from the present study provide insights into the design of development guidelines, standards, and codes, and raise awareness of lms or university sites’ accessibility for students with disabilities. in the next section we explain the study design and approach, and we include details of the site selection process and the evaluation method used to support the study’s aim of rating the accessibility of systems used by the top universities. study design/approach the selection process for participating universities was based on the academic ranking of world universities (arwu), which is conducted by researchers at the center for world-class universities at shanghai jiao tong university (shanghairanking consultancy, 2015). we chose top-ranking universities to demonstrate how accessibility is addressed inadequately even in universities that have good resources and budgets. the evaluations are based on the top university rankings in the world, oceania, and the arab regions in 2015; the sample comprised 20 university websites from each of the three categories. the top universities in the world category were selected to demonstrate the struggle with accessibility issues despite their location in developed countries. this group includes harvard university, cambridge university, and the university of tokyo; the remaining representatives in this category are derived from a random selection of university sites from those ranked 1–100 in the world. universities in oceania, selected randomly from the top 50 ranked universities, include the australian national university, monash university, and the university of otago. in the arab category, accessibility issues were considered in developing countries such as the kingdom of saudi arabia, egypt, and the united arab emirates, and the participant universities (including king saud university, cairo university, and united arab emirates university) were randomly chosen from the region’s top 50 schools. the selection included examples from alahmadi, t., drew, s. 12 developed and developing countries to show how accessibility issues affect all countries, regardless of whether they have accessibility regulations (cooper, sloan, kelly, & lewthwaite, 2012) or they need to work on establishing regulations that compel compliance with accessibility principles (abanumy, al-badi, & mayhew, 2005). the data collection method was based on collecting html source code from the selected webpages, all of which are publicly available online. the focus of this study was to evaluate the accessibility of the pages that are considered to have the greatest effect on students: each university’s home page, one course description page, and one admission page (jo, yu, lee, & kim, 2015). (because the home page is the first page that a student is likely to encounter on a university’s website, it creates the first impression, and the university is likely to lavish much more care and attention to detail on its construction. the rest of the website is structured as a ‘tree’ of linked web pages that may be one or more navigation steps deeper into the website. it is likely, therefore, that less attention will be paid to accessibility and other quality features on those pages.) from these three webpage types, 180 webpages were chosen randomly for evaluation from the 20 university websites. in addition, an evaluation revealed the change in the number of accessibility errors encountered when navigating from the home webpage to a course outline webpage. finally, the evaluations included a comparison of accessibility errors found on sites originating from evaluated websites. the analysis method used here is based on two analytical tools: achecker and spss. achecker achecker (achecker adaptive technology resource centre, 2015) is a software tool that can be used to analyse individual webpages for accessibility. it produces a report of all accessibility errors for selected guidelines and identifies three types of errors: known, likely, and potential errors. “known errors” have been identified with certainty as accessibility barriers. “likely errors” have been identified as probable barriers but require a human to make a final decision. “potential errors” are those for which achecker cannot identify an effect, so a human decision is required. an example of the achecker evaluation process is presented in fig. 3. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1) 13 fig. 3 an example of the achecker evaluation process alahmadi, t., drew, s. 14 we configured achecker to identify and count the errors that violate the level aa standards of the web content accessibility guidelines 2.0 (wcag 2.0) in each webpage. wcag 2.0 is the set of guidelines most commonly used by most educational organisations and lmss, including blackboard, moodle, and skillsoft. it is a balanced, referenceable, and technical framework with 12 standards that are categorised into four concepts, namely: perceivability, operability, understandability, and robustness. each standard has three levels of testable success criteria. the lowest is level a, in which one of the criteria is the provision of alternative text that provides equivalent objectives to all non-text elements that are displayed to end users. the second (modest) level is level aa, wherein one of the requirements is the presentation of captions for audio and video elements in synchronised content. the third (highest) level is level aaa, which includes a criterion for the provision of sign language interpretations for all recorded audio and video elements in synchronised content. level aaa standards also require the satisfaction of all success criteria for a webpage to pass the accessibility requirements of disabled individuals (world wide web consortium, 2008). wcag 2.0 has been updated to include guidelines for evaluating web 2.0 components such as wikis and multimedia content. spss a second analytical tool employed by the present study is spss, which is used to analyse and report the numerical data gathered from achecker reports for each selected university system. the spss reports are organised by webpage type and region. key questions the study used comparative quantitative analysis to answer the following questions: • what is the current accessibility rate for university websites? • how does accessibility rate differ with webpage type? • how do accessibility rates differ between university webpages in the different regions? • what are the most common errors in webpages that affect accessibility? • how do the findings of this study compare with other studies conducted during different periods? the evaluation and resulting analyses that answer these questions will be discussed in the findings. findings the achecker output showed a significant number of accessibility errors in the three webpages evaluated for each selected university website among the 60 top world, oceania, and arab universities. figure 4 presents an overview of the accessibility issue throughout the world, showing the mean total number of errors in each country of the chosen regions in this study. for example, the mean of known, likely, and potential errors in the home, admission, and course description pages for all chosen universities sites from australia is around 1000. the mean number of total errors reflects the global issue of accessibility concerns, showing it is a problem in all participant universities. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1) 15 fig. 4 mean total number of accessibility errors in university websites from the world, arab, and oceania regions this section is organised into four subsections: 1. accessibility rate by webpage type 2. accessibility rates of university webpages in the three categories. 3. comparison of studies conducted from 2005 to 2015. 4. common errors that affect accessibility. accessibility rate by webpage type table 2 shows the total number of known, likely, and potential errors in the home, admissions, and course description pages for all of the selected university sites. of the 82,685 errors on the 180 pages, there were 30,944 home page errors (37.42% of the total), 24,433 admission page errors (29.55% of the total) and 27,308 course description page errors (33.03% of the total). the achecker evaluation tool searched for issues that did not meet wcag 2.0 standards, at level aa. the expected number of errors increased by 30% when achecker was set to level aaa. in sum, the accessibility issue is considered a worldwide phenomenon. alahmadi, t., drew, s. 16 table 2 descriptive statistics summary for total home, admission, and course description webpage errors for all selected universities home page errors admission page errors course description page errors n valid missing 60 0 60 0 60 0 mean 515.73 407.22 455.13 minimum 23 51 45 maximum 1149 1623 3293 sum 30944 24433 27308 a t-test was conducted to compare accessibility errors for webpage type in home and course description pages (p = .415), home and admission pages (p = .732), and admission and course description pages (p = .331). the levene’s test for equality of variances is non-significant in all webpage types. these results indicate that there is no relationship between the webpage type and the number of errors. accessibility rates of university webpages in the three categories the total number of all error types—known, likely, and potential—for each region is aggregated and shown in fig. 5. a comparison of the total number of all error types shows that the number of accessibility errors is high regardless of their origin in the developed world (e.g., the united states, the united kingdom, australia, and japan) or in developing countries (e.g., egypt, saudi arabia, and lebanon). these numbers demonstrate uniformly that minimal attention is paid by universities to accessibility of their online content in the three regions. fig. 5 total number of home, admission, and course description page errors in university webpages from each region (2015) a t-test was conducted to compare accessibility errors for webpages in the world and arab regions (p = .529), world and oceania regions (p = .332), and the arab and oceania regions (p = .054). the levene’s test for equality of variances is non-significant in all regions. these results indicate that accessibility issues affect university websites in all regions, and there is no significant difference between them. accordingly, there are no differences in accessibility rates among top-ranking universities. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1) 17 an example of accessibility rates in the world region tables 3, 4, and 5 illustrate findings from among the world’s top universities. table 3 shows the descriptive statistics relating to the known, likely, and potential errors on the home pages. the maximum number of known errors is 414, the number of likely errors is 15, and the number of potential errors is 629. this number of errors on the home pages suggests a lack of any plan to design enhanced accessibility for students with disabilities that could affect their achievement. if users find a high number of errors on a home page, it is likely that they will see an increase in the number of errors as they navigate to other pages in the university’s website. table 3 known, likely, and potential errors on the home pages of the world’s top universities (2015) known errors likely errors potential errors n valid 20 20 20 missing 0 0 0 mean 30.25 1.80 386.75 minimum 0 0 210 maximum 414 15 629 sum 605 36 7735 table 4 shows the descriptive statistics for the known, likely, and potential errors on the admission pages of the universities in the world category. the maximum number of known errors on the 20 pages is 943, the number of likely errors is 10, and the number of potential errors is 1025. table 4 known, likely, and potential errors on the admission pages of the world’s top universities (2015) known errors likely errors potential errors n valid 20 20 20 missing 0 0 0 mean 58.45 2.10 351.65 minimum 0 0 111 maximum 943 10 1025 sum 1169 42 7033 alahmadi, t., drew, s. 18 table 5 shows the descriptive statistics relating to the known, likely, and potential errors on course description pages of the world’s top universities. the maximum number of known errors among 20 pages is 841, the number of likely errors is 6, and the number of potential errors is 3073. table 5 known, likely, and potential errors on course description pages of the world’s top universities (2015) known errors likely errors potential errors n valid 20 20 20 missing 0 0 0 mean 63.40 1.35 514.20 minimum 0 0 60 maximum 841 6 3073 sum 1268 27 10284 comparison of studies conducted from 2005 to 2015 the comparison of the total number of known errors on the three types of pages shows there are significantly more on the admission and course description pages than on the home pages. (i.e., there were 1268 known errors on the course description pages compared with 605 known errors on the home pages). the number of potential errors is higher than known errors for all evaluated pages, while the likely errors occur least frequently. most potential errors relate to the accessibility of multimedia content, such as lacking synchronised captions for video or audio, lacking (or inaccurate) descriptive text for images or video, and a lack of cues for reading and navigation order. correcting these errors requires human action, and relies on a well-designed accessibility development plan to check pages, find solutions, and resolve the errors. common errors that affect accessibility table 6 presents examples of the top 10 errors under each error type as detected in 82% of the evaluated pages. the table includes the wcag 2.0 success criteria and the level that was unmet, thus leading to each error. in all, the accessibility issue is present in all universities in the three categories. there is no relationship between the page type and number of errors. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1) 19 table 6 examples of known, likely, and potential errors known errors wcag (success criteria, level) likely errors wcag (success criteria, level) potential errors wcag (success criteria, level) image element missing alt attribute success criteria 1.1.1 non-text content (a) p element may be misused (could be a header) success criteria 1.3.1 info and relationships (a) alt text is not empty and image may be decorative success criteria 1.1.1 non-text content (a) input element, type of "text", missing an associated label success criteria 1.3.1 info and relationships (a) suspicious link text success criteria 2.4.4 link purpose (in context) (a) tabular information may be missing table mark-up success criteria 1.3.1 info and relationships (a) input element, type of "text", has no text in label success criteria 1.3.1 info and relationships (a) image alt text may be too long success criteria 1.1.1 non-text content (a) visual lists may not be properly marked success criteria 1.3.1 info and relationships (a) label text is empty success criteria 3.3.2 labels or instructions (a) area opens new window may be missing warning success criteria 3.2.2 on input (a) unicode right-toleft marks or leftto-right marks may be required success criteria 1.3.1 info and relationships (a) header nesting: header following h1 is incorrect success criteria 2.4.6 headings and labels (aa) suspicious link text (contains placeholder text) success criteria 2.4.4 link purpose (in context) (a) dir attribute may be required to identify changes in text direction success criteria 1.3.1 info and relationships (a) b (bold) element used. success criteria 1.4.4 resize text (aa) select element may cause extreme change in context success criteria 3.2.2 on input (a) input element label, type of "text", is not positioned close to control success criteria 1.3.1 info and relationships (a) document language not identified success criteria 3.1.1 language of page (a) title text may be too long success criteria 2.4.2 page titled (a) text may refer to items by shape, size, or relative position alone success criteria 1.3.3 sensory characteristics (a) document has invalid language code success criteria 3.1.1 language of page (a) ascii art possibly missing a skipover link success criteria 2.4.1 bypass blocks (a) image may contain text with poor contrast success criteria 1.4.1 use of color (a) id attribute is not unique success criteria 4.1.1 parsing (a) select element may cause extreme change in context success criteria 3.2.2 on input (a) input possibly using colour alone success criteria 1.4.1 use of colour (a) missing text equivalent to embed element success criteria 1.1.1 non-text content (a) list item used to format text success criteria 3.2.4 consistent identification (aa) script user interface may not be accessible success criteria 2.1.1 keyboard (a) the achecker reports generated from the 180 pages were manually evaluated to identify the accessibility errors common to 60 university websites. these common errors are listed below (ranked from higher to lower frequency): 1. missing alternative text 2. linked image missing alternative text 3. alternative text is null or empty 4. webpage language is missing alahmadi, t., drew, s. 20 5. empty link 6. missing first-, second-, and third-level headings 7. unordered lists 8. missing synchronised captions for video 9. missing audio or video descriptions 10. lack of cues for reading and navigation sequence 11. not all webpage functionality is available using the keyboard 12. no time control if a webpage or application has a time limit 13. lack of descriptive or informative webpage title 14. inaccessible document files (e.g., pdfs, word, and excel files). from the above analyses and descriptive statistics, it is clear that accessibility issues affect university websites in all regions, and that there is no significant difference among them. also, there are no differences in accessibility rates among top-ranking universities (see table 2 and fig. 5). there is no relationship between the number of accessibility errors and webpage types. the university website errors that most commonly affect accessibility relate to the accessibility of media content or files (e.g., missing alternative text); assistive software issues (e.g., missing first-, second-, and third-level headings); document file issues (e.g., inaccessible uploaded document files); and the lack of navigation information (e.g., lack of cues for reading and navigation). comparison of this study with those conducted 2005–2015 the comparison of this study’s 2015 evaluation with the evaluations presented in the literature published between 2005 and 2015 showed that accessibility issues continue to require attention from universities, educational organisations, developers, and professors. only a slight improvement has been achieved, and the complexity of the issue and its consequences remain high. table 7 summarises the findings of this research in comparison with those of other studies conducted at different times. comparisons with these earlier studies indicate that although university websites have become gradually more inaccessible with the growing complexity of their content, universities continue to neglect this issue. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1) 21 table 7 findings from this study compared with other studies conducted 2005–2015 study by year case country/region tool findings hackett & parmanto 2005 educational and government websites usa bobby (85%) of educational websites considered to be inaccessible harper & dewaters 2008 educational websites not specified bobby (33%) of all websites were not compliant with any of the bobby priorities zap & montgomerie 2013 post-secondary websites canada bobby (0.7%) of 383 websites received ‘free of priority 1 errors’ and ‘free of priority 2 errors’ ringlaben, bray, & packard 2014 special education department websites usa achecker and bobby (97%) of the pages examined had accessibility errors alahmadi & drew (proposed study) 2015 university website top ranking universities in world, oceania, and arab regions achecker (37.42%) of the accessibility errors are accrued in home pages the discussion and conclusion summarises this study’s findings and an analysis of the data gathered from the number of accessibility errors. the conclusion also offers suggestions for future work. discussion and conclusion today, educational websites and lmss are essential for institutions of higher education, and their accessibility to students with disabilities is paramount to their learning. as the empirical findings revealed, serious errors are made in terms of the accessibility of media content or files such as images, audio files, and video content. substantial accessibility related difficulties are also encountered in document files such as pdfs, word files, and excel data, all of which are used extensively in university webpages. moreover, there are errors relating to the availability and accuracy of descriptive texts for the non-text components of websites and how such information is structured. identifying the most frequent errors provides a foundation for classifying them into core categories and carrying out further evaluation. these errors demonstrate the importance of considering disability characteristics when designing and implementing accessibility principles in university websites, and the results of this study highlight the urgent need to develop a set of guidelines based on the features and learning materials on university websites. such guidelines might increase accessibility awareness among professors and developers. this study found no significant difference in accessibility in relation to the number of accessibility errors and the type of webpages. for example, analysis of each of the websites maintained by the 20 selected universities in the world category demonstrated a lack of accessibility in homepages (37.42% of total errors), admission pages (29.55% of total errors), alahmadi, t., drew, s. 22 and course description pages (33.03% of total errors). this finding indicates that webpage type does not affect the accessibility rate, and that incorporating type as a parameter in accessibility evaluation methods (such as metrics for educational websites) might not go far enough to ensure accessibility. nor was any significant difference found in the accessibility ratings of university systems among top-ranking universities in the world category. the number of errors in the websites of universities in each region highlights a lack of local and international regulatory effects on the issue of web accessibility. regulation of university websites to ensure compliance with accessibility principles may be a necessary step towards improving accessibility. there has been no notable improvement in the accessibility of university websites between 2005 and 2015 (table 7). this finding indicates that the accessibility of university websites and lmss is a complex issue, to which several research endeavours and approaches have been devoted to increase accessibility and usability. the comparison of our results and those of previous research show that a multi-method approach is needed to overcome the shortcomings of the solutions that are currently available. in recent years, system interaction has had a considerable effect on students with disabilities— although they regularly interact with university websites and lmss, accessing online information and completing online tasks are often challenging (jo, yu, lee, & kim, 2015). supporting the accessibility of online learning materials for students with disabilities is expected to reduce attrition rates. if this population sees that an organisation supports their learning, enrolment and retention could increase. to achieve these goals, universities should strive for higher levels of accessibility and usability in their websites; in return, students will experience substantial changes in their university lives quantitatively understanding the current state of accessibility of university websites may lead to the development of a framework that can be used to assess the effectiveness and usefulness of online learning materials for students with disabilities (alahmadi & drew, 2016). another worthwhile endeavour is to implement a model that supports the creation of adaptive accessible content with minimal effort from professors and general content authors. in the future, a meaningful initiative for researchers and developers will be to focus on solutions for specific accessibility issues based on students’ experience when they interact with lmss and online pages, rather than on assessments of pass or fail accessibility guidelines or evaluations. other beneficial strategies are to avoid one-size-fits-all user interfaces and to employ adaptability and adaptive content that is tailored to the abilities and characteristics of students with disabilities. references abanumy, a., al-badi, a., & mayhew, p. 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(2013). the status of web accessibility of canadian universities and colleges: a follow-up study 10 years later. in j. herrington, a. couros, & v. irvine (eds.), world conference on educational multimedia, hypermedia and telecommunications alahmadi, t., drew, s. 24 (pp. 2498–2507). victoria: association for the advancement of computing in education (aace). biographical notes tahani alahmadi tahani.alahmadi@griffithuni.edu.au tjalahmadi@pnu.edu.sa tahani alahmadi is a lecturer in the school of computer and information science at princess nora university. she is also a phd candidate in the school of information and communication technology at griffith university. her research interests include accessibility evaluation, ucd, source-code mining, web mining, and metric design. steve drew steve.drew@utas.edu.au dr steve drew is a senior lecturer in the tasmanian institute for learning and teaching. he has experience in a range of research approaches with qualitative and quantitative methodologies and has interests in information systems and higher education. he is also adjunct research fellow at griffith university, where he has been senior lecturer in the school of computing and information technology, academic fellow with griffith institute for higher education, and director of learning and teaching for griffith sciences (science, environment, engineering and technology). this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. alahmadi, t., & drew, s. (2017). accessibility evaluation of top-ranking university websites in world, oceania, and arab categories for home, admission, and course description webpages. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1), [7–24.]. microsoft word tulldabnerayebi-arthur.docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1) 63 social media and e-learning in response to seismic events: resilient practices susan, tull, university of canterbury nicki dabner, university of canterbury kofi –ayebi-arthur, university of canterbury abstract the motivation to adopt innovative communication and e-learning practices in education settings can be stimulated by events such as natural disasters. education institutions in the pacific rim cannot avoid the likelihood of natural disasters that could close one or more buildings on a campus and affect their ability to continue current educational practices. for the university of canterbury in new zealand, the impetus to innovate was a series of seismic events in 2010 and 2011. this paper presents findings from studies that identified resilient practices in this organisation, which was a ‘late adopter’ of e-learning. the findings indicate that the combined use of social media and e-learning to support teaching, learning, communication, and related organisational practices fosters resilience for students, staff, and organisations in times of crises. the recommendations presented are relevant for all educational organisations that could be affected by similar events. keywords: social media; e-learning; disaster response; resilience introduction when disasters and crises (whether they be man-made or natural) occur, resilient education institutions adapt in order to continue teaching and research. resilience has been defined as “an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change” (“resilience”, n.d., para. 2). chang-richards, vargo, and seville (2013) define organisational resilience as “the ability of an organisation to survive a crisis and thrive in a world of uncertainty” (p. 117). organisational resilience also refers to how organisations improve their ability to respond to, and quickly recover from, crisis events such as natural disasters. such events can quickly interrupt the activity of an academic institution. normal programmes and formal operations can break down in unexpected ways as a crisis unfolds and, if essential infrastructure is affected, may result in an institution having to close.. at such times, an organisation can be stimulated to innovate, making rapid changes to its structures and practices and adopting more information, communication, and teaching technologies. even a university characterised as a “late adopter” (rogers, 2003) of elearning by marshall (2009) can become innovative in these circumstances. in 2008, the university of canterbury (hereafter ‘the university’) situated in christchurch, new zealand, had little need to progress their university-wide adoption of e-learning practices. however, a series of seismic events in 2010 and 2011 stimulated the rapid adoption of e-learning across all the university’s colleges. the first major earthquake occurred at the end of the midsemester two break, at 4 a.m. on 4 september 2010. it caused the university to close for 2 weeks. the second major seismic event occurred at 1 p.m. on 22 february, on the second day of tull, s. p. c., dabner n., ayebi-arthur, k. 64 semester one. the majority of the university’s staff and students were on campus at that time, but thankfully there was no loss of life. this earthquake had a major impact on the university and the city, and the university was subsequently closed for 3 weeks. the third major earthquake, at 2 p.m. on 13 june 2011, was less destructive. it occurred during the examination period at the end of semester one and resulted in the university being closed for another 2 days. this third event had minimal effect on teaching because the semester had concluded; however, it did affect university assessment practices and resulted in some academics adopting online assessment methods. hundreds of aftershocks were experienced in the region between and after these three major seismic events. the provision of ongoing, timely, and comprehensive communication to students, staff, and the wider community was vital throughout this time. the university’s moodle learning management system (lms) became increasingly important in enabling learning and teaching to continue; particularly after the second earthquake when teaching spaces on the university campus were severely limited. this paper highlights the university’s adoption of social media and e-learning technologies to support communication, teaching, and learning in response to the three seismic events. the findings were informed by a series of related studies conducted between 2010 and 2016 by the authors, two of whom were staff members at the university. literature communication and social media digital technologies and virtual environments can provide alternatives for communication and continuity of practice when constraints in the physical environment are experienced after a crisis (mark & semaan, 2008). the use of digital technologies has been identified as an important factor in enabling people to adapt practices when their ability to implement existing practices is disrupted (mackey, gilmore, dabner, breeze, & buckley, 2012). in the event of a disaster an organisation needs to communicate with its members and the wider community concerning the process of resolving the disaster or crisis. communication can contribute to the empowerment of citizens in crisis situations by supporting preparedness, enhancing societal understanding of risks, and increasing cooperation (vos, lund, & reich, 2011). spicer (2008) established that, in an emergency, the ability to communicate, both internally and externally, becomes a key service for an organisation. the critical nature of communication was determined by seaton, seaton, yarwood, and ryan (2012), who are academics at another higher education institution that was affected by these earthquakes. they confirmed that the degree of disruption and uncertainty immediately after the second major earthquake significantly affected the ability of individuals, and their organisation as an entity, to communicate both within and outside the organisation. dicarlo et al. (2007) reported that, in the aftermath of hurricane katrina in 2005, communication with dispersed faculty, staff, students, and residents at louisiana state university school of medicine was essential. the it staff in that university were mobilised and immediately established an emergency website with daily messages from the chancellor and vice chancellors. social media and websites are increasingly becoming important channels for institutional communication to students and other stakeholders (schweber, 2008; seville, hawker, & lyttle, 2012). bird, ling, and haynes (2012), reported that social media were valuable to disseminate emergency information during the queensland and victorian floods in australia, because they were effective and fast, and were used in everyday life in that region at that time. sutton, palen, and shklovski (2008) concluded that social media supported backchannel communication, allowing for wide-scale interaction amongst members of the public, and had qualities of being collectively resourceful, self-policing, and generative of information that cannot otherwise be easily obtained. the use of social media during and after the virginia tech shooting in 2007 was journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1) 65 investigated by palen (2008), who reported that “ict enables people—disaster survivors, curious observers, and those who wished to help victims—to connect to one another and to participate in events, including through seeking and providing information peer-to-peer” (p. 76). sutton et al. (2008) claimed that peer-to-peer communication through social media such as social networking sites, text and instant messaging applications, blogs, wikis, and other web forums, were growing as a way to support additional (often critical and accurate) dissemination of information in the public sphere. according to qu, huang, zhang, and zhang (2011), a popular micro-blogging system was used effectively to coordinate actions and provide situation updates immediately after the 2010 yushu earthquake in china. e-learning adoption e-learning is a global phenomenon fuelled by a variety of economic, technological, and social forces as well as student demand (butterfield et al., 2002). at the institutional level, the need for organisations to engage the support and agreement of stakeholders through consultation has been highlighted (guiney, 2013); and critical success factors have been identified in the area of leadership, and in issues of design, technology, and delivery (mcpherson & baptista nunes, 2006). strong and supportive leadership is required to successfully manage the cultural and organisational change involved in the adoption of e-learning. “the way forward seems to be for ‘the university’ to manage the change process by proposing and agreeing goals through consensual debate, supporting strategies appropriately and then realising these through common commitment” (mcpherson & baptista nunes, 2006, p. 554). three levels of factors which influence the adoption of ict in teaching: personal, school, and technology, were identified by buabeng-andoh (2012). at the technological level factors included improved practice; ease of use and consistency with values, experiences, and needs; and opportunities to experiment before adoption. professional development, funding, and support were important at the school level, but the key influential factor was found to be personal; that is, “teachers’ attitudes toward technology or intentions to use technology in their classrooms” (p. 147). samarawickrema and stacey (2007) found that academics’ attitudes to new processes and change, and their motivation, influenced their technology adoption more than their technology preferences and skills. the perceived need for an innovation influences its adoption (rogers, 2003), but e-learning is sometimes adopted in response to external influences such as management directives, economic imperatives, or student pressure (samarawickrema & stacey, 2007)—or in response to a crisis. in the midst of a crisis there may be little time to experiment before adoption, and the motivation to adopt e-learning can be increased by the urgent need to respond to the immediate situation (mackey et al., 2012; breeze, buckley, & gilmore, 2011). the literature indicates that lack of time, heavy workloads, the need to modify teaching materials and practices, lack of funding, policy and intellectual property issues, inadequate academic staff knowledge, and existing university and/or departmental culture, are barriers that can influence the adoption of e-learning practices (samarawickrema & stacey, 2007; walker et al., 2014). haggerty (2015) identified academics’ ability to manage workloads while increasing their own technological expertise as a further barrier to e-learning adoption. the steep learning curve required for the adoption of e-learning can be reduced by the institutional implementation of an lms (elgort, 2005), and the momentum from such an implementation can provide an opportunity to incorporate e-learning more broadly across an institution (guiney, 2013). however, as rosenberg (2007) stated: “empirical studies have provided evidence that professional development and associated staff capability or capacity issues such as time, incentives, and priorities are critical factors” (p. 8) in encouraging e-learning in new zealand. while successful e-learning adoption requires professional development and support for staff (guiney, 2013) across all relevant areas, the value of that professional development is increased by its applicability, appropriateness, and relevance, as well as its timeliness (samarawickrema & tull, s. p. c., dabner n., ayebi-arthur, k. 66 stacey, 2007). other factors contributing to successful e-learning adoption are learning communities (brennan, mcfadden, & law, 2001), supportive environments, and interpersonal networks that extend beyond the local teaching context. if academic teachers have the innovativeness to exploit technology, the ability to seek help from others when necessary, a social network with colleagues, and the ability to respond to the environment and to internal changes, they are exhibiting the characteristics of being adaptive. (samarawickrema & stacey, 2007, p. 331) adaptability and collegial networks are particularly relevant to the adoption of e-learning in a crisis. by being adaptive in the use of e-learning and associated available technologies, there is potential for educators to provide students with continued access to educational programmes when physical attendance on a campus is highly problematic or impossible (mackey et al., 2012; breeze, buckley, & gilmore, 2011). mackey et al. (2012) described how a combination of faceto-face and e-learning strategies, combined with just-in-time collegial professional development, enabled teacher education staff to contact and communicate with students, to address the sudden lack of physical teaching/learning spaces, and to accommodate the varied personal circumstances of both staff and students when normal ways of working and living were disrupted. staff in the study worked as a collegial community and exhibited resourcefulness, adaptiveness, and flexibility in their ability to adopt new e-learning practices, and adapt existing ones, as an immediate response to challenging circumstances. the authors proposed that institutions and their academic leaders need to be “prepared for the unanticipated” to support staff and maintain student learning and engagement opportunities in crisis situations. they recommend contingency planning at an institutional level to prepare staff to use e-learning strategies and students to work in online environments, and to ensure resources are accessible to staff and students in alternative, digital formats. methodology five studies investigating the practices at the university during the seismic events of 2010–2011 were jointly analysed by the authors to identify common strategies that demonstrated institutional resilience. these case studies investigated the same phenomena through different lenses, and thus provided a second level of converging lines of inquiry (yin, 2008). yin (2008) defines the case study as “an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident” (p. 13). case studies explore subjects and issues where relationships may be ambiguous or uncertain, and also try to attribute causal relationships rather than just describing a situation (gray, 2009). the first study (ayebi-arthur, 2016) spanned the years 2010–2015, during which the other four studies were also conducted (see figure 1). it investigated the rapid adoption of social media and e-learning in the wake of seismic events through data gathered from interviews, documentation, and the university’s websites. non-probability purposive sampling (cohen, manion, & morrison, 2007) was employed to select 29 participants for the study, and included academics who used e-learning, e-learning support staff, and executive leaders. these participants identified 66 relevant documents, which included university policy documents and reports by university units and working groups as well as staff, and including some of the authors of this paper. descriptive content and thematic analyses were used to describe processes of increasing resilience with e-learning in the aftermath of the seismic events in 2010 and 2011. the second study (dabner, 2012) investigated the university’s use of web environments (including the social networking site, facebook) for information and support purposes following the initial earthquake in 2010, and explored how the university used these environments journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1) 67 effectively and the effect they had in the wider university community. evidence for this study was gathered from multiple sources including interviews, websites, threaded discussion posts, and survey results. the third study (monti, tull, & hoskin, 2011) investigated the lecturers’ reactions and strategies for using technology to compensate for the loss of physical spaces and subsequent opportunities for face-to-face interaction with students after the february 2011 earthquake. data was gathered from interviews with 12 lecturers, and triangulated with lms server logs and statistics of access to strengthen the validity of the findings. the fourth study (mackey et al., 2012) was inquiry-centred and employed quick-response research strategies (quarantelli, 2002) to gather time-sensitive data following the february 2011 earthquake. the five academic staff participants were involved in a single programme. the descriptive account of engaging in blended learning in this emergency, which was developed from this reflective–narrative model, was supported by data from the lms. the fifth study (tull, 2014) used a mixed-methods approach, combining data from interviews, video blogs, surveys, logs, and statistical data to focus on the influences on the participants’ experiences when using echo360 lecture capture technology (which was implemented after the june 2011 earthquake), and the e-learning support provided for its use. quantitative data provided a backdrop for the research through information on the pan-university use of both echo360 and the e-learning support provided. figure 1 overview of the focus studies, the major earthquakes they are associated with, and the communication and e-learning technologies employed at that time the effect of crises on people, their communities, and their environments form part of the challenge of conducting research on unexpected events such as these earthquakes. the disruptive and sometimes sensitive nature of the context of a natural disaster can affect both the researcher and participants. these are important issues to consider when gaining ethical approval and informed participant consent for research. ethical approval was gained from the university of canterbury ethics committee before each of the studies was conducted. tull, s. p. c., dabner n., ayebi-arthur, k. 68 findings two key themes illustrating resilient practices emerged from the analysis of these five studies: communication about and throughout the crises, and the increased adoption of e-learning practices and technologies to support learning and teaching. communication for the university, communication about the crises began with the first seismic event in september 2010. this involved reassuring students, staff, and stakeholders (including students’ parents and guardians as well as national stakeholders such as the ministry of education and the tertiary education commission) that the university was taking the necessary steps to ensure that teaching, learning, and research would continue in the aftermath of the crises. the university set up websites to serve as the main source of communication for all information relating to the university’s response to the seismic events of 2010 and 2011. the first website was the uc restart, which was set up in september 2010. this site kept staff, students, and other stakeholders up to date with all the latest announcements and information relating to the september 2010 earthquake and the university’s re-opening. then, in response to the february 2011 earthquake, the uc progressive restart website was set up to give information on how the university was reorganising to continue with the 2011 academic year. communication focused on the restart of the academic year, the use of e-learning resources for teaching and learning, and other relevant earthquake-related information. communication was essential across the university community and, as reported by seville et al. (2012), “very early in the response process, our leadership team made a conscious decision to invest a lot of effort in communications” (p. 32). the importance of consistent messages was one of the lessons learned from the september 2010 earthquake. in the midst of many sources of potentially misleading information available to staff and students, the university created a policy that its second website, uc progressive restart, would be the single source of “truth” (healey, 2011). the vice chancellor was prominent in many communications and all official communications were sent from the senior management team. although clear messages were being disseminated in an organised way in february–march 2011, disruption to the telecommunications infrastructure in some areas of the city resulted in these messages not being received by some stakeholders. all of the university’s students were informed during enrolment that the main form of communication would be through their university email address, but this was not possible in the crisis that unfolded. the use of email was problematic, and todorova and bjorn-andersen (2011), academics at the university, reported that “some email accounts exceeded their quotas under the pressure of increased email traffic and access to email accounts was blocked by pre-earthquake automated routines” (p. 598). there was no way of knowing how many students were missing vital communication. however, students’ overall feedback referred to the overwhelming number of messages they received rather than a lack of communication. communicating at the multiple levels of institution, programme, and course was a strong focus for staff and students. comprehensive updates were published at least daily on the official university of canterbury website; a dedicated university of canterbury facebook site provided a hub of interaction (dabner, 2012); and programme coordinators and lecturers began posting news items which were emailed to students from the lms. the university’s communication through facebook began shortly after the first earthquake in 2010. according to dabner (2012) “the university communications team worked on the site for 18 [hours] a day over the initial 2 weeks and at all hours of the day” (p. 75). this commitment of time reinforced seville et al’s (2012) findings that sustaining social media for communication had resource implications for institutions. the design of the facebook site following this first event “lacked administration tools, making it difficult to track, categorise and sort discussion journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1) 69 threads into a more coherent format” (seville et al., 2012, p. 34). the university made more effective use of facebook when responding to the february 2011 earthquake, drawing on the lessons learned from the previous facebook iteration. in 2011, the design of the facebook site was improved to become systematic and well-managed and there appeared to be greater emphasis on providing students with a broader range of support from different organisations (dabner, 2012). nesbit and martin (2012), academics in the uc college of business and law, used facebook to complement emails and postings sent from their lms course site. they noted many students were without electricity for periods of time but were able to access a text-only version of facebook on their mobile phones at no cost. they discovered that “as many of the students were already regular users of facebook for social communication there was a degree of ease of use and familiarity that enhanced the level of engagement that students had with the respective courses” (p. 76). an academic in the college of education confirmed that the facebook community enabled “on-going dialogue and information sharing between staff at the institution and the wider educational community” (dabner, 2012, p. 69). other university academics reported: “we found social media to be very effective, particularly in keeping staff and students engaged and interested, not only in what the university was doing, but also how it was going about reopening campus” (seville et al., 2012, p. 34). other social media used by the university communications centre over this time included uc youtube and twitter. the university’s lms also played an important role in communication through the one-way channel of news forum posts. the number of these posts increased 88.4% in comparison with february–march of the previous year (monti et al., 2011). communication in two-way discussion forums also increased, as academics engaged students online to build community and support students with their learning. each of these communication channels proved invaluable during these seismic events. they were also used to signal to students the broader adoption of e-learning strategies across the university in response to the crises. increased adoption of e-learning practices in normal circumstances, the adoption of e-learning strategies would be carefully managed at an institutional level, and extra resources and support would be provided to staff and students to facilitate subsequent changes. this level of support and forward planning was simply not possible in circumstances increasingly described by staff as “the new normal”. the imperative to increase the adoption of e-learning therefore proved challenging for many as they endeavoured to rapidly implement new approaches to teaching and learning, some involving the use of digital technologies, software, and online environments with which they were unfamiliar. however, in spite of these factors, staff at the university demonstrated resilience, flexibility, collegiality, and creative thinking as they endeavoured to cater for the needs of students in those challenging times. innovative solutions were required to enable the rapid adoption of e-learning technologies and elearning methodologies in such challenging circumstances. these solutions were evident at both grassroots and institutional levels. for example, many academic staff established informal support networks to problem-solve and build capacity throughout this period; small groups often met in private houses to work together to refine content and share tips and ideas. professional conversations and reflections about changing practices were clearly evident at these times, and the collegial support was valued by academics, some of whom were challenged by earthquakerelated issues in their personal lives. for some academic staff, the initial focus was simply to ensure some course content was available for students to engage with online. many staff were unable to access their offices for an extended period and so were unable to retrieve key resources for their course delivery. resources that would traditionally have been accessed from textbooks, tull, s. p. c., dabner n., ayebi-arthur, k. 70 hand-outs, or the library, were made available through the lms. staff were concerned about the ability of all students to access online content and their own ability to deal with the overwhelming number of resources they needed to access and upload. for many academics this was a very intense period of work, with queries and forum posts that needed timely responses being received on all 7 days of the week. for those who already had much of their course content available in the lms, the focus was to support and encourage students to engage with the course content. several methods were described as successfully promoting engagement. many academics considered that providing additional structure was one way to encourage students to engage (monti et al., 2011). ongoing communication, including timely responses to student queries, and clear, well-organised course sites in the lms helped to provide this structure. clear directions, overviews, outlines, and summaries within the sections of an lms course site, as well as considerable scaffolding and modelling of tasks by staff, were also successful strategies in keeping students focused. in addition, many staff revised their course plans, assessment tasks, and due dates. they posted and emailed more regular course updates, and personally followed up with students who had not yet accessed the online course site. some staff had to develop completely different assessment tasks for their courses to cater for students who could not complete all the planned coursework because they lacked resources, or could not attend what would have traditionally been a face-to-face exam. this was also an intense period of work for members of the e-learning support team, which included the three flexible learning advisors. from the day after the february earthquake the team provided support from their homes, and this was one of the first teams to be reallocated space on campus when it became safe. their accessibility via phone, email, and their central physical location supported many academics to restart their courses and communicate with their students through the lms. removing the support team from the main campus as teaching recommenced rendered them less accessible to lecturers, and the loss of one of the three flexible learning advisors in july 2011 further limited the availability of support. this limited support (two advisors) was available until july 2012 when the team was relocated to the main campus and the number of advisors returned to three. a variety of e-learning tools was supported and used in the aftermath of the seismic events. some e-learning tools, such the lms and adobe connect web conferencing, were already available in the university. other tools, such as echo360 lecture-capture technology, were introduced later. the range of tools and their deployment, influenced by repeated crises, evolved over these years. their use was facilitated by the availability of support from the e-learning support team, as well as more localised support and collaboration with colleagues. the provision of support in the use of e-learning technologies was at times problematic—innovative solutions were sought to encourage better pedagogical use of the e-learning technologies, which had been adopted under difficult circumstances. traditional lecture content was initially provided in the lms, using a combination of tools (such as powerpoint slides with separate audio files) to minimise internet requirements (monti et al., 2011). video recordings were included when internet access became more freely available. staff also developed additional multimodal resources, including podcasts and video recordings. many of these were produced with readily available digital technologies such as mobile phones and flip video recorders. these resources were then quickly uploaded onto websites (e.g., youtube) or added to course sites in the lms. resources from outside organisations also contributed to the university’s ability to support teaching and learning in these challenging circumstances. national and international publishers and suppliers offered staff and students free access to tens of thousands of e-books, online journals, and global databases in the aftermath of the september 2010 earthquake. in 2011, echo360 offered the university a licence for five lecture theatre venues and a site license for the desktop capture application of echosystem. the gift of these licenses meant that the university’s journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1) 71 academics had another tool with which to create teaching materials, and supported the adoption of flexible delivery modes to meet the diverse needs of students at this time. at an institutional level, professional development and support for the use of e-learning technologies were developed in ways that encouraged less reliance on face-to-face workshops and one-to-one technical support. for example, the university’s echo360 community grant research project found that academics’ levels of confidence, resilience, and motivation for using echo360 were important factors in the adoption of this technology (tull & holiss, 2013). a communities-of-practice approach to professional development was adopted in this project, and an online space was provided in the lms to support a developing community. forums were included to enable collegial discussion and support, as well as links to more formal documentation to provide just-in-time support. academics could also share their echo360 solutions, including examples and supporting explanations, with colleagues across the university. these contextual examples of good practice demonstrated potential solutions to real issues faced by lecturers at the university, provided reassurance for some that a potential use of echo360 had been successfully implemented, and inspired others to engage in new uses of the elearning technology (tull, 2014). the research revealed that local communities of practice emerged where physically co-located users had become known to each other. subsequent additions were made to the online space, supporting academics to make connections within their local context and to become part of a local community of practice, thus providing another avenue of support. discussion although crisis events can require immediate, and often challenging, adjustments to be made to educational and institutional practices, these studies indicate that institutional resilience can be a valuable outcome. research suggests that enhanced e-learning practices in response to a crisis can also develop the resilience of both students and academic staff (mackey et al., 2012). other researchers (hagar & haythornthwaite, 2005; mark & semaan, 2008) have highlighted that disasters can prompt new ways of working and interacting to combat the constraints of unusual conditions as technologies enable alternative ways of networking and communicating, and as they blur the boundaries of formal and informal learning, and physical and virtual environments. an organisation’s ability to communicate effectively becomes critical in crisis situations (spicer, 2008). the use of social media and dedicated websites to inform the university community of the organisation’s response to the seismic events confirmed bird, ling, and haynes’ (2012) findings that identified the importance of disseminating effective and rapid emergency information in times of natural disasters. it also confirmed vos et al’s (2011) recommendation that “in order to ease emotional turmoil, [organisations] have a well-functioning communication structure with designated spokespersons” (p. 20). these studies reinforced that communication to members of an organisation and the general public—both about the crises, and the recovery from the crises—was essential. the importance of using multiple channels for communication was also emphasised in these studies. the university’s journey provides evidence that social media does support organisations in responding to a crisis, and that the ways people and institutions respond has been affected by the increasing use of social media in everyday life. using communication channels that students were familiar with, and were already using, clearly aided the dissemination of important information during these events. organisations must consider tapping into the potential of these increasingly integral tools. during a crisis, social networking sites and web 2.0 tools have the potential to benefit people at personal, interpersonal, and societal levels. these studies found that e-learning became the cornerstone of teaching after a crisis in a university where the majority of teaching and learning had previously been facilitated face to tull, s. p. c., dabner n., ayebi-arthur, k. 72 face. the increased use of e-learning freed up limited campus spaces and face-to-face interactions for other essential learning activities, and enabled students to continue with their studies during disrupted academic years. the availability of a range of e-learning tools was invaluable for facilitating different aspects of teaching and learning in online environments. there was more reliance on, and use of, the tools readily available in the lms, and increased recognition of the value of online learning environments for course delivery. uptake in e-learning was somewhat influenced by the availability of centrally located support from the e-learning support team, as well as more localised support and collaboration with colleagues. in normal circumstances, the institutional adoption of e-learning practices can be enhanced by the development of an explicit e-learning strategy and a comprehensive, planned support programme. but in a crisis the rate of e-learning adoption increased rapidly as it became necessary for engaging students and enabling programme continuity. the duration of the crises also affected the adoption of e-learning. the provision of structured, planned professional development to support this rapid adoption was challenging during these seismic events, especially as they continued over several years and included three campus closures. having a variety of support mechanisms available when adopting new e-learning technologies was essential for both academics and students at uc. the crisis situation compelled academic staff to review their course content and teaching strategies, to clearly focus on the key learning outcomes, and to engage students in the online environment (monti et al., 2011). these pressures proved to be very challenging for many staff. academics at the university, nesbit and martin (2012), confirmed “there were many challenges involved in enabling delivery to commence, many relating to the lack of experience of some of the staff in delivering courses online” (p. 198). both formal and informal support networks helped to address the emergent and ongoing needs of staff. recommendations and conclusion there is an increasing recognition of the need for organisational contingency planning to prepare for challenges, including natural disasters (seville, hawker, & lyttle, 2012). in the university described in this paper, resilience was forged by necessity. the outcome was the development of communicative and e-learning practices that will enable the organisation to respond well to future challenges. the following recommendations are provided to inform the contingency planning process in other education institutions. • institutional communication about and throughout crisis events needs to be timely, consistent, coherent, and disseminated through a range of effective channels of communication, including social media. organisations should exploit the potential of the tools and virtual environments people are increasingly using in their daily lives. • all courses delivered predominately in a face-to-face environment should also have online course sites that can be enhanced should the mode of learning become more blended or off-campus as a result of reduced access to the campus or other educational space. • when an organisation is under stress new tools should be introduced only when they are essential. when an e-learning tool is introduced there needs to be ongoing support that takes account of users’ changing needs and their ability to support one another. • the establishment of support systems and networks, both formal (i.e., institutionally facilitated) and informal (i.e., collegial support groups and/or professional communities of practice), will enhance the adoption of e-learning strategies and approaches in a crisis. educational institutions cannot avoid the possibility of a natural disaster and, if it does occur, that it could affect their ability to communicate and work with their students (seville, hawker, & journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1) 73 lyttle, 2012). this paper provides some useful insights that will enable other institutions to prepare for the unexpected. acknowledgements the authors would like to thank the participants and the 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(2008). case study research: design and methods (5th ed.). los angeles, ca: sage. tull, s. p. c., dabner n., ayebi-arthur, k. 76 biographical notes susan tull susan.tull@canterbury.ac.nz dr susan tull is an e-learning and digital technologies lecturer at the university of canterbury, where she teaches both online and blended courses. her phd in education focused on e-learning professional development. the incorporation of digital technologies to support quality learning and teaching continues to be her research focus. nicki dabner nicki.dabner@canterbury.ac.nz nicki dabner is a senior lecturer at the university of canterbury. primarily involved in teacher education, her specific research interests include digital technologies and social media in educational settings, blended and online learning pedagogy and course design, and digital literacy/citizenship. kofi ayebi-arthur kofiayebi@ucc.edu.gh kofi ayebi-arthur (phd, med, meng) is a senior lecturer of computer science education at the department of mathematics and ict education, university of cape coast, ghana. he teaches both undergraduate and postgraduate courses and recently completed a phd in education (e-learning and digital technologies) at the university of canterbury. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. tull, s. p. c., dabner, n., & ayebi-arthur k. (2017). social media and e-learning in response to seismic events: resilient practices. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1), [63–76.]. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 29 student engagement in distance-based vocational education anne yates, victoria university of wellington wendy brindley-richards, victoria university of wellington tony thistoll, open polytechnic of new zealand abstract students enrolled in distance education courses tend to have lower course completion rates than those who attend face-to-face classes (simpson, 2013). this article reports on a collective case study undertaken at a vocational, distance education provider in new zealand, whose course completion rates have risen over recent years to match those of similar face-to-face institutions. this research investigated institutional factors that have contributed towards this improvement, from the perspectives of the staff involved. results show staff believe there are key enablers and barriers to student engagement and course completion, but the barriers are not insurmountable. the implication is that distance education providers can improve student engagement and completion rates through effective interventions. keywords: distance education; student engagement; student retention; polytechnic student retention; barriers and enablers in distance education; vocational education introduction the open polytechnic of new zealand (opnz) is the largest distance-based vocational education institution in new zealand (open polytechnic, 2013). it typically caters for working people who are seeking to upskill and has large numbers of students who are older, female and/or second-chance learners. the polytechnic is a technical and vocational education and training (tvet) organisation and consequently is primarily concerned with “…the acquisition of knowledge and skills for the world of work” (neal & seelig, 2013). technical and vocational education and training have become priorities as more people need further employment skills to adapt to rapid economic, social, and technological changes (unesco & ilo, [2001?]). however, because tvet systems involve a wide range of target markets and different delivery models (neal, 2011), they are more complex than either compulsory or higher education systems. for example, opnz offers courses from level 1 (typically offered at high school) on the new zealand qualification framework (nzqf) through to level 7 (degree level). the diverse needs and abilities of the students therefore create challenges for student engagement and retention. although the distance delivery model allows accessible education, students enrolled with opnz have traditionally had low course completion rates (guiney, 2013b). however, in 2012 and 2013 opnz achieved marginally higher course completion rates than the polytechnic sector average yates, a., brindley-richards, w., & thistoll, t. 30 (tertiary education commission, 2013). this research seeks to discover, from the point of view of the staff involved, the institutional factors that led to these higher completion rates. literature review student engagement the literature has various definitions and descriptions of student engagement. robinson and hullinger (2008) define student engagement as students’ efforts to study, analyse, practise, solve problems and receive feedback, while suttle (2010) describes it as “the psychological investment of attention, interest, effort and emotional involvement expended in the work of learning” (p. 1). klem and connell (2004) identify two types of student engagement: ongoing engagement, which includes how students behave, think, and feel whilst studying; and reaction to challenge, which refers to how students cope when challenges arise. indicators of student engagement can be retention, progression, and attrition rates (coates, 2005; nichols, 2009; ross, 2010). in new zealand, educational performance indicators (epis) (which include course completion rates, progression to higher study, completion of qualifications, and retention rates) are used to assess delivery in the polytechnic sector and as measures of student engagement (anderson, 2011). course completion therefore tends to be synonymous with student engagement, because students who are engaged in their studies are more likely to complete (ross, 2010). measuring student engagement gives educational institutions valuable data about students’ learning (coates, 2005). retention and course completion are important for both the student and the institution because there are considerable costs (both financial and emotional) involved in not completing (simpson, 2013). as nichols (2011) notes, some students who drop out experience a “shattering of confidence that hinders them from considering further study” (p. 5). examining factors which lead to engagement and disengagement is therefore vital. enablers to student engagement in distance education studies such as chen et al. (2008) and robinson and hullinger (2008) assert that students who are satisfied with their learning provider are more likely to be engaged with their studies. this satisfaction stems from feeling they belong, and that they are accepted and affirmed as part of a learning community (boyle, kwon, ross, & simpson, 2010). whilst contact may be more challenging in distance education, robinson and hullinger (2008) argued that contact, along with prompt and appropriate feedback, are particularly important to encourage engagement. they also claim that having contact with study peers, and sharing multiple perspectives and ideas, also leads to increased engagement. barriers to student engagement in distance education barriers to student engagement “can be particularly challenging in a distance learning environment” (ross, 2010, p. 1). distance learners typically spend more time in employment, looking after dependants, and dealing with financial stress, so study is just one of many priorities (chen, gonyea, & kuh, 2008). employment demands create barriers (ashby, 2004) and, as guiney (2013a) claimed, while employers support employee absence to attend lectures, they are less supportive of employees completing online study in work time. furthermore, stone (2012) argued positive relationships between teaching staff and students contribute significantly to students’ academic success; however, forging relationships with distance students is challenging, due to little or no face-to-face contact. distance learning provides students with opportunities for active individual study, but chen et al. (2008) claimed journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 31 their ability to collaborate with others is limited and that distance students often experience feelings of isolation and little sense of belonging or connection with the education provider. a number of studies (e.g., nichols, 2009, 2011; robinson & hullinger, 2008; ross, 2010) described the personal barriers distance students face, such as a lack of the necessary technology (or skills to use it); insufficient literacy, numeracy and time-management skills; little selfconfidence, support, or outside encouragement; and being unprepared for the workload. anderson (2011) also claimed that poor course and assessment design, poor instruction, and a lack of appropriate and timely feedback can impede student progress, as can unsupported assumptions by staff about students, in which students are blamed for poor outcomes. these barriers can be particularly acute for tvet organisations, such as opnz, that deal with a wide range of students from diverse backgrounds and learning experiences (neal & seelig, 2013). current interventions since 2010, opnz has had an increased focus on student engagement and retention. guiney (2013b) has documented these in detail; however, the key foci of these interventions have been distance learning support, support for māori learners, teachers supporting distance students, and organisational interventions to improve support. distance learning support the polytechnic has recognised that students require different levels of support and it has developed a variety of models to support various student groups (guiney, 2013b). in particular, students who are studying at lower levels of the nzqf and those new to distance learning often require a higher level of support (guiney, 2013b). some strategies opnz has introduced to provide distance learning support include:  developing student profiles to help determine the most effective learning approaches  providing programme and student advisors (pasas) who assist students with preand post-enrolment processes and general course support  introducing a peer-mentoring scheme for first-time students  running online study skills and exam-skills workshops  developing online study materials. support for māori learners up to 90% of opnz students at level 1 are māori or pasifika (guiney, 2013b), so a number of strategies to help with engagement and retention of these students have been implemented. examples are: attempts to include whānau (family) in all activities, including māori and pasifika concepts and pedagogies in programmes, and a peer mentoring service (tuakana ako) for māori students (guiney, 2013a). the role of teaching staff teaching staff at opnz are closely involved in student engagement. strategies include pre-entry tests to identify students who are best suited to foundation-level study, and using learning management system analytics to monitor and track student activity and progress. teachers are also encouraged to contact students between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. when they are more likely to be available, and to use online forums and face-to-face study groups to provide support (guiney, 2013b). yates, a., brindley-richards, w., & thistoll, t. 32 organisational and structural interventions a number of organisational and structural interventions have also been implemented. these include the ongoing use of student satisfaction and engagement surveys, an organisation-wide student engagement tool to support monitoring, ensuring high-quality learning materials that have a consistent ‘look and feel’, and moving to more blended delivery models. while these interventions were reported in more detail by guiney (2013b), the perceptions of the staff involved in their implementation have not been recorded. this research seeks to document these perceptions. methodology the aim of this research was to identify staff perceptions of factors contributing to the improvement in course completion rates. it also aimed to discover their views on enablers and barriers to student engagement in tvet education. because the research investigated perceptions of factors that contribute to improved student course completions, an interpretivist paradigm was used (bogdan & biklen, 2007). this paradigm is appropriate because it focuses on personal constructions of knowledge and shared meanings (o’donoghue, 2007). ethical considerations were ensured by gaining ethical approval from the faculty of education human ethics committee of victoria university of wellington. volunteers were sought through the opnz staff daily email newsletter, and ten staff members (five female and five male) agreed to take part in semi-structured interviews. interviews were conducted on site at opnz in january 2014 and, to assist with confidentiality and lessen bias in the responses, interviews were conducted by the research assistant who was from another institution. if a participant was easily identifiable because they were the only person in their role at opnz, a number of strategies were taken to ensure confidentiality. these strategies include allocating pseudonyms, changing the gender of some participants’ pseudonyms, and generalising some details (see table 1). table 1 participants pseudonym role at opnz clara lecturer in social sciences craig adviser in the opnz learning centre foster senior manager at opnz jack lecturer in commerce martha faculty management owen librarian and liaison librarian on courses rick engineering trades lecturer rory senior manager responsible for many aspects of academic delivery, including research and student retention rose senior manager in strategy and analysis wilfred lecturer in construction questions focused on participants’ views of student engagement—they were specifically asked what they considered to be enablers and barriers. the interviews were transcribed verbatim and returned to participants for checking to ensure accuracy and to give participants the opportunity journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 33 to alter or remove comments. the transcripts were analysed using content analysis to categorise the data according to similar themes and patterns. following the inductive approach, two researchers independently identified themes from the data, and the themes were agreed after discussion. further axial coding resulted in three major codes within the concepts of enablers and barriers. the two main themes encompassed the three sub-themes (codes) of staff, students, and systems. these three sub-themes created both enablers and barriers. findings staff: enablers and barriers all participants were aware of opnz’s focus on improving student engagement and course completions and felt proud of the organisation’s achievements in recent years. for example: by really focusing we’ve been able to do things we never dreamed of. (rose) a few years ago our epis were awful, but over the last few years we’ve really turned that around. (rory) all participants were aware of the strategies and practices in place to improve student engagement. all spoke of the need for committed and knowledgeable staff, the need for staff to be competent in their roles, and the importance of continually striving for improvement. as craig acknowledged: you don’t want to sit still, we want to keep doing a better job. (craig) enablers participants identified two key aspects of staff involvement that have been particularly significant in increasing student engagement at opnz. these were a student-focused approach and the effect of high-quality resource design. a student-focused approach all staff recognised the need to be student focused, and that their job was to help students work to the best of their ability, to improve their qualifications, and to reach life goals. we’ve moved from a problem-solving approach which was “what are you having trouble with and we’ll help you to fix it” to a strengths-based approach where we focus on talking to the students about their goals and dreams and how they will use the skills they already have to help them study. (craig) key aspects of a student-focused approach include being flexible and proactive, and developing a sense of belonging amongst the students. rick spoke of supporting students by negotiating individual work plans and submission dates to take account of work and family commitments, rather than making all students adhere to the same dates. his faculty ensured a tutor and/or lecturer was available until 8 p.m. each evening for student phone calls, and they also arranged face-to-face student drop-in study groups if the numbers of students warranted this approach. there were 15 such study groups around new zealand at that time. all participants spoke of the need for staff to be proactive in encouraging student engagement. as craig said, “we don’t wait for students to contact us—we ring them”. participants provided information on the procedures followed by their departments. (for example, the learning centre targets all newly enrolled students and uses a peer-to-peer mentoring system whereby experienced students phone new students to discuss goals and ascertain any assistance needed.) yates, a., brindley-richards, w., & thistoll, t. 34 lecturers contacted all students within a set time of the course beginning, and then again at an agreed interval. the library contacted most degree-level students through library forums on the online course pages and were available to provide resources and assistance at the student’s request. multiple contact methods were mentioned, such as emails, phone calls, and text messages. several participants spoke of the need to make the students feel part of a learning community and to create a sense of belonging. the key thing is that students feel that they belong to the organisation. (craig) our engagement strategies are focused around trying to make the students feel they belong. (rose) i try to be really welcoming and open … you really do need to be available and respond quickly to things like phone messages and email. (clara) high-quality course and resource design there was also general agreement that course resources and course design are important enablers in student engagement. one participant described how he rewrote some mathematics materials because the original was too difficult, and the difference the changes made to students’ ability to engage with the material and the learning. barriers participants identified three staff-related barriers to improving student engagement. these were: the impact of poor course and resource design, negative attitudes towards students, and the impact of change management. poor quality course materials while there was general agreement that good course and resource design was important, participants in student support roles felt there were still some poor materials that were problematic for student engagement. examples included unclear assessment instructions, ambiguous tasks, excessive numbers of readings (in one case over 800 pages), and in one case a task was incorrectly labelled an essay when it was, in fact, a report. it was frustrating for student support staff to deal with constant student inquiries, but have no authority to have materials altered. on the other hand, time pressures, rather than reluctance, were cited by lecturers for not changing or updating materials. they felt they lacked time to deal with all their responsibilities. as jack shared: the difficulty is the time factor, getting time to support students, to mark assessments and do revisions. (jack) negative attitudes towards students negative attitudes to the students were identified as a further barrier. some participants spoke of colleagues with attitudes such as considering engagement to be solely a student responsibility, and therefore not improving course materials nor changing practice. some deficit attitudes towards students were expressed during the interviews. for example, one participant stated that if students could not be bothered working, there was not much that could be done. one expressed surprise at the poor technological skills of 19–20 year olds; and another commented on the lack of academic skills of some students. managing change while most staff were committed to improving their practice, participants in management roles spoke of the difficulty in effecting change. as rose commented “we’ve had to force a lot of practices that are good for the students”. she noted that “it’s quite frustrating getting messages journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 35 down” and martha agreed that “change is hard”. however, the exact nature of the change and the resistance was not explicitly shared. only one specific example of resistance was given, and this related to lecturing staff being reluctant to provide exemplars because they felt doing so gave the students too much assistance and was akin to cheating. on the whole, resistance to change seemed limited and, as craig commented: for the most part we have brilliant course material, we have fantastic lecturers. (craig) students: enablers and barriers students have a part to play in their own engagement in study, and participants identified a number of factors they considered either enabled or acted as a barrier to this engagement. enablers the participants identified four student-related enablers that help course completion. these related to how the students engaged with opnz for their learning and how they sought help when required. staff particularly identified the importance of correct course and programme choice, careful monitoring of progress, use of support services, and involvement in a learning community. correct course and programme choice participants emphasised the need for students to be guided into appropriate nzqf levels and amounts of study. for example, opnz strongly recommends students start with one course and, if successful, enrol for further study rather than taking on too much at the beginning. it was noted that students needed to be mentored into courses at an appropriate level. as clara said: …it’s not doing any favour to anyone to put a student into a course when they’re going to fail. (clara) participants also noted the importance of ensuring students were studying courses that helped them to achieve their life and work goals, because this ensures students are motivated to study. monitoring careful monitoring of student progress was mentioned by all participants as an important aspect of encouraging engagement. they felt systems were in place: there are a lot of safety nets here … there are enough interventions and enough different people that can intervene and help. (owen) monitoring occurs at all levels of the organisation and participants noted that this was an important aspect of improving student engagement and course completion rates. foster noted: we now really closely know who comes in, who’s engaged, what their success rates are, and we know that at a management level and a tutor level and administrator level. (foster) one aspect of monitoring that all participants mentioned was opnz’s policy to contact students within certain timeframes and then again at certain intervals but, as wilfred mentioned, the monitoring has to be supportive (for example, asking the student how they are getting on and whether they enjoying the course, rather than immediately suggesting they are falling behind). use of support services all participants noted the need for students to be supported academically, and a variety of services are available. all students were made aware of these support services, but first-time students and students with disabilities were specifically targeted. examples were given of students being provided with individual support, such as reader–writers or additional yates, a., brindley-richards, w., & thistoll, t. 36 mathematical tuition. however, as one participant mentioned, learning needs vary from student to student and staff need to be aware of individual students: you may not think that people who are in their 40s need support but actually sometimes they need it more than an 18 year old. (clara) involvement in a learning community most participants emphasised the importance of creating learning communities of staff and students. in their view, students were more likely to be engaged if they felt connected to the institution, and when multiple methods of contact (e.g., email, texts, phone calls) were used. creating opportunities for students to connect with each other was regarded as important, and online classrooms were seen to be an effective way of doing this. however, rick noted that his faculty preferred a face-to-face, study-group approach due to the practical nature of teaching a trade. barriers staff identified three barriers that particularly affected student engagement, course completion, and retention. these were: students lacking the necessary skills, time conflicts, and lack of faceto-face contact. students lacking necessary skills participants noted that the nature of opnz as a distance tvet provider meant that they had a significant number of students who were unprepared for the independent learning required for distance study. staff commented particularly that some of the students they dealt with did not have the computer, literacy and/or writing skills required for their study. as rick commented: i’ve had students over the years who i’ve spent huge amounts of time with to get them through their calculations … because they were no good at maths at school, they didn’t really learn anything from primary school onwards. (rick) in another example, he said: i’ve got one guy at the moment who can read but his actual comprehension of what he’s reading is quite poor, and also his ability to write—he can tell me the answer to something but for him to actually put that down in writing is almost impossible, so he has to have something to copy from. (rick) wilfred also commented that students coming into trades education have often left school with minimal education and some have to be taught very basic skills such as how to draw a straight line. clara spoke of students enrolling in social science courses who were unaware of the high level of statistical, research, and referencing skills required by the discipline. time conflicts due to the nature of students enrolled at opnz (older, female and/or second-chance learners) participants felt there were many demands on their time. for example, when staff contacted nonengaged students, reasons given for the lack of engagement included dealing with sick family members, work pressure, and the general busy-ness of an adult life. as clara noted: i think that one problem is incorrect expectations and unrealistic evaluations of how much time they have and i think a second reason for non-engagement is students who may actually realise how much work it is but haven’t thought about all the other aspects of their life. (clara) rick spoke of working with employers of apprentices to remove time conflicts, by managing assignment completion when work was quiet. he would also contact employers of non-engaged students to enlist their support. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 37 lack of face-to-face contact all participants talked about the importance of building relationships with students to encourage engagement and connection with the institution, but cited the lack of face-to-face contact as a particular barrier to establishing these relationships with distance education students. the challenge to distance education is to build those communities of learning without necessarily ever seeing people. (rose) two participants from trades education also commented that the kinaesthetic nature of trades was not always compatible with written, distance study, and that they adopted a blended approach by providing study centres. systems: enablers and barriers the polytechnic has made a number of system-wide changes to improve course completion and student engagement rates. some of these relate to the organisation of courses and programmes, and others have been systemic changes at a higher level. as with the other sub-themes, participants identified both enablers and barriers. enablers the enablers that were identified related to changes to both course structure and systems. participants particularly noted the effect of more structured courses; the increased focus on strategy, analysis and monitoring; creating an online presence; and the effect of forced student withdrawals. more structured courses participants recognised that certain types of courses had been problematic for student engagement and completion. these were courses that were open for enrolment every month, and students had 52 weeks to complete. the number of times such courses were offered was reduced, assessment due dates were introduced, and timeframes to complete were reduced to 35 weeks. as we’ve seen—if we change the way we offer courses, if we provide them in more solid chunks, if we have the right structure, the results will follow. (rory) the assessment due dates have made a difference, it structured things for people. (martha) focus on strategy, analysis and monitoring in 2009, opnz established a directorate named ‘strategy and analysis’. the mandate of this unit is to execute the strategy of opnz and direct the organisation in achieving organisational goals and objectives. five participants discussed the relevance of this unit and believed it made a major contribution to improvements in student engagement because it ensures opnz is constantly monitoring progress and planning future progress. although not all of the participants specifically mentioned strategy and analysis, they all noted the effect of the engagement tool, which was instigated by the unit, in closely monitoring enrolments and completions and alerting staff to non-engaged students. systems that allow close monitoring of student engagement were considered beneficial to improving engagement. as one participant said: we measure it [engagement] and that in itself is a huge change agent in that we now really closely monitor who comes in, who’s engaged, and what their success rates are. (foster) creating an online presence creating an online presence was also considered by most participants to encourage student engagement. lecturers said the online environment allowed the creation of learning communities through discussion boards and shared activities. owen, from the library, described how e-books are used far more extensively than in the past. he cites the convenience of these books in terms yates, a., brindley-richards, w., & thistoll, t. 38 of accessibility for students and less staff time needed to post materials. the student learning centre has also created online support materials. as martha commented: i see it [the online campus] as a useful way for students to not feel the distance as much. to see discussion forums where they can join in with other students and/or hear what the tutor is saying. (martha) online learning (rather than paper-based distance learning) had further advantages. rick spoke of the ability to share screens with students to demonstrate computer assisted design (cad) and to monitor students’ use of cad in the same way. using email to answer student queries was also seen as supportive to students as answers were guaranteed, whereas phone calls were often missed. withdrawing students a further administrative procedure, after all support mechanisms were exhausted, was withdrawing non-engaged students from programmes. all agreed this was effective in improving course completion statistics, and allowed staff to focus their time on those students who were engaged. however, one participant did comment that merely withdrawing students did not address engagement and could, in fact, mask issues that should be dealt with. barriers as with the other sub-themes, many of the barriers that related to systems at opnz were the converse of the enablers. participants particularly identified issues relating to managing open courses and addressing the diverse and complex needs of opnz learners. managing open courses although some of the open courses had been restructured, others still caused engagement issues. martha explains systemic difficulties: in open courses, you get 30 students now, then at the beginning of the next month you get another 30 students, so now you’ve got those 30 students plus the new 30 students, so you’ve got 60 students. and then the next month you’ve got another 30, so it builds up. so you can actually have over a hundred that are at various stages of the blocks so it is quite intensive, overlapping. (martha) the amount of time staff needed to spend in dealing with such courses was seen as a barrier. diverse and complex needs a further barrier offered was the diverse and complex nature of opnz as a distance tvet provider, meaning a single system cannot work for all. as rory explains: you’d like to think that distance education comes in one shape or flavour but it doesn’t. there’s no such thing as a typical programme here at the open polytechnic because they tend to run in very different ways. we also offer education from level 1 right through to level 7, and so we have different student needs. so it’s not easy to get a silver bullet in terms of how student engagement might look or a single system that will work for everyone. what works in one programme area for business may not be appropriate at all for early childhood education, and it may not be appropriate for engineering. (rory) all participants spoke of the range of needs such as mathematical skills for apprentices, referencing skills for degree-level courses, and the specific needs of māori and pasifika and firsttime students. the student base of a tvet provider is diverse and has many needs. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 39 discussion interventions and changes implemented by opnz over recent years have been part of a programme of continuous improvement, but are also a response to policy changes. until 2010, tertiary institutions in new zealand were funded by the total number of students enrolled; they therefore focused on attracting student enrolments. subsequently, funding became related to the percentage of students completing courses (ministry of education, 2010). as a tvet distance education provider, opnz faced a number of challenges in raising course completion levels. in the initial period of change opnz fared badly in this measure and risked losing funding— improving course completion rates therefore became crucial for the institution’s continuing existence. participants in this study came from a variety of roles within opnz, but all were well aware of the institution’s efforts over recent years to improve student engagement and, ultimately, course completion. they were positive towards the interventions and changes, took pride in the organisation’s achievements, and were unhappy with staff who were reluctant to change. participants articulated familiarity with interventions recommended by the literature to improve student engagement. these included early identification of students who might need help (gibbs, regan, & simpson, 2007), pre-counselling (such as guiding students to appropriate courses [nichols, 2009]), and a proactive approach to all students (barefoot, 2004). the institution-wide focus, and ensuring that staff are knowledgeable about effective interventions, have contributed to improved student engagement. a notable feature articulated by all participants was the desire to be student-centred; they all spoke of the need to create effective relationships with students in order to support learning (ross, 2010). this is a challenging feature of distance education and particularly of vocational training, because students have work demands that compete for their study time, and they are most likely to be available in the evenings. the addition of an online learning platform has improved student communication and connection with opnz and, consequently, has improved relationships. this improved communication among students and between students and lecturers is in keeping with social constructivism (vygotsky, 1986), which purports that learning takes place within a social structure and that interaction assists this process. moving paper-based distance education to online platforms is recommended by robinson and hullinger (2008), who claimed online environments allow distance students to discuss course work and stressful issues, and to share ideas. however, merely adding an online platform is not a solution, as the high dropout rate (around 93 percent) from massive online open courses (moocs) shows (times higher education, 2013, as cited in simpson, 2013). as anderson and simpson (2012) claim, teaching and learning must still focus on people, and we must tend to the mix of the human and the technological. participants seemed to be aware of this challenge. the student-centred approach included the recognition that unless courses and assessments meet student needs, they cause difficulties. however, there did seem to be some internal conflict over how to achieve this goal. some participants claimed not enough time was allocated to this task and that the logistics of achieving change quickly were therefore insurmountable. resistance by some staff to change materials was also reported, suggesting this is an outstanding issue. it also raises the question of who is responsible for materials and suggests that perhaps not only lecturers should have input. participants from learning support and the library made important contributions to students’ learning and had clear ideas about what was effective. as more institutions move to making materials available online, consideration of who is responsible, who has ownership and authority, and who has input, is needed. the diverse abilities of students enrolling in vocational education mean careful consideration needs to be given to the literacy levels of written materials. subject-specialist lecturers may need to take advice from literacy experts. yates, a., brindley-richards, w., & thistoll, t. 40 in one department a student-centred approach also included working with employers. as the literature (e.g., ashby, 2004; guiney, 2013a) has suggested that employers are not always supportive of distance learning, this is a useful approach. because students enrol in tvet institutions to improve their employment prospects, employers may, in fact, welcome inclusion. administrative procedures that can improve conditions likely to support student engagement are rarely reported in the literature. however, in this study, the importance of measuring and monitoring student engagement and having an institutional focus on student engagement was emphasised. interestingly, creating more structure (such as shortening completion timeframes and instituting submission deadlines) has improved course completion. one could speculate that complete openness does not create a sense of urgency for students and, consequently, procrastination increases. in particular, institutions that provide vocational training for part-time distance students, who have many competing demands on their time, may find that a more structured programme allows students to plan more effectively. creating structure also allows the institution to measure non-engagement and initiate action that will encourage engagement. withdrawing non-engaged students was seen as a mechanism for providing staff with more time to work with those who want to succeed. paloff and pratt (2003) could be seen to support this stance as they argued successful distance (online) students need technical skills, self-motivation, and self-discipline. if students do not have these qualities then perhaps withdrawal is necessary. however, when students enrol in courses with the intention of succeeding but then do not engage, withdrawal could be masking an issue rather than dealing with reasons for not engaging. however, because research into what happens to those who do not complete is rare (simpson, 2013), further investigation on this issue is warranted. participants described multiple interventions that suggest attention to a range of actions is needed. distance education scholarship emphasises the need for effective materials and resources (harasim, hiltz, teles, & turoff, 1995); interaction with teachers and each other (paloff & pratt, 2003); and a student-centred, empathetic approach (holmberg, 2005). participants in this study recognised the need for all of these but, due to the wide range of vocational programmes offered by opnz, a simple, one-size-fits-all solution is not possible. these differing perspectives created a picture that resonates with paloff and pratt’s (2003) model of distance education courses whereby the institution, the staff and the students all work to create effective learning. as paloff and pratt claimed, the institution must create systems that are conducive to learning, teachers need to offer both academic and non-academic support, and students must be active learners who are willing to contribute. the participants in this study identified factors related to staff, students, and systems which they believed contributed to increased student engagement. conclusion while acknowledging the small scale of this study, the findings do support and add to the literature on student engagement in distance vocational education. the student perspective is widely documented in the literature, but there is far less on staff perspectives. this study has painted a picture of a group of knowledgeable, dedicated tvet staff who firmly believe student engagement will improve with appropriate interventions. the implications are that distance education institutions can match face-to-face organisations in terms of student engagement and course completion, but they must enable staff to be student-centred. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 41 references anderson, h. 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(1986). thought and language (abridged from 1934; a.kozulin, trans.). cambridge, ma: mit press. http://pcfpapers.colfinder.org/handle/5678/154 https://akoaotearoa.ac.nz/download/ng/file/group-5/intervention-for-retention-through-distance-education-a-comparison-study.pdf https://akoaotearoa.ac.nz/download/ng/file/group-5/intervention-for-retention-through-distance-education-a-comparison-study.pdf http://www.tec.govt.nz/reports/2012/open-polytechnic.pdf http://www.tec.govt.nz/reports/2012/open-polytechnic.pdf http://www.tec.govt.nz/reports/2012/open-polytechnic.pdf journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 43 biographical notes anne yates anne.yates@vuw.ac.nz anne yates is a lecturer in the faculty of education at victoria university of wellington, new zealand, where she teaches in the graduate diploma in teaching and ba programmes. anne has a background in distance education as the former programme director for the graduate diploma in teaching (secondary online) at victoria university and previously taught at te aho o te kura pounamu—the correspondence school. her research interests include distance learning (including e-learning) as an approach to learning, initial teacher education, and school-based assessment for national qualifications. wendy brindley-richards brindlwend@myvuw.ac.nz wendy brindley-richards is a former teacher who is now studying for a masters of educational psychology with victoria university of wellington. she was appointed from november 2013 until march 2014 as a faculty of education, victoria university summer scholar—a programme that aims to develop the research skills of postgraduate students. during this period she contributed extensively to the research project. dr tony thistoll tony.thistoll@openpolytechnic.ac.nz dr tony thistoll is strategic insight manager at the open polytechnic of new zealand. he currently leads a team of analysts to inform and execute the organisational strategy for open and flexible vocational education. his background is in product management and business development in the information and communication technologies (ict) industry. in recent years tony has combined postgraduate study with contract lecturing and has completed a phd in the field of entrepreneurship and innovation in the context of the ict industry. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. yates, a., brindley-richards, w., & thistoll, t. (2014). student engagement in distance-based vocational education. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 18(2), [29–43]. mailto:anne.yates@vuw.ac.nz mailto:brindlwend@myvuw.ac.nz mailto:tony.thistoll@openpolytechnic.ac.nz http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ yates, a., brindley-richards, w., & thistoll, t. 44 © distance education association of new zealand 2 introduction mark nichols laidlaw college henderson, auckland at last year’s distance education association of new zealand conference i became acutely aware of the broad range of settings in which the members of deanz practice their craft. most members use distance education in ways that are not immediately transferable to other settings. members of deanz are predominantly in the tertiary sector; however, there are also significant numbers in industry, and in the primary and secondary school sectors. we therefore bring different assumptions, concerns, and practices to our common interest of distance education. in a volume that celebrates 30 years of distance education, the journal for the open and distance learning association of australia (odlaa), j. michael spector reflects on the diversity of distance education today. spector notes that the boundaries between face-to-face and distance education are becoming increasingly blurred. however, he adds that “research and development in the field of distance education has and is likely to continue to inform educational research and practice in general” (2009, p. 160). there is indeed great value in maintaining journals that provide a means of expression for a community of practice that has distance education in common. the diverse membership in deanz presents both an opportunity and challenges for a journal such as the journal of distance learning. there is opportunity in the potential for enrichment, because different perspectives always broaden our minds and deepen our understanding. while the issues and practices others use may not be immediately transferable to our own situations, there is still great value in considering what our professional colleagues have done and why they have done it; what they think and why they think it. the journal of distance learning is a valuable forum for ideas, expression, and debate. but herein also lies the challenge. variance in membership can make preparing the journal a fairly ‘hit and miss’ affair. articles tend to be grounded in specific situations or written for specific groups, and require a certain level of commitment if they are to be read attentively. i’m certain that, like me, you tend to look at a journal’s table of journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 2–4 © distance education association of new zealand 3 contents fairly judiciously. my hope is that, in this issue, you will find articles worthy of your consideration and engagement. the first article in this volume is both a summary and an expansion of michael barbour’s excellent keynote address at the 2008 deanz conference in wellington. barbour starts with a critique of the net generation, and journeys through to a conclusion that places virtual schooling in sober context. while barbour’s work focuses on the k12 sector, his coverage addresses the diversity across the virtual school movement, and pays particular attention to technology use and overall approach. general readers will no doubt benefit from barbour’s comments about the differences between synchronous and asynchronous teaching quality with reference to k–12 teachers, and his concluding comments. our next article, by hamish anderson of massey university, considers how online quizzes are used in a large distance education course. there is nothing novel in this—online quiz tools have long been available in learning management systems. anderson, however, has maximised online quizzes in ways that are appropriate to his specific teaching context. his approach reveals a dedication to student success, informed practice, and measured innovation; the resulting benefits are very real improvements to engagement, effectiveness, and efficiency (spector, 2009). anderson’s approach is very transferable, and provides an example of how well-established technology can add true value to student learning. while it could be argued that successful students will tend to self-select for formative exercises, it should be noted that anderson’s online approach saw the percentage of students choosing to complete the formative assessment increase from 59 percent to 92 percent. anderson also specifically comments on the performance of what might be considered “borderline and academically weaker students” in his analysis. distance educators in industry settings and with an interest in employment issues for distance education graduates will be particularly interested in the contribution in this volume by chan chi wai, assistant professor at the open university of hong kong. chan evaluates the earning potential of distance education graduates. he starts by acknowledging that the efficiencies of what might be considered ‘mass production’ distance education tend to make the quality of distance education graduates appear doubtful. using statistical analysis from two hong kong censuses (2001, 2006), chan puts this suspicion to the ultimate test: how does earning a distance education qualification affect graduates’ levels of income? chan’s analysis is both thought-provoking and reassuring. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 2–4 © distance education association of new zealand 4 there is a more theoretical approach in the next paper, where gary mersham (the open polytechnic of new zealand) considers distance education in relation to the dialogical model of communication. mersham raises the potential for misunderstanding in asynchronous e-learning environments, and takes a critical perspective on asynchronous online discourse. while mersham might appear to overstate his case in places, his is a vivid critique of online learning from a perspective of communications theory. mersham’s piece is included to provoke thought; it certainly addresses issues of online education from an ‘out of the paradigm’ point of view that invites a critical response. the final two articles in this volume deal with specific technologies. terry stewart (winner of the deanz award 2008), mark brown, and anna weatherstone, all from massey university, outline a process for developing problem-based education scenarios. the sbl interactive tool they describe has attracted considerable international attention. sbl interactive makes it possible for students to explore narrative scenarios in ways that increase active engagement. in their paper stewart et al. focus on the dynamics of scenario creation in general, and their work will be of benefit to anyone interested in the development of scenarios, not just sbl interactive users. finally, rachel roberts of stratford high school summarises the development of video conferencing in new zealand’s secondary school sector. roberts gives insight into the rich availability and use of video conferencing, and she reveals the collaboration that is taking place across schools to make it all possible. using synchronous video conferencing makes it easier to match teaching expertise with student needs across the country. however, synchronous video is not without its challenges, which range from operational to strategic. we also include three book reviews by notable practitioners of distance learning. so this issue of the journal of distance learning has plenty to think on, disagree with, and learn from. i trust you find this volume of the journal much enriched by the variety of contributions, and on behalf of the editorial board i look forward to receiving any contribution you may wish to make. references spector, m. j. (2009). reconsidering the notion of distance in distance education. distance education 30(1), 157–161. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 2–4 microsoft word cunningham.docx cunningham, u. 44 language pedagogy and non-transience in the flipped classroom una cunningham, university of canterbury abstract high connectivity at tertiary institutions, and students who are often equipped with laptops and/or tablets as well as smartphones, have resulted in language learners being able to freely access technology and the internet. reference tools such as dictionaries, concordancers, translators, and thesauri, with pronunciation and usage tips, are available at the touch of a screen. the web brings a virtually endless corpus of authentic written and spoken target language usage, and instant communication with target language speakers anywhere. video recordings of teaching or materials created for language learners can be viewed and reviewed at the learner’s convenience and reused by the teacher, freeing contact time for interaction. this paper distinguishes between asynchrony and non-transience and discusses which material can best be offered to language learners in tertiary education in a nontransient or enduring form rather than as live teaching, why this might be a good idea, and how to create and curate non-transient resources for individualised language learning. keywords: flipped classroom; language education; language pedagogy; language teaching; non-transient media introduction the terms “flipped classroom “and “flipped learning” are associated with two american high school science teachers, bergmann and sams (2012; 2014). the defining characteristics of the basic flipped classroom are that students “watch instructional videos at home and do the typical homework (worksheets, problem sets, back-of-the-chapter exercises) in class” (bergmann & sams, 2014, p. 6). the idea is that knowledge and understanding can be gained by watching videos alone at home, but the application of this knowledge can benefit from the support of the teacher and interaction with peers. many teachers have found the notion of the flipped classroom appealing (gilboy, heinerichs, & pazzaglia, 2015) and anecdotal reports of its adoption can be read in teacher blogs. in this paper i will examine the relevance of this innovation for tertiary education, particularly language teaching. flipping in terms of the later versions of bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives (e.g., krathwohl, 2002), the goal of learning is for students to be able to remember, understand, apply, analyse, evaluate, and create. in traditional teacher-led classroom teaching, remembering and understanding are achieved in the classroom, while application is the student’s responsibility (bergmann & sams, 2014; cunningham, 2014). in the flipped-learning model, on the other hand, learners shift the stages of remembering and understanding from the classroom to their pre-class study of non-transient materials such as web-based lectures or video clips. in this way, there is time in class for them to apply their new knowledge, to further analyse new data and evaluate journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 45 their learning. they might also create something new from the process. they can, quite simply, get further if they use the flipped model as intended, because advanced processing of ideas and concepts will be worked on with teacher and peers rather than being assigned to unsupported students for homework (gilboy et al., 2015). effects of flipping on learning outcomes the idea of separating the delivery of lecture-like elements of lessons from students’ application of knowledge is intuitively attractive, but as yet there is little evidence that it actually makes a difference to students’ learning. some studies have sought to find improved learning outcomes for students in flipped classrooms, but the usual constraints faced by practitioner–researchers make research into this field challenging. it is inherently difficult to set up empirical studies of learning with control groups and sufficient numbers of participants to make a quantitative study reliable, and the teachers who are flipping their classrooms may be motivated more by the needs of their students than by the potential for documenting their work in research outputs. the effects of the flipped learning model are not, however, confined to the results achieved by the students. in a study of teaching material technology at a university in the west indies, blair, maharaj, and primus (2015) found that, although a flipped model did not apparently affect exam performance, lecturers were keen to continue because they perceived that the flipped format allowed more time for them to work with individual students. this model does open up new possible uses of the class time that becomes available when students spend time before class engaging with flipped (non-transient, asynchronous) material. this additional available time must, of course, be used thoughtfully. the students who need most support may be able to get more time with the teacher, either individually or in small groups. it might also be possible to direct struggling students—or those who are eager to extend their learning beyond the course syllabus— to view different pre-class materials. other kinds of scaffolding and differentiation can be employed in the classroom, with alternate activities and different degrees of difficulty. students can be empowered to select material according to their level of ambition, or the teacher can guide them to appropriate material. because the prepared material is non-transient, it can also be viewed in class. lectures are not optimal traditional unidirectional lecture-type teaching is not the best way to teach. previous research has shown that students cannot focus longer than about 20 minutes on a lecture (e.g., smith, 2001), yet many lecturers and teachers, including language teachers, feel some aspects of lessons are best explained orally to students, with or without visual support. at least part of a lesson will often take the form of a chalk-and-talk or may be based on a powerpoint presentation. in much tertiary and even high school education, lecture-style episodes are still common. many tertiary educators have not been trained to teach, and lecturers may not have an alternative to the formal lecture as a means of delivery. consequently, they often resort to teaching as they have been taught, so many students are still expected to passively receive information in 60or 90-minute lectures. efforts have been made to increase the interactivity of formal lectures: ebner (2009), for example, describes the use of micro-blogging to overcome the problem of students who are reluctant to ask questions in lectures, and green, chang, tanford, and moll (2015) looked at the greater positive effect of clickers than of lecture software apps on the self-reported engagement of hospitality students in singapore. traditional teacher-led lectures are not typical of language classes with communicative skills in the target language as the object of teaching and assessment. however, in many parts of the world there is still a desire to teach and assess explicit language knowledge, and lecture-like teaching is still used. long and robinson (1998) distinguished between focus on forms (plural)— where linguistic structure is used as the organising principle for a language course—in contrast to cunningham, u. 46 focus on form (singular)—where attention is paid to linguistic structure as and when it is necessary for learners’ communication. focus on form is viewed as the dominant good practice in contemporary meaning-focused language teaching. flipping the language classroom by providing online video lessons that explain or clarify a point of structure may be a way to enable the insertion of focus on forms without breaking the flow of communication necessary for focus on form. flipping can satisfy the preferences and expectations of learners who expect to learn grammar and who feel anxious when they cannot recite verb tables and vocabulary lists, without compromising learning conditions for the development of learners’ communicative competence. these online video lessons can be used for focus-on-form instruction (long & robinson, 1998) at the point of need in a meaning-focused approach (e.g., east 2012). similarly, when cultural knowledge is part of the curriculum, online video material that can be viewed outside class time can support development. online video material can also be used to present, characterise, and exemplify genres that the learners might need to become familiar with. such material may be teacher-produced or sourced from elsewhere. learner experiences and beliefs we know a good deal about how students perceive live lectures versus web lectures and how they use recordings of live lectures when they are available. an australian study of nursing students that compared students who had access to recordings of lectures with students who did not have access to recordings found that, although 96 per cent of the students who had access to the recorded lectures did view them, the students who did not have access had better results (johnston, massa, & burne, 2013). this finding was attributed to those students who had access to recorded lectures choosing to not attend the campus lectures and, instead, engaging with the recorded lectures for the first time when they prepared for major assessment tasks. studies often find that students enjoy flipped learning even if their results do not always improve, though this may not be the case in all contexts. for example, in a study of flipped learning in asian universities, chua and lateef (2014) questioned whether the popularity of flipped pedagogy in the west would be echoed in asia, and trinder (2016) found that austrian university students indicated a preference for face-to-face interaction over virtual environments for language learning. the above-mentioned study of australian nursing students considered their attendance at live lectures and their viewing of recorded lectures (johnston et al., 2013). it was found that the students liked to access recorded lectures for revision, but might not have viewed the recordings before they started to prepare for exams, instead “seemingly relying on heavy access to the recorded material immediately prior to major assessment tasks” (johnston et al., 2013, p. 45). the unlimited availability of the recorded lectures actually led the students to postpone their viewing, suggesting that students might need support to access the digital materials in a more appropriate way. student engagement students’ reluctance to engage with online material that their teachers have prescribed for them has been addressed as described below. there is the potential, in flipped pedagogy, for students to turn up for class without having done the required preparation, but it is crucial that students do this work. less-engaged students in particular might need encouragement to access the materials and use them as intended. bishop (2013), looking at the application of flipped learning in engineering education, was disappointed to find that students did not complete the work expected at home because it was not assessed. cunningham, beers fägersten, and holmsten (2010) found that students of english for specific purposes in hanoi were not inclined to comply when instructed to listen to teacher-generated podcasts according to a set programme. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 47 the difficulty of getting students to complete assigned tasks before and/or after class has been addressed in several ways, but one of the more promising may be the extrinsic motivation offered by awarding grades to work submitted before class. one such approach is definitional grading, such as described by looney (2003), which eliminates the possibility of poor performance in one area of a course being offset by good performance in another. in definitional grading, the teacher defines the minimum requirements for each component of a course (e.g., a test, participation in discussions, or pre-class work showing engagement with flipped material) and the student is given a grade corresponding to their lowest performance in any course component. a similar result is reported by bergmann and sams (2014) who used online quizzes to assess student understanding of the flipped material. boyer (2013) recommends beginning each lesson with a quick test, so students get used to being accountable for their pre-class preparation work. not being assessed on pre-class work is just one of several possible reasons for students not engaging, or only partly or half-heartedly engaging, with assigned preparatory work. another possibility is that students do not feel their preparation is important or necessary if (because some students have not prepared adequately), the teacher presents the material at the beginning of class. some students may feel that they can “wing it” and catch up as the class progresses. in addition, if the pre-class material is long or arduous, students may abandon it mid-way, or skim through it. many teachers have shared their experience in this respect, such as in the atlanta tech forum (2014) where a teacher gives this advice: “…you can’t put a 50-minute lecture up on a video. they’re not going to watch it” (p. 10). some teachers may fail to challenge their more able students in an effort to secure the compliance of the larger group. the flipped classroom, however, provides the opportunity for individualisation. this topic will be revisited in sections below. learner metrics allow teachers to monitor and analyse students’ viewing behaviours of online video material such as is often used in flipped learning. kleftodimos and evangelidis (2014) outline a method whereby educators can access information about individual learners and groups of learners who start watching an online video; how long they watch; and where they pause, go back over material, or abandon their viewing. in their study of computer science students in a technical institute in macedonia, they found that, although 43% of students viewed videos straight through, 18% abandoned their viewing before they had seen 60% of the video. asynchrony and non-transience this section introduces the sometimes coinciding parameters of synchrony and non-transience. synchrony refers to events happening at the same time, such as a lecture that is being viewed while it is being produced. asynchrony, on the other hand, refers to events occurring at different times, such as an online recorded lecture being viewed after the event. transience refers to events or artefacts that are ephemeral, such as a live unrecorded lecture, while non-transient events or artefacts remain available to be viewed on demand, often at the viewer’s convenience. these parameters are important in immediate and mediated communication, and ubiquitous technology is changing the relationship between them. asynchrony according to hrastinski (2008), synchrony in educational meetings leads to personal participation, which is reflected in increased arousal, motivation, and convergence on meaning. attending a live class is, he proposes, simply more interesting than watching a screen after the event, when there is no possibility of interaction. asynchrony, on the other hand, hrastinski suggests, leads to cognitive participation: increased reflection and ability to process information. this is true even of written interaction in online courses. some learners enjoy being able to take cunningham, u. 48 time writing their responses in forum discussions. others are more engaged in the immediacy of a live meeting, even online. cunningham (2014) showed that both on-campus and online students valued the opportunity for online students to participate online in on-campus classes. conditional asynchrony can be introduced with a learning platform, such that a student must complete a before moving to b, or must post to a forum before gaining access to other students’ postings. it is important to note that synchrony/asynchrony and transience/non-transience are separate dimensions. figure 1 shows how these parameters vary independently. figure 1 examples of synchrony and transience and their interaction 1. asynchronous non-transient asynchronous non-transient (bottom-left quadrant of fig. 1) applies to the most common kind of flipped materials for language teaching: those that are made especially to be viewed by learners without teacher support. these materials are more or less permanent and can be viewed whenever the students wish. they may be videos or podcasts, prepared or collected by the teacher or others using video or screen capture software, and distributed on the web or the institution’s learning management platform or website. they also include open educational resources such as the material on itunesu or khan academy (https://www.khanacademy.org), e-books, or printed materials (although these would not usually be characterised as flipped materials). another kind of non-transient asynchronous material is recordings of live presentations or classes, or recordings of the live streaming of such a class. 2. synchronous transient the synchronous transient material (the top-right quadrant) is in maximum contrast with material and teaching in quadrant 1. teaching in quadrant 2 is usually ephemeral’ here-andnow, face-to-face teaching in physical environments, but can also be computer-mediated communication, such when as a distance student participates in a class that is live-streamed using, for example, adobe connect, google hangouts or skype. 4 asynchronous transient single view opportunities waiting for the viewer 2 synchronous transient here and now 1 asynchronous non-transient more-or-less permanent, view whenever 3 synchronous non-transient here and now but can be revisited journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 49 3. synchronous non-transient synchronous and non-transient material (the bottom-right quadrant) are experienced by the learner in real time, but are recorded and can be revisited later. when live-streamed material is recorded and the recordings are available to learners, they become non-transient. for example, a function in google hangouts enables registered users to have a completed hangout instantly posted to the creator’s youtube channel. text chat is another example of this. the actual communication between the chatters happens in almost real time, but it can also be viewed later by the original communicators and, depending on the settings, others who view it, as asynchronous, non-transient material. 4. asynchronous transient asynchronous transient materials (the top-left quadrant) are single-view opportunities waiting for the viewer. these are not very common, but a non-technological example would be a message written on rice paper for a spy to eat after reading. interestingly, the nontransience of most computer-mediated communication has become a bit of a problem as people have become aware of their digital footprints—information on social media can endure for years after it is posted, potentially causing embarrassment to the individual. snapchat (www.snapchat.com) is one solution. this is a photo-sharing app that allows users to send images that disappear, ostensibly irretrievably, within seconds of being opened. non-transience this paper argues that the main characteristic of the material in the flipped learning approach is that, as well as being intended for asynchronous viewing, it is non-transient. in other words, the material does not disappear after it is produced, as a traditional live face-to-face lecture does. students can rewind the lecture or other video or sound material as often as they want. unlike the ephemeral lecture, where a moment’s inattention can result in losing a point entirely, learners can stop, rewind, and review until they are satisfied. they can view the lecture again, and repeat the lecture experience before their assessment; some students might review the lecture even if they have attended it (johnston et al., 2013). while this availability is useful for students who miss class and need to catch up, there are also benefits for learners who need to listen more than once to understand the material. for example, a live face-to-face lecture can be very challenging for learners whose first language is not the language of instruction, and non-transient materials allow them to listen repeatedly. non-transient resources have other advantages too. learner autonomy is more easily augmented, and learners empowered, when they can choose the activities, targets, and support. the web offers endless self-access materials. a curated library of video material presenting particular structures of the target language allows learners to be independent of the teacher at times. the teacher, in turn, can offer different materials to different learners according to their level or their targets for learning. because non-transient materials can be rewound or reviewed for flexible self-access use by learners there is no sense of urgency as there is with face-to-face lectures, which are generally annual events. learners are usually able and allowed to use non-transient resources at their own convenience and/or point of need. but there are some disadvantages. as indicated by johnston et al. (2013), non-transient resources can be subject to loss due to procrastination, failure to value the material, inability to sustain effort, or poor study habits. transient communication or materials, on the other hand, are more of a “use it or lose it” kind of opportunity. a live lecture demands attention and sustained concentration at a given time, not of the learner’s choosing. the lecture is subject to loss due to students missing class, being distracted, or suffering from information overload in the sense that they are not able to process the contents of the lecture in a single sitting. cunningham, u. 50 applying flipped classroom pedagogy to language learning transient and non-transient resources for language teaching table 1 summarises the when, why, what, and how of possible uses for transient and nontransient resources in learning and teaching languages. transient resources, which will not or cannot be revisited for later use, are used in synchronous interaction in the target language. this interaction can be pair work or group discussions, in or out of the physical or virtual classroom. the teacher can then be on hand to offer individualised scaffolding, instructions, or explanations of the task at hand. both spontaneous and planned opportunities are likely to happen in the synchronous transient space. direct teacher feedback is also transient—a casual “great polite objection strategies there!” is ephemeral but leaves a glow in the learner’s memory. similarly, any real-world interactions the learners undertake in a target language context are transient unless there is some kind of film or audio recording made. non-transience is useful if the teacher wants to seize an opportunity for focus on form during a communicative activity. this can be done by directing learners to a pre-recorded resource that explains a point of grammar. for example, rather than being obliged to conjure up an explanation of subject–verb agreement every time it is needed, the teacher can produce or source a thoughtthrough video presentation in either the learners’ first language or in the target language. such a resource can be used multiple times and referred to by both teacher and learners (if they have free access to the materials). journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 51 table 1 transient and non-transient resources for language teaching the rewindable quality of non-transient resources makes them useful for information learners might want to return to, such as instructions for, or conditions of, the task they are working on. if there is a pre-task video, they might be ready to view it at different times and they might want to share it with their families. ideally the non-transient resources will be available on demand, at the learners’ convenience. many learners appreciate having feedback on their written work in the form of a screencast of their text with an audio commentary. this can then be viewed and listened to multiple times as the learner works through it, and revisited during later writing. screencasting can also be used to make a spontaneous non-transient talk-through of anything that can be done on screen, such as finding an article in the library, or using the spell-check and dictionary functions in a word processor. students can learn to make screencasts and other nontransient material for each other and for learners coming after them. such materials could be task-output presentations (e.g., on a country in which the target language is spoken) or learner transient non-transient when? learners interacting in the target language peer and teacher feedback collaborative work real-world interactions in the community focus on form at the point of need learning about the target language culture input in the target language task-based language learning and teaching formative assessment or oral feedback wrap-up lectures why? flexible seizing of opportunity for scaffolding learners’ output spontaneous and planned opportunities for interaction save classroom time for interaction and real communication individualise teaching by referring students to online material at the point of need what? interaction in the target language individual explanation and instruction spontaneous feedback open and closed libraries of digital material (video, audio, text) spontaneously produced resources (e.g., in response to student requests) instructions and supporting materials for activities and tasks student performance for sharing how? teachers and learners interact in a traditional physical or synchronous online learning space tablet screen capture (e.g., educreations) screen capture (eg., camtasia/snagit youtube) examples executing tasks in groups interactive learning and language use spontaneous, responsive instruction by peers and teacher grammar explanations vocabulary presentations stroke order for writing characters spelling rules writing conventions reference resources videos for pronunciation strategies for reading and listening strategies for speaking and writing strategies for self-correction cunningham, u. 52 produced audio files of spoken book reviews that can be linked to qr-codes on stickers inside the covers of school library books. this gives an audience and an authenticity to learners’ tasks, empowers them, and promotes their autonomy as users of the target language. however, the main advantage of using non-transient materials in the context of flipped pedagogy is that they free up classroom time for interaction. professional views of how languages are learned are still split between those who focus on form and prioritise learning about the language and learning to use the target language accurately, and those who focus on meaning and prioritise implicit language knowledge and learning to use the target language spontaneously. many national language curricula, such as the swedish gy11 (skolverket, 2011) and the new zealand curriculum (ministry of education, 2007) now suggest emphasising meaning-focused activities that lead to a course aim of communicative competence. the use of form as an organising principle for the syllabus has therefore fallen out of favour in many contexts, and secondlanguage acquisition research has bestowed lists of principles for language teachers on which to base their planning, teaching, and assessment (e.g., ellis, 2005, 2012; nation, 2007). nation’s four strands model, which places equal emphasis on meaning-focused input, meaning-focused output, language-focused learning, and fluency development (nation, 2007) is useful here. as will be explained below, a language course based on these four strands can be easily enhanced by the judicious use of technology in general, and by strategic flipping in particular. there is compelling evidence that interaction in the target language is a necessary part of fluency development (e.g., ellis, 1991; mackey, 1999; tran, 2009). task-based, and other meaningfocused language teaching, requires time for learners to work together to practice using the target language in real communication under the guidance of the teacher or a more experienced interlocutor. flipped pedagogy can be applied to free up time in the language classroom (when teacher and learner are co-present) for learner–learner and learner–teacher interaction. other interactions are also possible, with virtual or physical guests who may be proficient speakers of the target language, or by tele-collaboration with another class. in fact, the thinking behind flipped learning is not entirely new to language educators. boyer (2013) noted that while the term ‘flipped classroom’ was new to her, teachers she worked with were already producing recorded elements to repeat concepts for students who missed class, and were sharing these materials with other teachers. in addition, language teachers have always asked students to preview a reading or (re)visit a resource before the next class. the benefits of repeated exposure to the target language are widely understood. extensive reading and writing have often been assigned outside class while, in some systems, speaking and listening have been prioritised in class where the teacher can serve as a model for the learners’ oral production. advances in connectivity, the development of vast amounts of authentic and adapted content for reading and listening (such as podcasts) and the ubiquity of mobile devices (e.g., smart phones) have led to extensive listening or viewing becoming more practical pre-class activities (grönlund & viberg, 2013). what is perhaps new is that the resources often used in flipped classrooms are typically non-transient and are digitally mediated so students can access them when and as often as they want. digital technology allows teachers to offer material that is available at any time, using video with its multimodal affordances and the possibility of differentiating the material prescribed for each learner. with a library of video resources such as learnerstv (www.learnerstv.com), or with customisable, or adaptive learning technology such as that produced by language perfect (www.languageperfect.com) which provides grammar explanations and activities as well as vocabulary training, teachers can offer tailored input for learners at the point of need. in contemporary task-based language teaching, this allows focus on form, and even explicit grammar lesson snippets in the ‘heat’ of a task or in the post-task phase (east, 2012). journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 53 language pedagogy-driven use of technology language educators who want to flip their language classrooms have many more options than just video mini-lectures. early tutorial applications in computer-assisted language learning (call) such as hot potato (www.halfbakedsoftware.com) lent themselves to grammar drills and encouraged early adopters of software to become pedagogical laggards in the terms of roger’s (2003) diffusion of innovation model because, lured by the affordances of the technology, they fell back on out-dated approaches to language teaching. this tendency for language educators to regress to earlier ways to teach and learn languages when they were eager to introduce technology into their practice has been observed by davies, otto, and ruschoff (2013, p. 25). they describe how “the clock was turned back in the early 1980s, resulting in the production of an abundance of grammar and vocabulary practice programs—drill-and-practice or ‘drill-andkill’—in spite of the fact that the communicative approach was by now well established”. however, in a study of adults in turkey preparing for professional english language exams, kılıçkaya (2015) suggested that, as communicative competence is not the main target of such learners, learner-centred computer-based procedures may not be well received by them, or be optimal for their need to develop accuracy in a short time. egbert, herman, and chang (2014) link flipped pedagogy, and the engagement of pre-service teachers of chinese in the united states, to studies of optimal language learning. the presentation-practice-production (ppp) model, a weak interpretation of the communicative approach, is standard practice in much teaching of english as a foreign language (efl) and in other foreign language teaching in most of the world at secondary and tertiary level. cook (2016, p. 292) refers to ppp as “the mainstream efl style”. the ppp model has a structurally organised syllabus with points of grammar being taught deductively (presentation), and then being applied in controlled language activities (practice). learners are finally given communicative activities in which to use the target structures in free language. these activities are designed to encourage their use (production). it would certainly be unfortunate if the flipped language classroom were to be interpreted as a digital version of ppp, in which students view web-based videos on grammar points at home, and do exercises or worksheets in class to practice the form in controlled contexts. a better application of the ppp model would involve learners completing both the present phase and the practice phase at home before class, leaving the freer production phase for the classroom. this would solve problems such as that identified by le (2011), who described secondary school contexts in vietnam where the ppp model is centrally mandated for teaching english. le found that the free-production phase of the ppp model appears to be generally neglected. he wrote “most of the teachers acknowledged that they either skipped the production stage or spent very little time on free activities because of time constraints” (le, 2011, p. 142). this resulted in teaching that was very focused on the acquisition of explicit language knowledge, which, along with vocabulary and reading comprehension, was what was actually assessed (le, 2011, p, 191). many teachers in new zealand use apps such as socrative (socrative.com) or kahoot! (getkahoot.com) to create clicker-like polling interaction or quick quizzes to increase interactivity in teacher-led sections of their lessons. nearpod (nearpod.com) even allows learners to follow the teacher’s slides on their own devices before a quiz, and can be set as in-class, preclass, or post-class work. lectures are not, however, a large part of contemporary communicative language teaching. if there are such elements, they are often concerned either with focus on explicit language knowledge (grammar explanations) or with presentations of aspects of the target language culture. useful as these might be for grammatical explanations at the point of need, language learning today involves using the language with the aim of developing implicit language knowledge more than it is about learning explicit language knowledge (that is, cunningham, u. 54 knowledge about the language and how it “works”). one useful way for learners to use technology outside class time is for extensive language activities. these may or may not be part of a flipped learning approach, depending on how directly they are set to prepare the learners for a coming class. extensive language practice extensive reading can be accomplished and supported with e-book readers or reader apps on tablets or computers, and access to online libraries and their content can be greatly enhanced by using web technology to locate and download suitable texts. systems that allow the reader to simultaneously read a text and hear it read aloud can be very suitable. learners may be asked to view a section of a movie or an act of a play before a class in which the task might be to create their own version of a scene. other kinds of texts, primarily non-fiction and those that relate to current events or topics of particular interest to the learners can, with some effort, be found on the web. every day, vast quantities of text are produced in most of the target languages that language learners need and they are distributed freely, available to anyone who wants them. automatic text simplification and reading support processes (anderson-inman & horney 2007; huang & liou, 2007), while still not fully developed, might allow a teacher or a learner to adjust a setting to a level that is appropriate for the learner to enjoy extensive reading. extensive writing is also an excellent way for learners to develop fluency (brown & lee, 2015). many educators have their students write outside class. this writing can be in private journals or blogs (domalewska, 2014) and collaboratively, such as in in web-based wikis (wang, 2015). learners’ writing is used as an input for their classmates, who may be asked to comment on each other’s blog entries. this kind of extensive writing or journalling can be a useful flipped element, allowing learners to engage in writing about a stimulus image or text before they come to class for spoken interaction with their teacher or peers. it can also allow learners to activate formal and content schemata (guo & ma, 2015; kaplan, 1966) individually, before they are influenced by their classmates. oral skills can also be subject to extensive practice before class. extensive listening to purposively or self-selected podcasts at a suitable level in the target language should help learners in many ways (rosell-aguilar, 2015). even listening to a reading of a text they will meet in class should help learners develop initial understanding. extensive speaking practice is more unusual, but smartphones have put an audio recorder in most students’ pockets, and free talking (which is like free writing, but oral) can be a way to get used to pronouncing and repeating the target language. extensive speaking practice can be quite challenging for some learners, so this kind of private practice (either unscripted stream of consciousness speech or repeating a reading or a dialogue, recording it and listening) can, in the author’s extensive experience, be liberating. this practice can be unfocused extensive speaking, or more directly done alone in preparation for a coming class as a pre-class activity, or in communication with other students. for example, huang (2015) provides a study of voice blogging by tertiary students in taiwan. communication between learners is, of course, also possible outside the classroom, and telecollaboration can be set up to provide authenticity. social media, forums, and chats allow synchronous and asynchronous oral or written communication. toetenel (2014) reported the use of a social networking site for informal language practice. this was also the focus of thomas’s (2013) work on students’ second-language identity in a range of web 2.0 and virtual world environments. there has been quite a bit of recent work examining the use of interactive web technology for language learning, generally in a communicative approach for free language production of some kind. yen, hou, and chang (2015) had business college students in taiwan engage in role-playing on facebook and skype, and found that this task-based approach supported the development of learners’ spoken and written proficiency. chen, shih, and liu journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 55 (2015) studied blog-mediated interaction between students at two universities in taiwan and found that most of the participants enjoyed the interaction with outsiders, and increased their vocabularies. while these activities may be done inside or outside the classroom, they suit a flipped model—spoken interaction via skype is acoustically challenging in a classroom environment (cunningham, 2014), and facebook interaction can be asynchronous. conclusion this paper has shown how flipped pedagogy, although originally developed for secondary education, is particularly suited to teaching languages at tertiary level. the affordances of nontransient recorded lectures or presentations before class are not only that class time becomes available for essential interaction in the target language, but also that learners are empowered to take charge of their learning. bergmann and sams (2014, p. 33) describe a trajectory often taken by teachers who embark on the flipped learning model, moving from creating a library of ondemand (non-transient) video content as novice flipped educators, then increasing learner autonomy, and eventually allowing learners to move through the curriculum at their own pace, accessing content as they move through. in tertiary language teaching this autonomy is particularly appealing to students who often have a language as a minor subject, and need to fit their study around other commitments. non-transient resources are here to stay, and language teachers will use them in ways we have not begun to imagine. they may also offer inspiration to other tertiary educators. references anderson-inman, l., & horney, m. a. 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(2015). promoting collaborative writing through wikis: a new approach for advancing innovative and active learning in an esp context. computer assisted language learning, 28(6), 499–514. doi:10.1080/09588221.2014.881386 yen, y., hou, h., & chang, k. e. (2015). applying role-playing strategy to enhance learners’ writing and speaking skills in efl courses using facebook and skype as learning tools: a case study in taiwan. computer assisted language learning, 28(5), 383–406. doi:10.1080/09588221.2013.839568 biographical notes una cunningham una.cunningham@canterbury.ac.nz associate professor una cunningham leads the university of canterbury learning and teaching languages research lab, the master of teaching english to speakers of other languages (mtesol), and master of computer-assisted language learning (mcall). her main area of research is in the field of migration, language, learning and technology in various permutations. she is interested in the application of technology for using, learning and teaching languages, and the interplay of linguistic and digital practices of multilingual and transnational families. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. cunningham, u. (2016). language pedagogy and non-transience in the flipped classroom. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) [44–58]. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(1) 27 student and teacher perceptions of online student engagement in an online middle school nathaniel louwrens, core education maggie hartnett, massey university abstract while our understanding of student engagement in the compulsory schooling sector is well developed in face-to-face contexts, the same cannot be said for online and distance learning environments. indeed, most of what is currently known about online engagement has come from research with older students in tertiary education contexts. this study directly addresses this gap in the research by exploring student engagement in an online, middle school in a new zealand distance education context. by considering three key dimensions of student engagement—namely, behavioural engagement, cognitive engagement, and emotional engagement—this in-depth investigation explores what engages middle school students when they learn online. data collection techniques comprised student and teacher interviews, online asynchronous discussion transcripts, and statistical data from the learning management system (lms). results found that students in this study tended to engage behaviourally (i.e., do what was expected of them) with all required activities. cognitive engagement (i.e., students’ personal investment in their own learning) was evident in the giving and receiving of feedback as well as the interest and relevance certain activities generated for learners. emotional engagement was elicited through the design and facilitation of the activities, and through the ongoing development of a learning community in which students felt safe to contribute. keywords: student engagement, online learning, e-learning, distance learning, k–12, middle school, virtual school introduction e-learning at compulsory schooling levels of education is growing exponentially worldwide (barbour, 2013). new zealand is, however, still in the emerging phase of e-learning implementation (barbour et al., 2011). this is despite the ministry of education’s support for elearning initiatives since the early 2000s as a means of improving student achievement through increased engagement (ministry of education, 2006). student engagement is recognised as an important component of all teaching and learning (dixson, 2010). while multiple studies have explored online student engagement in higher education (e.g., jeffrey, milne, suddaby, & higgins, 2012; kahu, 2011; ross, 2010; shu, zhao, & wan, 2012), fewer studies have explored e-learning at the compulsory schooling level (means, toyama, murphy, bakia, & jones, 2009; parkes, zaka, & davis, 2011). the research that has occurred has tended to focus on teacher or administrator perceptions rather than student perceptions and experience (barbour, 2010). louwrens, n., hartnett, m. 28 furthermore, existing online student engagement research has tended to focus on behavioural engagement. emotional and cognitive engagement in e-learning contexts has rarely been considered. this paper addresses a gap in the research by examining the online engagement of school-age students from online behavioural, emotional and cognitive perspectives. literature review the use of e-learning (learning online with the aid of the internet and digital devices such as computers and mobile technologies) within the compulsory schooling sector, both in new zealand and around the world, is gaining momentum (barbour, 2013). as a result, the need for educators to develop an understanding of e-learning practices that lead to increased student engagement is gaining importance. dixson (2010) identified student engagement as an important component of all teaching—whether face to face or online—and “therefore it is imperative that we learn what engages students in order to foster effective online learning environments” (p. 1). student engagement the term ‘student engagement’ is used frequently but is not always well understood. harris (2008) stated that “while there is general agreement that student engagement produces positive outcomes, defining the concept is problematic as there is disagreement about what counts as student engagement” (p. 58). lack of a clear definition makes it difficult to know how student engagement could and should be measured (parsons & taylor, 2011). notwithstanding this range of understanding of student engagement, there is some commonality within the literature. many researchers agree that student engagement is a multi-faceted construct, encompassing three key dimensions—behavioural, cognitive, and emotional engagement (fredricks, blumenfeld, & paris, 2004; gibbs & poskitt, 2010). behavioural engagement generally refers to students’ attendance at school (and class) and their doing what is required to follow the rules and meet teacher and school expectations. it also includes participation in extra-curricular activities (fredricks et al., 2004; gibbs & poskitt, 2010; harris, 2008). cognitive engagement refers to the personal investment students make in their learning, such as understanding complex ideas (fredricks et al., 2004; harris, 2008), and is characterised by deep, focused, strategic thinking. cognitively engaged students regulate their own learning by planning, monitoring, and regularly reviewing their progress. cognitive engagement is sometimes measured as ‘time on task’. emotional engagement occurs when students react positively to their school or class environment—the teachers, other students, and the institution—as well as their learning (gibbs & poskitt, 2010; harris, 2008). it involves students’ “interest, belonging and attitude towards learning” (shu et al., 2012, p. 350). meyer and turner (2006) suggested that the learning environment plays a critical role in emotional engagement. gibbs and poskitt (2010) argued that students need to be behaviourally engaged (i.e., in class) and emotionally engaged (i.e., feeling comfortable and connected) before they can become cognitively engaged. online student engagement despite acknowledgement in the wider literature that engagement is a multi-dimensional construct, research exploring online student engagement has tended to view it as a unitary construct. furthermore, there is a view that online students learn more, are more engaged, and achieve more than traditional students (dixson, 2010). however, this increase in engagement and achievement may be due to the greater emphasis placed on online students to self-engage with their learning (wickersham & dooley, 2006). differences between online and face-to-face students notwithstanding, a range of factors that support student engagement in online contexts have been identified. many of these journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(1) 29 considerations fit within garrison, anderson, and archer’s (1999) community of inquiry model, which incorporates social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence. social presence is the degree to which online participants feel connected to one another (swan & shih, 2005). barbour and bennett (2013) identified that building strong online relationships with students was deemed important by teachers because it helps to develop social presence. positive social presence or connectedness leads to students feeling emotionally comfortable and therefore emotionally engaged in the learning environment. gibbs and poskitt (2010) argued that this was a requirement for cognitive engagement. cognitive presence is “the extent to which the participants in any particular configuration of a community of inquiry are able to construct meaning through sustained communication” (garrison et al., 1999, p. 89). cognitive presence is closely related to critical thinking and focuses on higher-order thinking processes that include creativity and problem solving (garrison, anderson, & archer, 2001). importantly, interaction and collaboration are key to establishing cognitive presence, which supports both emotional and cognitive engagement. the quality and frequency of interaction has been shown to be related to student completion (hawkins, graham, sudweeks, & barbour, 2013). collaboration has been identified as an important factor in increasing student engagement (chen, lambert, & guidry, 2010) and achieving learning outcomes (garrison, 2006). but although interaction is recognised as important in engaging students, it is not a guarantee of cognitive engagement (garrison & cleveland-innes, 2005). teaching presence encompasses the design and facilitation of the educational experience (garrison et al., 1999). activity design incorporates the level of difficulty, how it promotes student interest, and the purpose of the activity. student disengagement can occur when activities are too easy for learners (burger, nadirova, & keefer, 2012; ministry of education, 2008). designing activities that students enjoy has been found to positively influence student engagement (wood, 2012); disengagement occurs when tasks are uninteresting or irrelevant (burger et al., 2012). the teacher in an online course also plays an important role in encouraging students to engage by facilitating their learning. facilitation is the role not only of the teacher (garrison et al., 1999). although peer feedback cannot always replace the feedback of the ‘expert’ teacher, it is a useful technique in facilitating learning. gielen, peeters, dochy, onghena, and struyven (2010) argued that students require training on how to give appropriate feedback to peers. developing social presence and connectedness with students, providing feedback, provision of scaffolding, and availability (ertmer et al., 2007) have all been shown to support emotional engagement (bolliger & inan, 2012; dixson, 2010). measuring student engagement student engagement is a difficult construct to measure, partly because of its multi-dimensional nature, and partly because of the overlap between the three engagement types and other constructs such as student conduct and on-task behaviour, student attitudes, and student interest and values (fredricks et al., 2004). this complexity has led to debate over what data is most appropriate to measure engagement (carter, reschly, lovelace, appleton, & thompson, 2012). as a consequence, several instruments have been developed to measure student engagement in face-to-face contexts, and most of these instruments focus on the students’ self-report data (appleton, christenson, kim, & reschly, 2006; carter et al., 2012). online engagement has been measured in different ways and to varying degrees. data about learners’ online activity is captured by the learning management systems (lmss) that are used in many educational institutions, including schools (ali, hatala, gašević, & jovanović, 2012). this data includes low-level statistics such as the number of ‘hits’ on a webpage or the number of louwrens, n., hartnett, m. 30 discussion forum posts read or made (xu, 2010). it comes as little surprise, then, that early research generally conceptualised engagement as participation, focusing primarily on quantity of webpages accessed, and discussion forum posts read and authored (hrastinski, 2009). while generally not acknowledged as such, these indicators of online participation can also be considered to be indicators of behavioural engagement. while online statistics have been used as measures of online behavioural engagement, an indepth view of the content of discussion fora is necessary to find evidence of cognitive and emotional engagement (marra, moore, & klimczak, 2004). zhu (2006) stated that the discussion forum is “critical for constructing new understanding and knowledge” (p. 451). it is therefore necessary to analyse the place where new understanding and knowledge is demonstrated to find evidence of cognitive engagement. the current study goes beyond existing research by exploring distinct types of behavioural, cognitive and emotional engagement to develop a greater understanding of what engages students online. behavioural engagement was considered in terms of students choosing to go online and doing what was required of them by their teacher. cognitive engagement was considered by looking at students’ deep or critical thinking in online activities. emotional engagement was considered by exploring how students reacted to their learning environment, and included an evaluation of their interactions with other students and their teacher. the study the aim of this study was to explore the factors that lead to increased student engagement by middle-school students learning online in a new zealand distance education school. the following research questions were used to guide this research:  what do teachers perceive engages students in online courses, and why?  what encourages students to engage in online activities? case study case study was deemed an appropriate methodology for this study because it allows exploration of a particular phenomenon of interest—in this case, student engagement in online activities—in a bounded system (creswell, 2013). the bounded system or case in this instance was the year 7 to 10 (children aged 11 to 15) integrated studies programme, incorporating three distinct online classes delivered online at te aho o te kura pounamu – the correspondence school (te kura). each class was independently managed by a teacher. similar content or topics were covered in all of the classes, but individual teachers, and in some cases the students, could choose how the content was delivered and how work was completed. similar activities were given to students in each class. context and participants te kura has been the principal distance education provider to primary and secondary students in new zealand since 1922. the school was set up initially to teach students in remote areas but now supports a range of students, many of whom have disengaged from the mainstream new zealand schooling system. the school also delivers the new zealand curriculum to new zealand citizens living overseas (davis, 2015). in 2008, te kura began to blend online learning with their printed materials (davis, 2010), and introduced fully online courses where appropriate. courses are continuing to be developed and implemented in the lms. students studying with the distance education school were supported not only by the teachers at the school but also by supervisors (usually parents) and others at home. while it is acknowledged that the support of supervisors journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(1) 31 may have an effect on student engagement, data on supervisor support was not gathered as part of this study. the integrated studies programme offered teaching and learning in particular topics or contexts across core curriculum areas (i.e., english, social studies, science, and mathematics). the school integrated as many of the core curriculum areas as possible in each topic. students worked independently, usually at home, with a parent’s supervision. the classes were hosted in the desire2learn lms (desire2learn, 1999), which the school used as their online environment. teachers also asked students to use a variety of other openly available online tools such as voicethread (http://voicethread.com/) and google docs (http://docs.google.com/). four teachers and 10 students agreed to participate in the study. two of the teachers were teamteaching in one online class. the student participants ranged in age from 11 to 15, and each school year (7 to 10) was represented. seventy per cent of the students had been learning online for at least one year, indicating that they had some prior online learning experience. some students were living overseas at the time of the study. during the investigation period, students were given a range of activities to complete. these included creating wiki presentations, asynchronous discussions that focused on the olympic games, drawing, and writing activities which they submitted through the discussion forums. data was collected on only one specific aspect of the school for a 5-week period during 2012. te kura has continued to adapt its online programmes and practices since then (davis, 2015). data collection data collection procedures comprised individual semi-structured student and teacher interviews (berg, 2009). student interviews were conducted over skype. they focused on students’ perceptions of their engagement in their online class, and practices they felt facilitated their engagement. face-to-face interviews were conducted with the teachers and focused on how teachers had set up their online class, and their perceptions of online student engagement. discussion forum comments from both student and teacher participants were collected for analysis to determine types of student engagement in the activities and for data triangulation purposes. statistical data relating to the number of discussion forum comments read and authored were considered to determine behavioural engagement. data analysis the steps outlined by creswell (2013) were followed when analysing the qualitative data. interview transcripts were coded using the web-based qualitative analysis program, dedoose (http://www.dedoose.com/). both inductive and deductive analysis occurred in this research investigation. while behavioural, cognitive, and emotional engagement provided sensitising concepts with which to explore the qualitative data, an inductive approach geared to allowing additional patterns, themes, and categories to emerge also occurred (blumer, 2006). the themes were then analysed further to determine the types of engagement that were being represented. a framework for analysis of discussion forum transcripts was developed after consideration of the studies by henri (1992) and rourke (1999). emotional engagement was seen in discussion forum comments, for example, as students showing a sense of belonging or having identified with the activity by using emotive language; behavioural engagement was evident when students participated in an activity by writing an appropriate forum comment; and cognitive engagement was identified, for example, by students responding appropriately to other students’ comments, or demonstrating deep thinking or a synthesis of ideas. http://voicethread.com/ http://docs.google.com/ http://www.dedoose.com/ louwrens, n., hartnett, m. 32 results what do teachers perceive engages students in online courses, and why? several themes emerged from the teachers’ perceptions of what engaged students online. these are reported below, starting with the most salient. all four teachers identified that students engaged highly in activities that were undertaken outside the lms, typically using web 2.0 tools. the teachers believed that, rather than this being because of the tools themselves, the activities the students engaged in were student-centred, giving student ownership as well as some control and choice over the activity. where they’ve got more control over how they can display content . . . you do seem to see more involvement. (teacher 3, interview) students did it on glogster and some did it on powerpoint and others . . . printed them out. it was a, you know, variety of different ways. (teacher 4, interview) in addition to student-centred activities, peer and teacher feedback (including praise of students) was highlighted by two teachers as helping to increase online engagement. a big part of it being that peer assessment. when they, their peers are coming in and, making nice constructive comments and, working towards that praise and, for them it’s lifting their level. (teacher 1, interview) i think the more that you can, praise and comment on what certain students have done . . . praising that student but giving other students the idea of some other ways that they might be able to do something. (teacher 3, interview) while their focus was on factors that supported online student engagement, the teachers also identified activities that resulted in lower levels of student engagement, as indicated by the lack of online interaction. a range of reasons were suggested such as a lack of teacher engagement in the activity given to students: “what made it not work was, i guess, my enthusiasm. i didn’t drive it with some reminders” (teacher 1, interview); students wanting a sense of anonymity and privacy: “i don’t know whether it was because they are more comfortable in having, in some ways, a little bit of anonymity in an online classroom” (teacher 3, interview); and tasks being too difficult: “one of the things may be that they find questioning by audio or video quite hard” (teacher 2, interview). teachers were also asked what they did to foster engagement in their online classes. all four teachers invested time in building relationships with and between students to foster engagement, build confidence, and ensure students knew support was available. most of this relationship building happened on a regular, personal level, via skype or phone as highlighted by the following comments. try to get to know the kids a little bit. know a bit of their background so that you can have the non-work related conversations with them, try to talk to them regularly on a, what do you call it, personal level. (teacher 2, interview) building up their confidence. . . . that’s kids – you’ve got to show an interest . . . that they’ll show an interest [in], and they’ll share stuff with you. and, ah, it’s building up that relationship. (teacher 1, interview) when i’ve got new students, just trying to help them with the navigation side of things, hopefully have a skype session with them because i do find that’s one of the best ways that i’ve found to get them . . . to see where different things are. (teacher 3, interview). journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(1) 33 the teachers also fostered engagement by encouraging interaction among students by connecting with them “behind the scenes”. sometimes we might have had a student that’s put something in as a discussion that doesn’t seem to have had any response so we might actually do some behind the scenes stuff to try and get some of that [interaction], coming across. (teacher 3, interview) teacher 2 illustrated the importance of interaction with a story of a boy who had been working in the class for 3 years but had not got to know any of his classmates. it’s been my goal and he knows it, to get him to know the other kids better. . . . well, the result is he is interacting more with the other kids. he is talking to them a lot on skype, you know, directly and with other students. . . . so here is a kid who now is going in chatting with others and appearing, it’s quite obvious, that he knows the other kids more and he’s much more engaged in the tasks that we are doing as a result of it. (teacher 2, interview) teacher 2 viewed feedback as another factor that helped to increase engagement but indicated that it wasn’t always recognised by the student. this is illustrated by their recount of a conversation with a year 10 student: i said to her, ‘i give you a lot of feedback, don’t i?’ and she said, ‘oh yes’, and i said, so i had to actually ask her what it was and where . . . ‘oh you mean the comments you give me?’ ‘yes. do you do you find those comments useful?’ ‘oh yes’. (teacher 2, interview) scaffolding was also viewed by teachers as a way to foster engagement. the term was used by teachers in two ways: breaking down larger activities into smaller portions for students to build on; and providing structure and support. scaffolding was provided to individual students as they needed it, rather than to the whole class. if it’s a matter of them needing more scaffolding you can do that by a skype session or an email or something like that to break it down further than . . . another student might need. (teacher 3, interview) scaffolding’s possibly done more on a one-to-one basis. (teacher 2, interview) peer expectations were identified by two of the teachers as encouraging student engagement. the teachers set up activities in which students needed to work together, creating expectations that students would participate and engage in the activity. you get kids working together, you know. so it’s put the pressure on them to . . . work in teams, to work in little small groups. . . . so it’s getting, buying into, not letting down their classmates. (teacher 1, interview) we also have a check list in google docs that has all the kids named…. and they’re supposed to fill it in when they’ve completed an activity . . . that [way] they can see what others are doing and it might be a bit of a wakeup call to them or it might not. (teacher 3, interview) what encourages students to engage in online activities? students’ perceptions of what influenced their engagement online was another important focus of this investigation. an in-depth analysis of the student comments in the discussion forums was considered, along with their comments from the interviews. the students’ relationships with their teacher and other students emerged as an important factor in supporting student engagement. the importance of building relationships was particularly evident when students described the support they received. two main types of support were identified by students in their online classes: support from the teacher (primarily in the form of louwrens, n., hartnett, m. 34 feedback) and support from other students. both teacher support and student support were identified by the students as beneficial to learning. for example, student 6 favourably compared the support received from their teacher and other classmates in their online class with the support they received in a face-to-face, traditional classroom setting. if i was in just a normal school the teacher would be focused on like a whole bunch of students, not just me . . . but [online], with the activities i could, um, get a lot of attention from [the teacher] or if i needed help i could just ask another classmate. (student 6, interview) this comment indicates that the timely support received from the teacher (or from others) was beneficial to both behavioural and cognitive engagement. student 9 found support from their peers important in an activity in which learners created an id card and shared a little about themselves. just looking at the other students id cards was, ah, i got to learn about them and then, ah, when i commented on one, ah, id card they replied and told me a bit more about . . . where they lived and what they’d put on the id card. (student 9, interview) when probed about the activity and whether learning about their classmates helped them learn throughout the year, he responded by explaining that the connections helped him identify who to approach for help. it also helped to know which people i would ask for help in different situations because some of them are good at transferring files. . . . and some of them are good at ah, other things as well. (student 9, interview) another student commented that collaborative work gave them opportunities to learn from each other. everybody’s always helping each other . . . telling them how they could probably improve and what they could do better. (student 3, interview) students also supported their peers by giving feedback in the discussion forums, although it wasn’t clear whether the intended recipients engaged with it. the students felt safe to provide positive comments on classmates work in the open forum, but found it more difficult to suggest ways to improve. wow that is a really great story you wrote . . . i think that how you used deathly silent in your story it made the story hook people in so that story was well written i don’t think you could do anything better. (student 5, discussion forum comment) one student did add some constructive feedback in the discussion forum; however, this was not common. you used lots of describing words. you didn’t describe in a sentence what was actually 30– 40ft deep. i think you could of added what it was before you wrote the depth. (student 4, discussion forum comment) students also identified a range of feedback practices that fostered engagement in the online classes. two broad types of feedback were identified—feedback that focused on the individual and feedback that focused on the task. when asked what the teacher did to encourage or motivate them to work through an activity, students identified individual feedback. this feedback and support occurred predominantly outside the lms in skype or phone conversations, but was also evident in the discussion forums. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(1) 35 when i’m in need of help with an activity we usually call her or skype her something and usually she gives us a little pep talk to keep us going. (student 7, interview) i really like your mindmap [student] the lay out is excellent you have shown you can follow instructions well. (teacher 1, discussion forum comment) one student did not initially recognise the benefit of the constructive, task-oriented feedback. when he received feedback that indicated there was room for improvement he was disappointed, but then realised that this information could help him. at the beginning of the year i got feedback from something and it said, ‘great job for your first assign, for your first bit of work’, and then later on there was one bit of work that, ah, she said i needed to improve on and at first i thought, ‘ah i didn’t get it right, i can’t do this’. but then i realised that [the teacher] had given me some good information and if i did that activity again then i could probably do it better than if i did it the first time. so i think feedback from the teacher i have, good or bad, or good or improvement needed, is, quite nice to have. (student 9, interview) students indicated that their interest in and the relevance of activities were important to their engagement. during the investigation period, the olympic games were a current event that had personal relevance to the students. one activity, in which students were asked to write as though they were a spectator at an olympic games event, showed a high level of behavioural engagement. in class 1 there were 49 posts written by the entire class (16 by the teacher) and in class 2 there were 45 posts written in total (12 by the teacher). the activity had relevance for the students because it was about a current event at the time and captured their interest. high behavioural engagement in the activity also suggested that the students enjoyed reading their peers’ writing. furthermore, there was noticeable cognitive and emotional engagement during this activity. in the following example, emotional engagement is evident through the use of the word “liked” and the phrase, “gives me the shivers”. thinking about what hooks the reader in is an indication of cognitive engagement. i really liked how you said the sun reflecting off the extensive bright blue pool it was a good hook. . . . i really liked how you said my toe crunched backwards because i just imagined your toe going snap that gives me the shivers. (student 5, discussion forum comment) related to interest and relevance is the idea that activities needed to be fun and be enjoyable. enjoyment or fun was highlighted as important by several students in helping them to learn, therefore increasing the likelihood of engagement. two students talked about activities they felt were fun. one explained that if an activity was fun they found it harder to give up, even if it seemed difficult. yeah, because the more fun an activity is the more i like to do it and so that makes it hard to stop doing an activity and say i don’t want to do this anymore … when it’s fun it makes it impossible to say i don’t want to do this, it’s too hard. (student 9, interview) student 8 suggested that if an activity was not enjoyable she was less likely to want to engage in it at all. she mentioned that if it was not enjoyable it became “just a thing that you have to do” (student 8, interview). other students stated that they do all of the activities, regardless of whether they enjoy them. i completed it. i complete all of the online activities that i need to. (student 3, interview) louwrens, n., hartnett, m. 36 i always attempt them. if i’m given work, there’s no doubt about it, i always attempt it. (student 6, interview) the design of learning activities also emerged as influencing engagement. this was evident throughout the discussion forum activities in the lms. many of the activities were written in a way that encouraged engagement from and interaction between students. for example, in one activity, the students were given two excerpts describing two characters in a christmas carol by charles dickens. the students were then asked: what is your first impression of these characters written by dickens? how does his choice of words help you form a vivid picture of each? give examples. (class 1, discussion forum activity) the second part of the activity asked the students: would you like to meet either of these characters? why/why not?” (class 1, discussion forum activity). these questions encouraged students to engage emotionally and cognitively with the activity because it asked for emotional and cognitive responses—students had to analyse the excerpts and explain what made them feel this way about the characters. this activity demonstrated students’ high cognitive and emotional engagement, as is seen in the following example. in the first part of her response, student 8 explained what elements in the excerpts made her believe the characters are as she describes, and she then questioned what might have caused the woman to be where she is now. i get the impression that the first character is a criminal, possibly exiled from a place. i think he has been in prison, but has escaped, hence the great iron on his leg. he definitely does not seem like a nice person, especially after grabbing . . . by the chin. . . . i think the woman was to be wed quite a long time ago, but her fiancé left her standing at the altar, possibly because of an accident? in the second part of her response, student 8 showed emotional engagement by using emotive words. i feel that she is still waiting for her wedding and she wears the dress to keep her hopes up. . . . i would hate to meet the first character, but i wouldn’t mind to meet the second. (student 8, discussion forum comment) discussion there was evidence from both students and teachers that undertaking activities outside the lms was highly engaging. the teachers believed this was because the activities and the web 2.0 tools gave students opportunities to experience control, choice, and ownership over what they could do and present which were not available to students in the lms. these opportunities resulted in an increase in behavioural engagement, but it is not clear whether there was an increase in emotional or cognitive engagement. these findings are in line with deci and ryan’s (2008) research that showed autonomous motivation, which can result from being given opportunities to exercise control and make choices, and can lead to increased student engagement. the support that comes with developing good relationships was viewed by both students and teachers as important for engaging students in their online classes. by carefully planning activities that helped students to get to know their peers and develop their social presence, the teachers developed a safe online learning environment. the students believed that the relationships they built with their peers enabled them to feel comfortable to ask each other for journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(1) 37 help and support when required, instead of always approaching the teacher, and this was something they valued. this sense of belonging, which was developed through connectedness (barbour & bennett, 2013; bolliger & inan, 2012) and social presence (hughes, 2010), supported the students’ emotional engagement. as a result of the increase in emotional engagement, behavioural and cognitive engagement was encouraged (gibbs & poskitt, 2010) because students felt comfortable enough to ask for help when they needed it. feedback, which was given to students by their teachers and other students, was also regarded by both students and teachers as important in their online courses. receiving feedback, accepting the critique, and acting on it appeared to require students to have a degree of emotional engagement. they also needed to have a certain level of cognitive engagement to interpret the feedback and make the appropriate changes to their work. two broad types of feedback were given by teachers and other students. the first type fostered emotional engagement that focused on building students’ self-esteem and confidence. hattie and timperley (2007) described this type of feedback as feedback about the person. the second type of feedback focused on the task that provided students with relevant information about the activity. taskand process-focused feedback is more likely to lead to higher achievement than feedback that praises the student. students who gave feedback to their peers demonstrated cognitive engagement in their critiques. this suggests that the process of giving feedback to a peer by having to read, process, and understand the work, helped their own learning, as has been identified in other research (reesedurham, 2005). giving peer feedback also required students to be emotionally engaged and was only possible by having a safe environment in which they felt comfortable enough to critique each other’s work. it was noted, however, that there was little evidence of students suggesting how peers could improve their work. this may be due to a lack of maturity, knowledge, and skills because of the age of the students. gielen et al. (2010) argued that students need training to give appropriate feedback and that peer feedback cannot replace the feedback of an expert, usually the teacher. students agreed that activities that were interesting or relevant to them were more engaging. relevance refers to the activity having some personal meaning or importance to the student (for example, a current event such as the olympic games or a particular hobby and passion of the student). renninger and hidi (2011) used the term “meaningfulness” to describe personal relevance to the curriculum. all three types of engagement were apparent in activities that were interesting or relevant to students. interest in a topic could help a student engage emotionally with the activity because they had a positive connection. these emotional connections were evident in the student comments describing how the text made them feel. while renninger and hidi (2011) acknowledged that interest is an important part of increasing student engagement, harris (2011) argued that too much emphasis on students’ individual interests could be at the expense of cognitive engagement. teachers need to find the balance between engaging a student through individual interests, and engaging them in required learning (renninger & hidi, 2011). activities perceived as being fun or enjoyable also engaged students. the importance of relevance and fun to engagement has been highlighted in a previous study (wood, 2012) which found that activities that were fun were harder to give up on. skinner, kindermann, connell, and wellborn (2009) argued that enjoyment, fun, and satisfaction are part of the make-up of emotional engagement. some students indicated that although not all activities were enjoyable to them, they would still complete them. students completing work because it was required by the teacher is an example of behavioural engagement (fredricks et al., 2004; gibbs & poskitt, 2010). it is possible the students completed these activities simply because they were good students, or louwrens, n., hartnett, m. 38 to avoid negative consequences of not completing them; this would be an example of extrinsic motivation (deci & ryan, 2008). three of the four teachers indicated that, at times, low student engagement was the result of their own lack of engagement in certain learning activities. they found that if they did not remain focused on student activities (reminding them to participate, and encouraging and motivating them) student engagement could be low. they indicated that it was necessary for them to remain focused on an activity and to ensure they were interacting with the students and providing appropriate guidance, support, and encouragement if and when required. hartnett (2015) also found that when students did not feel supported by teachers there was a decrease in student engagement and motivation. conclusion student engagement is recognised as an important component of all teaching and learning. yet few studies have explored online learning in the compulsory schooling sector. this study has identified that various types of student engagement can be encouraged, depending on the nature and design of online activities and the context in which the learning takes place. web 2.0 tools, which provided learners with opportunities to exercise choice and control, encouraged behavioural engagement. relationships between students, and between students and teachers, promoted emotional engagement among the learners. the presence of a supportive learning community was a necessary precursor for these relationships to develop. activities that were perceived to be fun and enjoyable also supported emotional engagement. cognitive engagement was enhanced by feedback processes built into the online activities. furthermore, activities that were perceived by learners as interesting and relevant encouraged the expression of all three types of engagement. this study therefore makes an important contribution by exploring what engaged 11–15 year-old school students when learning online in a distance school setting. by drawing on student perspectives, as well as teachers’ views, a fuller, more comprehensive picture of online engagement has emerged than has been previously reported. finally, by not treating engagement as a single construct, but adopting the well-established constructs of behavioural, emotional, and cognitive engagement from the wider education engagement literature, a more nuanced and complete picture of the factors that influence online engagement has emerged. the results of this research have important implications for k–12 teachers and schools involved in online teaching—not least of these is the need for teachers to develop a deeper understanding of the nature of online engagement. teachers of online courses need to consider the three types of student engagement as they design their courses and learning activities. all three types of engagement can be encouraged by designing activities that are relevant to students. teachers need to provide students with some choice and control over their learning because this helps to increase behavioural and cognitive engagement. giving students choice and control over their learning could be achieved by allowing students to decide on the most appropriate way to present their learning. developing an online environment in which students feel safe to contribute their thoughts and ideas is necessary to increase emotional engagement. teachers need to develop activities that encourage social presence early in the course. social presence can be nurtured by incorporating activities that encourage interaction among students, such as activities that ask students to share personal stories. cognitive engagement can also be encouraged by having students give peer feedback, because this requires students to read, process, and articulate their understanding of the work. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(1) 39 it’s important to note the limitations of this study. while it was small in scale and focused on one distance education school in new zealand, its value lies in the in-depth understanding of engagement that has emerged. future research needs to build on these initial findings and explore online student engagement across a wider range of online learning contexts in new zealand schools and overseas. exploring differences between patterns of engagement of students in fully online school programmes and those in more traditional school settings is another important area for further investigation. acknowledgements the authors would like to acknowledge te aho o te kura pounamu—the correspondence school for allowing nathaniel to conduct this research at the school, and especially the staff and students who were willing to participate in the study. nathaniel would also like to thank the ministry of education for awarding him a teachnz study leave award in 2012 to carry out this research. references 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(2006). interaction and cognitive engagement: an analysis of four asynchronous online discussions. instructional science, 34(6), 451–480. doi: 10.1007/s11251-006-0004-0 biographical notes nathaniel louwrens med nathaniel.louwrens@gmail.com nathaniel is an e-learning facilitator at core education, new zealand. he works in schools and online to support educators who are teaching and learning with digital technologies. maggie hartnett phd m.hartnett@massey.ac.nz maggie is a senior lecturer in the institute of education at massey university, new zealand, where she teaches in the areas of e-learning and digital technologies. her research interests include motivation and engagement in digital environments, teaching and learning with digital technologies, electronic portfolios, support for digital learners, digital places, and spaces of learning. maggie is also an associate editor of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. http://www.web.pdx.edu/~thomas/research/publications/skinner%20et%20al%20engdismotdev.pdf http://www.web.pdx.edu/~thomas/research/publications/skinner%20et%20al%20engdismotdev.pdf http://anitacrawley.net/articles/swan%20and%20shih2005.pdf http://media.usm.maine.edu/~lenny/%20discussion%20course_s_2011/%20discussion%20course/discussion%20stuff/discussion%20presentation/content_anal.pdf http://media.usm.maine.edu/~lenny/%20discussion%20course_s_2011/%20discussion%20course/discussion%20stuff/discussion%20presentation/content_anal.pdf http://college.wfu.edu/education/wp-content/uploads/proceedings12.pdf#page=149 http://college.wfu.edu/education/wp-content/uploads/proceedings12.pdf#page=149 louwrens, n., hartnett, m. 44 this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. louwrens, n., & hartnett, m (2015). student and teacher perceptions of online student engagement in an online middle school. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(1), [27–43]. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ microsoft word te kiri.docx te kiri, c. 10 manu tukutuku, ma te huruhuru ka rere te manu: empowering learners to soar phase one: opening the door for māori to succeed in a digital community where cultural capacity and knowledge are valued and respected christine te kiri, te aho o te kura pounamu abstract the first step to enabling māori achievement is engaging whānau (family) and tamariki (children) in situations where their mana (autonomy) and tuakiri (identity) remains intact. this paper identifies steps for culturally critical and sustaining practice when engaging whānau and students, highlights some positive examples, and reflects on lessons learnt. this is phase one of a multi-layered project, ngā manu – manu tukutuku: empowering learners to soar. keywords: māori achievement; engagement; distance learning; online learning; student and whānau voice introduction in the last few decades there has been thorough research published in the education sector about māori achievement (or the lack of it) and the need to address the increasingly widening gap. (ka eke panuku, n.d.; williams, 2003; peterson, rubie-davies, osborne, & sibley, 2013) this gap has been touted as long-term system failure, and initiatives such as ka hikatia, ka eke panuku, and te kotahitanga have sought to educate teachers, change practice, and improve the landscape for māori learners. yet still the gap increases. the notion of changing the dominant discourse has had various uptakes. friere (1972) states that, to achieve critical consciousness, we need to build liberating action that is independent of this dominant discourse. however, it is the opinion of this author that we are continually perpetuating the westernised system by introducing constructs such as national standards, the learning progression framework, and ncea assessment standards. although virtuous in their intent, these constructs continue to marginalise and “whitewash” the opportunities for māori to succeed as māori. it is the intent of this paper to share a kaupapa (approach) for re-engaging māori learners in authentic contexts where their mana1 and tuakiri (identity) remain intact. this approach is the first phase in a multi-layered project that is being developed and implemented at te aho o te kura pounamu (te kura, the correspondence school), which has a high percentage of disengaged and alienated māori students. these students are often pathwayed to te kura in the expectation that they will achieve better there than in the schools 1 in this context, mana refers to the student’s and whānau’s autonomy to determine their learning pathway. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(2) 11 that have passed them on.2 it’s not our intent to blame other schools. we wish to understand the bigger picture, and to accurately gauge the progress and achievements of the te kura students who have been involved in this approach. “ma te huruhuru ka rere te manu” is the whakatauki (proverb) that envelopes step one, reengaging our māori learners in an online community in which cultural capacity and knowledge is valued and respected. this whakatauki embodies the belief that, as they become more enabled and empowered, our learners will soar to great heights and be successful as māori. the literal translation is “to adorn the bird with feathers to fly”. māori student achievement: the aotearoa context in 1999, the first māori education strategy, ka hikitia (ministry of education, 1999), was shared with the education sector. this publication aimed to: • raise the quality of mainstream education for māori • support the growth of high-quality kaupapa māori education • support greater māori involvement and authority in education. ka hikitia (ministry of education, 2013) focuses on accelerating success by enabling māori potential and productive partnerships, and building on identity, language, and culture to help māori achieve educational success as māori. this publication shares and identifies that, for māori to succeed, high-quality teaching is the most important influence on education for māori students and that incorporating culture and productive partnerships into learning leads to success. further research shows that the notion of māori succeeding as māori is not new (durie, 2003; milne, 2013), yet the research for aotearoa in this area is limited and sparse. durie (2003) states that, for māori learners to succeed as māori, they must retain their uniqueness. being successful academically, socially—or in any other forum—is still success, but if the essence of their māoriness is not retained, then are they truly successful as māori? accelerating success is also a current focus in the education sector and highlights that a series of benchmarks or key characteristics must be met to successfully close the gap (phipps & merisotis, 2003). embedded benchmarks at various stages of initiatives that focus on raising māori student achievement are essential but can be problematic if the benchmarks continue to reinforce the dominant discourse. the need for rapid change is undeniable but embedding culturally sustaining practices also needs careful consideration. this paper explores the idea that māori can engage in an online learning forum in which their uniqueness is acknowledged, celebrated, and embraced as a catalyst for rapid success. the catalyst for change: our method to engage achievement data shared with te kura staff in november 2017 painted a bleak picture of success for māori students at te kura. small regional teams met and discussed that if we continued doing what we have always done, we were unlikely to achieve better results. a call for change was made, and manu tukutuku – regional kites3 was established in late 2017. these kites sought to change the landscape for students in te kura to improve engagement and achievement. 2 this is an issue for further publication. 3 manu tukutuku — regional kites refers to action plans created by team leaders and regional managers. these action plans focus on changing the teaching and learning landscape for te kura students. te kiri, c. 12 the central north region identified that the role of learning advisor4 was paramount in enabling and empowering student success. ngā manu – manu tukutuku was formed to capture the māori students in rotorua, tauranga, the greater bay of plenty and parts of the east coast, because this is where most of the māori students in the central north region live. these students and whānau5 were invited to a korero (discussion) with staff to discuss how their education might be delivered differently. these discussions were held on sites identified by whānau, and at times and dates that suited them. this allowed the whānau to control the hui (meeting).6 these discussions were undertaken by māori staff and used the concept of kanohi ki te kanohi.7 notes were written by te kura staff, and whānau confirmed their agreement. there were at least three discussions kanohi ki te kanohi with whānau, as well as four to five calls, emails, or texts, before they committed to be part of this kaupapa. the main focus of the extended discussion was to share with whānau that we (te kura) wanted their input and direction as to what success for their tamaiti (child) might look like and how we would measure this success. ngā manu tukutuku – oku wawata8 establishment documents embedded māori concepts and constructs in relevant and meaningful authentic learning contexts. these documents were shared with whānau only when we had a good understanding of their aspirations for their tamaiti/tamariki (children). the next step was a commitment to regular and frequent contact (text messages, video calls, kanohi ki te kanohi visits, or emails) as determined by the whānau and tamaiti. in fact, we readily agreed to whatever the whānau suggested. following the commitment to their individual learning plan for success and for regular and frequent contact, the next step was to navigate students’ online presence (they are distance learners most of the time). further discussions were held to ask which environment the whānau and their tamaiti most preferred and felt comfortable in. this included social media sites such as facebook, instagram, and snapchat. the steps to engage the whanau were to: 1. identify the student and whānau, and seek permission for inclusion in ngā manu 2. commit to learning in a manner they may not be accustomed to 3. establish communication plans, and commitment to these 4. identify online platforms they are comfortable with, and are prepared to use 5. start the mahi—get the treats! research project identify the student and whānau, seek permission for inclusion in ngā manu methodology students were identified from our school roll as being māori and living in the areas mentioned above. phone calls, emails, and visits were undertaken to confirm a time and place to meet and discuss ngā manu tukutuku – oku wawata. these phone calls, emails, and visits occurred 4 a learning advisor is similar to home-room or form teacher. they are charged primarily with pastoral care. 5 family — not only immediate, and not necessarily determined by bloodlines 6 the idea of power and control has been widely touted as a key reason for whānau not engaging in school events or settings. 7 kanohi ki te kanohi refers to meetings that are held in person. the literal translation is “face to face”. 8 a draft document that identified the student’s learning plan and goals. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(2) 13 during summer school9 and were conducted by two volunteer teaching staff (one primarytrained, the other a te reo māori (māori language) secondary-school teacher). discussion eighty whānau were initially identified. sixty confirmed their acceptance of this approach to learning. two staff volunteered to facilitate the roopu (group) by conducting hui with all involved (whānau, iwi and hapū,10 and external providers such as eastbay reap), and were the central contacts for all whānau, delivering relevant and contextualised curriculum content for years 0 to 13 if needed. the initial expectation was that maybe 40 to 50 children would be interested. but after first consultations and contacts, 92 students wanted to be involved. findings regardless of the number of phone calls and other contact, reminders need to be sent the day before to ensure everyone is on board and prepared for the discussions. parents and whānau are keen to learn about new initiatives. they are willing to jump on board if they see how it can improve their situation. sometimes times our roll data is inaccurate, and some whānau were not consulted because their ethnicity was recorded incorrectly. this has resulted in the school having initial conversations about ethnicity with whānau when tamariki are enrolled, and we explain why we need this information. for those who did not identify as māori but were māori through whakapapa (genealogy, bloodline), we explained that, by identifying as a māori student, doors would open and they could access a range of networks if they chose. commitment to learning in a manner they may not be accustomed to methodology this section of the research project focused on the discussions held with whanau, and on understanding their experiences with education and their expectations of what learning could look like if involved with ngā manu. these discussions were not pre-determined or scripted— when contacted, whānau were informed that staff would like to talk with them about their tamaiti’s learning and a possible new way to engage in learning and teaching. discussion traditional experience for most whānau and children was: you go to school; the teacher tells you what to do; you do it. this section focused on whānau and tamariki identifying what they liked, what they wanted to learn about, and how they wanted to learn. it also explored career pathways and future job prospects. the learning tasks were to be integrated and contextualised in kaupapa māori or authentic learning situations. the tasks were not driven by ncea standards or national standards (reading, writing and math descriptors). from all of the hui held with whānau and tamariki, 25 of the 92 students wanted to continue with te kura’s resources and teaching methods (pre-determined paper-based or online modules). the remaining 67 wanted flexibility, self-determination and autonomy over what they would learn throughout their time on te kura’s roll. these 67 students identified topics of interest to explore, and for which they needed support to construct their learning. this is our current practice, which we continue to develop. 9 te kura conducts summer school between december and february. this new initiative challenges expectations of traditional delivery time periods. 10 extended whānau connections te kiri, c. 14 findings whānau felt empowered to determine what learning could look like but were also very afraid of what needed to be done, and how it would be done. there was a sense of trepidation—parents would often ask, “is this going to be considered real work?” and “what about the credits (or national standards)?” educating whānau about key skills and knowledge embedded in work in which they are, for example, running events at marae or discussing migration routes and narratives of creation stories, is critical because they still focus on traditional approaches to content and contexts of learning at school. whānau also need help to understand that evidence of learning can be collected in a variety of forms and that written tasks don’t always reflect their tamaiti’s/tamariki’s understanding. students are very reluctant to operate in areas in which they are uncomfortable, or if they believe they are inadequate. historic experiences also affect students hugely when engaging in certain curriculum subjects. integrating learning tasks for ncea requires a lot of effort and time to identify what meets the standards, what still needs to occur to meet the entire standard, and the validity of the evidence being captured to meet the needs of the standard. establish communication plans, and commitment to these methodology during the kanohi ki te kanohi sessions, whānau and te kura staff identified their preferred means of communication, and times and days of the week that most suited the whānau. te kura staff did not have any fixed times or modes of contact and were willing to work with whānau in their preferred modes. discussion it was agreed by all (te kura, whānau, and tamariki) that contact be initiated at least once every fortnight by whānau to staff, once a week by staff to student, and once a week by student to staff. individuals negotiated how that contact was to occur. the options included sms texts, phone calls, email, skype, google hangouts, facebook messenger, instagram direct messages, snapchat, facebook live, and kanohi ki te kanohi visits. the most commonly used methods for the group are identified in table 1. the data was derived from the frequency of contact made by staff and students using each tool. (whānau use phone calls, emails or text messaging only.) table 1 communication tool preferred by te kura students at the end of the project phone calls facebook messenger sms text skype kanohi ki te kanohi instagram snapchat facebook live google hangouts 30 20 15 15 10 4 2 findings students live in an instantaneous world in which they expect feedback, contact, and support immediately. clear direction about times when these will occur ensures that there is no miscommunication or feeling of being let down. students work at all times of the day or night and will send messages when they have problems. they do this so they do not forget, and don’t always expect a reply. regular and frequent contact makes whānau and students feel valued and supported. the relationship formed by regular and frequent contact ensures whānau trust te kura staff when journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(2) 15 necessary. this can lead to deeper conversations that can help staff to understand students’ barriers, fears, or avoidance of learning. identify online platforms tamariki are comfortable with and prepared to use methodology during the kanohi ki te kanohi sessions, whānau told te kura staff which online platforms they preferred. discussion our students and some whānau use social media widely. this was seen as a great way to engage with our students in spaces where they are comfortable. at the beginning of the project, students were most commonly using facebook, instagram, snapchat, and google hangouts in social settings. after staff and students had discussed the purpose for using the tool, students were happy to “follow” or “friend” staff members to connect with them. (later, phone calls became more popular.) the sites were used for checking about workload, time management, and pastoral issues. they also provided a way to share content easily, by “tagging” or commenting. findings students would send requests, chats, and general information freely and frequently at times that best suited them. they were more willing to share concerns, problems, or questions because these messages were private and shared only with staff members. students created groups in their region and added teachers to get help with group work or to ask common questions. these self-created groups showed a shared ownership of learning between and with the students. summary and conclusion “the education review office (ero) does not consider any school to be high performing unless the school can demonstrate that most of [its] māori learners are progressing well and succeeding as māori” (education review office, 2010, p. 31). te aho o te kura pounamu would not be considered a high-performing school against that measure; however, the school is moving to embed appropriate and meaningful frameworks that enable māori learners to succeed as māori. challenging the rhetoric for acceptable measures of success is a first step to reclaiming identity and mana for māori learners. removing the dominant discourse and the barriers imposed upon māori learners allows liberating action and acceleration. working with whānau and students in spaces where they are comfortable allows for clear expectations, and an authentic relationship can be established. te aho o te kura and the ngā manu – manu tukutuku roopu show how we can challenge the status quo to benefit māori learners. approaches based on relational strength are not new (bishop & glynn, 1999) but clear guidance and methods on how to form these approaches, and their purpose, are not always clearly identified or discussed. this localised approach is changing non-engaged students into highly engaged students who are starting to achieve against nationally imposed and self-determined measures. te kiri, c. 16 this paper describes the first step of a multi-layered complex project that aims to realise māori potential and enable rapid māori success as māori at te kura. the steps outlined above are measurable ways to create and show engagement with learning. the next phase of our research will focus on integrating authentic learning situations in which we collect naturally occurring evidence of skills, knowledge, and understanding as outlined in the new zealand curriculum. ngā manu will embed the big-picture design into the learning pathways of the students and their whānau. the autonomy of what is learnt, when it’s learnt and how it’s shown will be a continual reciprocal action undertaken by te kura staff, the students, their whanau, and the community, hapū, and iwi. furthermore, the next phase will result in students collating sources of evidence in a multi-media portfolio to highlight their discoveries, passions, and learning. this portfolio will showcase the learner and ensure that their mana and tuakiri is intact, if not highly empowered and enabled. in conclusion, we must address the landscape for māori learners, and we must stop perpetuating the dominant discourse at all levels. realising māori potential, strengthening productive partnerships, building on identity, language, and culture are all identified ways for māori to succeed as māori. starting with small manageable steps to engage whānau in meaningful contexts lays the foundation from which to push off. the whakatauki from princess te puea hērangi succinctly describes the aspirations and approach of māori, for māori, by māori: mehemea ka moemoeā ahau, ko ahau anake. mehemea ka moemoeā a tātou, ka taea e tātou. if i dream, i dream alone. if we all dream together, we can succeed. references bishop, r., & glynn, t. (1999). culture counts: changing power relations in education. aotearoa: dunmore press. durie, m. (2003). ngā kahui pou: launching māori futures. wellington: huia. education review office. (2010). promoting success for māori students: schools’ progress. retrieved from http://www.ero.govt.nz/publications/promoting-success-for-maori-studentsschools-progress/ friere, p. (1972). pedagogy of the oppressed. new york: penguin. ka eke panuku. (n.d.). closing the gaps. retrieved from https://kep.org.nz/dimensions/closingthe-gaps milne, b. a. (2013). colouring in the white spaces: reclaiming cultural identity in whitestream schools. retrieved from https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/handle/10289/7868 ministry of education. (1999). ka hikitia. wellington: ministry of education. ministry of education. (2013). ka hikitia: accelerating success 2013–2017. retrieved from https://www.education.govt.nz/assets/documents/ministry/strategies-and-policies/kahikitia/kahikitia acceleratingsuccessenglish.pdf journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(2) 17 peterson, e. r., rubie-davies, c., osborne, d., & sibley, c. (2016, april). teachers’ explicit expectations and implicit prejudiced attitudes to educational achievement: relations with student achievement and the ethnic achievement gap. learning and instruction 42, 123–140. doi:org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2016.01.010 phipps, r., merisotis, j. (2003). quality on the line: benchmarks for success in internet-based distance education. retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ed444407 williams, b. (2003). closing the achievement gap: a vision for changing beliefs and practices. va, usa: association for supervision and curriculum development. biographical notes christine te kiri christine.tekiri@tekura.school.nz christine is unashamedly passionate about māori succeeding as māori in whitestream spaces. she has taught across all age levels and in all settings: bilingual, kura kaupapa, and mainstream classes. she continues to strive for a better future for her children, her mokopuna and their future. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. te kiri, c. (2018). manu tukutuku, ma te huruhuru ka rere te manu: empowering learners to soar. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(2), [10–17.]. becoming a "communal chitect" in the online classroom: integrating cognitive and affective learning for maximum effect in web-based education robert woods spring arbor university spring arbor, michigan, united st ates introduction successful online instructors realize that building a sense of ii colllmunity" in the online dassrooll1 is necessary for successful learning outcomes (gunawardena, wiesenberg & hutton, 1996; campbell, 1997; gunawardena & zittle, 1997; mclellan, 1999; kazmer, 2000; wegerif, 1998). the developlnent of conullunity "becomes a parallei streanl to the content being explored in online courses: [it is not] something that \"nucks up' or interferes with the process,r (palloff & pratt, 1999, p. 30). many online instruclors build a sense of 'colmectedness and social presence in online courses through verbal and nonverbal llllnlediacy behaviors (baringer & mccroskey, 2000; mcalister, 2000j vrasidas & mcisaac, 1999), which in turn llla y be experienced ii vicmiousl/' by students in the learning process (larose & whitten, 2000, p. 336). more important, perhaps, research demonstrates that imnlediacy or prosocial behaviors positively correlate with samuel ebersole unlversity of southern colorado pueblo, colorado, united states both affective (n1cdowell, mcdowell, & hyerdahl, 1980; anderson, norton, & nussbau111, 1981; plax, et al., 1986) and cognitive learning (ric1mloncc gorham, & mccroskey, 1987; gorhanl, 1988) in t~e !ace-to-face dassrooul setting. early findings suggest that similar results nlay be obtained in the online setting (e.g., gunawardena, 1995; mcalister, 2000i baker, 2000i larose & whitten, 2000). in short, understanding how to build and nlanage a positive socia] dynmnic can encourage knowledge construction in ways that extend learning opportunities lll. the online dassroolll. in light of the foregolllg, the authors will discuss several online and offline community-building strategies that lllay be used to foster a positive social dynamic in. online courses. before presen.tlllg specific strategies we will begin by introducing you to what we refer to as communal scaffolding. the codlnlunal scaffold lets instructors conceptualize how affective and cognitive learning are inextricably journal vol 7/ no 1, 2003 © distance education association of ne,,; zealand 52 intertwined in the online learning process. it also provides a theoretical base and sets pedagogical guidelliles for fostering a supportive coju:municalion c1inlate ill the online setting. as presented herein, the conlllullal scaffold is consistl"nl with the assulllptions elllbedded in clilllate theory popular in colnm,unily and social psychology hteratur(~-which assumes that psyc1l0social climdles vary with different settings, lhdl dilnates are a product of environlllpnta] and mdividuals' characterislit"s, and that the relationships between climdl<-" setting, and individuals are reciprocdlly influential (pargament, et all 1983). the comm,unal scaffold greenfield (1984) and harley first used the sl'd[[olding concepl to explain how knowil)dge is transferred frolll cognitive to practlcal applications. in such instances the scaffold was used to help visualize) how the gap between task requirements and skill lev(~ls could be bridged. but when we talk about cormnlmal scaffolding here, we are referring to bridging the gap of another kind the gap between the task (cognitive, intellectual) and interpersonal (social, affective, interpel'sonal) require11lents of online learning. the scaffold ie:; built upon the assulllption along the lines of moore's transacti onal distance theory that the /i distance" in distance education is pedagogical and social, not geographical, and that this separation bet"v(-~en instructor and learner m a classroom enviromnent may be overcom,e through effective dialogue (i.e., instructor-learner interaction) and insltuctional design (i.e., structure) (moore & kearsley, 1996, pp. 199-203). sim.ilarly, hurt, scott, and mccroskey (1978) observed, "there is a diherence between knowing and teaching and that difference is communication in the dassrooml1 (p. 3). the process of col1l1nunication, then, as represented by the intercolmectedness of the scaffold, is at the heart of the leanli11g experience, whether the setting is onjine or face-to-face. as figure 1.1 (see following page) depicts, conliduna] scaffolding recognizes thal successful online learning must structure social support if learners are to be optim,ally challenged academically to maxiulize learning benefits. scaffolding provides support (rigidity) for the structure, whi,ch adds an elelnent of safety to the project, and provides a place to stand (foundation) for the ji construction workers." as such, it encourages and reinforces cognitive development (knowledge construction) in the context of social connection and facilitation 11luch in the way that larose and whitten's (2000) social cognitive theory provides a fralnework to develop a unified construct of instructional unluediacy for web-based courses. furthermore, as interpel'sonal dynamics are fitted into the existing scaffolding structure through various online and offline strategies to be discussed below -learners are able to extend their range of learning opportunities by collaborating "vith others to achieve goals and complete assignments not otherwise possible. finally, the scaffold enables instructors and others to isolate individualized needs and customize colnmumcation to address a range of learning styles and sodo-cultural variables. in brief, the stronger, nlore secure, and better built yom' scaffold, the m,ore "robust" (calderwoody 1999) your social dynamic. learning, vo17, no 1,2003 © distance education association of new zealand 53 figure 1.1 emphasizes interconnectedness extends learning opportunities facilitates knowledge construction the diagram_ on the following page was desiglied to help further conceptualize colllnlunal scaffolding. it graphically depicts how the scaffold facilitates interconnectedness and shared provides (social) support stresses interdependence helps isolate trouble areas and provide relief responsibility learning outconh'~, and how the cof:,'tutive and affecli\'l' aspects of online learning may interdl l to produce optim.al results. journal learning, vol 7, no 1/2003 © distance education association of new zealand 54 n ow that the scaffold has been presented, the next sections focus on how to build it using various online and offline strategies and communication tools. we can these basic conununication tools comnlunity building activities (cbas). they are reliable, easy-to:incorporate strategies with observable benefits that are colllman fare in most online learning environments. online you can scaffold using personalized em.ail, personal discussion folders, llnmediacy, audio/video, and live ellat, to nam.e a few. offline instructors scaffold through field trips, road trips, on-site experiences, guides emphasizes to be used for which provides internships, apprenticeships, service learning, cohort group llleetings, and phone calls. (1) personal discussion folders (discussion "rooms" or "forulus"): these are simply gathering places (usually created within\neb-based educational platforms) where personalized threaded discussions between participants in online courses may occur. instructors are encouraged to begin their online experience by creating a place for students to create a personal profile or ii electronic personality" (pra tt, 1996, jou1l1f.lz teaming, vol 7, no i, 2003 © distance education association of new zealand 55 pp. 119-120). these places m.ight be titled j/ autobiographies" or iiintroductions." hl any case, they are places where students' "e-personalities" m,ay be posted and inferences or "impressions" about another learner's personality, values, and traits lllay be fonned. personal discussion folders let students reduce uncertainty and process social infomlation about others by asking questions in a setting where the nulllber of colnnlunications are reduced (uncertainty reduction theory, pratt, et a1., 1999j sodal infornlation processing theory, walther & burgoon, 1992). they a1,;0 allow students to take advantage of the asynchronous nature of cmc and mak(~ optinlal presentations of ilselp' (walther, 1997,. hyperpersona1 colllll1unication perspective). as pratt and colleagues (1999) reported, cmc participants ask roughly the srune nunlber and sanle types of questions during the]! lnteractions even though cmc interactio11s were asynchronous and took longer to develop. one difference was that cmc participants asked more questions ainled at getting at the jj inner self" of the other person. personal discussion folders, then,. provide an initial place for exploration of the "imler self" to the extent desired by students. in addition, hancock and colleague's (2001) information processing theory explains type of comlllunication that filay occur in these folders. they observe that lllpression fornlation occurs in conlputer-nlediated comnlujllcation (cmc) in llluch the same way as it occurs in face-to-face colnmunication. results of their study indicated that impressions forllled in cmc envrrol1nlents were less detailed but stronger than those forllled as a result of face-to-face interactions. thus, online students interacting through this cba nlay eventually develop stronger reactions to othl~rs, even though those reactions are based on a relatively 8111.all alllount of infornlation and nlay take a slightly longer tune to form. (walther & burgoon, 1992). .," finally, personal iulpression formatio11 and uncertainty reduction of the sort described above usually occur during first several days of class before course content is discussed. the benefits of selfdisclosure will. extend to the larger issue of group or class dynamics. woods and ebersole (2003) report(;:d that encouraging student partidpatioll in one of four types of personal discussion folders inay result in positive faculty / student relationships, positive relationships anlong stu dents, a sense of conlmunity, and satisfaction with the overalllean1i11g experience. (2) immediacy: imulediacy refers to the extent to which selected verbal and nonverbal colnmunication behaviors enhance intiinacy in interpersonal cornlllulucation (mehrabian, 1969, 1971; andersen, andersen, & jensen, 1979) and "reduce perceived distance between people" (thweatt & mccroskey, 1996, p. 198). several studies delllonstrate the power of instructor lllmediacy on creating a greater sense of classroonl colllmunity adlong learners. to some degree, each of the online cbas in this section is designed to foster a certain level of inlnlediacy. responding to email or threaded discussion in a timely 11lanner is one way to be imnlediate. as a rule of thunlb, we suggest responding within twenty-four hours. in one study, instructor imlllediacy in feedback was the strongest predictor of learning both affective and cogtutive learning anlong students (baker, 2000). in another study,. journal ~f distance learning, vol 7, no 1,2003 © distance education association of new zealand 56 ({student.') felt that the lack of immediate feedback in the online portion of the course was discouraging and contributed to their linlited participation in the online discussions" (vrasidas & mcisaac, 1999, p. 33). note that instructor ill1mediacy in response to student conlmu1ucation may even be experienced ii vicariously" as learners observ{~ it while interacting vvith other students in group discussion (p. 33). sludents eventually develop an expectatic)i1 of presence based on an instructor's response rate. responding at different tinws of the day even build anticipation (or inlmediacy. verbal imnwjiacy behaviors such as asking questions in dialogue or otherwisq initiating discussion, addressing individual students by name, using personal l'xamples, or talking about experiences outside of class (gorham, 1988) m.ay lw used by online instructors in a vari()ly of forlllats to increase psychological closeness anlong learners. nonverbal immediacy behaviors include tone of voice and inflection (richmond, gorham" & mccroskey, 1987) and emoticons (note: tone of voice is discussed below under audio / video). emoticons are grapluc accents or textualized icons created by a series of standard keyboard characters combined to produce a picture (e.g., :-) ). thompsen and foulg(~r (1996) found that the use of emoticons reduced reader perception of anger (i.e., flaming) in electronic mail messages. turlde (1995) explained that such keystroke combinations replace nonverbal cues such as physical gestures and facial expressions used in face-to-face settings to foster inlm.ediacy (mehrabian, 1971; andersen, andersen, & jensen, 1979), thus placing online communication solllewhere in between traditional written and oral commu1ucation (p. 183). indeed, the research has indicated that ol1lll1.c collllllunicants colllpensate for the lack of such nonverbal cues and physical presence by encoding verbal intimacy cues in the textual messages to convey affect (e.g., gunawardena,. ]994; rice & love, 1987; wilkins, 1991). gunawardena and zittle (1997) found that partidpants in a computer conference enhanced their socio-eltiotional experience through the use of emoticol1s to express 11lissing nonverbal cues (p, 23). (3) live chat: we have found that scheduling "virtual office" hours or other times for "live chatu related to course content matters helps us connect with sonle students in ways that elllail or voicenlail camlot. for many, it helps to reduce perceived interaction difficulty (arbuagh, 2000) associated with timeindependent posting and replying. on a more practical level, this function ahows students to have a conversation without paying for a long-distance call these chats lll.a y even be archived and reviewed by others in the class at a later time. students who cannot make it to the virtual hours may still benefit from the questions asked by others. moreover, students like the quick response tim.e that live chat provides. it adds strength to the immediacy fostered through twenty-four-hour turnaround time dir;;cussed above. and just as in real-tim.e office sessions! live c.hats let us nlodel a m.ore informal, personal style of textual interaction. this style, in turn, may enhance students" perceptions of us as being expressive/warnl and generally involved, two conlnlunication behaviors identified by guerrero and :rvliller (1998) as being positively associated with inlpressions of instructor llnlnediacy, instructor competence, and course content. journal lem71ing, vol 7, no 1, 2003 © distance education association of new zealand 57 lastly, there is a very real sense in which live chat heightens ii the degree of salience of the other persoll in the interaction" (short, williauls, & christie, 1976, p. 65). put another way, live chat may enhance an instructor's co-presence with students. students participating in live chat filay perceive the instructor as iirnare real" than those who don't participate in such colllll1unication. as one student in one of our classes renlarked, really together." like we're (4) personalized. email: another way to conuect with students is to send personalized enlail (pe) outside of regular class time or required course discussion. personalized email ulight be used to encourage a student who ulade a solid contribution in one of the required discussion formats. again, as with live chat, pes are pro-social behaviors that help to create the idlpression that we are expressive/warm and generally involved. as instructors, we use pes regularly. the lllessages are usually two to three sentences long and include general words of encourageulent, caring, or support you rna y also use pes to check up on sonleo~le who does not appear to be as active in discussion as others and depending on the size of the class and your time), you can send the salne type of personalized emails just described to slllall groups. as few as three personal emails sent to students throughout the course of the senlester has been positively associated with students' sense of online community and overal1 satisfaction with the learning experience (woods, 2002). personalized enlails nlay be used to enhance students' perception of facultystudent interaction. clow (1999), phillips and peters (1999), roblyer (1999), and hacker and wignall (1997) all concluded that a student's perception of sufficient interaction with instructors and other students is positively correlated with his level of satisfaction with the overall online learning experience. furulemlore, a /i sufficient" level of interaction wilh ,," faculty ge]l(~rally creates a iisense or personalization and customization of learnin g" (boettcl1er, 1999, p. 43) a 11 d helps students overcollle feelings of rellloteness-perhaps the greal('~l obstacle to fostering a student's sensp (11 conlnlunity in online distance learning (everhart, 1999, p. 12). arbaugh (20()o) found that perceived interaction difficulty was negatively correlated wilh student satisfaction, while perceivl'd instructor elllphasis on interaction wd" positively correlated with stuj(\nl satisfaction. arbaugh concluded, " it appears that the flexibility of ule medium and the ability to develop an in terad i \'1' course envir0l1111ent play a larger rolt, in deternlining student satisfaction lh.ln the ease or frequency with which liw nlediul11. can be used" (p. 43). (5) audiojvideo: some instructors hd\'" used audio nlessages (as a supphmwnl to text) as em.ail attadullents to btl lid student/ faculty relationships and d sense of online colllmunity (woods &. keeler, 2001). others include vid(\(l welcomes, use videocams for live dldl sessions), or send personal video dip'as email attachnlents to create intimdl "audio/video elelnents can introdw't' additional conlidunication cues in llw online learning process that have bt'pi1 positively associated with iulmediacy in face-to-face settings. in this sense, using audio and/ or video allows instructors lo address sollle of the concerns highlighted by the /i cues-filtered-out" perspective, wl1kh explaiils how certain audible (actual words spoken! tone, accents, paralinguistic cues) and visual channels journal learning, vol 7, no 1, 2003 © distance education association of new zealand 58 (atti.re, facial expressions, kinesics, and psychophysiologicaj responses) are filtered out in cmc (kiesler, siegel, & 1984; hiltz & turoff, 1993). a variation of the audio / video as email attaclm1ent is the slide with recorded narration. some instructors add personal photographs or other personalized graphics to the slide. as instructors we have that our tone of voice can be used to set the right mood for future communication. it becomes a perceplual framework through which subsequent communication (whether textual or otherwise) is filtered. the use of vocal expressiveness and vocal quality to the list of nonverbal behaviors that create immediacy (hackman & walker, 1990; andersen, andersen, & jensen, 1979). articulation/ clarity were associated with positive impressions of i11struclor competence and course content (guerrero & miller, 1998). audio/video elements let instructors return valuable communication cues to the online learning process. (6) regular updates and feedback: instructors can send weekly updates with a checklist of items that students can use to guide their tinle and study. as inentioned above, if you include the update on a powerpojnt slide you can add audio narration with little effolt. such updates may even incl'ease students' perceptions of high degrees of faculty interaction. in addition to a few slides that include content we often include slides that students looking ahead to next week's work. as part of our updates we even include an occasional humorous cartoon or illustration related to course content or classroom procedures. has been positively related to instructor behavi.ors and the al1l0unt and type of humor has been delllonstrated to influence learning outcomes (gorham & christophel, 1990; christensen & menzel, 1998; menzel & 1999; comeaux, 1995). instructors may also provjde detailed feedback on assiglullents to create imll1ediacy and enhance co!:,rnitive learning. riehm,ond, mccroskey, kean1ey, & plax (1987) found that prosocial behavjors such as nnmecliate reward and teacher feedback were positively associated with cognitive learning. hackman and walker (1990) found, "off-calupus students felt as though they lean1ed more when their instructor provided them with spedfic feedback on individual work through comments on papers, oral discussion or some other 11lea11s" (p. 202). instructors may alc;o provide feedback to students about their participation levels (de verneil & berge, 2000) in ways that enhance intinlacy and extend learning opportunities. (7) group discussi.on and discursive style: one of the most basic, but often ul1derestimated, online cbas learners can use to build connectedness revolves around participation in required group discussion formats. threaded dialogue can help to build a foundation upon which a more elaborate c01l1m,unal structure can be built. dialogue introduces students to one another at a cognitive level. feeling "safeu to express ol1e's views is an important part of building community. safety is further enhanced by establishing early on in the course rules for appropriate engagement and conduct within required discussion folde.rs. journal of distance i,earning, vol 7/ no 1/2003 © distance education association of ne1-v zealand 59 if you are not aware of it, your discursive style lllay prevent you frolll lvj,lll~~li.ji.ll<': with others. it is well established that online learners desire both relational and personal interaction and a learning envirollllent that welcollles alternative or opposing views (bluln, 1999). we are therefore careful as instructors to observe our own 11 voices" to lllake sure that we do not shut down or silence opportunities for debate by elinlinating alternative ways of vi.ewing the issues at hand. along the way, we have had to resist the desire to play /i expert" or be perceived as the "final word" on any issue. faculty must becom.e conlfortable with playing the part of j/provocateur" instead of ijacadelllician" (parker, 1999, p. 16), concentrating 111.ore 011 leading discussion and pronl0ting collaborative learning and less on lectures and assessment (young, 1997). willie it is a11 right to critically challenge ideas, avoid accusatory language or leading questions that indicate your biases. gorh31n (1988) found that n011imulediacy behaviors ll1clude such items as ii criticizes or points out faults in students' work, actions or conunents" (p. 44). instead, use concrete and descriptive language in your replies. encourage and lllodel personal expression, whether through nicknallles, enloticons, or o~her types of lllterpersonal conununication (chenault, 1998; lea & spears, 1995; parks & floyd, 1996; rheingold, 1993; walther, 1996). always begin your reply to a student's post with a positive comnwnt before critically addresslllg other 111.atlers. as noted earlier, the student's first llanle is another way to build inlluediacy and social presence (e.g., gorh31l1, 1988) providing specific feedback or correction. (8) create private places: to the extent allowable by the instructor and course nlanagenlent platform., create a separate private area for your student.:;; apart from general class discussion. in blackboard, we usually create a ii cyber study room." ,,' where previously assigned discussion groups can nleet apart from required discussion forn13ts for informal chat. this is the sanle idea as the personal discussion folders 1l1.entioned· earlier, but for students only. this is a space that the lllstructor lllay not enter unless lllvited. such private places apart itolll the lllstructor's watchful eye allow lllore opportunities for "hyperpersona] colnnluuication" (walther, 1997). the hyperpersonal coll1.munication perspective recognizes "unique affordances of the mediunl that allow users to achieve nlore favorable impressions and greater levels of llltimacy than those in parallel ftf activities" (p. 348). . offline strategies for communal scaffolding now that online strategies for constructing your scaffold have been explored, we will explore several offline strategies. offline efforts to build c01umunity, when carefully integrated with the lean-ring 0 bjecti ves of the course, can greatly enhance students' experiences. known variously as experiential learnlllg or contextual learningr constructivist approaches to ]ean1ing that emphasize practical application and sensory experience 1995; salomon & perki11sr 1998) are :increaslllgly being called upon to enhance the text-heavy focus on online learning. offline strategies provide a balance for students who filay become frustrated with what they perceive to be too nluch iitalk about theories." journal t.earning, vol 7, no 1,2003 © dis.tance edu.cation association of new zealand 60 while llluch of the recent research has been exploring ways to tillprove online collutiunication, it is alnlost always undertaken with the assumption that onlllle conmlulucation begins at a disadvantage to offhne, or face-to-face (f2f), c01j1jllu1tication. we need to point out that by f2f we do not necessarily mean traditional passive, lecture presentations. f2f should be 11luch l110re than that and should precipitate the kind of active participation and interactivity that is also the goal for online c0111111ulucatioll. hlteractivity should also be understood til terms both of tilteraction with the course content and interaction with fellow leanlers and teachers. following are several offline strategies, or offline cbas, that can be em.ployed to encourage and enhance the building and strengthening of relationships, which, in turn, can extend learning opportunities for online learners. (1) field trips, road trips, and onsite experiences: if possible, instructors should think of a reason to take the online dass 1/ on the road." by this we mean find an opportunity to visit a site where there is opportunity for practical application of the classroom theory. for instance, we recently took a small group of students to a fairly distant city for a day-long selninar that was being sponsored by a professional orgruuzation. the experience of overconling a comlllon adversity, in this case uleeting at 5:45 a.m. in order to get to the seminar by 8 a.m./ and the camaraderie experienced durtilg the two-hour drive (each way) contributed to the development of relationships. til(~ experience of sharing a meal on the trip honle was another opportunity for relatiol1slups to be strengthened. learning experiences from the road trip can later be incorporated in a ciassroonl or online discussion. specific course discussion areas, for instance, inay be to provide a sulllmary of attendees' experiences. a variation of this offline cba can be initiated by students who live outside the instructor's geographic regi.on, which is the usual case for most online students. students can llleet a faculty lll'i;~.lllv1;;" or other students at a conference organization" we often oi.u' ..... c,.lli.o when we will be at a in their location. we tell thenl that we would like to get together for lunch or have the111 join us at the conference. sollle out-of-state students even take the initiative to contact us when they will be in our area for a professional or personal €11gagem,ent. we out of our way in those cases to make the f2f llleeting happen. (2) internships, apprenticeships, and service learning: these offline strategies provide opportuluties for students to engage in experiential learning willie they build relationships with people outsi.de of the traditional classroom. the relationslups that are fonned with colleagues, professionals, and l11.el11bers of the coinmuluty have value not only fronl the perspective of networking, but they can be lnlportant connections to the kind of real-world that students need (parks-daloz, 1990). sludents engaged in collllllunity projects or working side-by-side with professionals frequently find the human connection that allows them. to connect theory and practice in ways that did not make sense before. v\lillie most understand internships and apprenticeships, service learning inay be less fanliliar. service learnulg is practical application of knowledge and learning by journal leaming, vol 7, no i, 2003 © distance education association of new zealand 61 working 011 conlulunity-based projects (loesch-griffin, petrides, & pratt, 1995). frequently associated with volunteer service projects! service learrring allows student participants to practice interpersonal relationships and caring for others. this expn)ssion of caring, which is denlonstrated through practical c01unlunity service, is a return to the activism of eadier decades, but with a decidedly nlodern, or should we say postulodenl, sensibility. students ulight apply their skills and trainillg to solve a problenl that lllight otherwise renlain unsolved, and in so doing forge friendships and relationships that enrich their lives (weiler, lagoy, & rovller, 1998; root, callahan, & sepanski, 20(2). (3) cohort group meetings and proj ects: sol1le prograuls use this strategy during the sull1ll1er prior to the autumn selnester of dasses. for example, online students llleet f2f 011 call1pus for all intensive twoto threeweek class session in early august. individuals are assigned to slllall groups on the bases of personality inventories that are adnlinistered shortly after enrolinlent into the progranl (calderwood, 1999). students share lneals together, attend conferences, work on group assignments, and attend classes together. students usually report feeling a strong sense of colllmunity with others following sudl llleetings. cohort activities greatly increase retention rates and reports of overall satisfaction with the learning experience. they also serve as an excellent comlllunal foundation that can be built upon by instructors in subsequent online courses (imel & tisdell,1996). another variation of this strategy is a cohort or class meeting within an individual class. in one instance we held a class meeting half way through the selllester at a local coffee house. students in the immediate area (and soule as as two to three hours away) attended the ineeting. upon return to our regularly scheduled online activitiesf we observed a measurable change in the depth of reflection in posts / replies to our discussion questions. we had fe:~wer late papers and "absences." however, it is recolllmended that any such meeting tal(e place only after students have dem,onstrated a certain level of comjort and responsibility in interactirlg with one another in the online £'flr',-""rr (4) phone calls: wlwe:: this lllay seeul simplistic or obvious to soule, it is often overlooked by online instructors and students. it is surprising what a personal phone call can do to enhance a sense of connectedness. in one distance education study, off-caulpus students felt as though they learned more when their instructor used phone calls to express caring and provide specific feedback (hackman & walker, 1990). while the phone might arguably be seen as an if online" strategy (especially in light of emerging internet phone services), since it is more personal, lllore fanliliar, and less technologically coulplex than colllputer-m,ediated comnlunication, we have chosen to treat it as an ii offline/! strategy. besides, those on the receiving end, regardless of the originator's source, will ulost always be using a traditional hand-held unit. and because phones are important social tools that are part of the anlerican fabric, con1munication by phone is often perceived as less taskrelated than, say, elllail. closing thoughts so, how do we contribute to the kind of conlll1unal infrastructure that builds journal learning, vol 7, no i, 2003 © distance educati0l1 association of new zealand 62 colmectedness and pronlotes learning? perhaps the starting place is to recognize the strong colulection demonstra.ted ill the research between a positive sodal dynmnic and cognitive learni11g. practitioners must also recogillze that a positi v(' social d ynmnic requires intentionality that is, community just doesn't harren but is created through it variety of verbal and nonverbal comnlunicdtion cues. bec01lling more effective in huildillg commulllty begills with precisp d(:;finitions and m,easurement of community and the collection of data hc~yond sinlple self-report by students. aw~mpts to ti10re fully defilw comjnunity in the online setting (e.g., gergen, 1991; jones, 1995; shell, 1995; pratt 1996) (.ll1d various approaches to the ineasurement of community (rovai & lucking, 2000; mcalister, 2000; baker, 2000) havf' moved us lnuch closer to our goal. it should htl noted that there are no shortcuts to developing com,nlunity. it takes time, and there is 110 substitute for time spent in coull11unication with others whether online or offline. of course, tinl() alone is insufficient. the lime spent with classlnates and with the il"lstructor m.ust be structured in such a way that enhances the allilnportant transfer of intellectual and en:\otionul capital references andersen, j. f., andersen, p. a, & jensen, a. d. the measurement of irrunediacy. journal of applied commullicat'i011 research, 7, 153-180. anderson, j. f., norton, r. w., & nussbaum, j. f. 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(2001, november). the effect of instructor's use of audio e-mail messages on student participation in and of online learning: a preliminary case study. open learning! 16(3),263-278. j. r (1997, october 3). rethinking the of l hv professor in an age of hightech look chronicle higher education, a26-a2r robert woods is assistant professor of communicntil)ji, arbor university! spring arbor, a1ic1iigrl1l, states. samuel ebersole if. professor and instructional development ill information teclmology service::. nt tile university of soutju-',rn colorado, plle[jj1), colorntio, united states. journal learning, vol 7, no 1, 2003 © distance education association of new zealand 67 microsoft word editorial 23(2).docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(2) 1 digital inclusion in new zealand maggie hartnett, associate editor, massey university alison fields, editor-in-chief, infosolutions abstract digital inclusion—having what we need to participate in, contribute to, and succeed in the digital world—is becoming a priority for individuals, groups, and governments around the world. not having the necessary motivation, access, skills, and trust to engage with all things digital can result in both individuals and groups being digitally excluded. in this editorial we look at what is encompassed by digital inclusion, who is most likely to be excluded, and the new zealand government’s recent publication of the digital inclusion blueprint. following this discussion, the papers included in this issue are introduced keywords: digital inclusion; digital divide; digital inclusion blueprint introduction in june 2019, the estimate of the world’s population that has access to the internet was just under 59% (miniwatts marketing group, 2019). this aggregated figure includes parts of the world where internet access is nearly ubiquitous, such as europe (88%) and north america (89%), and regions where connectivity is less than 50%—particularly africa. in the oceania region, internet penetration is quite low at 69% although australia (87%) and new zealand (91%) are comparatively high. these figures demonstrate uneven internet across regions. if we consider access within new zealand we find, again, the picture is not consistent. the recently released census information shows that 1.3 of a total of 1.65 million households now have internet access (statsnz, 2019). much of the increase since the 2013 census can be accounted for by population increase during the intervening period, which suggests that the remaining unconnected households may be difficult to reach (millar, 2019, september 23). digital inclusion digital inclusion is defined as “all of us have what we need to participate in, contribute to, and benefit from the digital world” (department of internal affairs, 2019a, p. 7). being digitally included isn’t just a matter of having access to the internet and digital technologies. people also require the digital skills, motivation, and trust to realise the benefits (internetnz, 2018). individuals and groups who do not have ready access to the internet, and/or the digital capabilities necessary to function effectively, are referred to as digitally excluded. the most vulnerable members of society tend to experience more digital exclusion than other members of society. low socio-economic communities, māori and pacific youth, elders, people with disabilities, migrants, refugees with english as a second language, rural communities, exoffenders, and people with limited education frequently experience barriers to digital access and use (digital inclusion research group, 2017). hartnett, m., fields, a. 2 as our environment is increasingly digitised, more highly skilled jobs, which require people with high levels of digital expertise, are being created, while jobs that require minimal digital capabilities are declining. people require a range of digital capabilities, in addition to access, to function successfully in an increasingly digital world. capabilities include basic digital literacy skills (i.e., skills needed by every citizen to carry out basic online functions such as communicating with others and searching for information), digital skills for the workforce (in addition to the above, workers need these skills to use digital applications that are common in the workplace); and, increasingly, individuals will need skills that are linked to new digital technologies, products, and services (e.g., computer coding, digital marketing, and web design skills). digital inclusion in new zealand governments around the world are tackling the main reasons for digital exclusion so that people have what they need to be functioning members of digital societies (see, for example department for digital culture media & sport, 2017; digital inclusion research group, 2017; thomas et al., 2018). in new zealand’s case, the government has recently published the digital inclusion blueprint (2019a) which outlines the “vision and context for digital inclusion in new zealand” (p. 7). of particular interest to readers of this journal is recognition of gaps in the current evidence base and prioritisation of research to address those gaps. the digital inclusion research agenda (part of the digital inclusion blueprint) outlines the key priorities of the government for digital inclusion research (department of internal affairs, 2019b). four key components will be used to determine the degree of digital inclusion; namely, motivation, access, skills, and trust (digital inclusion research group, 2017; internetnz, 2018). these components are similar to those used by other countries. research priorities have been organised into 6 main questions: questions 1 to 3 are considered high priority, questions 4 and 5 are medium priority, and question 6 is low priority. 1. which groups have a lower likelihood of being digitally included, and why? 2. how does digital inclusion relate to waiora/wellbeing? 3. what are māori aspirations for digital inclusion, what is successful in meeting those aspirations and what opportunities are there to do better? 4. what works well to improve digital inclusion for different groups? 5. what is the economic cost-benefit of digital inclusion? 6. what will we need in future to maintain a digitally inclusive new zealand? (department of internal affairs, 2019b, key research questions, para. 1) the first author of this editorial has been involved in providing feedback on the government’s digital inclusion research agenda and continues to have involvement with relevant government departments and other stakeholder groups as the blueprint is actioned. while there is a lot to be done, it is heartening to see the commitment being made to ensure digital equity in new zealand. papers in this issue the papers in this issue present research into three very different aspects of open, flexible, and distance learning. barbour and siko begin by considering recent changes in e-schools in new zealand in the primary and secondary schooling sectors. the virtual learning network (vln) has been operating for around 25 years, as “a group of school clusters and organisations who choose to operate as a collaborative network, utilising digital technologies in order to enhance the learning outcomes and opportunities for learners (students, teachers, school communities and educators)” (virtual learning network, n.d.). elearning clusters had traditionally developed in rural settings but have more recently welcomed an active urban-based elearning group called journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(2) 3 harbournet to the network. this article explores the obstacles harbournet overcame to become a successful member of the vln. rowan and hartnett also provide a new zealand perspective on a world-wide trend, looking this time at the representation of moocs as seen by the public through the new zealand media. from 2012, the news media in new zealand has carried items describing moocs as being a disruptive influence on existing higher education systems. this exploration of news articles considers this theme of moocs as revolutionary and compares new zealand findings with those of similar overseas research. it also suggests these newspaper articles may shape the way the public views and accepts changes within higher education structures in new zealand. the final article, by vu, adkins and henderson, investigates students’ perspectives on privacy and data collection in online courses in the u.s. it reports on data from an online survey of u.s. online students, questioning how aware they were of the amount of data being collected on their learning behaviour (such as login frequency, pages viewed or clicked, and learning profiles) and whether or not they were concerned about that data and how it could be viewed or used. the key result is the title of this article, “aware, but don’t really care”. the article outlines more than just this key finding—it shows some of the complexities of these issues and students’ responses to them. there should be something of value to readers in this issue. it is an interesting mix of articles, providing both new zealand and international perspectives on a wide range of trends and issues facing open, flexible, and distance learning. happy reading! references department for digital culture media & sport. (2017). policy paper: digital skills and inclusion policy. retrieved from https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/digital-inclusion-andskills-policy/digital-skills-and-inclusion-policy department of internal affairs. (2019a). the digital inclusion blueprint: te mahere mō te whakaurunga matihiko. wellington, new zealand. retrieved from https://www.digital.govt.nz/digital-government/digital-transformation/digital-inclusion/digitalinclusion-blueprint/. department of internal affairs. (2019b). digital inclusion research agenda. retrieved from https://www.digital.govt.nz/digital-government/digital-transformation/digital-inclusion/digitalinclusion-research-agenda/ digital inclusion research group. (2017). digital new zealanders: the pulse of our nation. retrieved from https://www.mbie.govt.nz/dmsdocument/3228-digital-new-zealanders-thepulse-of-our-nation-pdf. internetnz. (2018). solving digital divides together: an internetnz position paper. wellington, new zealand: internetnz. retrieved from https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/submissions/solving_digital_divides.pdf millar, l. (2019, september 23). census 2018 and digital inclusion: good or bad news? retrieved from https://2020.org.nz/blog/2019/09/23/census-2018-and-digital-inclusion-goodor-bad-news/ miniwatts marketing group. (2019). internet world stats: usage and population statistics. retrieved from https://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm hartnett, m., fields, a. 4 statsnz. (2019). 2018 census totals by topic: national highlights. retrieved from https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/2018-census-totals-by-topic-national-highlights thomas, j., barraket, j., wilson, c., cook, k., louie, y. m., holcombe-james, i., . . . macdonald, t. (2018). measuring australia’s digital divide: the australian digital inclusion index 2018. melbourne: rmit university, for telstra. virtual learning network. (n.d.). the vln community: home of the learning communities online (lco). retrieved from https://vln.school.nz/groups/profile/572/the-vln-communityhome-of-the-learning-communities-online-lco biographical notes maggie hartnett m.hartnett@massey.ac.nz maggie hartnett is a senior lecturer in the institute of education at massey university, new zealand. she teaches in the areas of digital technologies and coordinates the postgraduate qualifications in digital technologies. she is also associate editor of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. alison fields alison@infosolutions.co.nz alison is an information scientist and director of research at infosolutions. she conducts research in health information, and contracts in the education sector. she is a fellow of the library and information association of new zealand aotearoa (lianza) and has a doctorate in education. her research areas encompass e-learning, online learner support, health information, library services, and continuing professional development. alison is an executive member of flanz and editor-in-chief of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. hartnett, m., & fields, a. (2019). digital inclusion in new zealand. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(2), [1–4]. journal insides v1.indd © distance education association of new zealand 62 fly on the wall: using teleconferencing to supervise student teacher performance marcia bolton center for education widener university chester, pennsylvania, united states of america mvbolton@mail.widener.edu introduction teleconferencing is a communications technology that integrates video and voice to connect remote users with each other as though they are in the same room. each user needs a broadband internet connection to participate. users see and hear each other in real time, allowing natural conversations that are not possible with voice-only communications technology. partnerships between public schools and colleges and universities in the united states began to change in the 1980s. teacher education institutions organised new relationships with public schools for the initial and continuing education of teachers. these schools, called professional development schools, or partner schools, focus on improving pre-service teacher education and creating strong partnerships with teacher preparation institutions (zeichner, 2006). the partner schools became an ideal place for the culminating student teacher experience of 12–16 weeks in a classroom. because of their long-term relationship with a partner school and its teachers, student teachers placed at identifi ed partner schools are guaranteed time to develop effective teaching practices, including using new technologies such as teleconferencing. partner schools can begin to take advantage of harnessing the new technologies offered through the institute of higher education. many teacher education institutions have not taken advantage of technology partnerships and coordinated training in technology in the past (wei & johnes, 2005; conole, 2004). teleconferencing gives the teacher preparation school and the partner school an opportunity to use, understand, and explore an advanced technology system. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 62–76 © distance education association of new zealand 63 studies by diaz and cartnal (1999) and strauss (1993) show that a visitor to a classroom can interrupt the routine of everyone involved. students usually straighten their posture and watch carefully as the visitor takes a seat. the in-person visit affects the student teacher as well. a student teacher who is observed by a supervisor from their college or university will change their behaviour to make their evaluation proceed more positively (lesley, hamman, olivarez, button, & griffi th, 2009). student teachers realise that if their students are well behaved, they will be able to impress the supervisor with content knowledge and instructional methodologies. ardley (2009) believes such behaviour can create an artifi cial situation for the supervisor, student teacher, and the students in the classroom. the question posed for this study was whether the physical presence of an outside observer is the best means of assessing the performance of student teachers. the researcher agrees that if a supervisor can watch student teachers remotely via teleconferencing, with the aim of watching a real classroom teaching event rather than an ideal one, the behaviour of all involved may be more natural (ardley, 2009; shiffl et & brown, 2006). supervising student teachers by remote observation or teleconference is certainly an option. richter, backer, and vogt’s (2009) review of distance education research indicates that a study on the supervision of student teachers, and the interaction and communication between the college supervisor, student teacher, and partner teacher, would add to the current body of literature. context of the study a study of the effectiveness of using teleconferencing technology as an evaluation tool for student teachers was developed. a survey instrument was distributed to 16 student teachers who were observed via teleconferencing. all respondents (16 student teachers and 2 partner teachers) agreed the technology was less intrusive, less distracting, and easier to ‘tune out’ than was an in-person supervisor (see table 2, lines 1 & 2). only one student teacher expressed a preference for in-person visits from a supervisor (line 7). as shown in line 8, if student teachers and their students are indeed less aware of the observation, student teachers will be more likely to exhibit instructional methodologies that indicate their true potential (diaz & cartnal, 1999; strauss, 1993). research was conducted at a college that was founded in 1872 as a branch of the state normal school of west virginia to provide quality teaching professionals to the state’s public schools. since its founding, the college has journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 62–76 © distance education association of new zealand 64 progressed to its current position as a comprehensive liberal arts institution, offering a wide variety of degree opportunities. because the college is located in the most rural part of west virginia, student-teaching observation emerged as a unique challenge. in the fall and spring semesters, an average of 35 student teachers require at least 6 supervision visits each. supervisors may spend whole working days driving on country roads, often in inclement weather, to visit the professional development partner schools that mentor the student teachers. public schools school funding to buy distance-learning equipment came from both a national aeronautics and space administration (nasa) grant and a local benefactor. at the time, schools in only one county were equipped to participate in teleconferencing interactions, which they could operate within their school and from a distance. although the equipment was somewhat dated, it proved adequate to meet the needs of this study. specifi cally, the equipment consisted of a camera video-conferencing system that included a viewing screen with embedded camera, a remote control, speakers, viewing screen, cart, and a 42” television screen. the system worked very well for classrooms of all sizes and was fully interoperable with standards-based video when used with a pc. the video-conferencing system was set up in the classroom the day before it was needed so students would not have heightened alertness to new equipment in the classroom. the system was also used regularly in these schools, so students and teachers accepted, and were used to, the equipment being in the room. all respondents (16 student teachers and 2 partner teachers) stated they learned about the technology and would use it again because of their participation in the teleconferencing study experience (see table 2, line 4 & 5). fourteen student teachers and one of the partner teachers went on to state they had an excellent experience with the teleconferencing supervision (table 2 line 6). college level at the college, the supervisor had a smaller screen with embedded camera on their desk. their teleconferencing equipment included a portable 18” screen, camera, speakers, and remote control. the supervisor used the mute option unless they needed to interact with the classroom; they could not, therefore, be seen or heard during observation. all students in the classroom had signed permission slips from their parents (collins & grisham-brown, 2001). on-site supervision did not occur in classrooms if permission was not received from every student’s parents. school building administrators were informed, and consented to supervision via distance video conferencing. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 62–76 © distance education association of new zealand 65 at the conclusion of every remotely observed class, the student teacher and partner teacher sat in front of the viewing screen with embedded camera and had a two-way discussion with the supervisor about the lesson, thus forming a triad learning community (anderson & petch-hogan, 2001; edwards, nicoll, solomon & usher, 2004). the wrap-up discussions enabled the pre-service teacher to learn about, apply, and prepare for technology to be included in their future classroom. today’s student teachers must learn how to teach via video teleconferencing or online to stay current in instructional delivery methods, because 21st century students require instruction and guidance in this new form of teaching and learning (anderson & petch-hogan, 2001; grable, kiekel, & hunt, 2008; gao, choy, wong, & wu, 2009). the 35 student teachers and the partner teachers who participated in this study were able to construct their own understandings of technology use by integrating new knowledge with what they already knew, in a constructivist environment of active learning and application (gao et al.). members of the triad of supervision learned about the technology from each other as they solved problems together. it must be noted that it was never intended that teleconferencing would completely replace visits from supervisors—it is evident that face-to-face interaction, feedback, and support are essential for teacher development. however, if proven to be an effective tool in observation, teleconferencing could signifi cantly cut the number of in-person visits to remote schools, reduce the cost of supervisors’ travel, and increase the ability of student teachers to use technology for teaching and learning. as with many forms of teleconferencing, there is little or no cost for use after the initial purchase of equipment and wiring—a positive outcome (barron, 2009). student teachers often need to be placed at a school close to their home but some distance from their college campus. teleconferencing allows the college to grant these requests, with added benefi ts for the student teachers, placement schools, and the college. using teleconferencing establishes a visible presence in these remote schools that would not otherwise be able to have a student teacher. a professional partnership with the college faculty and resources is also established. this study found that, once the teleconferencing technology was seen in use, teachers at the partner schools began to use teleconferencing within their buildings for increased student learning and exposure to technology, just as others had done in studies completed by ardley (2009), and richter et al. (2009). further, using teleconferencing for supervision and discourse provided “pre-service teachers with a balance between pedagogical knowledge and technological knowledge” (so & kim, 2009, p. 102). journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 62–76 © distance education association of new zealand 66 from the beginning of this study, the latent function of observing classroom management became very clear. the ‘artifi cial eye’ allowed more natural student behaviour (lesley et al., 2009). students were not all sitting erect, quiet and attentive as they so often do when a professional stranger is in the back of the room, jotting down observations on a legal pad. instead, they were shouting out answers, interrupting instruction with requests to leave the room, whispering, passing notes and, in some cases, dozing. the way a student teacher handles this behaviour indicates both classroom management style and future effectiveness as a teacher (kong, shroff, & hung, 2009). after the session, the triad held an open discussion that addressed sanctions of positive and negative behavior, and allowed the student teacher to request and be given advice (kong et al.). of course, the picture is not one of uncontrollable students and ineffective discipline. most student teachers shone! for example, a learning disabled child who was prone to uncontrollable verbal outbursts was quickly involved in a music lesson when one student teacher gave her a tambourine, showed her how to make sounds, and continued with the lesson. just as the classroom students assumed more natural behavior, so did the student teacher. student teachers did not glance nervously at the supervisor, set up demonstrations of ‘expert’ teaching vignettes, or display nervous habits such as wringing their hands. most student teachers (15 of the 16 survey respondents) seemed to forget the supervisor was observing via satellite, and exhibited their natural teaching behaviour (table 2, line 10). research background distance learning technologies may provide many benefi ts for k–12 teacher education programmes, including convenience, fl exibility, and effectiveness (barron, 2009). barron supports the fact that supervising student teachers via teleconferencing is convenient because it can be conducted from a single place, such as a college supervisor’s offi ce, to many school sites that are some distance from the college. if the technology is advanced enough, satellite transmissions can be recorded for later review. as kong et al. (2009) found, teacher education has to offer many opportunities to build up professional knowledge, skills, and refl ective ability if it is to create competent student teachers. using distance learning satellite transmissions to supervise student teachers has proved to be effective and reliable (anderson & petch-hogan, 2001; ardley, 2009; conole & culver, 2009; hannon, 2009). teleconferencing is equal to face-to-face supervision when the technologies used are appropriate journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 62–76 © distance education association of new zealand 67 for the instructional tasks and when there is student-to-supervisor interaction. timely supervisor-to-student teacher feedback must be provided to ensure the student teacher can benefi t from the supervision opportunity (moore & thompson, 1990; verduin & clark, 1991). teleconferencing also increases the visible presence of colleges in remote areas, and this can increase awareness of what professional learning communities can offer in terms of instruction and learning to teachers, students, and building administrators. rural schools often have less contact with educational trends, fewer qualifi ed teachers, and a greater need for technology-delivered benefi ts. teleconferencing and its use in student teaching supervision offers great potential for addressing some of these issues (annetta & symansky, 2008). student teachers, supervisors, students, and partner teachers who participated in teleconferencing supervision activities demonstrated how effectively they create a learning environment that leads to success in the classroom. additionally, student teachers learn an alternative delivery method, which they may need when they become inservice professionals (grable et al., 2008). supervision by teleconference offers the possibility of increased interaction with student teachers and with students in the class. in particular, introverted students, or more introverted student teachers, will often ‘open up’ when they are supervised from a distance (annetta & symansky, 2008). because everyone involved forgets supervision is going on, innovation and creativity in teaching are seen, not as tasks to be accomplished, but as ways to conduct a class every day. the supervisor, student teacher, and partner teacher become a collaborative triad that judges instructional methods and skills on results, rather than intentions or artifi cial behaviour. “schools cannot achieve the fundamental purpose of learning for all if educators work in isolation” is part of the defi nition of professional learning communities or triads (dufor, dufor, & eaker, 2008, p. 18). using distance learning for supervision and learning forges a connection between colleges and schools that may be separated by miles, but not in thinking. the live wrap-around discussions after the lessons are an important element of teleconferencing supervision. these wrap-around discussions develop the depth of the professional learning community (or, in this case, the triad) that is built to develop and train future teachers (annetta & symansky, 2008; kong et al., 2009; gao et al., 2009). teachers must always ask themselves, “do they learn what i teach?” throughout history, teachers have been overly concerned with the question, “what was taught?” instead of the more journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 62–76 © distance education association of new zealand 68 relevant question, “what is learned?” (dufor et al., 2008). to address some of this thinking, teleconferencing wrap-around discussions allow for right now learning and refl ection with the student teacher, partner teacher, and university supervisor (kong et al., 2009). according to pierson (2001) technology integration, or the ‘know-how’ to use technology for personal use, is another benefi t of teleconferencing during student teacher training (see table 1). table 1 features of two modes of observing student teachers direct observation indirect observation supervisor is in classroom to observe student teacher supervisor observes via teleconferencing equipment and is invisible to students in classroom greater potential for hawthorne effect1 because students know they are being observed (artifi cial responses) less intrusive; class forgets equipment is in the room, therefore hawthorne effect is minimised (more natural responses) student teacher behaviour is more focused on supervisor than on instructing students student teacher forgets about supervision and instructs in more natural ways, demonstrating more authentic skill set it is diffi cult to evaluate authentic classroom management there is greater opportunity to evaluate natural classroom management numerous studies (e.g., barab, thomas, dodge, carteaux, & tuzun, 2005; barak & dori, 2005; barron et al., 1998; bottino & silva, 2007) have found that technology interventions have many positive effects on achievement when student teachers are taught to use technology in the context of their teacher education courses. metacognitive thinking strategies were improved signifi cantly in classrooms in which the teacher was skilled at using technology (so & kim, 2009). teleconferencing during supervision of student teaching gives the student teacher and partner teacher an opportunity to engage in learning about teleconferencing and, at the same time, to teach one another how to apply the technology (so & kim, 2009). so and kim (2009) found the benefi ciaries of such learning by their teachers to be the students in the classroom. riel and becker (2000) found “the teacher’s use of technology for teaching and learning is closely related to the ability to translate their beliefs into teaching practices” (so & kim 2009, p. 105). 1 the hawthorne effect is an increase in worker productivity produced by the psychological stimulus of being singled out and made to feel important journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 62–76 © distance education association of new zealand 69 teacher candidates who have a constructivist orientation cannot disregard sharing through doing as a mighty tool that increases their ability to teach powerful learning strategies to their students (so & kim, 2009). methods and fi ndings a survey instrument was developed and administered to those student teachers and partner teachers who experienced supervision via both teleconferencing technology and in-person visits. the survey instrument was distributed to 16 student teachers and 6 partner teachers. all 16 student teachers and 2 of the 6 partner teachers responded. the following questions formed the basis of the survey, which was designed to assess the effectiveness and perceptions of the teleconferencing: would student teachers or partner teachers use teleconferencing • equipment again? was the teleconferencing intrusive or distracting to students or student • teachers? did partner teachers and student teachers learn about using a new • technology? did student teachers and partner teachers prefer teleconferencing to in-• person supervision? concern that student teachers and their cooperating teachers would feel they received less attention from the college supervisor when technology was used quickly abated when all 16 student teachers and 2 partner teachers stated they received appropriate individual attention (see table 2, line 3). furthermore, both partner teachers commented that the technology offered an added benefi t of impromptu conferencing when necessary. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 62–76 © distance education association of new zealand 70 table 2 key fi ndings of survey key fi ndings student teachers (st) in agreement (n = 16) partner teachers (pt) in agreement (n = 2) comments teleconferencing 1. distracts student teacher and intrudes on instructional focus 16 2 less distracting and better for my student teacher to learn (pt) the equipment was 2. not a distraction 15 0 received suffi cient 3. supervisor support 14 2 i really liked that i could talk with supervisor at any point. i asked for additional observations and talks with my student teacher and it was great (pt) my supervisor never missed an observation and i think i even got more time with her through technology connection. sometimes it was hard to set up though (st) learned about 4. technology 16 2 would use the 5. equipment again 16 2 i loved using this way to have observation and will use it for english lessons (pt, st) had an excellent 6. experience with teleconferencing 14 1 prefer in-person 7. supervision 1 0 student teacher 8. behaviour was normal, not artifi cial 16 2 defi nite advantage to using the teleconferencing forgot the equipment 9. was in the room (focus is on teaching) 15 0 i could not ignore the equipment but we are used to having it in the room; it didn’t bother me but i could not forget it (both pt) journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 62–76 © distance education association of new zealand 71 if student teachers and students change their behaviour when there are distracting changes in the environment, it is important to assess the level of intrusion of teleconferencing technology equipment versus in-person visits (ardley, 2009, richter et al., 2009). data in table 2, lines 1, 2, and 10, shows that when asked about the intrusiveness of the equipment in the room, only one student teacher said the teleconferencing equipment was distracting (line 2), and none of them thought the equipment was so intrusive it disrupted their lesson focus. based on the perceptions of this small sample of respondents, it can therefore be concluded that observation via teleconferencing was far less intrusive and distracting than a physical presence in the classroom. with less distraction, the potential for students and student teachers to have ‘natural’ interactions is maximised. behavioural changes are diffi cult to assess using survey research as a methodology. all respondents stated they did not change their teaching when the technology was used, and all but one student teacher stated they forgot the equipment was being used (see table 2, line 10). neither partner teacher forgot the equipment was in the room, but they both stated they did not feel it was intrusive or that it changed student behaviour. in total, 16 of the 18 respondents reported more genuine behaviour of both student teacher and students when they were observed via computer monitor. an interesting and unexpected fi nding was that the supervisor found the student teacher’s behaviour to be more ‘normal’ and natural—much more natural than the artifi cial behaviour exhibited during in-person supervision. furthermore, both of the partner teachers commented there was a “defi nite advantage” in using the technology, and that it was actually “better for [student learning].” discussion and conclusion studies that looked at distance supervision, teleconferencing, and face-to-face observation have indicated that teaching and studying at a distance can be as effective as traditional supervision or instruction (see moore & thompson, 1990; verduin & clark, 1991).the survey data collected in this study supports the cited research and offers a set of interrelated concepts to guide potential users of distance supervision or teleconferencing techniques. concept 1: supportive feedback teleconferencing equipment offers a chance to observe actual teaching • and learning situations. the student teacher is observed with minimal classroom disruption; therefore a clear picture of teaching performance is observed (ardley, 2009). journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 62–76 © distance education association of new zealand 72 refl ection and critical feedback using actual teaching events provide • the student teacher with the greatest amount of potential for growth in instructional methods. teleconferencing allows supervisors opportunities to provide feedback in situations that give student teachers great potential for growth because the venue suits the needs of the student teacher and supervisor (kong et al., 2009). concept 2: non-invasive observation according to survey and interview results, partner teachers and student • teachers experienced minor interruption. fifteen of the 16 student teachers indicated they forgot they were being observed. the partner teachers were not able to forget the equipment was in the room, but both agreed the equipment was less intrusive than an in-person visit. concept 3: collaboration and expertise teleconferencing provides a setting for dynamic, positive, and • productive collaboration among partner teachers, student teachers, and college supervisors. success depends on strong and successful partnerships between institutes of higher education and public schools that foster the growth of professional learning communities edwards et al., 2004; hannon, 2009). the partnership between the selected schools and the institute of higher • education focuses on developing potential teachers who are grounded in active research, refl ective teaching practices, and use of technologies that help teachers and learners to be active members of the teaching profession (so & kim, 2009; barab et al., 2005; barak & dori, 2005). more than one college supervisor can observe a teaching and learning • situation, and they can engage in professional discourse with each other and the student teacher. content-specifi c questions that arise out of a teaching event can be addressed by a supervisor with specialised knowledge of the content observed. construct 4: assessment teleconferencing provides useful and timely information about the • teaching and learning that happens in real time and in real classroom situations. fax machines were used to receive student assignments quickly, and to provide timely feedback (willis, 1993). journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 62–76 © distance education association of new zealand 73 summary the author does not suggest that teleconference supervision should replace in-person supervision. as anderson and petch-hogan (2001) found, “teacher training institutions have not responded quickly despite the fi ndings of the united states offi ce of technology (1995), which reported that 76% of college professors believed technology played an important role in teacher training…” (p. 1). so and kim (2009) agree that student teachers have very little understanding about effective technology integration or use. the fi ndings of this study provide insights into how teleconferencing could be used to expose pre-service and in-service teachers to technical tools. most “...pre-service teachers can develop abilities to design successful, technology integrated lessons” with help from teacher preparation institutions on the use of such tools (so & kim, 2009, p. 102). as kauffman 1992, writes: the benefi ts of collaborative efforts are manifold and enrich each triad member. student teachers have the opportunity to incorporate fully both the theoretical and the practical into their teaching. additionally, the partner teacher and the university supervisor create a working relationship based on mutual respect and understanding for each others’ expertise, perspectives, and roles (p. 1). further and more intense research is necessary to add to the body of knowledge regarding using teleconferencing to effectively supervise student teachers. while this study is a supplemental approach to using teleconferencing as a supervising tool, newer equipment that provides a permanent video of the observed lesson is now available and would add a great deal to the results of this study. references anderson, c. l., & petch-hogan, b. 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(2006). professional development school partnerships: a place for teacher learning. retrieved february 12, 2010, from http://www. newhorizons.org/spneeds/inclusion/staff/zeichner.htm biographical note dr marcia bolton dr bolton earned her doctorate in education administrative leadership in 2004. she has 28 years of public school teaching administration and is currently fi nishing her fi fth year of teaching and supervising, as clinical assistant professor and director of student teaching and interns. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 62–76 microsoft word editorial 22(2).docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(2) 1 editorial: inhabiting the multiple places, spaces, and time for learning maggie hartnett, massey university lucila carvalho, massey university heather lamond, massey university fiona murray, massey university duncan o’hara, massey university alison fields, infosolutions abstract this editorial of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning (jofdl) provides an overview of the flanz2018 biennial conference held at massey university, palmerston north, new zealand, 9–11 april, 2018. the conference theme, from inception to infinity: inhabiting the multiple places, spaces and time for learning provided the context for the five keynote speakers to explore the opportunities for learning that are emerging from the rapidly changing world of digital technologies. an overview of their presentations is discussed below. these, in addition to the two extended conference papers in the issue, offer insights into emerging learning opportunities. the other contributions in this issue extend our understanding of how digital technologies are influencing learning and teaching in different contexts. keywords: flanz2018 conference; digital technologies; openness and flexibility, new technologies and related pedagogies introduction this issue of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning (jofdl) includes two extended papers presented at the flanz2018 biennial conference held at massey university, palmerston north, new zealand, 9–11 april, 2018. the conference theme, from inception to infinity: inhabiting the multiple places, spaces and time for learning, investigated the opportunities for learning that are emerging from the rapidly changing world of digital technologies. “inception” signifies the beginning of the journey (i.e., where we have come from), and recognises the early stages of the learning journey. “infinity” simply means that we are not there yet. where will our changing environment take us to next? how can we best use technologies to meet society’s increasing need for ongoing education? the conference brought together keynote speakers from europe, the united states, and australia as well as presenters from new zealand. this year’s conference was notable for the number of school-sector presenters and attendees in addition to colleagues from the tertiary sector. given the inclusion of the two extended conference papers, the conference committee have had the privilege of editing this issue. while the focus of the editorial is to report back to readers about the conference, the other papers in this issue complement the conference theme and the hartnett, m., carvalho, l., lamond, h., murray, f., o’hara, d., & fields, a. 2 overall focus on the changing nature of learning. additional extended 2018 conference papers will be included in future issues of the journal as they become available. flanz 2018 conference overview the conference theme invited attendees to explore how digital technologies are enabling multiple opportunities in our rapidly changing world. the focus was on four sub-themes: 1. innovations in designs for learning 2. equity, access, openness and flexibility 3. emerging teaching and learning strategies, assessment models 4. new tools (technologies and related pedagogies) for learning the first sub-theme, “innovations in designs for learning”, raised discussions about learning spaces, acknowledging their evolving nature to accommodate complex configurations of tasks, tools and people. through this theme, attendees questioned how learning technologies are transforming people’s experiences of physical and virtual spaces. this sub-theme included research about innovative designs associated with online, open, blended, and flexible teaching and learning; in formal, informal, and non-formal learning situations; and in digital-enhanced physical spaces or hybrid spaces. the second sub-theme was “equity, access, openness and flexibility”. discussions on this subtheme acknowledged openness as removing barriers of access to education and addressed inclusiveness for all learners across the globe. this sub-theme covered a range of dimensions such as open educational resources (oer), open educational practices (oep), open learning, open scholarship, open policy, open-source software and open teaching. open practices are considered to enable flexibility, but they can also present challenges (such as equity of access) that are still prevalent in modern societies. this sub-theme invited discussions about learners’ experiences and personalised pathways; ownership of learning data/content; digital inclusion/equity including māori, migrants, refugees, disabilities, remote communities, disadvantaged; open and public participation; and the changing role of traditional institutions. the third sub-theme, “emerging teaching and learning strategies, assessment models”, focused on emerging trends in education and the pedagogical strategies that might best prepare our learners for lifelong, life-wide, and life-deep learning. this sub-theme acknowledged that modern workplaces require people to engage with complex, ill-defined, challenging problems, and so they need to develop skills and attributes such as adaptability, good social and communication skills, and digital and information literacies. this sub-theme invited conference attendees to reflect on teaching and learning practices in the digital age, as well as ways of measuring, analysing, and reporting on data about learners. it addressed topics related to pedagogies for a digital age; learning analytics; digital badges/micro-credentialling, nano degrees, and using digital technologies to evaluate informal and non-formal learning. the fourth sub-theme, “new tools (technologies and related pedagogies) for learning”, focused on emerging digital tools and their potential for empowering learners (e.g., by allowing greater control over access, creation, and sharing of knowledge). this sub-theme included discussions about digital tools (and associated pedagogies) such as virtual and augmented reality, affective computing, artificial intelligence (ai), robotics, gaming and simulations, and mobile and ubiquitous technologies. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(2) 3 keynotes in his keynote, “human and machine intelligence: implications for the future of education”, which reflected the “new tools for learning” strand, george siemens from athabasca university took us on a fast-paced journey through technological change—from the steam engine, through the internet of things and big data, to artificial intelligence, machine learning and, finally, to the current state—neural networks and deep learning. all of this set the scene for the question: what does the nexus of artificial and human intelligence mean for education? artificial intelligence could be our last great invention, as “ai never forgets and it knows all the things” and it grows at an exponential rate. so the next question is: what is the point of difference of being a human, rather than a robot? it turns out that humans are way more complex than robots. we have a state of “being” as well as knowing or doing, because people are not only “beings”, but are articulate and engage in multiple ways of knowing and doing. in education, for example, ai can, and already is, automating mundane activities, providing student support by answering frequently asked questions, and contributing to adaptive and personalised learning. however, there are a lot of unknowns, and perhaps the key focus should be on the importance of being human in education (i.e., wellness and reasonableness) rather than factual information or knowledge transmission. siemens suggested that now is the time to work towards a networked approach to education that encourages learners to develop the transdisciplinary “soft skills” needed to make sense of the complex world we live in, rather than learn factual information—because computers can already do that better than humans. the high rate of mental stress and illness in higher education students is of concern to us all, so what is the role of the higher education institutions in better preparing our learners for a world where human intelligence and ai collide? we need to be working on solving the complex problems affecting our modern world (problems that go beyond discipline silos), and so it is more important that our learners understand relationships—between ideas, disciplines, and people—than spend their time memorising facts. siemens questions the need to assess students’ ability to recall factual data when ai is doing that so well, and suggests that we should instead be assessing the “human” elements of education. educators should be leading the development and integration of these skills into the curriculum, rather than assuming students will develop these skills by osmosis or that someone else will teach them the soft skills of critical thinking, reasoning and being reasonable, working with others across disciplines, sense-making, and communication. in siemen’s view, ai is here and not going away, so we—as humans—need to establish our place in a world that is increasingly automated. “near future teaching” and building, collectively, the vision for digital education at edinburgh university, was the focus of professor siân bayne’s keynote. bayne introduced the audience to a project for developing vision and strategy for digital education at edinburgh university. rather than using a traditional approach (committees and taskforces) to develop strategy and vision, bayne described a bottom-up approach in which students and academics develop the vision and strategy. the project, near future teaching, was described as a collaborative approach using academics and student voices, with design thinking and futures studies methods, to develop the vision and strategy for digital education at edinburgh university. the futures studies method was of interest to bayne. the relevance of this method was outlined, with bayne emphasising that, rather than trying to predict the future, future studies is about shaping and creating the future in a co-produced, participatory way. bayne then explained why the near future teaching project was so important. she argued that educators were subject to “contrasting imaginaries” about what the future of education might look like as education moved further into the digital, data-led world. these futures, often presented by people with a stake in the future of educational technology, can be difficult for educators to reconcile with how they would like universities to be. to navigate hartnett, m., carvalho, l., lamond, h., murray, f., o’hara, d., & fields, a. 4 these competing futures, bayne expressed the need for educators, university leaders, and strategists to focus on developing the values on which to base the future of digital education. a values-based approach was the key feature of the near future teaching project. bayne described some of the futures she had alluded to. some of these were described as “sociotechnical imaginaries” that “conceived citizens computationally in terms of their neurobiological malleability and amenability to algorithmic optimization” (williamson, 2016). other examples included emotion recognition technology and facial recognition technology to track student attendance—data can then be shared with government agencies, including student loan providers. bayne described the implications associated with these technologies, and although (in her opinion) research into the implications does not match the speed at which the technology is being developed, emerging research in areas such as the relationship between human rights and neuroscience will be very relevant to digital education and educational technology contexts in the coming decades. bayne contextualised the near future teaching project by providing a range of examples from universities that had undertaken similar exercises. the project was inspired by this previous work but differed in that it was agnostic of mode or level of education, and instead focused on the entire digital education piece. key aspects of the near future teaching project included the creation of four principles that were created to capture the complex interplay between technological change, and social, cultural, political and human agency factors. bayne described the work that had taken place in the project to date. this included a series of short interviews, with students and staff, that focused on the value of digital education, and community and university events. this work, described as part of the “foresight” phase of the project, also included two tight literature reviews. the reviews focused on the scientific/technical and educational/social aspects that were likely to affect the future of digital education. three other phases of the project were described. these were scenario development, testing and surfacing challenges; insights and recommendations; and, finally, translation into policy and action. although the near future teaching project is still a work in progress, bayne presented the planned outputs from the project and re-emphasised that the project would deliver co-produced values and evidence-based positions on futures for investment in key areas for the university, in the hope that the values would endure for at least a decade. mark brown, director of the national institute for digital learning at dublin city university, built further on the conference theme with his presentation “taking the craic: from inception to infinity and back again”. brown charted his family’s immigration to new zealand in the 1870s and his own recent return to ireland, and discussed the need to take agency for our own educational future. the key message was that flexible learning is implicitly related to lifelong learning. within flexible learning there are opportunities and pathways for life, educational opportunities, equity, and a fairer and more socially just society. all educational change is not neutral, there are powerful forces at work and, as educators, we need to take agency and influence and shape those forces because they determine who controls the future. as mark said, “if we let those who controlled the past continue to control the future, we will continue to get what we’ve always been given.” three cornerstone concepts of access, cost, and quality were highlighted with john daniel’s iron triangle model. educational models can address two of these things but it has so far proved impossible to do all three. we can increase the access to education, and potentially reduce the costs in doing so, but the quality isn’t there. in contrast, high-quality courses with increased opportunities for access usually have an associated cost increase. when it comes to quality, there is a need to challenge the thinking of policy makers that face-toface teaching is the gold standard by which all new models must be measured. there are many journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(2) 5 examples of poor face-to-face teaching, so does the high-quality label always apply? there is no significant difference aligned to the mode of delivery; it’s what’s done through that mode that counts. edinburgh university was cited as one institution where change has been made and face to face isn’t what it used to be. there is a blurring of the lines between what is on campus, off campus, in class, and out of class, and digital is part of that. brown suggests that this blurring across modes is the new norm. cost, another side on the iron triangle, was unpacked by way of student fees, education systems, and debt levels. investment in higher education benefits both the public good and the private good. the benefits of higher education are conclusive. for instance, people who undertake higher education study are more likely to volunteer, and place fewer demands on the health system. there is currently a gap in the evidence to demonstrate that those who study in more flexible ways bring these same benefits to society. policy makers need to see these benefits to enable decision making. if it was evident that the outputs were the same regardless of the mode, funding could change. the final side of the iron triangle is access. demand for higher education is growing exponentially and, consequently, more flexible means are required. moocs were discussed as a mechanism to address the access issue. moocs have taught us to question what student success looks like from the learner’s perspective. brown points to evidence of two different narratives about learning in higher education. the first is the knowledge economy, in which everything is a commodity. the second viewpoint identifies the importance of a knowledge, or learning, society. this narrative gives a more inclusive, participatory viewpoint. but these narratives are messy and entangled, so people’s agency is crucial. our words, language, and actions matter. educators require an ethos to get around the table—to ensure we are the future makers, not the future takers. professor tim bell from the university of canterbury explored the conference sub-theme of “emerging teaching and learning strategies” in his keynote address. his presentation, “empowering teachers to deliver the new digital technologies curriculum”, gave the audience hands-on experience of what the new curriculum might be like in schools when it is implemented in 2020. the focus of these experiences was on computational thinking rather than the technology. computational thinking for digital technologies, and designing and developing digital outcomes, are the two new technological areas in the digital technologies curriculum. these will create a focus on looking at problems in a way that computers can help. bell pointed out that we are not alone in trying to implement a digital technologies curriculum in schools. more than 50 countries are at different stages of implementing digital curricula. in bell’s view, the keys to the success of the implementation are: confident teachers, good resources for students, understanding from parents and school management, and a healthy subject association. to ensure that new zealand has confident teachers working with students, professional learning and development (pld) for teachers is essential. teachers in new zealand and around the world are using the resources, cs unplugged: computer science without a computer and the computer science field guide, as they begin to introduce the digital technologies curriculum. throughout his presentation, bell kept his focus on the importance of people. digital systems include the user, and this human element is crucial. with computer science, students can design and develop systems that meet the needs of people. people, not the technology, are at the heart of the digital technologies curriculum. hartnett, m., carvalho, l., lamond, h., murray, f., o’hara, d., & fields, a. 6 brownyn stuckey (@bronst) took us on a romp through the world of gaming for learning purposes. this keynote hit multiple themes: “innovations in designs for learning”; “emerging teaching and learning strategies”, and “new tools (technologies and related pedagogies) for learning”. bronwyn framed her presentation in the context of ryan and deci’s (2000) selfdetermination theory, highlighting the importance of autonomy, competence, and relatedness to the experience of learning. she challenged us to consider how gamification can be used to better engage our learners (regardless of sector) to enhance the excitement and experience of learning. in terms of gaming for learning purposes, it is important to understand the concept of “fun”. fun is not just about giggles or amusement. fun in learning, which comes from mastery of a topic or challenge, is the underlying principle of educational gaming—the idea of “hard fun” popularised by seymour papert, or the small “g” versus the big “g” from james gee. games can be a useful way to access complex topics, and games should be designed to encourage the discourse (the big “g”) that will bring out the complexity. if we build all the complexity of the topic into the game, we run the risk of losing the fun by stripping it out to fit in more of the educational message. games for learning need to allow space for the learners to contribute and actively engage, not passively absorb. “a good game is a reveal”. as well as games specifically designed for education, bronwyn showcased a series of entertainment games that are being used for educational purposes. she reinforced the message that although we don’t all have to be game designers, we have to be open to employing gaming elements in our learning spaces. examples of such strategies were the use of “keep talking and nobody explodes” to teach real-world group problem-solving skills and “block by block”, a version of minecraft that is being used to teach public-space planning. bronwyn shared great examples of educational gaming in action around the world, including examples from new zealand. she challenged the delegates to consider how students could be involved in designing games for learning and working towards co-creation of the learning experience through collaborative game design. this is surely the ultimate approach to active learning. flanz awards the winners of the 2018 flexible learning association of new zealand (flanz) awards were announced at the organisation’s conference dinner on 10 april, 2018. up to three separate awards may be conferred biennially in conjunction with the national conference. awards are given for projects that: • advance understanding of best practice in e-learning, distance, open, and flexible learning in new zealand • are original or innovative in concept or application • are relevant to and whose outcomes are useful to the e-learning, distance, open, and flexible-learning community. the waikato university team of professor jonathan scott, dr elaine khoo, dr mira peter, and mr. craig gilliver received the top award for their development of videos in a flipped class environment to teach threshold concepts to undergraduate engineering students. this project, called “developing flipped class videos to teach undergraduate engineering threshold concepts” made innovative use of technology to personalise the learning experience for learners, allowing them to engage with learning these essential concepts at a time, place, and pace that suits them. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(2) 7 a certificate of merit was awarded to associate professor mandia mentis, associate professor alison kearney, and dr wendy holley-boen from massey university for their work, “changing the pace, place and face of professional learning through networked learning hubs”. this project provides support for special-needs teachers in schools across new zealand (see https://www.lsn.nz/). the panel also gave a highly commended award to dr linda laven, fiona murray, kim baxter, and dr kate hill from massey university for their work, “integrating endnote from download to research report for distance masters students”, which examines an innovative and replicable model of micro-teaching as a means of increasing digital literacy among masters students. special mention was also given to the application from rosmini school called “manu tukutuku”. derek wenmoth, convenor of the judging panel said, “it was encouraging to see the range of innovative and well-researched projects submitted for this year’s award.” in addition to the flanz awards, up to two scholarships are given to students attending the conference. these scholarships are sponsored by flanz to recognise and support emerging researchers, as part of flanz’s commitment to advancing research and training for the next generation of leaders in the field of flexible learning. this year’s recipients of the scholarships were danielle dubien and sara farshad nia, both of whom are undertaking doctoral studies at the university of canterbury. danielle had two papers accepted for the conference: “course development by the oeru: a case study using davis’ arena of change with technology in education”, and “development and use of a quality assurance framework for oer while practicing open philanthropy”. sara’s paper was “digital equity for esol students in a new zealand secondary school analysed with davis’ arena framework”. the biennial conference also provides an opportunity to acknowledge the quality of the articles published in the association’s journal (i.e., jofdl) by presenting an award to the author of the paper voted the best article in the journal in the preceding 2 years. the journal’s editor in chief, alison fields, convened a panel of judges from the flanz executive to determine the winner. the article by kamila hoffmann-dumieński, “professional development across the islands of the south pacific: a perspective of a blended learning facilitator” won the award for best journal article. three highly commended articles were: “what are the influences on teacher mobile technology self-efficacy within secondary school classrooms?” by jo tilton and maggie hartnett; “reading and studying on the screen: an overview of literature towards good learning design practice” by mark nichols, and “video captions for online courses: do youtube’s auto-generated captions meet deaf students’ needs?” by becky sue parton. the conference committee congratulates all the award winners on their success. articles in this issue this issue comprises two articles that are expanded versions of papers presented at the conference, a research article, and an addition to an article published in a previous issue of the journal. the first of the articles from the conference is called “manu tukutuku, ma te huruhuru ka rere te manu: empowering learners to soar” by christine te kiri. the article discusses a project being undertaken at te aho o te kura pounamu (te kura, the correspondence school). it focuses on māori student achievement and the first steps being taken to encourage engagement of both students and their whānau (families) in the students’ learning. the article discusses what is needed to ensure culturally critical and sustaining practices with students and whānau, and presents several examples. the second conference article, by cheryl brown and genevieve haupt, called “using personal mobile devices to increase flexibility and equity in learning in resource-constrained contexts”, reports on a research project that focused on first-year students in an extended degree hartnett, m., carvalho, l., lamond, h., murray, f., o’hara, d., & fields, a. 8 programme in the humanities at the university of cape town, south africa. students in the programme were asked about their access to personal mobile devices (pmds) and, based on need, some students were provided with general-purpose tablets. the study reports on the experiences of those students and highlights that addressing issues of equity (in terms of physical access) provides new learning opportunities—but also creates some new challenges. angela lavin’s research article, “what are some key attributes of effective online teachers?”, looks at the key attributes of effective tertiary online teachers. through a series of interviews with a small group of academics in australia and new zealand, five key attributes were identified: avoid a didactic approach, vary pedagogical approaches, use productive failure, facilitate the learning process, and provide a seamless structure. although it’s a small study, the findings provide a starting point for effective teaching and learning in online contexts. finally, the invited addendum to nichols’ 2016 “reading and studying on the screen” sees this author updating the growing literature on how this issue affects online learning. the main points from the original article are outlined as context, before the more recent literature is examined and new trends and conclusions are outlined. the issue of reading on screen versus print is more deeply grounded in the underlying context of digital-based versus print-based learning design, resulting in a more detailed and complex picture. the article ends with an outline of opportunities for further primary research, and advice (and encouragement) for students. we hope you find value in the selection of articles in this issue. they provide an interesting mix of research on the rapidly changing nature of learning and teaching in digitally rich environments. if you wish to find out more about the conference, you can access the proceedings in the conference handbook, and video recordings of the keynote presentations, from the home page of the conference website (http://www.flanz2018.org.nz/home.html). finally, we would like to thank everyone who contributed to the flanz2018 conference and the development of this issue. thank you to the conference committee, and a special thank you to nicky vallender for her tireless work in ensuring the conference at massey university ran smoothly. thank you also to the flanz executive committee for their support. finally, thank you to alison fields who contributed to this editorial and fiona diesch, who reviewed a draft version. references ryan, r. m., & deci, e. l. (2000). intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: classic definitions and new directions. contemporary educational psychology, 25(1), 54–67. https://doi.10.1006/ceps.1999.1020 williamson, b. (2016). computing brains: learning algorithms and neurocomputation in the smart city. information, communication and society, 20(1), 81–99. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118x.2016.1181194 biographical notes maggie hartnett m.hartnett@massey.ac.nz maggie hartnett is a senior lecturer in the institute of education at massey university, new zealand. she teaches in the areas of digital technologies and coordinates the postgraduate qualifications in digital technologies. she is also associate editor of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(2) 9 lucila carvalho l.carvalho@massey.ac.nz lucila carvalho is a senior lecturer at the institute of education, massey university, new zealand. in her research areas of design for learning and networked learning she explores how knowledge and social structures shape the design and use of technology, and how technology influences social and educational experiences. her latest books include place-based spaces for networked learning (with goodyear & de laat, routledge, 2017) and the architecture of productive learning networks (with goodyear, routledge, 2014). heather lamond h.m.lamond@massey.ac.nz heather is associate university librarian, client services, at massey university, new zealand. she is responsible for strategic oversight and leadership of the library’s support of teaching, learning, and research at massey. she is also a practitioner researcher in areas of flexible and distance learning and the potential for developing information, academic, and digital literacies. fiona murray f.m.murray@massey.ac.nz fiona is a teaching consultant in the national centre for teaching and learning at massey university, new zealand, where she focuses on academic development for teaching staff across the institution. duncan o’hara d.ohara@massey.ac.nz duncan is the director, learning and teaching in the national centre for teaching and learning at massey university, new zealand. alison fields alison@infosolutions.co.nz alison is an information scientist and director of research at infosolutions. she conducts research in health information, is completing a doctorate in education, and contracts in the education sector. she is a fellow of the library and information association of new zealand aotearoa (lianza). her research areas encompass e-learning, online learner support, health information, library services, and continuing professional development. alison is an executive member of flanz and editor-in-chief of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. hartnett, m., carvalho, l., lamond, h., murray, f., o’hara, d., & fields, a. (2018). editorial: inhabiting the multiple places, spaces, and time for learning. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(2), [1–9.]. © distance education association of new zealand 41 the quality of distance learning from an economic perspective: a case study from hong kong chan chi wai open university of hong kong hong kong sar, china introduction distance education—which differs from conventional face-to-face classroombased teaching in which teachers can tailor their teaching strategies and methods to their students’ learning—has become increasingly important with the developments in online learning. because the costs of distance education are incurred mainly in the design and creation of courses and the provision of student support (therefore creating economies of scale), distance education is regarded as more cost-efficient than the traditional approach to teaching and learning (rumble, 1997). for example, in india, distance education accounts for only one-sixth to one-third of the unit costs of conventional higher education (panda, 2005). on the other hand, the development of distance learning courses represents mass production (venkataiah, 2000) and can be viewed as an industrial process (peters, 1983; 2002), which may raise student and community concerns about its quality in comparison with on-campus learning. distance education therefore sometimes has to confront a perception that its programmes, learning materials, and student support are not of a high standard (badat, 2005). the quality of education can be assessed in terms of input, process, and product from a systemic perspective. when we look at distance learning (e.g., calder, 1996; millson & wilemon, 2008), it is relatively straightforward to assess the quality of: the course materials• the qualifications of the fulland part-time lecturers/tutors • the facilities available to students.• journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 41–50 © distance education association of new zealand 42 distance learning can also be judged on the basis of, for instance: the quality assurance mechanisms of the institutions concerned • the level of support provided for students’ learning, and the ease with • which students can access it the extent to which students interact with their teachers and each other. • addressing the quality of education in terms of product, rather than process, is more problematic because of possible difficulties in defining the learning outcomes that must be assessed (zuhairi & suparman, 2002). while cavanaugh (2004) and hope (2005) suggested that learning outcomes should be taken into account in assessing the quality of distance education, students and employers (as ‘direct’ stakeholders in educational services) tend to judge the quality of education in terms of product. evaluation of the effectiveness of distance learning has focused mainly on students’ academic performance and their feedback on their learning experiences—data which is relatively easy to obtain. however, the wide adoption of scores on assignments and examinations as a proxy for assessing quality often results in other learning outcomes (such as changes in attitudes and the development of skills) being neglected because of the greater complexity in examining them. in 1997, rumble conducted a survey of employers’ attitudes towards the qualifications gained by united kingdom open university (ukou) students in the 1990s, concentrating mainly on ranking their qualifications and comparing those rankings with those of other united kingdom universities. the findings indicated that employers considered the ukou qualifications to be of somewhat lower quality than those of the conventional universities. however, such results are based only on the employers’ relative perceptions of university qualifications—the research did not investigate the performance of the ukou and other graduates in aspects such as cognitive skills, social skills, and the ability to work effectively in groups. when allen et al. (2002) looked at students’ levels of satisfaction with their educational experience, they found that distance education students did not differ from those in traditional higher education. some students prefer distance learning because it provides flexibility in where and when they can study, and because they can, for instance, play and replay video and audio clips until they fully understand the content. several other studies that compare distance and face-to-face learning have also shown no significant differences between students’ test and examination scores (e.g., schail, barker & beckstr, and chen & zimitat, as cited in stacey & wiesenberg, 2007). journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 41–50 © distance education association of new zealand 43 similarly, in a comparison of traditional face-to-face and online learning for undergraduate nursing students, carbonaro, dawber, and arav (2006) reported that the outcomes of mid-term examinations were comparable although, in the final examinations, students in the face-to-face instructional environment outperformed those who took the course online. a holistic view of education clearly shows that knowledge is not the only competence that students have to develop while pursuing higher education. for instance, as levin (1998) argued, students also need to develop complex reasoning and work-related skills such as exploratory thinking, problemsolving, critical thinking, the ability to work with others, and cross-cultural understanding—all of which are essential for workers in a knowledge-based economy. school-leavers are expected to have these generic skills before they enter the workplace. hope (2005) also suggested that, when we assess the quality of education, we take account of students’ development of skills as well as knowledge. however, if the product of education is not confined to academic outcomes but includes other competencies and skills, the differing requirements of workplaces for graduates’ competencies in knowledge, skills, and attitudes make it difficult to compare the quality of different learning modes. the concept of human capital leads us to regard education and training as an investment which benefits both individuals and society as a whole. this concept suggests that education raises the productivity of workers and hence increases their lifetime incomes; that is, more-educated workers are likely to receive higher pay than less-educated workers because of their higher productivity (becker, 1993; woodhall, 1997). from an economic point of view, in a market-driven environment workers who are more competent in the knowledge and skills that a job requires will get higher pay because, by implication, they are more productive. thus, the earnings of workers can be used as a proxy to measure their ability and skill competencies. from the perspective of human capital, distance education and conventional education will generate more or less the same rate of return if they are the same quality. in other words, any differences in the quality of distance education and conventional on-campus education will be reflected in a significant difference in their rates of return. although raza (2004) suggested that systematic research needs to be carried out on the ‘value-addedness’ of open and distance education interventions, research that examines the quality of distance learning from an economic perspective is still limited. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 41–50 © distance education association of new zealand 44 methodology of the study and data sets this study adopts the earnings function approach to evaluate the effects of first-degree-level distance education and non-distance education in determining the earnings of a worker. the earnings function approach has been widely used as an empirical tool to assess the economic effects of education and training. the general earnings function for the study of wage determinants (levin, 1984) is: y = f (e, x 1 , x 2 , x 3 ,… …x n ) where earnings (y) is a function of education (e) and other variables (x 1 , x 2 , x 3 ,… …x n ) such as the work experience, health, and gender of the workers. the earnings function provides an estimate of the contribution of the various determinants to earnings. in this study, a regression technique and the log transformation of earnings (lny) are adopted to examine the earnings effect of education. lny is used because the log of earnings will approximate a normal distribution and produce a higher r-square (chung, 1988). the basic earnings function employed here is: lny = a + bed + cwk + dgen + u where ed is the years of education, wk is the years of work experience, and gen is the gender of workers. the parameters b, c, and d reflect the estimated effects of education, work experience, and gender respectively on workers’ earnings, and u represents the unexplained variance in earnings. because census surveys do not provide any information about the work experience or work history of the respondents, mincer’s (1974) approach is adopted in this hong kong study. as in mincer’s work, children entering the first year of primary school in hong kong are 6 years old (determined by the government’s school admission policies). the number of years of work experience is then obtained according to the formula: years of work experience = age 6 years of education the years of work experience for those taking their first degree through distance learning are adjusted by adding 3 to the value obtained from the above formula because it usually takes 3 years to complete a first degree in journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 41–50 © distance education association of new zealand 45 hong kong. the gender variable consists of two dummy variables, gen(m) and gen(f), for male and female workers respectively. the values assigned to gen(m) and gen(f) are 1 and 0 respectively in order to estimate the effect on earnings of male workers relative to female workers. this study first estimates the earnings effect of education, work experience, and gender (see model 1 in table 1). in the case of evaluating the earnings effect of distance education relative to face-to-face education at first-degree-level (see model 2 in table 1), only those employees who attain a first-degree level of education are included in the analysis. hence, all the employees are categorised into a ‘distance education group’ and ‘non-distance education group’ to compare the earnings effect of these two modes of higher education. ed(dist) stands for the dummy variable for studying through distance learning, and ed(non-dist) is the dummy variable for studying in a non-distance mode (conventional face-toface learning). the values assigned to ed(dist) and ed(non-dist) to estimate the effect on earnings of distance relative to face-to-face education are 1 and 0. the earnings function used for comparing the earnings effect of the two groups is: lny = a + bed(dist) + ced(non-dist) + dwkyr + egen(m) + fgen(f) + u since 1961 the hong kong government has carried out a full census every 10 years, and a by-census in the middle of the inter-census period. the data sets in this study are obtained from the 2001 census and the 2006 by-census of the hong kong population. both the census and by-census data provide information about the education, occupation, and monthly income of hong kong’s population as well as some other major demographic characteristics. the data also indicates the delivery mode for any degrees obtained—that is, whether they were studied in the conventional system or at a distance. the study reported in this paper analysed only those aged between 16 and 65 who reported receiving an income from employment. although it can be argued that there may be interruptions (for example, for marriage and child-bearing in the work history of female workers), they are included here because the employment of domestic household workers from the philippines, thailand, and indonesia allows most females in hong kong to work after getting married or giving birth. unlike in the years before the 1990s, the employment history of these workers is no longer seriously interrupted. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 41–50 © distance education association of new zealand 46 results and interpretation the results of multiple regression analyses on the data from the 2001 census and 2006 by-census samples are shown in table 1. table 1 determinants of earnings variable coefficient (model 1) coefficient (model 2) 2001 2006 2001 2006 intercept 7.514 7.211 9.358 9.358 edyr 0.124* 0.131* ed(dist) -0.010 0.019 ed(non-dist) wkyr 0.014* 0.020* 0.017* 0.026* gen(m) 0.360* 0.301* 0.400* 0.267* gen(f) r-square 0.310 0.295 0.111 0.124 n 157834 162008 20321 23751 * significant at the 0.05 level dependent variable: log of monthly salary in model 1, lny is the dependent variable and edyr, wkyr, gen(m), and gen(f) are independent variables. the three variables—years of education, years of work experience, and the gender of the workers—can explain about 30 percent of the variance in monthly earnings in both 2001 and 2006. the effects of edyr, wkyr, and gen(m) on earnings are all significant at the 0.05 level. in model 2, the comparison of the earnings effect is restricted to first-degree holders, with the aim of estimating the earnings effect of distance education relative to non-distance education. as noted earlier, ed(dist) and ed(non-dist) are the dummy variables for distance education and non-distance education. in this model, the value assigned to ed(dist) is 1 and the value assigned to ed(non-dist) is 0. in this case, the years of work experience, gender of the workers, and mode of study for first-degree programmes (whether by distance learning or not) can explain 11.1 percent and 12.4 percent of the variation in the monthly income of the first-degree holders for 2001 and 2006 respectively. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 41–50 © distance education association of new zealand 47 only the coefficients of wkyr and gen(m) are significant at the 0.05 level. there is no significant difference between the earnings effect of distance education and non-distance education at the 0.05 level in either 2001 or 2006. these results support the views of researchers who argue that education and working experience are significant contributors to workers’ earnings, because education and training are an investment in human capital. also, men are usually paid more than women, which is consistent with the findings of ferber (1995) that there is an earnings gap between male and female employees. however, after controlling the educational level of the workers, there is no significant difference between the earnings effect of distance education and face-to-face education in hong kong in 2001 and 2006. the rates of return to learners in the two delivery systems are more or less the same—this result is not in line with the perception that distance education is of lower quality than that provided by traditional universities. conclusions doubts about the quality of distance learning may not only make some people hesitate to undertake it, but can also adversely affect its expansion. although some previous studies have shown that there is no significant difference in the assessment results of distance and face-to-face learners, students and employers still have some residual concerns about its quality. however, distance education not only allows learners to enjoy the benefits of flexibility in their place and pace of learning but it is also, according to the findings in this study, an investment in human capital on a par with non-distance education. in addition, as noted earlier, distance education can be more cost-effective than conventional education when high-quality learning materials and student support are offered (butcher & roberts, 2004; carbonaro, dawber, & arav, 2006). these results imply that spending on distance education is a sound investment for developing the labour force, and so its provision is justified as a way to expand higher education. advances in information and communication technologies (icts) mean that the earlier limitations of print-based learning at a distance can be largely overcome as icts blur the distinction between on-campus education and distance education. interaction among students and between teachers and students can be facilitated through, for example, online group conferencing. therefore, if dialogue between teachers and students is an important factor in evaluating the quality of distance education (millson & wilemon, 2008), using icts could help to ensure this quality by providing the facilities for dialogue. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 41–50 © distance education association of new zealand 48 however, in recent years, many off-shore distance education degree programmes have been offered in hong kong in collaboration with overseas organisations. many of these programmes, particularly the topup programmes, are not adequately monitored and lack rigorous quality assurance. therefore, to gain a fuller picture of the quality of distance education, it would be worthwhile to undertake similar analyses of the earnings effect of the various types of distance learning programmes presented not just in the hong kong special administrative region, but elsewhere. references allen, m., bourhis, j., burrell, n., & mabry, e. (2002). comparing student satisfaction with distance education to traditional classrooms in higher education: a meta-analysis. american journal of distance education, 16(2), 83–97. badat, s. (2005). south africa: distance higher education policies for access, social equity, quality, and social and economic responsiveness in a context of the diversity of provision. distance education, 26(2), 183–204. becker, g. (1993). human capital: a theoretical and empirical analysis with special reference to education. chicago: university of chicago press. butcher, n., & roberts, n. (2004). costs, effectiveness, efficiency: a guide for sound investment. in h. perraton, & h. lentell (eds.), policy for open and distance learning. london: routledgefalmer. calder, j. (1996). learner’s perceptions of quality in open and distance learning. in k. m. manohar (eds.), distance education: theory and practice—quality perspectives. hyderabad: open learning society. carbonaro, m., dawber, t., & arav, i. (2006). a comparison of students’ performance under full-time, part-time, and online conditions in an undergraduate nursing microbiology course. journal of distance education, 21(1), 51–61. cavavaugh, c. (2004). distance education quality: success factors for resources, practices and results. in r. discenza, c. howard, & k. schenk (eds.), the design and management of effective distance learning programmes. hershey: idea group. chung, y. p. (1988). economic returns to vocational and technical education in a fast growing economy. unpublished doctoral dissertation, stanford university, california. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 41–50 © distance education association of new zealand 49 ferber, m. a. (1995). gender differences in earnings. in m. carnoy (ed.), international encyclopedia of economics of education. cambridge: cambridge university press. hope, a. (2005). quality, accreditation, and recognition. in y. l. visser, l. visser, m. simonson, & r. amirault (eds.), trends and issues in distance education. connecticut: information age. levin, h. m. (1984). assessing the equalization potential of education. comparative education review, 28(1), 11–27. levin, h. m. (1998). accelerated education for an accelerating economy. paper presented in the wei lun lecture at the chinese university of hong kong. millson, m. r., & wilemon, d. (2008). education quality correlates of online graduate management education. journal of distance education, 22(3), 1–18. mincer, j. (1974). schooling, experience, and earnings. ny: national bureau of economic research. panda, s. (2005). higher education at a distance and national development: reflections on the indian experience. distance education, 26(2), 205–225. peters, o. (1983). distance teaching and industrial production: a comparative interpretation in outline. in d. sewart, d. keegan, & b. holmberg (eds.), distance education: international perspectives. london: routledge. peters, o. (2002). distance education in transition: new trends and challenges. oldenburg: bibliotheks. raza, r. (2004). benefits for students, labour force, employers and society. in h. perraton & h. lentell (eds.), policy for open and distance learning: world review of distance education and open learning: vol. 4. london: routledgefalmer. rumble, g. (1997). the costs and economics of open and distance learning. london: kogan page. stacey, e., & wiesenberg, f. (2007). a study of face-to-face and online teaching philosophies in canada and australia. journal of distance education, 22(1), 19–40. venkataiah, s. (2000). higher and distance education. new delhi: anmol. woodhall, m. (1997). human capital concepts. in a. h. halsey, h. lauder, p. brown, & a. s. wells (eds.), education: culture, economy, society (pp. 219–223). ny: oxford university press. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 41–50 © distance education association of new zealand 50 zuhairi, a., & suparman, a. (2002). managing quality and accessibility in open and distance learning. in h. p. dikshit, s. grag, s. panda, & vijayshri (eds.), access and equity: challenges for open and distance learning. new delhi: kogan page. biographical note before holding his position as assistant professor at ouhk, chan chi wai was a secondary school principal and a part-time lecturer and school development officer at the chinese university of hong kong. he was also a subject committee member of the hong kong examinations authority and a member of the textbooks reviewing panel of the education department. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 41–50 microsoft word editorial 25(1).docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(1) 1 improving remote teaching and online learning maggie hartnett, associate editor, massey university alison fields, editor-in-chief, infosolutions abstract this issue of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning (jofdl) contains an invited piece from a well-known author in the field. the intention is to include an invited piece in subsequent issues. this contribution from rick shearer focuses on theory in open, flexible, and distance education. the choice of topic is timely given the experiences of emergency remote teaching (ert) by teachers and academics over the last 18 months, and the prevailing view that online learning and teaching and ert are equivalent. in addition to the invited article, this issue has four articles—a descriptive piece and three articles from presentations at the recent flanz 2021 conference. keywords: emergency remote teaching; online learning; flexible learning; learning theory introduction the covid-19 pandemic is still with us and is likely to be for some time to come. when the sarscov-2 virus first emerged, universities and schools shifted to emergency remote teaching (ert), using online technologies to ensure their educational offerings could continue. although online teaching and learning are not new phenomena, the unique circumstances brought about by the covid-19 pandemic has required teachers, academics, schools, and universities to rethink how they provide teaching. moving instruction online can enable flexible teaching and learning anywhere, anytime, but much of the online learning that has occurred during the pandemic has been a hurried response to a crisis rather than well-planned and designed online learning experiences and courses (hodges et al., 2020). as countries move in and out of lockdowns, there is a growing demand from teachers, academics, and institutions for high-quality research and guidance on effective online teaching. the journal of open, flexible and distance learning (jofdl) is one such source of quality resources. with a view to continuing to provide high-quality research, the first issue for this year has an invited piece from well-known author and researcher rick shearer, director of world campus learning design at pennsylvania state university. in his piece, shearer discusses the importance of theory in online, distance, and open education. he has chosen two foundational theoretical frameworks—namely, the theory of transactional distance (moore, 1993) and the community of inquiry model (garrison et al., 2000)—to illustrate the importance of good theory. these conceptual frameworks have been hugely influential in the development of the field, and shearer draws attention to the rich research base available to those who are new to the field. starting with a theoretical piece also demonstrates how flexible, open, and distance learning is distinct from emergency remote teaching. fields, a., hartnett, m. 2 papers in this issue the papers in this issue contain a mixture of topics and include an invited article, a descriptive piece, and three articles from research presented at the recent 2021 flanz (flexible learning association of new zealand) conference held in wellington and online 14–15 april 2021. the first piece is shearer’s invited article, which is described above. in the second article, carr investigates best practice in using collaborative online workshops to support doctoral students who are supervised at a distance. finding suitable ways to provide connection and interaction in distance doctoral study can help to minimise isolation, particularly at key junctions during a long programme of study. the move from cohort-based studies to individual work with supervisors is one transition point at which collaborative online workshops can provide additional support for these students. this is vital when distance is multi-faceted and includes geographical and cultural distance, as happens when students are studying from other countries. carr gives details of an instance of this practice in action, and analyses the method and effects. nkomo and daniel explore the way higher education students interact and engage with lecture recordings as part of their studies, and consider how access to these resources contributes to student learning. questionnaire results from 660 students indicated that availability of lecture recordings did not influence decisions to attend lectures, and that new uses were found for this resource to enhance learning with flexible and adaptive elements. these uses are described more fully in the article, which contributes to the literature on institutional digital technologies and their contribution to flexible learning. education for sustainability (efs) in schools is addressed by mostafa in an article that looks at the use of social media as a flexible collaborative learning space to support teaching in this part of the curriculum. the slant of this article is the use of social media for teacher professional learning in new zealand, an area which is yet to be fully utilised for teachers engaged in efs. a thorough study using questionnaires, interviews, and document analysis explores this area, and the potential for social media for teacher professional learning in efs is identified. there is particular reference to the flexible and collaborative nature of social media being a drawcard for teachers. findings identify the collaborative nature of social media and its reach into more remote areas as helping to overcome teacher isolation in efs. hawi, heinrich, and lal present research that focuses on informal learning practices and how these are broadening participation in kenyan universities. informal learning practices are identified as a way to address disparities caused by the inability of many rural learners to attend classes in the same way as those in more urban areas. the effect of growing pc-ownership and successive generations of technology-enhanced learning provides the platform for wider learning opportunities. results from a survey of kenyan higher education students show there is widespread ownership of smartphones, and that these are the primary device for education. the authors quantify the ways in which this technology is used, and how informal learning practices are integral to successful student engagement and learning. we trust you will find something of particular interest among the articles in this issue, and that the overall theme of improving remote teaching and online learning will stand you in good stead in these evolving fields. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(1) 3 references garrison, d. r., anderson, t., & archer, w. (2000). critical inquiry in a text-based environment: computer conferencing in higher education. the internet and higher education, 2(2), 87–105. https://doi.org/10.1016/s1096-7516(00)00016-6 hodges, c., moore, s., lockee, b., trust, t., & bond, a. (2020). the difference between emergency remote teaching and online learning. educause, 3, 1–15. https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/3/the-difference-between-emergency-remote-teachingand-online-learning moore, m. g. (1993). theory of transactional distance. in d. keegan (ed.), theoretical principles of distance education (pp. 23–38). routledge. biographical notes alison fields alison@infosolutions.co.nz alison is an information scientist and director of research at infosolutions. she conducts research in health information, and contracts in the education sector. she is a fellow of the library and information association of new zealand aotearoa (lianza) and has a doctorate in education. her research areas encompass elearning, online learner support, health information, library services, and continuing professional development. alison is an executive member of flanz and editor-in-chief of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. maggie hartnett m.hartnett@massey.ac.nz maggie hartnett is a senior lecturer in the institute of education at massey university, new zealand. she teaches in the area of digital technologies and coordinates postgraduate qualifications in digital education. she is a senior fellow of advance he and associate editor of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. hartnett, m., & field, a. (2020). improving remote teaching and online learning. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(1), [1–3.]. microsoft word heredia.docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1) 5 designing for distance learning in developing countries: a case study jimena de mello heredia lucila carvalho, massey university eleonora milano falcão vieira, federal university of santa catarina abstract teaching and learning in higher education are being transformed through complex configurations of people, tasks, and material and digital resources. successful designs for innovative learning require us to understand how these complex configurations relate to learners’ activity. this paper illustrates the application of a networked learning approach to frame the design of distance learning in higher education in developing countries. a case study based in a bachelor subject offered at a brazilian university is discussed. its analysis unveils how design fits into a broader social context that influences structural elements related to learning materials, the learning management systems adopted, and the social arrangements for students in this case study. the paper shows how the networked learning approach allows us to explore the complexities of distance learning in developing countries, offering an analytical ground to identify, explore, learn and adapt key re-usable design ideas, with the aim of improving distance teaching and learning in higher education. keywords: design for learning; distance learning; learning design introduction democratic governments around the world are constantly investing in public policies and processes, with a view to increasing, expanding, and democratising access to knowledge. this is particularly important for developing countries that aspire to climb to new stages of scientific and technological development. in brazil, technology and distance education brought new learning opportunities across a national territory largely marked by regional and socio-economic differences (pereira, 2008). but educational practices need to be considered within their social context, in relation to, and as an expression of, issues and dynamics in a broader society (bradshaw, 2017). there is global consensus about the increase in ict use, but this growth is still unequally distributed across countries (oecd, 2017). nevertheless, technology is constantly evolving, calling for new ways of rethinking and designing learning spaces and for evaluating the effectiveness of pedagogies that accompany these technology-rich contexts (conole, 2010; beetham & sharpe, 2013; sun, 2016; adams becker et al., 2017). if we accept that digital innovation is one of the key drivers of societal transformation and prosperity, it is important to understand the affordances and constraints related to distance educational programmes in developing countries, and how issues associated with technology may affect the design of these programmes. contemporary modes of delivery in distance education rely heavily on the use of technology, hence requiring students’ proficiency in generic and foundational ict skills. heredia, j. de m., carvalho, l., viera, e. m. f. 6 teachers and educational designers inevitably make choices about the tools, learning tasks, and social organisation of students; and these, in turn, are likely to influence learning activity (goodyear, 2005). to design successfully for these networked learning situations, teachers and educational designers need to recognise key structural design components—what works well and what does not—and understand how these components are, in turn, likely to influence the emergent activity of students. educational design often involves finding solutions to competing tensions, or prioritising elements such as learning outcomes, policy guidelines, graduate attributes, and teachers and students’ needs and expectations (bird, morgan, & o’reilly, 2007; ertmer et al, 2013; bennett, agostinho, & lockyer, 2016). theorising about the effect of technologies on distance learning activity is crucial, as is finding ways to disseminate theoretically informed practical approaches in design for networked learning across broader social contexts. in this paper, we apply a networked learning perspective to the analysis of tasks, tools, and people involved in a subject of a distance course held at a brazilian university. the networked learning approach helps to reveal relationships between designable components and the types of ensuing learning activity in distance education. the activity centred analysis and design (acad) framework (goodyear & carvalho, 2014; goodyear & carvalho, 2013) focuses on key structural elements in a distance offering, allowing the grounds to discuss, identify, explore, learn, and adapt key re-usable design ideas. overall, this paper shows the application of the approach within the context of distance education in a developing country, revealing opportunities and affordances in design for distance education—but also the inherent constraints related to this particular scenario. specifically, the research addresses the following research questions: • how is digital innovation influencing teaching and learning practices in distance education in brazil? • what are some of the key affordances and constraints in a distance education course offering in brazil—and how do these relate to design for learning? conceptual framing networked learning uses ict to promote connections “between one learner and other learners, between learners and tutors, between a learning community and its learning resources” (goodyear, banks, hodgson, & mcconell, 2004, p. 1). networked learning is often socially oriented, and emphasises participation, collaboration, and knowledge construction. in this paper, we examine structural elements that enabled learning activity (with a focus on online web-based technologies) through the acad framework. this approach focuses on identifying how created artefacts (e.g., course materials, resources), places (e.g., a webpage), divisions of labour (e.g., proposed arrangements for students to work in groups, pairs, etc.), and tasks (e.g., what students are asked to do) relate to one another, and how a combination of a particular set of elements influences learners’ activity. although, these components often situate and influence activity, they do not determine it, as students are free agents and may add, change and re-configure what is proposed in many different ways. thus, acad considers four structural elements. the first three are “designable” components, the last one is “emergent”: 1. set design – the digital and physical elements, tools and resources 2. social design – social organisation of students 3. epistemic design – proposed tasks, types of knowledge and ways of knowing journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1) 7 4. co-creation and co-configuration activity – emergent activity, including ways that students may re-arrange and re-configure what is proposed. the acad framework has been applied to the analysis and design of complex learning situations in a variety of contexts, including schools (thibaut, curwood, carvalho, & simpson, 2015; yeoman, 2018); universities and moocs (garreta-domingo, sloep, hérnandez-leo, & mor, 2017; sun, 2016); informal spaces such as libraries and museums (carvalho, 2017); and to frame the processes of educational designers (martinez-maldonado, goodyear, kay, carvalho, & thompson, 2016). in this paper, our focus is on distance learning in higher education in developing contexts, specifically on how the framework helps to reveal connections between tools, tasks and social arrangements of students to a broader or macro context, and the ramifications of such a scenario for those designing and learning at distance modes at the meso (e.g., the university) or micro contexts (e.g., sequencing of a lesson). carvalho and yeoman (2018) highlight the importance of finding correspondence between pedagogy, place, and people, where dimensions of design and their manifestations at different scale levels express a coherent whole. and to work towards correspondence or coherence, it is necessary to first frame the learning entanglement, to identify elements that are open to design and those which are not. only then does it become possible to bring pedagogy, place, and people together, as we conceptualise the relationships across scale levels and dimensions of design and see how elements connect with each other, and how the designable elements are likely to influence emergent learning activity. in the next sections we describe the research design and methods, and our case study. we then analyse the case study within the acad framework to show how the approach opens up a way of exploring connections and finding possible areas for re-design. research design and methods the study design is based on exploratory research methods (creswell, 2003). the analysis focuses on learning materials, technologies, and social arrangements of a course subject at a brazilian university. our interpretation of the case study was grounded in acad, which offered the basis for the analysis of the learning design adopted at a particular course as the object of study—the teaching materials (epistemic design), the learning management system (lms) and other tools (set design), and the social arrangements (social design)—thus enabling theoretical development and identification of potential improvement of techniques and processes in the learning design practices. as a qualitative research strategy, case studies involve in-depth exploration of “a program, an event, an activity, a process, or one or more individuals. the case(s) are bounded by time and activity, and researchers collect detailed information using a variety of data collection procedures over a sustained period of time” (creswell, 2003, p. 15). our case study was purposely selected, after considering access to data related to a course subject from the bachelor of accounting, offered through the open university of brazil. information related to course design was collected from the subject’s lms (moodle), which offered us access to course content and description, log files of student activity, their course contributions (e.g., entries in a discussion forum). our analysis also included perspectives from brazilian policy documents, which ground part of the learning design and activity in distance education courses in brazil. the analysis reported in this article does not seek to exhaust all the attributes that could be checked among the practices observed; instead, it aims to illustrate how a networked learning perspective can support the understanding of the complexity of design components and their likelihood of influencing learning activity. the approach is not an end, but a means to study alternative forms of learning in the 21st century with references to practices. heredia, j. de m., carvalho, l., viera, e. m. f. 8 case study context: distance learning in brazil in brazil, investments in public higher education have intensified since 2005. these investments aim to increase the number of national enrolments and to facilitate access to education to students in the poorest sections of the population. most public institutions of higher education in brazil—including the university that was part of this study—have joined federal programs such as the open university of brazil (uab), restructuring and expansion of federal universities (reuni) and others, which have similar purposes and goals—the democratisation of the public higher education in the country. between 2005 and 2014, the brazilian university in this study experienced an increase of almost 15,000 students, reaching over 46,000 total enrolments and the creation of four new campuses, with over 10,000 new places opened in the distance modality. distance courses were offered in eight brazilian states. distance education in brazil was first established in 1996, through a public education policy supported by the government’s law of guidelines and bases of national education (ldb). since then, there have been significant developments in public education, with many challenges but also advances, especially since the establishment of the open university of brazil (uab) in 2005. uab is a programme that brings together brazilian public institutions in higher education, city council authorities, and state governments, all under the coordination for the improvement of higher education personnel (capes). in the uab’s proposed distance education model, local support centers were established for support and some compulsory course activities. these are physical spaces with an infrastructure for administrative support and teaching facilities, where students have access to a library and computer lab (e.g., from which they can access a course’s lms), tutors, classes (video conferencing), among other activities (moraes & vieira, 2008). the uab program aims to “promot[e] institutional development for the distance education modality, as well as research of innovative methodologies in higher education supported by information and communication technologies” (decreto 5.800, 2006). several brazilian government bills were created with the aim of improving the quality of higher education. one of these is ordinance nº. 1134/2016, which requires that higher education institutions introduce courses in semi face-to-face mode, when face-to-face does not exceed 20% of the total course load. not surprisingly, it is expected that face-to-face and distance-learning modalities converge through the use of icts, enabling hybrid education with innovative and interactive practices. within this scenario, the bachelor of accounting at this brazilian university is a degree offered under the uab program. since 2008, there were 600 places offered in 15 cities in 6 brazilian states, with 195 successful graduates. the degree is designed to encourage students’ development of in-depth knowledge of theoretical ideas and technical practices in accounting. the course emphasises ethically and socially responsible norms, with students working through processes of analysis, generation, and reporting of accounting and management information. moodle was adopted as an open-source software that “is designed to be compatible, flexible, and easy to be modified” (dougiamas & taylor, 2009, p. 20), that facilitates students’ access to educational resources related to their courses. in this case, the choice of lms is crucial. also specific to this university was the development of moodletests, a platform that provides a safe and stable alternative to conduct final exams electronically without interfering with any content other than that provided in a specific module/course. this choice was prompted by national brazilian law (decreto 5.622, 2005), that, at that time, required the physical presence of students at the exam venue. an online exam cd, which restricted students’ access to certain resources and to the internet during an exam was developed, and the exam is performed via exclusive access to the moodletests platform (vieira, moraes & fiala, 2013). lecturers and instructional designers develop the test in a subject area, which is then deployed via moodletests. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1) 9 within the bachelor of accounting we selected the subject named accounting research techniques, which was offered during the second semester of 2017, as a case study. there were 38 students. its learning design and production process involved a 47-page book and 8 learning objects developed by the lecturer and produced as part of the instructional design. the course content is written and adapted to a dialogic language, acknowledging constraints given the space and temporal nature of distance education and based on course curriculum. at each new iteration of a course offering, the lms and materials may be adapted, updated or re-developed, according to the context of use. guerrettaz and johnston’s (2013) remind us that the “practice of the curriculum materials [have] a number of ecological consequences” and that “[p]rogress and success in the class [are] defined as ‘moving through the materials’” (p. 785). thus, there is baseline text that is put together as the main resource for course content, serving the development of distinctive features. this baseline text is adapted for each new version of the course, incorporating adjustments from lessons learned in previous versions of the course offering, and/or specific or updated content for the present version. importantly, the use of an e-book format provides access to these baseline texts to people in remote and rural communities, where an internet connection might not be adequate for downloading videos or streaming live. the initial material, produced by the lecturer, is then further developed with the addition of other educational resources, which are made available in moodle. after the instructional design stage, the content is diagrammed, and converted to pdf and epub. given the popularity of mobile devices, it is also often necessary to test for “responsive” formats and layouts that might be qualitatively better, more flexible and suitable for different portable devices. in the course accounting research techniques, the epub format was adopted as the standard open source digital file, because it is widely supported on a number of platforms. within the acad framing (see table 1), we see course design as also influenced by public policies on education, which guide some of the choices in terms of pedagogical approaches to distance learning (epistemic design) and in the disciplinary area of accounting (epistemic design) as well as technological options (set design) that are made available. the unique combination results, in part, from contemporary training demands, in line with other oecd countries in an increasingly connected society (oecd, 2017). connectivity and access to the internet in brazil is, nevertheless, highly heterogeneous. accounting research techniques is offered in the seventh semester of an eight-semester course, and it comprises 72 hours of learner time. the subject covers scientific methodology, scientific research organisation and production of scientific articles (epistemic design). although most of the course is offered in an asynchronous distance mode via moodle, there are approximately 4 hours of synchronous activity, distributed across three virtual encounters during the semester, in which students participate in video conferences (epistemic and social design). these are key opportunities for students and lecturers to interact live. although all students are highly encouraged to engage in these activities, synchronous participation is not mandatory, while participation in asynchronous learning activities, via moodle, is compulsory. four discussion forums and learning tasks scaffold students’ ideas towards three specific assignments. moodle houses all the educational resources for the course, and in the weekly forums, lecturer and tutor students are encouraged to participate in discussions, through prompted questions and suggestions for students’ work. forums are designed to stimulate communication and offer a space for addressing misunderstandings and clarifying issues (social and epistemic design). for example, although we identified 47 forum messages in one of our forums, these interactions have to be considered just as part of the “visible” emergent activity—as there are often silent readers, who do not necessarily actively participate in discussions, but have some form of engagement. the challenge in these scenarios is to get frequent and significant contributions. as often occurs in distance learning, some students are more tentative in voicing their opinions, and may refrain heredia, j. de m., carvalho, l., viera, e. m. f. 10 from discussing ideas and concepts in “public” forums. making sure a convivial space is created (social design) is crucial. in accounting research techniques students progressively elaborate their first individual monograph project for the course. this is a required major assignment task (epistemic design) for successful completion of the bachelor of accounting. this subject is a key component of the overall degree, as students must show their ability to successfully build on theoretical ideas and translate theme into an individually written production. considering the nature of their main assignment task, social interactions are designed to support procedural and methodological goals, rather than aiming at collaboration or building on peers’ contributions, with most interaction being instructor-centered. table 1 summarises the elements in the acad framework in relation to the case study. table 1 elements described through the acad framework set social epistemic co-creation and coconfiguration activity concept complex mix of inter-dependent digital and material, artefacts and tools scripted roles social arrangements/ organisation of students broader cultural context knowledge-oriented structures of a network proposed tasks emergent reshaping and reconfiguring of the proposed task format video conferences discussion forum moodle ebook exam cd local support centres distance learning mode tutor and lecturer instructor-led interactions. scientific methodology assumptions scientific research organisation paper production in accounting research techniques. three synchronous meetings asynchronous discussion forum gradual individual textual production analysis and discussion learning is a subjective experience, often influenced by an individual’s immersion in a complex mix of elements and interactions, which may be mediated or improved by using technologies. although it is not possible to design someone’s learning experience per se, “design can have an effect on activity indirectly, through the ways in which it creates tasks and through its shaping of the physical and social context in which activity unfolds” (goodyear & carvalho, 2014, p. 59). being able to differentiate between “what is designed” and “what is the emergent activity” is crucial, because it is the first step towards figuring out how designable components affect learning, what is open to alteration and what is not. we use these ideas to theorise about our case study, linking aspects of the micro and meso levels of the design of the course—with a focus on tools, tasks, and organisation of people—to the broader context (macro level) of distance education in brazil. how is digital innovation influencing teaching and learning practices in distance education in brazil? the analysis of policy documents, and also observations of course design elements, via what is proposed that students do, and observations of what students did—shows a complex mix of interdependent components (goodyear & carvalho, 2014). some of these elements may be more journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1) 11 easily adjusted than others. for example, alterations in a sequence of learning tasks are easier to achieve (micro level), than working to modify specific policy provisions (macro level). making sure that the layout of a course is easy to navigate on a desktop, laptop, or handheld device may be easier to realise (micro/meso level) than assuring access to reliable online connections in remote locations (macro level). these, in turn, affect the choices about design, and the emergent teaching and learning activity. as pointed out by hiller and landis (2014) “for those who undertake the design of e-learning experiences, navigating through the multiple approaches and models can be daunting” (p. 200). while design of instructional sequences and learning materials are important, what our case study shows is that design for learning goes much beyond that, and also involves tools and other elements that may help someone learn, all interwoven in an assemblage of elements. learning tasks, or the epistemic activities, that students are asked to do, are influenced by physical and/or digital settings, and these are also largely dependent on social structures at the micro level (where students are located and how they are grouped into tasks) but also at a macro level (how these relate to policy and government interests). the course we analysed is part of a public institution and, as such, the learning design for the accounting research techniques case study is greatly influenced by policies and public funding. these in turn, are reflected in variables of the design and the learning process enacted (e.g., the way teaching materials are made available in moodle, or even the choice of moodle as an opensource software. one of its main objectives of distance education —in line with the open university of brazil—is to reduce regional inequalities in access to higher education. offering broad access to printed materials is crucial, because it addresses the fact that online connections might not be always available (set design), or reliable; they might be intermittent or difficult for those accessing the course from remote communities. selecting resources such as videos, or streaming live classes, might also not be ideal, if there is an unreliable infrastructure to support such practices. learning materials can be carefully sequenced and organised (epistemic design) to facilitate students’ potential misconceptions, but in our case study such design is also mostly organised with an emphasis on a knowledge-transmitting format or via activities that focus on individual learners. this procedural and teacher-centric approach to teaching and learning is enacted through design tasks that focus on students’ individual participation, where learners work independently to complete guided readings or tasks, in a way that is more likely to be associated with behaviourist-cognitivist learning theories (anderson & dron, 2011). what are some of the key affordances and constraints in a distance education course offering in brazil—and how do these relate to design for learning? one of the affordances inherently associated with distance learning relates to the ability to reach out to remote communities and to those who would perhaps not be able to otherwise have access to knowledge and information. although such equitable access to education is a core issue in a large developing country such as brazil, technology only partially helps to address this issue. as czerniewicz and brown (2014) highlight, technological literacies are intrinsically connected to other literacies and are not the only component in a dense array of experiences of students, particularly those remotely located. if digital innovation is indeed one of the key drivers of societal transformation and prosperity (oecd, 2017), it is crucial that developing countries invest in the design of educational programmes in general, and in distance education in particular, with a view to helping to address ict training priorities and upskilling the general population more effectively. distance education fundamentally requires generic and foundational ict skills, such as the use of ict to problem solve and to communicate, given its very mode of delivery. but this is only one small piece of the puzzle, as digital literacies are interwoven with other literacies such as reading and writing. in addition, our case study shows an emphasis on a pedagogical model that still relies heavily on heredia, j. de m., carvalho, l., viera, e. m. f. 12 teacher-centred practices (epistemic design), rather than emphasising collaboration, knowledge building, or creative thinking or other 21st-century skills. practical constraints—such as broadband accessibility (set design)—also influence elements of design; for example, making the production of multimodal artefacts difficult, and turning written dialogic language into the preferred mode of communication, thus reinforcing the teacher-centred model (epistemic and social design). this is part of the context in developing countries, where a lack of reliable online connections in remote areas is more prevalent (set design). as we discussed, key materials and tools employed in teaching and learning in our case study involve using technologies to facilitate communication amongst students and lecturers, encouraging collective learning. but most of this interaction is still grounded in individual asynchronous communication in moodle spaces, with little room for knowledge building and collaboration activity. multiple elements are interacting in an architecture that favors students’ particular social arrangements to study and learn. social inequalities in higher education contexts often translate into educational inequalities, raising important questions and additional challenges for those in developing countries about what it means to be part of a digitally mediated knowledge society (swinnerton et al., 2018). essentially, while universities and students across the globe may experience challenges when using technology for learning, developing countries such as brazil have additional concerns associated with their own broader social context. universities in developing countries are often positioned on the periphery of a knowledge society dominated by those in developed economies. while developing countries aspire to adopt pedagogical models and perspectives that are considered best practices in education, these models are often “inherited” and not necessarily “fit for purpose” as they have been developed for a highly distinct macro context. and yet developing countries have to find ways to adapt these models and practices to their own realities if they are to continue with their aspirations to climb to new stages of scientific and technological developments. at a practical (micro/meso) level, distance education in developing countries may include having to find different solutions for video streaming and synchronous classes (set design), careful considerations about multimedia resources and tools (set design) that encourage collaborative work (social design) alongside an unreliable network (set design, macro level) to support these efforts. these choices are likely to affect distance students’ emergent activity, as some will be unable to participate in a proposed task (epistemic design). while all universities across the globe often need to deal with forms of digital inequality, such as inequality in equipment, autonomy of use, skills, social support and/or the purposes of use (dimaggio & hargittai, 2001), distance education in developing countries must deal with extra constraints and concerns. universities may also struggle to find what it means to have correspondence between tools, tasks, and social structures in their own contexts. analytical tools such as the acad framework help educational designers map the landscape (carvalho & yeoman, 2018) as a first step towards searching for innovative ways of enacting best educational design practices that fit their own realities, not only across different dimensions of design but also at the micro, meso and macro levels. conclusion this study examined design for learning and the use of technologies for educational purposes in a specific context and country. we framed specificities of the case study through structural components in the acad framework, and expanded on how learning design can be influenced by the broader scenario of distance education in developing countries, such as brazil. acad offered the basis for structuring our analytical ideas, grounded the discussion of the affordances and constraints related to the use of technologies for learning, and for the tools, tasks, and social arrangements. overall, we examined how all of these elements align with the educational journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1) 13 purpose and goals of an institution and their broader socio-cultural contexts. this is particularly important in the field of higher education, where learning design decisions, which have roots elsewhere, are enacted in the classroom. such understanding may be used to support decisionmaking processes of spaces for distance and blended learning. the ideas discussed could be useful to educational designers in developing countries, where design work involves conceptualising ways to improve learning design through particular features that are open to alteration and are likely to influence the emergent activity of distance learners. further exploration concerning how students perform and are affected by the design of components is required. learner experience and feedback may reveal the effectiveness was the design, which may ground a path on where we go next in terms of re-design. however, the conceptual issues outlined 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(2015). moving across physical and online spaces: a case study in a blended primary classroom. learning, media & technology, 40(4), 458–479. vieira, e. m. f., moraes, m., & fiala, a. (2013). processo de avaliação da aprendizagem no ambiente moodle: o módulo prova. in m. l. f. costa (org.). educação a distância no brasil. maringá, brazil: eduem. yeoman, p. (2018). the material correspondence of learning. in r. ellis & p. goodyear (eds.), spaces of teaching and learning: integrating perspectives on research and practice. singapore: springer. biographical notes jimena de mello heredia jimenamello@gmail.com jimena de mello heredia is a researcher and instructional designer. she holds a master of information science and has worked as an assistant professor at the department of information science, the federal university of santa catarina in brazil. her current research interests include research methodology, feedback, and assessment in the e-learning field. lucila carvalho l.carvalho@massey.ac.nz lucila carvalho is a senior lecturer in e-learning and digital technologies at the institute of education, massey university. lucila’s research interests are at the intersection of design, digital technologies, and learning (in both formal and informal settings) – where she explores how knowledge and social structures shape the design and use of technology, and how technology influences social and educational experiences. eleonora milano falcão vieira eleonora.vieira@ufsc.br eleonora milano falcão vieira is an associate professor at the department of accounting of the federal university of santa catarina in brazil. she holds a doctorate in engineering and knowledge management and was a former visiting professor at the university of sydney, australia (2016–2017). her current research interests include research methodology and management of distance education. heredia, j. de m., carvalho, l., viera, e. m. f. 16 this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. heredia, j. de m., carvalho, l., viera, e. m. f . (2019). designing for distance learning in developing countries: a case study. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1), [5–16.]. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(2) 1 time for change: the journal is in good shape maggie hartnett, associate editor, massey university alison fields, editor-in-chief, infosolutions abstract associate editor maggie hartnett says farewell while casting an eye over the achievements of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning in the past 8 years. this issue presents four articles providing a rounded view of managing and improving emergency remote teaching (ert) in the context of the covid-19 pandemic. the first two articles focus on the experience of teachers in ert; one provides empirical research; and one is a position piece on the uptake and value of learning management systems (lmss) for delivering this remote teaching. these practical and timely articles provide research and thought of substance as the pandemic continues. keywords: tikanga māori; bicultural practices; blended synchronous learning; emergency remote teaching; online learning time for change this issue signals a time of change for the editorial team of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning (jofdl) as i have made the decision to step down as associate editor after 8 years of service. this will be my final editorial. when i was appointed to the role in 2014, i was part of a new look editorial team that included nikki davis as editor-in-chief and alison fields as fellow associate editor. at that time, the journal had recently gone through an independent review, and recommendations from the review included “increasing participation, contribution, visibility, and scholarly recognition” (davis et al., 2014, p. 1). these recommendations have guided our work over the intervening period. much has changed, notably the journal’s listing in the directory of open access journals, the consistent publication of two issues per year, increasing volumes of manuscript submissions, and the improved quality of those submissions. as i leave, it is encouraging to see that the journal is in good shape. it is also appropriate to take time to reflect on the content of the published articles over that period and how they sit within the open, flexible, and distance learning field of research. student engagement, motivation, retention, and the support required by learners have been a constant source of interest over these 8 years. these publications are even more relevant today, with the covid-19 pandemic and the massive shift to online learning during 2020 and 2021. the special issue devoted to online teaching and learning, which was published in the first half of 2020, was a response to the demand for high quality previously published articles. they provided ideas, guidance, and information to educators across the world who were grappling with the shift to unfamiliar modes of teaching and learning. learning design approaches have emerged as an enduring area of research in my time with the journal. these approaches include learning design methodologies and specific approaches such as blended learning, flipped classrooms, and the adoption of mobile, social media and massive fields, a., hartnett, s. 2 open online courses (moocs). i’m heartened to see more attention being paid to the exploration of experience unique to aotearoa new zealand, including the learning of te reo māori in online contexts, and māori peer-mentoring programmes being offered to māori students studying online. the research is timely, and more is needed. looking to the future, specialist journals such as this one will be more important than ever given the proliferation of published articles (since the emergence of covid-19) that give little thought or attention to the rich history of the field. without it, truly new and innovative research runs the risk of being lost in the plethora of the already known. the pandemic has also highlighted areas that require more in-depth research. primary among them is digital inequity, particularly given that online learning will continue to be part of learning and teaching. i wish the editor-in-chief, alison fields, and the new associate editor, simon atkinson, all the very best as they continue to lead this valuable contribution to the field of open, flexible, and distance learning research in aotearoa, new zealand. it has been a pleasure being part of it. maggie hartnett papers in this issue this issue contains four articles highlighting a range of contemporary issues in open, flexible and distance learning of interest to an international audience. the articles come from new zealand, the united states, and vietnam, and all focus on successful learning delivery and engagement in open, flexible, or distance learning. karaka-clarke et al. delve into the experience of kaiako (teachers) in synchronous online teaching and learning in the compulsory schooling sector in new zealand. this work focused particularly on bicultural values and practices, and if and how these were incorporated into teaching and learning practices. this is an important aspect of education in a country where an estimated 25% of the school population are māori learners. the incorporation of bicultural values and practices may help students to connect with their learning, but the findings showed an uneven uptake and room for improvement—with many kaiako lacking the confidence to implement these practices. this highlights an important aspect of online learning for future consideration and action. crary et al. provide a different view of the same topic of experience and connection with blended–synchronous course delivery, this time with higher-education students in the midwestern united states. the blended–synchronous format is defined in this article as “the synchronous instruction of face-to-face and remotely located students”. their study compared the experiences of students who were predominantly face to face with those who were predominantly remotely located, and found that while actual classroom engagement was comparable in both groups, there were differences in accessibility. perhaps most notable was the emerging distinction and division felt by both groups. this detailed study provides much food for thought. thach and phuong investigate the attitudes and intentions of higher-education lecturers in their uptake of learning management systems (lmss) in emergency remote teaching in the developing country of vietnam. the covid-19 pandemic has created a need for new ways to deliver teaching and learning. this article looks at the reality of lecturers who are best equipped for faceto-face delivery moving to online systems, and the difficulties the transition to emergency remote teaching can bring. results indicated that “teachers’ internet self-efficacy plays a very important role in having favourable perceptions about ease of use” and that institutional support for maintaining the quality of teaching and learning online and promoting students’ engagement will greatly help lecturers in this position in the future. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(2) 3 the final article in this issue, by brown et al., is a counterpoint to the debate of lms uptake by higher-education lecturers, this time from the developed country of new zealand. it centres on the same context of emergency remote teaching during the covid-19 pandemic, and is a position piece rather than empirical research. brown et al. suggest that higher-education lecturers are central to online course development, and they should determine the alternative means of instruction during emergency remote teaching. the focus of this position piece is the lms, not just as a storage facility for content, but for active teaching and engagement with remote learners. a framework for formalising professional development of proficiency with an lms is outlined and this, along with support for lecturers, provides a possible way to the maximise benefits of lms use during the rapid move to online and remote teaching. a final word as editor-in-chief, i want to give my heartfelt thanks to maggie for her great contribution to the journal over the past 8 years. she has given a substantial amount to the journal in time, thought, and quality, and has been wonderful to work with. thank you maggie, on behalf of myself, our team and board, and all our contributors and readers. our new editorial team member, simon paul atkinson, will be introduced in the next issue. alison fields references davis, n., fields, a., & hartnett, m. (2014). editorial: engaging in open, flexible, and distance learning with a new editorial team. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 18(1), 1–10. http://www.jofdl.nz/index.php/jofdl/article/view/230 biographical notes maggie hartnett m.hartnett@massey.ac.nz maggie hartnett is a senior lecturer in the institute of education at massey university, new zealand. she teaches in the area of digital technologies and coordinates postgraduate qualifications in digital education. she is a senior fellow of advance he and associate editor of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. alison fields alison@infosolutions.co.nz alison is an information scientist and director of research at infosolutions. she conducts research in health information, and contracts in the education sector. she is a fellow of the library and information association of new zealand aotearoa (lianza) and has a doctorate in education. her research areas encompass elearning, online learner support, health information, library services, and continuing professional development. alison is an executive member of flanz and editor-in-chief of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. hartnett, m., & fields, a. (2021). time for change: the journal is in good shape. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(2), [1–3.]. http://www.jofdl.nz/index.php/jofdl/article/view/230 mailto:m.hartnett@massey.ac.nz mailto:alison@infosolutions.co.nz http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ fields, a. engaging learner support: an investigation of faculty—library collaboration to provide live coursespecific learner support in the online classroom environment alison fields, open polytechnic of new zealand abstract collaboration between faculty and learner support can create seamless services for e-learners. providing access to learning materials and activities with co-located tailored learner support creates an environment in which e-learners can easily access everything they need for an enhanced, supported, and more focused learning experience. the emerging practice of embedding live librarians in online tertiary classrooms provides a new avenue for such learner support, and forms a natural extension of the library links and resources which are routinely found on online campuses, library websites, and some online course pages. embedded librarians can actively direct students to tailored library resources and tutorials and assist students directly, often in a library discussion forum, with their specific information and referencing questions. this paper reports on research into the nature and effectiveness of using embedded librarians in online classrooms in new zealand, and takes a multi-faceted view of this emerging practice. findings illustrate the benefits of this new form of e-learner support and identify potential pitfalls through increasing engagement with relevant and pertinent information resources to support their learning. keywords: e-learning; online classroom; embedded librarians; online library services; learner support introduction student engagement with learner support is needed in online education as much as it is in other forms of educational delivery. placing support in the environment in which students actively learn—specifically inside the online classroom—is one such tactic for increasing students’ engagement with learning support and bringing it to the students at their point of need. a more supported and focused learning experience can be delivered to students by combining or co-locating learner support with the learning materials and activities in a course of study. thorpe (2002) identified that “[l]earner support in odl refers to the meeting of needs that all learners have because they are central to high quality learning—guidance about course choice, preparatory diagnosis, study skills, access to group learning in seminars and tutorials, and so on” (p. 107). in this context, one aspect of learner support is the provision of library services to online and distance learning (odl) students. that provision is the focus of this paper. 46 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) a librarian is defined as “a professionally trained person responsible for the care of a library and its contents, including the selection, processing, and organization of materials and the delivery of information, instruction, and loan services to meet the needs of its users” (reitz, 2013). current literature indicates librarians are no longer confined to the library and traditional library services, but are increasingly being strategically placed as participants in online courses where interaction with students is more immediate and tailored to individual needs (brindley, walti, & zawackirichter, 2004; florea, 2008; guillot, stahr, & meeker, 2010). there are now also instances where librarians are not only helping to support learners in the online classroom, they are also collaborating with faculty for content suggestions, course assignments, and course design (westpawl, 2012). the term ‘embedded librarian’ was coined only a decade ago, with dewey being credited with first using the term in her seminal 2004 article where she states that “[o]vert purposefulness makes embedding an appropriate definition of the most comprehensive collaborations for librarians in the higher education community” (dewey, 2004, p. 6). the practice of embedding librarians directly into various work units and operational groups in business organisations is now reasonably established (shumaker, 2011). in online courses, an embedded librarian becomes an integral part of the online teaching space in which student learning happens (xiao, 2012). this allows librarians to meet online students at their point of need. an embedded librarian who is included as a participant of an online course can deliver both standard library services and those that are tailored to the particular classroom and the students within it. embedded librarians can actively direct the students to tailored library resources and tutorials that are suitable for their studies. they can also assist individual students, often in library discussion forums, with specific information and referencing questions. this paper reports on current research in the area of embedded librarianship. the purpose of this research is to understand how this new embedded librarian model of learner support works, particularly in the new zealand online learning environment. this research will allow opportunities specific to the presence of embedded librarians in the online tertiary classroom to be more readily and purposefully used, and help us to maximise the value of this form of learner support. it also aims to identify where we can make gains for increasing engagement with learner support in the online tertiary environment. literature review this literature review is an outline of previous research in the field of learner support and embedded librarianship. while the field of learner support is well-established and developed, the nexus of these two fields is at present relatively small because the phenomenon of embedded librarians within online education is a recent innovation. learner support in tertiary education, it is recognised that not all learners will necessarily undertake or complete all of the tasks and activities they need for successful learning. they might need some support to complete some learning experiences and to gain skills for independent and lifelong learning (mcloughlin, 2002; laurillard, 2002). learner support in campus-based tertiary education has traditionally referred to services that are available to manage “personal difficulties which grow too great for the student to handle alone” (thorpe, 2002, p. 107), and includes other services (such as academic advice and study skills) that apply to the wider student body (thorpe, 2002). in online education, however, the support needs of students can encompass a wider range, and they might need traditional as well as new learner support. learner support in the online environment focuses more specifically on complementing and enhancing the learning experience, and may include support outside the online classroom (such as academic advice, 47 fields, a. study skills, information literacy, research advice, and guidance on accessing and making good use of services provided by the educational institution), support in the online classroom (such as learning materials, faculty or tutors, librarians and library services), and support for communicating in the distance and online environment (such as support for media and technology) (keegan, 1996; mcloughlin, 2002; thorpe, 2002). embedded librarians the expansion of library and information services beyond the traditional library setting was identified by smith and sutton (2010), who state: “the classic notion of the library as a repository for materials must be superseded by the philosophy of the library as an active partner in the information experience” (p. 92). this change of perspectives is indicative of library services moving out of the library and into the spaces where students are, to provide assistance at the point of need and to bring more holistic library services into the learning experiences of tertiary students. in addition to dewey’s (2004) definition of embedded librarians, a more recent definition comes from outspoken embedded-librarian proponent david shumaker, who describes the change in focus for librarians entering the online classroom as “shifting the model from transactional to high trust collaboration, and shared responsibility for outcomes” (shumaker & talley, 2009, p. 9). shumaker therefore signals the change from external support on demand to proactive support from within the students’ core learning environment. embedded librarians in online tertiary education are often described in terms of their tasks and their roles, such as working closely over extended periods of time with non-library groups by joining a semesterlong course, maintaining an ongoing presence in online courses, participating in broad curriculum planning efforts, or joining the staff of academic departments, clinic settings, or performing groups (kvenild & calkins, 2011). while the literature on embedded librarians in online tertiary classrooms has been relatively small to date, this type of literature is growing as the uptake of online delivery of courses at the tertiary level expands. xiao (2012) notes this ‘surge’ in the literature and identifies ways in which librarians are providing distance or online services, including facilitating access to the library’s electronic resources, online research guides, virtual reference services, discussion boards, and embeddedness in faculty-led online courses. although a growing number of case studies of online classrooms using embedded librarians are reported in the literature (e.g., leonard & mccaffrey, 2014; chisholm & lamond, 2012; hawes, 2011; matthew & schroeder, 2006), there are only a few empirical studies of the usage and effects of embedded librarians (bennett & simning, 2010; barnard & weaver, 2011; kumar, edwards, & ochoa, 2010) and there are even fewer studies of the perceptions of faculty, librarians, or students in this context (carrico & neff, 2012; edwards, kumar & ochoa, 2010; yousef, 2010). to date, no studies have been identified that consider the viewpoints of all three groups together, or the nature of the relationships between them. this indicates a gap in the literature in this area. the new zealand context and experience of embedded librarians although references to embedded librarians in new zealand are few, they have appeared more regularly in the literature in very recent years. one of the first to appear describes the work of librarians embedded in 40 online postgraduate courses at massey university’s college of education (chisholm & lamond, 2012). findings include the need for faculty endorsement and collaboration, together with careful selection and placement of library resources in the online environment, for this practice to work effectively. another study describes the online embedded librarian programme at the open polytechnic of new zealand, in which librarians perform a combination of reference work, user education, and placing of learning objects—all set within a partnership with faculty (fields & clarke, 2014). again, the importance of faculty–librarian collaboration for the successful delivery and uptake of this form of learner support is acknowledged. 48 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) in an article that looks at embedding librarians in face-to-face teaching programmes, librarians brebner and reid (2012) outline their experience of delivering information literacy programmes in two different subject areas at auckland university. their work was readily accepted in law— the law librarians teach undergraduate zero-credit legal research courses and provide more general support for law students in other courses. in contrast, the fine arts and art history faculty showed less enthusiasm for embedded library services because they perceived less relevance for information literacy in a discipline that focuses not so much on the written word as on visual orientation (brebner & reid, 2012). there is a growing acknowledgement that the methods and level of collaboration between faculty and librarians is influenced by the nature of the subject (brebner & reid, 2012; krkosa, andrews, & morris-knower, 2011; matthew & schroeder, 2006; mounce, 2010) and, as a result, approaches tailored to each discipline may be warranted (brebner & reid, 2012). in summary, the literature demonstrates an acceptance that library ‘embeddedness’ in the student learning space of the online classroom is a welcome addition for effective learning. in addition, partnership and collaboration between faculty and librarians is cited as necessary to maximise the value of this form of learner support. more importantly, three further areas for consideration have been identified. firstly, because the practice of embedding librarians is a relatively recent development in this new environment, there are specific opportunities to identify and exploit. such opportunities can be found in the education environment, but others may be identified by examining the roles of librarians who are fully embedded in business and corporate teams beyond academia (shumaker & talley, 2009). secondly, relationships (including creating and managing expectations and perceptions) are vital for understanding and successfully delivering embedded library and information services. these relationships require real and ongoing communication to be built and maintained, and warrant further exploration (carrico & neff, 2012; hoffman, 2011; shumaker, 2011; yousef, 2010). thirdly, different approaches may need to be taken for considering student–faculty-embedded librarian relationships and embedded library services in different disciplines so they cater for these classes, and to deliver the services in the most appropriate ways. disciplines have different information needs and different approaches to searching for and using information (brebner & reid, 2012; brower, 2011; krkosa, andrews & morris-knower, 2011; mounce, 2010). methods a multi-faceted approach was taken to data collection. first, an overview of the academic literature and current professional discussions on the use of embedded librarians gave the context and underlying understanding of this new form of learner support. this overview was followed by a case study of the practice of embedded librarians at the open polytechnic of new zealand. a variety of data-gathering methods was designed to produce a fuller picture of this new practice. aspects that may be particular to any of the groups of participants may be more fully explored using a combination of methods. additional new zealand tertiary education providers will be researched in future to gain an overall picture of this new practice in the new zealand context. although the literature has a global focus, this research is set largely within the context of new zealand and focuses only on tertiary education institutes, so these two parameters form the initial limits of the study. literature review the review of the literature (outlined above) placed embedded librarians in the broad context of learner support and operation specifically in the environment of the online classroom at tertiary level. the review was conducted across an international range of peer-review journals and 49 fields, a. conference websites in both education and library science. from new zealand, the reported literature included both peer-review and non-peer review journals and conference presentations in education and library science. more general journal databases with high new zealand content were also considered to gain a fuller picture of the local understanding and use of this new practice. although descriptions of embedded librarian practice have not generally predated dewey’s seminal 2004 work, key articles concerning learner support were drawn from a much longer time period. professional mailing lists and blogs to supplement the formal literature, a scan of major professional mailing lists was also conducted. this scan focused on mailing lists concerned with online education, online learner support, and distance library services. discussions relating to embedded librarians featured sporadically in some, but others provided a good deal of information, and showed the concerns and practices of those working in this area. the most relevant and fruitful of these mailing lists were nz-libs (discussion of library and information services in new zealand) and dls-l@ala.org (discussion list for members of acrl’s distance learning section). a few professional blogs, including shumaker’s embedded librarian, were identified and scanned to glean further revelations of the current professional concerns and directions of this relatively new learner support service. interviews with faculty and embedded librarians at a new zealand tertiary institution in 2013, a number of semi-structured interviews were conducted with faculty and embedded librarians at the open polytechnic of new zealand to seek their understanding and experience of the embedded librarian service. these interviews were conducted in collaboration with the open polytechnic’s library manager. respondents gave helpful and often frank replies, discussed the benefits and drawbacks of embedded learner support, and identified areas for future research. results and discussion results that emerged from the gathered information and data fall into several categories—some results bridge categories, and others have a more specific focus. these categories include the express need for learner support at the point of learning or the point of students’ need; the importance of faculty–librarian collaboration for successful results; the increasing range of roles that librarians can take to complement learning already taking place in the online classroom; the importance of developing and maintaining relationships between all parties in the online classroom; and some practical difficulties and sticking points which have been encountered in the online classroom. these results are outlined and discussed below, together with a discussion of the importance of each in this emerging field. the express need for learner support at the point of learning the theory on learning support is well documented in the literature, and there are arguments for providing skills and support ahead of time (just in case) as well as at the point of learning or the point of need (just in time). one point that came clearly out of the professional mailing lists and blogs is that, in the online learning environment, students are seeking assistance from traditional library sites and links in far smaller numbers, and are spending more time on their course pages and less on other online pages on their institution’s site. a burgeoning debate in the american library association’s distance library services mailing list began by identifying this trend with a plea for ideas to address the challenging situation: 50 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) as much i as love creating online [information literacy] tutorials, i am at the point where i know that the no. of tutorials are [sic] getting unwieldy and the tutorials are in silos. i have an info literacy page [url removed], but i know that students are not accessing this page. does anyone have ideas for moving this info into places where students can access it. a few of these tutorials have made their way onto subject guides. virtually any of these tutorials could be put on each subject guide, but the pages would get cluttered. have any of you been successful at promoting your information literacy tutorials to your students. is there a better way to present the information than collecting the links to various pages/videos on one page? (allen, 2014) a flurry of responses followed, all confirming the issue and identifying tactics that have been successful in other institutions. these tactics included working with faculty to embed the tutorials in courses, or assigning them as homework; organising the tutorials around subject themes and placing them strategically in courses just before assignments are set; and placing the tutorials under new names and in new places in the course. an example of this last tactic was a reply describing “similar tactics by embedding in libanswers—our subterfuge reference engine under the help button”. this posting carried on to identify associated student behaviour: “it gets about 25k hits a month. not sure of impact on our info lit resources, but those trend about 5,000 views a month” (stielow, 2014b). this strategy showed the effect of carefully placing the resources where the students are likely to search (i.e., within their own courses), and identifying them less directly as library resources and assistance and more as general assistance and answers that aid the student in their learning. the art of ‘packaging and selling’ appeared to be crucial in delivering learning support that students will readily access and use. it is also recognised that with access to the web and a variety of search engines, students do not always view the library as the first port of call for locating information assistance, and that this can be best overcome by placing pertinent assistance within the curriculum (stielow, 2014a). this research identified that this form of learner support would not be equally relevant in all online tertiary courses. students of some programmes of study, such as arts and law, are traditionally heavy library users because these subjects are based on the written word and information is vital to their study. others, in the pure sciences and mathematical fields, have a different experience. one statistics lecturer interviewed on this topic of library resources, assistance, and learning support identified: as a numerically based course, students are not encouraged to use other resources. statistics books often tackle topics in different ways and it is confusing for students if they move away from the materials provided. (fields & clarke, 2014, p. 74). students in some of these fields might still need learner support at the point of learning, but in a more tailored and specific form for their particular requirements and those of the subject area. faculty–library collaboration needed for success library support cannot be provided as a tailored service to students without some collaboration with faculty. the need for faculty to be willing to allow embedded librarians into their online teaching spaces to provide assistance and information resources within the place of learning has already been identified above. in addition to this access, faculty endorsement of the embedded librarian’s services sanctions the students to make wider use of this assistance and promotes it as a useful addition to the course by supporting the learning process (rodrigues, 2014). the nature of the learning support that is given, and its relevance to the course in which it is delivered, stems from the individual requirements of the subject area and the assessed work to be 51 fields, a. undertaken in the classroom. without faculty collaboration, embedded librarians can find it difficult to tailor their support services to individual classrooms—this, in turn, reduces the uptake and effectiveness of these services (shumaker, 2011). the efficacy of this form of learner support appears to depend on strong collaboration between faculty and embedded librarians. collaboration between faculty and embedded librarians can also be effective in course design. because librarians deal with information seeking, information use, and information resources, they can also assist faculty in the course design process. courses that require students to use information literacy skills tend to also boost their critical thinking skills which, in turn, promote lifelong learning (west-pawl, 2012). collaboration between faculty and librarians in the course design process can help to create good delivery and assessment of subject content with the addition of information skills for a more comprehensive learning experience. roles for librarians that complement the online classroom a number of librarians’ roles complement the teaching and learning that takes place in the online classroom. these roles include providing links and direction to resources and tutorials which will lead to skills and information that students need to effectively conduct and enhance their learning (shumaker, 2011). these links and resources can often be identified before the class starts, and messages can be prepared ahead of time to deliver this information to students. some standard library responses to probable questions can be prepared ahead of time, based on patterns of questions raised in previous course offerings. a more personalised reference service may also arise in some of the interactions between embedded librarians and students. students have the opportunity to ask some quite specific questions, and some of these might apply to individual students rather than the class as a whole. although responses to these questions represent a more individualised service, they can raise awareness of course topics or peripheral subjects for other students as well as directly assisting the student who asks the question (fields & clarke, 2014). a balance between widely applicable reference services, more individualised reference services, and other library or information support to students might need to be made. another area in which embedded librarians might be able to assist is with the correct formatting of references and questions of writing style. adherence to formal style guides and referencing systems often concerns students, and by using librarians to answer questions of formal referencing, faculty can be kept free for questions of content and subject. one faculty member identified the best thing about having an embedded librarian as: knowing that you’ve got back-up, especially for the technical questions. for example, apa and referencing questions, using the databases and helping students find information. (fields & clarke, 2014, p. 73) this strategy can work effectively, and perhaps works best when librarians are embedded in the class rather than being at another site where students may be less likely to encounter them. when these discussions take place in the online classroom there is the added benefit of them being available to other students who can ‘lurk’ or ‘listen in’ on these online conversations. tailored library and learner support are therefore brought into an environment in which many students can benefit from the interactions of embedded librarians with a few of their classmates without having to make any more interactions. the importance of building relationships fostering good relationships amongst all classroom participants is important. faculty–librarian relationships have already been discussed in terms of collaboration, but they also have a wider aspect outside the classroom. relationships between faculty and their embedded librarians can 52 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) often have other class-related benefits, including the procurement of information not otherwise gained by the faculty. an example of this came to the fore in an interview with a member of faculty: i was contacted by my embedded librarian who told me that holds on a particular book … suddenly increased and that he knew some students would not get a chance to view the book prior to the assessment it was being used for falling due … he suggested alternative texts and made online copies available, then gave the new list to me and i gave it to my class. it makes everyone look good! (fields & clarke, 2014, p. 73). this building of trust and sharing of expertise complements the roles of faculty and the embedded librarian, and adds value to the provision of quality learning. in addition to this team approach to providing information to students, embedded librarians can also assist faculty outside the classroom. roles in this context might include providing updates on texts and articles in the relevant field, identifying updated course readings and new editions of works for acquisition, developing and updating courses and their supporting materials, and searching for information to support faculty research. these are all roles currently undertaken by many subject specialist librarians or liaison librarians, and these skills make these particular librarians suitable candidates to also work as embedded librarians. in this role they can gain a fuller insight into the nature and extent of faculty’s information requirements. the other relationship that brings benefits is that between the embedded librarian and the student. the placement of an embedded librarian in the online classroom gives students another person to contact for information pertinent to their learning, and positive experiences with a librarian in this setting often facilitate further contact with other library services. this will, in turn, result in more learning support being given to those students who seek it. there are also benefits to both the librarian and future students. working directly with students in individual classes increases the librarian’s understanding of students’ specific needs and attitudes, allowing the librarian to anticipate the needs of future classes. donaldson and valenti (2014) have identified “when students conceive questions but are reluctant to ask, embedded librarians can identify some common questions and promote clarity by providing the answers that will help students to succeed in their efforts to navigate library resources” (p. 31). proactive packaging of information for student consumption becomes more relevant and targeted as the embedded librarian understands the needs of particular classes in relation to their skills and their subject material, so increasing the vitality and relevance of the embedded librarian service. practical difficulties none of the workings and benefits outlined above come without practical issues, and these need to be identified and considered in the process of delivering a practical, scalable, and worthwhile library learner support service. difficulties fall into three main categories: the specific needs of students and subject areas (which are different in each online classroom), the management of good relationships between all of the participants in the online classroom (which is not always easy), and the technical constraints of working in an online environment. no one-size-fits-all approach to providing effective library learner support can be delivered into online classrooms at different levels and in different subjects. the nature of students’ information literacy and their information needs range widely due to factors that include students’ prior knowledge of information-seeking tactics, the particular requirements of the subject area being studied, and the focus of the assignments set by faculty. a tailored approach for each class results in the most effective delivery of this form of learner support. providing this support requires additional time, resources, and effort. 53 fields, a. managing good relationships in the online classroom is vital, and has been discussed in more detail above. in addition to this, some system constraints and technical issues might need to be considered. when interviewed about their appraisal of the success or not of the online discussions between the students and the embedded librarian, one faculty member remarked: i’d question the pedagogy of the forum process. there’s a large class [around 140 students] and a lot of posting… the expert’s post—i.e. librarian or tutor—gets lost in the noise or comes in the middle of a whole lot of other postings. (fields & clarke, 2014, pp. 73–74) this issue of ‘noise’ is particularly troublesome in classes that are run asynchronously and/or delivered to students in different time zones. these difficulties arise when students are unable to discern the postings that are relevant for their own needs, or when information overload deters them from finding the relevant posts or continuing to use the discussion forums at all. there is also a risk of making it too easy for students to post their questions without considering possible answers and working through a process to determine an answer before they see the expert’s post. faculty and embedded librarians need to strike a balance in their postings: to answer useful questions, divert or otherwise deal with unhelpful questions or comments, and answer students’ questions in a timely fashion without building an expectation of instant answers to easy questions. one possible way to overcome some of these issues is for embedded librarians to gain formal skills in online education or e-learning so they can engage with appropriate pedagogy. this brings the embedded librarian closer to the role of a teaching assistant, because they can complement faculty’s teaching by supporting students in their information seeking and use. conclusions embedded librarians are proving to be a workable and valuable addition in the provision of tailored learner support for students in a growing number of online classrooms around the world. locating these embedded librarians to provide learning support within the online classroom rather than outside it can help raise student engagement, thereby increasing the effectiveness of the library service and the number of students it reaches successfully. using embedded librarians is not without a few possible downsides and practical issues, but the benefits appear to far outweigh the drawbacks, and careful handling of the roles and relationships between embedded librarians and students can contribute to positive outcomes for student academic success. there is an evidenced need for further study into this growing area of direct learner support inside the online classroom. three aspects identified in the literature as requiring further exploration are: identifying and exploiting new opportunities for providing effective learner support; managing relationships in the online classroom to make the best use of services and synergies; and tailoring learner support approaches and services to meet the specific needs of individual subject and discipline areas, class levels, course requirements, and student capabilities. each of these three aspects may lead to fruitful efforts in maximising the learner support benefits of using embedded librarians. the author plans further research to identify and quantify some of these issues by conducting case studies across multiple online classrooms in additional new zealand tertiary education institutions. 54 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) references allen, s. 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(2012). collaborating for student success: a model for librarian embedding in faculty blackboard courses. libraries in the digital age (lida) proceedings, 12. retrieved from http://ozk.unizd.hr/proceedings/index.php/lida2012/article/view/2/8 yin, r. (2009). case study research: design and methods (4th ed.). (applied social research methods vol. 5). thousand oaks, ca: sage. yousef, a. (2010). faculty attitudes toward collaboration with librarians. library philosophy and practice, paper 512. retrieved from http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/512 biographical notes alison fields alison.fields@openpolytechnic.ac.nz alison is a senior lecturer at the open polytechnic of new zealand where she teaches information and library studies. she also sits on the professional registration board of library and information association of new zealand aotearoa (lianza). her research areas encompass e-learning, library services and continuing professional development. she is currently enrolled in edd studies at the university of otago under supervisors wing lai and keryn pratt. alison is also an associate editor of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. fields, a. (2014). engaging learner support: an investigation of faculty–library collaboration to provide live course-specific learner support in the online classroom environment. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 18(1), [46–57]. 57 http://hq.sla.org/pdfs/embeddedlibrarianshipfinalrptrev.pdf mailto:alison.fields@openpolytechnic.ac.nz http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 47 a framework for developing and implementing an online learning community elaine khoo, university of waikato bronwen cowie, university of waikato abstract developing online learning communities is a promising pedagogical approach in online learning contexts for adult tertiary learners, but it is no easy task. understanding how learning communities are formed and evaluating their efficacy in supporting learning involves a complex set of issues that have a bearing on the design and facilitation of successful online learning experiences. this paper describes the development of a framework for understanding and developing an online learning community for adult tertiary learners in a new zealand tertiary institution. in accord with sociocultural views of learning and practices, the framework depicts learning as a mediated, situated, distributed, goaldirected, and participatory activity within a socially and culturally determined learning community. evidence for the value of the framework is grounded in the findings of a case study of a semester-long fully online asynchronous graduate course. the framework informs our understanding of appropriate conditions for the development and conduct of online learning communities. implications are presented for the design and facilitation of learning in such contexts. keywords: adult learners; e-learning; evaluation; online learning communities; research methods; tertiary introduction current research and practice in effective online pedagogy indicate support for the development of online learning communities (olcs) in facilitating teaching–learning in online learning environments (aceto, dondi, & marzotto, 2010; palloff & pratt, 2007). a learning community is a cohesive group of people with a specific focus on learning as transformatory participation (lave & wenger, 1991). in this paper, the term ‘olc’ refers to the desired characteristics of a learning community established through using the internet and web-based technologies. the challenge for educators in developing olcs is that they cannot be coerced or constructed (barab, kling, & gray, 2004). their development relies on the lecturer facilitating the collaborative relationships and critical dialogue required for learning (palloff & pratt, 1999). in order to inform this process, the two purposes of this paper are to: 1. describe the development of a framework for developing an online learning community 2. provide evidence for the value of the framework, based on findings of a semester-long case study of a fully online asynchronous graduate-level course. khoo, e., & cowie, b. 48 specifically, this paper proposes a framework that conceptualises learning as a mediated, situated, distributed, goal-directed, and participatory activity within a learning community. these theoretical ideas are briefly described next, followed by a description of the research context where these ideas emerged and were explored, and the development and findings from the implementation of the framework. implications are outlined for adopting the framework to facilitate teaching–learning experiences and engage students in deeper and more meaningful learning processes. learning as participation in a learning community members of a learning community participate in the community’s valued activities by taking different roles and responsibilities which change over time as their expertise develops (lave & wenger, 1991). seen this way, understanding how learning occurs requires a focus on how learners participate in particular activities and practices, how they appropriate the available tools, artefacts, and social networks, and how they use and value the different discourses in their local setting. an effective learning community depends fundamentally on developing the social and emotional ties between its members, and on fostering interactions that support and develop its members intellectually, socially, and emotionally. adopting this stance for online learning directs attention to how people participate (or not) in online discussions, including the kinds of roles they adopt to accomplish collaborative activities (hrastinski, 2008; zhu, 1996). the nature of interactions occurring in these discussions is thus critical to understanding and supporting the participative learning process of olcs (daniel, schwier, & ross, 2007). in this case, reciprocal online interaction patterns and roles that support participants’ intellectual, social, and emotional transformations are generally taken as evidence of the outcome of participation in an olc (thurston, 2005). in this paper it is proposed that the nature of transformatory participation is framed by and accomplished through four key aspects: participation as mediated action, participation as distributed cognition, participation as situated activity, and participation as goaldirected (khoo, 2010). participation as mediated action from a learning community perspective, human action uses cultural tools and artifacts as mediational means to accomplish a task or objective (wenger, 1998). these cultural tools (physical, technical, psychological, or symbolic) are necessarily situated in the sociocultural context in which they are used. they embody the shared understanding and heritage of a community. the notion of mediated action highlights the role of web-based tools and activities in influencing a learner’s developing understanding. the affordances of web-based technology are fundamental to interaction, and mediate the relationships and intimacy that develop within an online community. participation as situated activity learning and knowledge are situated in the contexts, activities, and culture in which they are used (greeno, collins, & resnick, 1996). the notion of situated activity highlights the role of authentic and relevant activities. these provide a context for meaningful learning experiences whereby members of an olc can work collaboratively with their peers. the affordances offered by authentic situated activity include those that encourage learners to participate and thus contribute to the distribution of cognition in that activity. participation as distributed cognition the concept of distributed cognition acknowledges the social aspects of cognition (salomon, 1993). in an online community, distribution occurs through the affordances and constraints offered by the available web-based technology and resources. as participants communicate, interact, and collaborate, they access the knowledge, understanding, and skills distributed across the group to achieve results that would otherwise be difficult for an individual. in this process, journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 49 some ways of participating are more useful than others in fostering goals that guide students towards becoming responsible active participants. participation as goal-directed all action is goal-directed. classroom learning as goal-directed connotes teaching as structuring goal-directed learning activities and assisting students to achieve those goals through meaningful and productive social interactions (smith, teemant, & pinnegar, 2004). lecturers’ consideration of the goals different activities can support is important when designing activities that are intended to contribute to learner participation in the social process of knowledge construction. research context the research project aimed to enhance online teaching–learning practice and student learning through collaboration between the researcher and an online teacher, adrian. 1 the researcher, who is the first author, was interested in investigating quality online learning contexts. adrian was a senior lecturer in the faculty of education at the university of waikato, new zealand. he was an experienced face-to-face lecturer who, at the time of the data collection, had taught the graduate educational research methods course for almost 10 years. however, he was also a novice online lecturer, having taught the online version of the course just twice before. adrian was frustrated that the asynchronous nature of online communication meant he was unable to engage in dialogue in the way he was accustomed to in face-to-face teaching. challenging students’ thinking was also problematic, because it was easier for students to opt out of participating online. adrian was keen to participate in the research, perceiving it as an opportunity for systematic reflection on, and refinement to, his online teaching practice. he was particularly interested in implementing strategies to prompt more student interaction so that students could better grasp the breadth of the area and obtain a broader notion of research literacy. to assist adrian, the researcher sought to identify a suitable framework to guide the development and implementation of a pedagogical intervention that would improve his online student learning experiences. journeying towards a framework a baseline faculty-wide survey was conducted to ensure the framework was relevant to the study context. the survey ascertained lecturer and student perceptions of online learning and how learning could be successfully facilitated. results were synthesised with the outcomes of a review of pertinent literature to develop a framework that was implemented and evaluated in adrian’s graduate research methods course. a qualitative interpretive methodology underpinned the study research design (maykut & morehouse, 1994). a baseline survey ten online lecturers (four experienced online lecturers and six volunteers) were interviewed. they taught a range of undergraduate and graduate-level courses and had online teaching experience ranging from1 to 15 years. the lecturers assisted in providing access to their students. of the 30 students who responded to the questionnaire, 12 voluntarily participated in a follow-up interview. descriptive statistics was used to analyse trends in the questionnaire data. analysis of the interviews involved careful reading, coding, and categorising of key ideas to identify significant emerging themes. the key themes emerging from the survey were that, firstly, online learning is a social and interactive process best characterised by the notion of a learning community and, secondly, webbased technologies afford and constrain the learning process. furthermore, successful online 1 pseudonyms are used in this study. khoo, e., & cowie, b. 50 student learning could be facilitated through a range of lecturer responsibilities and teaching practices which were associated with four key roles—pedagogical, managerial, social, and technological (khoo, forret, & cowie, 2010). social and interactional processes were highly valued by all participants (as exemplified by jake, a lecturer): online learning gives the opportunity for people to have dialogues with each other which are generative rather than to sit in their own isolated study space and think things through in relation just to a book. half of the lecturers specified that the social learning process inherent in forming a learning community was helpful to students’ constructive and purposeful class interactions. peter explains: i try to encourage them [students] to think about the fact that in any of our online courses we are a learning community and that means we need to be sharing our ideas with one another and agreeing and disagreeing with one another but doing so in a respectful sort of way. in developing a learning community, the role of the web-based technology was thought to be crucial in affording teaching–learning interactions by giving lecturers the accessibility, flexibility, and convenience of teaching online. ralph, a lecturer, exemplified this idea: the ability to teach online gives you the flexibility. you don’t have to front up to a class at ten o’clock on a monday morning, every monday for five weeks but you do have a professional responsibility for ensuring what’s actually happening then. all participants highlighted that useful pedagogical practices for supporting student learning (in line with the four key online lecturer roles) included focusing on making the course goals and purposes explicit, having a clear course structure with clear links between different course components and regular updates for students, providing guidelines for student contributions, modelling productive online communication practices, and providing technical assistance on request. insights from the literature recommendations from the literature generally supported the baseline findings (anderson, 2008; bonk, wisher, & nigrelli, 2004; salmon, 2000). additionally, the literature that relates to the teaching and learning of research-methods courses and adult learners was examined. key insights from this literature were:  the value of using situated, meaningful, and relevant real-world tasks and activities to support students’ learning, including their participation in a community of practice (conceição, 2002; pallas, 2001). such task-based learning activities support learning through collaboration, allow sharing of multiple perspectives, and demonstrate learning in a more tangible and meaningful manner  an emphasis on clarifying and aligning learning goals to pedagogical strategies and assessment activities; using formative assessment strategies, and lecturer modelling of their understanding of research methods to help students see the relevance and allay their misconceptions from the first day of the course (altinay & paraskevas, 2007; benson & blackman, 2003). journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 51 synthesising key findings the key findings from the baseline survey and literature were distilled and integrated into five guiding principles. guiding principle 1 allows that the key affordances of web-based technologies lie in their communicative and interactive potential to pave the way for more egalitarian approaches to teaching and learning. the transparency of the technology adopted is fundamental to this principle. guiding principle 2 espouses that interaction and collaboration on team products within an environment that is safe, inviting, and promotes member trust and respect allows students and lecturers to take full advantage of web-based technology affordances. guiding principle 3 highlights using authentic activities that are situated in real-world contexts and meaningful to learner needs and interests as important for learning. carefully selecting such tasks or activities can afford social and intellectual interactions that support collective or shared learning goals. guiding principle 4 refers to the goals inherent in a learning activity. these goals can foster different kinds of learning interactions and pedagogical strategies within the context of a collaborative learning enterprise. finally, guiding principle 5 specifies the importance of developing a learning community as being essential for fostering more meaningful learning processes. each of the five principles recognises and supports each of the five ideas associated with a sociocultural view of learning espoused earlier in this paper. guiding principle 1 maps the idea of mediated action, guiding principle 2 connects with the idea of distributed cognition, guiding principle 3 recognises the nature of activity as situated, guiding principle 4 relates to the idea of goal directedness, and guiding principle 5 advocates participation in authentic community practices. consequently, these ideas of mediated, situated, distributed, goal-directed, and participatory activity within a socially and culturally determined learning community were adopted as elements of the pedagogical framework used to assist adrian to redesign his course. the framework was then implemented to test its usefulness in supporting student learning. the framework in action educational research methods is a compulsory course in the graduate education programme in the faculty of education. it is usually conducted three times a year—the summer-school semester, semester a and semester b. both the summer school and semester a versions of the course are face-to-face courses, while the semester b version is conducted online. typically 20 students, mostly mid-career professional educators seeking additional postgraduate qualifications, enrol in the course. the course focuses on discussions of mostly qualitative research methodologies and research methods of obtaining data, and includes research quality and ethical issues. it consists of four modules (conceptual issues, data collection methods, multiple research approaches, and design and summary overview) completed over 12 weeks. the modules are built upon one another in a coherent manner to provide students with a holistic view of educational research. each module involved student participation in weekly online activities and discussions which began on a monday morning and ended the following sunday night. using the framework to plan for participation to work with adrian, a collaborative approach was adopted. this approach, the negotiated intervention strategy (jones & simon, 1991), framed and translated the pedagogical framework into teaching strategies (khoo & cowie, accepted for publication). this required the researcher to work collaboratively with adrian to negotiate the design of teaching activities through an iterative process that also responded to issues that emerged in the teaching–learning process. a summary of the intervention teaching activities, as well as the mediating web-based tools adopted in the masters research methods course, is shown in table 1. khoo, e., & cowie, b. 52 table 1 translating the framework into practice framework elements mediating web-based tools examples of intervention teaching strategies participation in a learning community entry and enculturation into the class responsibilities, beliefs and practices online class announcements, online public discussion area, online photos, online class resources  course introductions, ice-breakers, lecturer and student introductions/biography  reminders for students to introduce themselves online and post their photos (especially late enrolments)  prompt feedback to student queries  use of the research overview diagram a for students to link their background experiences and connect to the course work  use of online participation tips b and advice from previous students c to set expectations for new and experienced online students in the class, and to establish norms of conduct  clear course expectations and deadlines  weekly updates/prompts to remind students about the week’s topics and how they are to participate  reminders and models of good online communication, and use of conflict-resolution mechanisms  links to technical and library assistance mediated action selection of tools and activities that afford and mediate interaction and participation online photos, online public and private (portfolios) discussion areas, web links, online portfolios, faq f folder  use of scenarios d and our group response e to generate discussions, foster group accountability, and prompt group positioning of ideas  prompted use of peer feedback in the group discussions  use of the practice and play g area  use of the break time, h can anyone help? i and farewell/moving on j discussion forums  links to technical and library assistance situated activity selection of authentic and relevant tasks that situate activity online announcements, online public discussion area, faq folder, web links  use of scenarios as authentic contexts to depict real-life research issues and foster purposeful collaboration and discussions  just-in-time resources  prompt feedback to student queries  links to technical and library assistance distributed cognition shared spaces for interaction, generating ideas, collaboration and team products online photos, students’ contacts, online announcements, online public discussion area, web links, faq folder  use of scenarios to support authoritative sharing of background experience and ideas for discussion  peer feedback positioned as valid in the group discussions  students present their group’s position with regard to the scenarios in our group response  lecturer mentoring, monitoring, referring, and linking to students’ ideas to affirm their contributions  prompt feedback to student queries  reminders and models of good online communication, and use of conflict-resolution mechanisms  use of the break time, can anyone help? and farewell/moving on discussion forums  links to technical and library assistance goal-directed selection of activities that accomplishes particular goals online public and private (portfolios) discussion areas, online class announcements, online class resources, faq folder, web links  use of different scenarios to generate discussion on various course-related ideas  use of a variety of group and individual tasks in the course discussions and assignments to serve different pedagogical purposes  weekly reminders of the purpose of discussion topics journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 53 note: a the research overview diagram illustrates the key features of educational research as mapped in the course components, and how the different components are relevant to real-life research conduct. b online participation tips contains guidelines for online conduct and communicating. c advice from previous students contains advice from previous students. d scenarios are problem-based cases designed to encourage student participation and engagement with ideas (in their groups), to foster a sense of belonging to a community, create shared knowledge, and achieve course goals. e our group response discussion forum is for student groups to share their final (consensus) position regarding issues raised in the scenarios. f faq is frequently asked questions. g practice and play is an area for students to practice and develop their technical skills in using the web-based tools available in the course. h break time is a student-only discussion forum for students to have informal chats/conversations with their peers. i can anyone help? is a forum for students to ask their peers for help. j farewell/moving on is a forum for students to share highlights of their course experiences, to bring closure at the end of the course. students were sent a course introductory pack 2 weeks before the course started. the online class was made available 1 week before the course start date. students were asked to log on to familiarise themselves with the features of the online class environment and the course structure. they were asked to post a brief introduction and their photograph online, to help class members get to know them before the course started. students were randomly allocated to one of three discussion groups for online course work. no marks were allocated for students’ online contributions but they had to participate online to pass the course. online participation guidelines were provided because the 14 students were from very diverse backgrounds, ages, experiences, and geographical locations, and not all had previously studied online. online class postings were collected as data. student questionnaires and interviews conducted at the end of the semester were used to assess the extent to which the intervention was successful in facilitating meaningful learning experiences. the questionnaires and interviews focused on students’ experience with the course content, structure, and teaching–learning interactions. additionally, daily observations of the teaching–learning processes were conducted throughout the course, and weekly interviews were held with adrian. eleven of the 14 students in the course consented to participate in the research. evaluating participation within the frame the overall findings from implementing the sociocultural framework and associated teaching strategies revealed a transformation in participation as well as a shift in aspects of participants’ intellectual, social, and emotional development as the course progressed. a brief overview of the findings as they relate to the framework is described next, accompanied with supporting participant quotes from the data. detailed aspects of the analysis and findings have been reported elsewhere (see khoo & cowie, 2010). analysis of online posting rates indicated an overall increase in participation over the period of the course. all students participated in the course discussions, with a total of 325 online student contributions. the lecturer made 83 online contributions. the lecturer’s general participation in the course was initially quite high but gradually declined as students took on more active roles and forms of interactions. the findings showed evidence of the value of mediated, situated, and distributed participation and shifts in participant goals. khoo, e., & cowie, b. 54 the value of technology tools in mediating participation the web-based course tools afforded students access across time and space to a wide range of learning opportunities in the course. melody, a student, highlighted how the flexibility of online learning encouraged her participation: i do it [sign online] around the rest of my life like after school at night. i went online most days and i was at least checking what was happening if not putting something on. shania, another student, found the asynchronous nature of online learning allowed helpful access to peer-sharing and idea generation: being able to read other peoples’ contributions was good ... and interesting looking at the other contributions and reading those and thinking ‘no, they are wrong’ or ‘no, you’ve missed the point there’. the value of situated participation a survey on the value of the intervention teaching activities revealed all students thought the scenarios were ‘somewhat useful’ or ‘very useful’ in depicting real-life educational research issues that contributed an authentic context for discussing the course readings. sapphire thought the scenario helped her group to bond more closely and develop a sense of responsibility for one another’s learning: i would say the weekly group scenarios in class [were the most useful] because you felt— not the pressure—but you felt like you had to perform—like you couldn’t have just let the group do it all—you all had to. adrian considered the scenarios effective in encouraging student participation because they were required to negotiate and come to a group consensus about a task for which they might all be expected to be able bring some background knowledge. for example, the topic of scenario two, which was to consider how to determine the extent that internet-based teaching–learning practices are adopted in school, was a controversial topic at the time. another course activity, the collaborative sharing and constructive critique of ideas in preparation of assignments (a1), provided an authentic context (albeit in a different way) of how educational researchers share and communicate their ideas. a student response in the survey regarding a1 was: i felt that this gave an opportunity for all to contribute and to voice what we did not know, as opposed to what we did know. i found that helped a lot. the distribution of authority and responsibility to support participation the course design included a number of strategies to distribute authority and responsibility. one example was the collaborative group activity (a1) that distributed responsibility for task completion and, at the same time, ensured multiplicity of contributions. adrian made special mention of this as fostering both student interaction and accountability: it gave them [students] a better sense of group accountability, a better sense of interacting with others ... and it made them look at each other’s ideas. that was crucial. it made them acknowledge each other as well. so i think there are some powerful lessons to be learnt here. distributed expertise was also revealed in student online postings that indicated their supportive sharing of experiences and course ideas to the discussions: tanya (posting #16, week 4): vance, i felt that your question sequence has a clear flow. very concise. according to cohen (2001) … you can stem each question to questionnaire responses. i like it. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 55 the evolution of participation goals changing participation as a result of an olc was illustrated through student reports of the evolution of their learning goals, from competitive individualistic ones at the onset of the course, to a more collaborative view by the end of it: … but that’s a change of outlook on it—from a collaborative instead of a competitive view. as undergrads we did talk about a lot of stuff but always at the end was the exam, which was totally your own, you were responsible for your own results. this is kind of the other way round. it’s like you are responsible for your own beginning but the group is responsible for your end. i think the attitude to have is that this is an ongoing conversation. it’s a conversation and a discussion where people can contribute and every contribution is valuable to adding to the knowledge. (shania) such transformation from individual to shared purposes at the end of the course is an important characterisation of a learning community. the transformation in participation a transformation in student participation was evidenced through changes in participants’ intellectual, social, and emotional aspects (khoo & forret, in press). melody exemplified this change. her intellectual development was demonstrated through the development of her knowledge of the vocabulary of research methods: i have just never had a huge vocabulary and so it grows as you study, you learn new words ... it got better. melody’s social development was seen from her appreciation for the social and interactional aspects of learning with and through her peers: most of the time, i find it [other contributions] really valuable because they would often bring up points that i didn’t think of. it’s affirming ... sometimes i disagreed with their thinking but it was okay because there was no right or wrong about what we were saying. it’s just that we were thinking of it differently. i just incorporated what everyone said. it’s good to disagree. melody’s experience of an emotional development was evident in her feeling more confident about being involved in discussion on research: the first sort of week or so online, one of the very early contributions [from another student] about ‘what is education?’ was very technical. i couldn't even understand what he was saying and i was thinking ‘oh god, how am i going to do this course?’ then luckily somebody online said basically that she couldn’t even understand what he was saying … that really helped me. discussion a concern raised in the literature is that of how to assist online practitioners to enhance their practice and to design learning environments that respond to students’ ongoing learning needs as espoused through the notion of learning communities. in this paper, we have described an emergent approach to developing a framework for olc facilitation that is relevant and appropriate to the online teaching–learning context. findings from the implementation of the framework in a masters research methods course evidenced the notion of learning as a mediated, situated, distributed, goal-directed, and participatory activity within a socially and culturally determined learning community. student interactions and development with intellectual, social, and emotional foci further support the existence of a learning community within the class (sewell & george, 2008). such an emergent approach in designing and developing online learning environments essentially recognises the sociocultural complexities of khoo, e., & cowie, b. 56 teaching and learning relationships in order to facilitate quality learning experiences (schwen & hara, 2003). although potential pedagogical frameworks could be identified from the general literature to guide the development and implementation of online learning experiences in the study, both the researcher and case-study lecturer were keen to adopt a framework that would be relevant and suited to the teaching-and-learning context of the course. such considerations support the call to regard new zealand’s unique qualities when developing online learning environments and recognise the undue application of educational findings from international forums into local contexts (alton-lee, 2004). the approach undertaken in this study provides some leverage for addressing these concerns. in spite of the value and benefits of adopting the framework and approach described in this study, there were some challenges. the lecturer considered that, at times, the approach was time consuming. working this way has the potential for conflict between the different sub-cultures of students within the community, and for tensions between the shaping of individual member interests and community interests (khoo, 2010). bearing the benefits and potential challenges in mind, adopting the sociocultural framework proposed in this study has a number of implications. first, lecturers need to be clear about their reasons for establishing an olc, and use these reasons to guide their planning so they incorporate pedagogical strategies for communitybuilding. guidelines and rules that specify norms for participation as well as mechanisms for conflict resolution can help all community members to feel included and accepted. second, consideration needs to be given to not only intellectual but also social and emotional processes of student development when designing course teaching and assessment activities and when monitoring how students are participating in a course. this can be challenging, given that course requirements and regulations in tertiary institutions tend to focus on the individual and on the end products of learning. nevertheless, adopting an olc as a pedagogical strategy importantly entails broadening course assessment practices. these need to recognise the intellectual, social, and emotional aspects of learning and the value of the processes involved in shaping individual and group knowledge. third, online lecturers need to create learning environments that foster interaction and collaborative teamwork so that students can capitalise on the diverse expertise of the community. lecturers need to feel comfortable in relinquishing some control of their teaching to students in the learning process. students, on the other hand, need to take on more responsibility for planning their own learning, for negotiating learning goals within a group, and for contributing to and drawing from group resources. fourth, teaching–learning activities and web-based tools need to afford opportunities for interaction, collaboration, and participation. activities that are situated in authentic and meaningful contexts that require students to interact, and allow them to see real-world relevance and application of ideas, are likely to provide these opportunities. designed activities should contribute to the development of a collaborative community and the pursuit of learning outcomes congruent with the goals of the particular course. finally, simply making the technology with all its affordances available to online lecturers and students does not necessarily result in quality learning experiences. promoting successful online learning requires support and initiative at the institutional level to ensure that sufficient time, structures, and incentives are in place for lecturers to develop and maintain olcs. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 57 conclusion while the generalisability of findings from a single case study is somewhat limited, the proposed framework contributes to understanding how to develop olcs from a sociocultural perspective. the framework reconceptualises successful online learning practice as that of active transformatory participation where this is framed and shaped by the use of authentic and relevant tasks to situate 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(2004). principles and practices of sociocultural assessment: foundations for effective strategies for linguistically diverse classrooms. multicultural perspectives, 6(2), 38–46. doi:10.1207/s15327892mcp0602_8 thurston, a. (2005). building online learning communities. technology, pedagogy and education, 14(3), 353–369. doi:10.1080/14759390500200211 wenger, e. (1998). communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. cambridge: cambridge university. zhu, e. (1996). meaning negotiation, knowledge construction and mentoring in a distance learning course (eric document 397849). retrieved from http://eric.ed.gov/pdfs/ed397849.pdf biographical notes dr elaine khoo ekhoo@waikato.ac.nz research fellow wilf malcolm institute of educational research (wmier) university of waikato, new zealand dr elaine khoo has research interests in pedagogical strategies in technology-based and technologysupported learning environments. bronwen cowie bcowie@waikato.ac.nz director, wilf malcolm institute of educational research (wmier) university of waikato, new zealand associate professor bronwen cowie has particular interests in assessment for learning, ict in science education, and classroom interactions � this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 new zealand license. khoo, e., & cowie, b. (2010). a framework for developing and implementing an online learning community. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 15(1), 47–59. http://eric.ed.gov/pdfs/ed397849.pdf mailto:ekhoo@waikato.ac.nz mailto:bcowie@waikato.ac.nz http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/nz/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/nz/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/nz/ microsoft word lavin.docx rose, sr. m. 32 what are some key attributes of effective online teachers? sister mary rose o.p., rosary tertiary institute abstract this article explores some key attributes of effective online tertiary educators. using qualitative research methods, data were collected via semi-structured interviews which were conducted with a small sample of university academics in new zealand and australia, and analysed using an inductive approach and open and closed coding techniques. in this particular study, the term “attribute” was interpreted broadly to include any quality, feature, or pedagogical action attributed to an effective online tertiary educator. results from the analysis identified the following five attributes: effective online teachers avoid a didactic approach, vary their pedagogy, use productive failure, facilitate the learning process and provide a seamless structure. given the limitations of the study (small sample size, lack of student views), the findings cannot be generalised without further work, but do provide some information about key elements which may support innovative adaptions to the teaching and learning process in an online space. keywords: online teaching and learning; quality teaching; effective teaching introduction according to hightower et al. (2011), “few topics in education have captured as much attention . . . as the connection between teaching quality and student achievement” (p. 2). as a consequence, there is an overwhelming body of research which highlights the fact that highquality teaching has a profound, positive and transformational impact on the teaching and learning process (adams et al., 2015; belsito, 2016; blömeke, olsen, & suhl, 2016; decristan et al., 2015; göllner, wagner, eccles, & trautwein, 2018; gordon, 2012; henard & roseveare, 2012; ustunluoglu, 2017). in fact, after decades of research hattie (2003) concludes that “excellence in teaching is the single most powerful influence on achievement” (p. 4). stronge (2010) argues, too, that “of all the factors within our control in the educational enterprise, teacher quality matters most” (p. 85). according to scholarly research, effective teachers enhance student educational outcomes (blazar, 2015; condon, 2016; gordon, 2012; nilsen & gustafsson, 2016), encourage thinking skills of a higher order such as the ability to critique and to think outside the box, move beyond surface learning, and focus on deep and long-lasting learning (abrami et al., 2015; berger, woodfin, & vilen, 2016; wang, pascarella, nelson laird, & ribera, 2015). and they have greater student satisfaction as a result (bobe & cooper, 2018; oolbekkink-marchand, van driel, & verloop, 2014). research also links quality learning experiences with higher retention rates at tertiary level (hu, mccormick, & gonyea, 2012). according to tinto (2006), when teachers make the effort to do all they can to support students in their academic endeavours and to ensure they feel a sense of belonging at a given institute, the students more often than not persevere in their studies and make it to graduation. if quality teaching matters, therefore, what does it look like? and if tertiary level teaching and learning is moving rapidly into the online environment (allen & seaman, 2014; crawford-ferre & wiest, 2012; lee, 2017; scheg, 2014; serdyukov, 2015), what does quality online teaching look like? journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(2) 33 review of literature: effective online teaching key aspects that emerged from a review of literature include the fact that effective online teachers foster student relationships (barbour & bennett, 2013; garrison, anderson, & archer, 2001; hoyle, 2010; lai, 2017; stroet, opdenakker, & minnaert, 2013; velasquez, graham, & osguthorpe, 2013). that is to say, right at the very start of a course they attempt to connect with students online (brinthaupt, fisher, raffo, woodard, & gardner, 2011). according to empirical studies, this connection can take the form of posting introductory tasks in which students are invited to introduce themselves, making efforts to contribute regularly via discussion postings, and/or providing weekly updates by means of a video file (bangert, 2008; garrison et al., 2001). bangert (2008) calls this fostering an online “teacher presence”. bailey & card (2009) argue that effective online teachers show understanding and compassion, and hoyle (2010) maintains that lecturers even need to “go the extra mile and do some hand holding and advising should it be needed” (p. 39). another aspect that was emphasised in the literature was the notion of an online community of learners (archard, 2014; bryant & bates, 2015; budu, 2018; del rosal, ware, & montgomery, 2016; khoo, forret, & cowie, 2010; sun & chen, 2016; yuan & kim, 2014). ouzts (2006) defines this term as “a group of learners who have a sense of belonging” (p. 2). central to this theme was the concept of an online “social presence” (howard, 2015; huang, law, & lee, 2018; wei, chen, & kinshuk, 2012; weinel, bannert, zumbach, hoppe, & malzahn, 2011), which entails a combination of interaction and communication between peers and between students and instructors; the concept of an online teacher presence (ke, 2010); and the concept of a “cognitive presence” which garrison et al. (2001) define as “the extent to which learners are able to construct and confirm meaning through sustained reflection and discourse in a critical community of inquiry” (p. 11). when online teachers devote themselves to fostering an online social presence and teacher presence, the end result is a more advanced cognitive presence (bangert, 2008). yuan and kim (2014) maintain that it is crucial for online teachers to begin building a community of learners right from the very start of a course, and that students need to understand the term and the importance of such a community for enhanced learning outcomes. in terms of fostering a community of learners thereafter, pytash, hicks, and ferdig (2016) advise reaching out to experts so that students can learn from, and communicate and interact with, “elite” members in their field. yuan and kim (2014) suggest posting tasks which require students to discuss thought-provoking topics and collaborate, and khoo et al. (2010) maintain that students benefit from regular face-to-face sessions. according to yuan and kim (2014) such social interaction “enhances learning interaction, fosters the development of critical thinking skills, improves learning performance and leads to greater satisfaction with a course” (p. 223). finally, in a study conducted in the united states, young (2006) surveyed a select sample of students, at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, to elicit their views on effective online practices in higher education. the result of the survey produced seven distinct characteristics which, according to young (2006), embody effective online teaching. it is important to note that each characteristic could link to similar studies on effective online teaching. the seven characteristics were “adapting to student needs” (young, 2006, p. 7; cargile cook & grantdavie, 2016), “providing meaningful examples” (young, 2006, p. 73; dyer et al., 2015), “motivating students to do their best” (young, 2006, p. 73; lehman & conceição, 2014), “facilitating the course effectively” (young, 2006, p. 73; yuan & kim, 2014), “delivering a valuable course” (young, 2006, p. 73; keengwe & kidd, 2010; rao & tanners, 2011), “communicating effectively” (young, 2006, p. 73; crichton & mcdaid, 2016), and “showing concern for student learning” (young, 2006, p. 73; lehman & conceição, 2014). rose, sr. m. 34 the results of a broad review of national and international literature lead to the surmise that effective online teachers foster student relationships and make efforts to establish a community of online learners by encouraging a social presence and a teacher presence. as has been argued, this leads to a higher cognitive presence. key pedagogical practices for effective online teaching were also uncovered. given that there is a substantial body of evidence to suggest that quality teaching does matter, uncovering the precise nature of how this is achieved in an online space in australasia has wide-ranging benefits. purpose statement the aim of this inquiry was to identify some key attributes of effective online educators. the following research question was used to guide the research project: “what are some key attributes of effective online tertiary teachers?” the term “attribute” was interpreted broadly as any quality, feature, or pedagogical action attributed to an effective online tertiary educator, and the term “effective” was defined as maximising student educational outcomes. method of data collection given the nature of the topic and the limitations connected with such a small-scale research project, semi-structured elite interviews were conducted with a small sample of experienced senior university academics (gillham, 2003). this was done for a few reasons. firstly, interviewing elite persons (i.e., opting to interview experts in the field of effective online instruction at tertiary level) meant that the researcher was “in a privileged position” (gillham, 2003, p. 81) to collect data from those considered to be well informed and well versed in the area. all participants were considered experts in the field of online teaching and learning, technology-enhanced learning, and research by their educational institute—and all held the title of doctor, associate professor, or professor. secondly, opting for semi-structured interviews and open-ended questions meant that participants were free to elaborate on a number of issues without constraint (galletta, 2013). thirdly, opting for an open conversational framework meant that the researcher could pose additional questions and seek further clarification, particularly in terms of how theoretical concepts could be practically realised in real-life contexts. in regard to the data collection process, letters were sent to seven institutions via email. five participants from four institutions responded and agreed to participate in this study. new zealand represented 20% of the sample size and australia 80%. all interviews lasted 50 to 60 minutes. three interviews were conducted via skype and two interviews were conducted face to face. at the start of each interview, all participants agreed to the interview being recorded for data analysis purposes only. the following questions were used to guide the interview. • could you tell me a bit about yourself? your work? your research? your experience? your credentials? • what does quality teaching look like to you? • drawing from your own experience and expertise, particularly in australasia, what attributes or qualities would you say contribute to effective online lecturing? • describe a situation, in as much detail as possible, in which you demonstrated effective online lecturing. • what have you learnt over the years in terms of effective online pedagogical practices? • what else would you like to say regarding our topic of conversation before we end the interview? all participants gave informed consent to the researcher, in adherence with the massey university human ethics code (massey university, 2015). a human ethics risk assessment was journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(2) 35 carried out and approval for the research project was obtained from the massey university human ethics committee (southern b, application 14/05). due to the political sensitivity of the topic, and bearing in mind institutional competition, names of participants and institutions were not identified and pseudonyms were used in all places. the researcher also considered possible conflicts of interest relating to this study and thus made a diligent effort to ensure that all participants were not known to the interviewer, either personally or professionally. method of data analysis all audio recordings were transcribed verbatim and member-checked by each of the participants to guarantee the accuracy and the credibility of the resulting findings (birt, scott, cavers, campbell, & walter, 2016). data were analysed using an inductive or bottom-up approach. this involves allowing patterns, themes, and general conclusions to emerge from the data (schulz, 2012). as part of this process a content analysis was carried out; that is, chunks of data were taken and linked with key ideas and concepts using a technique called open coding (schulz, 2012). open coding was done by hand and then closed coding was used to confirm overall themes and conclusions (schulz, 2012). direct quotations were used to further enhance the credibility of findings and to align with the fact that, in the case of elite interviews, qualitative data should be reported in full via “extensive direct quotation” (gillham, 2003, p. 83). findings five key themes emerged which are directly related to the research question: “what are some key attributes of effective online teachers?” each is shown in more depth below. attribute 1: effective online teachers avoid a didactic approach one recurring theme was that effective online teaching and learning is not just about conveying information, presenting large chunks of material to students, and/or simply transmitting knowledge from the teacher to the learner. in fact, participants were almost unanimous in their negative views regarding the lecture-based approach (as can be seen below): lecturing is not what a lot of good online teachers do . . . because [that is] transmission mode and it is not the most effective way to teach online at all (associate professor ryan) i think often what happens with a lot of online teaching is it becomes textbooks online or lectures online and is didactic and it doesn’t necessarily deepen understanding (dr young) a textbook online . . . i really think that is a real danger in the space, you just replace the didactic approach in real time with whole chunks of data as opposed to allowing opportunities for interaction and ideas, sharing/swapping (dr young) expounding on why a didactic approach is not effective, participants gave the following observations. i always remember this video in the 80s, where they interviewed people about to graduate with 3 years of lectures in a science degree, and their conceptual knowledge of basic concepts like the eclipses and moon phases was lacking. they had just regurgitated the stuff, short recall, quizzes, and exams, and got high distinction (associate professor anderson) if you actually ask them questions where they need to explain how and why they might propose a certain solution . . . you find students who had the lecture approach initially, really struggle and i would argue often fail at those assessments (professor white) how often do people say, you know a company, we hired the top students from the very best universities and it takes 2 or 3 years before they can do anything useful for the company. rose, sr. m. 36 this is an example of what i would call inert knowledge problem—they did learn stuff in university from all their lectures but they didn’t learn it in a way that was cognitively available for them in flexible means and apply in a situation (professor white) attribute 2: effective online teachers vary their pedagogy another clear key theme that emerged from the qualitative data was the fact that effective online teachers vary their pedagogy. as one participant put it: teaching is so exciting now . . . you have all these wonderful tools at your disposal to create some magic for your students (associate professor anderson) explaining why such an approach is necessary, another participant remarked: students in the tertiary space are very time poor, you need to make sure that there are short chunks of learning that are pitched exactly at what you want the students to learn (dr young) going into more detail on this point, two participants commented that: people make content videos and put them up on line—sometimes they are far too long, 15– 20 minutes is too long, you need to make sure there are little chunks of learning (dr young) i think the chunks idea is good . . . a lot of students are looking at things in a cafe or on a train or on a mobile device, so they probably won’t have 50 mins, that is just the way the world works now, they will be engaging with these materials at macdonald’s or on a train, hopefully not watching t.v. they probably won’t be at a desk in a quiet room (associate professor anderson) when elaborating on how pedagogy could be varied in practice on an online environment, participants recommended: there are a whole range of learning opportunities that are available online—a short introductory lecture, it might be an interesting website, it might then move to a couple of key questions, a chat forum (dr young) so you might have students for example responding to a film prompt one week, it might be a resource you have provided with a little chunk of digital content, it might be a reading. i think that enabling students to come together using a google hangout or something like that is very effective (dr young) collaborative and cooperative learning, we know there is good evidence that you can have quality learning outcomes through working in teams and in pairs . . . they might be making something, making a video in teams, there are cloud-based video editing spaces (associate professor anderson) i would definitely advocate a face-to-face meeting of the whole group at a central location up front—at a mutually agreeable time/location—it’s a necessary way to start an online course (dr young) connecting and engaging with experts, beyond the teacher, was another point mentioned by two participants. each week for nine weeks for half an hour i would link up, via video conference, to other teachers in other parts of australia, other english teachers, to share their practice. for example, i connected them to the australian poets’ society and we had a wonderful halfhour session with the president of the australian poets’ society . . . i think reaching out to experts . . . is critical (dr young) journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(2) 37 i think the global connections thing is really exciting—you know—the ability to connect globally with other students and with other peers and to experts (associate professor anderson) attribute 3: effective online teachers use productive failure a prominent theme throughout the data was the notion of a problem-based framework for online teaching and learning called productive failure. in direct contrast to lecture-based approaches, one participant expanded on productive failure in the following way: the essence of productive failure is to have students initially engaged in activities prior to having any instruction at all . . . working on problems . . . giving it a go, coming up with their own ideas (professor white) you want the students to come up with the wrong ideas, and you are expecting it. that is why it is called productive failure. you have the failure first, then comes productive opportunities for deeper learning (professor white) when you require students to do more difficult open-ended problem solving and you give them new problems to solve, that haven’t been directly covered, this is when you start to see dramatically different learning outcomes (professor white) the initial phase is for them to explore, generate ideas and explore—and then the teacher is doing the consolidation where the teacher is working out a more authentic expert-like solution to the problem, while also then explaining your targeted ideas . . . so the consolidation phase is when you have the actual teaching goal, that is about 10–15 mins, then we have enough time for students to work on a subsequent problem (professor white) one participant went into more depth about teachers’ feedback: it is the kind of feedback that an expert has, somebody who has got deep disciplinary expertise . . . you demonstrate some real fundamental differences and how true experts think about and conceptualise and solve problems than what students do . . . (as a result) students themselves start to construct these schema, these ways of thinking that are going in the direction of being expert-like, setting the foundations for over time . . . they will have higher levels of understanding (professor white) other participants agreed with the principles of this approach in their own professional contexts. if you do a problem-solving or an inquiry approach you have projects that are meaningful and authentic . . . present them with some difficult challenging concepts (associate professor anderson) the first step in the week is what i call the entry; the entry is basically a situation in society . . . and it raises questions and i am not telling people how i will exactly deal with that . . . so people are exposed to a problem (dr rahier) explaining the challenges associated with such an approach to learning, one participant said: it is an uphill battle, people are so used to teaching the kids first, and then have them do something, give them a lecture and then you give them a tutorial . . . the idea that you would turn that around, i would say really flipping the classroom, just seems so counterintuitive to people (professor white) explaining how such a theory could present itself in practice in the online environment, the following was noted: the key is really to ask the students to come up with as many ideas as they can about the problem or issue . . . you could make small groups of three or four . . . and each person in the rose, sr. m. 38 group is making comments, then the teacher can inspect what the different groups have been putting online, you have an online paper trail, and then from that the teacher has access to the ideas that they have come up with related to the problem, different groups may come up with different ideas. if you are doing an online presentation as the consolidation phase . . . talk through the problem, pointing out relevant ideas that you want to be stressing (professor white) asked whether productive failure could be recommended as a model every time one enters the online learning environment, the same participant noted: it is not going to be productive failure for every single thing but i think it can be a very powerful way to do learning (professor white) attribute 4: effective online teachers facilitate the learning facilitating the learning was another strong theme. one participant succinctly summarised this idea as “being able to keep a finger on the pulse of learning” (associate professor ryan). when prompted to elaborate on the principles related to this theme, the following comments were made: facilitation is about trying to include everybody, trying to know and understand your students, being an effective communicator . . . keeping communication going (associate professor ryan) there is also an element of content delivery or communication . . . an element of engaging students so the student presence is brought into the online environment, the student should be actively engaged (associate professor ryan) student presence, the online presence, is a really important thing . . . you can find quite a lot about that in the literature because there is social presence and online presence and again it depends on what the objectives and the teaching style of your course are— which ones are important but . . . learner presence is an important thing (associate professor ryan) the concept of a social presence online and the importance of the presence of the teacher was also mentioned by another participant. there are some lovely terms about social presence, cognitive presence of the teacher . . . i really like that (associate professor anderson) the idea of putting a powerpoint up online and pretending students are going to magically learn. i think that the teacher is possibly more important in these online spaces (associate professor anderson) when asked how facilitating the learning process could present itself in practice, the following participant gave an example in which colleagues successfully facilitated a mooc (a massive open online course). here are pertinent extracts from the interview: those teachers . . . had a particular way, two of them . . . which was quite different, it wasn’t quite revolutionary but it was getting towards that (associate professor ryan) they had online discussion forums, where students could answer each other’s questions, they could ask questions, they could talk about what they understood and what they didn’t understand, the idea being that a lot of students will help each other, but at the same time the lecturers were looking in all the time and deciding when they should intervene, so that might be if the conversation between students was going off track, they would intervene and bring it back on track. if there was something that people were just not getting or getting wrong they would intervene . . . it was generally well supported and there were the sort of weekly emails from the lecturers . . . in addition to the weekly tasks and instructions so it wasn’t journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(2) 39 information overload but it was enough information and those weekly emails were really based on what they saw the students talking about and struggling with. and so it was really targeted to what those learners needed at that point in time (associate professor ryan) attribute 5: effective online teachers provide seamless structure the final key theme that emerged from the data was the idea of a seamless organised online structure. speaking about this point, one participant said: one of the things that the students tell me that they like about one of the main subjects i teach, is the fact that it is very systematic, very clear, and it is very logical and predictable . . . very clear structure and very explicit learning objectives (dr rahier) expounding on this particular point, dr rahier suggested an organised set of microsystems within one weekly macrosystem or module. referring to the microsystems, he suggested first posing a problem and the learning objectives; then following with key readings, a video, quiz and activity; and, finally, consolidating the new learning by referring back to the problem and offering extension activities, which may be in the form of a critical reflection, a fun video or further readings. another point raised in relation to this particular theme, is the fact that technology plays an important part in the learning process. in two interviews it was emphasised that “technology in online learning needs to work seamlessly” (dr young) because “students do expect a high quality now because that is what they are exposed to” (associate professor anderson). discussion a common concern mentioned by nearly all participants was avoiding a didactic approach to online teaching and learning. to be more precise, this is a “teaching by telling approach” (freeman et al., 2014, p. 8410), where the instructor gives a lecture or discourse in the online space and the students are passive receptors. why is this to be avoided? bajak (2014) argues that it is not only boring, it is ineffective. and there is empirical evidence to support this claim. freeman et al. (2014) analysed 225 scholarly studies which compared student achievement in classes that had a dominant traditional lecture-based style of teaching, with classes that used a more active learning style to engage students in the learning process. results revealed that those in lecture-based classes “were 1.5 times more likely to fail” (freeman et al., 2014, p. 8410), thus confirming the opinion of one of the participants in the study who said: you find students who had the lecture approach initially, really struggle and i would argue often fail at those assessments (professor white). speaking of the disadvantages connected with this educational approach, chuang (2017) argues that when a lecture-based model of teaching is implemented, students are rarely given opportunities to interact and learn from peers and, as a consequence, the learning process is difficult to measure. mcloughlin and lee (2008) maintain that this is due to the fact that learning is seen in terms of an end product rather than a developmental learning process. the next theme, varying the pedagogy, clearly supports a more active or student-centred approach to learning. according to chuang (2017) active learning embodies problem-based learning, collaborative learning, and interactive learning. all of these approaches encourage a variety of short activities which engage students in the learning process. activities may include students solving problems independently or collaboratively, discussing and sharing thoughts with one another, producing new ideas, conversing with experts, and engaging with dynamic digital content. reflecting the opinion of two participants in this study who referred to students as timepoor, serdyokov (2015) argues that short activities are more effective these days because more rose, sr. m. 40 and more university students seem to have shorter attention spans and a disinclination to educational work in general. furthermore, there is also an overwhelming body of research connected with active learning which gives evidence of maximising student educational outcomes (awan, 2017; chiu & cheng, 2017; çukurbaşı & kıyıcı, 2017; walker, cotner, baepler, & decker, 2008). according to scholarly research, active learning approaches encourage students to think creatively, critically, and more deeply (awan, 2017; gholami et al., 2016; ulger, 2018); help students to understand concepts more easily and in a way which lasts longer than just short recall (mandeville & stoner, 2015; markant, ruggeri, gureckis, & xu, 2016); increase student satisfaction and engagement (awan, 2017; çukurbaşı & kıyıcı, 2017); and promote social skills (mandeville & stoner, 2015; ng, bridges, law, & whitehill, 2014). another approach which fits the category of active learning and was strongly highlighted in the findings is the theoretical framework of productive failure. this is aligned with problem-based learning, but diverges in the following way. while problem-based learning looks at “students solving ill-structured problems with the provision of various structures and scaffolds”, productive failure involves “students solving complex, ill-structured problems without the provision of any external support structures” (kapur & bielaczyc, 2012, p. 47). according to jacobson et al. (2017) productive failure has two key phases. firstly, the “generation and exploration” (jacobson et al., 2017, p. 3) phase, in which students are actively engaged in solving a complex problem at a level that is challenging but not exasperating. although students will fail in their attempt to solve the complex problem or set of problems (this is the very core of the approach), nonetheless, in the process they will have the opportunity to “activate prior knowledge and generate multiple representations and solution methods (rsms)” (jacobson et al., 2017, p. 3). the second phase consists of a “consolidation and knowledge assembly” (jacobson et al., 2017, p. 3) in which support is given by the teacher in such a way that students are able to see for themselves where they went wrong and why. in the words of kapur and bielaczyc (2012), this second phase provides “opportunities to compare and contrast the affordances and constraints of failed or suboptimal rsms and the assembly of canonical rsms” (p. 49). while the concept of failure as a teaching and learning tool is an area that is definitely underresearched (kapur & bielaczyc, 2012), particularly in australasia and in higher education, there is empirical evidence to suggest that it is a powerful tool for learning. in a study conducted in singapore, three schools, selected on the basis of three different academic abilities (low, average, and high ability), compared and contrasted a productive failure approach (fail first, then support), with a teacher-led instructional approach (teach first, then provide support). results revealed that in all cases students in productive failure classes outperformed those in direct instruction classes (kapur & bielaczyc, 2012). the same results were seen in a similar study conducted in india (kapur, 2014) and australia (jacobson et al., 2017). according to van lehn, siler, murray, yamauchi, and baggett (2003), this is because more advanced long-lasting learning occurs when students reach a difficult point, or impasse, which they cannot overcome by themselves. one key finding which emerged from the study and links with the results of the study conducted by young (2006), is the idea of effectively facilitating the learning process. elaborating on just how teachers can effectively facilitate online learning, merrill (2003) identifies four distinct roles. the first role is that of a “content and resource expert” (merrill, 2003, p. 14). the idea here is not one of a “talking head” (merrill, 2003, p. 14), which is linked to the notion of students being passive receptors. on the contrary, an effective facilitator is one who provides the subject matter, yet encourages students to engage and interact with it in ways which encourage new learning and new insights. students have the opportunity to discuss topics and problems and pose questions themselves. during the learning process, the facilitator is there as a guide and “content consultant” (merrill, 2003, p. 14) rather than as an authoritative figure. as was mentioned in one particular interview, effective facilitators don’t dominate discussions but they do jump in when conversations are heading off in different directions or when students are missing the plot journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(2) 41 completely, and they provide expert-like feedback in the form of weekly messages or personal posts. as one participant mentioned, this strategy really is centred on the learners. the second role is that of an “online social process expert” (merrill, 2003, p. 14). this idea links with the idea of a social presence and fostering an online “learning community”, both of which were identified in the literature review and in the qualitative data and embody effective online facilitation. according to merrill (2003), effective facilitators create engaging environments in which students interact with one another, design tasks and activities to encourage group interaction, post thought-provoking questions, and empower students so “the student presence is brought into the online environment” (associate professor ryan, 2017). discussion forums are an excellent way to promote social presence and build a community of learners because they promote peer-to-peer interaction as well as peer-to-facilitator interaction—this was often mentioned in the findings. however whiteside, dikkers, and swan (2017) also provide other means of communication such as digital storytelling and social networking sites like facebook and twitter. in regard to the latter, this is a whole new world opening up and researchers advise prudence and caution—using student social-networking platforms for academic purposes is still an under-researched area and many students might not feel comfortable blending personal use with study (whiteside, dikkers, & swan, 2017). the third and fourth roles of an effective facilitator are those of “manager of the structure” and “technical” expert (merrill, 2003, p. 14). these ideas link with the final theme, which is providing a seamless structure. in regard to the former role, merrill (2003) argues that it involves providing students with a clear path for success, coherent course content, and an easy-to-follow and well-structured online course. one finding which emerged from the data was the idea of an organised set of systems within a course. that is, an organised set of microsystems which include the following in this order: problem, learning objectives, key readings, video, quiz, activity, consolidation, and extension activities—all within a weekly macrosystem. such a state of affairs is in line with studies conducted in this area. in one study conducted in the us, 77.78% of graduate students strongly agreed that a well-organised online learning platform was vital (lee, 2014). in another study, also conducted in the us, students highlighted the importance of being able to find course materials easily (asherian, 2010). in regard to the latter role, merrill (2003) stressed the importance of facilitators maintaining a certain degree of competence in relation to personal digital literacy and new technologies in general. this point is very important for effective online teaching and learning as was noted by two participants. crawford-ferre and wiest (2012) suggest regular professional development and training in this area. would it not be imperative for online teachers to be up to date with the affordances that technology has to offer, to be in the know when it comes to current trends, and should they not have the skills to know what to do when something goes wrong? according to crawford-ferre and wiest (2012), there is a gap to fill here: “most instructors new to online teaching begin with little to no training or preparation specific to this delivery mode” (p. 13). conclusion an immense body of research confirms that quality teaching is important and does make a difference in the lives of our students. effective teachers have a profound impact on educational outcomes and a positive influence on the outcomes of the student lifecycle. as a consequence, the purpose of this research project was to explore some key attributes of effective online teachers in higher education. semi-structured interviews were carried out and qualitative data collected from a small sample of senior university academics in australia and new zealand. the results of this study identified five key attributes. firstly, effective online teachers avoid a learning approach which is didactic or lecture-based; that is, they avoid the temptation to think of the educational process simply in terms of “i speak, you listen”. secondly, effective online rose, sr. m. 42 teachers vary their pedagogy and actively engage students in the learning process via a range of diverse activities, problems, or tasks. thirdly, effective online teachers use productive failure; that is, an innovative teaching and learning tool which involves students tackling complex problems, failing in their attempt to do so but generating solutions they had not thought of before. fourthly, effective online teachers facilitate the learning process by establishing a learning-oriented social presence online. finally, effective online teachers provide seamless structure; that is, they ensure courses work well, have clear expectations, and are well-organised and easy to follow. implications the findings from this inquiry have the following implications. firstly, an innovative new learning design called productive failure was presented as one effective tool for online teaching and learning. it is recommended that teachers thoroughly ground themselves in the principles and practices in a more profound way than is presented here before embarking on implementation. one helpful scholarly resource is kapur and bielaczyc’s article on “designing for productive failure” (2012). it was noted that teachers involved in this particular study received training before they applied productive failure in the classroom. secondly, the findings highlight the need for teachers to reflect and to be open to new ways to teach online that would be more effective, and thus perhaps consider changing or modifying existing practices. thirdly, the findings also highlight the need for online facilitators to have high levels of digital competence given that they are expected to manage, maintain and manoeuvre through an online management system. limitations this research project has the following limitations. firstly, the significantly small sample of participants has to be taken into account. secondly, while efforts were made to ensure an even number of participants from australia and new zealand, circumstances prevented this from happening, and only one participant from new zealand was interviewed, compared to four in australia. finally, the fact that data was collected only from educators and no other stakeholders has to be taken into account. for example, findings might have been different had the study also included students’ perspectives. further research the results of this research project advocate further research in the area of productive failure, particularly at the level of tertiary education. added to that is the concept of failure as a teaching and learning tool. further research should also be undertaken to illicit student views on effective online teaching and learning as they are important stakeholders in the educational process. further research could be conducted into a range of effective pedagogical tools. furthermore, because few scholarly studies have been carried out in australia and new zealand to investigate the characteristics of effective online teachers, would it not be opportune to do further research in this area, particularly on a grand scale? after all, as has been emphasised, effective teachers have an enormously enriching effect on the educational process. references abrami, p. c., bernard, r. m., borokhovski, e., waddington, 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(2011). a closer look on social presence as a causing factor in computer-mediated collaboration. computers in human behavior, 27(1), 513–521. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2010.09.020 whiteside, a. l., dikkers, a. g., & swan, k. (eds.). (2017). social presence in online learning: multiple perspectives on practice and research (first edition). sterling, va: stylus. young, s. (2006). student views of effective online teaching in higher education. american journal of distance education, 20(2), 65–77. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15389286ajde2002_2 yuan, j., & kim, c. (2014). guidelines for facilitating the development of learning communities in online courses: development of online learning communities. journal of computer assisted learning, 30(3), 220–232. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcal.12042 biographical notes sister mary rose o.p., rosary tertiary institute sistermaryroseop@gmail.com sister mary rose o.p. (angela lavin) is a traditional dominican sister with perpetual vows. she holds a b.a. degree in education (massey university), a graduate diploma in teaching (secondary, bethlehem tertiary institute), a master of education (e-learning, massey university) and is currently undertaking a phd at notre dame university (sydney). sister rose has over 12 years’ teaching experience and has taught at all levels—primary, secondary and tertiary. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. rose, sr. m. (2018). what are some key attributes of effective online teachers? journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(2), [32–48.]. microsoft word carr.docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(1) 13 transitioning the team: supporting distance supervised doctor of business administration students through collaborative online workshops sarah carr, university of otago abstract educational transitions are widely recognised as being key points that can influence a student’s later success. transitions are not limited to the beginning of a period of study; they can occur at any stage. the adjustments that come with transitioning can be unsettling and isolating. these feelings can be compounded by the nature of the studies and the distance from the place of study. this paper reflects on the importance of recognising that the transition from being a student within a cohort to being an independent thesis student can be quite isolating for many students, especially those who are studying at a distance. in an attempt to provide extra support and to minimise the effect of isolation, team supervision was trialled for two groups of distance supervised doctor of business administration students based in china. the model incorporated peer groups and research communities for students with similar research topics. overall, the pilot was successful in supporting the students’ transition, but identified the need for flexibility to manage students who progress at different rates. keywords: doctoral supervision; group supervision; distance learning; academic transitions introduction learning is a social undertaking. as well as completing individual assessments, most students tend to undertake their higher education journeys in a social way. they are in classes, cohorts, groups, and teams. they live together and study together. they form a student body and congregate on campus. they may be members of both formal and informal learning communities. however, this is not the norm for all students. for some who have work or family commitments, studying is more individual and is undertaken at a distance from their learning centre. for these students, the flexibility of distance learning allows them to undertake studies that would otherwise not be accessible to them. however, the opportunities for them to engage socially in their learning environment are more limited, and this can lead to a sense of isolation and not belonging. this feeling can be accentuated for students undertaking a doctoral thesis, which is frequently an isolating experience in itself. students who are moving from the highly structured, communal learning environment of courses, to an independent thesis environment, can find the transition difficult because of the contrasts between the two learning environments. this paper introduces the first part of a project that integrates the ideas of learning communities, transitions, and the overarching importance of belonging, to examine how to develop an effective way to support distance-based doctoral students to transition successfully from a structured programme of courses to being independent research students. carr, s. 14 context in 2016 the university of otago business school introduced a doctor of business administration (dba) degree programme with two streams. the first stream is taught from the university’s main campus in dunedin, and the second stream is taught in china in conjunction with shanghai jiao tong university’s overseas education college. the programme is taught through a mix of online lectures and on-campus workshops. it is aimed at senior executives who have at least 10 years’ work experience as middle or senior managers, and have completed their master’s degree. due to the available resources and the need to develop the sense of a learning community, there is currently only one intake per year for each stream. this learning community approach is especially important as most of the students are studying at a distance, and working for a degree such as a dba can be quite an isolating experience. informal feedback from students in the first four intakes has indicated that this approach has helped them to feel well supported and part of a group studying together. the degree consists of a year of coursework, followed by the production of a substantial thesis based on an applied research project. the coursework has been designed to provide both research-methods skills and scaffolding for the thesis. students use the first year to refine their ideas and focus their research project. they also come together on campus six times during that year to attend workshops. this integral part of the degree fosters a sense of community and collaboration amongst the students. overall, this approach to supporting the students works especially well during the coursework component of the degree. but when the students start their thesis component, we identify the potential for an widening gap between their expectations and those of their supervisors, and a more isolating experience for the students. postgraduate student isolation is frequently the norm (van der meer et al., 2013) despite the identified benefits of peer support for these students (buissink-smith et al., 2013; conrad, 2006). the idea of students working collaboratively to support each other’s learning is not new, especially in the field of student engagement (pike et al., 2010). however, as a structured and integrated activity, it is a relatively new notion among thesis students (van der meer et al., 2013)—despite the recognition that scholars are part of a large research community themselves (conrad, 2006). lave and wenger’s concept of “communities of practice”, which developed from their work on the social nature of learning (lave & wenger, 1991; wenger, 2000), has been used as the foundation for peer-support networks (masika & jones, 2016; van der meer et al., 2013) and to better understand adult learners’ transitions to higher education (o’donnell & tobbell, 2007; o’donnell et al., 2009). theoretically, this concept recognises that learning is not a wholly individual experience, but needs to be understood in the context of the wider lived experience and participation in the social world of the learner (wenger, 2009). learners make sense of learning material by engaging with other learners, tutors, and other members of their wider academic community. these engagements help to develop a shared understanding and language (van der meer et al., 2013). as a result, the concept of communities of practice can provide a framework for understanding how to support students at various stages of their academic journeys. peer support for postgraduate students (especially distance students) undertaking study while working, can be a “significant and effective contributor” to postgraduate study experience (devenish et al., 2009, p. 60). when the dba programme was established, a strategic decision was made to use a learning community or cohort approach to help the students feel they were part of a group studying together. as a result, students begin the programme together, online teaching is synchronous, and opportunities for getting together as a cohort and with other doctoral students are fostered. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(1) 15 literature review sense of belonging traditional face-to-face delivery of teaching material is the norm for many students; however, the increase in online delivery has highlighted challenges faced by distance students studying for a considerable length of time. these challenges are perhaps exacerbated by the need for students to upskill with the latest information technology and student learning platforms. anxiety, frustration, and an increased sense of isolation are not uncommon (peacock et al., 2020). what practical steps can a university, or even departments within a university, take to counteract these issues? research supports the concept that peer support or belonging to a peer group will positively contribute to postgraduate student success (buissink-smith et al., 2013; conrad, 2006; fisher, 2006). this sense of belonging can be even more critical for specific cohorts of students, such as distance learning students and those learning in online environments (garrison et al., 2010). “belonging” is an ambiguous notion in higher education research. even in the context of learning there appears to be at least two approaches. the first relates to an individual’s feelings of being accepted and valued in their class, and the second relates to feelings of fitting in and being connected (peacock et al., 2020). the most frequently cited definition is that proposed by goodenow (1993), which describes the feelings of: being accepted, valued, included, and encouraged by others (teaching and peers) in the academic classroom and of feeling oneself to be an important part of the life and activity of the class. (goodenow, 1993, p. 25) goodenow stresses that this sense should encompass more than a “perceived liking or warmth”; it should include support and respect, not just of personal autonomy but also for the student as an individual (goodenow, 1993). much of the research associated with student belonging focuses on the importance of student retention and success (kuh, 2009). this concept that belonging helps with engagement and retention is underpinned by significant research in this area (tinto, 2006). indeed, a number of studies have shown that postgraduate students have benefitted in a number of ways from studentinitiated, bottom-up groups (conrad, 2006; devenish et al., 2009; fisher, 2006), and institutionally initiated, top-down groups (buissink-smith et al., 2013; van der meer et al., 2013). however, this reinforces an institutional focus on student retention and completion, and overlooks the importance of belonging to a student’s own sense of worth and achievement of their own goals, as reflected in goodenow’s definition above (peacock et al., 2020). from the students’ perspective, collaborative peer support has been reported as “one of the most valuable enablers to our progress” (devenish et al., 2009, p. 61). it can also overcome issues associated with distance, especially for postgraduate research students (bireda, 2019). as such, the student should be at the centre of any project designed to enhance their sense of belonging. belonging underpins not only how the students perceive their academic journey but also how effectively they can transition between parts of that journey, moving between one learning community and another. educational transitions there is a considerable body of work on student transitions, especially the transition from secondary to tertiary education (see for example briggs et al., 2012; haggis & pouget, 2002; walker et al., 2004). there is generally strong institutional support for first-year undergraduate students in recognition of the challenges associated with this transition. however, the transition carr, s. 16 to postgraduate study remains under-assessed and, for transitions within postgraduate study, the research is very limited (o’donnell et al., 2009; tobbell et al., 2010). as o’donnell et al. posit, this may be due to an assumption that postgraduate study is a continuation (“more of the same”) for students who have already experienced higher education and completed their first degree (o’donnell et al., 2009, p. 27). however, transitions are recognised as a time of uncertainty for students (turner & tobbell, 2018), and this applies equally to postgraduate and undergraduate students (o’donnell et al., 2009). students who are studying via distance learning for the first time will find the transition even more pronounced because their postgraduate studies may bear very little resemblance to their undergraduate experience. the support provided to postgraduate students as they transition into their studies appears to be prefaced by assumptions about their prior learning (o’donnell et al., 2009). it has also been suggested that universities do not always recognise the challenges and complexities faced by mature, postgraduate students (tobbell et al., 2010). as a result, it’s critical to ensure that such students are adequately supported, that gaps in their knowledge or understanding can be addressed appropriately, and that the approach taken recognises both their challenges and their potential for success. the practice under scrutiny one of the post-doctoral fellows involved in the otago dba programme proposed the concept of team or group supervision as a way to support dba students more cooperatively. the process was informed by lab-style supervisions, which are common in science and health sciences, but uncommon in commerce disciplines. this type of peer support aligns well with the cultural expectations and norms of many of our distance-based chinese dba students (cadman, 2000; kingston & forland, 2008; zhou & todman, 2008). specific research domains in the business school were identified from the students’ research proposals, resulting in two supervision groups—one in marketing and one in management. each group had nine chinese students. guidelines for this model of supervision were developed, focusing on how to operationalise the model for a discipline that does not use laboratory experiments. each group was initially supervised by one or two primary supervisors and two post-doctoral fellows who were actively researching in those areas. the post-docs had relatively close working relationships with the students at all stages of their research and were involved in teaching delivery during the first year of the degree. the primary supervisor had oversight of the supervision process, academic rigour, and quality of the final thesis for each student in the group. following the departure of one of the post-docs, the other was appointed to a permanent lecturing position with another lecturer. both now have secondary supervision responsibilities, one for each group. the marketing supervision group was established at the beginning of november 2018 and the response from the students was very positive. students and supervisors met as an online group fortnightly for the first 6 months, with two in-person meetings, to discuss aspects of the research process, research methods, and design that were common to all students. the sessions built on the research-methods courses taught in the first year; specifically the skills required for critical literature reviews, and to understand and use theories in applied research. in these meetings students could discuss areas of difficulty in a constructive, supportive, and empathetic atmosphere. they also presented their progress informally, on a monthly basis, in short presentations to the rest of the group. the students were given submission deadlines to work towards for sections of their theses—such as a review of the industry background and their literature review. after the first 6 months the fortnightly online meetings became monthly. students were also encouraged to use the supervisors’ online office hours to meet one-on-one to focus on their individual supervision needs. this ensured that individuals were not subsumed by the needs of the group, and group sessions could focus on common research challenges. all of journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(1) 17 the students were familiar with wechat, so they established a closed wechat group to which the chinese-speaking post-doctoral fellows had access. this ensured that students had a range of communication methods. in addition to supervisory support, all students on the programme have access to a range of academic workshops, including academic writing, developing literature reviews, and writing research proposals. for the chinese students, these workshops are delivered face-to-face or online by university staff. students have also been introduced to the idea of “shut up and write” and “shut up and read” sessions. the students fully understand the need to take responsibility for their research progress and to manage their time well. the process for monitoring the students was designed to be supportive rather than punitive, because all of them are working full time. every 6 months, the university has formal progress meetings for dba students to track progress and to intervene or put additional support in place if they are not achieving their progress objectives. these meetings are based on the university’s phd progress meeting structure, but are held more frequently to help ensure that any potential problems are identified early. discussion initially this method worked very well to help transition the students from the group learning associated with the coursework component of the degree, to more independent thesis research. students in the marketing group found the supervision process very supportive. however, as personal circumstances impinged more on their progress, the group’s supervision model was noticeably less successful. some students stopped attending the fortnightly meetings as often, and several missed submission deadlines. we found that autonomous students tended to meet deadlines, regardless of workshop attendance. these students made time to meet their supervisors outside the workshops, and initiated their own deadlines. it may be that students felt no peer pressure to make progress in the group as long as they do not see the others making significant progress. we noticed that the two students in the marketing group who were making the most progress had similar topics and worked together regularly. this suggests that, as well as the larger workshops, smaller groups of two or three might be effective in helping students to work more autonomously. one issue that arose was that some students began to try to problem-solve in their peer group, excluding their supervisors. this approach has been noted in other research on chinese postgraduate students at anglophone universities (zhou & todman, 2008). as a result, the supervisors did not necessarily identify students’ problems until they became significant. because the students are disjunct from the university not only by distance, but also language, it appears that few feel sufficiently engaged with the university to use academic and other support services. in contrast, the dunedin stream of students were more proactive in seeking support (e.g., from the library). both streams of students had met people from support services during their on-campus orientation and had details (including contact details) of the services available. experience suggests that the students in the shanghai stream directed questions to their supervisors or the programme director, whereas the dunedin students may have directed their questions to the specific part of the university that provides the support. at least a third of the dunedin-stream students have english as an additional language so confidence in using english is likely to be only a minor factor. this appears to apply to students both within the team supervision model and the more traditional individual supervision model, suggesting that students are more comfortable working within and through the programme to engage with the rest of the university. therefore, enhancing their sense of belonging in the programme, and recognising that (for these students) the programme is their “home”, needs to be a key aspect of supporting their studies. carr, s. 18 the supervisors’ most significant finding was that, by creating a group to support the students’ supervision, the group itself became a means for the students to support each other outside the university’s formal mechanisms. the students in the marketing group meet socially, both online and in person. the group has become a mutual peer-support mechanism that provides understanding and empathy in a way that the official processes and supervisors cannot. the strength of this informal support has developed in a way that was not envisaged when the group supervision model was established. this outcome highlights the importance of peer support to the learning journey of postgraduate distance students. one of the main factors in supporting the students is recognising that they are all working while studying. the programme is a professional degree, so at times their work takes priority over their studies. the programme director convenes 6-monthly meetings to keep track of their progress and to help them to stay on course. the purpose of these meetings is to find solutions to any challenges, rather than castigating them for lack of progress. clear expectations, goals, and deadlines are important for these students. giving them the sense that they are being supported by both their supervisors and the wider staff of the programme helps them to be more successful in their studies. however, encouraging students to become autonomous and to take responsibility for their own progress while providing group-focused transitional support is most likely to lead to higher levels of success. limitations success in a project such as this is difficult to judge, especially as it is being evaluated by the supervisors and programme director rather than the students themselves. for ethical reasons, and to remove any potential conflict of interest, the student perspective will be gathered after their theses are examined. it needs to be recognised that each of the students in the supervision group has their own objectives and path to achieve these objectives. this means that the individual’s supervision needs should be given as much priority as the transition support provided by the group. they also face a range of challenges associated with being mature postgraduate students who are generally working full time while studying. furthermore, the team supervision trial is ongoing—the first students in the supervision teams to submit their theses for examination are planning to complete towards the middle of 2021. as we grapple with supporting distance supervised students post-covid-19, the model will continue to be refined to find best practice for all students on the programme. when the students have completed their studies, further research will be undertaken to capture their perspective. they will be asked to reflect on their experience so we can gain a more comprehensive understanding of the model. conclusion the team supervision model requires considerable organisation to set up the roles and responsibilities of the supervisors, to manage the meeting structure, and to manage student expectations. it is a way to supervise a number of students with similar research projects. it has great potential for supporting the transition to independent study for distance students, but has a limited time of effectiveness if students do not progress at a similar rate. this could affect the supervisors’ ability to provide quality supervisory support to the students both individually and as part of a group. the model continues to evolve to meet the needs of students. combining regular online group meetings alongside other students, with other models of supervision, and additional online workshops and support, can help to overcome isolation for these distance students (conrad, 2006). journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(1) 19 references bireda, a. d. (2019). doctoral student connectedness in open distance learning: a case of students and supervisors. africa education review, 16(5), 16–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/18146627.2016.1229576 briggs, a. r. j., clark, j., & hall, i. (2012). building bridges: understanding student transition to university. quality in higher education, 18(1), 3–21. buissink-smith, n., hart, s., & van der meer, j. (2013). “there are other people out there!” successful postgraduate peer groups and research communities at a new zealand university. higher education research and development, 32(5), 695–705. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2013.777034 cadman, k. (2000). “voices in the air”: evaluations of the learning experiences of international postgraduates and their supervisors. teaching in higher education, 5(4), 475–491. conrad, l. (2006). countering isolation: joining the research community. in c. denholm & t. evans (eds.), doctorates downunder: keys to successful doctoral study in australia and new zealand. camberwell, vic.: acer press, 34–40. devenish, r., dyer, s., jefferson, t., lord, l., van leeuwen, s., & fazakerley, v. (2009). peer to peer support: the disappearing work in the doctoral student experience. higher education research & development, 28(1), 59–70. fisher, k. (2006). peer support groups. in c. denholm & t. evans (eds.), doctorates downunder: keys to successful doctoral study in australia and new zealand. camberwell, vic.: acer press, 41–49. garrison, d. r., cleveland-innes, m., & fung, t. s. (2010). exploring causal relationships among teaching, cognitive and social presence: student perceptions of the community of inquiry framework. internet and higher education, 13, 31–36. goodenow, c. (1993). classroom belonging among early adolescent students: relationships to motivation and achievement. journal of early adolescence, 13(1), 21–43. https://doi.org/10.1177/0272431693013001002 haggis, t., & pouget, m. (2002). trying to be motivated: perspectives on learning from younger students accessing higher education, teaching in higher education, 7(3), 323–36. kingston, e., & forland, h. (2008). bridging the gap in expectations between international students and academic staff. journal of studies in international education, 12(2), 204–221. kuh, g. d. (2009). what student affairs professionals need to know about student engagement. journal of college student development, 50(6), 683–706. https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.0.0099 lave, j., & wenger, e. (1991). situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation. cambridge: cambridge university press. masika, r., & jones, j. (2016) building student belonging and engagement: insights into higher education students’ experiences of participating and learning together. teaching in higher education, 21(2), 138–150. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2015.1122585 o’donnell, v. l., & tobbell, j. (2007). the transition of adult students to higher education: legitimate peripheral participation in a community of practice? adult education quarterly, 57(4), 312–328. carr, s. 20 o’donnell, v. l., tobbell, j., lawthom, r., & zammit, m. (2009). transition to postgraduate study: practice, participation and the widening participation agenda. active learning in higher education, 10(1), 26–40. peacock, s., cowan, j., irvine, l., & williams, j. (2020). an exploration into the importance of a sense of belonging for online learners. international review of research in open and distance learning, 21(2), 18–35. pike, g. r., kuh, g. d., & mccormick, a. c. (2011). an investigation of the contingent relationships between learning community participation and student engagement. research in higher education 52, 300–322. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-010-9192-1 tinto, v. (2006). research and practice of student retention: what next? journal of college student retention, 8(1), 1–19. tobbell, j., o’donnell, v., & zammit, m. (2010). exploring transition to postgraduate study: shifting identities in interaction with communities, practice and participation. british educational research journal, 36(2), 261–278. turner, l., & tobbell, j. (2018). learner identity and transition: an ethnographic exploration of undergraduate trajectories. journal of further and higher education, 42(5), 708–720. https://doi.org/10.1080/0309877x.2017.1311993 van der meer, j., spowart, l., & hart, s. (2013). “we need support too”: providing postgraduate peer support. in e. dunne & d. owen (eds.). the student engagement handbook: practice in higher education (pp. 313–300). uk: emerald. walker, l., matthew, b., & black, f. (2004). widening access and student non-completion: an inevitable link? evaluating the effects of the top-up programme on student completion, international journal of lifelong education, 23(1), 43–59. wenger, e. (2000). communities of practice and social learning systems. organization, 7(2), 225–246. https://doi.org/10.1177/135050840072002 wenger, e. (2009). a social theory of learning. in k. illeris (ed.), contemporary theories of learning: learning theorists . . . in their own words. abingdon: routledge, 2009, 209–218. zhou, y., & todman, j. (2008). chinese postgraduate students in the uk: a two-way reciprocal adaptation. journal of international and intercultural communication, 1(3), 221–243. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(1) 21 biographical notes sarah carr sarah.carr@otago.ac.nz sarah carr is director of the doctor of business administration programme at the university of otago. in her role she teaches research methods to business professionals undertaking doctoral studies and supervises a number of these students. her research focuses on quality education initiatives, including student experiences, engagement, and support, as well as doctoral teaching and supervision. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. carr, s. (2021). transitioning the team: supporting distance supervised doctor of business administration students through collaborative online workshops. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(1), [13–21.]. microsoft word editorial 26(1).docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1) 1 connecting past and future educational practice: a postcovid-19 present simon paul atkinson, sijen.com alison fields, infosolutions abstract the challenges of supporting learners at a distance are enduring. but the nature of these challenges is changing, and this change has been particularly notable since the beginning of the pandemic and the rapid worldwide move to distance and online learning. a brief look is taken at the evolving nature of the distance-student experience under the theme of “time is the new distance”. this is complemented with four papers in this issue, each of which is concerned with an aspect of meeting the challenges of supporting distance learners. hartline et al. draw attention to the importance of the teacher’s presence in decreasing student anxiety. forbes explores the effectiveness of asynchronous communication as an effective learner support. cameron et al. share a national perspective from a wider international study, concluding that clear communication by institutions and other authorities can reduce uncertainty for students and is necessary to mitigate the negative effects of future disruptions to study. and finally, adebisi and olatunji round off the set of articles with findings that the key psychosocial experience of students revolves around the flexibility and cost of distance learning, work–life pressures, and the availability of faculty. keywords: distance learning; distance communication; distance student experience; teaching presence time is the new distance “time is the new distance” said the late professor robin mason in her professorial address at the open university (uk) in 2001. she was referring to the evolving nature of the distance student experience, and the new challenges for course designers and teaching staff in light of increasing connectivity (mason, 2001). students were increasingly online at home or at their workplaces, and they were increasingly comfortable with new computer-mediated conferencing (cmc) tools which they used alongside their printed materials and audio cassettes or cds (mason & kaye, 1989). in other institutions students were encountering early virtual learning environments. faculty were learning to structure meaningful responses to requests for feedback that students might anticipate within hours rather than days or months (aronson, 2002). course design teams were beginning to think about how advances in technology might affect staff time and cohort cohesion. doubtless similar conversations were happening in institutions around the globe. in simple terms, we were concerned with how to communicate, motivate, and connect with students we often could not see. atkinson, s. p., fields, a. 2 in july 2022 we’re coming to terms with the creeping sense that everything is the same as it has been, but somehow strangely different. we still have the challenges of assuming all of our students and faculty have unfettered access to appropriate technologies, and that they have the digital literacy skills to operationalise these technologies (buchholz et al., 2020). we must remember that cultural perspectives also inform individual approaches to communication technology. the changing patterns of student demand on, and expectations of, student support and tutorial staff are evident to many practitioners and they prompt several questions. when so much support has been made available online, should we put students to the inconvenience of returning to campus at all? with faculty evidently capable of teaching online (with varying degrees of competence), could our institutions save money on office space, heating, and maintaining internet networks? are some of our disciplines better placed to be learnt at a distance? the global covid-19 pandemic comes towards the end of a technological generation in distance and flexible learning. if the first generation of distance learning was largely paper based, the second broadcast media, the third digitally rich media, we may be coming to the end of the fourth generation—interactive real-time technologies. the fifth technological generation is expected to be more concerned with immersive sensory experiences, typified by notions of the metaverse. none of these generations totally supplants those that come before them. rather, they adapt and adopt new approaches to existing challenges. interestingly, the three generations of distance education pedagogy of cognitive behaviourist, social constructivist, and connectivist approaches examined by anderson and dron (2011), who concluded that high-quality distance education exploits all three, still apply. as in 2001, course designers and faculty remain concerned with engagement and motivation, with accurately assessing students’ ability to generate evidence in support of course outcomes, and with managing their time with a view to retention and progression. some are acutely aware of the shifting technological landscape and the sometimes seismic events in their digital ecosystem that can lead an institution to adopt new solutions and present new challenges. others are unconcerned with the technological pace of change and focus on the nature of connectedness with students—irrespective of the mode of learning or technology. when the late professor robin mason drew attention to the effect that technology was having on distance learners in 2001, she was suggesting that, while physical distances might have been overcome, time would be the next challenge. we don’t think she was wrong. the next technological generation of distance learning—one in which connectivity may become synonymous with digital immersion—will present us with the same consistent challenges. we’ll need to ensure that future digital solutions are equitable and socio-culturally inclusive. we’ll have to navigate our way through algorithms, ai bots, and the machine learning that will probably overtake our digital learning platforms. twenty-one years later, the ability to connect— synchronously or asynchronously—still appears to have a direct effect on the student experience, student retention, and student success. papers in this issue in this issue we benefit from the work of colleagues who are paying attention to the changes in practice, and we reaffirm some basic principles from a variety of perspectives in four researchbased articles. alexandra hartline, sheri conklin, and amy garrett dikkers draw attention to the importance of the teacher’s presence in decreasing student anxiety. they illustrate that, despite the challenges of maintaining connectivity in an online and distance context, this fundamental principle holds true. their research examined the perceptions of higher education students enrolled in several journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1) 3 modalities (e.g., hybrid, online asynchronous, synchronous) during the covid-19 pandemic in the united states of america. they found that students perceived significant connectedness between students and instructors in asynchronous spaces and that this resulted in lower levels of anxiety. they conclude that there were four emergent themes from their research: the importance of instructor empathy; the ability to create spaces to facilitate sociability; the critical nature of feedback; and the structural elements of course organisation. together, these themes supported students’ connections with their instructors, leading to a reduction in their anxiety. dianne forbes also explores the effectiveness of asynchronous communication as an effective learner support. she points out that asynchronous online discussion has become a core tool for interaction and collaboration between students and tutors. the wealth of literature that identifies the roles performed by online discussion moderators, and student expectations, shows a consensus that such teaching instruments have value. forbes digs deeper into the nature of student-to-student interaction which, although seen as advantageous for learning, raises issues about students’ expectations of each other. this insightful case study with second-year undergraduate students studying primary teaching in aotearoa new zealand, suggests students expect active participation from their peers. forbes argues that managing the expectations of, and between, students is critical to ensure mutual accountability is understood ahead of asynchronous online discussion. michael p. cameron, barbara fogarty-perry, and gemma piercy report on the aotearoa new zealand results as part of a wider international research study: “impact of the covid-19 pandemic on life of higher education students” (aristovnik et al., 2020b). using both quantitative and qualitative data from the survey, cameron et al. found that students in their study had coped well with disruption. respondents were broadly satisfied with the way their institutions and faculty responded to unanticipated lockdowns and shifts to online learning at short notice. students in aotearoa new zealand reported higher levels of satisfaction than those in the global sample, with more positive responses to recorded video lectures whereas the global sample preferred real-time teaching. despite these potentially positive findings, cameron and colleagues report that many students in their national sample felt that their studies had been negatively affected. this was particularly noticeable in vulnerable groups (such as students with low financial resources) and they raise concerns about the mental health effects resulting from disruption. cameron et al. conclude that clear communication from institutions and other authorities aimed at reducing the uncertainty for students, and appropriately supporting vulnerable groups, is necessary to mitigate the negative effects of future significant disruptions to study, whatever their cause. tajudeen adebisi and taiwo isaac olatunji continue the theme of international experience by sharing the results of a comparative research study of students’ psychosocial experience at two nigerian institutions. their study reports on students’ perception of their social environment resulting from emotional responses to events. they sought to understand whether there were differences between cohorts in a dual-mode university (in-person and distance learning) and a single-mode institution (distance learning). they concluded that students at both institutions had broadly similar psychosocial experience that focused on flexibility and the cost of distance learning, work–life pressures, and the availability of faculty. this finding aligns with hartline and colleagues. new joint editor dr simon paul atkinson has joined dr alison fields as part of the editorial team for this journal. simon says “on joining a well-established scholarly journal i hope to continue the excellent work of those that have gone before. i hope my modest technical skills will serve to make the journal easier to navigate and function even better for its readers, authors, and reviewers”. atkinson, s. p., fields, a. 4 references anderson, t., & dron, j. (2011). three generations of distance education pedagogy. international review of research in open and distance learning, 12(3), 80–97. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v12i3.890 aronson, j. (2002). improving academic achievement: impact of psychological factors on education. academic press. buchholz, b. a., dehart, j., & moorman, g. (2020). digital citizenship during a global pandemic: moving beyond digital literacy. journal of adolescent & adult literacy, 64(1), 11–17. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.1076 mason, r. (2001, february 14). time is the new distance: a discussion [inaugural address]. http://stadium.open.ac.uk/stadia/preview.php?s=1&whichevent=52 mason, r., & kaye, a. (eds.). (1989). mindweave: communication, computers, and distance education (1st ed.). pergamon press. biographical notes simon paul atkinson spa@sijen.com simon is a higher education strategist with over 25 years’ experience as an academic developer, educational technologist, teacher, and researcher. he has held senior roles in both the united kingdom and aotearoa new zealand and has lectured and presented in over 15 countries, as well as online to global audiences. he is a principal fellow of the higher education academy, president of the flexible learning association of new zealand (flanz), and joint editor of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. alison fields alison@infosolutions.co.nz alison is an information scientist and director of research at infosolutions. she conducts research in health information, and contracts in the education sector. she is a fellow of the library and information association of new zealand aotearoa (lianza) and has a doctorate in education. her research areas encompass elearning, online learner support, health information, library services, and continuing professional development. alison is an executive member of flanz and joint editor of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. atkinson, s. p., & fields, a. (2022). connecting past and future educational practice: a postcovid-19 present. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1), [1–4.]. hartnett, m. 28 relationships between online motivation, participation, and achievement: more complex than you might think maggie hartnett, massey university abstract with the increasing importance and rapid growth of online courses, diversification of the student population, and the growing concern over retention rates, exploration of learner online participation and possible relationships with motivation and achievement behaviour is becoming increasingly relevant in higher education. previous studies (gerber, grundt, & grote, 2008; picciano, 2002) have tended to explore links between learner activity and performance in online environments. but the relationships that may exist between motivation and participation (both in terms of quality and quantity of activity) in online contexts are not well understood. indeed, participation, particularly active participation such as posting messages to online discussions, is frequently used as a proxy for motivation, with more active learners being perceived as more motivated. this paper presents findings of one aspect of a larger study (hartnett, 2010) that explored the motivation of pre-service teachers situated within two separate and distinct online distance learning contexts. self-report motivation data, achievement, and online usage statistical data, in conjunction with asynchronous discussion-forum transcripts, were used to explore possible relationships between motivation, participation, and achievement in these contexts. analysis revealed important differences between and within the two cases (e.g., nature of the task and assessment approaches) that indicated situational factors played a key role in determining whether any significant relationships were present. in other words, various factors within the specific learning environment combined in complex ways to influence motivation to learn and the nature of student participation. in an age of increasing exploration and interpretation of online learner behaviour via automatically collected systems statistics (beer, jones, & clark, 2009), these findings highlight the need to be cautious about using online activity as the only gauge for assessing student motivation in online contexts. keywords: motivation; online participation introduction over the last decade and a half, distance education has undergone a period of considerable change (larreamendy-joerns & leinhardt, 2006; moore & kearsley, 2011). the growth of the internet and related technologies has resulted in a merging of online teaching and learning into the routine practices of universities (roy & schumm, 2011). at the same time, it has given distance education a new appeal (tallent-runnels et al., 2006). following bates (2005), online learning is viewed here as a subcategory of distance education that specifically uses the internet journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 29 and the world wide web. online learning is one increasingly popular method used by institutions in various countries to provide opportunities and meet the needs of a growing and increasingly diverse student population (moore & kearsley, 2011). online learning has a number of potential benefits, not least of which is the ability to overcome the temporal and spatial restrictions of traditional educational settings (bates, 2005). notwithstanding the advantages offered by online learning, a variety of factors have been identified as crucial to the success of online courses (andresen, 2009). motivation is one such factor (bekele, 2010). just as motivation is a key factor in learning, engagement, and achievement in face-to-face educational contexts (brophy, 2010), so it is in online learning environments (jones & issroff, 2007). poor motivation has been identified as a decisive factor in contributing to the high drop-out rates from online courses (muilenburg & berge, 2005). although concern about student motivation and engagement in technology-mediated environments has been evident for some time (rovai, 2003), research in this area is limited both in quantity and scope (artino, 2008; bekele, 2010). literature review/theoretical framework motivation and learning online brophy (2010, p. 3) defines motivation as “a theoretical construct to explain the initiation, direction, intensity, persistence, and quality of behaviour, especially goal-directed behaviour”. motivation can influence what we learn, how we learn, and when we choose to learn (schunk, 1995). research shows that motivated learners are more likely to be actively engaged, exhibit enhanced performance, undertake challenging activities, and display resilience in the face of difficulties (schunk, pintrich, & meece, 2008). contemporary views link motivation to individuals’ cognitive and affective processes such as thoughts, beliefs, and goals, and emphasise the situated, interactive relationship between the learner and the learning environment (brophy, 2010). existing research in online contexts has tended to adopt a limited view of motivation that does not acknowledge the complexity and dynamic interplay of factors underlying and influencing motivation to learn. instead, designing motivating learning environments has received attention (chanlin, 2009; keller, 2008). more frequently, research has focused on identifying traits of successful online learners where motivation is seen as a personal characteristic that remains relatively stable across contexts and situations (wighting, liu, & rovai, 2008). such studies indicate that intrinsic motivation is an important characteristic of successful learners (shroff, vogel, & coombes, 2008). a further, though relatively sparse, area of research has explored relationships between learner online participation and motivation (dawson, macfadyen, & lockyer, 2009; hartnett, 2010; martens, gulikers, & bastiaens, 2004). in contrast, relationships between online participation and achievement behaviour (where achievement is used as an indicator of motivation) have been studied more extensively, in terms of both quantity (bures, amundsen, & abrami, 2002; gerber et al., 2008; rovai & barnum, 2003) and quality (gerber et al., 2008) of participation. self-determination theory of motivation various frameworks have been used in studies of motivation in online contexts (artino, 2008; bures et al., 2002), including intrinsic–extrinsic motivation theory (martens et al., 2004; xie, debacker, & ferguson, 2006). self-determination theory (sdt) (ryan & deci, 2000) is an influential contemporary theory that explicates intrinsic–extrinsic motivation in greater depth and is built on the fundamental premise of learner autonomy. it argues that all humans have an hartnett, m. 30 intrinsic need to be self-determining or autonomous (i.e., experience a sense of agency and control), as well as competent (i.e., feeling capable) and connected (i.e., feeling included and linked to others), in relation to their environment. if the environmental conditions are such that they support an individual’s autonomy, more autonomous (i.e., higher quality) forms of motivation will be promoted (ryan & deci, 2000). when intrinsically motivated, outside incentives are unnecessary and may even be counterproductive (brophy, 2010), because the reward lies in carrying out the activity. in contrast, students who are extrinsically motivated undertake activities for reasons separate from the activity itself (ryan & deci, 2000); for example, gaining good grades, avoiding negative consequences, or because the task has utility value (such as passing a course in order to earn a degree). alternatively, the activity may be seen as relevant to a future career. extrinsic motivation processes are explained in terms of external regulation because the reasons for undertaking the task lie outside the individual. however, the degree to which an activity is perceived as externally controlled can vary, and therefore different types of extrinsic motivation exist (see hartnett, st george, & dron, 2011, for further explanation). research in both face-to-face (lepper, henderlong corpus, & iyengar, 2005) and online settings (hartnett, et al., 2011) has shown that multiple types of motivation can and do co-exist. the ways in which a student is intrinsically or extrinsically motivated are important, with more selfdetermined students experiencing positive learning outcomes even when extrinsically motivated (brophy, 2010). results presented here relate to one aspect of a larger study (hartnett, 2010) that explored the motivation of pre-service teachers situated within two distinct online distance learning contexts. here, relationships between motivation, engagement (i.e., online participation), and achievement are explored. methodology case studies case-study methodology was used to explore the complex phenomenon of motivation in a manageable way (yin, 2009). purposive sampling methods (patton, 2002) were used to select two information-rich cases. although the broader institutional context was beyond the scope of the wider study, the effect such influences can have at the situational level have been noted previously (vallerand & ratelle, 2002)., potential cases were therefore identified from the same programme within the same institution in order to reduce differential contextual influences at the institutional level. cases were chosen based on predetermined criteria of importance to ensure relevance to the research question. in particular: (a) courses were required to be predominantly web-based, with only limited resources provided by alternative methods such as print; and (b) students were required to participate in the online learning community as an integral part of their assessed coursework. procedures ethical consent to undertake the study was gained prior to the collection of data. data comprised self-report motivation data, achievement data, and online usage data, in conjunction with questionnaire data and asynchronous discussion forum transcripts. learner motivation was measured with the self-report situational motivational scale developed by guay, vallerand, and blanchard (2000), which operationalises several of the motivation types identified within the sdt framework. the scores reported for each motivation type were then journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 31 used to calculate a single motivation score called the self-determination index (sdi) for each participant (see hartnett et al., 2011, for further explanation). online statistical data comprised the number of times each student accessed any tool or a content page (hits), the number of messages each student opened across all discussion topics (messages read), and the number of messages each student posted across all discussion topics (messages posted). these were used as a measure of the quantity of online participation, both active (posts) and passive (hits and reads). online discussion transcripts provided a source of data that enabled the quality of online participation to be explored in relation to reported levels of motivation. given the focus of this investigation and methodological issues associated with the rigorous, in-depth analysis of online discussions (garrison, cleveland-innes, koole, & kappelman, 2006), existing online transcript content analysis models were not used. instead, themes that emerged from the online transcripts, and that were also supported by the literature (dillenbourg, 1999), were used as indicators of the quality of engagement. these themes were negotiation of understanding, collaboration, and contribution to meaningful dialogue. these procedures comprised data generated after the completion of coursework in each case study, namely the questionnaires; and data generated during this period as part of normal online course administration processes (i.e. online asynchronous discussions and student usage statistics) but collected after all coursework was completed and graded, and results submitted. downloaded discussion transcripts were refined by removing any messages posted outside the assignment timeframe, and only those messages posted by study participants were included for analysis purposes. context and participants the two courses that provided the context for the case studies were situated within the larger context of a pre-service teacher education programme within a new zealand tertiary institution. students in this programme were preparing to teach in new zealand primary (i.e., elementary) schools. these courses were considered to be internet-based rather than fully online, because students received some print material (study guide) and digital resources (cd-rom—see case study 1) at the beginning of their course. the online learning platform used for online communication and most content delivery was the webct learning management system. the boundary for each case study centred on one assignment and its associated online activities. in both case studies, all participants had similar prior experience of online learning and group assignments. while both cases were chosen from courses within the same programme, the instructional design of each was different. case study 1 was situated within a compulsory integrated science and technology course. teaching staff consisted of a course coordinator with science expertise and a tutor with technology expertise. the tutor was responsible for most of the online teaching and management of the course, and focused on use of online resources and facilitating related asynchronous discussions. students usually took this course in the third and final year of their degree. the case study itself focused on a problem-based learning (pbl) assignment worth 60 percent of the final mark. it was undertaken over a 6-week period in which students were required to work collaboratively in small groups. problem-based learning is an instructional approach built around authentic, ill-structured problems that are complex in nature (schmidt & moust, 2000). case study 2 was positioned within an introductory social studies curriculum course that formed a compulsory component of the same programme. students usually took this course in the second year of their degree. an individual micro-teaching and reflection assignment (with associated hartnett, m. 32 online activities), which required students to plan and teach two consecutive lessons in a school of their choice and then reflect on their experience, formed the boundary for case study 2. students completed this assignment over a 4-week period and it was worth 40 percent of the final mark. the course coordinator was responsible for all online teaching throughout the semester. a total of 21 student participants took part in the two case studies (12 in case study 1 and nine in case study 2). they were recruited from the semester 1 (february–june) 2008 online offering of each course. participants were located throughout new zealand and undertook their courses at a distance from the main campus. the respondent group comprised two males and 19 females (one male in each case study). participants’ ages ranged from 18 to 55, with 90 percent in the over-24 age group. it is important to highlight that the wider study was predominantly qualitative in nature and that the information and statistical data reported here helped to illuminate the findings. the intention was not to generalise to the wider population of online learners. results motivation, online participation, and achievement several non-parametric correlations were calculated to explore relationships between the sdi score as a measure of overall motivation, online participation (active and passive), and achievement (at assignment and course level) for each case study. student online usage statistics data were captured over the course as a whole for both case studies. case study 1 a highly significant relationship was found between sdi scores (i.e., motivation) and the number of messages posted (i.e., active participation) over the course (see table 1). this means that the higher the motivation reported by a student, the more active the student was, in terms of the number of messages posted, within the discussion topics. no such relationships existed between passive online participation indicators (i.e., messages read or hits) and motivation. table 1 case study 1 – spearman rho correlation coefficents (rs) between sdi, achievement, and participation course online participation no. messages posted messages read hits sdi 12 0.77** 0.48 0.28 assignment mark 12 0.58* 0.63* 0.40 course mark 12 0.49 0.51 0.42 *p <0.05 **p<0.01 relationships between online participation and achievement (as an indicator of motivation), for both the pbl assignment and the course as a whole, were also explored. the relationship between the number of messages posted during the course and the assignment mark was found to be moderately statistically significant (see table 1). this suggests that the higher the number of messages posted—that is, the more visibly active online a participant was during the course—the higher the mark achieved for the pbl assignment. in terms of passive participation, a moderately journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 33 significant relationship was also found between the number of messages read throughout the course and the assignment mark. in other words, the higher the number of messages accessed by a participant, the higher the mark achieved for the assignment. no significant relationships were found between participation (active or passive) and achievement for the course as a whole. a reason for these differences may be that the nature of the pbl activity (i.e., collaborative and high stakes) needed greater active online participation to achieve good marks, in comparison with the course as a whole. in other words, the nature of the task has influenced the motivated behaviour of participants. case study 2 no significant relationships were found in this context (see table 2). that is, no relationships exist between a participant’s online activity (active or passive), level of motivation, or their achievement. it is interesting to note, however, that the relationship between the sdi score and messages posted over the course approached significance (r s = 0.64, p = 0.06, ns). while caution must be taken when interpreting these results, they are not unexpected given that online participation was not critical to doing the assignment or completing the course. table 2 case study 2 – spearman rho correlation coefficents (rs) between sdi, achievement, and participation course online participation no. messages posted messages read hits sdi 9 0.64 0.55 0.46 assignment mark 9 -0.24 -0.40 -0.13 course mark 9 0.02 -0.43 -0.05 all coefficients are statistically non-significant using the number of messages posted is, however, only a rudimentary measure of participation, as the quantity of messages does not necessarily equate to quality of engagement (andresen, 2009). to determine whether any differences existed in the nature of online engagement and motivation, online transcripts were explored in both case studies. as mentioned previously, themes that emerged from the qualitative data that were also supported by the literature (dillenbourg, 1999) were used as indicators of the quality of participation. quality of online participation and motivation case study 1 high-quality participation in terms of input, negotiation of meaning, and development of understanding was apparent among students that reported high motivation (i.e. positive sdi scores). for participants reporting low motivation (i.e., negative sdi scores), individual approaches were more evident. the former approach is evident in the example that follows. here, students discuss and seek clarification about the results of the science experiment carried out by one member of the group. hartnett, m. 34 hi everyone if you could just clarify the impact results elizabeth so that we have all got it around the right way!! (i.e., was it bark that absorbed the most impact?) (asydisc cs1: irene, 1 19 march, 2008) elizabeth responds: hi irene under the investigation of a 1-metre drop where all four samples were placed on the same foundation, bark absorbed the most impact and wet-pour rubber the least. (asydisc cs1: elizabeth, 19 march, 2008) wendy is still unclear about what the results mean, and seeks further information. hi elizabeth i was just wondering if you could clarify what type of bark you used for the test . . . can you also please clarify the results of the impact test as to which is the best as i think we are a bit muddled in that department? . . . (asydisc cs1: wendy, 19 march, 2008) again elizabeth provides additional information to help the group’s understanding of the experimental results: hi wendy the bark was straight from the playground and was 3 months old. it had been sold as certified playground bark, which means no piece is larger than 30 mm diameter and there is little dust. as for the impact testing. we dropped a cricket ball from 1 metre and measured the bounce. the wet-pour rubber produced the highest bounce, followed by pre-pour rubber matting, followed by artificial turf, then bark. i believe this means that rubber absorbs the least impact and bark the most. i believe this makes bark the recommended material. however, all samples were trialled on top of a wooden deck and possibly in situ the ground under the material may play a large factor . . . (asydisc cs1: elizabeth, 19 march, 2008) this line of questioning and negotiation of meaning continued until a common understanding was reached. in contrast, hazel’s comment below highlights a more individual and isolated approach. review of the group’s asynchronous transcript confirmed periods where little online activity occurred between her and the other members: after [developing] the initial [problem] . . . statement full online activity rarely occurred due to the varying demands of our commitments. so the assignment tended to be done by the other two members . . . with me adding my bits as and when completed. (hazel, questionnaire cs1) case study 2 quality participation was evident in the online activities that occurred concurrently with the micro-teaching assignment. the following example is representative of the quality and depth of engagement from a variety of participants that had no clear association with the level of motivation they reported. this discussion focuses on a relevant social issue at the time (the 1 pseudonyms are used journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 35 changing of new zealand legislation relating to parental control, dubbed the ‘anti-smacking’ legislation). i’m one of the minority completely in favour of the amendment of s 59. i agree that it won’t stop child abuse overnight, but i think it will have a big impact on future generations and their attitudes to smacking. the argument that “it won’t stop child abusers anyway” seems pretty weak to me—on that basis we shouldn’t bother having laws for anything, because the baddies never pay attention to them. i'm pretty surprised at how few people have actually read the amendment for themselves—i know facts get in the way of a good argument :), but i can’t help thinking that a lot of parents would be quite reassured to know that restraining their child from harm is not illegal (contrary to popular belief). i thought sean’s us gun control analogy was right on the money—people aren’t really signing petitions in great numbers because they want to smack their kids, they are indignant because they perceive the amendment as infringing on their personal rights. (asydisc cs2: may, 25 march, 2008) the wider study found that all participants perceived the environment to be supportive of learner autonomy, including the online discussions (which were seen as dynamic, interesting, and engaging), and participants tended to regulate their participation depending on their interests and needs. based on this, it appears that although participation was expected there was sufficient flexibility to allow participants to determine the level of engagement that met their own learning needs. discussion motivation and amount of online participation the only significant relationship between online participation and motivation occurred in case study 1 (for active participation only). in other words, participants reporting high levels of motivation were more visibly active within discussion topics. support for the case study 1 finding is available from previous research studies into motivation and participation in online environments. for example, xie et al. (2006) and bures et al. (2002) both found that active participation by learners in online discussions was related to their level of motivation. the motivation literature also highlights that autonomously motivated learners are more likely to be actively engaged in learning (see brophy, 2010, for reviews). support for the lack of any significant relationship between motivation and active participation in case study 2 is also available. for example, martens et al. (2004) found that more intrinsically motivated students do not necessarily do more. rather, they do different things and specifically engage in more exploration. similarly, the study by dawson et al. (2009) showed no differences in learners’ online participation based on their motivation. the lack of any significant relationship between motivation and passive participation was consistent across the case studies. this differs from findings from dawson et al. (2009), who found that passive participation was significantly positively related to student intrinsic motivation. possible reasons for the significant positive relationship between motivation and active online participation in case study 1 and the lack of a relationship in case study 2 may be found in the differing nature of the tasks within each case study. while no grade was assigned to online contributions in either context, a factor that some argue is necessary in order to provide learners hartnett, m. 36 with an incentive to participate in online discussions (andresen, 2009; rovai, 2007), expectations for online participation were made very clear to students at the commencement of each course. the collaborative nature and high percentage of the final grade (60 percent) associated with the pbl assignment in case study 1 meant that students were not just expected to contribute—they had to do so to successfully complete the assignment and, in turn, the course. the number of messages posted in this context (or lack of them) may therefore be a more accurate indication of a participant’s motivation to learn. in contrast, the more independent nature of the case study 2 micro-teaching task, as well as the course as a whole, allowed learners greater flexibility. in particular, the completion of the micro-teaching assignment did not depend on participation in the online activities that accompanied it, as it did for case study 1. in case study 2, therefore, learners reporting lower motivation, and those who reported higher motivation but preferred to exercise more independence and chose to regulate their online activity, could both potentially access and contribute to online discussions to a lesser degree. differences in communication patterns (i.e., independent and interdependent) have been previously noted in the online literature (rovai, 2001), as has interaction selectiveness (b. anderson, 2006). based on these results, it is difficult to draw definitive conclusions regarding relationships between motivation and participation in online environments. notwithstanding this, results from both case studies are supported by prior research, although the extensive motivation literature provides strong support for the case study 1 findings (e.g., deci & ryan, 2000). however, taken together the results indicate that the nature of the task (e.g., collaborative versus individual, task completion independent versus dependant on participation), individual differences (for autonomy, competence and relatedness support) and other considerations (e.g., time constraints and high-stakes assessment) are important factors that influence participation in a particular context in complex ways. it also highlights the limitations of using quantity as a measure of participation, as prior research has noted (andresen, 2009). motivation and quality participation quality online participation was evident across both case studies. findings from case study 1 showed that participants who reported higher levels of motivation also demonstrated more collaboration, negotiation of meaning, and development of understanding with their peers. for participants who reported lower levels of motivation, collaboration and negotiation were less evident. this finding suggests that there is an association between the motivation of participants and the quality of engagement evident in the asynchronous online discussions. this is in line with research undertaken in traditional educational settings that has consistently shown a link between cognitive engagement and the quality of motivation (see schunk et al., 2008, for a review). quality engagement was also evident in the online activities in case study 2. contributions from several participants clearly demonstrated engagement in meaningful dialogue as well as depth of understanding that had no clear link to the level of motivation reported by these learners. in other words, cognitive engagement in online discussions was evident from learners who reported lower motivation levels as well as those who recorded higher levels. this finding is supported by other studies that have shown that the quality of online interaction is influenced by numerous factors within the learning context, such as the role of the instructor (andresen, 2009; rovai et al., 2007), a sense of connectedness with the instructor (gerber et al., 2008), sense of community (t. anderson, 2008; rovai, 2007), prior knowledge and interest in discussion topics (cheung, hew, & ling ng, 2008), time constraints (xie et al., 2006), differing communication patterns (rovai, journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 37 2001), clarity of expectations (rovai, 2007), requirements in terms of contributions (mandatory or otherwise), and the awarding of grades (cheung et al., 2008; xie et al., 2006). once again, the conclusions that can be drawn from the cross-case findings are tentative and appear to be situation dependent. case study 1 results suggest that within the context of a collaborative pbl assignment there was a connection between the quality of online engagement and the motivation experienced by students. this was not apparent within the context of the individual micro-teaching assignment in case study 2. here, quality participation was evident from students reporting varying degrees of motivation, ranging from moderate to high. taken together, these results highlight the complex relationships that exist between an individual’s motivation and their behaviour in terms of their participation in an online learning context. achievement and online participation the only significant relationship between achievement and active online participation (messages posted) occurred in case study 1 (at the assignment level). this finding is indicative of the available research. for example, several earlier studies have shown relationships between the numbers of messages posted by learners and their subsequent achievement (beer et al., 2009; gerber et al., 2008; rovai & barnum, 2003). on the other hand, support for the lack of a relationship between active participation and achievement (at both assignment and course level) by learners in case study 2 is also available (picciano, 2002). a moderately positive relationship was also found between achievement (at the assignment level) and passive participation (messages read) in case study 1. a similar association between student participation ‘behind the scenes’ and their achievement has been noted by webb, jones, barker, and van schaik (2004). similarly, the lack of any significant relationship between passive online participation and achievement data in case study 2 is also supported by prior research (rovai & barnum, 2003). these mixed results point to complex relationships between achievement (an indicator of motivation) and online participation that are sensitive to contextual influences. in case study 1, the nature of the assignment task and the high weighting towards the final mark were particularly important factors. online participation was essential to do the assignment and, ultimately, to complete the course successfully. this was not the case in the case study 2 context, where assignment (and course) completion, and therefore achievement, were not directly linked to participation with others. it also highlights the limitations of focusing only on the quantities of activity and the importance and relevance of exploring the actual quality of the activities themselves to gain a clearer picture of participant engagement, as others have argued (rovai & barnum, 2003). conclusion the mixed results point to complex relationships between motivation, online participation, and achievement that are sensitive to situational influences. the lack of conclusive results indicates the need for online teachers to carefully consider the relevance of using the number of messages posted by a student as a default indicator of online participation and, in turn, motivation. as shown in this research, high numbers of postings by learners do not necessarily equate to more motivated students, and vice versa. hartnett, m. 38 references anderson, b. 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(2009). case study research: design and methods (4th ed.). thousand oaks, ca: sage. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 41 biographical notes maggie hartnett m.hartnett@massey.ac.nz maggie is a lecturer in the school of curriculum and pedagogy at massey university, teaching in the areas of e-learning and educational psychology. her research interests include motivation in e-learning environments, online teaching practices, electronic portfolios, and learner support for online and blended learning. � this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. hartnett, m. (2012). relationships between online motivation, participation, and achievement: more complex than you might think. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 16(1), [pp. 28–41]. mailto:m.hartnett@massey.ac.nz http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ microsoft word nkomo.docx nkomo, l. m., daniel, b. k. 22 providing students with flexible and adaptive learning opportunities using lecture recordings larian m nkomo, university of otago ben kei daniel, university of otago abstract lecture recordings can provide adaptable, highly flexible, and convenient access to learning materials. higher education institutions employ lecture recordings to engage and enrich students’ learning experience. however, educators have increasingly raised concerns that the availability of lecture recordings is likely to contribute to a decline in students attending lectures, and to poor learning outcomes. this study explored how students engage with lecture recordings and the extent to which access to these resources contributes to their learning. we administered self-reported measures (questionnaire) to undergraduate and postgraduate students (n=660) who had access to lecture recordings. the questionnaire items included both closed-ended and open-ended questions. the quantitative data was summarised using descriptive statistics. we then applied a sentiment analysis technique to triangulate and contest the results derived from the quantitative analysis. overall, the results indicate that lecture recordings can provide students with flexibility and convenient access to learning materials, and ultimately enhance students’ learning experience. most respondents regarded lecture recordings as supplementary learning resources, not a replacement for lectures. they stated that the availability of lecture recordings did not influence their decisions to attend lectures. further, some respondents reported that they used lecture recordings to prepare for exams, to revise, and to compare with the notes they took in class. this study adds to the growing need to examine institutional digital technologies that support flexible access to learning. keywords: lecture recordings; higher education; flexible learning introduction the 21st-century student is subject to many competing demands. they could be working one or two part-time jobs, studying, and taking care of a family. therefore, it is essential to provide students with flexible access to learning so they can balance work and study (hall & ivaldi, 2017; o’callaghan et al., 2017; traphagan et al., 2010). lecture recording is a digital learning technology that captures, records, and archives lecture content. these technologies comprise hardware and software components with built-in audio and visual capabilities. over the last decade, their deployment in higher education has increased because they offer students flexible learning opportunities. because these technologies capture live lectures, students can re-watch them and manage their learning under a variety of circumstances (hall & ivaldi, 2017). several studies suggest that students advocate the use of lecture recordings in their programmes of learning (see joseph‐richard et al., 2018; o’callaghan et al., 2017; rahman et al., 2018). however, several educators continue to contest the value of providing lecture recordings to students, especially the value of making resources available before planned lectures so they can journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(1) 23 engage with content before coming to lectures. they are concerned that, when students use lecture recordings, they are likely to stay away from live lectures. some argue that using lecture recordings has a significant effect on the nature and quality of student engagement and interaction with lecturers. further, some university teachers said that if they are being recorded, they might not feel free to use anecdotes and humour in their teaching. some also fear that provision and distribution of lecture recordings could breach intellectual property rights because, once learning materials are in digital form, they can be easily shared across digital platforms (dona et al., 2017; o’callaghan et al., 2017; witthaus & robinson, 2015). perhaps the most persistent concern of many academics is that students are likely to substitute lecture attendance with these recordings (marchand et al., 2014; toppin, 2011). however, recent studies have contested these views on the grounds that attending lectures does not necessarily lead to better learning outcomes (eisen et al., 2015; kauffman et al., 2018). others have pointed out that the relationship between lecture recordings and attainment is ambiguous (hall & ivaldi, 2017; mackay, 2019). moreover, educators’ concerns about lecture recordings affecting lecture attendance is a contested phenomenon—falling lecture attendance has little association with lecture recordings because the educational research on lecture attendance predates the introduction of these technologies in higher education (daniel, 2017). for example, mackay (2019) indicated that, although lecture recordings are considered to be a disruptive technology (with the potential to influence class attendance), there is insufficient evidence to conclude that using lecture recordings affects student attendance or attainment. studies have also indicated that the availability of lecture recordings does not necessarily lead to student absenteeism in physical lectures (see aldamen et al., 2015; price & almpanis, 2015; seifert, 2019). it should also be noted that students’ willingness to attend physical lectures could depend partly on a lecturer’s pedagogical approach, the nature of the subject, and its importance to a programme of study. nevertheless, a course’s delivery and pedagogical design can significantly determine the value of lecture recording to student learning (o’callaghan et al., 2017; toppin, 2011). using lecture recordings can positively influence physical lecture attendance. when lecture recordings supplement the physical lectures, there is an indication of a positive correlation between physical class attendance and viewing recorded videos (aldamen et al., 2015). further, seifert (2019) indicated that the availability of lecture recordings caters for a variety of learning needs, which would have little effect on lecture attendance. related literature research has consistently reported that students consider lecture recordings to be resources for supplementing physical lectures rather than replacing them (cooke et al., 2012; copley, 2007; leadbeater et al., 2013; marchand et al., 2014; nordmann & mcgeorge, 2018; soong et al., 2006; traphagan et al., 2010). lecture recording can help struggling students to view and listen until they are comfortable with the topic. recordings are also readily available to students who cannot attend classes or are new to higher education. they can replay lectures at any time, in any place, as often as needed (joseph‐richard et al., 2018). students use lecture recordings for a range of purposes including preparation for exams, clarification of complex topics, flexible access to learning, taking better notes, making up for missed lectures, and help in balancing their schedules between their studies and other obligations (chapin, 2018; daniel, 2017; dona et al., 2017). in some instances, students can take advantage of lecture recordings to prepare for lectures that adopt a flipped-classroom approach (witthaus & robinson, 2015). nkomo, l. m., daniel, b. k. 24 studies also indicate differences in attitudes, and the way lecture recordings are used in subject domains. for example, lecturers in fields such as social sciences, business, and engineering show a more positive attitude to lecture recordings than those in the sciences (dona et al., 2017; rahman et al., 2018). students’ perspectives on lecture recordings also vary. chapin (2018) identified four scenarios in which students use lecture recording: those who did not access lecture recordings but attended lectures regularly; those who used lecture recordings as a supplement for studying and attended lectures regularly; those who attended classes and used the recordings for studying and catching up on missed lectures; and those who did not attend lectures (deliberately or through circumstance) and relied solely on the recordings. edwards and clinton (2019) examined student engagement with lecture recordings and its effect on learning outcomes. the study found a significant drop in attendance after lecture recordings were made available. the study further indicated that students used lecture recordings differently, and that students who engaged in deep learning usually used lecture recordings as supplementary learning material. in contrast, those who were less engaged tended to embrace a surface learning approach. further, students who engaged in surface learning were less likely to use lecture capture as a supplementary tool. trenholm et al. (2019) explained that an increase in surface learning is due to a combination of two aspects: a decline in lecture attendance, and reliance on recorded lecture videos. trenholm et al. (2019) further observed a negative relationship between students’ use of lecture recording and academic performance in mathematics. however, there was no evidence to suggest that using recorded lectures alone can contribute to poor mathematics outcomes. students who used lecture recordings regularly might already have limited mathematical abilities. variation in the use of lecture recordings can be attributed to the nature of the subject, and the time involved in facilitating the subject. danielson et al. (2014) reported that students are more likely to view recorded lectures in courses that are delivered in a short period, are heavily lecture driven, and contain information that is not available in other formats. it is possible that, in some cases, students are likely to substitute live lectures with recorded lectures, but we believe making lecture recordings available to students can outweigh the negative consequences because these resources can provide contemporary students with flexible access to learning materials. for instance, furini et al. (2019) explored the lecture-recording system, “onelab”, which streams video lectures to 1251 students. the system was designed to improve the student learning experience by offering flexible access to learning materials. the results suggested that students who used the system reported that they had an enriched learning experience and better learning outcomes. in particular, those who reported an enhanced learning experience noted that the flexibility in accessing the learning materials was highly adaptable and compatible with their lifestyle. o’callaghan et al. (2017) similarly said that when it comes to lecture recordings, the positives outweigh the negatives, and they should therefore be widely used in higher education. drawing on this line of research, our research advocates student-centred learning and encourages the provision of a flexible learning environment. we strongly believe that having access to lecture recordings is fundamental because it provides students with an extra resource for their learning. furthermore, attending physical lectures does not automatically translate to learning— some studies show no relationship between attendance and performance (eisen et al., 2015; kauffman et al., 2018). we also encourage a student-centred approach to learning because contemporary students in higher education are widely diverse and tend to have multiple responsibilities such as jobs, families, and school. for these students to succeed, it is critical that we design a highly flexible and personally adaptive learning environment. lecture capture and associated digital technologies enable educators to capture live lectures and to record and distribute the transcripts to students at scale. more specifically, lecture-capture technologies such as echo 360 allow live streaming of lectures, making them available to many students in real journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(1) 25 time. most lecture-capture technologies enable students to interact with each other and the lecturer. for instance, lecture-recording platforms allow students to add annotations, flag items as confusing, and ask questions. the research goal in this article was to examine how lecture recording contributes to a flexible and adaptive student learning experience. methods and procedures the study used a survey research design, involving the administration of an online questionnaire with closedand open-ended questions. the recruitment procedure involved profiling all university courses (n=132) that provide recorded lecture materials to students. a total of 660 students volunteered to participate in the survey and shared their experience about the value of engaging with lecture recording and its contribution to their learning. the study was undertaken in a public research-intensive university in new zealand. the project was part of institutional research to provide better strategies to support learning and teaching with digital learning technologies. because student experience varied according to context and academic division, the study’s analysis focused on self-reported experiences. the questionnaire included closed-ended questions measured on a five-point likert scale. some of the closed-ended questions were followed by open-ended questions to provide context for the responses to the closed-ended questions. quantitative data was analysed with ibm spss 22, and descriptive statistics were used to summarise the results. responses to open-ended questions were compiled and analysed thematically with nvivo software. the analysis process involved reading and getting familiar with the data; and coding, developing, and interpreting the data (braun & clarke, 2006). the themes were identified within text segments associated with the responses to the closed-ended questions and coded for both prevalence and frequency of occurrence. the qualitative data was subjected to further analysis with a sentiment analysis approach—this is a natural language processing (nlp) technique that is commonly used to analyse textual data and automate the extraction or classification of sentiment (hussein, 2018). sentiment analysis is also used to examine semantic relationships and meaning in people’s experiences. some algorithms used in sentiment analysis are based on naïve bayes (nb), max entropy (maxent) and support vector machines (svm) (altrabsheh et al., 2013; xie et al., 2019), among others. furthermore, sentiment analysis involves identifying and extracting relevant information about individuals’ subjective feelings and experience of a phenomenon. with the increased use of services such as twitter and online feedback forums, there is more interest in identifying the sentiment of the text generated on these platforms (kiritchenko et al., 2014; veletsianos et al., 2018). because sentiment analysis can help us to understand people’s feelings about a particular entity, it is usually used to identify individuals’ feelings towards products, movies, and politics, among others. although not widely used in education, sentiment analysis has been used in massive open online courses (moocs) to identify students’ opinions about elements such as peer assessment, and sentiments that scholars may face online (see veletsianos et al., 2018; wen et al., 2014). it is widely acknowledged that educational research often uses self-reported measures to generate a range of rich qualitative and quantitative data. for qualitative data, data analysis is usually grouped in themes using subject experience or the researcher’s understanding of qualitative research inquiry. however, because this process can be challenging and depends on the researcher’s experience, the outcome can reflect the extent of the researcher’s knowledge. nkomo, l. m., daniel, b. k. 26 because sentiment analysis uses automated techniques and algorithms, it can reduce the daunting tasks of coding data line by line and identifying themes. sentiment analysis can be used to corroborate or contest findings from other forms of data analysis, and it can provide rich insights by identifying students’ opinions over time—enabling educators to reflect on their teaching and make necessary changes (altrabsheh et al., 2013). findings and discussion the study reported in this article explored how students engaged with lecture recordings and the extent to which access to these resources contributed to a flexible and adaptive learning experience. the article presents a synthesis and summary of the critical findings rather than detailed results. overall, the findings indicate that lecture recording enhanced the student learning experience and provided students with flexible learning opportunities and ways to engage with content, lectures, lecturers, and peers. most of the students in the study said that lecture recordings improved the way they learn because of the flexibility and adaptability of access to learning. these students arguably have more non-school-related responsibilities, and the deployment of a variety of digital learning technologies can provide them with flexible access to learning, enabling them to achieve the balance they need to succeed (hall & ivaldi, 2017; o’callaghan et al., 2017; traphagan et al., 2010). this flexibility allows students to meet 21st century demands, which can require simultaneous work and study. moreover, during times such as the covid-19 pandemic, lecture recordings enable students to adapt their learning to the changing environment. they can continue to learn, regardless of moratoriums on traditional physical learning in lecture halls. students also said that lecture recordings helped to foster self-directed learning. these findings are congruent with previous research that reported that lecture recordings provide flexible and equitable access to learning materials—especially for those who are ill (chang, 2007), and for those with work and family commitments (hall & ivaldi, 2017; taplin et al., 2014). data in the present study revealed that lecture recordings provided students with the ability to juggle multiple demands, and supported flexible access for students with medical conditions or learning disabilities. these particular findings substantiate a recent study which reported that dyslexic students find access to lecture recordings not only useful for their learning, but an effective way to learn (nightingale et al., 2019). students in our survey also said that they found lecture recordings useful when they were revising for exams. during the semester, they used lecture recordings as supplementary learning material rather than replacements for attending lectures. furthermore, lecture recordings helped students who struggled with the language of instruction. those students could rewind and replay recordings as often as necessary to understand the content—a feature unavailable in live lectures. students tend to adapt and engage flexibly with lecture recordings based on need and individual circumstance. although the provision of lecture recordings might influence attendance, students also tend to wander off during conventional lectures (wammes et al., 2019) and occasionally miss a lecture due to circumstances beyond their control. students also tend to be anxious if they feel they cannot meet academic or non-academic tasks (alkandari, 2020). the availability of lecture recordings assures them that they will be able to catch up on their schoolwork, and can help to reduce student anxiety. several respondents reported that recorded lectures improved their engagement with the course content. they also said that the recorded lectures’ availability allowed them to be more focused during lectures instead of multitasking (taking notes and concentrating on clarifying concepts) during the lecture. they indicated that, because they knew they would have access to the recordings later, they could concentrate on listening to the lecturer. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(1) 27 research suggests that students do not necessarily exhibit the same usage patterns of lecture recordings (o’callaghan et al., 2017; witthaus & robinson, 2015). our analysis showed varied engagement. moreover, students who reported missing lectures, and those who could not take notes effectively during lectures, view the provision of lecture recordings as a safety net. we observed that, when used as supplementary learning materials, lecture recordings can support self-directed learning. however, wide-scale deployment of these resources will require academic programmes to be restructured and pedagogical practices to be transformed. all of this can require additional resources and professional upskilling of educators in relevant pedagogical approaches, especially as lecture recordings are not viable for all programmes. conclusion we think lecture recordings are a valuable learning resource for students. lecture recordings provide more adaptable, flexible, and convenient access to learning materials. higher education employs lecture recordings to engage and enrich students’ learning experience. educators have increasingly raised concerns that the availability of lecture recordings is likely to contribute to a decline in students attending lectures and poor learning outcomes, but when used strategically they can be a powerful learning and teaching tool. when used as an extra learning resource, lecture recordings provide more avenues for students to learn and enhance their learning experience. furthermore, studies have indicated that releasing digital learning material before lectures can improve students’ active engagement in lectures (daniel & bird, 2019). for over a decade, studies have shown that many higher education students are overwhelmingly advocating for lecturers to record their lectures and make them available. educators have raised concerns that the wide-scale provision of lecture recordings to students is likely to have a detrimental effect on learning, and that some students may choose to use these materials as a substitute for attending lectures. however, studies have also revealed that recordings offer students increased flexibility to access learning anywhere and anytime, and have less influence on students’choices to attend lectures (topale, 2016). the availability of lecture recordings assures students that they can catch up on their schoolwork if they miss lectures for any reason. availability of these resources can help reduce student anxiety. therefore, the focus of the discourse about lecture recording and its use in higher education should shift to learning strategies that promote the strategic use of these materials, rather than resisting its deployment. it is also essential to systematically address the concerns educators raised about problems associated with recording lectures and making them available on the internet. limitations although students in several institutions of higher education have consistently and increasingly advocated for the provision of lecture recordings to support their learning, caution is needed because the broader institutional implementation of lecture recordings requires a deeper understanding of the issues university teachers have raised about the unintended consequences of deploying these resources. institutional deployment will also need the provision of academic development programmes to academics to enable them to embrace and implement pedagogies that support teaching and learning with lecture recordings. a more comprehensive implementation also requires the digital platforms and associated technologies (e.g., installation of hardware and software in lecture theatres). providing lecture recordings to students before planned lectures helps to transform student engagement in class; 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(2010). impact of class lecture webcasting on attendance and learning. educational technology research and development, 58(1), 19–37. trenholm, s., hajek, b., robinson, c. l., chinnappan, m., albrecht, a., & ashman, h. (2019). investigating undergraduate mathematics learners’ cognitive engagement with recorded lecture videos. international journal of mathematical education in science and technology, 50(1), 3–24. veletsianos, g., kimmons, r., larsen, r., dousay, t. a., & lowenthal, p. r. (2018). public comment sentiment on educational videos: understanding the effects of presenter gender, video format, threading, and moderation on youtube ted talk comments. plos one, 13(6), e0197331. wammes, j. d., ralph, b. c. w., mills, c., bosch, n., duncan, t. l., & smilek, d. (2019). disengagement during lectures: media multitasking and mind wandering in university classrooms. computers & education, 132, 76–89. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2018.12.007 wen, m., yang, d., & rose, c. (2014). sentiment analysis in mooc discussion forums: what does it tell us? in j. stamper, z. pardos, m. mavrikis, & b. m. mclaren (eds.), edm 2014: 7th international conference on educational data mining 2014, 130–137. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(1) 31 witthaus, g. r., & robinson, c. l. (2015). lecture capture literature review: a review of the literature from 2012–2015. loughborough: centre for academic practice, loughborough university. xie, x., ge, s., hu, f., xie, m., & jiang, n. (2019). an improved algorithm for sentiment analysis based on maximum entropy. soft computing, 23(2), 599–611. biographical notes larian nkomo larian.nkomo@otago.ac.nz larian is currently studying towards his phd in higher education at the university of otago, where he is also a research assistant. his research interests lie in higher education, student engagement, learning analytics, educational data mining, flexible learning, and educational technology. ben kei daniel ben.daniel@otago.ac.nz ben kei daniel is associate professor in higher education, and the head of department of higher education development centre at the university of otago, new zealand. he obtained his phd jointly in educational technology and artificial intelligence in education (aied) from the university of saskatchewan in canada. his current research focuses on big data and analytics in higher education. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. nkomo, l. m. and daniel, b. k. (2021). providing students with flexible and adaptive learning opportunities using lecture recordings. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(1), [22–31.]. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 22(1) 1 digital fluency in open, flexible and distance learning alison fields, editor-in-chief, infosolutions maggie hartnett, associate editor, massey university abstract digital fluency affects us all—our world becomes more online, our skills for navigating this world may determine how well we participate, contribute and succeed. in this editorial we look at the digital technologies hangarau matihiko curriculum, which is being introduced to primary and secondary schools in new zealand, and ask what it means for the open, flexible, and distance learning sectors. we also celebrate the jofdl best paper awards for 2018, which were presented at the biennial flanz conference in palmerston north earlier this year. the editorial is rounded off with an overview of the articles in this issue. keywords: open learning; digital literacy; digital fluency; digital technologies curriculum introduction digital literacy, digital fluency, and digital citizenship are now a major focus in the new zealand education sector. they permeate all aspects of education, appear at all levels, and have an increasing presence in the national media. at the same time, we see an increase in the digital fluency of students throughout new zealand. government initiatives, such as the digital technologies curriculum, provide the basis for this hugely important part of modern education, preparing students for the world of today and tomorrow. there are many challenges in making changes this big, but there will be even more challenges if we don’t make them. in education, the immediate impact will be on the primary and secondary sectors where these new curricula are being rolled out, but the wider-reaching effect will be on the tertiary sector, and on open, flexible, and distance learning. in new zealand society, the longer-term effect may be far more widely felt. digital technologies curriculum and ofdl learning digital fluency will become an inescapable part of life—as educators, it is part of our work; as parents it is part of our children’s education; and as citizens it promotes and influences the way we and everyone else contributes in our democracy. the digital technologies curriculum is designed to move students beyond the stages of digital proficiency and digital literacy into digital fluency. differentiated steps lead students from simply having skills in digital technologies (digital proficiency), to knowing how to use technology effectively and efficiently (digital literacy), to knowing when and why to use technology and to create what is needed to solve specific problems (digital fluency). fields, a., hartnett, m. 2 figure 1 digital fluency (derek wenmoth, core education. (2016). used with permission.) the digital technologies curriculum is set in this context. chris hipkins, minister of education, outlines the rationale: one of my goals as education minister is to make sure we are future-proofing our education system. this means we need to change the way we do things to keep ahead of changing technologies. the digital curriculum content positions us as global leaders in education, meeting the needs of a digital and fast-paced world and making sure our students will be job-ready when they graduate. young people will learn how digital technologies work and will develop critical thinking skills and learn key competencies such as collaboration, communication, problem solving, and ethical and safety awareness. the hangarau matihiko curriculum content connects traditional māori practices and knowledge with digital confidence. the hangarau concepts reinforce the importance of understanding the past to inform future practice for people and the environment. chris hipkins, [press release], 8 december 2017. there is a wealth of information available on the digital technologies curriculum. for those not already fully immersed in this education directive or the concepts surrounding it, the following sources from the new zealand ministry of education are a good place to start: • the nz curriculum online: technology. http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/the-new-zealand-curriculum/technology • digital technologies and the national curriculum – what’s it all about? http://elearning.tki.org.nz/teaching/curriculum-areas/digital-technologies-in-thecurriculum http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/the-new-zealand-curriculum/technology http://elearning.tki.org.nz/teaching/curriculum-areas/digital-technologies-in-the-curriculum http://elearning.tki.org.nz/teaching/curriculum-areas/digital-technologies-in-the-curriculum journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 22(1) 3 • strengthening digital technologies: hangarau matihiko in the curriculum. https://education.govt.nz/ministry-of-education/consultations-and-reviews/recentconsultations-and-reviews/digital-technology-consultation/ • digital fluency. http://elearning.tki.org.nz/teaching/digital-fluency • digital citizenship. http://elearning.tki.org.nz/teaching/digital-citizenship content and professional development supporting the digital technologies curriculum has been available to teachers from january 2018, and all primary and secondary schools are required to be teaching it by 2020. a myriad of commentary, questions, and resources are appearing, and the literature surrounding this initiative and its implementation is burgeoning. the question asked in this editorial, however, is about the impact of this initiative on the sector of open, flexible, and distance learning. we believe the days of the discrete difference between face-to-face learning and distance learning were over when flexible learning started to combine aspects of both. the rise in digital technologies has made this difference even more difficult to discern as digital technology makes face-to-face contact possible over an online connection for both physically remote and physically present students, and flipped classroom models provide remote-use resources for both types of students. students may, for the sake of convenience, necessity and variety, use both face-to-face and remote learning to gain wider curriculum experience and more flexible delivery and interaction in their education. the differences between the two types of learning will diminish and the overlap will increase. there will be more change and more connection for both groups. we believe ofdl educators would be well advised to do three things as we move forward with this new educational focus in new zealand: 1. be informed: understand the changes and be aware of what is happening across the whole education sector. 2. be included: look for opportunities to be included in discussions and decisions affecting your own educational specialty. 3. be involved: be an active participant in, and contributor to, your own area of education and beyond, helping everyone to make the most of the possibilities realisable through digital technologies. jofdl best paper award 2018 the journal’s editors have again taken the opportunity provided by the flanz biennial conference to officially recognise the authors of the best papers published in jofdl in the preceding 2 years. there are several dimensions to the jofdl best paper award: it is a way to celebrate the achievements of the best writers contributing to this journal, a way for the journal to highlight the best piece or pieces of research and writing it has recently published, and a way to signal to readers which articles may be worth a second look within the journal’s contents. a panel of three deliberated over the choice of best paper 2018, using a multi-faceted approach to identify possible candidates for the award. criteria used to select the best paper were those outlined in the jofdl editorial in issue 18(2) http://www.jofdl.nz/index.php/jofdl/article/view/237/178 which accompanied the announcement of the inaugural award in 2014. https://education.govt.nz/ministry-of-education/consultations-and-reviews/recent-consultations-and-reviews/digital-technology-consultation/ https://education.govt.nz/ministry-of-education/consultations-and-reviews/recent-consultations-and-reviews/digital-technology-consultation/ http://elearning.tki.org.nz/teaching/digital-fluency http://elearning.tki.org.nz/teaching/digital-citizenship fields, a., hartnett, m. 4 the best paper winner for 2018 is: • kamila hoffmann-dumieński, for her 2016 paper “professional development across the islands of the south pacific: a perspective of a blended learning facilitator”. http://www.jofdl.nz/index.php/jofdl/article/view/278 there are also three highly commended articles: • mark nichols, “reading and studying on the screen: an overview of literature towards good learning design practice” http://www.jofdl.nz/index.php/jofdl/article/view/263 • jo tilton and maggie hartnett, “what are the influences on teacher mobile technology self-efficacy within secondary school classrooms?” http://www.jofdl.nz/index.php/jofdl/article/view/279 • becky sue parton, “video captions for online courses: do youtube’s auto-generated captions meet deaf students’ needs?” http://www.jofdl.nz/index.php/jofdl/article/view/255 our congratulations go to these writers for their achievements! articles in this issue this issue contains two interesting articles from different areas of the globe, and this editorial. other articles, including some developed from presentations at the recently held 2018 flanz conference, are being gathered for the next issue, which will be released later this year. articles in the current issue are described below. the first article by chellepan, van der meer, pratt, and wass outlines results from a study exploring factors that may influence tertiary teachers in deciding whether to use a flipped classroom model for their teaching. in the flipped classroom model, students are generally encouraged to engage with learning resources ahead of scheduled class time, and the class time is used to focus on active learning and discussions that support and build on the learning already done. this research goes beyond the practical question of how to flip a classroom and the theoretical question of why to flip it. it instead looks at the considerations made in real situations by teachers who have the option of choosing the best method to deliver education in their own classrooms. this research looks at the flipped model in the tertiary setting and in the context of new zealand. it reports on the findings from a survey and is part of a larger research project. zeglen and rosendale have contributed an article that looks at methods of increasing online information retention by using visual hints and feedback in educational games. the research is based in the united states (as are the authors) and is set in the tertiary sector. their focus is on the gains lecturers and course designers can make in student achievement levels by carefully incorporating visual hints and feedback in the learning process during online engagement. the study considered how including hints and feedback enhanced the cognition and knowledge retention of three groups of tertiary students. the study involved 65 students, all studying at tertiary level in the united states. students were divided into two treatment groups and one control group, and testing was conducted to gain results that provide a useful contribution to the literature of best practice in using educational games and online learning. http://www.jofdl.nz/index.php/jofdl/article/view/278 http://www.jofdl.nz/index.php/jofdl/article/view/263 http://www.jofdl.nz/index.php/jofdl/article/view/279 http://www.jofdl.nz/index.php/jofdl/article/view/255 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 22(1) 5 conclusion digital fluency will not remain the pre-requisite for a brave new world – it will become a normal education for business as usual. we have sought to identify what this means beyond the immediate implementation of the digital technologies curriculum, and ask those in the ofdl sector to consider what flow-on effects need to be considered now in their own specialty areas of education. nothing exists in isolation; we are all part of the whole. this editorial asks educators in the ofdl sector to contemplate what this means, as the ripples are already spreading in this sector, and we need to be informed and considered in our actions and reactions to the changing nature of education in new zealand. references hipkins, c. (2017). new digital technologies for schools and kura. [press release]. beehive.govt.nz: the official website of the new zealand government. retrieved from https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/new-digital-technologies-schools-and-kura wenmoth, d. (2016). core blog: three tips for becoming a digitally fluent educator. retrieved from http://blog.core-ed.org/blog/2016/08/three-tips-for-becoming-a-digitallyfluent-educator.html biographical notes alison fields alison@infosolutions.co.nz alison is an information scientist and director of research at infosolutions. she conducts research in health information, is completing a doctorate in education, and contracts in the education sector. she is a fellow of the library and information association of new zealand aotearoa (lianza). her research areas encompass e-learning, online learner support, health information, library services, and continuing professional development. alison is an executive member of flanz and editor-in-chief of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. maggie hartnett m.hartnett@massey.ac.nz maggie is a senior lecturer in the institute of education at massey university, new zealand, where she coordinates postgraduate digital technologies programmes and teaches in the areas of e-learning and digital technologies. her research interests include motivation and engagement in digital environments, teaching and learning with digital technologies, electronic portfolios, support for digital learners, digital places, and spaces of learning. maggie is an executive member of flanz and associate editor of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. fields, a., & hartnett, m. (2018). digital fluency in open, flexible and distance learning. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(1), [1–5.]. mailto:alison@infosolutions.co.nz mailto:m.hartnett@massey.ac.nz http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ © distance education association of new zealand 5 today’s student and virtual schooling: the reality, the challenges, the promise… michael barbour assistant professor wayne state university detroit, michigan, united states of america mkbarbour@gmail.com introduction in 2008 i was approached to deliver a keynote address at the biennial conference of the distance education association of new zealand (deanz) in wellington on the topic of today’s student and k–12 distance education. several months ago, mark nichols asked me if i would be interested in putting some of the ideas that i discussed as a part of that august 2008 presentation into a manuscript for the journal of distance learning. this paper represents my best efforts to summarise and expand on those ideas. as in my 2008 keynote, i want to discuss three main themes in this paper. the first is to critically examine the common labels we assign to this generation of students and the characteristics these labels attribute to the youth we find in our schools, colleges, and universities. this examination includes the literature and research, (or lack thereof) to support these labels. the second is to trace the substantial history of distance education at the k–12 level. this history begins with the use of the correspondence model and continues with current online learning initiatives. the third and final purpose is to describe the virtual school movement, with a focus on developments in north america. this description also includes a discussion of how virtual schools have been organised and the nature of students served. the nature of today’s student there has been much written about the nature of this generation of students, both in the popular media and in the academic literature. they have been called generation y, echo, net generation, neomillennials, generation next, journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 5–25 © distance education association of new zealand 6 millennials, generation me, digital natives, generation txt and so on. each of these generational labels has a prescribed set of (often contradictory) characteristics. however, before we explore some of these labels it is worth examining the notion of generational differences. generational differences are based on the theory that people born approximately within a 20-year time period share a common set of characteristics based upon the historical experiences, economic and social conditions, technological advances, and other societal changes they have in common. if we examine the past century, the commonly accepted generations (although some may have slightly different names for them) are: gi generation (greatest generation)• : born between 1901 and 1924 silent generation• : born between 1925 and 1945 baby boomers• : born between 1946 and 1964 generation x• : born between 1965 and 1980 today’s student• : born between 1981 and 2000. for example, the civil rights movement and the sexual revolution, along with the events of the cold war, the various milestones in space travel, and the assassinations of numerous inspirational leaders probably influenced those who would be identified as baby boomers in the united states. according to lancaster and stillman (2002) those born on the edges of two generations are often referred to as cuspers, and may take the characteristics of either generation depending on their experiences. when considering today’s students, it is important to note that one of the reasons we place so much attention on this group of individuals is their size. in 2005, this generation numbered approximately 60 million in the united states, making them the largest group since the baby boomers (who number 72 million) and three times larger than generation x. at that time, this generation of students made up 37 percent of the population of the united states, and the teen population was growing at twice the rate of the rest of america. as such, this generation of students has the potential to have a great impact on society—from their involvement in the community to their purchasing power to their employment expectations. in examining these generational labels, we find that three labels have been most prevalent in the media and literature: net generation, millennials, and digital natives. the net generation was a label first used by don tapscott in his book growing up digital: the rise of the net generation. tapscott journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 5–25 © distance education association of new zealand 7 (1997) believed this net generation comprised children of baby boomers, and that digital technology has had a profound impact on their personalities, including their attitudes and approach to learning. essentially, he believes that the generation gap has become a generation lap—at least in relation to technology—and this generational lap has made this generation of students profoundly different from any other. in the opening pages of his book, tapscott writes “the research team collaborated with several hundred children and adults located on six continents…. [and] the main reference source was the web” (p. viii). in his acknowledgements, he indicated that, “the research team… held discussions on the net with about 300 youngsters” (p. xi). this is the only information provided about the methodology he used in crafting his vision of this generation. the difficulty with this methodology is twofold: there is not enough detail provided to understand whether it was reliable or valid, and the sample came primarily from those who were engaged in the medium that features prominently in tapscott’s generational label. one wonders if his findings were a self-fulfilling prophecy—youth found on the internet, and who have grown up using technology all of their lives, were found to be strongly influenced by technology and the internet. if his sample had focused on youth and adults in rural and remote areas where access to digital technology and the internet is not as common, would his characteristics of this generation of youth be the same? in his follow-up book, grown up digital: how the net generation is changing your world, tapscott (2009) again employed an online questionnaire, a facebook group, and a global online network with an international sample in the thousands, a strategy that raises similar concerns. the millennials generational label appears to be the most common within the literature (howe & strauss, 2000). millennials are described as “more numerous, more affluent, better educated, and more ethnically diverse…. they are beginning to manifest a wide array of positive social habits…. [such as] teamwork, achievement, modesty, and good conduct” (p. 4). the problem with this optimistic generational label is again the methodology that was used. as they described on their website (see http://millenialsrising.com), the authors surveyed 202 teachers and 655 students from the class of 2000 in fairfax county, virginia. fairfax county is an affluent suburb of washington, dc. it has a median household income almost twice the national average; only a third of the student population studied was non-white, 18 percent of students qualified for free or reduced-lunch, and 5 percent lived below the official poverty line. i wonder if the authors would have found the same generational characteristics if their sample had been from detroit, where over 80 percent journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 2–4 © distance education association of new zealand 8 of the population is black, over 20 percent live under the poverty line, and the on-time graduation rate is approximately 25 percent. probably the most familiar term among those involved in the k–12 environment is digital natives. according to prensky (2001), digital natives “are all ‘native speakers’ of the digital language of computers, video games and the internet” (¶ 5); those of us who are not native to this digital language are considered digital immigrants. of all of the generational labels this is probably the most dangerous, as it presumes a negative connotation towards digital immigrants that prensky himself fosters, “if digital immigrant educators really want to reach digital natives—i.e., all their students—they will have to change” (prensky, 2001, ¶ 34). those educators who do not are “just dumb (and lazy)” (¶ 33). bayne and ross (2007) elaborated on this negative view of digital immigrants by examining the terms used in the digital native literature to describe both groups. table 1 terminology used to describe digital natives and digital immigrants (bayne & ross, 2007, p. 2) digital native digital immigrant student fast young future multi-tasking image playful looking forward digital action constant connection teacher slow old past or legacy logical, serial thinking text serious looking backward analogue knowledge isolation unfortunately, like tapscott’s conclusions, prensky’s work is simply based upon his own, unsystematic observations. i should note that mckenzie (2007) does an excellent job of examining the ‘research’ (and i use that term extremely lightly) that prensky uses to support his digital natives–digital immigrants dichotomy. one of the common themes that you should have noticed is the lack of reliable and valid research to support any of these generational labels—or at least the most common ones. in their funded literature review of how generational differences might affect the instructional design process, reeves and oh (2008) concluded, “the bottom line on generational differences is that educational technology researchers should treat this variable as failing to journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 5–25 © distance education association of new zealand 9 meet the rigour of definition and measurement required for robust individual difference variables” (p. 302). this finding is also consistent with many of the characteristics attributed to this generation of students by these various labels, such as this generation mistakenly being labelled as master multitaskers (see just, kellera & cynkara, 2008; naveh-benjamin, kilb & fisher, 2006; as recent examples that have failed to confirm this myth). reeves and oh (2008) did describe one line of research into generational differences that they found to be “more rigourous” and “convincing”—the generation me work completed by jean twenge. based on data collected from 1.3 million young americans, twenge (2006) used results from twelve studies dating back to the 1950s to trace the changes in narcissistic beliefs and behaviour over the past 6 decades. on the book jacket, generation me is described thus, “today’s young people have been raised to aim for the stars at a time when it is more difficult than ever to get into college, find a good job, and afford a house. their expectations are very high just as the world is becoming more competitive, so there’s a huge clash between their expectations and reality.” in a more recent article for medical education, twenge (2009) indicated that generation me students were too ambitious, overconfident, self-centred, lacked empathy for others, entitled, and lacked self-reliance. this is not necessarily the same rosy picture as that portrayed by tapscott, prensky, or howe and strauss. based upon this review of generational differences, the commonly used labels of net generation, millennials, and digital natives are based on no or flawed research (and for a more provocative review of the generational differences literature, see reeves, 2008). when we examine many of the characteristics these labels prescribe to this generation of students (e.g., the fact that they are master multi-taskers), we find the current research supports the exact opposite. in fact, the only thing we can say about this generation of students—that is at least based upon reliable and valid research—is that they are more narcissistic than any previous generation. now that we have a better idea of the nature of the students that populate the present k–12 environment, let’s shift our attention to how distance education has been used at the k–12 level. the history of k–12 distance education in general terms, the development of distance education has gone through five main phases, at least in terms of the dominant technology that has been used for delivery. this is also true of distance education at the k–12 journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 5–25 © distance education association of new zealand 10 level. correspondence education was first used at the k–12 level by the calvert school of baltimore in 1906 (moore & kearsley, 1996), followed by the canadian province of british columbia in 1919 (dunae, 2006). shortly after, k–12 jurisdictions also began to experiment with educational radio as a method of distance education delivery. at its peak, radio was used extensively in the mid-western portion of the united states—beginning in ohio in 1929 and wisconsin in 1930 (clark, 2003), and most extensively in australia with the school from the air (moore & kearsley, 1996). several decades later, the k–12 community began using instructional television; for example, in 1961 the united states with the midwest program on airborne television instruction (clark, 2003). in the late 1970s and early 1980s, audiographics (or telematics) began to appear in some k–12 jurisdictions. this model was primarily used in australia (oliver & reeves, 1994), and extensively in canada (e.g., brown, sheppard, & stevens, 2000). in many respects the lessons learned from the delivery of distance education to rural k–12 students using audiographics systems formed the basis of the web-based or online learning programme that was to follow (see barbour, 2005a for an example of this transition). these online learning programmes, at least in north america, have become organised into virtual or cyber schools in the past 2 decades. the virtual school movement the organisation of online learning programmes into single entities or schools that provide supplemental or full-time online studies is largely a north american phenomenon (powell & patrick, 2006). this is not to say that there are not k–12 online learning initiatives outside of north america. in their survey of over 30 different countries, the international council for k–12 online learning (inacol) (2008) found that many countries had k–12 online learning programmes, and that some were quite extensive. in singapore, for example, online and blended learning was so pervasive that teaching in online and virtual environments was a required course in their teacher education programmes. in turkey, the government began a pilot programme in 2005–2006 that saw 300,000 k–12 students take an online course, and it was planned to have all 12,000,000 students taking online courses by 2010. in new zealand, the virtual learning network (vln) has supported the development of a series of regional programmes that use synchronous video conferencing and asynchronous web-based material to deliver k–12 online learning. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 5–25 © distance education association of new zealand 11 k–12 online learning is also present in other countries; for example, powell and patrick (2006) also found that less than 1 percent of k–12 students were enrolled in an online course in china—this may seem like a small amount, but when the total number of k–12 students are taken into consideration it represents a significant number. there were many private companies offering ministry of education approved courses in iran; and there was a single correspondence school offering online courses in japan. clark (2007) referenced two united kingdom initiatives: the national academy for gifted and talented youth, which offered some online courses; and a school without walls, which offered a level and gcsc courses, primarily to adults. my own research for the 2008 keynote revealed the virtual school for the gifted and the virtual schooling service in australia, and a small national virtual school in finland. however, none of these other programmes resemble the organisational structure of a traditional school (with the possible exception of the individual regional vln networks) that can be found in canada and the united states. k–12 online learning or virtual schooling began in canada in the province of british columbia, with the creation of new directions in distance learning (dallas, 1999) and the ebus academy (see http://www.ebus.ca) in vanderhoof around 1993. other provinces soon followed, as school and district-based programmes were developed. within the canadian context, all of these virtual schools are either public or private. most provide only supplemental online learning opportunities (i.e., students are enrolled in a traditional school, and enrol in one or more online courses to supplement their curricular opportunities), although a small number allow students to enrol in these online schools full time. these online schools have a variety of names, such as virtual schools, cyber schools, internet high schools—none of which carry any specific connotation. barbour and stewart (2008) report that there was some form of k–12 online learning in all 13 provinces and territories, although it was much more extensive in some jurisdictions than others. within the united states, the initial development of virtual schooling occurred primarily as a result of state initiatives. for example, the state of utah created their e-school in 1994 (clark, 2003). in the united states there is a very clear distinction between virtual schools and cyber schools. virtual schools are primarily supplemental programmes that are typically district-based, consortium, or state-wide programmes. cyber schools, on the other hand, are typically full-time programmes, often created under charter school legislation (which allows a group to create a school based upon a specific thematic or ideological written document or charter). the growth of k–12 online learning journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 5–25 © distance education association of new zealand 12 in the united states has been exponential. clark (2001) estimated that there were between 40,000 and 50,000 virtual school enrolments: 6 years later picciano and seaman (2007) indicated that there were approximately 700,000 students enrolled in online courses. watson, gemin, and ryan (2008) reported significant online learning activity in 44 states. mexico’s k–12 online learning is less extensive than that in its two northern neighbours—canada and the united states. at present, there are at least nine distance education high schools operated by universities that have grown out of telesecundaria or the television-based high-school programme for rural areas that could not support high-school teachers (c. cavanaugh, personal communication, may 6, 2008). the main focus of these distance programmes is to help adults finish high school. because internet access is not universal, these programmes use educational radio, satellite delivery, dvds, online media, mobile phones, and even correspondence education to deliver their programmes. currently these programmes are relatively small, but the university consortiums are rapidly growing with an increased importance being placed on education within the country. how does virtual schooling work? during my 2008 keynote, i was able to provide a series of screen captures and videos to illustrate how virtual schooling worked. this print format limits my ability to use the same resources. therefore, in examining what virtual schooling looks like from the student perspective, i will provide extensive quotations from an article i co-authored (barbour & reeves, 2009). note that a description of virtual schooling is different from a description of cyber schooling, at least in the american context where each term describes a different type of k–12 online learning. cyber schooling is often associated with the homeschooling movement in the united states—although, in legislative terms, the two terms have very different meanings. students in these cyber schools are not enrolled in a brick-and-mortar school, and take all of their schooling via the online learning programme (usually at home). these students are similar to students enrolled in a traditional correspondence course, but computers mediate the experience. greenway and vanourek (2006) described the experience of one sixth-grade cyber school student: in a ‘typical’ day, a student might take mostly core courses with some electives and log on to the computer for an hour or two, clicking through interactive lessons with text, audio or video clips, flash animation, and links to related sites; completing an online math quiz; emailing journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 5–25 © distance education association of new zealand 13 the teacher; and ‘chatting’ with classmates online. students complete the majority of their work offline in many of these online schools, for example, reading assignments, drafting an essay, conducting an experiment with school-supplied materials, and studying for an exam…. a parent or other responsible adult is asked to supervise—and sometimes to assist with instruction and motivation, all under the direction of a licensed teacher. (¶ 17) in the cyber-school model, the cyber school provides the online materials used by the student. there is an expectation that the parent is the primary ‘teacher’ (i.e., this was the main issue in a successful lawsuit brought against this method of delivery in wisconsin in 2008), and the cyber-school teacher is largely a curricular help desk and grader. this practice allows cyber schools to maintain a student–teacher ratio that is two to three times that in virtual schools and traditional brick-and-mortar schools. virtual schooling uses a combination of asynchronous and synchronous delivery models. in barbour and reeves (2009), we described the asynchronous model: the asynchronous method of delivery is more common among the statewide virtual schools throughout the united states. for example, in describing how a student would take a course through the flvs [florida virtual school], friend and johnston (2005) described how the students would interact with online curriculum…. and providing them with choice in the resources that they use and how they demonstrate a mastery of the content. after the student has finished interacting with the curriculum, the students turn in assignments, and the teacher gives written feedback in the electronic course room or phones to discuss ways the student [sic] can improve performance’ (p. 109). this was consistent with the description provided by zucker and kozma (2003), who described a student experience in a bioethics course offered through the vhs [virtual high school global consortium]. a student would enter their online course where the student is presented with a photo of the teacher, possibly photos of other students, the course syllabus and a course calendar. the student would use the syllabus, calendar, other web-based material, and interaction with their teacher to determine the specific reading assignments and written work to be completed each week. using the course content and their textbook, if there is one for the course, the student would work through the material and complete the written journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 5–25 © distance education association of new zealand 14 work—which would be submitted to the teacher for written feedback delivered to the student through the course management system. (p. 406) while this asynchronous model for virtual schooling is the dominant method of delivery in the united states, some programmes there (and many more in canada1) also use synchronous delivery. again, in barbour and reeves (2009) we described: a good example of a synchronous learning environment is provided by murphy and coffin (2003), “when students first enter the virtual classroom, they have access to dm [direct messaging] and hand raising. access to other tools, such as the microphone or the wb [whiteboard], must be assigned by the teacher” (p. 236). using these tools, the teacher can lead a traditional lecture, using slides on the whiteboard to guide their thoughts or as notes for the student. in his dissertation examining social presence with web-based instructors who taught in a combination synchronous and asynchronous environment, nippard (2005) described many of the different kinds of interaction that would be expected from a traditional classroom, with the teacher presenting the content in a lecturestyle with notes or worked examples on the whiteboard and students asking their teachers questions using both the audio and text-based communication tools based on their presentation of the content. (p. 406) let me underscore the fact that the asynchronous delivery model is used by most virtual schools in the united states. these programmes use synchronous instruction mainly in second-language courses or as supplemental tutorial sessions outside the traditional school day. within canada, some provinces make extensive use of synchronous instruction, while others rely almost exclusively on asynchronous instruction. regardless of the delivery model(s) used by the virtual school, in my own research i have found that virtual school teachers tend to be much better synchronous teachers than asynchronous teachers (see barbour, 2008a; 2008b). one of the reasons virtual school teachers may be more effective in the synchronous environment is the similarity with the traditional classroom environment. essentially, the synchronous environment allows these virtual school teachers to use many of the same teaching strategies in the virtual classroom that they would use in the face-to-face classroom. in programmes 1 canadian virtual schools are able to offer more synchronous delivery because their education is controlled at the provincial level, in comparison with the united states where education is controlled at the local level. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 5–25 © distance education association of new zealand 15 where teachers use both synchronous and asynchronous instruction, virtual school teachers have readily adopted the synchronous tools because they are consistent with what they already know, believe, and do in their traditional classrooms (rogers, 2003). in terms of programmes that rely exclusively or primarily on asynchronous instruction, the quality of teaching varies significantly. this would be consistent with the traditional classroom, where we find some really good teachers and some really bad teachers. one of the more troubling findings related to asynchronous instruction in these virtual schools is the lack of actual teaching that occurs. in many programmes, the delivery model focuses on providing online course content that the students are expected to read through or interact with, followed by activities that the students must complete and/or a mandatory online discussion that they must participate in. to make a comparison with the traditional classroom, this delivery model would be similar to providing the student with an interactive textbook, having them complete a series of questions or problems from that textbook, and perhaps expecting them to speak once or twice in a group discussion at the end of the process. another troubling aspect is the almost total lack of literature related to the design and delivery of asynchronous content that exists for the k–12 environment. barbour and cooze (see barbour, 2005b; 2005c; 2007; barbour & cooze, 2004; cooze & barbour, 2005; 2007) have examined what constitutes effective asynchronous course content design for k–12 learners. however, this line of inquiry has focused almost exclusively upon a single virtual school, and primarily on the views of teachers and course developers (with little input from students or verification of the perceived effectiveness). similarly, dipietro et al. (2008) reported a series of best practices of asynchronous teaching that were based solely on the perceptions of virtual school teachers at a single united states virtual school, again without verification of the effectiveness of teachers’ perceptions. in 2008, inacol conducted a review of published standards of k–12 teaching online that resulted in the release of the national standards for quality online teaching (see inacol, 2008). these standards were adopted after a review of a series of other standards. with the exception of the electronic classroom of tomorrow’s teacher evaluation rubric, none of the standards reviewed were based on published research (including the ones eventually adopted by inacol as their national standards). unfortunately, universitybased teacher education programmes have only begun to include online journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 5–25 © distance education association of new zealand 16 teaching pedagogy in their courses in the past 3 or 4 years (and only a select few have been at the forefront in filling this gap in pre-service and in-service teacher training). this is not to say that there are no effective virtual school teachers, or that all virtual school teachers struggle with teaching in an asynchronous environment. recent research conducted by archambault and crippen (2009) found that, as a group, virtual school teachers were more experienced, better educated, and more technically savvy than the average classroom teacher. this would seem to indicate that while there is a lack of research and literature to support their practices, many of these seasoned teachers have been able to draw on their formal and informal training, along with years of classroom practice, to provide virtual school students with a quality online learning experience. to test this belief, however, we need to examine how virtual students actually perform compared with their classroom counterparts. is virtual schooling effective? the literature on student performance of virtual school students compared with classroom-based students has been primarily one sided. if we examine the literature chronologically, bigbie and mccarroll (2000) report that over half of the students who completed flvs courses scored an a in their course and only 7 percent received a failing grade. similarly, cavanaugh (2001) found that there was “a small positive effect in favor of distance education” at the k–12 level (p. 73). barker and wendel (2001) found that students in the six virtual schools in three different canadian provinces performed no worse than the students from the three conventional schools. barbour and mulcahy (2008; 2009) found that over a 5-year period with more than 200,000 cases, students enrolled in the centre for distance learning and innovation (that is, in the provincial virtual school in newfoundland and labrador) performed as well as classroom-based students on final course scores and exam marks. many others have reached similar conclusions in the intervening years (see cavanaugh et al., 2004; 2005; clark et al., 2002; elluminate, 2006; mcleod et al., 2005). in almost all of the available literature on student performance, students enrolled in virtual school courses do as well or better than their classroom counterparts. however, we should examine the nature of some of these studies a little further. for example, ballas and belyk (2000) reported that participation rates in the assessment among virtual students ranged from 65 percent to 75 percent, compared with 90 percent to 96 percent for the classroom-based students in their study. bigbie and mccarroll (2000) reported that between 25 percent and 50 percent of students had dropped out of their journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 5–25 © distance education association of new zealand 17 flvs courses over the previous 2-year period, indicating that end-of-year assessments or overall course scores did not include one-fifth to half of the students who were initially enrolled in the course. mcleod et al. (2005) were even more direct when they stated they believed the student performance results were due to the high dropout rate in virtual school courses. similarly, cavanaugh et al. (2005) speculated that the virtual school students who did take the assessment may have been more academically motivated and naturally higher achieving students. essentially, these authors have raised concerns that many of the lower performing students had either dropped out of their virtual school courses or failed to complete non-mandatory assessments. in effect, these studies of student performance did not compare comparable groups of students. the nature of virtual school students therefore has to be examined even further. in the first-year evaluation of the vhs, kozma, zucker, and espinoza (1998) found that the vast majority of students in their courses were planning to attend a 4-year college. in their second-year evaluation, espinoza et al. (1999) found that “vhs courses [were] predominantly designated as ‘honors’, and students enrolled are mostly college bound” (p. 49). similarly, watkins (2005) reported that 45 percent of the students who participated in e-learning opportunities in michigan were “either advanced placement or academically advanced” students (p. 37). in addition to the selective nature of the students in terms of their average performance and their higher education aspirations, the literature has also been quite clear about the characteristics of most virtual school students. haughey and muirhead (1999) described the preferred characteristics of virtual school students as including the highly motivated, self-directed, self-disciplined, independent learner who could read and write well, and who also had a strong interest in or ability with technology. roblyer and elbaum (2000) indicated that “only students with a high need to control and structure their own learning may choose distance formats freely” (p. 61). finally, clark et al. (2002) found that ivhs students were “highly motivated, high achieving, self-directed and/or who liked to work independently” (p. 41). simply put, the literature indicates that the sample of virtual school students is skewed even more to the higher performing student. however, in this instance the literature may not provide a complete picture of the virtual school landscape. for example, in her opening remarks to the 2007 annual virtual school symposium, susan patrick explained that the two courses with the highest enrolment of online students in the united states journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 5–25 © distance education association of new zealand 18 were algebra i and algebra ii. these mathematics courses are usually taken in the first year of high school, and many of the online students enrolled in these courses are taking the course for the second or third time. watson et al. (2008) indicated that the largest growth in k–12 online learning enrolment is in the full-time cyber schools, and both watson et al. and klein (2006) indicate that many cyber schools have a higher percentage of students classified as ‘at-risk’. rapp, eckes, and plurker (2006) described at-risk students as those who might otherwise drop out of traditional schools. concerns or issues that students have with their teachers and courses (such as organisation, lessons, assignments, and grading) have the potential to create roadblocks to success. while the report charter schools in eight states: effects on achievement, attainment, integration, and competition reports that “virtual [cyber] charter middle schools lag substantially behind classroom-based charter middle schools” (zimmer, 2009, pp. 40–41), it also cautions against drawing conclusions because many of those included in the comparison “may be students who are especially likely to have experienced an event producing a decline in their expected future achievement” (p. 41). these events cause the kind of roadblocks described by rapp and her colleagues. the majority of the literature may portray k–12 online learners as being primarily highly motivated, self-directed, self-disciplined, independent learners who read and write well, and who have a strong interest in or ability with technology. however, this is clearly not an accurate description of the entire or possibly even the majority of students attending virtual schools and, particularly, cyber schools. clearly, as scherer (2006) indicated in her discussion of the research on student issues related to virtual schooling, “the sample of students needs to be broadened to determine if these findings hold true for a greater number of students…” (p. 19). concluding thoughts while distance education at the k–12 level has been around for over a century, the use of online learning in k–12 environments and the organisation of these programmes into formal entities are still quite new. in north america, virtual schooling has been a reality for only about 15 years, and it is less in many other jurisdictions. there is therefore still much that we don’t know about this form of distance education with this population of students. having said that, as the percentage of k–12 students enrolled in online learning continues to grow, and as the population of students who access these opportunities continues to expand, more is needed to prepare both students and teachers to be successful in these environments. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 5–25 © distance education association of new zealand 19 teacher preparation programmes need to incorporate curriculum and practicum/internship opportunities for pre-service and in-service teachers. initiatives such as the teacher education goes into virtual schooling (tegivs) programme at iowa state university (see http://www.public.iastate. edu/~vschool/tegivs/homepage.html) need to be the rule for pre-service programmes rather than the exception. for in-service teachers, more focused programmes such as the certificate in online teaching and learning at the university of florida (see http://www.distancelearning.ufl.edu/program. aspx?p=39) or the certificate in online teaching from boise state university (see http://edtech.boisestate.edu/web/online_teach_cert.htm) need to be made available. initiatives such as these will improve both the design and delivery of online courses and how school-based teachers support students who are engaged in online learning. for students, we need to gain a better understanding of the skills necessary for adolescent learners to be successful in a largely independent, technologymediated environment—and then figure out ways to provide students with those skills before they are placed in the online learning environment. as states like michigan, new mexico, alabama, and others begin to require students to take an online course or have an online learning experience in order to graduate from high school, preparing students to be successful in this kind of environment will be critical. i would like to thank derek wenmoth of core education for suggesting to the distance education association of new zealand that i would be a suitable keynote presenter. i also thank thomas c. reeves of the university of georgia for his recommendation to the deanz programme committee that led to the invitation to deliver a keynote at the 2008 biennial meeting, and for his expertise and furthering my own interest in the generational difference aspects of this article. references archambault, l., & crippen, k. 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(2009). charter schools in eight states: effects on achievement, attainment, integration, and competition. santa monica, ca: rand corporation. biographical note originally from newfoundland, canada, michael k. barbour received his phd from the university of georgia. his research interests focus on the use of online learning to provide equitable learning opportunities for k–12 students in rural jurisdictions. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 5–25 microsoft word tulldabnerayebi-arthur.docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1) 63 social media and e-learning in response to seismic events: resilient practices susan, tull, university of canterbury nicki dabner, university of canterbury kofi –ayebi-arthur, university of canterbury abstract the motivation to adopt innovative communication and e-learning practices in education settings can be stimulated by events such as natural disasters. education institutions in the pacific rim cannot avoid the likelihood of natural disasters that could close one or more buildings on a campus and affect their ability to continue current educational practices. for the university of canterbury in new zealand, the impetus to innovate was a series of seismic events in 2010 and 2011. this paper presents findings from studies that identified resilient practices in this organisation, which was a ‘late adopter’ of e-learning. the findings indicate that the combined use of social media and e-learning to support teaching, learning, communication, and related organisational practices fosters resilience for students, staff, and organisations in times of crises. the recommendations presented are relevant for all educational organisations that could be affected by similar events. keywords: social media; e-learning; disaster response; resilience introduction when disasters and crises (whether they be man-made or natural) occur, resilient education institutions adapt in order to continue teaching and research. resilience has been defined as “an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change” (“resilience”, n.d., para. 2). chang-richards, vargo, and seville (2013) define organisational resilience as “the ability of an organisation to survive a crisis and thrive in a world of uncertainty” (p. 117). organisational resilience also refers to how organisations improve their ability to respond to, and quickly recover from, crisis events such as natural disasters. such events can quickly interrupt the activity of an academic institution. normal programmes and formal operations can break down in unexpected ways as a crisis unfolds and, if essential infrastructure is affected, may result in an institution having to close.. at such times, an organisation can be stimulated to innovate, making rapid changes to its structures and practices and adopting more information, communication, and teaching technologies. even a university characterised as a “late adopter” (rogers, 2003) of elearning by marshall (2009) can become innovative in these circumstances. in 2008, the university of canterbury (hereafter ‘the university’) situated in christchurch, new zealand, had little need to progress their university-wide adoption of e-learning practices. however, a series of seismic events in 2010 and 2011 stimulated the rapid adoption of e-learning across all the university’s colleges. the first major earthquake occurred at the end of the midsemester two break, at 4 a.m. on 4 september 2010. it caused the university to close for 2 weeks. the second major seismic event occurred at 1 p.m. on 22 february, on the second day of tull, s. p. c., dabner n., ayebi-arthur, k. 64 semester one. the majority of the university’s staff and students were on campus at that time, but thankfully there was no loss of life. this earthquake had a major impact on the university and the city, and the university was subsequently closed for 3 weeks. the third major earthquake, at 2 p.m. on 13 june 2011, was less destructive. it occurred during the examination period at the end of semester one and resulted in the university being closed for another 2 days. this third event had minimal effect on teaching because the semester had concluded; however, it did affect university assessment practices and resulted in some academics adopting online assessment methods. hundreds of aftershocks were experienced in the region between and after these three major seismic events. the provision of ongoing, timely, and comprehensive communication to students, staff, and the wider community was vital throughout this time. the university’s moodle learning management system (lms) became increasingly important in enabling learning and teaching to continue; particularly after the second earthquake when teaching spaces on the university campus were severely limited. this paper highlights the university’s adoption of social media and e-learning technologies to support communication, teaching, and learning in response to the three seismic events. the findings were informed by a series of related studies conducted between 2010 and 2016 by the authors, two of whom were staff members at the university. literature communication and social media digital technologies and virtual environments can provide alternatives for communication and continuity of practice when constraints in the physical environment are experienced after a crisis (mark & semaan, 2008). the use of digital technologies has been identified as an important factor in enabling people to adapt practices when their ability to implement existing practices is disrupted (mackey, gilmore, dabner, breeze, & buckley, 2012). in the event of a disaster an organisation needs to communicate with its members and the wider community concerning the process of resolving the disaster or crisis. communication can contribute to the empowerment of citizens in crisis situations by supporting preparedness, enhancing societal understanding of risks, and increasing cooperation (vos, lund, & reich, 2011). spicer (2008) established that, in an emergency, the ability to communicate, both internally and externally, becomes a key service for an organisation. the critical nature of communication was determined by seaton, seaton, yarwood, and ryan (2012), who are academics at another higher education institution that was affected by these earthquakes. they confirmed that the degree of disruption and uncertainty immediately after the second major earthquake significantly affected the ability of individuals, and their organisation as an entity, to communicate both within and outside the organisation. dicarlo et al. (2007) reported that, in the aftermath of hurricane katrina in 2005, communication with dispersed faculty, staff, students, and residents at louisiana state university school of medicine was essential. the it staff in that university were mobilised and immediately established an emergency website with daily messages from the chancellor and vice chancellors. social media and websites are increasingly becoming important channels for institutional communication to students and other stakeholders (schweber, 2008; seville, hawker, & lyttle, 2012). bird, ling, and haynes (2012), reported that social media were valuable to disseminate emergency information during the queensland and victorian floods in australia, because they were effective and fast, and were used in everyday life in that region at that time. sutton, palen, and shklovski (2008) concluded that social media supported backchannel communication, allowing for wide-scale interaction amongst members of the public, and had qualities of being collectively resourceful, self-policing, and generative of information that cannot otherwise be easily obtained. the use of social media during and after the virginia tech shooting in 2007 was journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1) 65 investigated by palen (2008), who reported that “ict enables people—disaster survivors, curious observers, and those who wished to help victims—to connect to one another and to participate in events, including through seeking and providing information peer-to-peer” (p. 76). sutton et al. (2008) claimed that peer-to-peer communication through social media such as social networking sites, text and instant messaging applications, blogs, wikis, and other web forums, were growing as a way to support additional (often critical and accurate) dissemination of information in the public sphere. according to qu, huang, zhang, and zhang (2011), a popular micro-blogging system was used effectively to coordinate actions and provide situation updates immediately after the 2010 yushu earthquake in china. e-learning adoption e-learning is a global phenomenon fuelled by a variety of economic, technological, and social forces as well as student demand (butterfield et al., 2002). at the institutional level, the need for organisations to engage the support and agreement of stakeholders through consultation has been highlighted (guiney, 2013); and critical success factors have been identified in the area of leadership, and in issues of design, technology, and delivery (mcpherson & baptista nunes, 2006). strong and supportive leadership is required to successfully manage the cultural and organisational change involved in the adoption of e-learning. “the way forward seems to be for ‘the university’ to manage the change process by proposing and agreeing goals through consensual debate, supporting strategies appropriately and then realising these through common commitment” (mcpherson & baptista nunes, 2006, p. 554). three levels of factors which influence the adoption of ict in teaching: personal, school, and technology, were identified by buabeng-andoh (2012). at the technological level factors included improved practice; ease of use and consistency with values, experiences, and needs; and opportunities to experiment before adoption. professional development, funding, and support were important at the school level, but the key influential factor was found to be personal; that is, “teachers’ attitudes toward technology or intentions to use technology in their classrooms” (p. 147). samarawickrema and stacey (2007) found that academics’ attitudes to new processes and change, and their motivation, influenced their technology adoption more than their technology preferences and skills. the perceived need for an innovation influences its adoption (rogers, 2003), but e-learning is sometimes adopted in response to external influences such as management directives, economic imperatives, or student pressure (samarawickrema & stacey, 2007)—or in response to a crisis. in the midst of a crisis there may be little time to experiment before adoption, and the motivation to adopt e-learning can be increased by the urgent need to respond to the immediate situation (mackey et al., 2012; breeze, buckley, & gilmore, 2011). the literature indicates that lack of time, heavy workloads, the need to modify teaching materials and practices, lack of funding, policy and intellectual property issues, inadequate academic staff knowledge, and existing university and/or departmental culture, are barriers that can influence the adoption of e-learning practices (samarawickrema & stacey, 2007; walker et al., 2014). haggerty (2015) identified academics’ ability to manage workloads while increasing their own technological expertise as a further barrier to e-learning adoption. the steep learning curve required for the adoption of e-learning can be reduced by the institutional implementation of an lms (elgort, 2005), and the momentum from such an implementation can provide an opportunity to incorporate e-learning more broadly across an institution (guiney, 2013). however, as rosenberg (2007) stated: “empirical studies have provided evidence that professional development and associated staff capability or capacity issues such as time, incentives, and priorities are critical factors” (p. 8) in encouraging e-learning in new zealand. while successful e-learning adoption requires professional development and support for staff (guiney, 2013) across all relevant areas, the value of that professional development is increased by its applicability, appropriateness, and relevance, as well as its timeliness (samarawickrema & tull, s. p. c., dabner n., ayebi-arthur, k. 66 stacey, 2007). other factors contributing to successful e-learning adoption are learning communities (brennan, mcfadden, & law, 2001), supportive environments, and interpersonal networks that extend beyond the local teaching context. if academic teachers have the innovativeness to exploit technology, the ability to seek help from others when necessary, a social network with colleagues, and the ability to respond to the environment and to internal changes, they are exhibiting the characteristics of being adaptive. (samarawickrema & stacey, 2007, p. 331) adaptability and collegial networks are particularly relevant to the adoption of e-learning in a crisis. by being adaptive in the use of e-learning and associated available technologies, there is potential for educators to provide students with continued access to educational programmes when physical attendance on a campus is highly problematic or impossible (mackey et al., 2012; breeze, buckley, & gilmore, 2011). mackey et al. (2012) described how a combination of faceto-face and e-learning strategies, combined with just-in-time collegial professional development, enabled teacher education staff to contact and communicate with students, to address the sudden lack of physical teaching/learning spaces, and to accommodate the varied personal circumstances of both staff and students when normal ways of working and living were disrupted. staff in the study worked as a collegial community and exhibited resourcefulness, adaptiveness, and flexibility in their ability to adopt new e-learning practices, and adapt existing ones, as an immediate response to challenging circumstances. the authors proposed that institutions and their academic leaders need to be “prepared for the unanticipated” to support staff and maintain student learning and engagement opportunities in crisis situations. they recommend contingency planning at an institutional level to prepare staff to use e-learning strategies and students to work in online environments, and to ensure resources are accessible to staff and students in alternative, digital formats. methodology five studies investigating the practices at the university during the seismic events of 2010–2011 were jointly analysed by the authors to identify common strategies that demonstrated institutional resilience. these case studies investigated the same phenomena through different lenses, and thus provided a second level of converging lines of inquiry (yin, 2008). yin (2008) defines the case study as “an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident” (p. 13). case studies explore subjects and issues where relationships may be ambiguous or uncertain, and also try to attribute causal relationships rather than just describing a situation (gray, 2009). the first study (ayebi-arthur, 2016) spanned the years 2010–2015, during which the other four studies were also conducted (see figure 1). it investigated the rapid adoption of social media and e-learning in the wake of seismic events through data gathered from interviews, documentation, and the university’s websites. non-probability purposive sampling (cohen, manion, & morrison, 2007) was employed to select 29 participants for the study, and included academics who used e-learning, e-learning support staff, and executive leaders. these participants identified 66 relevant documents, which included university policy documents and reports by university units and working groups as well as staff, and including some of the authors of this paper. descriptive content and thematic analyses were used to describe processes of increasing resilience with e-learning in the aftermath of the seismic events in 2010 and 2011. the second study (dabner, 2012) investigated the university’s use of web environments (including the social networking site, facebook) for information and support purposes following the initial earthquake in 2010, and explored how the university used these environments journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1) 67 effectively and the effect they had in the wider university community. evidence for this study was gathered from multiple sources including interviews, websites, threaded discussion posts, and survey results. the third study (monti, tull, & hoskin, 2011) investigated the lecturers’ reactions and strategies for using technology to compensate for the loss of physical spaces and subsequent opportunities for face-to-face interaction with students after the february 2011 earthquake. data was gathered from interviews with 12 lecturers, and triangulated with lms server logs and statistics of access to strengthen the validity of the findings. the fourth study (mackey et al., 2012) was inquiry-centred and employed quick-response research strategies (quarantelli, 2002) to gather time-sensitive data following the february 2011 earthquake. the five academic staff participants were involved in a single programme. the descriptive account of engaging in blended learning in this emergency, which was developed from this reflective–narrative model, was supported by data from the lms. the fifth study (tull, 2014) used a mixed-methods approach, combining data from interviews, video blogs, surveys, logs, and statistical data to focus on the influences on the participants’ experiences when using echo360 lecture capture technology (which was implemented after the june 2011 earthquake), and the e-learning support provided for its use. quantitative data provided a backdrop for the research through information on the pan-university use of both echo360 and the e-learning support provided. figure 1 overview of the focus studies, the major earthquakes they are associated with, and the communication and e-learning technologies employed at that time the effect of crises on people, their communities, and their environments form part of the challenge of conducting research on unexpected events such as these earthquakes. the disruptive and sometimes sensitive nature of the context of a natural disaster can affect both the researcher and participants. these are important issues to consider when gaining ethical approval and informed participant consent for research. ethical approval was gained from the university of canterbury ethics committee before each of the studies was conducted. tull, s. p. c., dabner n., ayebi-arthur, k. 68 findings two key themes illustrating resilient practices emerged from the analysis of these five studies: communication about and throughout the crises, and the increased adoption of e-learning practices and technologies to support learning and teaching. communication for the university, communication about the crises began with the first seismic event in september 2010. this involved reassuring students, staff, and stakeholders (including students’ parents and guardians as well as national stakeholders such as the ministry of education and the tertiary education commission) that the university was taking the necessary steps to ensure that teaching, learning, and research would continue in the aftermath of the crises. the university set up websites to serve as the main source of communication for all information relating to the university’s response to the seismic events of 2010 and 2011. the first website was the uc restart, which was set up in september 2010. this site kept staff, students, and other stakeholders up to date with all the latest announcements and information relating to the september 2010 earthquake and the university’s re-opening. then, in response to the february 2011 earthquake, the uc progressive restart website was set up to give information on how the university was reorganising to continue with the 2011 academic year. communication focused on the restart of the academic year, the use of e-learning resources for teaching and learning, and other relevant earthquake-related information. communication was essential across the university community and, as reported by seville et al. (2012), “very early in the response process, our leadership team made a conscious decision to invest a lot of effort in communications” (p. 32). the importance of consistent messages was one of the lessons learned from the september 2010 earthquake. in the midst of many sources of potentially misleading information available to staff and students, the university created a policy that its second website, uc progressive restart, would be the single source of “truth” (healey, 2011). the vice chancellor was prominent in many communications and all official communications were sent from the senior management team. although clear messages were being disseminated in an organised way in february–march 2011, disruption to the telecommunications infrastructure in some areas of the city resulted in these messages not being received by some stakeholders. all of the university’s students were informed during enrolment that the main form of communication would be through their university email address, but this was not possible in the crisis that unfolded. the use of email was problematic, and todorova and bjorn-andersen (2011), academics at the university, reported that “some email accounts exceeded their quotas under the pressure of increased email traffic and access to email accounts was blocked by pre-earthquake automated routines” (p. 598). there was no way of knowing how many students were missing vital communication. however, students’ overall feedback referred to the overwhelming number of messages they received rather than a lack of communication. communicating at the multiple levels of institution, programme, and course was a strong focus for staff and students. comprehensive updates were published at least daily on the official university of canterbury website; a dedicated university of canterbury facebook site provided a hub of interaction (dabner, 2012); and programme coordinators and lecturers began posting news items which were emailed to students from the lms. the university’s communication through facebook began shortly after the first earthquake in 2010. according to dabner (2012) “the university communications team worked on the site for 18 [hours] a day over the initial 2 weeks and at all hours of the day” (p. 75). this commitment of time reinforced seville et al’s (2012) findings that sustaining social media for communication had resource implications for institutions. the design of the facebook site following this first event “lacked administration tools, making it difficult to track, categorise and sort discussion journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1) 69 threads into a more coherent format” (seville et al., 2012, p. 34). the university made more effective use of facebook when responding to the february 2011 earthquake, drawing on the lessons learned from the previous facebook iteration. in 2011, the design of the facebook site was improved to become systematic and well-managed and there appeared to be greater emphasis on providing students with a broader range of support from different organisations (dabner, 2012). nesbit and martin (2012), academics in the uc college of business and law, used facebook to complement emails and postings sent from their lms course site. they noted many students were without electricity for periods of time but were able to access a text-only version of facebook on their mobile phones at no cost. they discovered that “as many of the students were already regular users of facebook for social communication there was a degree of ease of use and familiarity that enhanced the level of engagement that students had with the respective courses” (p. 76). an academic in the college of education confirmed that the facebook community enabled “on-going dialogue and information sharing between staff at the institution and the wider educational community” (dabner, 2012, p. 69). other university academics reported: “we found social media to be very effective, particularly in keeping staff and students engaged and interested, not only in what the university was doing, but also how it was going about reopening campus” (seville et al., 2012, p. 34). other social media used by the university communications centre over this time included uc youtube and twitter. the university’s lms also played an important role in communication through the one-way channel of news forum posts. the number of these posts increased 88.4% in comparison with february–march of the previous year (monti et al., 2011). communication in two-way discussion forums also increased, as academics engaged students online to build community and support students with their learning. each of these communication channels proved invaluable during these seismic events. they were also used to signal to students the broader adoption of e-learning strategies across the university in response to the crises. increased adoption of e-learning practices in normal circumstances, the adoption of e-learning strategies would be carefully managed at an institutional level, and extra resources and support would be provided to staff and students to facilitate subsequent changes. this level of support and forward planning was simply not possible in circumstances increasingly described by staff as “the new normal”. the imperative to increase the adoption of e-learning therefore proved challenging for many as they endeavoured to rapidly implement new approaches to teaching and learning, some involving the use of digital technologies, software, and online environments with which they were unfamiliar. however, in spite of these factors, staff at the university demonstrated resilience, flexibility, collegiality, and creative thinking as they endeavoured to cater for the needs of students in those challenging times. innovative solutions were required to enable the rapid adoption of e-learning technologies and elearning methodologies in such challenging circumstances. these solutions were evident at both grassroots and institutional levels. for example, many academic staff established informal support networks to problem-solve and build capacity throughout this period; small groups often met in private houses to work together to refine content and share tips and ideas. professional conversations and reflections about changing practices were clearly evident at these times, and the collegial support was valued by academics, some of whom were challenged by earthquakerelated issues in their personal lives. for some academic staff, the initial focus was simply to ensure some course content was available for students to engage with online. many staff were unable to access their offices for an extended period and so were unable to retrieve key resources for their course delivery. resources that would traditionally have been accessed from textbooks, tull, s. p. c., dabner n., ayebi-arthur, k. 70 hand-outs, or the library, were made available through the lms. staff were concerned about the ability of all students to access online content and their own ability to deal with the overwhelming number of resources they needed to access and upload. for many academics this was a very intense period of work, with queries and forum posts that needed timely responses being received on all 7 days of the week. for those who already had much of their course content available in the lms, the focus was to support and encourage students to engage with the course content. several methods were described as successfully promoting engagement. many academics considered that providing additional structure was one way to encourage students to engage (monti et al., 2011). ongoing communication, including timely responses to student queries, and clear, well-organised course sites in the lms helped to provide this structure. clear directions, overviews, outlines, and summaries within the sections of an lms course site, as well as considerable scaffolding and modelling of tasks by staff, were also successful strategies in keeping students focused. in addition, many staff revised their course plans, assessment tasks, and due dates. they posted and emailed more regular course updates, and personally followed up with students who had not yet accessed the online course site. some staff had to develop completely different assessment tasks for their courses to cater for students who could not complete all the planned coursework because they lacked resources, or could not attend what would have traditionally been a face-to-face exam. this was also an intense period of work for members of the e-learning support team, which included the three flexible learning advisors. from the day after the february earthquake the team provided support from their homes, and this was one of the first teams to be reallocated space on campus when it became safe. their accessibility via phone, email, and their central physical location supported many academics to restart their courses and communicate with their students through the lms. removing the support team from the main campus as teaching recommenced rendered them less accessible to lecturers, and the loss of one of the three flexible learning advisors in july 2011 further limited the availability of support. this limited support (two advisors) was available until july 2012 when the team was relocated to the main campus and the number of advisors returned to three. a variety of e-learning tools was supported and used in the aftermath of the seismic events. some e-learning tools, such the lms and adobe connect web conferencing, were already available in the university. other tools, such as echo360 lecture-capture technology, were introduced later. the range of tools and their deployment, influenced by repeated crises, evolved over these years. their use was facilitated by the availability of support from the e-learning support team, as well as more localised support and collaboration with colleagues. the provision of support in the use of e-learning technologies was at times problematic—innovative solutions were sought to encourage better pedagogical use of the e-learning technologies, which had been adopted under difficult circumstances. traditional lecture content was initially provided in the lms, using a combination of tools (such as powerpoint slides with separate audio files) to minimise internet requirements (monti et al., 2011). video recordings were included when internet access became more freely available. staff also developed additional multimodal resources, including podcasts and video recordings. many of these were produced with readily available digital technologies such as mobile phones and flip video recorders. these resources were then quickly uploaded onto websites (e.g., youtube) or added to course sites in the lms. resources from outside organisations also contributed to the university’s ability to support teaching and learning in these challenging circumstances. national and international publishers and suppliers offered staff and students free access to tens of thousands of e-books, online journals, and global databases in the aftermath of the september 2010 earthquake. in 2011, echo360 offered the university a licence for five lecture theatre venues and a site license for the desktop capture application of echosystem. the gift of these licenses meant that the university’s journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1) 71 academics had another tool with which to create teaching materials, and supported the adoption of flexible delivery modes to meet the diverse needs of students at this time. at an institutional level, professional development and support for the use of e-learning technologies were developed in ways that encouraged less reliance on face-to-face workshops and one-to-one technical support. for example, the university’s echo360 community grant research project found that academics’ levels of confidence, resilience, and motivation for using echo360 were important factors in the adoption of this technology (tull & holiss, 2013). a communities-of-practice approach to professional development was adopted in this project, and an online space was provided in the lms to support a developing community. forums were included to enable collegial discussion and support, as well as links to more formal documentation to provide just-in-time support. academics could also share their echo360 solutions, including examples and supporting explanations, with colleagues across the university. these contextual examples of good practice demonstrated potential solutions to real issues faced by lecturers at the university, provided reassurance for some that a potential use of echo360 had been successfully implemented, and inspired others to engage in new uses of the elearning technology (tull, 2014). the research revealed that local communities of practice emerged where physically co-located users had become known to each other. subsequent additions were made to the online space, supporting academics to make connections within their local context and to become part of a local community of practice, thus providing another avenue of support. discussion although crisis events can require immediate, and often challenging, adjustments to be made to educational and institutional practices, these studies indicate that institutional resilience can be a valuable outcome. research suggests that enhanced e-learning practices in response to a crisis can also develop the resilience of both students and academic staff (mackey et al., 2012). other researchers (hagar & haythornthwaite, 2005; mark & semaan, 2008) have highlighted that disasters can prompt new ways of working and interacting to combat the constraints of unusual conditions as technologies enable alternative ways of networking and communicating, and as they blur the boundaries of formal and informal learning, and physical and virtual environments. an organisation’s ability to communicate effectively becomes critical in crisis situations (spicer, 2008). the use of social media and dedicated websites to inform the university community of the organisation’s response to the seismic events confirmed bird, ling, and haynes’ (2012) findings that identified the importance of disseminating effective and rapid emergency information in times of natural disasters. it also confirmed vos et al’s (2011) recommendation that “in order to ease emotional turmoil, [organisations] have a well-functioning communication structure with designated spokespersons” (p. 20). these studies reinforced that communication to members of an organisation and the general public—both about the crises, and the recovery from the crises—was essential. the importance of using multiple channels for communication was also emphasised in these studies. the university’s journey provides evidence that social media does support organisations in responding to a crisis, and that the ways people and institutions respond has been affected by the increasing use of social media in everyday life. using communication channels that students were familiar with, and were already using, clearly aided the dissemination of important information during these events. organisations must consider tapping into the potential of these increasingly integral tools. during a crisis, social networking sites and web 2.0 tools have the potential to benefit people at personal, interpersonal, and societal levels. these studies found that e-learning became the cornerstone of teaching after a crisis in a university where the majority of teaching and learning had previously been facilitated face to tull, s. p. c., dabner n., ayebi-arthur, k. 72 face. the increased use of e-learning freed up limited campus spaces and face-to-face interactions for other essential learning activities, and enabled students to continue with their studies during disrupted academic years. the availability of a range of e-learning tools was invaluable for facilitating different aspects of teaching and learning in online environments. there was more reliance on, and use of, the tools readily available in the lms, and increased recognition of the value of online learning environments for course delivery. uptake in e-learning was somewhat influenced by the availability of centrally located support from the e-learning support team, as well as more localised support and collaboration with colleagues. in normal circumstances, the institutional adoption of e-learning practices can be enhanced by the development of an explicit e-learning strategy and a comprehensive, planned support programme. but in a crisis the rate of e-learning adoption increased rapidly as it became necessary for engaging students and enabling programme continuity. the duration of the crises also affected the adoption of e-learning. the provision of structured, planned professional development to support this rapid adoption was challenging during these seismic events, especially as they continued over several years and included three campus closures. having a variety of support mechanisms available when adopting new e-learning technologies was essential for both academics and students at uc. the crisis situation compelled academic staff to review their course content and teaching strategies, to clearly focus on the key learning outcomes, and to engage students in the online environment (monti et al., 2011). these pressures proved to be very challenging for many staff. academics at the university, nesbit and martin (2012), confirmed “there were many challenges involved in enabling delivery to commence, many relating to the lack of experience of some of the staff in delivering courses online” (p. 198). both formal and informal support networks helped to address the emergent and ongoing needs of staff. recommendations and conclusion there is an increasing recognition of the need for organisational contingency planning to prepare for challenges, including natural disasters (seville, hawker, & lyttle, 2012). in the university described in this paper, resilience was forged by necessity. the outcome was the development of communicative and e-learning practices that will enable the organisation to respond well to future challenges. the following recommendations are provided to inform the contingency planning process in other education institutions. • institutional communication about and throughout crisis events needs to be timely, consistent, coherent, and disseminated through a range of effective channels of communication, including social media. organisations should exploit the potential of the tools and virtual environments people are increasingly using in their daily lives. • all courses delivered predominately in a face-to-face environment should also have online course sites that can be enhanced should the mode of learning become more blended or off-campus as a result of reduced access to the campus or other educational space. • when an organisation is under stress new tools should be introduced only when they are essential. when an e-learning tool is introduced there needs to be ongoing support that takes account of users’ changing needs and their ability to support one another. • the establishment of support systems and networks, both formal (i.e., institutionally facilitated) and informal (i.e., collegial support groups and/or professional communities of practice), will enhance the adoption of e-learning strategies and approaches in a crisis. educational institutions cannot avoid the possibility of a natural disaster and, if it does occur, that it could affect their ability to communicate and work with their students (seville, hawker, & journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1) 73 lyttle, 2012). this paper provides some useful insights that will enable other institutions to prepare for the unexpected. acknowledgements the authors would like to thank the participants and the 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(2014). finding a solution: solution focussed professional development for a web based lecture technology. in edmedia: world conference on educational media and technology (pp. 1933–1938). retrieved from http://www.editlib.org/p/147739/ vos, m., lund, r., reich, z. & harro-loit, h. (eds.) (2011). developing a crisis communication scorecard. studies in humanities, university of jyväskylä. retrieved from https://jyx.jyu.fi/dspace/bitstream/handle/123456789/27124/9789513942618.pdf walker, r., voce, j., ahmed, j., nicholls, j., swift, e., horrigan, s., & vincent, p. (2014). 2014 survey of technology enhanced learning: case studies. retrieved from oxford: http://www.ucisa.ac.uk/groups/dsdg/asg/~/media/7bcb3f2ff0e141a79a66bc87ddb34a1 4.ashx yin, r. k. (2008). case study research: design and methods (5th ed.). los angeles, ca: sage. tull, s. p. c., dabner n., ayebi-arthur, k. 76 biographical notes susan tull susan.tull@canterbury.ac.nz dr susan tull is an e-learning and digital technologies lecturer at the university of canterbury, where she teaches both online and blended courses. her phd in education focused on e-learning professional development. the incorporation of digital technologies to support quality learning and teaching continues to be her research focus. nicki dabner nicki.dabner@canterbury.ac.nz nicki dabner is a senior lecturer at the university of canterbury. primarily involved in teacher education, her specific research interests include digital technologies and social media in educational settings, blended and online learning pedagogy and course design, and digital literacy/citizenship. kofi ayebi-arthur kofiayebi@ucc.edu.gh kofi ayebi-arthur (phd, med, meng) is a senior lecturer of computer science education at the department of mathematics and ict education, university of cape coast, ghana. he teaches both undergraduate and postgraduate courses and recently completed a phd in education (e-learning and digital technologies) at the university of canterbury. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. tull, s. p. c., dabner, n., & ayebi-arthur k. (2017). social media and e-learning in response to seismic events: resilient practices. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(1), [63–76.]. vu, p., adkins, m., henderson, s. 42 aware, but don’t really care: student perspectives on privacy and data collection in online courses phu vu, university of nebraska at kearney megan adkins, university of nebraska at kearney shelby henderson, university of nebraska at kearney abstract the purpose of this study was to examine student viewpoints about privacy and personal data collection in online courses in u.s. higher education settings. results of data analysis revealed that students were aware that their learning behaviours (such as login frequency, pages viewed or clicked, and learning profiles) could be monitored and recorded by their instructors. additionally, they were not concerned about their learning behaviours being monitored, recorded, or collected for academic research, and used for instructional/teaching improvement purposes. there was no evidence of significant difference between students’ gender (female and male) in terms of their awareness and concern about their privacy in online learning settings. keywords: online learning; elearning; student privacy; data analytics introduction and literature review according to the annual new media consortium horizon reports (2016, 2017, and 2018), learning analytics has the potential to accelerate higher education technology adoption to help educational institutions increase student retention, improve student success, and reduce the burden of accountability. although online learning has been appreciated by many researchers and educators, there are concerns about student privacy of online activities and ethics in relation to the data analytics collected (greller & drachsler, 2012). boundaries can be crossed easily, and the privacy and security of students’ information could be easily breached in the process of collecting large amounts of data (drachsler & greller, 2016; pardo & siemens, 2014). the purpose of this study was to examine student viewpoints about privacy and personal data collection in online learning settings. learning analytics is defined as the collection, analysis and use of large amounts of student data and information to understand learner behaviours and contexts (both digital and analogue) to improve the educational outcomes of students and to increase institutional effectiveness and efficiency. analytics has grown in importance due to the increased pressure for higher education to reform and provide educational platforms online to educate students in remote settings (rubel & jones, 2016). learning analytics began to be used when universities were able to track their online learners through their learning management systems (lmss). these systems provide data sets that help universities to create online courses, provide an avenue to deliver learning materials, and collect information about enrolment numbers. as technology and the way it was used evolved, so did the development of additional analytics that could be integrated with an lms. this included social learning applications and learning to use real-time data to help organisations improve their infrastructure. moreover, as lmss are implemented in higher journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(2) 43 educational institutions, additional analytics are collected. examples of these analytics are found in online navigation––including the sites students visit, how long they are on them, whether they complete the tasks, and how long they hover over question options during a test. student data is also traced throughout the university to track library activity and use of facilities on campus (e.g., campus recreation facilities). all of the data-based systems create an infrastructure for universities to use the information they gather about students’ activities. another analytical tool used is the process of changing complex data into meaningful patterns and values. this is called big data. big data is a resource for capturing, storing, distributing, managing, and analysing larger data sets with diverse structures (daniel, 2015). it encompasses analytical techniques such as descriptive analytics and mining/predictive analytics. big data analytics tools have sophisticated functionality to facilitate student information integration and provide insights to help universities meet the market needs and future market trends, and thus improve the quality of educational and financial performance. big data is not a new or isolated phenomenon; it is part of a long evolution of capturing data. the concept of big data began in 1999, when the number of online devices and the potential for them to communicate with each other started to expand. during the birth of web 2.0, the term “big data” emerged as a result of the large volume of data available and the potential for it to be used to help company analytics. the application of learning analytics and big data is credited with helping to improve learning performances and retain students (becker et al., 2017; gandomi & haider, 2015; romero & ventura, 2017; siemens & long, 2011; vu, meyer, & capero, 2016). in recent years, as the collection of learning analytics and big data has become more popular in higher education, the issue of privacy and security of student information has been seriously questioned. a leading concern about the collection of student data is that it could end up in a state or national governmental database, which would allow many people to access students’ private information and data (picciano, 2012). another concern about the collection of data, especially for students’ parents, relates to the ability for anyone else to access a student’s private information. this information could include their name, address, student identification number, email address, and phone number (rubel & jones, 2016). a leak in the database could expose an individual’s private information to misuse—causing undue burden or humiliation. moreover, the collection of learning analytics and big data may contribute to students feeling they are being watched, causing some students to avoid certain courses if they know data will be collected and their privacy could be compromised (picciano, 2012). this is a huge concern, as learning analytics was developed to improve learning, not hinder it. researchers and teachers must consider students’ privacy if quality studies are to be completed and the learning environment improved. compromised students’ privacy could be detrimental for student learning and the success of the institution (watters, 2011). if the use of learning analytics and big data continues, researchers and institutions will need to find a more secure alternative to protect the privacy and security of students’ information when it is collected and distributed for research purposes. as presented above, there are a number of viewpoints about using learning analytics and big data in higher education. however, researchers and educators all seemed to come to a consensus about how students’ data should be protected. one way to protect student privacy is to tell them what data will be collected and give them authority, before the researcher proceeds, to refuse collection of some or all of that information (watters, 2011). students who approve the collection of their data should be given details about what data will be collected, how it will be accessed, and who will be able to see it. they should also be able to request error corrections in the analytics (pardo & siemens, 2014). to build student trust, the data management procedures should be clearly outlined, so they understand the process. they should also be told how long data will be stored, where it will be stored, who will have access to it, and how it will be vu, p., adkins, m., henderson, s. 44 destroyed after the stated time. the purposes and benefits of a study relating to data analytics should be explained so they understand why their data is needed, and how the information gathered could help educational research. the principles of privacy and ethics for both the particular country and educational institution in which research is occurring must be followed (black, dawson, & priem, 2008; daniel, 2015; lewis, kaufman, & christakis, 2008). it is vital that the principles of transparency, student control, security, accountability, and assessment are followed by all researchers who collect, analyse, and report learning analytics. although researchers, educators, and educational administrators have raised concerns about student privacy and ethical issues over the practice of collecting massive amounts of student data, little research has been conducted into student perspectives. therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine student viewpoints in relation to privacy and data collection in online learning settings. research method the primary purpose of this exploratory study was to use quantitative research strategies (via an online survey) to investigate students’ stances on privacy issues in their online courses. more specifically, the study aimed to answer the following research questions. 1. were students aware that their learning behaviours in online learning settings can be monitored and recorded by their instructors? 2. were students concerned about instructors using their learning data for academic or research purposes? research instrument a tow-part online survey was used for data collection. the first part of the survey collected demographic information that included the participant’s gender (female or male) and educational level (undergraduate or graduate). the second part of the survey had six statements with a fivepoint scale ranging from one to five. the instrument was piloted with 55 participants who were undergraduateor graduate-level students in one of the researchers’ colleges. after collecting participants’ responses in the pilot, the researchers conducted a reliability test to measure the consistency of the questions in the instrument. to be more specific, the reliability test examined whether the six questions in the second part of the survey measured related aspects of the issue under investigation. the resulting alpha values are reported in table 1. table 1 reliability test statistics cronbach’s alpha cronbach’s alpha based on standardised items no. of items .88 .84 6 cronbach’s alpha showed a value of .84 which, according to mallery & george (2003) indicated that the survey items had good internal consistency. when they had completed the pilot, researchers sent the survey to the listserv of the association for educational communications and technology (aect) and the alumni listserv of online learning consortium (olc), asking colleagues in the listservs to help recruit students to complete the online survey. the researchers also reached out to the student affairs offices at three large public research universities in the u.s. midwest to help share the survey request to journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(2) 45 students who were enrolled in online courses at their institutions. the survey was available for students to complete for 3 months and the researchers sent a follow-up message each month to remind colleagues to share the survey link with their students. the goal of the research team was to receive at least 1,500 student responses so the next phase of data analysis and reporting could be conducted. the researchers did not conduct a power analysis to determine the sample size of the participants in this exploratory study. participants the survey was administered online over 3 months and yielded 1,752 responses from students across the u.s. higher educational institutions. one hundred and five incomplete responses were removed from the response pool before data analysis was completed. the total eligible number of responses was 1,647. the resulting participants’ demographics are reported in table 2. table 2 participants’ demographic information students’ gender students’ educational level total legitimate survey participation female male graduate undergraduate 923 724 219 1,428 1,647 results research question 1 were students aware that their learning behaviours in online settings can be monitored and recorded by their instructors? question 1 investigated students’ awareness that their instructors could monitor and record most of their learning behaviours in online learning settings. to find the answer to this research question, the researchers added three sub-questions to the survey to ask about three aspects of learning activities, including students’ login frequency, pages viewed or clicked, and learning profiles. in a typical lms (a licenseor subscription-based lms such as blackboard or canvas, or an open-source lms such as moodle or sakai cle), course instructors could access these three aspects. depending on course roles and institutional decisions (usually the responsibility of a department or division of information systems or educational technology), course instructors might have more or fewer access privileges to their students’ data. however, within the scope of this research project, the researchers focused on only three standard accessible areas of students’ data in their online courses. those three sub-questions were presented in the form of a five-level likert scale, a bipolar scaling method that measures positive and negative responses to statements with a range of: (1) completely aware, (2) aware, (3) neither aware nor not aware, (4) aware, (5) completely aware. vu, p., adkins, m., henderson, s. 46 the results are reported in table 3. table 3 students’ responses to whether they were aware that instructors could use their learning data for academic or research purposes n statements mean sd completely aware not completely aware 1 are you aware that your learning activity (such as login frequency) in your online courses could be seen and recorded by your instructors? 1.50 1.32 1 5 2 are you aware that your learning activity (such as pages viewed or clicked) in your online courses could be seen and recorded by your instructors? 1.75 1.95 1 5 3 are you aware that your learning profiles in your online courses could be seen and recorded by your instructors? 2.73 1.82 1 5 mean total 1.99 as shown in table 3, students were aware that their instructors could monitor and record learning behaviours in the three aspects of login frequency, pages viewed or clicked, and learning profiles. the researchers broke student responses down into gender and educational levels to examine whether there was any difference in their awareness between genders (male and female), and undergraduate and graduate levels by conducting an unpaired t-test. the results are reported in table 4. table 4 descriptive statistics about students’ responses in terms of gender n mean std. deviation std. error mean gender male 724 1.97 1.37 1.25 female 923 2.00 1.85 1.14 an unpaired t-test was conducted to compare female and male students’ responses to the first research question. the two-tailed p value equals 0.7153 with t = 0.37, df = 1645, and standard error of difference = 0.082. by conventional criteria, this difference is considered to be not statistically significant. in another words, these results suggest that there was no difference between genders in term of students’ awareness of their learning behaviours being monitored and recorded by their instructors. the researchers originally also planned to evaluate whether there was any significant difference between graduateand undergraduate level students in terms of their awareness of their learning behaviours being monitored and recorded by their instructors. however, because there was a huge disparity in the total number of responses between the two cohorts of students (219 responses from graduate students and 1,428 from undergraduate students), the researchers did not examine this aspect of the research question. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(2) 47 research question 2 were students concerned about instructors using their learning data for academic or research purposes? question 2 examined whether students were concerned about the fact that their instructors could use their learning data for academic or research purposes. to answer this research question, the researchers included three sub-questions with three domains of students’ data, including their login frequency, pages viewed or clicked, and learning profiles. the survey used a five-level likert scale, measuring positive and negative responses to statements with the range of: (1) not really concerned, (2) not concerned, (3) neither not concerned nor concerned, (4) concerned, (5) really concerned. the results are reported in table 5. table 5 students’ responses to whether they were concerned about the potential for their instructors to use their learning for academic or research purposes n statements mean sd not really concerned really concerned 4 are you concerned that most of your learning behaviours in your online courses (such as login frequency, page viewed and learning profile) can be monitored and recorded by your instructors? 2.10 1.55 1 5 5 would you be concerned if your instructors collected your learning data in your online courses without revealing your personal information (name, gender . . . etc) for academic or research purposes? 2.45 1.75 1 5 6 would you be concerned if your instructors collect your learning data in your online courses without revealing your personal information (name, gender . . . etc) for instructional/teaching improvement purposes? 2.15 1.25 1 5 mean total 2.23 the data in table 5 indicates that students were quite neutral about their learning behaviours being monitored, recorded, or collected for academic or research purposes, and used for instructional/teaching improvement. the researchers divided students’ responses into gender and educational levels as they did for question 1, and conducted an unpaired t-test to examine whether there was any significant difference in student answers between male and female, and undergraduate and graduate levels. the results are reported in table 6. vu, p., adkins, m., henderson, s. 48 table 6 descriptive statistics about students’ responses in terms of gender n mean std. deviation std. error mean gender male 724 2.14 1.95 1.50 female 923 2.32 2.35 1.75 after the completion of the unpaired t-test, a two-tailed p value equalled 0.097 with t = 1.66, df = 1645, and standard error of difference = 0.108. by conventional criteria, this difference is not considered to be statistically significant. in other words, the statistical values indicate no difference between male and female students in terms of their concern about their learning behaviours being monitored and recorded, being collected for academic or research purposes, and being used for instructional/teaching improvement efforts. discussion and conclusion the results of this study have provided important insights into graduate and undergraduate students’ attitudes towards data privacy issues in online learning environments in the u.s. participants’ responses to the online survey revealed that they were aware that their learning behaviours—such as login frequency, pages viewed or clicked, and learning profiles—could be monitored and recorded by their instructors. there was also no significant difference between genders in terms of students’ awareness of their learning behaviours being monitored and recorded by their instructors. the researchers found that this was in line with previous studies about students’ awareness of their privacy in the online learning environment (doring, hodge, & heo, 2014; lorenz, sousa, & tomberg, 2013; may, fessakis, dimitracopoulou, & george, 2012; may, iksal & usener, 2016; yang & wang, 2014). one possible interpretation is that, although students’ ages were not known in this study, it may be assumed that most of them were from either the millennial generation or generation x, and were familiar with social media such as facebook, snapchat and/or instagram, and therefore already knew about issues relating to users’ data privacy (gogus & saygın, 2019). the second finding of the study—that students were not concerned about potential use of their learning performance data by their instructors for teaching and/or research purposes—echoes recent studies about students’ concerns about their privacy in online learning settings (doring et al., 2014; kokolakis, 2017). however, while previous research reported that gender could determine the extent to which students were concerned about their data privacy (barak & gluckofri, 2007; cockcroft & clutterbuck, 2001; petronio, 2002), this study found that gender was not a discriminating factor. it is suggested that future studies could explore the differences between the findings of this and studies reported earlier. in-depth studies using methods of observation are also recommended to extend our understanding of online learners’ information-sharing preferences and actual practices. in addition, this study examined students’ viewpoints on the potential use of their learning performance data only, by their instructors for teaching and/or research purposes. it did not examine responses to use by the university or institution for other non-commercial purposes. it would be interesting to find out whether students’ perspectives are still the same. one of the contributions of this study was to add the perspective of those students who attended an u.s. university into the literature. previous studies surveyed students from australia, china, japan and france about this topic, but did not attempt to examine whether female and male journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(2) 49 students had different perspectives. as mentioned by cockcroft and clutterbuck (2001), researchers in this area have identified a number of factors that influence individual attitudes to information privacy—such as gender, age, culture, socio-economic status and even country. including u.s. student perspectives in the literature will help broaden our understanding about the issue of students’ data privacy in online learning environments. we might not be able to generalise the results of this study to the population as a whole due to its small and convenient sample size, but they are likely to be of interest to university educators, researchers, system developers and policy makers who are collecting, tracking, and analysing data that relates to students’ learning performances for research and/or education. the study outcomes could also address researchers and advocates’ concerns about online privacy (black et al., 2008; daniel, 2015; lewis et al., 2008). it is argued that the practice of collecting and analysing students’ performance data in online courses for instructional improvement and/or research or academic purposes should not be seen as a threat to students as long as (1) students are aware and informed of any tracking processes when they access their lms, and (2) their personal identities will not be revealed. in other words, a compromise between tracking students and protecting their privacy is still important when collecting data. references barak, a., & gluck-ofri, o. 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(2011). penetrating the fog: analytics in learning and education. educause review, 46(5), 30. vu, p., meyer, r., & capero, j. (2016). models of administration for online learning programs in the u.s. higher education institutions. journal of applied educational and policy research, 2(1). retrieved from https://journals.uncc.edu/jaepr/article/view/460 watters, a. (2011). data science is a pipeline between academic disciplines. retrieved from http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/08/data-science-social-science-academic.html. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cose.2015.07.002 https://library.educause.edu/search#?publicationandcollection_search=new%20media%20consortium%20(nmc) https://library.educause.edu/search#?publicationandcollection_search=new%20media%20consortium%20(nmc) doi:%2010.1002/widm.1187 doi:%2010.1002/widm.1187 https://journals.uncc.edu/jaepr/article/view/460 http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/08/data-science-social-science-academic.html journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(2) 51 yang, f., & wang, s. (2014). students’ perception toward personal information and privacy disclosure in e-learning. turkish online journal of educational technology, 13(1), 207–216. biographical notes phu vu vuph@unk.edu dr. phu vu is an associate professor in the department of teacher education in the university of nebraska at kearney, u.s.a., where he teaches courses mainly in the instructional technology graduate program. his research interest is in game-based learning, learning analytics, and online learning. megan adkins adkinsmm@unk.edu dr. adkins is an associate professor in the department of kinesiology and sport sciences in the university of nebraska at kearney, u.s.a. her research focuses on teacher preparation; science, technology, engineering, math (stem); and social emotional learning of underserved populations. she has completed numerous peer-reviewed articles and national presentations on these topics. dr. adkins teaches method courses in physical education. she focuses student preparation on experiential learning through a homeschool physical education teaching lab, stem, and sel after-school programming that she has developed. shelby henderson hendersonsj@lopers.unk.edu shelby henderson is a graduate assistant in the department of teacher education, and is a graduate student in clinical mental health counselling at university of nebraska at kearney, usa. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. vu, p., adkins, m., & henderson, s. (2019). aware, but don’t really care: student perspectives on privacy and data collection in online courses. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(2), [42–51.]. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ microsoft word rowan–hartnett.docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(2) 25 how have moocs been portrayed in the new zealand public media? yvonne rowan, eastern institute of technology maggie hartnett, massey university abstract reports of massive open online courses (moocs) appeared in mainstream news in the early 2010s with messages of potential disruption to existing higher education systems. several years on, the role of moocs is still evolving. the media has the power to influence acceptance of new ideas, therefore this research investigates new zealand news media representations of moocs to the public. a document analysis of 27 newspaper articles published in new zealand’s mainstream media between january 2012 and december 2016 revealed similar results to those published in overseas research, in that moocs are predominantly reported to be a catalyst for necessary change in higher education, and discussions are consistent with the theme of commodification of higher education. previously published overseas research focuses on the relationships between moocs and elite universities, whereas this research reveals that moocs are considered to be experimental in new zealand’s higher education system. although the new zealand media presents a more balanced perspective than that revealed in overseas research, dominant themes of moocs as revolutionising higher education are likely to boost the public’s acceptance of radical changes to existing higher education structures. keywords: moocs; massive open online courses; new zealand; media introduction massive open online courses (moocs) appeared in mainstream news in the early 2010s with much hype, especially with the publication of pappano’s (2012) article titled “the year of the mooc” in the new york times. because they enable massive enrolments while offering fee-free open entry to higher education courses, moocs were heralded as a new phenomenon that would follow christensen’s (2018) disruptive innovation business model (jacoby, 2014), and disrupt existing higher education. christensen’s model suggests that a simple and affordable innovation established at the lower end of the market will drive upwards, dislodging existing competitors and becoming accessible to a wide range of consumers. the implication is that higher education institutions will be shaken by the technological innovation of moocs, which will broaden access to education and, potentially, revolutionise higher education structures and systems. media attention on this particular educational technological innovation has been unprecedented, pointing to moocs having the potential to fundamentally affect higher education. for many, the first exposure to the concept of moocs (selwyn, bulfin, & pangrazio, 2015) is through the news media. the media affects people’s beliefs and behaviour, regardless of whether news reports portray reality accurately (devereux, 2014). media publishers also hold an agendasetting role, influencing the public’s perception of which issues are important, and they have a role in deciding how news is framed, shaping the audience’s understanding of the topic rowan, y., hartnett, m. 26 (mccombs & shaw, 1972). within this context of high media influence, and because it moulds the public’s understanding and affects their willingness to accept moocs and the education system changes that they might catalyse (kovanović, joksimović, gašević, siemens, & hatala, 2015), researchers have become interested in how moocs are represented in the news. representations of moocs in the media are therefore an area worthy of research and concern to those interested in the role of technology in education and society, the role of established higher education systems and institutions, and the challenges presented by moocs to existing higher education. research on moocs in the media has so far been limited to north american, u. k., and australian news publications—until now, new zealand media reports have not been analysed. the new zealand context is one in which the tertiary education strategy 2014–2019 encourages consideration of “new delivery models . . . [based on] . . . technology-driven changes” (ministry of education, 2018, introduction, para. 10), and where moocs have been identified as an example of “improved ways of delivering education” (new zealand productivity commission, 2016, p. 72). this study, therefore, seeks to identify the messages about moocs received by the new zealand public, and considers whether deeper meanings can be drawn from these messages. a document and thematic analysis approach has been taken to address the question: how have moocs been portrayed in the new zealand public media? primary research on moocs because moocs are a relatively recent development in higher education, there is little primary research on moocs in the media. however, a search revealed primary research articles that used content, thematic, or critical discourse analyses, and six emergent themes: moocs as change agents, mooc providers and elite universities, moocs and openness, moocs and commodification of higher education, pedagogical approaches of moocs, and the influence of moocs. moocs as change agents this theme relates to an expected outcome of moocs bringing change that will disrupt higher education systems. bulfin, pangrazio, and selwyn (2014) and selwyn et al. (2015) found moocs were reported as a revolutionary force. this finding points to disruption of higher education expressed as a desired outcome, exemplified by metaphors of natural disaster in which moocs are depicted as a “tidal wave” (bulfin et al., 2014, p. 296) that will “shake up” (selwyn et al., 2015, p. 182) the status quo. they are presented as a new phenomenon (dumitrica, 2017; deimann, 2015), devoid of their open education resource foundations (bates, 2016), and in language associated with crisis. this crisis language implies deficiencies in current higher education systems and suggests that major change is needed, with the responsibility for enacting change resting on administrators and technology experts rather than educators (dumitrica, 2017; deimann, 2015). at the same time, moocs are presented as a natural technological evolution (deimann, 2015). bulfin et al. (2014) believe that this portrayal of moocs is neither accidental nor neutral— aligning moocs with technology and presenting them as ahistorical, yet inevitable, serves to remove them from their role in debates about education (such as the role of private investors, the adequacy or inadequacy of funding, the challenges of competing in a global marketplace, and underlying ideological motivations for using moocs). although moocs are presented as a technological revolutionary saviour to a problematised higher education system, their standing paradoxically rests on their association with elite universities that are founded on and operating within this higher education system (bulfin et al., 2014). nevertheless, these representations journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(2) 27 prepare the public to accept moocs as the ideal revolutionary remedy for presumed faulty higher education structures. mooc providers and elite universities moocs are presented as instigated by prestigious universities (bulfin et al., 2014) with frequent reference to berkley and stanford (kovanović et al., 2015), and are reported as having the potential to displace less elite institutions and educators (selwyn et al., 2015). it is becoming commonplace for universities to offer moocs, with some partnering with the same mooc provider as these elite universities. for example, the university of melbourne and the university of sydney both offer moocs through the coursera platform, which was founded by stanford. the relationships between mooc providers and prestigious universities are mainly evident in articles found in financial newspapers. these links are notable in the groundswell of articles in 2013 (kovanović et al., 2015) which illuminate the large venture capital investment for start-up mooc provider companies (kovanović et al., 2015; selwyn et al., 2015). this evidence points to private investment and interest in publicly funded education, which raises ethical and business questions beyond the scope of this study, although these relationships offer opportunities for future research. moocs and openness the broad accessibility and, at times, fee-free nature of moocs is reported as democratising. this global accessibility could account for kovanović et al.’s (2015) finding of significant discussion about the adoption of moocs beyond westernised countries. although news articles may encourage the public to accept moocs as supporting tenets of democracy and equity, the perpetuation of social inequalities and the privileged position of the powerful are largely ignored, with critical comment predominantly made by researchers rather than journalists. bulfin et al. (2014) provide a counter-narrative to mainstream news articles by pointing out that mooc learners are typically privileged and already hold qualifications; selwyn et al. (2015) point to media focus on availability of courses framed as democratising which favours the concept of equity of opportunity over the democratic principle of equity of outcomes; and dumitrica (2017) found that concerns such as socio-economic barriers associated with moocs were raised only in professional magazines. dumitrica (2017) also questioned why news media present fee-free education as visionary, yet omit to question why it is not currently fee-free; a policy that may foster emancipation of the less privileged. dumitrica states that this stance reflects neoliberal framing of higher education, disengaging the public and learner from civic goals of higher education, while perpetuating the neoliberalist value of self-responsibility. self-responsibility demands learners define their own knowledge gaps and seek out education that will build their knowledge profile (dumitrica, 2017). this approach may favour those who are already privileged, and presumes to ignore the individual and social preconditions that might enable self-responsibility, such as digital capability (deimann, 2015). dumitrica adds that, as self-education becomes accessible (although not equitably), the public could more willingly accept the state’s disengagement from funding higher education, and might even see the withdrawal of funding as a natural development. finally, critical examination of the openness of moocs highlights concerns of intellectual colonisation as a result of widespread dissemination of westernised education (daniel, 2012; dumitrica, 2017). dumitrica (2017) describes this as a “cultural imperialistic framing of knowledge” (p. 460) which may conflate knowledge and information, foster the view that higher education is mainly about disseminating information, and ignore the roles of universities in creating and garnering knowledge or being an environment that challenges the social status quo (dumitrica, 2017). deimann (2015) describes this trend as supplanting humanistic goals of rowan, y., hartnett, m. 28 higher education with economic goals, and seeing moocs as having the potential to disestablish costly campus-based institutions (deimann, 2015). moocs and commodification of higher education an economic emphasis in the news reports on moocs was seen to consolidate the notion that higher education is a product rather than a process (selwyn et al., 2015), and that it should operate naturally and competitively in an open market (deimann, 2015). additionally, the ahistorical representations of moocs serve to promote the thinking that moocs are decontextualised from any ideological context (bulfin et al., 2014; dumitrica, 2017). deimann (2015) states that if the commodification of education is accepted as natural, this thinking will become the benchmark for discussion about future educational technological developments. although a positive perspective of moocs dominates in media (brown, costello, donlon, & giolla-mhichil, 2016), critical researchers believe that the public should be presented with the non-economic goals of higher education, otherwise the implication that higher education is inefficient or in crisis will be considered and acted on (brown et al., 2016). the notion that moocs are revolutionary, technologically evolutionary, and neutral, should be challenged because moocs bring private investment and control into public education. this action is both ideological and political and therefore not at all natural or neutral (selwyn et al., 2015). indeed, private profiteering from higher education (bulfin et al., 2014), educators’ concerns of casualisation and deprofessionalisation (bulfin et al., 2014), and questions as to how commodification and private financial interests in higher education might affect teaching and learning (selwyn et al., 2015) point to moocs being integral to wider political motivations in higher education reforms (selwyn et al., 2015). yet these debates are largely unaddressed in the news media. pedagogical approaches of moocs although news reports mention pedagogy, it is usually in terms of the capacity of moocs to disseminate knowledge to vast numbers (bulfin et al., 2014). however, media descriptions of how information is delivered and shared (such as videos, and online quizzes and discussions, with self-paced engagement in the course), are presented as a new pedagogy (selwyn et al., 2015) as is the concept of the flipped classroom, where learners view lectures and other material before entering discussions online (deimann, 2015). claims that this pedagogy is new support the notion of moocs as ahistorical and revolutionary, yet news articles from professional magazines have criticised descriptions of mooc pedagogy as innovative, instead describing it as conservative and replicating existing university pedagogical models (selwyn et al., 2015). however, contextual differences mean that quality classroom delivery does not necessarily equate to sound online pedagogy (bates & sangra, 2011). in addition, bates (2012) describes the top-down dissemination of knowledge, commonly found in xmoocs (extended moocs), as being based on behaviourist pedagogy with limitations in teaching higher-order thinking skills. a critical stance maintains that this xmooc pedagogy serves to reframe education as transmission of information (dumitrica, 2017), with news media rarely mentioning the limitations of this style of online teaching and learning (bulfin et al., 2014; daniel, 2012). this lack of critique in the media raises concerns about the quality and definition of higher education. the actual influence of moocs despite forecasts of moocs being a disruptive innovation that was expected to revolutionise existing higher education systems and structures, this outcome has not been reported as being actualised. brown et al. (2016) conclude that despite media representations, the fact that policymakers and the public have remained disengaged with moocs has been demonstrated by low completion rates (daniel, 2012). these researchers point to lack of empirical research into journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(2) 29 the benefits of moocs, stating this lack of evidence may hold back government investment. disengagement could account somewhat for the fall in mooc-related news articles over time, with the focus on mooc providers giving way to topics such as data analytics, the relevance of moocs to employment, and the failure of moocs to dominate higher education as promised (kovanović et al. 2015). previous research, predominantly north american and european, does not encompass a new zealand perspective. this study explores new zealand news media representations of moocs to determine if the themes extracted from overseas research are reflected, or if other themes are evident. it therefore extends the existing knowledge base, adding a new zealand perspective by answering the research question: how have moocs been portrayed in the new zealand public media? methodology ethics because the research is based on analysis of publicly available documents, the ethical considerations were not complex. there were no participants, and no harm could be afforded to any individual. an ethics application was submitted and approval obtained before the research started. document analysis methodology the research takes an interpretive paradigm approach (bowen, 2009) by way of document analysis of publicly available new zealand news media articles related to moocs. because document analysis is suitable for case studies (bowen, 2009) it’s appropriate for this research, which is a case study of new zealand media representations. the systematic analysis of documents allows both content and thematic analysis to ascribe meaning, identify trends, and further establish empirical knowledge (bowen, 2009). in this study, only mainstream news media articles were explored—it is acknowledged that further meaning may be drawn from other types of media. it is also acknowledged that multiple interpretations are possible and that this research depends on the researchers’ interpretation, although transparency about the development of codes improves reliability (ryan & bernard, 2003). therefore, a list of the criteria for pre-defined codes is appended (see appendix). data collection the newztext, library press display, and national library of new zealand catalogue/index new zealand databases were searched. search terms were mooc and massive open online course, although the latter did not return additional articles. the date range parameters were 01 jan 1960 to 28 june 2018, or anytime, depending on the search parameters available. where applicable, the search parameter new zealand was also included. obvious duplicates, irrelevant articles such as recipes and travel reports, and articles published in documents other than newspapers, were omitted. to ensure completeness, online websites of new zealand mainstream newspapers were also identified and searched. websites were identified using the world-newspapers.com (2015) website. popular new zealand magazines, specialist media on non-related topics, and community newspapers were excluded. the websites were searched using key terms mooc and massive open online course. the key term massive open online course was not always effective because the search functions were not boolean search capable. on some websites the term mooc returned many non-related articles indexed on words starting with the letters rowan, y., hartnett, m. 30 “moo”. nevertheless, six previously unidentified articles were found and it was then considered that saturation had been achieved. the total yield was 63 news items with unique headings that did not immediately appear to be irrelevant or duplicates. on the first reading, it was found that 12 articles contained text that was identical to that in other articles. because analysis of the articles’ headings is not part of this research, these articles were removed from the dataset. twenty-four articles focused on other topics and mentioned moocs briefly, so these were also excluded. this left 27 unique articles that had informative or evaluative comments for the new zealand public about moocs. data analysis data analysis was performed by first coding the articles. this entailed deductive coding according to pre-defined codes (i.e., change, mooc providers and elite universities, openness, commodification, pedagogy, and the actuality of moocs) and inductive coding to capture emerging codes (see appendix). coding allows for quantitative content analysis and subsequent qualitative thematic analysis. the themes were developed by establishing patterns within the data (bowen, 2009), which was achieved by grouping codes around a phenomenon (flick, 2006) while looking for connections that might occur between and within them. this approach gives an abstraction of the original data (flick, 2006) and allows a re-presentation of the data to provide new meaning (olsen, 2014). the data analysis, therefore, used a three-step process: deductive and inductive coding of articles according to pre-determined and emerging codes; quantitative content analysis of the codes; and qualitative thematic analysis. coding articles were coded manually. the first step was to become familiar with the data by reading the reports and noting impressions. on this first reading, it was evident that some articles portrayed moocs positively, others gave a balanced argument or neutral portrayal, and some gave a negative perspective of moocs. an initial round of coding was therefore performed according to positive, negative, or neutral categories, akin to the study by brown et al. (2016). this initial coding was followed by simultaneous deductive and inductive coding of the articles’ contents according to pre-defined codes (change, mooc providers and elite universities, openness, commodification, pedagogy, and the actuality of moocs), which were established according to the six themes in the literature review, plus one emerging code (moocs as experimental, see appendix). many articles had content that was applicable to multiple codes. the articles were re-read later to review the accuracy of the initial coding, and notes were made relating to each code. analysis the codes were analysed quantitatively according to: • number of articles presenting a positive, negative, or neutral perspective • number of articles published in each quarter of each year (january–march, april–june, july–september, october–december) • number of articles presenting a positive, negative, or neutral perspective per quarter • number of representations according to the six pre-defined and the one emerging code. analysis of trends in the content over the period of the data, showing frequency over time, has high reliability (olsen, 2014). however, because the data set was small, it was decided to not journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(2) 31 analyse the distribution of the number of articles according to the seven codes across the quarters of each year. a thematic analysis was undertaken. for that purpose, notes were extracted from the articles for each code and they were read to establish initial themes. many articles discussed a variety of perspectives and their content therefore related to multiple themes. these were re-read to determine whether the initial identified themes held, or different themes emerged. it is acknowledged that this process is interpretive, and therefore influenced by the researchers’ knowledge (olsen, 2014). results number and tone of mooc articles although most articles largely presented moocs positively, many took a neutral stance. to provide a balanced portrayal, the neutral articles included those that presented both positive and negative aspects. a minority were negative, questioning the value of moocs in higher education. table 1 shows the dominance of positive and neutral portrayals, with 48% and 41% respectively. table 1 number of articles presenting moocs positively, negatively, or neutrally tone of article number of articles percentage negative 3 11% neutral 11 41% positive 13 48% total 27 100% the articles were published over 4 years; the first in the third quarter of 2012, and the most recent in the third quarter of 2016. figure 1 shows a spike in the number of articles in the third quarter of 2013, when 11 of the 27 articles were published. figure 1 number of articles published per quarter 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 q3 q4 q1 q2 q3 q4 q1 q2 q3 q4 q1 q2 q3 q4 q1 q2 q3 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 rowan, y., hartnett, m. 32 figure 2 shows an initial dominance of positive articles until the third quarter of 2013. this quarter shows a spike in articles: two positive, two negative, and seven neutral. from then until the last article in the third quarter of 2016, there is a range of positive, neutral, and negative articles, although a positive perspective dominates. figure 2 number of positive, negative, and neutral articles per quarter the dominant codes were change (n=17) and openness (n=17). this was followed by mooc providers and elite universities (n=14) and commodification (n=14), pedagogy (n=12), and the emerging code of moocs as experimental (n=12). the actuality of moocs (n=7) was rarely mentioned. figure 3 shows how often the content of the articles was identified as relevant to each code. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 q3 q4 q1 q2 q3 q4 q1 q2 q3 q4 q1 q2 q3 q4 q1 q2 q3 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 positive negative neutral journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(2) 33 figure 3 number of articles in each coded category mooc themes codes were grouped according to interconnections. quotes from the articles exemplify the ideas in each theme. three themes were identified. 1. moocs as a catalyst for a revolutionised higher education system. this theme incorporates aspects from the change, mooc providers and elite universities, and openness codes. 2. the business aspects of higher education. this includes aspects from the change, openness and commodification codes. 3. moocs as experimental in new zealand. this includes aspects from the pedagogy, the actuality of moocs, and moocs as experimental codes. moocs were presented as revolutionising to higher education, claiming technology as the driver to make existing higher education systems obsolete, and forcing an “international revolution” (“massey to offer,” 2013, para. 17). this change is described as being as significant as the “invention of the printing press” (jones, 2014, para. 6), and expected to have the same disruptive effect on higher education as the internet has had to the “music and newspaper industries” (“internet challenges universities,” 2013, para. 1). moocs have “potential to transform traditional, campus-based learning and globalise higher education” (pearl, 2013, para. 3.) this globalising aspect is seen in references to open and widespread availability of higher education due to moocs being “mostly free and aimed at mass audiences” (pearl, 2013, para. 3). large enrolment numbers are also mentioned, although low completion rates balance this point (elder, 2013a). the openness of moocs has also been discussed in relation to humanitarian goals; for example, helping to educate people in liberia about ebola (“internet v ebola,” 2014). however, although moocs have the potential to democratise education (“learn to love the mooc,” 2013), this argument is countered with reminders that not everyone has internet access or capability (“my first mooc,” 2013). 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 op en ne ss ch an ge m oo cs & el ite un ive rsi tie s co mm od ific ati on pe da go gy m oo cs as ex pe rim en ta l ac tu ali ty of m oo cs rowan, y., hartnett, m. 34 the technological innovation of moocs is reported to rescue higher education from its burden on the taxpayer. the press refers to an ernst and young report, stating that reduced government funding “would force universities to ‘fundamentally reinvent themselves’” (pullar-strecker, 2012, para. 7). the presumption is that higher education needs operational change to become financially leaner. moocs are described as the “saving grace” (walters, 2015, para. 20) due to “flat lining government funding” (“internet challenges universities,” 2013, para. 8), bringing cost-cutting potential, especially by reducing staff numbers and replacing educators with course facilitators: “for many academics this is code for lower pay and lost jobs” (laxon, 2013, para. 36). these changes are presented with a sense of urgency, with statements indicating “time was running out” (“internet challenges universities,” 2013, para. 6), and that universities are under pressure to adopt moocs to avoid being “guillotined” (“universities face online assault,” 2013, para. 5) by the mooc movement. however, the expectation of disruption is not shared— moocs are also reported as being complementary to existing higher education. as stated in stuff, they are “not a replacement for a traditional university education but . . . a step in the right direction” (walters, 2015, p. 11). this step in the right direction, however, sees the involvement of mooc providers as a normalised characteristic of higher education. this characteristic is founded on partnerships between elite universities and private mooc providers. new zealand universities use this relationship, in a similar fashion to coursera’s partnership with “many of america’s top tier universities” (“universities face online assault,” 2013, para. 5), to give credence to their practice of enlisting mooc provider companies. for example, comments such as “following in the footsteps of ivy league giants” (“massey to offer,” 2013, para. 4) foster an impression of credibility and promote the public’s acceptance of moocs and mooc providers’ involvement in higher education. in reality, the few new zealand universities that have partnered with mooc platform providers have chosen futurelearn, owned by the u.k.’s open university and the seek group; edx, a non-profit organisation established by the massachusetts institute of technology and harvard university; and open2study, previously offered through open universities australia. new zealand institutes of technology and polytechnics have partnered with oeru, a non-profit platform, or tanz ecampus, a partnership of several new zealand tertiary education providers. business functions in relation to moocs in higher education are evident, signifying an expectation that higher education should operate as a commodity in a competitive marketplace. firstly, moocs are presented as a marketing opportunity for universities to increase their global brand: “the global education market is a very, very big market that is growing . . . we want to get some experience and some publicity” (pearl, 2013, para. 11), and institutions are “offering courses free online to grow their ‘global brand’” (pullar-strecker, 2012, para. 3). although humanitarian benefits are touted, the marketing motivation which sees higher education as a product in a global market place is revealed: “at work here is a blend of philanthropy, turning education into a global public good; of self-interest, for there may be ways of making money from this and for now it achieves brand recognition” (“universities bend to change,” 2012, para. 11). in addition, there is frequent discussion about the role of higher education in fulfilling the needs of industry; for example, the function of higher education “to deliver recruits who have skills the firms actually need” (“world,” 2015, para. 3). however, the role of moocs is seen as one of disseminating information in service to industry. this raises concerns about the role of mooc providers. they are described as venture capitalists with “no serious commitment to public education . . . [they] give the public greater access to information, but not necessarily greater access to learning or knowledge” (“massey to offer,” 2013, para. 14). journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(2) 35 this theme refers to an uncertainty of the application of moocs, their future in higher education, and their business viability. uncertainty is represented by expressions such as, “i don’t think we can be left out of the experiment” (elder, 2013b, para. 6), “the sector had yet to establish what moocs would mean for new zealand universities” (“massey to offer,” 2013, para. 13), and the business model for moocs “hangs by a thread” (elder, 2013b, para. 9). only one article countered this theme, stating that moocs were “not unchartered territory” (“massey to offer,” 2013, para. 3). the role of moocs in higher education is therefore presented as evolving. moocs have not been as disruptive as initially expected, but have “an uncertain future” (elder, 2013a, para. 14). they are reported as being suitable programme tasters and useful for those wanting to study for professional development or personal interest: “the biggest winner is the average person with a curiosity for knowledge” (slabbert, 2015, para. 22). although universities are adopting moocs (jackman, 2016), moocs are not necessarily totally replacing traditional education: “technology supports but does not replace the teacher in the education process” (torr, 2014, para. 10). moocs have been more recently viewed as a disruptive innovation that has “fallen flat” (russell, 2016, myth no. 4, para. 3). nevertheless, new mooc offerings, such as nanodegrees, are becoming available. they fill a different need than the traditional university qualification (“world,” 2015, para. 3). the experimental nature of moocs is also evident in references to pedagogy. although the pedagogy is often described in terms of the delivery and interaction modes (walters, 2015), with opportunities to interact world-wide and gain ideas, knowledge, and information (torr, 2014), there are concerns about the lack of social aspects of university life and support networks that might not be replicated online (walters, 2015). it was also considered that online education could not adequately replicate laboratory and field-work teaching and learning: “hands-on experience . . . was essential” (laxon, 2013, p. 16). experimentation with moocs calls the definition of higher education into question. it is pointed out that education is not just “knowledge transfer” (elder, 2013a, para. 12) although the effectiveness of the lecture-theatre experience is questioned (laxon, 2013). other concerns are expressed about the concept of peer marking (laxon, 2013) and the lack of teaching input in mooc development, with moocs criticised as at risk of being “edutainment . . . advanced by people who have great skills in social media but not necessarily teaching” (pearl, 2013, para. 9). discussion the findings have revealed an alternative perspective, unique to new zealand, regarding moocs in higher education. overt admissions that the place of moocs in higher education is experimental suggest a more critical representation in public news media than that found in overseas research. nevertheless, there are similarities with previous research (bulfin et al., 2014; deimann, 2015; dumitrica 2017; selwyn et al., 2015) in that it is a perspective dominated by the revolutionising potential of moocs and the representation of higher education as a commodity in a global marketplace. although the new zealand articles were largely positive (48%), closely followed by articles with a neutral tone (41%), these results contrast with findings from brown et al. (2016) who reported 77% positive, 19% neutral, and 4% negative. these differences may be because previous research included specialist magazine media such as times higher education (bulfin et al., 2014; kovanović et al., 2015; selwyn et al., 2015), whereas the current research was restricted to public newspaper articles. however, it may also point to the new zealand media taking a more critical approach to moocs in higher education. rowan, y., hartnett, m. 36 the surge of media interest in the third quarter of 2013 is also consistent with overseas findings (bulfin et al., 2014; kovanović et al., 2015). in new zealand, this period uncovered a balanced debate, moving the representations away from the previous positive perspective towards one reflecting both positive and negative aspects of moocs in higher education. this could indicate a trend towards increased criticality and alignment with the gartner hype cycle, which sees a new technological innovation following a cycle of “enthusiasm, disillusionment, and sensible adoption” (daniel, 2016, p. 4). reporting by the new zealand media is consistent with overseas reporting in presuming that adoption is inevitable. this notion of inevitability is fostered by representing moocs as a natural, unavoidable technological development. this point remains unquestioned. although both new zealand and international media adopt the approach of moocs as a natural yet ahistorical development to disrupt existing higher education, new zealand reports show that they are not supplanting, but are complementing, existing higher education. likewise, international and new zealand media describe mooc pedagogy by outlining aspects of online course delivery, although debate in new zealand media questions their adequacy in experiential learning and student support. this argument reflects an assimilative approach to adopting moocs, whereby questions of educational effectiveness are framed in terms of existing pedagogy. however, like those in overseas media, new zealand reports have not discussed the quality of mooc pedagogy, leaving the reader unaware that, with open educational resource development, sound mooc pedagogy is possible (bates, 2012). rather, soundness of the mooc pedagogy is implied by referring to mooc provision at elite universities, thereby perpetuating the ahistorical perspective. new zealand reporting also points to media focus being not on educational quality, but on noneducational aspects. as in previous research (deimann, 2015), the argument for moocs in new zealand is powered by the narrative of higher education being broken and needing to be rescued by the mooc movement, presented with the persuasive narrative of moocs’ democratising potential. however, there is little questioning of the truth of this narrative, or of the motivation behind it. there is no evidence that existing higher education is inefficient and broken. as stated by weller (2015), the “broken” narrative is “often stated as an irrefutable fact” (p. 2). this narrative tends to focus on the funding of higher education but does not ask whether the brokenness is caused by inadequate funding, instead blaming institutional inefficiency. this emphasis obscures debate about private investment in higher education and the underpinning neoliberalist ideology that might enable it (dumitrica, 2017). a neoliberalist approach to higher education is consistent with the media’s emphasis on moocs as a marketing tool and of higher education being a service to industry, thereby pointing to education as a commodity in a globalised marketplace. the new zealand media has not questioned why higher education institutions should focus on marketing, but instead delivers the international message that moocs are a much needed catalyst to overhaul existing higher education systems and traditions. rowe-williams (2018) points out that new zealand learners and higher education institutions have been encouraged to consider higher education in financial terms, and that this has resulted in more value being assigned to some areas of study than others—based on the financial benefit to the institutions. within this context, new zealand higher education institutions, creators of knowledge founded on sound rationale and experimentation, forge ahead with the mooc experiment without sound evidence of their economic or pedagogical outcomes or benefits. this fosters the notion of higher education institutions being a utility for disseminating knowledge rather than being institutions for knowledge creation. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(2) 37 finally, in the context of a commodified higher education competing for market share armed with the mooc product, student consumers may be under-represented. rather, new zealand media more dominantly reflects the interests of institutions to experimentally market themselves in the face of a perceived threat to their existing structures, with only minimal reference to their educational soundness. ultimately, this raises the question: whose interests are really being served in this experiment? conclusion the new zealand public receives powerful messages from mainstream news media. although analysis of the new zealand news articles related to moocs has revealed similar themes to overseas research (namely; moocs are disruptive to higher education systems, which are regarded as inefficient and in need of revolution), the new zealand media more overtly portrays the reality of the adoption of moocs, representing them as assimilated into existing higher education structures rather than supplanting them. nevertheless, moocs are presented as a natural solution to inefficiency; they are expected to reduce education costs and democratise access to higher education. although globalisation of education might be supported by new technologies such as moocs, the rhetoric in the new zealand public news media reveals them to be experimental. this experimentation is not validated in terms of sound rationale or educational or pedagogical benefits, although credibility is implied with references to new zealand universities’ mooc offerings being consistent with the actions of elite overseas universities. although these offerings are coupled with the claim of experimentation, they are more commonly viewed as a marketing tool. new zealand media reports appear to take a more neutral stance than overseas findings, but moocs are still predominantly presented in a positive light. although there has been a shift towards negative as well as positive perspectives of moocs, not all stakeholders’ voices appear to be well represented. concern for student learning is dominated by themes of higher education as a commodity, with moocs presented as the saviour of a broken higher education system, fostering the mindset of financialisation of higher education. the power of the agenda-setting role of media means that these dominant themes, which incorporate a role for private mooc provider companies and potentially radical changes to existing higher education structures, are likely to be accepted by the new zealand public as both natural and necessary. as with all research, this study has limitations. the documents in the dataset are limited to new zealand public newspaper articles. in terms of future research, analysis of the strength of voice given to different stakeholders in higher education could further highlight underpinning motivations behind media representations for this and other technological innovations. examination of the actualisation of moocs compared with the reported expected outcomes may also be of interest. in addition, research examining trends of the themes across time would expand the state of knowledge regarding changes in the messages to the public about moocs and technological innovation in education more generally. finally, the extent to which technological innovation drives the delivery of higher 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(2015, february 04). getting a taste of uni from your living room. dominion post. retrieved from https://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/65743427/getting-a-taste-ofuni-from-your-living-room torr, a. (2014, march 19). revolution connects ‘classrooms’ across world: comment. daily post. retrieved from newztext database. universities bend to change. (2012, september 22). retrieved from newztext database. universities face online assault. (2013, july 26). new zealand herald. retrieved from newztext database. walters, l. (2015, november 3). university of auckland launches first online course. stuff. retrieved from https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/73639819/university-of-aucklandlaunches-first-online-course weller, m. (2015). moocs and the silicon valley narrative. journal of interactive media in education, 1(5), 1–7. http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/jime.am world. (2015, february 08). sunday star-times. retrieved from newztext database. world-newspapers.com (2015). retrieved from http://www.world-newspapers.com/newzealand.html biographical notes yvonne rowan yrowan100@gmail.com yvonne rowan is an academic learning advisor at the eastern insitute of technology, where she teaches study skills and academic writing. maggie hartnett m.hartnett@massey.ac.nz dr. maggie hartnett is a senior lecturer in the institute of education at massey university, where she teaches and coordinates the postgraduate digital education programmes. she is the associate editor of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. rowan, y., & hartnett, m. (2019). how have moocs been portrayed in the new zealand public media? journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(2), [25–41.]. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(2) 41 appendix pre-defined codes for deductive analysis (based on themes established in the literature review) 1. change. this code is based on the idea that moocs are a disruptive innovation, set to revolutionise existing higher education systems. included is the presentation of moocs as ahistorical and as a new phenomenon which is also an evolutionary technological development. it incorporates the sense that moocs are both a radical yet inevitable solution to an implied inefficient and problematic higher education system. 2. mooc providers and elite universities, and the association of the two. this code incorporates reporting of moocs as driven by elite universities, the mention of the mooc provider companies and their venture capital funding, and the massiveness of moocs in terms of large investment into the provider companies. 3. openness. the third code includes reporting of moocs as free. this typically involves the interpretation of free in terms of fee free, and references to moocs as democratising as they make education widely available. it is based on the concept of openness, and accessibility to higher education. 4. commodification. this code includes presentations of higher education as a commodity rather than a process, which places higher education as a player in a globalised, or even a national, free market. it includes the mooc provider’s position in the delivery of higher education, reference to unbundling of education and changes to credentialling as the marketisation of higher education is fostered and enabled through the adoption of moocs. 5. pedagogy. this code refers to mentions of teaching and learning, and the pedagogy of moocs. it includes assumptions and interpretations of what teaching and learning entails and the construction and/or dissemination of knowledge. related to this are assumptions or discussion regarding the role of educators. 6. the actuality of moocs. this code includes reports of the extent of the adoption of moocs and whether the forecasts of a disrupted higher education system and global impact have or have not occurred. emerging code moocs as experimental. this code includes references to uncertainty of the application of moocs, their future in higher education, or their business viability. microsoft word barnett-te_wiata.docx barnett, s., te wiata, i. 4 māori mentors: expectations and perceptions shirley barnett, massey university ina te wiata, massey university abstract this article is informed by a kaupapa māori methodology and reports on a “by māori for māori” peer mentoring programme. the programme, offered by the college of business at massey university, focuses on māori students who are studying at a distance. we outline the programme and the experiences and perceptions from kanohi ki te kanohi (face-to-face) interviews and discussions with seven māori student mentors who are studying internally. using durie’s (2009) model of māori student success we identify a number of attributes that mentors developed by participating in this programme and providing help and support to distance students. results suggest that mentoring programmes can provide mentors with opportunities to develop in areas such as leadership, which may not have been previously identified and discussed in the literature. keywords: māori students; distance students; mentoring; mentors; tertiary; indigenous; aotearoa; developing attributes; leadership introduction if i could list all the positives about the programme [mentoring māori students studying via distance] i would be writing until the cows come home. i will keep it simple and say that i would recommend the programme to anybody who wants to be a leader, to be able to work as a team, to be able to help someone out. (māori student mentor talking about the mentoring programme) education is vital to enhancing the capability and capacity of the workforce. the benefits gained by māori participating in education have a direct effect on employment, standards of living, health, and income. ongoing education is necessary to recruit and sustain māori across the workforce sectors. according to rawlings (2010) “there is visible evidence that having a degree benefits māori economically as well as having social and cultural benefits” (p. 299). there are a number of māori mentoring programmes operating in the tertiary education sector with the goal of improving student retention and completion. for example: vision 20:20 (2016) at the university of auckland (www.fmhs.auckland.ac.nz), te rau puawai workforce development based at massey university (ratima et al., 2007), ngā kaiārahi mātauranga (2016) at the university of waikato (www.waikato.ac.nz) and the whai ake mentoring programme (2016) at unitec (www.unitec.ac.nz). other tertiary education institutions have run mentoring programmes specifically for distance students; for example, the open polytechnic of new zealand (boyle, kwon, ross, & simpson, 2010). more recently, a study of māori mentoring programmes in tertiary education found that māori students enrolled and receiving support from māori mentors completed a qualification (mode of journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(2) 5 study was not identified), while many of those who did not complete were not enrolled in the mentoring programme (tahau-hodges, 2010). much of the research on māori mentoring programmes has focused on the pass rates of students and the importance of māori cultural values on the student’s educational success (durie, 2005). a māori mentoring programme focusing on māori students studying at a distance was piloted in the college of business (cob) at massey university (mu) in 2014 and continues to operate. the key goals of this mentoring programme are (1) to increase the completion and pass rate of māori students studying via distance in core bbs papers; and (2) to develop leadership skills and abilities among the māori student mentors (who are studying internally). in this article we discuss the experiences and perceptions of the seven māori student mentors who worked with maori students studying via distance in 2015. the mentors’ comments form the basis of the discussion and we use their voices to illustrate the development, or improvement, in their leadership skills and abilities. the findings add to the growing body of knowledge surrounding peer mentoring for both māori and non-māori (see, for example, heirdsfield et al., 2008) but, more importantly, will begin a discussion about the benefits of mentoring for the mentors who participate in the programme. the aotearoa new zealand context the external context in which tertiary education providers operate is becoming more and more regulated. funding from the tertiary education commission has started to take student pass and retention rates into account, and research funding is allocated from the contestable performance based research fund (pbrf). while equity funding (which is based on the number of māori students) is available, this money can be used for a variety of purposes including scholarships, part-funding of māori academic staff positions, or specific student recruitment and retention positions (te wiata, 2016; white & te wiata, 2014). over the past 20 years mu has supported a number of initiatives which have focused on the recruitment, retention, and success of māori students. in the early 1990s a māori learning support position was established in the department of māori studies and, over time every college and campus established dedicated kaitautoko māori (māori support staff) positions. in late 2010, support services in the university were centralised and the te rau whakaara (trw) kaupapa was developed as a university-wide strategy. the overall intent of trw was to provide a guided and seamless pathway into, through, and out of university for māori students. te rau whakaara advisors worked across the study life cycle, from initial engagement to graduation, with prospective students and with new and returning students from all study modes. each advisor worked in the paired roles of recruitment and retention, although some spent more time in one or the other. in 2014, trw was disestablished and staff moved to student recruitment, external relations, to focus solely on māori student recruitment. this resulted in a gap in the area of māori student support, retention, and completion. most māori staff at mu are acutely aware of the need for designated retention and success programmes for māori students, and their support for trw was clear at the 2011 launch. the gap left by the disestablishment of trw is vast. in the following year, to help fill the gap, the cob opted to pilot a mentoring programme with māori students in its core bbs papers. the pilot received funding support from the office of the assistant vice chancellor māori and pasifika, and the national centre for teaching and learning. the cob had a high proportion of māori students (30%), second only to the college of humanities and social sciences. of the cob students, 70% (570) were studying via distance, and approximately one-third of these are enrolled in at least one core bbs paper. by the end of the pilot’s first semester in 2014, a slight barnett, s., te wiata, i. 6 increase was evident in the pass rates of māori students in some of the core papers, and a decision was made to continue with the programme. the māori mentoring programme in operation this programme was established ‘by māori for māori’ and piloted in the cob in semester 2, 2014. the pilot programme showed positive outcomes for māori students studying the core bbs papers via distance with a slight increase in overall pass rates (koia, 2015). this programme has continued. the goals of the programme are: 1. to increase the completion and pass rates of māori students studying via distance in core bbs papers 2. to develop leadership skills and abilities among the māori student mentors. the mentors are māori students studying internally in the cob in their second or third year, and they have passed the eight core bbs papers. the mentoring programme supervisor made the initial contact with them and, if the student was interested in becoming a mentor, they were invited to attend the 2014 end-of-year thank-you function for the previous mentors. this event provided an opportunity for prospective mentors to talk with current mentors, the supervisor, and the facilitator of the programme to get a better understanding of the mentoring role. the mentors for 2015 were selected and confirmed in january. in february they undertook an initial introduction and orientation session where they met each other and māori staff involved in the programme. they were introduced to the manner in which each mentoring session would be conducted: mihi whakatau (introductions), karakia (blessings), kai (food), whanaungatanga (relationships), and the use of te reo māori (the māori language). following this, the new mentors were given training on the systems they would use in the role and in the processes they should use when contacting mentees. role plays were used as part of the training process, allowing mentors the opportunity to practice initiating a conversation with someone they hadn’t met. the debriefing sessions that were part of programme were also explained. mentors began phoning their mentees (allocated by the programme facilitator) 2 weeks before the start of semester. calls were made on wednesday and thursday evenings. a typical mentoring session is: 5:00–5:45 p.m. shared kai and whakawhanaungatanga 5:45–6:00 p.m. facilitator provides updates about processes and systems. 6:00–6:15 p.m. discussion about important dates for mentees in the next 2weeks e.g. assignment due dates or reminder about a test. 6:15–8:00 p.m. calling mentees the primary role of the mentors was to provide a link between the university and the mentees. mentors provided advice and assistance to students in a variety of areas, including navigating the university systems such as the library and stream (mu’s moodle learning platform). they also helped mentees with their time management skills, provided reminders for assignment due dates, and gave information about learning support services. mentors chose when they would work, depending on their study timetables and personal demands so, although every effort was made to ‘assign’ a specific mentor to each mentee, this journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(2) 7 was not always possible. if a mentee asked to be contacted in the future, the mentor explained that someone else might call them, and made a note on the student record to ensure that a followup call was made. the mmp has now been operating in the cob for 3 years (six semesters) and will continue in 2018. mentoring a western perspective western literature provides many different definitions and descriptions of what mentoring is or might be. mentor–mentee pairs can be found in almost every profession—mentoring is evident from academic disciplines to entertainment and popular culture (eby, 2007). interest in mentoring as a scholarly pursuit is often traced to levinson, darrow, klein, levinson, and mckee’s study of human development (1978). in their work a mentor is described as a guide, a teacher, a counsellor, and someone who develops skills in another. levinson et al. also note the influential role that a mentor has in the mentor–mentee relationship—likening it to a parent–child relationship. ainsworth (1989) comments on the role of emotional attachments beyond childhood and the critical nature these play in adult development. other studies focused on the importance that mentoring could play in adult development (eby, rhodes, & allen, 2007); and kram’s (1985) in-depth qualitative study of mentoring in the workplace described a number of key aspects of mentoring relationships, including their functions and phases. educational research during this same time period focused on the interactions and relationships between non-familial adults. chickering (1969) looked at the influence of staff on students’ academic and affective outcomes when the relationships were outside the classroom. other researchers (such as wilson, gaff, dienst, wood, & bavry, 1975; astin, 1977; pascarella, 1980) supported the view that student–staff interaction had a positive influence on a wide range of academic, personal, and career outcomes. in their review of the mentoring literature, eby et al. (2007) highlight the differences and similarities in how people define mentoring. they suggest that, because there are several commonalities among the definitions that can serve as a reference for discussing mentoring, the lack of consensus is not necessarily as problematic as it first appears. these commonalities include that a mentoring relationship is unique; for example, it can be short-lived or last a lifetime. second, mentoring is a learning partnership—although the goals may differ they usually involve the acquisition of knowledge. third, mentoring is a process, and is characterised according to the type of support and functions that are part of the relationship (e.g., coaching, support, and advocacy). fourth, mentoring is reciprocal. although the relationship is not usually equal and the mentor may gain some benefit, the primary goal is to help the mentee in their development. mentoring models can be formal or informal, and the mentoring activity can occur one-to-one or in small or larger groups (tahau-hodges, 2010). in educational institutions mentoring relationships may take any of these forms. they may include students (both undergraduate and postgraduate) and staff. student-to-student mentoring relationships (i.e., peer mentoring) are effective in helping learners to feel they belong in an educational institution (prebble et al., 2004) and these relationships are a particularly important feature for those studying via distance (boyle et al., 2010). barnett, s., te wiata, i. 8 a māori perspective kaupapa māori is a way of life—the thinking and practice of being māori. one of the main principles of kaupapa māori theory is self-determination; that is, māori achieving their aspirations for development and advancement in a manner anchored in māori values, knowledge, and cultural practices (tahau-hodges, 2010). research has suggested that cultural identity plays a significant role in determining the educational achievement of māori students, and that by strengthening identity it might be possible to mitigate the effect of external issues on academic performance (bennett & flett, 2001; durie, 1998; selby, 1996). mentoring is one strategy that has been posited to increase the educational success of students, particularly if it is based on or informed by kaupapa māori theory (clarke, 1998; ratima & grant, 2007; rua & nikora, 1999). the theoretical framework on which our mentoring programme is based is informed by graham smith’s (1990) initial ideas and principles of a model of kaupapa māori (within an educational context). since the 1990s other kaupapa māori theorists including pihama (2001), pohatu (2004), and bishop (2005) have expanded and contributed to the development and growth of the methodology. in a similar manner to kensington-miller and ratima (2015), we included the six key elements of kaupapa māori articulated by smith (1990) in our mentoring programme. 1. tino rangatiratanga the principle of self-determination provides the foundation for our mentoring programme, which was specifically designed, facilitated and delivered by māori for māori students studying via distance. 2. taonga tuku iho cultural aspiration is a living principle. it is embodied in the mentoring sessions, which are conducted according to tikanga māori with karakia to open and close and to bless our shared kai, and mihi whakatau when we have visitors. 3. ako māori 
 the principle of culturally preferred pedagogy is evident in our use of more experienced internal students (tuakana) as mentors for our first-year students studying via distance (teina). although our mentors and mentees have been unable to meet kanohi ki te kanohi (due to geographical distance), regular phone and email contact is maintained throughout the semester. other methods of contact will be trialled as the programme becomes more established (e.g., zoom or skype could enable kanohi ki te kanohi meetings). 4. kia piki ake i ngā raruraru o te kainga the principle of socio-economic mediation is important in the programme as some māori students studying via distance face obstacles and barriers such as financial issues and isolation (e.g., geographical, or being the only one in a whānau doing tertiary study). the mentoring programme, while not alleviating the financial difficulties, provides an opportunity for the mentees to be connected with, and encouraged and strengthened by the mentors so they feel part of the university as a whole. 5. whānau the principle of extended family structure is a foundational concept for māori and, for students studying via distance in particular, whānau (in its many forms, as described by durie, 1994; metge, 1995) plays an integral part in their learning experience. from those living at home with and supporting the students, through to the mentors in the programme, there is a shared purpose in working towards a successful outcome for mentees. the mentors also have their whānau groups with whom they collaborate to ensure they too are not isolated—one being the ‘mentoring journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(2) 9 whānau’ comprising not just the other mentors, but the supervisors and the programme facilitator. 6. kaupapa the principle of collective philosophy is also foundational to our programme and, as outlined above, our purpose is to increase māori student success at university. in providing māori students studying at a distance with a peer-mentoring strategy, we aim to help both the mentees and mentors to work towards the best possible collegial, personal, cultural, academic, and career outcomes (durie, 2009). we have also taken into account two further elements that have added to a kaupapa māori methodology. 7. te tiriti o waitangi (pihama, 2001) the spirit of the treaty of waitangi is demonstrated in that our mentoring programme is conducted by māori for māori, and goes some way to affirming māori rights. 8. āta (pohatu, 2004) the principle of growing respectful relationships has emerged as mentors from each semester have returned to the programme and are able to provide mentoring to both the student mentees and the new mentors. these principles informed the development and implementation of the mmp. however, it is durie’s (2009) best outcomes for māori students model that provides a relevant basis from which to discuss our research with the mentors. according to this model, māori student success must be considered within appropriate frameworks. figure 1 outlines a set of attributes that students might acquire during their studies in order to be equipped with the requisite skills, academic insights, networks, experience, and cultural competencies to begin or further develop their careers, and prepare to take a lead in achieving a positive future for their whānau. implicit in durie’s model is the notion of ‘leadership’ which, very broadly, is the ability to lead or guide individuals or groups. figure 1 best outcomes for māori students (durie, 2009) © mason durie barnett, s., te wiata, i. 10 study design in september 2015 a mixed-methods research study focusing on the māori mentoring programme in the cob was proposed, and ethics approval was sought from and granted by the university. the mentoring programme was piloted in semester 2, 2014, and implemented more formally in 2015. therefore, only mentors, mentees, and staff involved in semesters 1 and 2, 2015, were involved in this study, which involved three phases. these comprised, firstly, kanohi ki te kanohi interviews and discussions with the mentors; secondly, an online survey questionnaire for the mentees; and thirdly, interviews with the programme supervisor and facilitator. in this paper we present and discuss the findings from the interviews and discussions with seven mentors who participated in 2015. we privilege the voices of the mentors by using quotes to show their experiences and perceptions of the programme. to protect the anonymity of the mentors, names and other identifying information have not been included. findings and discussion the cob is in a good position to contribute to enhancing the māori workforce, whether it is in the financial, economic, health, education or other sectors, particularly as māori contribution to the economy was approximately $11 billion in 2013 and continues to grow (nana, khan, & schulze, 2015 in ruwhiu & awatere, 2016). the mmp has shown some positive outcomes for māori distance students and statistical evidence suggests there was a slight increase in the number of māori students passing their core bbs papers in 2015; however, we cannot say with any certainty that this was solely because of the mmp. less easy to assess is the second goal of the mmp—to develop leadership skills and abilities among the māori student mentors. the comments made by mentors in the kanohi ki te kanohi interviews and discussions are considered in relation to durie’s (2009) best outcomes for māori students model (fig. 1). most of the comments made by the mentors fit into three of the five outcomes outlined by durie: these are collegial, personal, and cultural outcomes. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(2) 11 emerging leaders in te ao māori1 and te ao pākehā2 figure 2 is an adaptation of durie’s model. it shows the outcomes that are discussed in this paper and explicitly links the outcomes to leadership development. figure 2 māori mentor outcomes (durie, 2009) © mason durie. adapted with permission. specific academic outcomes (e.g., paper passes and grade-point averages) were not available to the researchers; however, two mentors graduated with their bachelor degrees at the end of 2015. two others switched to distance mode and completed their degrees in 2016. the other three continued their studies and worked as mentors in 2016, completing their degrees and graduating in 2017. at the time of writing, career outcomes could not be discussed as the first cohort of mentors were still studying or in the very early stages of employment. collegial outcomes all seven mentors commented on collegial outcomes, with most focused on interactions with the māori students studying via distance and how they could help them to succeed with their study at mu. the programme also enabled social and e-networks in the mentor cohort—they developed an informal mentoring circle to support each other with their study and their learning about kawa and tikanga. some mentors identified that they wanted to be involved with the programme so they could help others and give something back. specific reasons included: . . . good to help others try to achieve . . . . . . be able to help and make the studying experience easier and more enjoyable . . . 1 the māori world 2 the european world barnett, s., te wiata, i. 12 … help people cope with university life… i have been both an internal student and extramural [distance] and being ‘mature’ am aware of the struggles that our māori students face . . . for me it is a matter of giving back . . . when asked: “what kinds of benefits do you believe mentoring provides to students?” the mentors’ comments fell into two main categories of support/help and confidence. in terms of support/help, comments included: . . . motivator and keeping people on track . . . . . . providing support and advice to students . . . . . . help to develop study skills . . . . . . help students to learn and grow . . . . . . it removes the sense of isolation and creates the feeling of community . . . . . . students become more aware of services available to help with study . . . and . . . help. some mentors felt they had been successful in helping students become more confident with their study, and commented: . . . provide an internal confidence boost for the student . . . . . . help students become more confident with their study . . . i mentored a student who was whakama [shy] and did not want to contact the paper coordinator and struggled with the paper terminology and what was actually required. with mentoring support this student submitted her assignment, if we didn’t help she was going to fail and not submit the assignment. the mentors also benefited from their relationship with the mentees. three comments showed how some felt about their interactions with mentees: most of the positive interactions i had with students where i really felt i was helping them out would have been when the students had personal issues that were interfering with their study and i would give them advice on how to manage their studies in the face of those issues. i felt i was able to inform students of little details [like withdrawing before a certain date in order to avoid financial and academic penalties] that went a long way in terms of saving them money and giving them an option to withhold their study if it was too difficult at this time. having been a kaiako [teacher] before i was aware of the good feeling that came from helping others . . . the ‘buzz’ is seeing or sensing the growth of the individual in who they are, growing in confidence, so that the place their feet stand is stronger. the mentors themselves developed an informal ‘mentoring circle’ in which they supported each other with their study. the format of the mentoring session (shared kai and whakawhanaungatanga) also enabled social networks to develop. a facebook page was set up to facilitate communication between the mentors, supervisor, and facilitator, and the four students journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(2) 13 who are no longer mentors have chosen to stay connected with the programme through this e-network. the two mentors who have graduated are now university alumni and, as others graduate, they will also become part of this university network. personal outcomes the three circles in the model are not totally separate and some of mentor comments relating to collegial outcomes could also relate to personal outcomes (e.g., positive relationships). it could be argued that all good collegial outcomes are based on positive relationships and the choice about where to put individual comments from the mentors was not made lightly. however, the attributes that the students acquired from being mentors all led to the development of their leadership skills. when asked why they decided to become mentors, replies included: . . . looks good on cv . . . . . . able to learn more and add something different to my skill set . . . . . . develop leadership skills . . . . . . develop confidence . . . . . . learn better communication skills . . . mentors were asked: “what are some of the personal positives that you will take away from the programme?” responses included: i would definitely say the satisfaction of knowing that you helped someone with something whether it be their study or letting them know that there’s someone out there to help them. i gained a lot of confidence from being part of the mentoring programme. it has definitely helped me a lot with not only my interactions with students but people in general. the comradeship with those in the team and seeing them develop, and also the positive differences we made. when the mentors were asked specifically about their emotional intelligence (ei), no specific answers were provided. however, in a later discussion, one mentor described an initial conversation with a mentee who was quite emotional and unsure about her study and her ability to do the work required. the mentor asked the facilitator if she could be allocated this particular student in future weeks so that she could keep up the conversation and reassure and help the student whenever possible. this mentor obviously recognised the student’s need to have one contact person and decided to provide this support—showing a high level of emotional intelligence. this statement also demonstrates the mentor’s ability to build a positive and personal relationship with the mentee. during the interviews mentors revealed their ability to build positive relationships with mentees as they became more proficient in the mentoring role. one stated: after the first few weeks i was sweet. i had learnt the ins and outs of the mentoring and i was making more and more phone calls as the weeks went by. i kind of developed my own sort of approach to mentoring as well to make the mentoring more personal to me. barnett, s., te wiata, i. 14 by the end of 2015 all of the mentors were using their own personal scripts and building on the relationships that they had developed with individual mentees. mentors were using different forms of greeting with mentees and discussed different topics depending on the demographic of the mentee. for example, they might start one phone call with “yo bro”, but start another phone call with “kia ora whaea”—demonstrating their ability to adapt the training to best suit them, thus improving the relationship with the mentee. how the mentors greeted mentees differently, acknowledging their status in the whanau, also shows development of their emotional intelligence. the mentors had to learn new computer systems so they could update student records and make notes about the phone calls. this showed their ability to access knowledge. one mentor commented: … gaining more knowledge about the university systems and i didn’t need to check with the facilitator all the time. mentors also had to develop the skill of concise writing as the relevant points from the phone call needed to be written succinctly so that anyone following the student’s record would have all the relevant information. mentors’ comments about cultural aspects of the programme are now discussed as part of the third outcome in durie’s model. cultural outcomes an integral part of the mentors’ training was the principle of taonga tuku iho (cultural aspiration) and the mentoring sessions were conducted according to tikanga māori kaupapa (framework based on māori protocols). the supervisor and facilitator both worked on the initial training session and used te ao māori examples to explain the students’ journey when they began their study. one mentor commented: any journey starts with the first steps, so there was a sense of whānau and shared kaupapa of making a difference. at the initial meeting [the supervisor’s] approach created a very good mauri [life principle] for the mentors. talking about the same training session, another mentor said: i liked the analogy of moving from te kore, through to te pō then te ao marama which charts the journal of the individual.3 the training information given to the mentors at the initial session included copies of karakia (to start and end meetings, and for kai) and a template for a pepeha (personal introduction) which is used at mihi whakatau to introduce yourself through your whakapapa and thereby develop whanaungatanga links with others in the room. some of the mentors had strong links to their whakapapa but others struggled to write a pepeha and had to conduct research with whānaumembers. 3 based on the whakapapa of creation. see http://maaori.com/whakapapa/creation.htm journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(2) 15 the facilitator was present at all of the mentoring sessions and ensured that karakia were said at the beginning and end of all sessions and before kai. if guests had been invited there was mihi whakatau and the use of te reo māori was encouraged among the mentors. whakawhanaungatanga was implicit in all sessions and formed the basis of how the mentors developed relationships with each other and the mentees. some of the mentors had strong links to their whakapapa and whānau as a result of being brought up close to their marae (home place) and hapū (extended family). for others, using te reo māori was intimidating and the tuakana–teina (more experienced–less experienced) model was used in the mentoring sessions to support and encourage those with less knowledge. comments included: i was too scared to read the karakia as i didn’t know how to pronounce the māori words. i liked the use of ako [learning] through the tuakana–teina model. by the end of the first few mentoring sessions all mentors knew a suitable karakia to start, finish, and to bless food. mentors were encouraged to learn and recite karakia but there was no time limit and initially most read from the prepared karakia and began to learn them as their knowledge of te reo māori improved. comments included: i didn’t feel forced to learn the karakia—wanted to do it so that i could feel part of the whanau. it felt good when i went to a hui and i knew a karakia to say for kai. for most of the mentors, learning new skills through a te ao māori lens was a revelation as they hadn’t attended a kohanga reo (māori pre-school) or studied papers specifically related to māori. concepts such as the creation story were new to these mentors. the pepeha was also new to some of them, and they were encouraged to contact whānauto find out their whakapapa and include it into their personal pepeha. given the research involved, there was no pressure on the mentors to fully complete their pepeha but they were encouraged to use part of it (either read or learned) whenever they had to introduce themselves. again this was done in the tuakana–teina environment to lessen anxiety and build whakawhanaungatanga relationships between the mentors. some mentors went back to their marae and hapū to find out about their whakapapa and this enabled them to re-establish contact with whanau: i didn’t realise what i didn’t know. i grew up by the marae until i was 12 but hadn’t taken any notice of the tikanga and things. learning my whakapapa gave me an opportunity to visit some older whānauthat i hadn’t seen in years. there were no specific comments about learning their pepeha; however, at the end-of-year function to thank the mentors for their work during 2015, two mentors used their full pepeha to introduce themselves. they hadn’t been able to do this at the beginning of 2015 (f. palmer, personal communication, 20 november, 2015). at this function the mentors also spoke confidently about the programme, what it meant to them, and how they believed they had helped māori students studying via distance. some mentors barnett, s., te wiata, i. 16 spoke specifically about the mentoring outcomes that would enable them to follow a leadership path in the future, including having more confidence operating in te ao māori and te ao pākehā; building relationships (tuakana–teina); developing social and e-networks with other mentors; and their increased knowledge of pepeha, mihi, karakia, kawa, and tikanga. summary and conclusion the mmp discussed in this paper had two goals: first, to increase the completion and pass rates of māori students studying via distance; and second, to develop the māori mentors’ leadership skills and abilities, to enable them to become future leaders in te ao pākehā and/or te ao māori. we used durie’s 2009 model to discuss the collegial, personal, and cultural outcomes expressed by the mentors. there is ample evidence to show that tuakana–teina mentoring can be of significant value to mentors and mentees if implemented in a culturally appropriate manner. however, success depends on adequate resourcing, appropriate staffing, and a framework conducive to māori values and beliefs. further research on māori mentoring in the tertiary education sector would be 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(1975). college professors and their impact upon students. new york: john wiley & sons. acknowledgements ngā mihi nui to our māori student mentors who helped many of our students studying via distance to succeed in 2014 and 2015. thanks also to those who provided the information which forms the basis of this research paper. we would like to acknowledge jacob tapiata and monica koia for the initial development and implementation of this programme, and dr farah palmer and ruth jackson for continuing this work. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(2) 19 biographical notes shirley barnett s.j.barnett@massey.ac.nz shirley is a lecturer in the school of management, massey university. she has designed and taught courses in human resource management and management for internal, distance, and international student cohorts for over 25 years. shirley also facilitates the māori student mentoring programme in the massey business school. she is from ngāti tūwharetoa and has a particular interest in māori student success in the tertiary sector. ina te wiata ngati raukawa i.c.tewiata@massey.ac.nz ina is senior advisor (teaching and scholarship) in the office of the assistant vice chancellor māori and pasifika, massey university. she has extensive experience and expertise in the area of adult/higher education, having held academic positions in polytechnics and universities in aotearoa new zealand and australia. in her current role ina represents māori on a number of key university committees and advises and works with academic staff in all areas of teaching and learning. her research interests focus on advancing māori student accomplishment in the tertiary education sector. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. barnett, s., & te wiata, i. (2017). māori mentors: expectations and perceptions. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 21(2), [4–19.]. microsoft word irons-hartnett.docx irons, j., hartnett, m. 28 computational thinking in junior classrooms in new zealand jeanette irons, massey university maggie hartnett, massey university abstract from 2020, the new zealand technology curriculum includes computational thinking. the new curriculum content is being introduced to students from 5 years’ old. in preparation for its introduction, online resources have been developed for teachers (including junior teachers who teach new entrants, up to year 3), that contain progress outcomes, lesson plans, exemplars, and assessments. however, it’s not clear whether new zealand junior teachers are sufficiently prepared to teach computational thinking and what factors influence their preparedness to teach the new curriculum. this research explored the experience of a small group of junior school teachers in the year before the technology curriculum was officially introduced. research findings highlight that factors (including professional development, assessment, schoolwide support, and time availability) influence the uptake of the computational thinking curriculum by teachers in new zealand junior classrooms. keywords: computational thinking; technology curriculum; professional development; new zealand; junior teachers; k–12 introduction from 2020, computational thinking has become part of the new zealand school curriculum for students from 5 years’ old (ministry of education, 2017). this is not a revised curriculum—it’s a completely new addition to the technology curriculum. the purpose of the computationalthinking curriculum is to teach new zealand students to be more than consumers of technology, and to develop a greater appreciation of existing digital devices and how to create innovative digital technologies (bell & roberts, 2016; wing, 2006). the new digital-technologies curriculum content involves, among other things, teaching children how to sequence their ideas using algorithmic thinking, to use debugging strategies to solve problems, and to understand binary language and heuristics. the learning progressions envisioned in the new curriculum have been developed as a series of progress outcomes for new zealand teachers to follow (ministry of education, n.d.-b) and introductory training has been made available online (see, for example kia takatū āmatihiko, n.d.; the mind lab, n.d.). this article explores the experience of several junior teachers embarking on teaching the new computational-thinking curriculum content and the factors that influence their teaching. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2) 29 literature review a definition of computational thinking computational thinking has been defined as “the thought processes involved in formulating a problem and expressing its solution(s) in such a way that a computer—human or machine—can effectively carry out” (wing, 2017, p. 8). systematic and logical problem-solving, creativity, evaluation, and understanding of the world we live in are all encouraged by computational thinking (caeli & yadav, 2020). computational thinking can foster higher-order thinking (falloon, 2019). computationalthinking education encourages active learning rather than passively using digital devices, and children as young as 5 have been observed problem-solving, thinking critically, collaborating, and exhibiting cognitive perseverance while undertaking coding tasks (falloon, 2016). many computational-thinking software programs have powerful potential (grover & pea, 2013), but until children understand how to manipulate these tools effectively they tend to engage only with easy and entertaining activities (bell et al., 2009). drivers for introducing computational thinking to school curricula advocates have argued for including computational thinking in the curriculum since the 1960s (caeli & yadav, 2020) with little success. however, society is changing rapidly as a result of the increasing ubiquity of digital technologies in all facets of life, and the need to include computational thinking in educational curricula has become urgent (grover & pea, 2013). computing jobs are currently amongst the fastest growing worldwide (vlahu-gjorgievska et al., 2018). many existing jobs that were once considered “unskilled”—such as routine factory work, pattern-cutting, and electronics construction (caeli & yadav, 2020)—are now done by robotic machines that require digitally capable employees to set them up, repair them, and oversee their operation. these jobs require people with computational thinking skills and expertise (grover & pea, 2013). many countries, such as australia, the united kingdom, the united states, and new zealand have introduced computer education, coding, computer science, dataology, and computational thinking into their technology curricula with the intention of increasing the availability of computer-literate employees (caeli & yadav, 2020; grover & pea, 2013). new zealand is at the forefront of introducing computational thinking into new entrant (year 0) classrooms. existing investigations from k–12 (primary to secondary) classrooms tend to focus on students beyond 8 years’ old (e.g., burnett, 2006) or k–12 results are aggregated—resulting in the inability to specifically identify findings that relate to junior classrooms (e.g., nouri et al., 2020). new zealand ministry of education documents on this subject also target older children (see, for example bolstad et al., 2012). although computational-thinking pilot schemes have started in some new zealand classrooms (bell & bell, 2018; bell, 2018) and in some danish schools (vlahu-gjorgievska et al., 2018), computational thinking education in junior classrooms across new zealand is in its infancy. teacher preparedness no matter how transformational a new curriculum or programme might be, studies worldwide have shown change will not occur if teachers are not committed (hattie, 2017; rogers, 2010; yin et al., 2011). resistance to implementing new aspects of a curriculum can be influenced by personal cost (waugh, 2000), perceptions of benefit (cviko et al., 2012), negativity or positivity towards the innovation (ertmer & ottenbreit-leftwich, 2010), resources allocated to the new curriculum (waugh, 2000), teacher support, and alignment with assessment (gibson & brooks, 2012). irons, j., hartnett, m. 30 introducing technological advancements into a classroom usually involves upgrading hardware and software—and these requirements can affect implementation (waugh, 2000; yin et al., 2011). apart from monetary costs, the time required to implement a new curriculum (terrazasarellanes et al., 2016), time to learn new skills or software (gibson & brooks, 2012), time to search for and test resources (sotiriou et al., 2016), and time to update and prepare planning documents (blundell et al., 2016; giffen cheng et al., 2014) are important considerations for teachers. waugh (2000) also noted the importance of school management proactively addressing the concerns of teachers regarding the personal cost of change. school curriculum change is frequently initiated by administrators (moltó et al., 2009). however, teachers are not passive absorbers and transmitters of teaching programmes, and their input about implementation is vital (hunter & keown, 2001). waugh (2000) highlighted the positive influence of teachers being part of the decision-making process in schools, while moltó et al. (2009) emphasised the mismatch between governmental policy and actual practice when teachers were not involved. successful leadership is a critical precursor to change (agarwal et al., 1998; baylor & ritchie, 2002). although change can be slow, having leadership actively involved with professional development and classroom teaching can influence the desired outcomes (gibson & brooks, 2012). teachers need to know where to go to access support, and need to take an active role in introducing a new curriculum (moltó et al., 2009; waugh, 2000). when teachers are prepared to introduce a new curriculum into their current classroom practice it is more likely to happen (giffen cheng et al., 2014). moltó et al. (2009) and waugh (2000) showed that a complete reorganisation of existing practices is necessary to ensure successful integration of new curricula. for example, if teachers can’t easily find supporting publications, software, planning ideas, or curriculum support they are unlikely to change their existing teaching practices. therefore assessment, timetables, and resources for learning (to name a few) are important considerations because they are influential in determining whether changes are enacted at the classroom level (blundell et al., 2016; giffen cheng et al., 2014). with the recent introduction of the computational-thinking curriculum content, there’s a gap in the research about the experience of teachers of 5–8-year-olds, and who are new to teaching computational thinking. this project investigates the experience of junior teachers (new entrant to year 3) in new zealand and therefore goes some way towards addressing the gap in the literature. research method this research study is interested in the perceptions and experiences of junior teachers in relation to teaching computational thinking in new zealand. therefore, a qualitative research approach was undertaken to answer the research question: what are the factors that influence junior teachers’ preparation for teaching computational thinking? the research followed guidelines from the code of ethical conduct for research, teaching, and evaluation involving human participants (massey university, 2018). a low-risk ethics approval was sought and granted before the research commenced. semi-structured interviews were used to collect the thoughts and experiences of junior teachers about computational thinking. this was the preferred data collection method because it allowed questions to be prepared in advance, and enabled the interviewer to pursue responses in more depth (creswell & plano clark, 2018). journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2) 31 each interview was audio recorded, transcribed using nvivo transcription software, and checked for accuracy. initial themes began to emerge. a thematic analysis was undertaken with nvivo12, and commonalities between themes were analysed with nvivo query coding comparisons. context and participants seven junior teachers who were teaching children from new entrant to year 3 (5–8 years’ old) were interviewed. these teachers taught at three schools in central new zealand. pseudonyms have been used throughout this article to ensure confidentiality (see table 1). participants’ quotes have been edited to follow written english conventions without changing their intended meaning. table 1 participants’ information teacher’s pseudonym year level age of children sharon year 0 to 3 5–8 sandra year 0 to 3 5–8 jane year 1–2 5–7 ruby year 0 5 rian year 0 5 mere year 0–1 5 toni year 0 5 results the results section begins with participants’ understanding of computational thinking. next, the participant’s attitudes to computational thinking are explored, and categorised into positive and negative statements as well as perceived benefits and challenges. this is followed by emerging themes about assessment, professional development, support, resources, and time. teachers’ understanding of computational thinking the participant’s depictions of computational thinking were varied. although all the teachers had heard of computational thinking, and most were teaching elements of it in their classroom, some found it challenging to put computational thinking into words and many were initially reluctant to do so. those who had undertaken professional development had the most confidence in their understanding of the new curriculum, and were explicitly teaching it in their classes. rian explained computational thinking as “how information is stored on the computer. so, computational things, and how we’re programming, creating apps et cetera in the junior end”. rian also included detailed descriptions of lesson plans she had used with her new entrant class from “tahi rua toru tech”, using number flash cards and mathematical concepts (see tahi rua toru tech, 2018). most participants expressed an opinion that junior children needed to use technology to learn about computational thinking; for example, ruby said it is “getting them familiar with the tools they can use”. use of digital devices was the area in which there was resistance to including computational thinking in the classroom. jane’s comment exemplifies these concerns: “some kids had been too much on [digital devices] and they became quite bizarre, they won’t get off and we had fights and we had behavioural problems”. mere’s statement: “i don’t think it’s something i’d do with my kids because of the word computational”, revealed her emergent understanding of computational thinking. jane and mere recognised that they knew very little irons, j., hartnett, m. 32 about computational thinking, but both also acknowledged their belief in the importance of learning new technologies alongside the children. teachers’ attitudes to computational thinking only one of the participants in this study was actively using downloaded lesson plans to teach computational thinking. rian was integrating computational thinking with mathematics. most of the other teachers had taught elements of computational thinking in the form of sequencing or exploring the scratch app, but were not using computational-thinking language and concepts such as, “algorithm”, or “debugging”. some participants were not aware they were teaching facets of computational thinking and only through the interview discussion did they became aware of the potential for developing current practices into effective computational-thinking lessons. when exploring junior teachers’ attitudes to computational thinking, more positive (56% or 10/18) than negative (44% or 8/18) statements were coded. participants expressed many positive statements about computational thinking being necessary for the future. when jane thought about the imminent technology curriculum change, she said, “oh great, i think it’s sort of second nature with most people now. because we’re immersed among it—if we don’t learn it, we'll be left for dead”; while sandra said, “i think there’s potentially a lot of benefits”. toni felt that if she was asked to start teaching computational thinking tomorrow, she might scramble but would do it. however, negative statements were also recorded. ruby said, “probably not at my particular age because for a lot of them [students] it’s actually just being able to use the programs and things like that”, and mere said, “for me personally, i want my kids to read and write and count and all that stuff, i suppose that’s always at the forefront”. table 2 categorises each participant’s positive reasons for including the computational-thinking curriculum in the classroom; for example, it incorporates the key competencies and enables exciting lessons. negative aspects of teaching computational thinking were expressed as it not being appropriate for the age, and using devices for extended periods of time. table 2 positive and negative statements about computational thinking perceived benefits and challenges to computational thinking participants believed computational thinking was a necessary addition to the curriculum and that it could, for example, be incorporated in core subjects and be used to teach the key competencies. they felt computational thinking reflected the interests of the children and the way the world was heading (e.g., the collaborative but distributed nature of work). the following comments by jane and rian reflect those made by the group as a whole: i understand the need for coding, it works particularly well when you’ve got tuakana teina [older and younger children working together] (jane) positive statements negative statements necessary addition to curriculum exciting lessons impressive learning incorporates core curriculum incorporates key competencies potential natural progression school priority time taken away from core curriculum not appropriate for age group using devices for extended periods of time lack of teacher knowledge pressure to concentrate on core subjects too much play (from parents’ perspective) journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2) 33 students loved it . . . [we can] incorporate mathematics . . . [it can be part of] literacy or language. (rian) table 3 is a complete list of benefits identified by participants. table 3 the benefits of teaching computational thinking benefits example there is a need “anything to do with thinking and problem solving or around key competencies, i think is always going to have a place and be incredibly worthwhile” (sharon) children can lead because of prior knowledge “the big kids, because they’re wonderful teachers, and they know it way better than i do” (jane) they are already immersed in it “if we don’t learn it we’ll be left for dead” (jane) low cost “because again it’s kind of free” (sharon) enjoyable learning “students loved it” (rian) “bringing in something fresh” (sharon) can be independent “once they’re familiar with it, it might be something that they can access on their own in play time” (sharon) incorporates maths, literacy, and language “that's something definitely to bring into everyday literacy” (ruby) creativity “and you've got the creativity” (rian) incorporates key competencies “you’ve got the key competencies” (rian) reflects societal changes “where the whole world in general is heading” (ruby) links to children’s curiosity “how we can help those children with their interests” (ruby) incorporates different types of learning “but it’s definitely even back to the basics of spatial awareness in the understanding of body movement and things like that” (sandra) challenges more broadly associated with digital technologies were often expressed as challenges to introducing computational thinking in the classroom—such as lack of devices, learning to use programs, and lack of funding. some participants’ concerns arose from a lack of understanding of how computational thinking could be taught, and how to incorporate it in an already busy timetable. others said they thought computational thinking was more appropriate for older children, or their school focused more on technology use by older children. several participants expressed doubts about their relative inexperience in a school or teaching a particular age level, and felt they had to concentrate on the basics (i.e., literacy and numeracy) before they introduced new content. (see table 4 for a complete list.) rian was the only participant who could not think irons, j., hartnett, m. 34 of any challenges associated with teaching computational thinking to juniors. mere and toni spoke only about the challenges of teaching computational thinking, and the other participants identified both benefits and challenges. table 4 the challenges of teaching computational thinking assessment all participants struggled to identify an existing assessment that could be used effectively when teaching computational thinking. all participants indicated there were no resources currently challenges example lack of equipment “probably the equipment side” (toni) getting kids beyond just playing “we risk that the kids play on it” (jane) time spent on devices “and you'll hear ‘oh i don't think my kids should be on ipads for this long’ ” (mere) lack of funding “if we had a fountain or mountain of money” (sharon) priorities “as always it’s a bit of fitting it in and prioritising” (sharon) “ensuring you’re doing it, rather than letting it fall off” (sandra) lack of teacher knowledge “i was terrified when they said i had to do the scratch junior” (jane) learning to use programs etc “it’d be great if someone can come in with the technology and show me how it’s done” (mere) linking to age group “the apps and things have to be really appropriate” (jane) linking to children’s prior knowledge “but it’s how? how we do it to actually fit with what they know and what they can do at the different ages and stages?” (ruby) taking focus away from core curriculum “i want my kids to read and write and count and all that stuff. i suppose it's always at the forefront” (mere) time for lessons and planning “it takes up too much of part of the day” (jane) making sure it has a purpose / authentic integration “i think it has to have a real purpose” (jane) language (learning it and teaching it) “probably language” (sandra) new staffing challenges “plus we’ve had a few changes. we’ve got two new teachers that have started this term. and then i’m new into the juniors anyway and i stepped in as team leader” (sharon) making sure it doesn’t get missed “it’s finding ways that i can authentically fit these sorts of things within the numeracy and literacy” (sharon) focus on older children / complexity of curriculum “i wouldn’t be jumping straight in with the younger ones” (sharon) journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2) 35 available in their classrooms to assess computational thinking, although they felt existing tools (such as seesaw—a digital portfolio) could be used for capturing evidence of participation in computational-thinking activities. jane could imagine creating a database to record children’s progress in computational thinking, and rian imagined competency in using technology could be measured. but sharon pointed out the difficulty of measuring thinking: “that’s quite a challenging one, because sometimes you’ll see higher order thinking in certain areas and not in others”. sharon also expressed that, without an effective assessment programme, computational thinking could be missed out of the curriculum: “we’re very busy so i know that my priorities are often down to deadlines and accountabilities and things”. professional development and support none of the participants had attended any recent school-led professional development about computational thinking. rian had found information online, downloaded classroom lessons and resources, and enrolled for an online digital-readiness programme, while sharon said she had been “just having the odd look online”. table 5 shows that six of the seven participants, namely rian, sandra, sharon, toni, jane, and ruby felt well supported by expert technology teachers in their schools, although ruby said she would probably search for an answer online before asking the expert teachers. mere was the lead teacher in ict (at her level) at her school, and said she would also search online if she needed additional support. table 5 professional development experience of teachers name pd support available mere self-directed online online rian none lead teacher in school and online ruby none online or lead teachers at school sandra none lead teacher in school and online sharon none lead teacher in school and online toni none lead teacher in school jane none lead teacher in school and online all participants felt supported by their school’s leadership team, but although all were positive about attending school-organised professional development (if available), they didn’t all think computational thinking was sufficiently important to prioritise learning in their own time. the strong culture of reliance on experts in schools was a recurring theme. sandra and sharon both admitted that, although their lead technology teachers had emailed them computational-thinking information and links, neither had accessed them because of lack of time, priority, or motivation. sandra said, “i haven’t been proactive in making the most of what’s available”. toni (who admitted knowing very little about computational thinking) had been gathering information from other teachers in her school who were currently undertaking computational-thinking professional development. she said: “people are just talking about these things and it’s starting to become the conversation”. rian’s self-directed learning and her clearly articulated understanding of computational thinking were not acknowledged (perhaps not known) by other teachers in her school. rian was not cited as the teacher expert in computational thinking and she spoke of going to the technology lead teacher if she needed assistance. irons, j., hartnett, m. 36 resources most participants had ideas about the resources they felt were needed to teach computational thinking. jane knew about a set of coding books that she had seen used at a previous school, and she thought they would be helpful. mere knew of the bee bots (small robotic bees that can be programmed to move forwards, backwards, left, and right), but was limited by her own understanding of how to use them beyond playing with them. mere knew of a lot of resources that she thought were suitable for computational thinking but targeted older children, such as 3d printers and makey makey (a digital invention kit). rian was also aware of tools for older children but she was using existing resources, such as grids and rockets painted on the concrete, to adapt ideas she had discovered online. rian felt she didn’t need any additional resources, but she might need more tools in the future. ruby and toni knew of no existing resources (other than ipads) for teaching computational thinking. ruby and toni felt they would need to know more about computational thinking before they could identify the resources they needed. sandra had heard of a lot of resources for intermediate-aged children (year 7–8, or 10–12 years’ old) and wanted to explore strawbees (a construction kit with digital programming potential), which she had seen advertised for junior classrooms. sharon was preparing to introduce scratch junior to her year 3 students but didn’t think it was a suitable tool for the 5-year-olds. she had a lot of ideas for additional resources to teach computational thinking (such as circuitry, magnets, and strawbees), but acknowledged that they did not have “a fountain or mountain of money”. sharon also knew of many resources that targeted older children, and a lot of resources that were fun (such as “virtual reality goggles and the spheres that roll around and go”) but she questioned their educational value. sharon said the thinking could be taught “without necessarily needing new technologies”. time the issue of time was highlighted by many of the participants. teachers were concerned that computational thinking would lead to students spending too much time on devices. two participants mentioned that their school had already removed technology from their “play to learn” sessions because the children chose to use digital devices rather than engaging with peers. another participant said she limited the time that children had with computer technology to 10– 15 minutes. time taken away from core curriculum subjects was another repeated concern, as was how to link computational thinking with literacy and numeracy so that it wasn’t another thing to have to add to the timetable. several participants felt that the time required for children to learn and the time required to implement computational thinking would need to be substantial. the word “priorities” was used repeatedly. sharon said, “there’s always more i want to do, but can’t fit in”. the teachers also lamented their personal lack of time to learn. each teacher was in a unique situation but they all had full schedules, including other professional development, leadership roles, and personal commitments. the time needed for planning was also mentioned as a future goal. rian, the one teacher who had taken time to personally develop her skill, had also been out of the classroom for two terms in a management support role. discussion based on the findings presented in the previous section, two overarching themes emerge; namely, teacher knowledge and resources. teacher knowledge although computational thinking was not officially part of the curriculum until 2020, government expectations in 2019 were that teachers would engage in professional development in anticipation of its introduction. the results of this research show that although they were willing to teach computational thinking, most of the junior teachers in this sample felt they were journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2) 37 not equipped to do so. many of them believed computational thinking required a digital device, although this is not stated in the computational-thinking curriculum (ministry of education, 2017). teachers’ understanding of computational thinking, the benefits they perceive of teaching it, and the challenges they face when teaching the new content are important. the research will contribute to developing an overall understanding of junior teachers’ experience. findings indicated the teachers are aware of the new curriculum, which is an important starting point for future conversations about computational thinking in the junior classroom. five of seven participants in this study perceived benefits to teaching computational thinking, but six of them also identified challenges. many of the negative statements indicated a lack of understanding of what teaching computational thinking entails for junior students. the common concern about how much time children spend on devices assumes that computational thinking needs to be taught with digital technologies. however, in the new zealand curriculum, computational thinking progress outcome one (which is the most relevant for junior teachers) specifically states the use of non-computerised tasks: “in authentic contexts and taking account of end-users, students use their decomposition skills to break down simple non-computerised tasks into precise, unambiguous, step-by-step instructions (algorithmic thinking)” (ministry of education, n.d.-a, p. po1). furthermore, there is a perception that access to devices should be limited because they result in less peer engagement, but obsessive behaviour may be overcome when children can collaborate on computational thinking projects (as noted by falloon 2016, 2019). in this study, teachers’ attitudes to computational thinking appear to influence their preparation for teaching computational thinking. their lack of knowledge and understanding needs to be addressed to reduce the challenges perceived by junior teachers when teaching the new curriculum content. in addressing teachers’ lack of knowledge, it can reduce the resistance to its implementation—as others have noted when new technologies are introduced (waugh, 2000; yin et al., 2011). the results of this research highlight that new zealand junior teachers need to participate in ongoing professional development if they are to introduce computational thinking in classrooms successfully. the new curriculum is not a revision of the existing technology curriculum, but an addition; therefore, it is reasonable to expect junior teachers to require specialised training to teach it effectively. although computational-thinking training and resources are available online, the participants in this study had not been encouraged or motivated, nor were they given, or had, time for self-directed professional learning opportunities. they talked about relying on the “experts” in their schools rather than taking advantage of online resources. as a result, insufficient subject knowledge appears to influence their preparation for teaching computational thinking. two participants spoke of learning new technologies alongside their students, but to extend learners, teachers need to both increase their own computational thinking knowledge and become experienced users of the technology. knowing the curriculum is a necessary prerequisite to teaching it (kereluik et al., 2013; moats, 2010; tell et al., 2000). for change to occur, teachers need to feel supported (ertmer & ottenbreit-leftwich, 2013). this research indicated that the support these participants experienced did not necessarily transfer to new teaching practices (as shown by agarwal et al., 1998). all of the participants felt they were well supported and they knew where access information, but unless they had actively and independently pursued these resources, they were not teaching computational thinking. this study has suggested a possible disconnect between government policy, leadership, planning, and teachers’ practice for the participants involved. ruby and toni openly expressed their lack of irons, j., hartnett, m. 38 computational-thinking knowledge and contribution to introducing the new curriculum. lack of involvement in school planning and implementation may be a factor influencing the lack of preparedness for teaching computational thinking apparent in this study. waugh (2000) and moltó et al. (2009) showed the importance of teachers being involved at the decision-making level when a new curriculum is introduced. resources lack of specific resources—including assessment, specific digital tools, and time—were also highlighted by participants as barriers to teaching the new curriculum content. the most salient theme identified by participants was the perceived lack of alignment between the computational-thinking curriculum and existing assessment practices. for change to be implemented, a new curriculum needs to align with current assessment practices or include appropriate assessment (waugh, 2000). the perceived lack of readily available assessment practices and examples may affect the success or otherwise of the introduction of the new curriculum content in junior classrooms. the new zealand ministry of education has developed a document called “indicators of progression” (ministry of education, n.d.-b), which includes assessment for computational thinking with achievement objectives. the participants’ lack of knowledge about this document (which is available online) suggests the need for further publicity as part of professional development for computational thinking. one challenge shared by all participants was the pressure of time, which led busy teachers to decide which things to prioritise. rian had dedicated professional development time out of the classroom. in line with other research (such as moltó et al., 2009) these results suggest that, for computational thinking to be prioritised by teachers, schools will need to support professional development that includes dedicated time out of the classroom. schoolwide timetabling also needs to reflect the importance of computational thinking if these teachers are going to consider it a priority (waugh, 2000). the teachers’ knowledge of digital resources influenced their preparation for teaching computational thinking in this study. two participants were unaware of any digital resources that aligned with the new curriculum, while several teachers knew of resources but didn’t feel they were appropriate for junior classrooms. two teachers spoke of resources (such as strawbees) that were being marketed as appropriate tools for teaching computational thinking in the junior classroom, but the participants questioned the expense. the perceived lack of resources available to teach computational thinking may be an influential factor but until these teachers understand exactly what teaching computational thinking at the junior level entails, confusion will remain. as kereluik et al. (2013) points out: “knowing the technology is important, but knowing when and why to use it is more important” (p. 133). one participant demonstrated that computational thinking can be taught in junior classrooms with existing resources such as grids, hopscotch, mazes, or puzzles. limitations as with all research, this investigation has limitations. because the research involved a small sample of seven participants, it can’t be considered to be representative of junior teachers’ perceptions and experiences more broadly in new zealand. however, because it was an exploratory project, it does represent an important first step—currently lacking in the literature— in understanding the experiences of a small group of junior teachers involved in implementing computational thinking. it also highlights areas for future research, including a need to investigate junior teachers’ knowledge of computational thinking, junior teachers’ knowledge of relevant and useful resources, and how junior teachers’ self-efficacy for teaching computational journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2) 39 thinking influences decisions about what it is and how it is taught in the classroom. this research is a starting point for that journey. conclusion this exploratory research has uncovered a range of factors that influence the preparedness of these junior teachers to teach computational thinking. perceived benefits and challenges, knowledge of resources, professional development, support, time constraints, and alignment with assessment are all factors that influence their readiness for teaching the new curriculum content. computational-thinking knowledge varied across the participants. although many teachers were unaware of how much they knew about computational thinking, many believed that all computational-thinking instruction required considerable use of computer-based technology. perceptions of the benefits of teaching computational thinking, and positive attitudes towards the new curriculum, were greatest when teachers had undertaken professional development and had started to teach computational thinking in their class. this research has shown that knowing how to use available resources is as influential as the lack of resources. many teachers knew of resources they would like to have, but didn’t know how to use what was already available. an example of this related to assessment. although computational-thinking assessment is available for new zealand teachers as part of the new curriculum, this study showed teachers were unaware of these resources. even teachers who had completed self-directed professional development had not included assessment in their exploration and were unaware of any appropriate assessment. time was another frequently cited factor driving decisions about learning about computational thinking, and whether to include it in the class timetable. comprehensive professional development is needed to ensure misconceptions about computational thinking are addressed and appropriate assessment tools are identified. due to time constraints, professional development will need to be integrated in the school day (i.e., teachers are released from teaching commitments) to highlight the importance of the new curriculum content. this research is a starting point for continued research into the successful implementation of computational thinking in junior classrooms. references agarwal, r., ahuja, m., carter, p. e., & gans, m. 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(2011). teacher receptivity to curriculum reform and the need for trust: an exploratory study from southwest china. asia-pacific education researcher, 20(1), 35–47. biographical notes jeanette irons jmmirons@gmail.com jeanette irons has a master of education in e-learning, and is an experienced primary school teacher. she is a marking assistant for massey university’s postgraduate digital education programme. maggie hartnett m.hartnett@massey.ac.nz dr maggie hartnett is a senior lecturer at massey university where she teaches digital education. she is programme coordinator for the postgraduate digital education programmes and is associate editor of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. her research interests include motivation and engagement in digital environments, digital inclusion, teaching and learning with digital technologies, learner support, and digital spaces for learning. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. irons, j., & hartnett, m. (2020). computational thinking in junior classrooms in new zealand. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2), [28–42.]. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(2) 23 accessibility and engagement: expectations and experiences of graduate students in blended– synchronous courses sarah crary, north dakota state university andrea huseth-zosel, north dakota state university erika beseler thompson, minnesota state university moorhead abstract to reach more students, many colleges are using technology to teach courses via a blended learning model, which allows students to attend class face to face or through a video network. the blended–synchronous format (a blended learning model) is defined as the synchronous instruction of face-to-face and remotely located students. although it provides flexibility for students in terms of location, the blended–synchronous model also has challenges, including accessibility. this study aimed to understand the expectations and experiences of graduate students who attend blended–synchronous courses. the authors surveyed students in a midwestern, mid-sized research university, who were enrolled in programmes that use the blended–synchronous model. the survey focused on their experiences with, and expectations for, their typical mode of attendance. an analysis of quantitative data using descriptive statistics and independent samples t-tests determined whether there were significant differences between students who attended in person or via a video network (vn) regarding their ideal expectations and actual experiences with classroom engagement. authors coded open-ended responses to capture and interpret key themes. results indicated students did not experience significant differences in their ideal or actual classroom engagement regardless of the mode of attendance, although there were significant differences in actual experiences of accessibility—vn students are less able to hear and see the instructor and classmates. additionally, a sense of “us versus them” emerged between the two groups, with vn students struggling to participate actively. systems need to be developed to increase participation and social interaction in blended– synchronous courses. keywords: blended–synchronous learning; graduate students; accessibility; engagement introduction recent improvements in technology have had significant effects on the development and availability of current education delivery models (lakhal et al., 2017). blended learning models have become quite popular, especially as many colleges and universities face declining student enrolment (juszkiewicz, 2017). these models can be a blend or hybrid of in-class, online, and distance education options, as well as synchronous and asynchronous opportunities (lakhal et al., 2017). blended models can also focus on blending instructional delivery media, instructional methods, or online and face-to-face instruction (graham, 2006). crary, s. l., huseth-zosel, a, l., beseler thompson, e. l. 24 this area of study can be complicated because there is no single definition of blended learning (lakhal et al., 2017). the terms “hybrid” and “blended” are often used to mean synchronous instruction of both face-to-face and remotely located students (detienne et al., 2018; osguthorpe & graham, 2003) and can be termed a blended–synchronous learning environment (osguthorpe & graham, 2003). the blended–synchronous format is different from the hyflex format currently used in colleges and universities across the united states (miller et al., 2021). the hyflex format allows students and faculty to have flexibility in how they attend class, which may be by zoom, or being in the physical classroom (miller et al., 2021). blended–synchronous courses often do not allow such flexibility—students are required to choose their method of class attendance before they start the class (szeto & cheng 2016). we should note that although our research occurred before the covid-19 pandemic, we recognise that this teaching methodology will become more important with the growth of hyflex learning models. an instructor might choose to design classes in a blended–synchronous format instead of entirely online or face to face for a variety of reasons. first, a blended–synchronous format increases course accessibility (raes et al., 2020; romero-hall & vincentini, 2017; wang et al., 2017; zydney et al., 2019). second, blended–synchronous courses enable students who reside in remote areas, with no reasonable transportation options, to attend class without having to be physically present (zydney et al. 2019). there’s additional flexibility for students who live within a reasonable driving distance of campus, but occasionally find themselves too ill to attend (wang et al., 2017). although these students might be too ill to attend class in person, they could be well enough to attend via distance, with the added benefit of not spreading disease. we have used this flexibility in graduate courses to allow working professionals to attend conferences without missing class. third, providing blended–synchronous courses relates to increasing enrolment (abdelmalak & parra, 2016; butz & askim-lovseth, 2015; ørngreen et al., 2015; wang et al., 2017; wiles & ball, 2013). college enrolment has declined in recent years (juszkiewicz, 2017), but the blended–synchronous model can help to increase higher-education enrolments. when there are more options for attending class face to face or at a distance, colleges and universities can engage a larger pool of prospective students (abdelmalak & parra, 2016; butz & askim-lovseth, 2015; ørngreen et al., 2015; wang et al., 2017), including those with families and full-time jobs (raes et al., 2020; romero-hall & vicentini, 2017). courses provided through a blended–synchronous model also enable more social interaction for off-site students than do traditional asynchronous online classes (romero-hall & vicentini, 2017). students tend to be more engaged with this blended–synchronous model than they are with asynchronous online courses because there are often more opportunities to connect with other students in the class (in-class and distance) and with the instructor (lakhal et al., 2017; wang et al., 2017). this increase in social interaction can have a positive effect on student retention and education outcomes (allen et al., 2008), especially for more marginalised students (yeh & inose, 2003). however, there are challenges in using a blended–synchronous model. technology issues are often deemed to be the largest hurdle for students (conklina et al., 2017; romero-hall & vicentini 2017; wang et al., 2017; zydney et al., 2019). off-site or distance students often struggle with connection issues that prevent them from accessing the classroom (conklina et al., 2017). when they do connect to the classroom, they can encounter visual and audio issues (including the video and audio freezing), or having a substantial delay (conklina et al., 2017). there are often no options for technical support when technical issues arise, leaving students to deal with their issues alone (romero-hall & vicentini, 2017; wang et al., 2017). in-class students who attend blended–synchronous courses also feel that technology issues hamper their journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(2) 25 learning because instructors need to take time out of the classroom to troubleshoot distance issues (szeto & cheng, 2016). instructors who offer courses via a blended–synchronous model promise accessibility but, paradoxically, access to see and hear class, and to fully engage in class, is limited for distance students. class participation for distance students is limited, even with the assistance of technology. it is difficult for them to participate fully in class without being able to see specific social cues, such as head nods and smiles, or to hear classroom discussions due to audio issues (romero-hall & vicentini, 2017; wang et al., 2017). students who value social interaction can find this delivery model less engaging and find it more difficult to receive feedback from their instructor or fellow students (romero-hall & vicentini, 2017). distance students, their in-class counterparts, and the course instructor all have more difficulty with interactions, connections, and limited communication with this delivery model (romero-hall & vicentini, 2017). distance students attending these courses often feel more isolated (wang et al., 2017). while implementing a blended–synchronous learning environment brings many known benefits and challenges, this increased feeling of isolation, coupled with the increased number of courses in this mode, shows there’s a need to investigate student experience. romero-hall and vincentini (2017) further support this by noting that few studies have investigated the experience of students enrolled in these blended–synchronous courses. purpose this study aimed to understand the expectations and experience of graduate students who attend blended–synchronous courses. specifically, we sought to understand the extent to which the expectations and experience of in-person and distance students vary in blended–synchronous courses. the following research questions guided the study. 1. to what extent do ideal expectations for class engagement vary between video network (vn) and in-person students enrolled in blended–synchronous courses? 2. to what extent do actual experiences of class engagement vary between vn and inperson students enrolled in blended–synchronous courses? method in this study, we employed an anonymous, one-time online survey to collect data relating to graduate students’ ideal expectations and actual experience. the site for this study was a midsized research university located in the midwestern region of the united states. because the region served by the institution is primarily rural, the university offers a variety of course attendance modes, including in-person, asynchronous online, and blended–synchronous. the blended–synchronous courses involve regularly scheduled class sessions that are attended by students who can be physically present in the university classroom, and those who attend via video network (vn) from remote locations. when they register for a blended–synchronous course, students indicate whether they will attend via video network or in-person—and then they consistently use that chosen mode. two of the institution’s disciplinary areas—education and public health—offer most of their graduate programme courses as blended–synchronous courses. in these programmes, in-person student classrooms have an instructor’s desk at the front of the room, and tables throughout. the classrooms have instructor-controlled audio and video technology that allows vn students to see and hear all aspects of classroom presentations and discussions, and for in-person students to hear and see vn students. equipment includes multiple large-screen television or projection screens facing both the instructor and students so everyone crary, s. l., huseth-zosel, a, l., beseler thompson, e. l. 26 can see the instructional materials, and there are speakers throughout the room for audio from vn students. classrooms also have multiple remote-controlled video cameras that can be directed to show room perspectives, including the instructor, in-person students, and classroom whiteboards. omnidirectional microphones placed throughout the classroom broadcast dialogue among students and instructors. when they connect remotely to the classroom, vn students see both the selected camera view and any presentations on the instructor’s computer. procedure following approval by the institutional review board, in early fall 2019 we contacted potential participants via email to request participation in an anonymous online survey. potential participants received reminder emails at 1and 2-week intervals. the survey was designed to capture students’ ideal expectations and actual experience about specific issues relating to attending class via their typical mode of attendance—either in the physical classroom (in person) or via vn. students were asked to indicate their level of agreement on a five-point likert-type scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5), with statements about their ideal expectations and actual experience of classroom accessibility (the ability to see and hear and be seen and heard, effective facilitation of classroom technology etc.) and classroom engagement and learning (i.e., active class participation, asking questions, contributing without feeling they are interrupting). participants responded to open-ended questions to share other thoughts about their ideal expectations for classroom engagement and their actual experience, and what it means to be a good student. finally, we collected demographic information that included gender identity, race/ethnicity, current and past disciplinary preparation, and the number of courses they had completed in their programme. participants participants were graduate students who were enrolled in education or public health programme areas in the fall of 2019, and who had completed at least one course in their programme. we invited 67 students to participate, and 31 chose to complete the survey—giving us a response rate of 46.3%. of the 31 participants, 16 (52%) usually attended class in person and 15 (48%) usually attended via vn. as is typical in these graduate programmes, 75% of respondents identified as white, and 91% identified as women. data analysis analysis of quantitative data using descriptive statistics and independent samples t-tests determined whether there were significant differences between in-person and vn students regarding their ideal expectations and actual experience of classroom engagement. researchers coded qualitative data to capture and interpret key themes relating to participants’ ideal expectations and actual experience in blended–synchronous courses. initially, we used holistic coding (saldaña, 2015) to identify major concepts in the data. next, we used pattern coding (saldaña, 2015) to identify meaningful groups of codes and major themes in the data. we then identified excerpts that provided helpful illustrations and in-depth explanations of participant perceptions. findings 1. difference in ideal expectations between in-person students and students attending via vn. descriptive statistics identified participants’ ideal expectations for class accessibility and engagement (table 1). participants ranked their level of agreement on a five-point likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree) for the ideal expectations relating to each statement. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(2) 27 table 1 shows the mean score and standard deviation for participants’ ideal expectations relating to each statement for students who attended via vn, and students who attended in the physical classroom (in person). overall, mean scores for ideal expectations regarding both accessibility and engagement were very high, ranging from 4.67 to 5.00 for all statements among vn students, and 4.69 to 5.00 for all statements among in-person students. table 1 descriptive statistics and t-test results for ideal expectations by mode of attendance ideal expectations group vn in person m sd n m sd n accessibility expectations i will be able to clearly see and hear my instructor 5.00 .00 15 5.00 .00 16 i will be able to clearly see and hear my classmates 4.80 .41 15 4.94 .25 16 my classmates will be able to clearly see and hear my instructor 4.93 .26 15 5.00 .00 16 my classmates will be able to clearly see and hear me 4.67 .49 15 4.94 .25 16 my instructor will be able to clearly see and hear me 4.73 .46 15 4.88 .34 16 my instructor will be able to clearly see and hear my classmates 4.87 .35 15 4.88 .34 16 my instructor will effectively facilitate interactive video technology 4.93 .26 15 4.69 .70 16 all campus-operated hardware and software will work for class 4.93 .26 15 5.00 .00 16 engagement expectations i will actively participate in class discussions 4.69 .48 13 5.00 .00 12 my classmates will actively participate in class discussions 4.69 .48 13 4.92 .29 12 i will be able to ask questions if i have them 4.92 .28 13 4.92 .29 12 my classmates will be able to ask questions if they have them 4.92 .28 13 4.92 .29 12 i will be able to contribute without feeling like i am interrupting 4.69 .48 13 4.75 .45 12 note: maximum score of agreement = 5.00; higher score indicates a higher level of agreement with the statement. we conducted independent-samples t-tests to compare the ideal expectations for class accessibility and engagement of vn students and in-person students. we found no significant differences between the groups in ideal expectations for accessibility. these results indicate students have similar expectations for seeing and hearing instructors and classmates, having instructors and classmates see and hear them, and having technology facilitated effectively. with crary, s. l., huseth-zosel, a, l., beseler thompson, e. l. 28 regard to expectations for class engagement, we found no significant differences between the groups concerning the students or their classmates being able to ask questions and contribute without feeling as though they are interrupting. there was a statistically significant difference in responses to: “i will actively participate in class discussions,” with in-person students reporting higher expectations (m = 5.00, sd = .00) than vn students (m = 4.69, sd = .48), t(23) = 2.22, p = 0.037. in response to the open-ended question: “what else would you like us to know about your expectations for ideal classroom engagement?”, both vn and in-person students noted that respectful, thoughtful discussions and collaborative learning characterised ideal classroom engagement. notably, however, many of the vn students specifically identified ideal expectations relating to the engagement of distance learners. the following responses illustrate this finding. ideally, as a distant student we would be fully engaged in the classroom and discussions . . . we would have a way to speak and ask questions that would not be interrupting or seen as halting conversation. a mixture of class activities that involve collaboration between [vn] and in-class students. this helps with getting to know my classmates better and build a stronger support system. video network students further identified the effective use of classroom technology as an ideal, with one student explicitly stating: “in an ideal setting, the instructor would speak clearly near the microphones.” however, no in-person students identified technology-specific ideal expectations, or expectations relating to collaboration with vn students. 2. difference in actual experience between in-person students and students attending via vn. descriptive statistics identified participants’ actual experience with class accessibility and engagement. table 2 shows the mean score and standard deviation for participants’ actual experiences with class accessibility for vn and in-person students, while table 3 shows the mean score and standard deviation for participants’ actual experiences with classroom engagement. overall, mean scores for actual experience among in-person students were very high for accessibility, ranging from 4.50 to 5.00; and high for engagement, ranging from 4.00 to 4.58. mean scores for vn students were moderate for accessibility, ranging from 3.20 to 4.00, and moderate-to-high for engagement, ranging from 3.77 to 4.62. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(2) 29 table 2 descriptive statistics and t-test results for actual experiences of accessibility by mode of attendance actual accessibility experiences group 95% ci for mean difference vn in person m sd n m sd n t df i will be able to clearly see and hear my instructor 3.93 1.16 15 4.94 .25 16 .396, 1.613 3.38** 29 i will be able to clearly see and hear my classmates 3.20 1.37 15 4.56 .63 16 .586, 2.139 3.59** 29 my classmates will be able to clearly see and hear my instructor 4.00 1.13 15 4.69 .60 16 .027, 1.348 2.13* 29 my classmates will be able to clearly see and hear me 3.67 1.11 15 4.50 .73 16 .146, 1.520 2.48** 29 my instructor will be able to clearly see and hear me 3.87 .99 15 4.88 .34 16 .471, 1.545 3.84** 29 my instructor will be able to clearly see and hear my classmates 4.00 1.13 15 4.81 .40 16 .195, 1.430 2.69** 29 my instructor will effectively facilitate interactive video technology 3.80 .86 15 4.69 .70 16 -.368, .893 .0.85 29 all campus-operated hardware and software will work for class 3.67 .90 15 5.00 .00 16 -.197, 1.114 1.43 29 * p < .05., ** p < .01 note: maximum score of agreement = 5.00; higher score indicates a higher level of agreement with the statement. crary, s. l., huseth-zosel, a, l., beseler thompson, e. l. 30 table 3 descriptive statistics for actual experiences of engagement by mode of attendance actual engagement experiences group vn in person m sd n m sd n i will actively participate in class discussions 4.38 .51 13 4.42 .52 12 my classmates will actively participate in class discussions 4.15 .56 13 4.00 .60 12 i will be able to ask questions if i have them 4.62 .51 13 4.58 .67 12 my classmates will be able to ask questions if they have them 4.54 .66 13 4.58 .52 12 i will be able to contribute without feeling like i am interrupting 3.77 1.24 13 4.17 .84 12 note: maximum score of agreement = 5.00; higher score indicates a higher level of agreement with the statement. independent samples t-tests compared the actual experience of accessibility and class engagement for vn and in-person students. as shown in table 2, there were statistically significant differences in six questions relating to accessibility for vn and in-person students. our results indicate that vn students report significantly lower levels of agreement, with statements about their ability to see and hear the instructor and their classmates, and the ability of the instructor and their classmates to see and hear vn students. results for actual experience of classroom engagement were not significant. this indicates vn and in-person students had similar experience of their own and their classmates’ active participation in class discussions, their own and their classmates’ ability to ask questions, and their ability to contribute without feeling as though they are interrupting. in response to the open-ended question: “what else would you like us to know about your expectations for actual classroom engagement?”, both in-person and vn students reported that technical issues can be a major impediment. these issues included inconsistent video and audio quality, difficulties with connecting or staying connected, and instructors not knowing how to use the technology effectively. for vn students, these technical issues led to feelings of being on the margins or interrupting during class discussions, as illustrated by one student’s response: “as a vn student, i still often feel either like i am interrupting or being looked at as if i’m not contributing enough.” a sense of disconnection further compounded these feelings of being on the margins of the class between vn students and in-person students, with both vn and inperson students either calling out the disconnection directly or using words such as “us” and “them” to describe themselves and classmates who attend via other modes. one vn student even noted: i feel like often the class is split into “us” (those on [vn]) and “them” (those in the classroom). i have had classes from professors that if i saw them on campus, i wouldn't recognize them because i have never seen their face. when i started grad school, i was hoping for more engagement from distance students, but that is often not the case from what i have seen. note that this student specifically calls out not only the disconnection with classmates, but also a disconnection with instructors—even stating: “i have never seen their face”. other vn students also perceived that those instructors do not engage vn students in the same way as they do with journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(2) 31 in-person students. others noted that their experience varied, depending on their instructor, as illustrated in the following quotes. after a few years of [vn] classes, i find that some classes (to include instructors and other students) are very good at finding the balance of engagement with [vn] and traditional students and others are not. some instructors hold themselves accountable for their actions and words while others only share their expectations but do a poor job modeling them in the classroom. participants also responded to the open-ended question: “what does it mean to you to be a good student?” the most common responses (from both vn and in-person students) included being an engaged, active learner who contributes to class discussion and engages with classmates. this is an important counterpoint to the actual experience of vn students, in particular, who reported having difficulty with meaningful engagement or feeling as though they were interrupting when they attempted to contribute to discussion. discussion as noted previously, the benefits of blended–synchronous learning include increased accessibility for students in remote locations, or those who could not attend class in person (zydney et al., 2019). however, previous researchers have noted increased difficulty with interactions and connections, and limited communication between distance students, their inclass counterparts, and the course instructor (romero-hall & vicentini, 2017). the results of our study confirmed the communication challenges found previously with blended–synchronous courses—vn students reported significantly lower levels of agreement about being able to see and hear their classmates and instructor, and being able to be seen and heard by their counterparts and the instructor. notably, while a majority of participants indicated strong agreement (m = 5.00, n = 31) regarding their ideal expectations that “i will be able to clearly hear and see my instructor,” agreement about actual experiences of vn students clearly hearing and seeing their instructor (m = 3.93, sd = 1.16) was significantly lower than those of in-person students (m = 4.94, sd = .25), t(29) = 3.38, p = 0.005. qualitative data indicated that students feel marginalised by technical issues. if blended–synchronous delivery is used in classes, the technology provided by the university must be reliable, and instructors must be thoroughly trained and prepared to use the technology effectively. furthermore, vn students need to have clearly communicated requirements for hardware and software to effectively access the class, and a real-time help desk for troubleshooting. our study results did not reveal significant differences in actual experience of class engagement. interestingly, however, the mean for both groups regarding, “i will be able to contribute without feeling like i am interrupting”, was relatively low compared with most experiences of class engagement. this is probably due to the nature of blended–synchronous discussions that require students to actively “unmute” to speak, creating a delay in contributions. this sense of interrupting creates a dissonance, given that students also identify that ideal students actively engage in discussion. the qualitative data further revealed an “us versus them” mentality emerging between in-person and vn students. romero-hall (2017) noted that students struggle to make social connections when they cannot view their classmates’ social cues, as can be the case when using a video network. the “us versus them” mentality, and the sense of interrupting, make it difficult to create a sense of community among all students in blended–synchronous courses. therefore, it is necessary to create classroom norms, and to use technology tools effectively, to support an environment that is equally accessible to vn and in-person students. detienne et al. (2018) note that faculty must have pedagogical training on pedagogy that relates to blended–synchronous crary, s. l., huseth-zosel, a, l., beseler thompson, e. l. 32 teaching, and includes developing and sharing expectations for students in class. for example, all students, including those attending in person, log in to the virtual classroom so all students can be seen (romero-hall & vicentini 2017). many tools, such as collaborative digital whiteboards and virtual breakout rooms, also enable real-time interaction between vn and in-person students in virtual spaces. effective planning and use of these collaborative tools can level the playing field for all students to engage meaningfully with one another, the instructor, and course content. limitations and implications for future research although the response rate of 46.3% was promising, the overall sample size for this study was small due to the limited number of students in programmes that offer blended–synchronous courses. in future we intend to collect more data to explore the experiences of graduate students in these courses, based on their modes of attendance. as is typical of the population of the programmes included in this study, the respondent population comprised predominantly white (75%) respondents who identified as women (91%). another area for future study is to identify practices that could increase the sense of engagement (wang et al., 2017) and decrease the vn students’ sense of interrupting. lakhal et al. (2017) noted that managing the relationships between vn and in-person students is difficult. they note that the instructor has several tasks to pay attention to—from the content they are delivering, to their students, to the technology—all of which affect engagement. future research is needed to help provide insight into finding the balance of student engagement and learning. conclusions blended–synchronous courses give students access to ongoing education, but technological limitations often do not allow for full access—including total social interactions and a complete audio and visual experience. colleges and universities can promote forms of online learning, but they must go beyond simply delivering the content. given that students believe participating in class is an attribute of being a good student, and knowing that vn students struggle to participate actively, educators have a mandate to develop systems to increase participation and social interaction in blended–synchronous courses. additionally, as colleges and universities continue to rely on and promote hyflex and other forms of blended–synchronous learning, the need to address access and develop content that increases student participation will be a priority. references abdelmalak, m. m. m., & parra, j. l. (2016). expanding learning opportunities for graduate students with hyflex course design. international journal of online pedagogy and course design, 6(4), 19–37. https://doi.org/10.4018/ijopcd.2016100102 allen, j., robbins, s. b., casillas, a., & oh, i-s. (2008). third-year college retention and transfer: effects of academic performance, motivation, and social connectedness. research in higher education, 49(7), 647–664. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-008-9098-3 butz, n. t., & askim-lovseth, m. k. (2015). oral communication skills assessment in a synchronous hybrid mba programme: does attending face-to-face matter for us and international students? assessment & evaluation in higher education, 40(4), 624–639. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2014.940577 conklina, s., oyarzun, b., & barreto, d. 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(2016). towards a framework of interactions in a blended synchronous learning environment: what effects are there on students’ social presence experience? interactive learning environments, 24(3), 487–503. https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2014.881391 wang, q., quek, c. l., & hu, x. (2017). designing and improving a blended synchronous learning environment: an educational design research. international review of research in open and distributed learning, 18(3), 99–117. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v18i3.3034 wiles, g. l., & ball, t. r. (2013). the converged classroom. paper presented at 2013 asee annual conference: improving course effectiveness. atlanta, georgia. https://peer.asee.org/22561 yeh, c. j., & inose, m. (2003). international students’ reported english fluency, social support satisfaction, and social connectedness as predictors of acculturative stress. counselling psychology quarterly, 16(1), 15–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/0951507031000114058 crary, s. l., huseth-zosel, a, l., beseler thompson, e. l. 34 zydney, j. m., mckimmy, p., lindberg, r., & schmidt, m. (2019). here or there instruction: lessons learned in implementing innovative approaches to blended synchronous learning. techtrends, 63(2), 123–132. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-018-0344-z biographical notes sarah l. crary sarah.crary@ndsu.edu sarah l. crary phd, is an assistant professor in the school of education at north dakota state university. she has over 15 years of k–12 experience with a focus on secondary education. her experience includes both public and private school settings as a principal and classroom teacher, and she has served on numerous district-level committees—including accreditation and curricula. dr. crary’s research interests include information literacy, fostering equal access for blended learning, and understanding the experience of new americans in small urban settings. andrea l. huseth-zosel andrea.husethzosel@ndsu.edu andrea huseth-zosel phd, is an assistant professor in the department of public health at north dakota state university. her research focuses on health disparities, including rural/urban and gender-based disparities, and health equity issues. specific areas of interest include the effects of the covid-19 pandemic on educator health and wellbeing; effects of covid-19 on the health and wellbeing of older adults; aging; injury prevention; aging and public health; and menstruation management and period poverty for adolescent females. erika l. beseler thompson erika.beseler@mnstate.edu erika beseler thompson ph.d., is the director of the academic support center at minnesota state university moorhead. dr. beseler thompson has taught for several years in blended instruction (hybrid/hyflex) classes and has researched effective instructional strategies for hybrid learning. she now helps students to adapt to, and thrive in, a range of course modalities. creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. crary, s. l., huseth-zosel, a, l., beseler thompson, e. l. (2021). accessibility and engagement: expectations and experiences of graduate students in blended–synchronous courses. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(2), [23–34.]. mailto:sarah.crary@ndsu.edu http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(2) 11 something for everyone? the different approaches of academic disciplines to open educational resources and the effect on widening participation tony coughlan, the open university leigh-anne perryman, the open university abstract this article explores the relationship between academic disciplines‘ representation in the united kingdom open university‘s (ou) openlearn open educational resources (oer) repository and in the ou‘s fee-paying curriculum. becher‘s (1989) typology was used to subdivide the openlearn and ou fee-paying curriculum content into four disciplinary categories: hard pure (e.g., science), hard applied (e.g., technology), soft pure (e.g., arts) and soft applied (e.g., education). it was found that while hard pure and hard applied disciplines enjoy an increased share of the oer curriculum, soft applied disciplines are under-represented as oer. possible reasons for this disparity are proposed and becher‘s typology is adapted to be more appropriate to 21st-century higher education. keywords: open educational resources; oer; widening participation; work-based learning; education; distance education; e-learning; open education; open learning; online learning; educational inclusion; disciplinary differences; study skills; oer repositories introduction and rationale globally, it is increasingly argued that open educational resources (oer) and practices can offer considerable benefits to individuals, educators, and institutions. for example, they can help widen access to education by making high-quality learning materials available without cost to the end user (geser, 2007, p. 21). individuals are therefore able to learn about topics which interest them and which are relevant to their lives, irrespective of their geographical location, financial status, educational background, and/or other life commitments. geser (2007) suggests that as a result oer have the potential to ―bring education and lifelong learning closer to the demands of the knowledge society‖ (p.121) and to ―foster lifelong learning and social inclusion through easy access to resources that may otherwise not be accessible by potential user groups‖ (p. 21). furthermore, the institutions and individuals creating and publishing oer can benefit by being ―rewarded through increased status and visibility, and increased demand for other services and products‖ (schmidt, 2007, section 3.3, para. 5). it should be noted, however, that concerns have been voiced about the lack of sustainable business models for the production and distribution of oer (e.g., larsen & vincent-lancrin, 2005). detractors of oer often ask who is going to pay for the authoring, maintenance, and distribution of materials that are available free of charge, and also suggest that the availability of oer may make some students reluctant to pay for higher perryman, l-a., & coughlan, t. 12 education. downes (2011) explores a range of alternative business models, concluding that some models ―are well on the way to demonstrating the viability of oer‘ (p. 63). thus far, the emphasis in oer production has been on quantity rather than the ways in which oer might be used and, historically, oer-related research has also tended to prioritise exploration of resource production rather than oer use. in 2008 guthrie, griffiths, and maron asserted that ―understanding user needs is paramount but often neglected‖ (p. 20). increasingly, however, this perspective is shifting to consider the practices of existing oer users and the requirements of potential users (e.g., wolfenden, 2011). the research reported in this article was intended to contribute to the growing body of research on oer use, seeking to explore whether potential oer users are equally served by the various academic disciplines represented in oer repositories such as openlearn (www.openlearn.open.ac.uk) and jorum (www.jorum.ac.uk). commonly, oer repositories give no clear indication of the criteria used to select materials for release as oer, nor of whether different disciplines approach the selection and release process in different ways. in addition, geser (2007) notes that: many promoters of open educational resources (oer) do not take into account the legacy of traditional institutional frameworks and pedagogical models. they seem to assume implicitly that easy and free access to a ―critical mass of high-value content‖ (which appears as a standard formula), and tools to make use of such content interactively, would somehow also lead to a change in such frameworks and models. pedagogical models are often not even considered in the discussion of oer. (p. 41) now that a critical mass is being achieved in the production and availability of oer, it is possible to explore the published resources to identify any patterns that reveal possible differences between academic disciplines in terms of their approaches to the selection and release of oer. any disparity in the quality and quantity of oer provision has the potential to advantage those users who have more and better resources in their subject area. at the same time it denies other users the opportunity to realise the full benefits of oer, thereby compromising the aims of the oer movement: ―. . . a world where each and every person on earth can access and contribute to the sum of all human knowledge‖ (cape town open education declaration, 2007, para. 1). context this article reports the findings of a study exploring the relationship between academic disciplines‘ representation in the uk open university‘s (ou) openlearn repository and in the ou‘s fee-paying curriculum at undergraduate level. this narrow focus on a u kingdom oer repository was intended to allow a manageable initial study that could be replicated internationally for other oer repositories. because both researchers are familiar with the ou context it was logical to draw on this experience and to focus on the openlearn repository. furthermore, the modular structure of the ou fee-paying curriculum and of open learn, discussed further below, offered the advantage of allowing straightforward counting and subsequent comparison of the two curriculum areas. we chose to focus on the undergraduate curriculum because it is studied by over 90% of the ou‘s student body (the open university, 2009). the ou is the biggest university in the united kingdom, with approximately 250,000 students and about 570 modules on offer (the open university, 2011). the academic provision of the ou is managed by its 10 faculties, schools, and institutes 1 which are centrally based at the ou‘s 1 these comprise the faculty of arts; the open university business school; the faculty of education and language studies; the faculty of health and social care; the open university law school; the faculty of mathematics, http://www.openlearn.open.ac.uk/ http://www.jorum.ac.uk/ journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(2) 13 campus in milton keynes but have additional academic staff in each of the ou‘s 13 regional and national centres. the ou delivers its undergraduate curriculum through a process of distance learning whereby core module teaching texts are supported by face-to-face and online group tuition and individual/group telephone tuition, delivered by a body of over 7000 tutors operating in the ou‘s 13 regions. this tuition system is embedded in a framework of assessment. the ou‘s undergraduate curriculum is modular in structure, with programmes being subdivided into discrete modules of between 10 and 60 credit points, at levels 1, 2, and 3. 2 the openlearn oer repository is hosted by the ou. it is entirely online, free to use, and accessible to all. openlearn comprises two types of learning materials: 1. extracts from the past and present ou fee-paying curriculum—these include text-based resources as well as audio and video materials 2. resources especially created for use in openlearn. like the ou fee-paying curriculum, openlearn is organised on a modular basis, categorised by level and by the number of study hours associated with each learning resource. theoretical background it was intended, from the start, for the ou study to be the basis for an extended exploration of academic disciplines‘ representation as oer in other contexts. as universities‘ curricula vary widely in the way they are categorised, both in the united kingdom and internationally, a standardised method of comparing such curricula was required. the typology of academic disciplines derived by becher (1989) from the earlier work of biglan (1973a, 1973b) offered a uniform way of categorising the content of disparate curricula to allow a comparison between academic disciplines‘ representation in the fee-paying curriculum and as oer, both within and across institutions. becher‘s typology is informed by the related theory of ‗academic tribes‘ (becher, 1989, 1994; becher & trowler, 2001; biglan, 1973b; neuman, parry, & becher, 2002) which has long been applied to researching disciplinary differences in academia and remains an enduring strand of investigation. discipline-related differences have been identified in various areas of academic practice, including academics‘ relationship to knowledge, the relationship between learners and educators, and the type of knowledge that learners are expected to gain about their subject (kemp & jones, 2007). neuman, parry, and becher (2002, drawing on becher, 1994) cluster academic disciplines into four main groupings: hard pure, soft pure, hard applied, and soft applied—each with their own epistemological characteristics. they refer to this structure as the ‗becher–biglan typology‘. table 1 gives more detail about each grouping. computing and technology; the faculty of science; the faculty of social sciences; the institute of educational technology; and the knowledge media institute. 2 one ou credit point represents about 10 hours of study. the credit points system used by the ou is aligned to the united kingdom’s credit accumulation and transfer system (cats). a typical ou honours degree requires a total of 360 points and, from 2012, will cost £15,000. perryman, l-a., & coughlan, t. 14 table 1 the becher–biglan typology disciplinary group nature of knowledge hard pure (e.g., physics, chemistry) “cumulative, atomistic structure, concerned with universals, simplification and a quantitative emphasis. knowledge communities tend to be competitive but gregarious: joint or multiple authorship is commonplace” (neuman, parry, & becher, 2002, p. 406). soft pure (e.g., history, literature) “reiterative, holistic, concerned with particulars and having a qualitative bias. there is no sense of superseded knowledge, as in hard pure fields. scholarly enquiry is typically a solitary pursuit, manifesting only a limited overlap of interest between researchers” (p. 406). hard applied (e.g., technology) “derives its underpinnings from hard pure enquiry” and “is concerned with mastery of the physical environment and geared towards products and techniques”. neuman, parry, and becher point out that “applied knowledge communities, especially hard applied ones, are also gregarious, with multiple influences and interactions on both their teaching and research activity” (p. 406). soft applied (e.g., education, business studies) “dependent on soft pure knowledge, being concerned with the enhancement of professional practice and aiming to yield protocols and procedures”. in common with hard applied disciplines, soft applied disciplines also feature “multiple influences and interactions on both their teaching and research activity” (p. 406). the continued relevance of the becher–biglan typology and the concept of academic tribes to 21st-century higher education are shown by their more recent application to modern learning technologies. for example, kemp and jones (2007) have employed the becher–biglan typology when studying academic use of (non-oer) digital resources. while much of the academic tribes research is based in the united kingdom, the concept has currency on an international scale. arbaugh, bangert, and cleveland-innes (2010), based in the united states, use the becher– biglan typology when exploring disciplinary differences within a ‗community of inquiry‘ framework, applying this to online learning with the virtual learning environment (vle) tool web ct. gorsky, caspi, antonovsky, blau, and mansur (2010) have explored disciplinary differences in student behaviour in moodle forums in the context of the israeli open university and, of particular relevance, creaser et al. (2010) assess disciplinary differences in the provision of oer, arguing that oer repositories vary from discipline to discipline. methods the first stage of the research process for the current study involved ascertaining the percentage proportion of the fee-paying and oer curricula represented by each of the academic disciplines. this involved counting the content of both curriculum areas on a specific date: 1 july 2011. we took this ‗snapshot‘ approach because the content of both curricula is constantly changing as materials and modules are added and removed. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(2) 15 we first calculated the total number of cats points represented by the ou fee-paying curriculum. we then subdivided the fee-paying curriculum by academic discipline and calculated each discipline‘s percentage share of the curriculum as a whole, as shown in figure 1. figure 1 academic disciplines’ representation in the ou fee-paying undergraduate curriculum on 1 july 2011 (h-p: hard pure; h-a: hard applied; s-p: soft pure; s-a: soft applied) next, we calculated the total study hours for the openlearn oer study units; then, as with the fee-paying curriculum, we subdivided openlearn by academic discipline and calculated each discipline‘s percentage share of the oer curriculum as a whole (see figure 2). figure 2 academic disciplines’ representation in the openlearn undergraduate curriculum on 1 july 2011 (h-p: hard pure; h-a: hard applied; s-p: soft pure; s-a: soft applied) perryman, l-a., & coughlan, t. 16 finally, having calculated each discipline‘s percentage share of the fee-paying and oer curricula, we allocated the disciplines represented in the fee-paying curriculum to the categories in the becher–biglan typology. our categorisation decisions are shown in table 2. table 2 categorising the ou disciplines according to the becher–biglan typology hard pure  maths (including statistics)  science (including chemistry and analytical sciences, earth and environmental sciences, life sciences, physics and astronomy) hard applied  technology (including computing, design, environment, engineering) soft pure  social sciences (including economics, geography, politics and international studies, psychology, sociology, social policy and criminology).  arts (including art history, classical studies, english, history, music, philosophy and religious studies). soft applied  education  modern languages  health and social care (including nursing, social work and youth justice)  business school (including law) it is worth pointing out, however, that the categorisations in table 2 are neither uniform nor exact within the ou or across higher education in the united kingdom and internationally. for example, white and licardi (2006) place linguistics in three different categories—hard pure, soft pure, and soft applied—in a single eight-page conference paper. in addition, historically, disciplines have been variously clustered. for example, the ou‘s faculty of mathematics, computing and technology (mct) was formed in 2007 from the former faculty of mathematics and computing and the former faculty of technology. becher and trowler (2001, p. 39) confirm that it is not always straightforward to determine a priori whether a particular discipline is pure or applied because different aspects of the subject area are often given different emphasis by individual researchers and by different university departments. a further complication is that the ou curriculum includes cross-disciplinary modules, some of which span two or more of the becher–biglan typology categories. the categorisation of such cross-disciplinary modules is further discussed later. however, despite these categorisation problems most of the ou feepaying curriculum could be allocated to discrete categories in the becher–biglan typology. the undergraduate-level oer in openlearn were also subdivided using the categorisation presented in table 2. again, oer from the cross-disciplinary modules did not easily fit the becher–biglan typology. in addition, a further category of oer eluded such categorisation— these were non-credit-bearing study skills and professional development units, many of which do not appear in the ou fee-paying curriculum. findings having calculated the percentage share of the fee-paying and oer curriculum represented by each discipline, and allocated the disciplines to the becher–biglan categories, we were then able to produce a graph comparing the fee-paying and oer curriculum share for each academic discipline (figure 3). journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(2) 17 figure 3 comparison of academic disciplines’ representation in the ou fee-paying and openlearn undergraduate curricula it was found that hard pure and hard applied disciplines such as maths, technology, and science enjoy increased representation in the oer curriculum, gaining 5%, 4%, and 6% of the oer curriculum respectively. soft pure disciplines such as social sciences and arts maintain an oer share that is roughly proportionate to the fee-paying curriculum (a 1% decrease in oer curriculum share for arts and a 2% decrease in curriculum share for social sciences). however, soft applied disciplines, particularly health and social care, are under-represented as oer, showing a marked decrease in curriculum share (14% for health and social care, 7% for education, 6% for languages, and 4% for the business school). the cross-disciplinary modules show a 1% decrease in curriculum share as oer. of particular interest, however, is the fact that the largest share of the oer curriculum (20%) is held by generic study skills and professional development modules which do not appear in the fee-paying curriculum. significance and interpretation the findings summarised above were explored in the light of existing research into disciplinary differences in order to reach some understanding of the reasons for the disparity of oer representation across academic disciplines. it was concluded that a combination of factors may be at play, including the practical requirements of studying particular disciplines, the ways in which learning might be assessed, the demands of work-based learning, licensing restrictions, knowledge currency, disciplinary differences in academics‘ views about the quantity and type of knowledge students are expected to acquire and retain, differences in qualification structure and existing e-learning practice, funding drivers, economic considerations, the perceived difficulty of releasing as oer materials intended for use in work-based learning, and the existence of subjectspecific oer repositories. the study findings also led to our considering whether the becher– biglan typology should be adapted to be more appropriate to 21st-century higher-education institutions. perryman, l-a., & coughlan, t. 18 practical requirements of studying particular disciplines some academic disciplines, notably science and vocational subjects such as social work, are notable for the practical requirements involved in their study. for example, studying chemistry and biology generally involves conducting laboratory-based experiments, and studying vocational subjects such as social work often requires at least some of the learning and assessment to be located in the workplace. the ever-more sophisticated technologies available via the web—for example, audio, video, and interactive content such as wikis—make it possible to teach media-rich subjects such as the visual arts and music very effectively online. however, it is less straightforward to replicate a laboratory experiment online (though technologies in this area are being developed at the time of writing (see lucas & kolb, 2009). while we might anticipate that this would restrict the materials released as oer by hard pure disciplines (such as chemistry) the findings discussed above do not appear to bear this out. a close examination of the content of existing oer would therefore be productive in revealing how practical experiments have been addressed (though this is beyond the scope of the current study). the marked decrease in oer curriculum share shown by soft applied disciplines such as health and social care could also be connected with the practical requirements of teaching related subjects and the difficulty of replicating face-to-face teaching and learning activities such as roleplay as oer. furthermore, social professions such as social work, nursing, and teaching tend to prioritise ‗situated learning‘ (vygotsky, 1978), whereby knowledge is gained from exploration and shared discussion of varied real-life experiences. within the ou‘s social work curriculum, for example, attendance at face-to-face tutorials is compulsory for some modules, in part due to the learning opportunities offered by students sharing their personal experiences in different settings. such situated learning may be perceived by health and social care academics as difficult to convey online via oer and this could help to explain the discipline‘s low representation in openlearn. again, this would merit further investigation in a future study. assessment differences an important feature of all teaching activities is the provision of regular formative assessment, which allows learners to assess their progress. disciplinary differences in assessment practice might therefore be another reason for the disparity in disciplines‘ release of oer. neuman et al. (2002) explain that hard pure subjects show a tendency to prefer ―specific and closely focused examination questions to broader, essay-type assignments‖ (p. 408). they refer to smart and ethington‘s (1995) argument that ―knowledge acquisition is emphasised more in pure disciplines than applied disciplines, while the latter attach more importance to knowledge application and integration‖ (neuman et al., 2002, p. 408). while the discrete, quantitative, easily measurable assessment activities typical of hard pure disciplines lend themselves to reproduction in oer, the same is not necessarily so for the subjective essays and explanations used to assess knowledge application and integration in complex qualitative domains that are typical of soft pure and soft applied disciplinary groupings such as the humanities and the social sciences. a close examination of the content of oer from different disciplines could be fruitful in informing a more detailed picture of the extent to which the assessment activities typical of each of the disciplinary groupings can be translated to oer format. furthermore, neuman et al. (2002) add that hard pure disciplines show ―little or no inclination to check assessors‘ judgements by double marking, or even to provide guidelines for marking or grading‖ (p. 408), again indicating that self-assessment activities, giving automated feedback, could easily be a feature of oer. the reverse may be perceived as true by academics working in soft pure and soft applied disciplines, where assessment activities can generate subjective and diverse answers. consequently, in such disciplines guidelines for marking and grading are typically ambiguous because the outcome of the assessment process is often very specific to a learner‘s professional context or personal subjective interpretation. giving automated feedback journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(2) 19 on these activities in the context of oer could prove tricky and might be a disincentive to releasing materials as oer. further research might usefully explore this possibility in addition to investigating ways of providing meaningful, discipline-appropriate assessment for oer in soft pure and soft applied disciplines. soft applied disciplines, work-based learning, and oer soft applied disciplines‘ under-representation as oer might also be related to the fact that such subjects often have distinctive requirements and characteristics connected with work-based learning (wbl)—learning that takes place outside the university and relates to employment. wbl occupies an ever-growing share of the higher education curriculum in most uk universities (tallantyne, 2008), partly as a result of the increased emphasis on employer engagement, and is mostly (but not exclusively) found in soft applied subjects. it differs from the work placements that are typically found in hard applied subjects such as engineering, design, and computing in that in wbl students‘ performance is assessed in the workplace rather than the workplace being solely a location for learning. consequently, the process of assessment is subjective and focuses on individuals‘ unique work experiences, paralleling the overall tendency towards subjectivity in assessment found throughout the soft knowledge groupings. (it has already been noted that this may be a disincentive to releasing materials as oer due to the perceived difficulty of giving automated feedback.) licensing restrictions the licensing restrictions of some subjects might also affect their releasing materials as oer. for example, it is not uncommon for module materials for some soft applied disciplines to be co-authored with professional bodies such as the united kingdom‘s college of law and royal college of nursing. negotiating the rights for re-use of these materials as oer can be complex. knowledge currency the low representation of soft applied disciplines such as health and social care, business studies, and education in oer repositories could also be connected with the fact that knowledge associated with these disciplines can go out of date very quickly. examples might include health and social care module materials that give details of welfare benefit regimes, or business studies materials that describe tax regimes. kemp and jones (2007), exploring disciplinary differences in the use of digital resources, discuss the issue of knowledge currency in some detail. they cite a language lecturer‘s comments that ―things in spanish change very, very rapidly and what we teach from year to year . . . changes as well‖ (p. 55). this may be compared with a mathematics lecturer‘s observation that ―mathematical papers do tend to have a very long shelf-life‖ (p. 57). arguably, then, a labour-intensive process of maintenance would be required to keep such oer up to date and this could be perceived as burdensome by already timechallenged academics. relevantly, hativa (1997) found that academics in soft pure and soft applied fields present their students with more recent knowledge than those in hard pure and hard applied areas, with hard pure fields presenting the oldest knowledge. hativa suggests that this may be related to the hierarchical structure of knowledge in hard pure fields, where the more current knowledge is taught at higher undergraduate and postgraduate levels. the current study‘s focus on the undergraduate curriculum would be relevant here. perryman, l-a., & coughlan, t. 20 academics’ views about the quantity and type of knowledge students are expected to acquire the disparity in oer representation shown in figure 3 may also be connected with disciplinary differences in academics‘ views about the quantity and type of knowledge students are expected to acquire and retain. neuman et al. (2002) point out that hard pure disciplines feature linear cumulative knowledge domains and therefore ―the determination of teaching content is relatively straightforward and uncontentious‖ (p. 410). they add that hard applied fields such as technology show similar characteristics, with relatively fixed knowledge bases, featuring an emphasis on ―progressive mastery of techniques in a linear sequence, based on factual understanding‖ (p. 412). discussing carnegie mellon‘s open learning initiative (oli), walsh (2011) suggests that the institution was ―wise‖ in its focus on content such as introductory statistics, ―in which there are more or less standard notions of core content and at least something approaching a ‗single right answer‘ to many questions‖ (p. xii). in more loosely structured soft pure domains, ―much subject matter is open to interpretation and debate‖ (neuman, et al., 2002, p. 411) and is more ―free-ranging and qualitative‖ (p. 412) with teaching and learning activities tending to be ―largely constructive and interpretative‖ (p. 408), drawing on a knowledge base that is less fixed than in hard pure domains. parallels can be drawn with spiro, vispoel, schmitz, samapungavan, and boerger‘s (1987) cognitive flexibility theory, which identifies two broad types of knowledge domain—―complex and ill-structured‖ (p. 1) and ―well-structured‖ (p. 2)—each demanding different approaches to teaching and learning. spiro et al. suggest that in well-structured domains such as science and mathematics, knowledge transfer occurs by retrieving generalisations or principles that apply to multiple cases of the phenomena being studied. however, in ill-structured domains such as soft pure arts and social sciences disciplines, knowledge is gained by studying individual cases and there are few broad generalisations that apply to most cases. kemp and jones (2007) assert that such subjects tend not to have ―an agreed and stable canon for teaching‖ other than in ―the application of agreed principles and academic practices to current issues‖ (p. 56). it is possible, then, that the task of selecting materials to release as oer is simpler in hard pure and hard applied domains than in soft pure domains; hence the over-representation of the former in comparison with their fee-paying curriculum share. discussing carnegie mellon‘s open learning initiative (oli), walsh (2011) makes a pertinent comment when asserting that ―it is far from clear to me that the oli approach would be as useful in teaching subjects that generally require much more nuanced discussion, such as literature, ethics, and international politics‖ (p. xii). in support of her assertion, walsh (2011) cites a professor of history‘s admission that she is ―sceptical‖ that the oli ―would be an equally good format across all disciplines‖ (p. 98) and could not picture her own course on immigration history being adapted into oli format. differences in qualification structure disciplines‘ qualification structures may also account for the disparity in representation as oer. for example, it is possible that academics in soft applied subjects such as nursing and social work, where most learning is oriented towards gaining a licence to perform a particular job, may believe that there is no point in giving away selected module materials as oer when a student needs to study a complete programme to gain a qualification and licence to practice. this may be contrasted with the arts, where it is more common for people to learn solely for pleasure, and the sciences where people may learn to pursue an interest rather than to gain a vocational qualification, especially in the specific context of the ou. existing e-learning practice existing research into disciplinary differences in the use of e-learning (e.g., arbaugh, et al., 2010; smith, heindel, & torres-ayala, 2008) may also help to explain the disparity of academic disciplines‘ representation as oer. smith et al. (2008) suggest that ―e-learning in pure journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(2) 21 disciplines has become more commoditized‖ (p. 152), and focuses particularly on the provision and use of discrete learning objects such as academic journals and online databases. in contrast, it is argued that applied disciplines are more oriented towards ‗diversified‘ community-based e-learning resources such as online forums and collaborative authoring. these findings may help to explain the disparity of oer representation between different disciplines. for example, academics in pure disciplines may, consciously or unconsciously, judge the release of oer as having parallels with their existing use of ―commoditized‖ e-learning resources. conversely, academics in applied disciplines may deem learning objects such as those appearing as oer to be less important than the collaborative interpretation and sense-making activities that are possible in community-focused e-learning resources. funding drivers and economic considerations funding drivers may also inform the release of oer in some disciplines. for example, disciplines that are heavily research-focused (such as science, technology, and medicine) are often required to meet targets for disseminating the outcomes of their research. this may result in an academic culture that is already accustomed to sharing information for the greater good and for whom the release of oer is a natural progression. additional economic considerations might also affect the release of oer where disciplines wish to sell their resources rather than make them available at no cost to the user. subject-specific oer repositories openlearn contains oer from a wide range of academic disciplines. however, some disciplines also have their own subject-specific repositories: for example, the humanities repository humbox (www.humbox.ac.uk), the languages repository loro (www.loro.open.ac.uk), and the social work repository swapbox (www.swapbox.ac.uk). the humbox creators point out that ―the importance of the subject dimension cannot be overstated in that it was the provision of a bespoke space for the humanities which appeared to cater for the particular needs of humanities disciplines‖ (dickens et al., 2010, p. 43). it is possible, then, that some academics will identify primarily with their subject area, across institutional boundaries, and may be more inclined to deposit their resources in a subject-specific repository than in a multi-discipline repository such as openlearn. implications beyond identifying a disparity in academic disciplines‘ representation in openlearn and suggesting possible reasons for this, the current study findings have possible implications for the currency of the becher–biglan typology in the context of 21st-century higher education. figure 4 shows a working revision of the typology, informed by the evidence gathered from the ou openlearn study regarding the growing areas of generic study and information literacy skills. http://www.humbox.ac.uk/ http://www.loro.open.ac.uk/ http://www.swapbox.ac.uk/ perryman, l-a., & coughlan, t. 22 figure 4 working revision of the becher–biglan typology generic study skills and professional development materials it was noted earlier that two areas of the ou undergraduate curriculum are not easily accommodated within the becher–biglan typology— namely, the cross-disciplinary modules that feature in both the fee-paying and oer curricula, and the generic study skills and professional development materials that are the largest single sector of openlearn. the cross-disciplinary modules comprise only 2% of the fee-paying curriculum and just 1% of the oer curriculum and they therefore have few implications for the continued currency of the becher–biglan typology. however, generic study skills and professional development materials occupy 20% of the oer curriculum, suggesting that the becher–biglan typology should be revised to accommodate the new shape of 21st-century higher education. many of the study skills and professional development materials in openlearn are disciplineindependent: hence their placement at the centre of the working revision of the becher–biglan typology, indicating a core category of generic study and professional development skills that are relevant to all four knowledge groupings in the typology. the openlearn generic study skills and professional development materials can be subdivided into three categories: 1. materials that focus on generic study skills such as essay writing and revising for exams, together with the development of meta-cognitive strategies such as thinking skills 2. materials produced by the ou library, and that focus on information and critical literacy, providing instruction in searching for and evaluating digital materials 3. materials that focus on professional development. the generic study skills materials in openlearn are typical of an ever-growing emphasis in 21stcentury higher education on developing subject-independent study skills and meta-cognitive learning strategies alongside subject-specific knowledge and skills. allan and clarke (2007) identify a ―renewed impetus for supporting the development of students‘ learning in higher education‖ (p. 64) arising, in part, from the widening participation agenda that has been a priority for higher education in recent years. they suggest that the entry of students from a broad range of backgrounds and with disparate levels of previous academic experience demands ―greater flexibility and innovation in learning and teaching in order to maximize the retention and successful completion of those who progress into he‖, including an increased emphasis on journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(2) 23 developing study skills. the presence of professional development materials in openlearn reflects a contemporary emphasis (e.g., leitch, 2006) on developing higher-level skills for employment, (such as critical thinking, analysis, evaluation, and reflective practice) in the hope that these skills will help employees to adapt to changes in the workplace. the materials produced by the ou library are perhaps best explained in the context of research indicating a new role for librarians in producing study materials that relate to information literacy. whitchurch (2010,) has already observed that the clear knowledge groupings (―territories‖) and disciplinary cultures (―tribes‖) featuring in the original becher–biglan typology have gradually become ―less sustainable, not only between academic disciplines, but also between academics and other forms of professional activity‖ (p. 168). law (2010) provides a pertinent example of such changing knowledge groupings when identifying a growing need for information professionals who will take charge of the selection, preservation, and curatorship of digital resources. he observes that ―there is an obvious role for information services staff to develop new content systems and to revivify the fundamental skill of the organisation of knowledge‖ (law, 2010, p. 196). law tentatively suggests that such a role might be occupied by traditional librarians, citing burke‘s (2002) assertion that: the practice of librarianship in the virtual library environment will not be very different from that in the traditional print-based library. the librarian‘s role will continue to include selection of suitable resources, providing access to such resources, offering instruction and assistance to patrons in interpreting resources, and preserving both the medium and the information contained therein. (conclusion, para. 1) the library-produced materials in openlearn provide evidence of such practices. it is important to point out that the proportion of study skills and professional development materials in openlearn may not be representative of other oer repositories. further research is therefore needed before any definitive conclusions can be made regarding whether the becher– biglan typology requires adaptation or, indeed, whether a new model needs to be devised to better suit 21st-century higher education. conclusion in conclusion, the current study has shown that there is indeed a disparity between academic disciplines‘ representation as oer in openlearn. a number of possible reasons for this have been proposed and a working revision of the becher–biglan typology has been suggested in light of the study findings. the study findings have implications for widening participation in that some people could be disadvantaged by the disparity in representation and the potential for oer use not being fully realised in certain disciplinary areas. in effect, it would be easier for an individual to pursue a coherent programme of study in some subjects than in others. similarly, if a tutor wished to assemble a programme of study this would also be easier, cheaper, and faster in some subjects than others—cheaper if costly resources are available for free as oer, and faster if the repository is well stocked. the current study also shows that if the oer movement‘s aims for widening access and participation in education are to be achieved, institutions need to actively monitor the disciplinary balance within their oer repositories to ensure that they serve the widest possible audience, especially users seeking resources in disciplines that are under-represented. harley (2008), exploring the relationship between the creation and use of oer, observes a disparity between ―what a potential pool of faculty users of digital resources say they need in undergraduate education and what those who produce those resources imagine as an ideal state‖ perryman, l-a., & coughlan, t. 24 (p. 197). the current study‘s exploration of possible disciplinary differences in the perceived obstacles to releasing materials as oers could be valuable to institutions that do identify an imbalance in their own repositories. it is also recommended that under-represented academic disciplines prioritise the release of oer, both to better promote their subject area and to help realise the aims of the oer movement in making high-quality learning materials available to people who may otherwise not have access to them. arguably, this is particularly pertinent for exactly those academic disciplines which are under-represented in openlearn, especially in the context of contemporary cuts to highereducation funding in the united kingdom. for example, it has been noted that soft pure disciplines such as the arts are not as well represented in openlearn as are hard pure and hard applied disciplines. however, at the time of writing (july 2011) arts and humanities education, and the arts in general, are experiencing huge funding cuts in the united kingdom (o‘brien, 2011). arguably then, the release of high quality arts and humanities oer can help to ensure that individuals are still able to enjoy the personal and social benefits of studying the arts, which unesco (2006) proclaims are ―essential components of a comprehensive education leading to the full development of the individual‖ (p. 1). a similar case can be made for the soft applied disciplines to prioritise the release of oer. for example, health and social care study materials have the potential to make a huge difference in equipping people to live in today‘s complex societies, to understand each other, and to cope with social and personal problems, irrespective of whether such materials are studied in the context of a formal study programme leading to a qualification or licence to practice. future oer initiatives could usefully include working with academics from under-represented disciplines in developing and releasing materials. future research might build on the current study in exploring the possible reasons for disciplinary disparities in representation as oer through discussion with academics. it would also be insightful to replicate the current study in the context of other oer repositories, both nationally and internationally, to ascertain whether the openlearn findings are representative. finally, it would be valuable for current oer research to be extended to include consideration of potential end users‘ wishes for the type of oer content they would find useful, to help ensure that oer have the maximum effect in widening participation in education. references allan, j., & clarke, k. 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(2011). unlocking the gates: how and why leading universities are opening up access to their courses. princeton: princeton university press. whitchurch, c. (2010). convergence/divergence in professional identities. in c. whitchurch (ed.), academic and professional identities in higher education (pp. 167–183). abingdon/new york: routledge. http://wikieducator.org/unesco_oer_toolkit_draft#benefits_of_open_educational_resources http://wikieducator.org/unesco_oer_toolkit_draft#benefits_of_open_educational_resources http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/files/31999/11750860503aims_artseducation.pdf/aims_artseducation.pdf http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/files/31999/11750860503aims_artseducation.pdf/aims_artseducation.pdf journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(2) 27 white, s. a., & licardi, i. 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(2011). designing for collaboration: a sector specific oer network. paper presented at the oer11 conference, 12 may 2011, manchester, uk. biographical notes tony coughlan t.coughlan@open.ac.uk tony coughlan is a regional academic in the faculty of health and social care at the open university and a fellow of the support centre for open resources in education (www.open.ac.uk/score), where he is exploring the use of oer by the united kingdom‘s voluntary sector. leigh-anne perryman leigh.a.perryman@open.ac.uk dr leigh-anne perryman is an associate lecturer in humanities at the open university. her doctoral research explored adult students‘ cognitive and affective responses to controversial visual art and the implications for educational inclusion. her current research interests include exploring the potential of oer as a resource for community arts organisations. � this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. coughlan, t., & perryman, l-a. (2011). something for everyone? the different approaches of academic disciplines to open educational resources and the effect on widening participation. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(2), [11–27]. mailto:t.coughlan@open.ac.uk http://www.open.ac.uk/score mailto:leigh.a.perryman@open.ac.uk http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ microsoft word hawi.docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(1) 45 leveraging informal learning practices for broadening participation in university education: a kenyan case study roxanne hawi, massey university, new zealand eva heinrich, massey university, new zealand sunil lal, massey university, new zealand abstract kenyan public universities primarily provide classroom-based courses. however, socioeconomic realities prevent many rural learners from attending classes regularly. interestingly, because of the willingness of kenyans to further their education, informal education is picking up fast. individuals are forming informal learning circles and have proactively found ways to use smartphones to access online educational resources. this paper explores ways to leverage the strengths of these informal learning practices to enhance participation in formal higher education for kenyans. one way this can be achieved is through blended learning. with blended learning, students experience the convenience of online learning without losing the on-campus social interactions they are accustomed to. currently, the use of blended learning in kenyan public universities is not at the desired level. economic constraints mean that a lack of conventional computing resources, such as laptops and desktop personal computers, (pcs) is a contributing factor. given their widespread adoption, we suggest smartphones could be a viable platform for blended learning in kenya. to explore this idea, a survey was conducted with 114 students in tom mboya university college (tmuc), a rurally based public university in kenya. the survey examined students’ attitudes to using smartphones in education. results indicate smartphones are already an integral part of students’ informal education and they have a strong desire to integrate smartphones in their formal education. we envisage that our research will contribute knowledge towards the adoption of blended learning in resourceconstrained university environments. keywords: learning technologies; smartphone-based learning; blended learning in developing countries; mlearning africa; higher education kenya introduction public universities1 in kenya face significant budget cuts due to economic pressure. these cuts have led to a general lack of resources in the universities, notably for the information technology (it) infrastructure. the paucity of technological resources such as desktop personal computers (pcs) and laptops limits the extent to which these universities can explore other teaching strategies such as blended learning or e-learning (tarus et al., 2015). as a result, these institutions primarily provide classroom-based courses (kashorda & waema, 2014). however, compared with the ever-increasing enrolment rates, these universities have few classrooms, 1 our focus is on public universities because they are the most affordable gateway to formal university education. hawi, r., heinrich, e., lal, s. 46 leading to overcrowded lecture halls (gudo et al., 2011). as a consequence, many students miss some lectures involuntarily, while others, in a bid to avoid scuffling for seats, voluntarily opt out of attending some lectures. for rural-based learners, the classroom-based mode of learning limits their ability to participate fully in formal higher education, but this is more as a consequence of socio-economic barriers than overcrowded lecture halls. the collectivist culture and subsistence lifestyle of the rural population in kenya means students have a filial duty to contribute to the family’s income (gsma, 2014a), and so are unable to attend lectures regularly. fortunately, because kenyans are willing to further their education (gudo et al., 2011), informal education is picking up quickly. firstly, individuals are forming informal learning circles. for example, peer-2-peer university (p2pu), an international organisation that leverages the potential of learning communities to increase access to higher learning, has partnered with kenya national library services to provide free in-person courses and moocs across the country (p2pu, 2019). secondly, despite the general lack of conventional technological resources (laptops and desktop pcs) in the country, kenyans have proactively found ways to use their smartphones to access free online education. this is apparent when it comes to agricultural education. eighty percent of the population rely on agriculture for their livelihood (fao, 2018), and several mobile apps have been designed to provide agricultural students with on-the-go learning content. for instance, the kenyan government implemented e-extension, a smartphonesupported programme, which provides informal agricultural education to more than seven million farmers (gichamba et al., 2017). this paper explores ways to use self-motivation, and the tools used in kenya’s informal learning sector, to broaden student participation in the resource-constrained formal university education sector. many aspects need to be investigated, but in this paper we focus on two: 1) the potential for furthering blended learning in the universities; and 2) using smartphones as the technological basis for furthering blended learning. as stated earlier, adoption of blended learning in kenyan public universities is not at the desired level (kashorda & waema, 2014; tarus et al., 2015). although many other factors—such as institutional policies (graham et al., 2013) and pedagogical challenges—stunt a transition to blended learning, we stress that the lack of conventional computing resources (laptops and desktop pcs) is salient. blended learning has the potential to enrich university education in kenya. learners will experience the convenience of online learning without losing the on-campus social interaction they are used to. university management will find that blended learning helps to mitigate overcrowding in classrooms because students will not always attend on-campus lectures. the idea of exploring the smartphone as the primary tool for blended learning has a sound basis. eighty percent of the population in sub-saharan africa (including kenya) has access to a smartphone (compared with 19% desktop pc or laptop ownership) (deloitte, 2016). it seems that, in spite of noticeable poverty levels in these underdeveloped regions, individuals can still find practical ways to afford low-cost smartphones (karlsson et al., 2017). perhaps, unlike in the developed world where smartphones are mostly used in the social context, in sub-saharan africa smartphones are necessary to access basic amenities such as finance, health, and agriculture (gsma, 2017b). more specifically, in kenya, mobile money (through m-akiba and m-pesa applications) has become a lifeline for most of the population, and has provided access to financial services for the unbanked population (gsma, 2017c). hence, smartphones play an integral part in improving the living standards of the kenyan population. to advance blended learning in kenya, we deem it imperative to explore the smartphone as the primary learning tool in formal university education. smartphones’ portability will provide more flexibility for learners who cannot always physically attend lectures—they are already being used (informally) by the kenyan population to augment their learning outside the classroom, and this could further ease the transition into blended learning. to build an evidence base that this approach (smartphone-supported blended learning) could work in formal university education, journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(1) 47 we conducted a survey with 114 students in tom mboya university college (tmuc), a rurally based kenyan public university. the survey examined tmuc students’ attitudes to using smartphones in their formal university education. the findings are presented here. literature review the nascent nature of blended learning in developing countries while acknowledging that there are several definitions of blended learning (osguthorpe & graham, 2003), for this article we define it as “the combination of classroom-based and out-ofclass technology-mediated instruction” (graham et al., 2013). blended learning uses technology’s potential for extending learning beyond the classroom but also recognises the importance of the need for physical student–student and student–lecturer interactions. certainly, blended learning is not a novel concept in the developed world. many universities in developed countries have progressively reduced in-classroom instruction by using learning management systems (lmss) such as moodle and blackboard, which allow the students to access most of their coursework online. a study by gaebel et al. (2014) concluded that of the 249 european institutions surveyed, 82% stated that they offer online courses. obviously, this transformation of how learning occurs is influenced by widespread ownership of personal computers (baller et al. 2016). although most of the institutions principally offer blended learning (a mix of online and in-classroom instruction), there is great potential for fully online courses in the near future. to date, institutions like oeru.org and the open university have made great strides towards offering fully online university certifications. when we shift the lens to developing countries (particularly those in sub-saharan africa), we see that blended learning is still in its infancy. taking kenya as an example of a developing country in sub-saharan africa, tarus et al. (2015) aver that public universities in kenya have only started to incorporate technology in their curriculum. furthermore, in ghana, tagoe (2012) points out that the university of ghana has done very little in terms of incorporating technology in teaching and learning; and mbengo (2014) asserts that technology integration is nascent in zimbabwean state universities. to more critically demonstrate the validity of our argument and show how far technologyenhanced education (such as blended learning) lags in developing countries, perhaps we should compare its adoption in those countries with adoption in developed regions. figure 1 illustrates global pc ownership in the last 15 years, and figure 2 shows the current state of blended learning in both regions, based on figure 1 data. figure 3 shows smartphone adoption from 2010 to 2025. hawi, r., heinrich, e., lal, s. 48 figure 1 percentage of pc ownership in the last 15 years (itu, 2019) using figure 1 as reference, it is interesting to see that pc ownership in africa today is still nowhere near where it was in the developed world 15 years ago. accordingly, given that a significant portion of blended courses rely on technology-mediated instruction, it would be wise to assume that the adoption of blended learning in africa is following the same trajectory. educational technology has a long history. technology-enhanced learning (tel) gained attention with the advent of personal computers in the latter part of the 20th century. since then, the discipline of educational technology has experienced several paradigm shifts (spector et al., 2014). anderson and dron (2012) categorise these shifts as first, second, and third generations of learning technology. the first-generation technologies used mass media (television and radio) to broadcast learning content; the second-generation technologies (web 1.0) put tel on the map. web 1.0 provided instant worldwide access to a plethora of educational resources in the form of web pages. however, this content was static, so learners could not interact with other users’ web pages on the website. third-generation tel incorporated web 2.0, which was highly interactive (anderson & dron, 2012). web 2.0 allowed learners to comment, contribute, and receive feedback from existing online resources and other users, thereby creating a network of knowledge. although the three generations still exist, developed and developing countries are now predominantly in third-generation tel. however, based on figure 1 data, it can be argued that in developing countries tel is still in the early stages of the third-generation. figure 2 illustrates where this article places most of the developing nations in regard to the adoption of tel. it can be observed that there is a significant gap between developing regions and the developed world. the dates have been retrieved from casey (2008). journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(1) 49 figure 2 progression of technology-enhanced learning (tel) in developing and developed countries current effect of smartphones in technology-enhanced learning given the globally pervasive presence of smartphones (see figure 3) and their impressive computing capabilities, higher learning institutions are indeed acknowledging the potential for the pocketable smartphone to provide convenient flexible learning environments, especially when compared with cumbersome laptops. the smartphone has found its niche as a supportive learning tool. noteworthy examples (in both the developing and developed regions), which highlight where the smartphone lies in principle with regard to educational technology are presented next. table 1 presents a summary of the studies inspected. figure 3 percentage of smartphone penetration 2010–2025 (gsma, 2014b, 2015, 2017a, 2019) i) the developed world stanford university’s smile (stanford graduate school of education, 2016), a mobile-based question application, requires students to use their smartphones to generate and share multiplechoice questions to be answered by their peers during class. each student is expected to take the quiz that is generated from all the students’ questions. the quiz results are then displayed hawi, r., heinrich, e., lal, s. 50 immediately on the student’s mobile screen. the game-like collaborative environment increases interaction and engagement. a twitter-based smartphone response system that was used at a south korean university by kim et al. (2015) required students to use their smartphones to answer quiz questions. results from the pilot study indicated that students preferred the smartphone-based quiz (on twitter) to the conventional method of quizzing (paper or verbal). according to the authors, incorporating the smartphone, to which the learners were already personally attached, improved learning efficiency and contributed to increased student engagement. ipac, which is used by open university of catalonia (ferran-ferrer et al., 2014), allows teachers to mark and correct pdf student submissions directly from their iphone. by allowing annotations via a smartphone, ipac obviates the need for instructors to use pcs, laptops, or paper to provide feedback to students. once corrected, instructors simply upload the pdf on the iphone for students to review. georgetown university school of medicine requires its students to own a smartphone (som, 2017) for use in clinical rotations. the students use the phones for clinical decision-making and to answer clinical questions at point of care. their technical skills in applying handheld devices during medical care are also tested with the smartphone. this demonstrates how smartphones are used outside classrooms to support work integrated learning (scott et al., 2017). geoscitech (price et al., 2014) enabled pre-service teachers who were studying for a science postgraduate certificate in education to use smartphones to design and test teaching sessions for a fieldwork-based learning activity on botany. geoscitech facilitated in situ learning by using the smartphone’s camera and sensors to allow the pre-service teachers to take pictures and videos, measure temperature and humidity of their environment, and provide spatial patterns of plant distribution and their adaptation in the globe. this demonstrates the smartphone’s ability to support learning through augmented reality. ii) the developing world the dunia moja project (ryou, 2007; steinbeck, 2009) is a large-scale ongoing mobile learning project across two continents, connecting faculty and students from stanford university (usa), university of western cape (south africa), mweka college of african wildlife management (tanzania), and makerere university (uganda). the project was started by stanford university to pilot an international environmental course that aimed to design global solutions for environmental issues. this is achieved by using smartphones that allow students from these institutions to exchange, contribute, and discuss field-related course content. students are expected to post multimedia content from their smartphones on moblog, the platform’s online interactive mobile blog. here they can show other learners their fieldwork experiments in their local contexts. this exchange allows them to better design global collaborative activities and solutions. in kenya, tertiary agricultural education enrolments constitute only 7.4% of overall tertiary enrolments (kanwar et al., 2015), but about 80% of the population rely on agriculture for their livelihood (fao, 2018). to improve agricultural education and foster food security, the kenyan government started an e-extension programme that uses the smartphone. the platform can reach more than 7,000,000 farmers in the field to provide informal agricultural education. this is achieved with a combined approach of using mobile apps, social media, short message services (sms), and agricultural websites that provide tailor-made multimedia content for farmers’ specific needs (gichamba et al., 2017; tata & mcnamara, 2017). journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(1) 51 in india, ray and deb (2016) leveraged the portability and affordability of smartphones to introduce virtual reality (vr) into an undergraduate course on micro-controllers and arduino boards. to participate in the session, the students had to connect their smartphones to google’s cardboard headsets—then they were presented with 3d content with embedded notes and panoramic views. according to ray and deb (2016), the smartphone-based vr system was a success and led to a significant increase in student performance. according to gsma (2014a), more than 6,000,000 youths in the philippines are excluded from education due to socio-economic barriers. however, through the abot alam programme, the government partnered with leading mobile-service providers to expand access to education. the mobile operators provide mobile-based educational materials via mobile phones. for instance, through their alternative learning system app, smart communications (a leading mobile operator), they partnered with the open university of philippines to deliver a mooc on smartphones. the university of botswana school of medicine (chang et al., 2012; gsma, 2011) noted that their trainee physicians in rural hospitals found it difficult to access medical information and assistance from their remote mentors. hence, the trainees were equipped with 3g-enabled google mytouch smartphones that were preloaded with applications that had content on pointof-care and drug information. they also had a telemedicine app that allowed trainees to submit and discuss case information with their mentors. in this context, the smartphones enabled the trainees to circumvent the lack of connectivity, and facilitated self-directed learning. in lesotho, sterio.me (reid & pruijsen, 2015), an smsand voice-based mobile education project, allows student assignments to be created, shared, and marked on a mobile phone. initially launched in nigeria, sterio.me also allows teachers to record lectures and quizzes which can then be accessed for free by the students with a specific sms code. once the quizzes are completed, teachers are prompted to provide feedback on performance instantly, or to provide student tutoring. table 1 summary of case studies showing current effect of smartphones in education project smartphone’s potential • smile • ipac • sterio.me • mobile-based assessments • twitter-based smartphone response system (south korea) • dunia moja project • global establishment of ad hoc peer-to-peer learning communities. • abot alam • geoscitech • google cardboard course (india) • meducation: delivery of educational resources via mobile learning content management systems (m-lcms) and in immersive environments (virtual reality and augmented reality). • georgetown university som • university of botswana som • e-extension (kenya) • supports work-integrated learning. reflecting on the aforementioned studies, and on the data presented in figure 3, we propound smartphones could indeed be a viable platform on which to progress blended learning in kenya, and to broaden participation in university education. nonetheless, it is essential we examine this hawi, r., heinrich, e., lal, s. 52 hypothesis in a real context. the following sections describe where rural kenya presently lies in principle with our hypothesis. study design/approach the case study this survey is the first of a series of studies that are part of a larger case-study research: “from gimmick to game changer: a study on the use of smartphones to expand access to higher education in developing countries”. given the proliferation of smartphones in these regions, the mission of the research is to examine how a student who owns a smartphone and does not have access to a laptop or desktop pc can successfully participate in a university course. the practical work mainly targets kenyan rural learners because they face more socio-economic barriers that limit them from fully participating in university education (wbg, 2018); kenya is an example of a developing country. the overarching goal of our research is to develop a framework that provides guidelines on how to successfully deliver blended university courses solely to a smartphone. recent studies of smartphone use in educational settings explore ways to adapt laptop and desktop pc content for viewing on smartphones, but they have not reached the depth of research possible (livingston, 2009; pimmer & pachler, 2014). little innovative work has been done to customise the content to fit the functional capabilities of a smartphone (farley et al., 2015; parsons, 2014). therefore, developing a framework to facilitate blended learning with smartphones could provide a foundation on which educators in developing countries with a similar context to kenya (or who have learners who study under the same restrictions) can adopt the approach with little fine tuning. survey design i) permission consent to collect data was obtained from nacosti, the government body responsible for authorising all research carried out in kenyan universities (nacosti, n.d.); the management at tom mboya university college (tmuc); and the survey respondents. before filling out the survey, respondents were made aware (in writing and verbally) that participation was voluntary, and that they could withdraw at any time. confidentiality was preserved by making the survey anonymous. ii) participants a non-probabilistic convenience sampling technique was used to access tmuc students. although literature (creswell, 2012) shows that probabilistic sampling techniques in quantitative research are more rigorous, and are ideal for researchers who want to make generalisations, tmuc had closed for the holidays and we could approach only those individuals who were available (living near or on campus) to participate in the survey. due to unforeseen time constraints, it was not possible to conduct the survey when school resumed. creswell (2012) argues that, although researchers cannot ascertain the respondents are representative of the population in convenience sampling, the sample can still provide useful data for answering hypotheses. so, based on the researcher’s knowledge, past experience, and support from tmuc faculty, the survey was extended to all potential participants in the six schools at tmuc. due to the sampling technique used, there was no specified sample size for the survey. a total of 114 responses were collected. iii) data collection and analysis the survey was a month-long activity. a structured questionnaire, administered as an anonymous online survey, was used to collect the data. the questionnaire was adapted from an existing instrument by ahmed (2016) and consisted of 42 questions divided into three parts. part a journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(1) 53 gathered nominal data about the participants’ characteristics (age, gender, enrolment level; smartphone ownership, and expertise; and students’ awareness of free online learning resources). part b and part c gathered ordinal data with five-point likert scales, ranging from “stronglyagree” to “strongly disagree”. part b explored the participants’ perceptions of using smartphones for various academic activities. part c assessed the participants’ current use of smartphones for education. the questionnaire items were distributed as: part a = 9; part b = 13; part c = 20. a response was required for each question. descriptive statistics were calculated with microsoft excel 2019. cronbach’s alpha coefficient was used to evaluate internal consistency (the extent to which a set of items are interrelated). findings for internal consistency, a cronbach’s alpha (𝛼) of 0.8643 was recorded for part b and 0.9572 for part c. the participants’ responses were skewed towards “strongly agree” and “agree”, implying a high degree of interrelatedness among the items. this indicates satisfactory reliability of the survey (cortina, 1993; gliem & gliem, 2003; tavakol & dennick, 2011). in the calculation, part a was excluded because it largely comprised demographic data. although the high alpha (> 0.9) in part c could suggest duplicated items, after a thorough review of the questions we conclude this is not the case. however, because this section (part c) addressed one construct, “current smartphone use”, there was some similarity between some items. questionnaire part a results seventy-nine percent of the sample were male; 21% were female. this was expected because the current tmuc enrolment rates stand at 1050 males and 630 females (source: tmuc’s academic registrar). as illustrated in table 2, all participants own smartphones and 95% selected the smartphone as their preferred device for education. this is noteworthy—it validates the device ownership trend we presented in the literature review. no participants selected “desktop pc” as an ideal device for education. this could be because, generally, kenyan public universities have few computer labs (kashorda & waema, 2014). as anticipated, more than half of the respondents know of at least one free online learning resource. this could indicate that tmuc students supplement their formal coursework with informal learning resources. table 2 smartphone ownership, expertise, and awareness of free online educational resources (114 responses) hawi, r., heinrich, e., lal, s. 54 questionnaire part b results q6 in table 3 shows that almost all participants like the idea of recorded lectures. this justifies our assumption that integrating online learning in the current classroom-based lessons could enrich the educational experience of many tmuc students. q1 implies that, if tmuc does implement online learning, the students would like the lms to have the mobile function enabled. unlike web-based lmss, mobile-based lmss allow offline access to content. this is ideal, given the variety of environments in which students use their smartphones. table 3 do you like the idea of using your smartphone in university education for the following activities? (114 responses) questionnaire part c results the data in table 4 indicates a high inclination to use smartphones for university education. for example, q9 demonstrates that 94% of the participants get pleasure from using their smartphone for learning. this could be attributed to feeling that the smartphone increases their productivity as illustrated in q6. consequently, it is not surprising that in q5 and q8, 97% agreed the cost of their smartphone is worth it; and 96% reported that they regularly use their smartphone to access educational resources. although q3 shows 12% of the respondents disagree that using their smartphone for education is effortless, q1 proves that all the participants are confident they can easily learn this essential skill. this is essential, given that most existing university pedagogies do not comfortably support smartphone use. q12 in table 4 supports our argument that kenyans are generally social learners. this is further backed up by the data in q11–q13 in table 3, which indicates almost all students are in favour of collaborating online with their peers and lecturers. we are aware that smartphone use (especially on social-networking sites) could be a distraction from study, but one way to mitigate this issue is for instructors to start creating activities and resources that support the way students already use their devices (farley et al., 2015; tossell et al., 2015). this could cause students to increasingly perceive smartphones as learning tools. as it is, items q17–q20 in table 4 suggest that tmuc students have a strong desire to continue using their smartphones for study. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(1) 55 table 4 please respond to the following statements about your current smartphone usage (114 responses) discussion the survey results demonstrate that tmuc students are happy to use their smartphones for formal education. the next step in our case study is to look at the lecturers’ attitudes to smartphone use in formal education. for this, we have an unpublished paper that indicates tmuc lecturers are flexible and willing to integrate smartphones in their teaching. we plan to redesign an existing classroom-based tmuc course into a smartphone-supported blended course to determine the requirements and decision points that emerge when blended learning is adopted at tmuc. for example, what institutional policies and learning and teaching strategies need to change to accommodate a blended course? note that, although the context of this article is rural kenya, the research can be generalised. most of the attributes of kenyan rural learners and kenyan rural-based universities are evident in other developing countries (particularly in subsaharan africa). table 5 presents some of the general characteristics of rural areas, learners, and universities in most developing countries. hawi, r., heinrich, e., lal, s. 56 table 5 characteristics of rural areas, rural learners and rural-based universities in kenya and most developing countries characteristics (rural areas) description remote • usually far from basic amenities/infrastructure (e.g., roads, technology, tertiary institutions) (gsma, 2016; wbg, 2018). subsistence lifestyle • inhabitants typically live on minimum wages, just enough for survival (wbg, 2018). characteristics (rural learners) description experience digital exclusion • limited access to technological resources (e.g., laptops, desktop pcs, fixed broadband networks and/or wifi), but most have smartphones (deloitte, 2016; spector et al., 2014). educational constraints • remote locations means they have limited access to tertiary institutions/education (gsma, 2014a). • typically cannot afford current university education fees (due to subsistence lifestyle) unless funded by the government (gsma, 2014a; spector et al., 2014; unesco, 2010). part-time students • have to work to support and contribute to the family income (gsma, 2014a). social learners • prefer to work in communities or as groups (poushter, 2016). characteristics (rural-based universities) description overcrowded • very few public universities, so strains the institution’s resources (e.g., lecture-hall space, learning technologies, and hostel accommodation) (gudo et al., 2011; kearney et al., 2012). non-comprehensive teaching approaches • predominantly support instructor-led approaches in which students have to attend classes on campus (tarus et al., 2015). • underdeveloped technology-enhanced courses due to lack of technical resources (spector et al., 2014). conclusion in many low-income countries, access to personal computers (laptops and desktop pcs) is unusual, which is contrary to what is observed in developed nations. consequently, technologyenhanced university education strategies such as blended learning (and their affordances) are impoverished, leaving most learners with no choice but to attend classroom-based lectures. yet, for many of these students, particularly the rural-based learners, socio-economic barriers seriously limit regular lecture attendance. even so, although there is a general lack of resources in kenyan public universities to sufficiently cater to the specific needs of these rural-based learners, the self-motivation of the population to further their education outside the formal journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(1) 57 classroom has led them to find ways to continue learning in resource-constrained environments. kenyans are forming informal learning circles and using their smartphones to access informal online education. we propound that, by leveraging the strengths of the informal learning practices of this community, it is possible to enhance participation in formal higher education— thereby removing one more barrier to full participation in university education for kenyan learners. we envisage our research will contribute knowledge towards the adoption of blended learning in resource-constrained university environments. references ahmed, m. s. 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(2018). atlas of sustainable development goals 2018: from world development indicators. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/29788 journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(1) 61 biographical notes roxanne hawi r.hawi@massey.ac.nz roxanne hawi is a tutorial fellow in the school of computing and informatics at maseno university. she is pursuing a ph.d. in information technology at massey university with interests in mobile learning. eva heinrich e.heinrich@massey.ac.nz eva heinrich is an associate professor in the school of fundamental sciences at massey university. her interests lie in applied research, using advanced technologies to bring benefits to institutions, teachers, and learners. she is the executive editor of advancing scholarship and research in higher education (asrhe). sunil lal s.lal@massey.ac.nz dr. sunil lal is a senior lecturer in computer science at massey university. his research interest is machine learning with applications in the field of bioinformatics, robotics, and the brain–computer interface. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. hawi, r., heinrich, e., & lal, s. (2021). leveraging informal learning practices for broadening participation in university education: a kenyan case study. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(1), [45–61.]. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(2) 5 size only matters if you have vision: an exploration of an urban e-learning cluster michael barbour, associate professor of instructional design, touro university california jason siko, instructional technology consultant for wayne regional educational service agency abstract historically, primary and secondary distance education in new zealand has focused on providing opportunities for rural students. with the advent of tomorrow’s schools in 1989, the need for rural schools to compete with urban schools in terms of their curricular offerings was one reason for creating e-learning clusters that would eventually become the virtual learning network (vln). after 25 years of practice, there is a growing body of research into these rural e-learning clusters. however, in 2011 the harbournet cluster became the first active, and sustained, urban-based vln programme. this study begins to address the lack of research into urban e-learning by exploring the challenges harbournet was able to overcome to become a successful member of the vln. keywords: urban education; e-learning; secondary schools; virtual learning; virtual schooling introduction although distance education has been used in the primary and secondary environment in new zealand since the early 1920s (barbour, 2014), the development of online or virtual forms of distance education is a much newer development. as in many countries (e.g., canada, south korea, and the u.s.), virtual learning in the new zealand primary and secondary environment began in the early to mid-1990s. the first of these projects in new zealand was the canterbury area schools’ association technology (casatech) project (wenmoth, 1996). the casatech project, which became the canterbury technology schools project in 1996, focused primarily on rural areas, where small schools and shrinking numbers of teaching staff made it difficult to provide a full range of curricular opportunities to their student population. the otagonet elearning cluster began in 2002. its vision was “to create a broadband [network] linking the otago secondary and area schools, to strengthen existing relationships and collaboration of these rural and geographically dispersed schools” (pullar & brennan, 2008, p. 9). this was where the roots of a virtual learning network (vln) began. approximately 20 of these regional e-learning clusters developed over the past two-and-a-half decades, although only a handful still exist today (pratt, 2018). traditionally, almost all of the active e-learning clusters have been located in, or have focused primarily on, rural areas. several urban-based projects (e.g., dunedinnet, greater christchurch schools network, harbournet, nelson loop, and wellington loop) have been officially undertaken to provide high speed internet, in the hope that they would lead to additional virtual learning opportunities. however, because the urban schools that comprised these clusters did not experience the curricular challenges of their rural counterparts, their activities were limited, for barbour, m. k., siko, j. p. 6 the most part, to sporadic professional development events (ali, 2017). one exception to this lack of activity was harbournet (an urban e-learning cluster in the auckland area) which, for some reason, was quite active in its first years of operation. the purpose of this study was to examine the development of harbournet as an urban e-learning cluster. this general purpose led to the following two research questions: 1. what were some of the challenges faced by an urban e-learning cluster? 2. how did that urban e-learning cluster overcome those challenges? to address these research questions, the researchers chose to conduct a case study of harbournet. in this article, the researchers describe the background and what was known about virtual learning in new zealand at the time of the study. next, the researchers outline the study that was conducted, and the three themes that were found; that is, technological and communication issues, resistance from stakeholders, and buy-in from the community. interestingly, for each of these themes it appeared that the urban cluster learned from the experience of their rural counterparts. literature review as noted above, distance education at primary and secondary levels has been present in new zealand for almost a century (rumble, 1989). however, the vln celebrates only its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2019 (sudlow, 2019). during those 25 years, there have been explorations of national policy funding programmes that provided the necessary context and resources to allow the e-learning clusters that make up the vln to exist (powell & barbour, 2011; stevens, 2005), and descriptive examinations of the system (roberts, 2009, 2010). empirical research into the vln has largely focused on case studies, which have often provided general evaluations or examined a specific aspect of individual e-learning clusters. for example, otagonet (now netnz) was one of the first e-learning clusters, and remains the most researched of any of the clusters (lai, 2017; lai & pratt, 2004, 2005, 2009; pratt & pullar, 2013; pullar & brennan, 2008). similarly, the farnet e-learning cluster has been the focus of studies on virtual teaching and student experiences, with particular attention paid to their majority māori population (alexander-bennett, 2016; barbour & bennett, 2013; bennett & barbour, 2012). even the vlnprimary (a nationwide e-learning cluster that focuses on the primary level) has been the subject of descriptive study into student and teacher perceptions of learning a foreign language in a virtual environment (tolosa, east, barbour, & owens, 2017). all of these e-learning clusters (and the research into them) have focused on students attending schools in rural and remote jurisdictions. however, this is not a totally accurate description of the distance learning context in new zealand. for example, roberts (2010) indicated that in 2009 the dunedinnet e-learning cluster had begun to offer courses. she also referenced that wellington high school had students enrolled in virtual learning courses. barbour and wenmoth (2013) referenced that, after enrolling their students in existing rural clusters, a number of auckland area schools had formed the harbournet e-learning cluster in 2012. zwimpfer (2010) described the development of urbanbased loops (such as the nelson loop, wellington loop, north shore education access loop, and greater christchurch schools network), which were designed to provide schools with reliable, high-speed internet access through a fibre-based loop. although good internet access was the primary purpose of these “super loops”, additional goals included “distance education courses, remote learning . . . resource gathering and sharing, [and] video streaming” (mallard, 2005, para. 6). journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(2) 7 in 2004, the initial version of a handbook to assist schools in forming e-learning clusters was published with support from the ministry of education (2011). entitled learning communities online: a support handbook for cluster schools (known as the lco handbook), this publication contained a matrix to guide development through the phases from conception to implementation. in 2010 the lco handbook was extensively revised, and an additional dimension was added to the matrix to address issues of “sustainability and maturity”. this revised handbook was released in a final version for use by schools and clusters in early 2011. the new sustainability and maturity dimension was particularly important as, in the same year, barbour (2011) engaged in the largest study of the vln to date, largely focusing on the issues of sustainability and maturity. this national study examined “the development of virtual learning in new zealand, in particular, how the lco handbook was being used to assist and inform [that] development” (p. 3), and focused almost solely on the rural e-learning clusters. the report was eventually divided into three sections: specific artefacts to support the lco handbook; common barriers to maturity and sustainability; and examples of how networked schools were emerging. barbour, davis, and wenmoth (2016) later reported that the common barriers to maturity and sustainability that existed were: a lack of coherent vision in individual e-learning clusters; trouble in securing and maintaining necessary funding and resources from year to year; and the need for more cooperation and collaboration within and between the e-learning clusters. however, this national study focused almost exclusively on the rural clusters—no data was collected from the dunedinnet e-learning cluster, the urban-based loops, or any of the urban schools that chose to join one of the rural e-learning clusters. barbour (2011) also noted that, for the most part, development of these e-learning clusters was primarily a rural phenomenon. individuals who tried to develop clusters in urban areas often found it difficult to identify a sense of purpose. barbour speculated that this lack of purpose was due to the size of urban schools, which were large enough to not have the curricular challenges faced by their rural counterparts. in fact, of the urban clusters, only harbournet and the greater christchurch schools network had a critical mass of participating schools, found any real sense of purpose, and actively pursued a vision of networked schools (wenmoth, 2010). unfortunately, although there is a growing body of literature and research on rural e-learning clusters in new zealand, there is little to no research on urban e-learning clusters. methodology the purpose of this study was to examine the development of harbournet as an urban e-learning cluster. this general purpose led to the following two research questions: 1. what were some of the challenges faced by an urban e-learning cluster? 2. how did that urban e-learning cluster overcome those challenges? before they collected the data, the researchers suspected that responses to the first research question would be similar across all of the e-learning clusters. however, they believed the second research question would provide other urban e-learning clusters with guidance for their own future development into active clusters. regardless, given the exploratory nature of the research, a single case study was selected as an appropriate methodology (yin, 2003). although founded in 2010 (greater christchurch schools network, 2019), one of the driving forces behind the active development of the greater christchurch schools network was the devastating february 2011 earthquake (core education, 2011; wenmoth, 2011); which closed christchurch’s schools for 3–5 weeks and resulted in most schools double-bunking in the few structurally sound school buildings that remained (i.e., one school would use the school buildings in the morning, then a second school would use the same school buildings in the afternoon) (ministry of education, 2012). excluding this urban e-learning cluster meant that harbournet, barbour, m. k., siko, j. p. 8 which served schools in the auckland area (new zealand’s largest urban centre), was the only elearning cluster that had developed naturally, was located in an urban area, and didn’t have the impetus of a natural disaster. as such, harbournet was selected as the case for this research study. the study followed a research process similar to the one used by barbour (2011) in his examination of the development of e-learning clusters in new zealand—specifically, how the lco handbook was used in that development. this earlier study focused primarily on the more established clusters (at the time, these were e-learning clusters serving primarily rural schools). using this model, there were two main methods of data collection: unstructured focus groups, and artefacts. data collection the researcher conducted site visits to three of the schools and met with stakeholders who were participating in the harbournet e-learning cluster. these visits were selected, arranged, and attended by the eprincipal for harbournet. at each location, the researcher was provided with a tour of the site and, in particular, the virtual learning facilities. each tour allowed the researcher to observe the site and become more familiar with the specific research context (stringer, 2004). the researcher took digital photographs, collected artefacts, and often had the opportunity to informally interact with teachers and students engaged in virtual learning. shank (2002) described observation as a fundamental data collection method to “see those things that others have overlooked, to hear those things that others have failed to notice, and, in general, to find things that make our understanding richer and deeper” (p. 33). even in an informal context, the observations during the site visits provided useful information that was often used during the focus groups. at each school, the researcher also conducted unstructured focus groups with harbournet personnel and individuals from the stakeholder sites. the harbournet eprincipal participated in each focus group with individuals from each of the schools that were visited and the internet service provider that partnered with the e-learning cluster. according to morgan (1997), focus groups are useful for obtaining descriptive data from a number of participants in a single session. focus groups are similar to interviews in that they allow researchers to learn about the participants’ perceptions, feelings, and attitudes. although these focus groups were unstructured in nature, the researcher had a general plan about the topics that he wished to cover. focus groups allow the researcher to explore perspectives of the same events within a social group (kitzinger & barbour, 1999), and this approach lent itself to an unstructured exploration of the general topics of conversation. for example, after a general question asking the participants about their school, harbournet, and their school’s participation in the e-learning cluster, the researcher often focused on what they thought was working, what the challenges had been and how those challenges were overcome, and their perceptions of the reasons for harbournet’s success. finally, documents from the individual schools and the e-learning cluster were collected. documents are often used as a source of data to assist with triangulation, to guard against the claim that the findings are biased because there is a single source of data collection (denzin, 1970; patton, 1990). these items included anything the researcher felt might be relevant to the study, and any documentation that the focus group members felt may be important for understanding the development or success of the harbournet e-learning cluster. bowen (2009) indicated that documents could include: advertisements; agendas, attendance registers, and minutes of meetings; manuals; background papers; books and brochures; diaries and journals; event programs (i.e., printed outlines); letters and memoranda; maps and charts; newspapers (clippings/articles); press journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(2) 9 releases; program proposals, application forms, and summaries; radio and television program scripts; organizational or institutional reports; survey data; and various public records. (pp. 27–28) the documents collected for this study included digital photographs, newsletters from the schools and e-learning cluster, hand-outs from events, brochures and pamphlets, student handbooks, and formal school reports. data analysis the focus groups were recorded with the voice memo feature on an ipad. at the conclusion of the data collection, these audio recordings were provided to a graduate research assistant who transcribed the focus groups verbatim (sandelowski, 1994), excluding conversation fillers (maclean, meyer, & estable, 2004). because using a transcriber who is not directly involved in the data collection process has the potential to introduce bias into the data (poland, 1995; tilley, 2003), the lead researcher—who was also the interviewer—reviewed each of the transcriptions for accuracy. each transcription was also provided to the eprincipal of the harbournet and farnet e-learning clusters to review for accuracy (mero-jaffe, 2011). after being transcribed, the complete data set was coded and analysed using a format similar to the four-stage process developed by ruona (2005). in the first stage, data are prepared for analysis (i.e., in this case, the transcripts were converted to tables in microsoft word). next, the researchers become familiar with the data through both the initial preparation and multiple readings and viewings of the data. data are then categorised into codes to organise similar elements throughout the documents. finally, a constant comparative method is used to develop themes and generate meaning (strauss & corbin, 1994). the case: harbournet the harbournet online learning community1 was established in 2012. however, its roots began a full year earlier, when orewa college joined farnet and ormiston senior college joined otagonet. the goal of this membership was to gain experience with virtual learning, and to better understand the operation of two of the oldest existing e-learning clusters in the country. interestingly, ormiston senior college continued to be a member of otagonet for another 4–5 years, and orewa college became the managing school for harbournet the following year. from 2012 to 2014, harbournet maintained a close relationship with its geographic neighbour—the farnet e-learning cluster. harbournet (2013) described this relationship as “two clusters working together to provide and engage in e-learning opportunities for students, staff and communities by offering a blended approach to e-learning” (para. 1). for example, the harbournet eprincipal was also the farnet eprincipal, but each cluster had a unique assistant eprincipal. during these early years, harbournet grew from 163 students attending eight member schools who were enrolled in nine courses offered by harbournet in 2012, to 191 students attending 13 member schools who were enrolled in 14 courses offered by harbournet and 36 courses offered by other clusters in 2014 (mccarthny, 2019). in 2014, harbournet ended its formal relationship with farnet (although both programmes continued to be members of the vln-community),2 and the harbournet assistant eprincipal was promoted to the role of sole eprincipal for harbournet. as their formal partnership with farnet came to an end, harbournet entered into a relationship with the new zealand online 1 see https://sites.google.com/view/harbournet/home?authuser=0 for more information about the e-learning cluster. 2 “the virtual learning network community (vlnc) is a group of clusters and individuals that choose to operate as a collaborative network, utilizing digital technologies in order to enhance the learning outcomes and opportunities for learners (students, teachers, school communities and educators).” (vlnc, 2015, para. 1) https://sites.google.com/view/harbournet/home?authuser=0 barbour, m. k., siko, j. p. 10 teaching learning community (nzotlc). this organisation included most of the remaining elearning clusters and was designed to “work collaboratively but also in a reciprocal manner to provide learning pathways for both their students, staff as well as wider whanau and community” (nzotlc , n.d., para. 1). this collaboration worked well, and in 2018 harbournet served 129 students from seven member schools and four associate schools. the students were enrolled in eight courses provided by harbournet and 48 courses from other clusters. at present the nzotlc is being rebranded as the online learning community, and in future it will include only the remaining four e-learning clusters from the north island (i.e., farnet, harbournet, volcanics, and welcom). the data collection for this study occurred during harbournet’s second year of operation. at the time of this study, harbournet was still in a formal relationship with farnet, and the administrative structure still included a combined eprincipal for harbournet and farnet, as well as an assistant eprincipal for each cluster. during that school year, harbournet served 257 students attending 13 member schools. the students were enrolled in 29 courses offered by harbournet/farnet and 32 courses offered by other clusters throughout the school year. the lead researcher visited three of these schools and the offices of the main internet provider for the cluster. results several themes emerged from the data regarding both the challenges and opportunities afforded by harbournet. challenges included themes of technological problems, communication issues between stakeholders, and resistance from stakeholders creating barriers to the growth and development of the cluster. conversely, the leadership saw the opportunities in the cluster as a “game changer,” and their vision and leadership skills helped in the success of the cluster. analysis of the data uncovered themes relating to vision, a focus on students, finding the right people, and a push for collaboration and experimentation. technological and communication issues from a technology standpoint, it was no surprise that everyone needed the technology to work for an e-learning cluster to be successful. numerous exchanges discussed technical problems that occurred in the start-up phase of the cluster, similar to the following exchange that occurred at orange college:3 catherine: the technology of setting up the vc [video conferencing] in three schools. one school only got online last week. they had audio but they didn’t have the video going and that was a real obstacle. and the fact that we had dan, tom, and john from aliant [isp]. dan went around the schools going, “hey, we’ll get this package for you. [we can] make it cheaper for you to get this package.” but for some schools, for the start, they didn’t link [the video] into the bridge. they were one step short . . . and there was an assumption that when you set up the technology that automatically you had the link. but the video bridge wasn’t set up. sarah: first time we started, we didn’t have a link to the bridge. we had to go through aliant and count down for them to get everybody linked up. and then we had two schools that really struggled to get through their own systems . . . actually struggled to get online, but they’re all online now. so that was the biggest headache, but i think it’s [a] huge learning curve, because now we know that some of the schools that are on [telecommunication company x] actually have trouble coming into the other end, coming into the isp [internet service provider]. so that’s something we will think about next time we think about schools coming in. that was the biggest headache and it was a big obstacle. the teachers were new. 3 pseudonyms have been used for the names of schools and individuals throughout the article. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(2) 11 they wanted to get online, they wanted to do the right thing and do what . . . they were supposed to be doing. so that was really frustrating. it’s easy to see how a technology issue can affect student learning and create problems for staff and students. over time, it can erode confidence in virtual learning, and leadership needed to not only make sure problems were addressed in a timely fashion, but ensure that confidence was maintained. the fact that the harbournet leadership contracted with aliant, who were able to “assume full responsibility for the systems and service providers” (aliant corporate brochure), provided a devoted and/or dedicated entity that was responsible for the overall coordination of technology between the schools, the ministry, the isps, and so on. with that said, the participants focused less on technological skill and more on a shared perspective of both needs and constraints, as seen in the following exchange from queens college. jane: . . . having orange college do it and because karen is a strong leader in the principals’ cluster. she was actually able to articulate what had happened at orange, and knowing that they had done it and been there before, and because she was quite passionate about it, even though, technologically she’s just not there. catherine: no, that’s right, you don’t have to be. jane: no, you don’t have to be that, but she knew from the pedagogical basis, for the whole teaching and learning thing. and, of course, you’re doing it as well . . . what happened from there [was] we went over to southgate college and had got valerie, who was in that little thing this morning . . . who is also not very technologically minded at all, but was keen to see how it could be developed in the school. so, we had a principals’ meeting over there with a mock lesson that was running out of orange college with spanish and so we basically sat like an audience watching the lesson so that we could immediately see how this could work. still, someone needed to understand the technological side of virtual learning (which was one of the duties of aliant, in conjunction with the harbournet leadership). additionally, the experience gained from the partnership with the farnet e-learning cluster allowed the schools participating in harbournet to develop and/or adopt materials to support their technology use without the typical trial and error that often occurs (e.g., orange college estudent video conferencing booklet). as stated in the exchange below, the communication between the it department and the enterprise (education, government, or industry) was a key feature for the success of the cluster. dan (aliant): we would just start the whole process around the it and firewall stuff early. we got the green light just before christmas, and of course, worst time of the year. everyone was on holiday and january is typically a write-off in the business world because everyone is on holiday. and typically with the schools they are doing a lot of other it projects over the long break. so i just think it was put down the priority list a bit and things that we asked to get done, simply didn’t get done until we finally put it in and then the teachers were screaming “we can’t use this thing”. then they actually decided it was a priority. so, i think that was the biggest challenge. in hindsight . . . a couple of schools were bang, up and working, but some schools were not. catherine: like everyone’s on the same page, and that’s what was missing. when i was saying to you when we had that presentation, that all the principals saw a lesson in progress, it was a mock-up lesson, they saw the gear, they saw the links . . . it’s simple. it’s quite understandable and once the principals actually found out that . . . it wasn’t just us imposing something else on them, or the ministry. they actually understood. barbour, m. k., siko, j. p. 12 dan: yeah, we didn’t know that the ministry fund[ed] a connection, so they fund asnnet to set up a school. but we didn’t know what those requirements are. if we knew those we could have facilitated that, and once we did know it was easy. but because we fully understand what they’ve got there and how to connect it over, it was easy. so it should never be as hard again. catherine: and [asnet] were playing hardball, i know they were. to begin with . . . dan: but you know, we face the same challenges everywhere we go . . . even in government, in dealing with it, and many departments outsourced their it and we have to deal with them, and firewall people. catherine: and they don’t like people coming in and telling them what their system should look like. dan: and they hate opening ports in their firewalls. unfortunately, the way the world is, if you want to collaborate, you got have make compromises in your security somewhere, if you want to talk to someone else. as mentioned earlier, technological issues can accumulate if not addressed early, and stakeholder confidence can waver. communication was key to making sure things did not get out of hand, or mistakes repeated. towards the end of the same focus group, the participants summarised this theme nicely: catherine: yeah, but it is that communication. the discussion wasn’t had because we didn’t know what we didn’t know . . . dan: a lot of it people are anti this sort of thing because it means more work for them. something else in the network they don’t know about, they hate that. interviewer: they also have a really difficult time giving up control as well. from a leadership standpoint, communication is key to ensuring that the inevitable technology issues are mitigated swiftly, as well as making sure that situations are discussed and reflected on so they are not repeated with future launches. communicating can ensure that growth will proceed with confidence, and it can limit potential resistance from stakeholders, which is the next theme to emerge from the data. resistance from stakeholders another theme that emerged from the data stemmed from discussions about resistance to the cluster. the resistance by some stakeholders was primarily territorial in nature; that is, schools were nervous about the potential loss of staffing or students. in the following exchange from queens college, it appeared to be simply a resistance to the unknown. catherine: bonnie was talking this morning about the students; she found that they were very excited. that actually came very much from the teacher. it was a te reo māori teacher and he was doing level one, two, and three as a combined and he didn’t want to let them go and he was really, really worried. he even had all the parents in. so i say to terri who is the edean there: look, let it go. don’t . . . battle. they’ve had the discussion there. if he’s still worried just . . . don’t worry about it too much. sarah: we had the potential for that to happen at our school, but then donald came, and ever since then trouble that could have happened with the e-teacher . . . jane: all of the resistance we had . . . journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(2) 13 catherine: it’s the unknown . . . the participants were aware that any new initiative would be met with some trepidation from staff, and that this could spread to others, such as parents and students, particularly when there are unknowns. one of the specific strategies that the leadership used to engage the students and stakeholders (and by extension their parents/guardians) was hosting an “elearning day.” figure 1 promotional material from the farnet/harbournet newsletter the introductory letter that was provided to students at the event also focused on the realities of learning at a distance, and what students should expect. this was probably an attempt to get ahead of any concerns the students might have had about the medium (“welcome to farnet/harbournet e-day” letter). marketing realistic expectations to students and parents/guardians was also evident in other promotional material (e.g., “farnet & harbourtnet schools” brochure). however, more of the discussion dealt with specific staffing and enrolment concerns, such as the following exchange from the participants at orange college. sarah: . . . this one school, that i said to karen, just let it go, just let them go because they are dragging their heels. and she said, “well, i’m gonna get that staffing out of them” and she did. they are the ones that were asking when is the planning for next year, just this morning. karen: yeah, you are right . . . i know we wanted more at the beginning. you don’t wanna go beating it. people have either got an act of faith that this is the right thing to do, or they haven’t. and some of the doubters will only be convinced [when] the southgates and the wānanga start talking. and it’s not just me talking all the time. so they pick it up. the participants were aware that there would always be naysayers, and that results would be the only way to change their minds. for example, a report to the board of trustees of orange college focused on the national certificate of educational achievement results for students enrolled in the virtual learning environment (orange college harbournet report for bot, march 2012). barbour, m. k., siko, j. p. 14 an interesting discussion about potential cultural and religious conflicts concerning virtual learning also took place. catherine: the only other issue we had, we couldn’t resolve actually. we had a girls’ islamic school that wished to be involved, because they are very small school, and it would be very useful for them to have access to a wide range of subjects. but it wasn’t our issue; it was their issue . . . there were a lot of conditions . . . like: “would there be male teachers? would there be boys in the classes?” well we had to say, “i’m sorry. if you wish to be in it, this is the way it operates.” we couldn’t set up something without boys, without male teachers, we just couldn’t do it. karen: . . . without online messaging and things like that. the principal is very, very keen because she saw it as a way to sustain her school, which was a very small school. but the board of trustees—that was the stumbling block—was getting through [to] the parents who’d actually sent their girls to a special character school could see the whole thing online. another school . . . had actually provided a teacher for us, but then at the last minute that teacher couldn’t do it because of other commitments in the school for various reasons. and so we were left with 20 or 30 students [and] we had to go and find another teacher when all our nets [i.e., clusters] were full. you know, we really wanted to do the right thing by the students. so catherine headhunted another teacher at another school to actually deliver vc [video conference]. so we’ve also had to do a bit of a quid pro quo to get one teacher delivering to two schools. so that was sort [of] late into the piece too. that has been going on for about four or five weeks. in many of the above exchanges the leaders simply moved on from resistance by either finding a workaround or simply leaving the resistant group out of the process. in another instance, potential resistance was headed off by providing demonstrations of virtual learning working in situ. the following exchange from orange was particularly important because it describes the prime minister observing a successful lesson. karen: and it’s interesting the feedback from our kids. when dan was talking with the prime minister last week, because the prime minister came in and sat in on one of the classes, and andrew [student] said he thought it would be . . . really good because it is teaching him to be independent so when he goes to [university], he’s already used to . . . independence and different approaches and different subjects and taking it in [his] stride. catherine: it’s a good prefix [sic]. you know we had the te reo students and the prime minister said: “what other subjects do you do?” dan says, “i’m doing level three accounting” and steven says, “i am doing level three chemistry” . . . we staged it in a sense so that we had up to level one and level two te reo students having a lesson with their te reo māori teacher up in kāinga. so, 50 people [in the] school from [years] 1 to 13 teaching us with the prime minister sitting in on it. [it could be] two thousand schools. that is what i wanted to get across. clearly, the participants understood that a high-visibility event (such as having the prime minister observe a lesson) would help the cause of promoting virtual learning and getting additional buy-in. to summarise, the primary barriers to the success of harbournet were technology issues and communication between stakeholders about such issues, along with a general resistance to change. in both cases, leaders were able to either learn from each situation or find workarounds. further, the leaders did not spend time trying to convince resistant stakeholders; rather, they looked for buy-in elsewhere and focused on attracting the right people to participate. these factors are detailed in the next section. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(2) 15 buy-in from the community although the exchange described above highlighted attempts to get buy-in from a high-level official (i.e., the prime minister), leaders were also keen to build momentum and capacity at ground level. this desire meant that they started small and built momentum in much the same way (e.g., through demonstration), as was highlighted in the following focus group at southgate college. lisa: we . . . set up a meeting of principals [for] a lesson. we had our spanish teacher here, beaming in to some students at southgate college. i mean it was a mock-up lesson, everyone understood that. but when the principals were actually a part of that lesson then they could actually see our teacher talking to the kids at southgate and in a really good teaching pedagogical sort of way and could think, “oh this is pretty good.” and also the technology. it’s not just young kids who find technology compelling. the old principal, seeing this stuff happening by video conferencing, which they had never seen before, it’s actually quite compelling. so i guess this sweetener was, yes there is a need, we can’t deliver these things in our own school, here’s how it might work, and how it might work was a very effective demonstration. we made sure that the technology was good, and set up really well so they could actually see a model of how it would work. interviewer: okay. lisa: and then those people who were akin [sic] to being part of the future way that things are going, and [they] were pretty easy to persuade actually. catherine: what’s really good is this one school at the northern-most point, raymond college, that was historically losing a lot of students because they can’t provide subjects. they were losing students to wānanga school—for [raymond college] it was a no-brainer to join in. there is another school out west that we are thinking of introducing this to, that is also in the same boat. these principals, it is actually a win–win for them, it really is. lisa: and the other thing [interviewer], is that i believe we are at a bit of a tipping point, really, and a number of not just principals, but teachers in general, are coming to the view that they actually need to get with it. it’s no longer an optional thing to use one-to-one technology or this or that. it’s becoming quite clear that this is what’s happening. and so for [a] number of people, there’s this view: “i actually need to get in on this because otherwise i am not going to be able to do my job properly. if i don’t know how this works, i actually am not going to meet all the requirements for my own job.” and that’s not just teachers. that’s principals. that’s everyone. so i think it’s a combination of a number of things. a different route to getting buy-in was to convey to stakeholders that virtual learning made sense both now (e.g., for financial reasons) and for the future (e.g., the move to virtual learning at some level is inevitable). the fact that orange college had joined the farnet e-learning cluster the year prior to the creation of harbournet also provided evidence of some of the potential benefits. if new zealand schools are unable to offer a face-to-face course, the only distance learning option for students is through te aho o te kura pounamu (i.e., te kura, previously known as the correspondence school). te kura began to experiment with virtual learning approximately 20 years ago, but at the time of this study the vast majority of their offerings were still delivered in a traditional correspondence education model that many students and school personnel reported as being outdated and ineffective. as the following interaction between the harbournet chair (karen), eprincipal (catherine), and assistant eprincipal (sarah) illustrates, one of the goals of harbournet was to provide a model of instruction that addressed these perceived concerns with te kura. sarah: we started the whole process [of getting the e-teachers] in august of last year, by asking them, “ok, what are you likely to want? or to need?” and some of the schools’ barbour, m. k., siko, j. p. 16 responses were: “we just don’t know.” “what are you already having to [provide] through the correspondence school?” that was a starting point and then we went from there. then we got all the needs and . . . we were . . . able to say, “these are the areas that we actually need.” and i got together with keith at the end of last year as well. so [he looked] at what he was able to provide, and i looked at what i was able to provide, then we had this gap on what we needed. so between the two of us we said, “well, keith you do the level two . . . and level one [course], and i’ll handle [the others].” so we very much worked between the two of us. we went back to our classes and said that we need languages and we need geography etc. keith and i have really actually worked closely . . . catherine: when you actually look at the numbers we process, there were 134 enrolled in harbournet. we processed 157 . . . obviously some have dropped out along the way. combined with harbournet i think we have processed 500 students. which is a lot for any school to start off with—even [for] a normal school to start off with. karen: we’ll have to think through how many schools we will include, that we would actually manage. and i think we would need to think through do we need to split into more than one net [i.e., cluster]? or do we have a big net, which we put more staffing into? you know there are a number of possibilities and it may be that of writing a whole lot of individual nets. you may end up as a harbournet/farnet consortium. we might have three or four senior people running it. we’ve got [to] look at [it], because we understand that we are the only urban net, at least big urban net. we need to think through the model that’s going to work best for us. and it may be that expanding and having more staff is better than splitting off. but we’ve got to think that through. catherine: and you’ve got to give a good product. and you don’t want to get too big too quickly because you don’t [want to] lose that credibility of the hands-on approach that we have at the moment. but i think we could expand. maybe minimum next year we could look at 15 schools. another avenue for getting buy-in was the leadership team’s “clout” in the education community. this “clout” was underscored by the partnership between farnet and harbournet. this partnership had a shared leadership structure and allowed those participating in the novice cluster to learn from the experience of those in the veteran cluster. this credibility appears to have developed over time, with leaders building trust with their performance and success in other areas. as the following response indicates, people react differently when an idea comes from someone who has built up credibility. karen: i think also—you know, earlier you were talking about the leadership aspect of it. i think one of the reasons why people have been persuaded to come in, and why we went into farnet in the first place, is that we trust that catherine knows what she’s doing—she’s been doing it for quite some time. it wasn’t just some bright new idea that someone was trying to persuade you to pick up. we picked it up from a proven net . . . i’ve been around forever, so when other principals hear me talk, i’m not just saying some brand-new thing. they know, i guess, in a way, that i would take one thing or promote things that i’ve got enough experience to know to sort out the bright new idea that’s actually not going anywhere, from the bright new idea that could go somewhere. so i think part of it is that you’ve actually got a great deal of experience in the leadership. it’s not just the leadership, it’s a fairly solid, long-term leadership that they trust. i think if i [had] been new to the harbour district, people wouldn’t have known me . . . catherine has done an amazing job of getting them placed, you know, with all the clusters and things. she’s got the clout and she got the credibility so that if she says, “if you take the student, i will guarantee a place in a particular class here.” that credibility is huge. and she’s got that credibility. in this statement, the chair of harbournet (karen) makes it very clear that the harbournet eprincipal (catherine) has developed long-term relationships and has leveraged [her] sustained journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(2) 17 success into moving initiatives forwards, based in part on her credibility as a leader and her experience with the farnet e-learning cluster. finally, although leaders moved away quickly from areas of resistance, they were eager to recruit people who were the right fit for their e-learning cluster. a teacher could be recruited for strategic staffing reasons, as described below by the edean of queens college (jane). jane: because we are a small school and we’ve only got 400 kids from year 10 to year 13, people sort of think, “how are we going to contribute to the staff? how are we going to . . .?” and we are going, “we can make it work because we have actually thought through how we can, which teacher would be best.” because we’ve got someone who could teach year 11, 12 and 13 japanese, which i know is not offered at the moment. and we are saying [that teacher] is a big block that has to go into the timetable first, or it has to fit around here [so] she could . . . be teaching her own class, because there is not a huge number of students [in her class] and at the same time [she could be teaching] the online class. the edean was thinking strategically about efficiency. there was an opportunity for growth (i.e., in japanese courses) and someone who might be capable (i.e., a teacher with experience in teaching several levels of japanese courses). adding virtual students to her bricks-and-mortar classroom wouldn’t create a seismic shift in scheduling or staffing. in other instances, the harbournet leaders found a good virtual teacher who was also an advocate for virtual learning in multiple ways. in the previous exchange, the focus was logistics, while there’s a hint that the teacher could be a good virtual instructor. conversely, the following exchange highlights some of the characteristics of a good virtual learning advocate. lisa: and that’s why daniel is so vital. you’ve gotta get not only the technology, but you’ve gotta get somebody who is leading, who can actually troubleshoot, keep connected to kids. [when] they get grumpy because something doesn’t quite work, [he] keeps them engaged and then comes to sort out problems. he encourages them and keeps things going. catherine: and communicates with me as the teacher. you know he is championing it with full plates. lisa: and also, it’s quite a while before you know it, before you know they’ve slipped, and you know they’re getting out of it, so you ask “how’s your accounting going?” and the kids goes [shrugs her shoulders]. so you say, “what’s going on here? where’s your work?” “well i haven’t quite done it yet.” “when did you last e-work?” “three weeks ago.” and you go, “awww.” catherine: yeah. lisa: [the student says], “it’s going well.” in short, apart from being a champion for virtual learning, the principals are looking for teachers who are flexible and can adapt to uncertain or ambiguous situations. later in the same focus group, these individuals discussed another teacher whom they felt was a virtual learning champion. lisa: yes, i know boyd, yes. catherine: from over at tāone, and he is extremely keen to find ways of supporting his senior students. and we actually can be doing it just through skype in the meantime, because it starts a day behind. yeah, so i wanted to talk to you more about that too. barbour, m. k., siko, j. p. 18 lisa: i have had some contact with kāenga and there is a group down there . . . he’s actually been using the facility [but] to model the teacher more than [using it for] the students. catherine: okay. lisa: all of those things will be a shot in the arm for the pasifika languages . . . to get to that level of participation. you know he is a very good teacher. he’s got top scholarship in some language . . . in both of these exchanges, the participants highlighted another characteristic of the teachers they wanted recruit. the teachers must go above and beyond their usual commitments to support their students, reaching out when they sense a problem, and keeping communication lines open. lastly, although some recruitments were not successful for logistical reasons, the recruit continued to be on the radar, as shown in this exchange between the edean at north end high school (tina) and the harbournet eprincipal (catherine). tina: the samoan, the tongan, the cook islands, all those things, if we can get that as a service, where we are offering it as well as receiving, [then we’ve] got a partnership. catherine: yeah . . . and you see renate has actually given us a fantastic teacher, but i haven’t been able to [use them] because . . . you know that school—wharekura college that i mentioned—they were gonna deliver to te papa rangi for the year 7 students, but . . . they haven’t really pulled it out. it was a bit of a funding thing. the leaders understood that quality virtual teachers were hard to find, and they must constantly work to recruit, even if those gains were not immediately realised. to summarise, a key theme of the data was how stakeholders garnered support and momentum for this initiative. the leaders were quick to move on from distractions, got the right people in the right spots, and used small-scale demonstrations to attract interest. the leaders used their connections and credibility to assist these efforts, and made sure that lines of communication remained open. finally, it was clear that these leaders truly believed in promoting virtual learning and were willing to work hard to maintain the momentum already developed. discussion our analysis of the interviews and artefacts from an urban e-learning cluster revealed themes of technology and communication issues, stakeholder resistance, and buy-in. in this section, we compare these results with previous research into e-learning clusters. as mentioned earlier, much of the previous research focused on rural clusters (barbour, 2011; barbour & wenmoth, 2013; pratt, 2018), allowing comparisons between the two environments. barbour et al. (2016) listed several barriers to maturity in the rural e-learning clusters: a lack of vision, resource uncertainty, and the need for cross-collaboration among clusters. harbournet’s leadership appeared to be addressing each of these in some way. with respect to vision, the leaders discussed how they recognised that the timing was right, from the standpoints of both need and technology, to grow the cluster (alexander-bennett, 2016). barbour (2011) noted that a well-articulated vision was important for getting support from participating schools, and that urban schools seemed to have trouble with this aspect. put differently, barbour et al. (2016) found that weak visions often focused on simply increasing distance education opportunities. further, they found that the visions of older, more established rural clusters were not particularly strategic; instead, they relied on the drive and passion of the leadership. powell and barbour (2011) discussed how new zealand was poised to be at the forefront of digital technologies in education. harbournet appears to mirror these traits: they have a passionate leadership, and their journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(2) 19 recognition of opportunities to leverage distance education as transformative for all students goes above and beyond (while still addressing) the need to provide more opportunities. the leaders were also proactive in addressing resource uncertainty in several ways (powell & barbour, 2011; stevens, 2005). first, while understanding that technology issues were inevitable, they seemed intent on learning from previous mistakes in order to not repeat them in the future, and to stave off new factions of stakeholder resistance. next, from a personnel standpoint, the leaders demonstrated a strategic mindset with respect to recruitment and managing teacher logistics. they actively sought eager participants and skirted resistance whenever possible. in addition, they aimed to increase visibility, as demonstrated with the site visit from the prime minister. this mindset also incorporated the third barrier mentioned by barbour et al. (2016), the need for collaboration across the clusters. collaboration was seen in the recruitment strategies (i.e., to limit disruptions), and in reaching out to specific areas for teaching languages. these actions provided a sense of purpose for the cluster. (earlier, barbour (2011) had suggested lack of purpose was a reason for urban clusters’ lack of development.) barbour noted that urban clusters often focused on students being competitive, which would obviously hamper collaborative efforts. further, because of the number of students, leaders in urban clusters often felt they could meet the needs of their constituents without assistance. those in rural clusters, on the other hand, recognised the need for collaboration due to their size. in this sense, the actions of leadership at harbournet were more similar to those in rural clusters than in urban clusters. conclusions and implications at the time of this study, several members of the super loops were interested in or had been exploring virtual learning to some degree (e.g., the nelson loop and the wellington loop). neither of these clusters had become active in the 3–5 years of their existence. yet, in less than one year, the harbournet e-learning cluster had become quite active, with almost a dozen participating schools. understanding the factors that led to this success could have a positive impact on many of the urban e-learning clusters in new zealand. this study examined the challenges faced by harbournet as an urban e-learning cluster, and how they were able to overcome those challenges. the primary challenges faced by harbournet were technology issues and communication between stakeholders. to address these challenges, the leadership attempted to ensure that the inevitable technology issues were mitigated swiftly and that the solutions were communicated promptly and in an informative fashion. these challenges were also discussed among the elearning cluster’s leadership and member schools, as they reflected on the situations to ensure that mistakes were not repeated. interestingly, the leadership made a conscious decision to not spend time trying to convince resistant stakeholders, but instead looked for buy-in elsewhere and focused on attracting the right people. consistent and effective communication, and small-scale demonstrations, were important in promoting virtual learning and maintaining the initial momentum. this study was the first systematic exploration of an urban-focused e-learning cluster in new zealand. additionally, the data was collected fairly early in the development of the cluster. a replication of this study is recommended to provide an update on the successes and/or challenges faced by harbournet since this initial study, and how they overcame those challenges (assuming they have). since the data was collected for this study, harbournet and farnet have separated into two e-learning clusters, and the original joint eprincipal has retired. future research examining how the separation in administrative structure and leadership has affected the harbourtnet cluster is also recommended. finally, because harbournet is still the only successful urban-focused learning cluster, it would be interesting to identify schools in other urban areas that have joined one of the other e-learning clusters (i.e., those urban schools, such as barbour, m. k., siko, j. p. 20 wellington high school, that expressed an interest in virtual learning, but had no cluster in that region, or have been involved in the dunedinnet e-learning cluster or the super loops) to determine what the barriers to virtual learning have been for them, and explore why they have been unable to overcome those barriers. references alexander-bennett, c. 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(2010). building a national ict infrastructure for learning. in v. ham & d. wenmoth (eds.), e-learnings: implementing a national strategy for ict in education, 1998– 2010 (pp. 32–44). christchurch, new zealand: core education. biographical notes michael barbour mkbarbour@gmail.com michael k. barbour is associate professor of instructional design for the college of education and health sciences at touro university california. he has been involved with k–12 distance, online, and blended learning for almost two decades as a researcher, evaluator, teacher, course designer and administrator. michael’s research has focused on the effective design, delivery, and support of k–12 distance, online, and blended learning, particularly for students located in rural jurisdictions. this focus includes how regulation, governance and policy can impact effective distance, online, and blended learning environments. this has resulted in invitations to testify before house and senate committees in several states, as well as consulting for ministries of education across canada and in new zealand. jason siko sikojp@gmail.com dr. jason siko is an instructional technology consultant for wayne resa, a regional educational service agency that provides consulting and infrastructure services to school districts in southeastern michigan, including the city of detroit. jason’s work focuses on k–12 online student readiness and advising schools on the development of online programmes, as well as general consulting on technology integration, pedagogy, and open educational resources (oer). he has held administrative and academic appointments at the tertiary level and has been a secondary biology and chemistry teacher for 13 years. https://vln.school.nz/groupcms/view/40043/about-the-virtual-learning-network-community http://blog.core-ed.org/blog/2011/03/blended-way-forward-earthquake-christchurch-schools.html http://blog.core-ed.org/blog/2011/03/blended-way-forward-earthquake-christchurch-schools.html mailto:mkbarbour@gmail.com mailto:sikojp@gmail.com barbour, m. k., siko, j. p. 24 this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. barbour, m., k., & siko, j. p. (2019). size only matters if you have vision: an exploration of an urban e-learning cluster. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(2), [5–24.]. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ microsoft word shahbazi format.docx shahbazi, s., salinitri, g. 62 supporting english language development of english language learners in virtual kindergarten: a parents’ perspective sara shahbazi, university of windsor geri salinitri, university of windsor abstract the researchers of this case study explored english language learner (ell) parents’ experience as they supported their children’s english language development in an online (virtual) kindergarten programme. one-on-one semi-structured interviews were used to collect data. then the researchers used thematic analysis to describe the participants’ lived experience with the phenomenon. findings indicated that online learning increased the emotional stressors for parents of ell children, and altered the communication between parents and teachers. meanwhile, the use of breakout rooms reinforced the children’s language development, and translation services supported parents. based on the findings, the researchers recommend that schools and boards provide the parents and families of multilingual learners with ongoing workshops to give them the tools and confidence to continue supporting their children in person and online. they also recommend a greater investment in translation services. keywords: virtual kindergarten; online learning; esl; english language learner introduction the onset of covid-19 transformed educational practices and the learning environment nationally and globally, shifting the paradigm from a face-to-face, hands-on model to an online and hybrid mix. in ontario, canada, virtual learning began in march 2020, forcing students, families, and teachers to embark on a learning experience of reshaping the environment and instructional approaches in education. the unexpected turn in education exposed inequities of resources and support and a wave of obstacles—particularly for parents whose first language is not english—and their english language learner (ells) (or multilingual) children (santiago et al., 2021). families of ells, specifically those with children in kindergarten, had to not only navigate an alternative platform and style of learning but, more importantly, support the development of english academic and social language from home. according to the ontario ministry of education’s (2007) document, supporting english language learners in kindergarten, english language learners are identified as being learners in a provincially funded school with a first language other than english. english language learners may arrive from another country voluntarily or as a consequence of crisis, or may be canadian born. in 2013, over 25% of students attending a provincially funded school in ontario were identified as english language learners (ontario ministry of education, 2016b). journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 63 for many families of ells, kindergarten is a child’s first experience of being immersed in a canadian school and an english programme. the kindergarten program is designed and facilitated through a child-centered lens, emphasising the value of nurturing a safe and developmentally appropriate learning experience through an inquiryand play-based programme. the programme’s approach is essential in developing the child’s intellectual, social, emotional, and physical skills (ontario ministry of education, 2016a). the educators (teacher and early childhood educator) in the kindergarten program facilitate the development of such skills and language by co-constructing and providing opportunities that intentionally and purposefully stimulate children’s curiosities, interests, and thinking through meaningful communication and materials (ontario ministry of education, 2016a). the ontario ministry of education (2016b) recognises the need for additional support for ell children as they transition to kindergarten. because english is not the predominant language used in the homes of english language learners, the educators are responsible for considering the instruction necessary for their playand inquiry-based learning environments so they can maximise english language acquisition. however, the recent implementation of virtual learning has disrupted educators’ support systems, and how they observe, plan, and structure the environment to extend the ells’ familiarity with, use of, and confidence with the english language. although the kindergarten program (ontario ministry of education, 2016a) acknowledges the parent as the child’s first teacher (bringing social, cultural, and linguistic perspectives), it also recognises that a child’s learning and development are supported by relationships among the teacher, family, child, and learning environment. collaboration within these relationships is essential to understanding and supporting the complexity of a child’s early experience with language and school. however, the collective approach is complicated by many factors that emerged from the restrictions and precautions caused by covid-19, leaving parents of ell children at the forefront of the child’s language journey. literature review covid-19 resulted in mass school closures, affecting 1.6 billion children worldwide (united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization, 2020). the timing and protocols for school closures varied among countries, states, and provinces and, for many families, resulted in virtual learning. research suggests that virtual learning put children’s social, emotional, physical, and academic skills at risk—particularly those who are in immigrant families or marginalised groups, or are living in low socio-economic households (adibelli & sümen, 2020; chaturvedi et al., 2021; sugarman & lazarín, 2020). introducing virtual learning when they are already coping with covid-related hardships (including financial instability, unemployment, food insecurities, and housing issues) disproportionately affects students with lower socio-economic backgrounds, racialised children and youth, newcomers, and students with disabilities (gallagher-mackay et al., 2021). studies have found that inequity between families is related to availability and access to technology and the internet, digital literacy skills, and english proficiency (andrew et al., 2020; dreeseni et al., 2020; timmons et al., 2021). evidence suggests the greatest impact is on vulnerable populations. in the context of the early years, virtual learning has adverse effects on preschoolers’ language and literacy development (pascal et al., 2020; timmons, et al., 2021). early childhood is a significant time for growth and for children to engage in cognitive, emotional, social, and physical development (anderson et al., 2003). critical moments of learning occur during meaningful play and within the context of relationships among the educators, environment, and family (ontario ministry of education, 2016a; pianta et al., 2002). research indicates that virtual learning disrupted play as the central learning block, making it challenging for educators to shahbazi, s., salinitri, g. 64 construct authentic and developmentally appropriate opportunities for learning and engagement (ford et al., 2021). for english language learners, social opportunities—such as those experienced in play—promote language acquisition (cummins, 2007). when there is no opportunity to be organically immersed in the english language, and the learner is confined to home in a remote learning environment, the usual methods and strategies used in the school environment to encourage comprehensible input (such as materials, and verbal and non-verbal cues) are limited or even removed (sayer & braun, 2020). virtual learning also affected the roles and responsibilities of families in the learning network, placing greater reliance on families to provide direct learning support without formal training (timmons et al., 2021. as partners in education, and a child’s first teachers, families set the foundational skills for early communicative and receptive language development (crew, 2020). however, research suggests that minority and multilingual families find there are barriers to accessing services and support systems for early literacy support (utting, 2007). pote et al. (2019), noted that such barriers are often a result of the family’s unknown need for support or point of contact, support accessibility (time, cost, location), and fear of stigma. a child’s english language development and comprehensible input are also affected by their parents’ proficiency. parents with limited english language proficiency may have trouble understanding and interpreting teacher and school communication, assignments, and activities (blagg et al., 2020). other studies have indicated that parents with limited english language proficiency may not always perceive themselves to be contributing to their child’s english language development, resulting in non-involvement as their best solution (dixon & wu, 2014). however, if a parent prioritises education they are likely to be more involved, and are more likely to engage, interact, and expose their child to literacy activities and reading at home (ontario ministry of education, 2007; reyes & azuara, 2008). research question the researchers aimed to explore parents’ experience of supporting the english language development of their ell child in an online (virtual) kindergarten programme. discussion on the research question focused on the recall and reflection of a typical school day. methodology the researchers conducted a qualitative intrinsic case study. this was used to develop an understanding of the phenomenon experienced by the participants. intrinsic case studies are undertaken by researchers with a particular and/or personal interest in exploring a case (stake, 1995). therefore, the purpose of an intrinsic case study is not to draw theoretical conclusions, but to develop an understanding of the topic. as a former esl literacy coach and current kindergarten teacher, the researcher was interested in learning and sharing the experience of the parents of ell students in the virtual kindergarten program. methods the methods used in the research aligned with the qualitative procedures used in an intrinsic case study (stake, 1995). site the study took place in a publicly funded virtual school in the southwestern ontario region. the virtual school was created in 2020 in response to the effects of covid-19 and, at the time of the study, had been running as an online k–8 school for a year. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 65 recruitment the participants were recruited through a letter posted on the virtual school’s online platform. the recruitment letter was translated into punjabi, hindi, arabic, and chinese. to participate in the study, participants had to be a parent of an ell enrolled in virtual kindergarten from september 2020 to june 2021, have a first language other than english, and have emerging oral and literacy skills in english. those interested in participating were encouraged to contact the researcher through translation services (contact information was provided on the form). participants seven parents showed interest in participating in the study; however, only two participants met the inclusion criteria and were recruited. gurpreet (pseudonym) is a mother of three (all under the age of 5). she completed 2 years of post-secondary education in india in the bachelor of arts program. in january 2017, gurpreet immigrated to canada by spousal sponsorship. gurpreet is a stay-at-home mother and has not been enrolled in english classes since her arrival in canada. gurpreet and her family speak punjabi at home. yousef (pseudonym) is a father of five (all under the age of 12). he completed grade 8 in syria. yousef started his family in syria, then moved to lebanon to escape the war. he later immigrated to canada on refugee status in january 2017. due to the pandemic, yousef is no longer working and is currently a stay-at-home dad. since his arrival, yousef has not enrolled in english classes. yousef and his family speak arabic at home. data collection in june and july 2021, data were collected by phone with semi-structured interviews and the assistance of punjabi and arabic-speaking translators. the translators translated the questions and anything stated by the participant or researcher. both translators signed a confidentiality/non-disclosure agreement. the three-way calls lasted 45–60 minutes. at the end of each interview, the participant was compensated for their time with a $25 walmart e-gift card from the researchers. data analysis the participants’ experiences were explored and analysed according to the nature of an intrinsic case study. first, their stories were transcribed and reviewed individually, and then all of the cases were analysed to uncover common themes. results the following themes describe the phenomenon experienced by the participants. unconditional support at an emotional cost despite the differences in educational background, the parents emphasised the importance of education and recognised the need to support their child’s language development during online learning. gurpreet and yousef discussed how they sat with their child during the day, supporting them and translating as best as they could. because their children were in kindergarten, they felt more comfortable supporting literacy and numeracy. shahbazi, s., salinitri, g. 66 gurpreet explained: because the class is kindergarten, i mostly understand the messaging during the online learning because it is basic english. but if he was older, it would be so hard for me to support my child. i would definitely need support from the interpreters. yousef shared similar feelings: it was much easier to help my younger child than my older children because the english is different, i can understand it a bit more. the parents’ emerging level of english language proficiency enabled them to provide language support during their child’s early years. although they felt comfortable translating the lessons and instructions for their children most of the time, the online experience took an emotional toll on the parents. yousef explained: because i have limited english, sometimes i feel like my child is having to learn on their own, even though i am right there next to them. it was very hard for me. gurpreet also felt helpless: it makes me absolutely sad that i cannot understand fully the english language and that i needed translation and interpretation. it made me stressed to know that i couldn’t always understand. yousef also added that he was uncomfortable and unfamiliar with using the school’s communication platform because he had not been taught how to use it. as a result, he once again relied on his older children to check the online platform regularly for daily communication. while providing language support and translation, gurpreet and yousef commented on the constant need to redirect their child’s attention during whole group instruction, and the additional pressure this put on them. gurpreet shared: the struggle is keeping my child’s focus and attention for the entire school day. it is a lot of work for me to monitor him and make sure he is sitting and focused and having to make sure i understand, and he understands. yousef shared his distress: it was difficult because my wife or i always had to sit with our child. i am always with him and helping as much as i could. overall, it was just very overwhelming and hard. although it can be tiresome, the parents’ ongoing support to redirect their child’s focus has been found to be necessary in motivating and sustaining online engagement in young learners (ontario ministry of education, 2007). parent–teacher communication during the interviews, the parents shared their feelings about initiating and participating in conversations with their child’s educators. although they enjoyed their children’s educators, the parents felt stressed when communicating with them online. gurpreet and yousef attributed this discomfort to the openness of the online platform and their level of language proficiency. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 67 gurpreet shared her concern: right now, if i need to talk to the teacher, i am so sad because of the communication barrier and i am not able to communicate. because of that, i cannot ask the teacher about how my child is doing and how he is progressing, and these are all questions i would like to ask and know about. yousef expressed similar feelings: it’s difficult to communicate with the teacher online because i don’t know english well. sometimes i have to rely on my older children, but i feel bad asking my children all the time. however, yousef noted that prior to online learning he felt confident and at ease communicating with his child’s teacher: in person, it was a different feeling. i was comfortable trying to communicate with the teacher when i would pick up my child in person. it was harder to communicate with the teacher online and i would have my child speak and ask the question. the shift to online learning removed the casual social interaction between parents and educators, leaving many parents of language learners observing a new form of anxiety and insecurity with communication (chen, 2021). importance of small-group instruction on language development at the beginning of the interviews, the parents shared that english was not commonly heard or used in the household. they noted that apart from a few television shows that the children watched, and the voices of their educators, the children were immersed in their native tongue. the limited exposure to the english language worried the parents. gurpreet explained: when he is in school, he learns so much more in that environment than in the home. despite the concerns voiced by gurpreet and yousef, they were relieved and observed an increase in their child’s use of the english language when the educators provided small-group instruction in the breakout rooms. gurpreet explained: a benefit of virtual school was the breakout groups. it gave time for the teacher to work more closely with my child on areas i didn’t always understand or had difficulty translating. i noticed that my child learned a lot from the small group. yousef’s experience coincided: when my child had someone who can work with them one on one, it was great for their language and to support their learning. gurpreet and yousef’s trust in small-group instruction corresponds with current research that attributes breakout rooms to empowering student learning, increasing collaboration, peer support, and english language acquisition (chandler, 2016; cheung, 2021). shahbazi, s., salinitri, g. 68 the use and need for translation support while supporting their children with online learning, gurpreet and yousef juggled the roles of parent, teacher, and translator. despite their multiple responsibilities, they were motivated to seek available translation support when the language used in the virtual school was high priority and beyond their level of proficiency. gurpreet explained: i am comfortable to contact the translator when i really need it but there are not enough punjabi interpreters. i wish we had more translation support because we need more interpreters to provide interpretation for families. yousef’s feelings echoed gurpreet’s feelings of confidence in the translator: so if the teacher wanted to talk to me or sent me something that was important, i felt comfortable calling the translators to help me and explain things to me or join me on the phone to speak with the teacher. the motivation these parents shared was heavily influenced by their level of comfort with the translators. currently, schools in ontario use settlement workers in schools (swis) to provide translation support for families. however, the number of translators and languages available to families is limited and depends on the availability of workers and the school board’s demographics. although the school board associated in this study has a high demographic of punjabiand urdu-speaking families, there is only one translator available. discussion and recommendations this single case study explored multilingual parents’ experience of supporting the english language development of their ell child in virtual learning during covid-19 school closures. guba and lincoln (1989) argue that the findings from a single case can be re-contextualised for similar contexts. the following section discusses the findings as they relate to the literature, and recommendations for practice. research shows that multilingual families who are supporting their children with online learning feel overwhelmed due to the variance between home and instructional language (cioè-peña, 2021). for the parents in this study, the content did not exceed their knowledge base; however, the directions and instructions did. despite the obstacles they experienced, the participants shared their untiring devotion to support their children. however, research has noted that even when the content is appropriate, and there is an intention to support, parents lack the formal and developmentally appropriate training of educators, creating additional learning obstacles for children (ford et al., 2021; timmons et al., 2021). the participants’ feelings of being uninformed and unprepared are not uncommon. parents interviewed and surveyed during the pandemic often spoke about feeling left in the dark when navigating platforms and online learning tools (daniela et al., 2021; guruge et al., 2021). for new immigrants the digital divide further marginalised families (lukawiecki et al., 2022). to support the autonomy of parents of language learners, it is important that school boards invest in offering opportunities to develop digital literacy skills and free technological support in languages that meet the needs of the demographic (sugarman & lazarín, 2020). furthermore, the stress expressed by the participants extended the inequity factors (such as digital literacy, access to technology, and levels of proficiency), to include stressors relating to the changing roles and responsibilities of parents in a new country (andrew et al., 2020; dreeseni et al., 2020; timmons et al., 2021). as the participants shared their burdens, it became journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 69 apparent that the virtual learning experience was harming their self-worth and confidence, and creating the potential for burnout. current research highlights the mental health risks experienced by immigrant families when supporting their children with virtual schooling, while also noting the fear of stigma (guruge et al., 2021; pote et al., 2019). providing access to support groups and communities (virtual and in person) that reflect the families culturally and linguistically, could help to establish critical strategies that support their mental health and wellbeing, and their goals as parents (rojas et al., 2022). extending such services cross-culturally could also facilitate connections, build community, and create additional support networks. a critical component in relieving the stress of virtual learning was the support and assistance received by the translators. it was clear that the translators were perceived as more than just providing a service—they were trusted, respected, knowledgeable, and depended on in times of need or uncertainty. settlement workers are integral members of the school community. allen et al. (2021) define the dynamic role of swis workers as: . . . cultural supporters, interpreters, translators, informal educators, english-language instructors, resource and community connectors and brokers, supportive counsellors, sociocultural communicators, advocates and allies, community organizers, fundraisers, and more (p. 57). settlement workers are essential members of school communities, but are stretched thin (allen et al., 2021). therefore, for school boards to continue to provide accessible and timely support and avoid settlement worker burnout, a balance of workers to families must be considered (negi et al., 2019). also, because the role of swis is often overlooked by staff, it is vital that boards and faculties of education educate current and future educators about the wealth of information and services available. personalised support was necessary not only for the parents of the multilingual children, but also for the children themselves. the parents in this study recognised the language benefits experienced by their children when they received small-group instruction. the parents’ observations coincided with other findings, suggesting that breakout groups empower student learning and increase collaboration and english language acquisition (chandler, 2016; cheung, 2021). the lack of differentiation affects not only learning but also engagement among children (timmons et al., 2021). to support children virtually, particularly when working with language learners, educators are encouraged to collaborate, share their experience, and use each other as resource providers. additionally, because kindergarten teachers do not receive coaching support, school boards should consider investing in educator training so that teachers can meet the needs of young multilingual learners remotely and face to face. the kindergarten program (2016) recognises families as valued partners in the child’s learning journey. the participants in the study felt challenged, uncomfortable, and sad when communicating with their child’s educator online. families with limited proficiency, who once felt confident communicating with educators, now experienced anxiety and insecurity using virtual platforms (chen, 2021). the effects of virtual learning coincide with longstanding barriers to teacher–parent communication, such as lack of translation services, impersonal forms of communication (email, messages), and limited cultural and personal trust and understanding among families (national academies of sciences, engineering, and medicine, 2017). to help teachers increase their confidence when communicating with multilingual families, school boards and education faculty programmes should provide current and pre-service educators with culturally responsive training, resources, and strategies. moreover, communication and partnerships can continue to grow when parents’ voices are welcomed, validated, and reflected within the school, and are involved in necessary decision-making processes with official translation support (sugarman & lazarín, 2020). shahbazi, s., salinitri, g. 70 limitations the purpose of this study was to explore parents’ experience with supporting the english language development of their ell child in an online (virtual) kindergarten programme. in conducting the research, the researchers experienced several limitations relating to recruitment and sample size. the school board’s research ethics protocol limited the methods used to recruit participants. because recruitment was virtual (by means of the school’s online platform), the researchers could appeal only to families who visited the website. therefore, the recruitment method limited the potential for families who did not access the site regularly, making it difficult to reach others who met the criteria and intention of the study. secondly, the researchers had a limited number of participants. only two of the seven families who were interested in participating in the study met the research criteria. the recruitment process may have affected the participant sample size. the number of participants also affected the generalisability of the results. however, the case-study method emphasises building an understanding of the phenomenon explored using a single-to-small sample size (stake, 1995). conclusion the emergence of covid-19 sparked the use of a new educational platform for learners and parents to navigate and adapt to. the transition to online learning has put parents of english language learners at the centre of their child’s language journey. for the participants in the study, supporting the language development of their child created additional stressors caused by the differences in language between home and online instruction, taking on the role of translator and teacher, lack of familiarity with the online learning tools, and the constant need to support their child’s focus during whole-group instruction. moreover, the online learning environment removed the natural opportunities for parents and teachers to communicate, so parents who had emerging english language proficiency felt less comfortable reaching out. despite the challenges of supporting their children’s language development, the parents continued to find success in the language opportunities provided by small-group instruction (breakout rooms) and continued to persevere beyond the language barriers by initiating support from translators (allen et al., 2021). although the virtual school has become an option for most boards, it is critical that research surrounding online learning with multilingual families and learners continues. based on the findings, it is recommended that schools emphasise providing multilingual learner parents and families with ongoing workshops on the current and relevant practices, platforms, resources, and expectations in the school, and technological support in their native language. such workshops would provide families with the tools and confidence to continue to support their children in person and online. consideration should also be given to families’ mental health and wellbeing by providing information to support groups and community groups (virtual and online) that meet the cultural and language needs of families and encourage cross-cultural connections and networks. additionally, the experience and opinions of multilingual parents should be welcomed, considered, and represented in large-scale decision-making. to ensure clarity in communication, and responsive support between families and educators, greater investment in translation services for families is necessary, as well as extending educators’ understanding of services. an investment in translation services will not only make support more accessible for multilingual families but will also help to avoid translator burnout (allen et al., 2021). lastly, differentiated instruction is difficult to attain in the virtual school, especially in kindergarten, where teachers do not receive coaching support. therefore, it is essential to invest journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 71 in educator training and resources, and to encourage educator collaboration so that the language and academic needs of multilingual learners are met virtually and face to face. to continue a proactive approach, pre-service teacher candidates would benefit from receiving training and resources on instructional approaches, and school and community support and services to better meet the needs of their future students. as a result, developing a deeper understanding of the current structure of the virtual school as well as parent and guardian perspectives is necessary to support multilingual families and children so that young english language learners may continue to develop as competent and expressive twenty-first century learners. references adibelli, d., & sümen, a. 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(2020). the disparate impact of covid‐19 remote learning on english learners in the united states. tesol journal, 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1002/tesj.546 stake, r. e. (1995). the art of case study research. sage. sugarman, j., & lazarín, m. (2020). educating english learners during the covid-19 pandemic: policy ideas for states and school districts. policy brief. migration policy institute. timmons, k., cooper, a., bozek, e., & braund, h. (2021). the impacts of covid-19 on early childhood education: capturing the unique challenges associated with remote teaching and learning in k–2. early childhood education journal, 49(5), 887–901. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10643-021-01207-z united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization. (2020). covid-19: educational disruption and response. unesco. https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/covid19-educational-disruption-and-response utting, d. (2007). parenting and the different ways it can affect children’s lives: research evidence. joseph rowntree foundation, 1–16. shahbazi, s., salinitri, g. 74 biographical notes sara shahbazi sara.shahbazi@uwindsor.ca dr. sara shahbazi is an instructor in the university of windsor’s faculty of education. she is a former kindergarten teacher and current administrative leader at the elementary level. her research scope includes early years (kindergarten) and multilingual learners in the elementary and secondary system. geri salinitri sgeri@uwindsor.ca dr. geri salinitri is a professor emeritus at the university of windsor. she was the former associate dean of the faculty of education and has a 40-year career as an educator, with 22 years as a teacher educator. her research interests include mentoring, in-risk youth, ntip, and ell. she is the editor of the handbook of research on leadership experience for academic direction: program for student success, published by igi knowledge networks. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. shahbazi, s., & salinitri, g. (2022). supporting english language development of english language learners in virtual kindergarten: a parents’ perspective. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2), [62–74.]. microsoft word brown.docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(2) 55 learning management system adoption by academics: a perspective following the forced lockdown of nz universities due to covid-19 in 2020 stephen brown, auckland university of technology lyn murphy, auckland university of technology kay hammond, auckland university of technology abstract an academic’s adoption of online learning during the 2020 lockdown required new levels of engagement with the learning management system (lms). in this position piece, we suggest that academics are pivotal to online course development, and they should determine alternative means of instruction and assessment during any transition to online learning. we present two models of an academic’s interactions with the lms and propose that the academic’s engagement with the lms, and their willingness to be in partnership with experts in e-learning, should remain central to their university’s strategic development. the 2020 lockdown presented both challenges and opportunities to academics regarding their engagement with the lms and online teaching—we suggest that the role of the academic is critical for successful implementation of the post-pandemic online ambitions of new zealand universities. keywords: academic engagement; professional development; partnership introduction an unprecedented situation arose in march 2020 when the covid-19 pandemic forced a rapid transition to online learning at all new zealand universities (wilson, 2020). institutions that had a strong tradition of distance learning were perhaps better suited to this transition, in part due to staff experience and the institutional support already in place. however, staff at institutions that predominantly delivered courses face to face on a physical campus (as in the case of the authors of this article), were suddenly required to reflect on their current practices, and potentially to refocus their efforts on the online teaching and learning platform. we use the term “academic” to refer to anyone who has a responsibility for content and/or delivery of a course; for example, lecturers, teaching assistants, tutors, or other teaching staff at the tertiary level. morreale et al. (2021, p. 117) recognised “the distinct difference between intentionally designed and structured online courses, typically referred to as ‘online pedagogy’, as compared with ‘crisis pedagogy’, the mandated remote learning transition recently witnessed”. an academic’s engagement with the platform (usually in the form of a learning management system (a learning management system such as moodle, blackboard, or canvas), and their ability to adapt to teaching while dislocated from their usual environment, requires some reflection. the learning management system (lms) has become an integral part of higher education and, over the last two decades, universities have adopted digital lms platforms to deliver online education (dobre, 2015; walker et al., 2016). the ubiquity of the lms has facilitated distance, brown, s., murphy, l., hammond, k. 56 face-to-face, and blended teaching and learning processes, and online strategies are now included in most universities’ strategic plans. universities have invested heavily in developing online education, and position the lms at the heart of this investment. the lms offers an information technology resource to support online education, thus providing a return on the university’s investment. the lms has become a critical interface between academic and learner, expanding delivery options for content, knowledge assessment, practical exercises, and user collaboration. these attributes make the lms an essential asset for any university (watson & watson, 2007). however, the constant push by higher education providers to flourish in the competitive online environment requires a commitment by academics to embrace the lms model (beckford & mugisa, 2014). this commitment to a standardised lms, and a narrative that describes the academic’s adoption and acceptance of the lms during the rapid growth of online learning in all universities, remains largely unexplored (gous & roberts, 2015). furthermore, the compulsion and expectation that academics would teach online during the covid-19 pandemic provided a powerful impetus for them to fully engage with their university’s lms. we acknowledge that course delivery using only the institution’s lms can be limiting but we have experienced institutional resistance when attempting to use diverse platforms (e.g., zoom, youtube, facebook) for course delivery. in our experience, sound academic practice that can deliver meaningful student experience—but relies on tools which are not supported by an institution’s preference for an lms—is not encouraged, whereas conforming to a standardised delivery using the adopted lms is both supported and preferred. a formal institutionalised system for online courses can potentially stifle academic creativity, but the practicalities of using multiple platforms and software programs can also lead to problems (e.g., student access and inequality). furthermore, using multiple platforms is also problematic when staff are team teaching on courses with large cohorts, because they need to be familiar with all platforms, and students must have access to all platforms. all new zealand universities defaulted to online teaching in the 2020 lockdown. when each university decided to develop and teach online courses, some aspects of quality remained directly under the academic’s control. for example, the academic was responsible for online course content and how it was delivered in terms of structure, rigour, staff–student interaction, student– student interaction, and mentoring. academics have always made these decisions for on-campus education (andrade et al., 2020; sebastianelli et al., 2015), and it has been suggested that online education simply represents another type of classroom (fredericksen, 2017). we suggest that this decision-making power should remain with the academic during the transition to teaching fully online courses during the lockdown. academics are uniquely positioned in the nexus of content expertise and the dynamic, progressive interaction between professional knowledge and digital teaching technologies. however, recent trends to standardise courses (e.g., to facilitate crosscrediting courses between institutions) can undermine the autonomy of an academic. we suggest that academics are central to course development, and further suggest that they should determine alternative means of instruction and assessment. therefore, an academic’s engagement with the lms, and their willingness to be in partnership with experts in e-learning, is pivotal to their university’s strategic development. this was highlighted in the lockdown of 2020. academic staff adoption of the lms adoption of the lms by a university requires the academic to be the main “actor on the stage” (alshammari et al., 2016; uziak et al., 2018), and the lockdown in march 2020 forced academics to reconsider their use of the lms. simply using the lms as a repository for course documents and as an administrative tool to organise student grades, was particularly inadequate during the pandemic. academics were expected to provide live online learning opportunities, create interactive materials that could be accessed asynchronously by a dispersed student population, and promote student engagement. the academic’s motivation, attitude, experience, and journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(2) 57 innovation were likely to determine the rapid and successful transition required to fully convert university courses to an online format. before lockdown, lmss in higher education were under-used (adzharuddin, 2013; walker et al., 2018; wichadee, 2015). many academics didn’t know how to use the lms effectively—they found it challenging to implement lms tools to enhance teaching and learning in face-to-face courses (wichadee, 2015). the lms tools most frequently used by academics were for making course announcements, organising folders of course content, and administrating and managing student grades. the predominant use of the lms by academics was for course management and administration rather than for transforming face-to-face courses (walker et al., 2016; washington, 2019). they were likely to use the lms as a repository for resources and materials, and to copy course content and course settings from one course to another (washington, 2019). thus, current evidence suggests that, in some areas of the higher education sector, there is a gap between the institutional rhetoric about developments in online teaching and learning progress, and the reality of academic practice. academics had mixed results when using the lms to promote student interaction among peers— or student interaction with academics—although these activities can afford students an opportunity to feel connected with the culture of the institution. other lms tools designed to promote faculty–student interaction—such as discussion boards and online formative assessment with individualised feedback—have had limited use by academics (rhode et al., 2017). regardless of the reasons for the under-use of the lms in higher education, courses that had a blended learning format had opportunities to interact with students before the pandemic. despite the hesitation of some staff to use any more than the basic functions of the lms, there is research that looks at how to use lms features to engage students. kim et al. (2021) found students were engaged with several features of online learning, including active learning examples and activities; asynchronous features that allow them to pause and reflect on content; and additional resources in the form of readings, weblinks, and videos. students also valued frequent course updates by staff, and guidance through their transition to online learning. opportunities to engage with peers were also considered helpful for learning and support. however, kim et al. (2021) noted that practices such as active learning are not necessarily equivalent in face-to-face and online formats. in online contexts, brighter students tended to engage more. research has noted students’ skills with synchronous instruction, which provides peer interaction and instant feedback in the lms and other integrated platforms (wolf & uribe, 2020). asynchronous instruction allows for flexible access and makes the course resources easy to navigate (kim et al., 2021). thus, prior to the pandemic, academics’ engagement and use of the lms for online teaching was variable—each academic could be selective about their commitment to online, blended, and face-to-face delivery. the switch to fully online teaching in march 2020 required a shift from using the lms as an administrative and content management tool to using it as an efficient teaching and learning platform, with instructors considering educational and social purposes to be the main reason for using the lms (nkonki & ntlabathi, 2016; stantchev et al., 2014). even early adopters of online platforms were likely to be challenged in these times (lewis & abdul-hamid, 2006). in the 2020 lockdown, opportunities for meaningful interaction among students, and particularly between academics and students, became crucial for both student engagement and retention. academics were now required to create an online learning environment with vibrant interaction between the academic and the student as this was likely to underpin the successful transition to fully online education. academics were forced to reflect on their current practice by taking an honest look at their own acceptance of, and competence with, lms technologies. to facilitate this reflection, it can be useful to conceptualise an academic’s acceptance and competence regarding the lms. academics with varying levels of technological competence who engaged with the lms have brown, s., murphy, l., hammond, k. 58 been classified into groups (gregory & lodge, 2015). an “expert” group spent considerable time and effort experimenting with lms features but sometimes required support to incorporate these features in their teaching. a “reluctant” group, who were late adopters of lms technologies, were likely to use the lms as a repository for information. a “novice” group was enthusiastic but required significant support to enhance their technological competence. we suggest this initial grouping could be expanded further by using a quadrant model (figure 1) in which one axis represents an academic’s acceptance or hesitancy to engage with lms technologies, and the other axis represents an academic’s level of technical competence. figure 1 a quadrant model of academics’ acceptance of lms technologies and technical competence with these systems in fig. 1 we have included hypothetical comments from academics who could be in each quadrant. for example, an academic who is a reluctant user of the lms might have little competence with technology and might consider the lms to be intruding into their professional practice. alternatively, an academic who is competent with technology and comfortable exploring the functionalities of the lms, might consider these capabilities to be complementary to their role as an academic. technical incompetence should be addressed with appropriate professional development, because it is incumbent on universities to provide appropriate training in the technologies embedded in the lms. the need for this professional development was acute in the early part of the 2020 lockdown, and most universities placed considerable emphasis on the need for academics to engage with this support. in this support, the university should provide suitable instruction on how to use their lms and clearly demonstrate how to integrate lms features in a course, whether this is supporting face-to-face delivery, fully online delivery, or an asynchronous blended approach. if this training is effective, technological challenges can be minimised (ziraba et al., 2020). however, we accept that there are instances where academics believe their current pedagogical practices are sound and would not be further enhanced by using technology. we also agree that providing professional development in the use of technology is unlikely to affect these beliefs. however, if hesitancy is not based on sound pedagogical choice it is possible that an intermediate step will convince the reluctant academic of the benefits of engaging with digital technologies to enhance the student experience. one example is offering high technical competencylow technical competency lms acceptance lms hesitancy ready and will ing to accept lms tech nol ogies but lacks tech nical comp etenci es to engage fu lly fully embracing o f lms’s and comp etent in techni cal abil ity to imp lement these tec hnol ogies co mpetent with lms techn ologies but unw illi ng or re>cent to ad opt them into cu rrent teac hing lacking techni cal comp etency and un ac cep>ng of l ms tech nolo gy “i’m totally a ble to use the fu nc3o ns in the lms, b ut i’d rather interact with the students p ersona lly wherever poss ible.” “i delibera tely don ’t learn new technolog ies – i rely on som eon e else to do it.” “i have some good ideas of what to do on the l ms, but i don’t kn ow how to pu t them into prac 3ce.” “i am c omfo rtable using the lms and kn ow how to get the m ost ou t of it.” journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(2) 59 consultation sessions with peers and/or with lms champions who have successfully integrated digital technology into their course delivery. this would enable hesitant staff to ask questions and explore their relevant beliefs and wider cultural protocols when considering the role of digital technologies in their teaching. in addition to institutional support, our model acknowledges that technical competence can be accompanied by an unwillingness to apply the technologies to teaching practices (lms reluctance), particularly in institutions that don’t have a strong history of distance learning as central practice. this was the case in our institution, where early adopters of technology achieved greater use of lms functions and supplementary tools to explore digital technology in pedagogical practice. also, staff relied on early adopters to develop and maintain the digital components of a course, which removed the need for all staff to engage with digital technologies beyond the basics. we propose that it is incumbent on academic staff to stay up to date with digital tools and technology-assisted learning applications, and to understand how these applications can best contribute to student learning (lenert & janes, 2017). regular reflection by academic staff, combined with institutional course auditing, can encourage academic staff to engage with professional development opportunities to ensure their courses meet appropriate institutional standards. institutions and academics can work together to develop standards that enable people to identify which stage of development they are at, and where they need further development. we propose a quadrant model that uses the dimensions of skill level and frequency of appropriate use (fig. 2). figure 2 a quadrant model of academics’ skill level in lms technologies, and the frequency of appropriate implementation of these skills by using the skill level and appropriate frequency model in specific institutional contexts, educators can agree on the level of skills required to meet the requirements for high skills. for example, decisions can be made as to whether the required skills include teachingand learningrelated functions (such as providing interactive sessions), or whether they need to include administrative functions (such as operating grade centres), or whether administrative skills would be the responsibility of online learning support staff. along the dimension of appropriate use of brown, s., murphy, l., hammond, k. 60 skills, agreement can be reached on which affordances offer real learning potential and experiences (in consultation with evidence-based research) and which affordances theoretically promise learning but are impractical or ineffective. therefore, this model offers a basis on which skills can be defined, developed, and recognised in higher education. the pandemic-induced lockdown and rapid adoption of online teaching has highlighted the importance of academic professional development for up-skilling staff in using the lms. this remains important because online courses are being released at a faster rate than faculty are being trained to deliver quality education in the digital age (lenert & janes, 2017). providing appropriate professional development may address scepticism about the effectiveness of online teaching and reduce the anxiety of those who lack confidence in their skills to teach online. establishing faculty-wide learning communities has been shown to improve staff engagement with online platforms (haresnape et al., 2020) and this led to improved educational outcomes for learners (hollowell et al., 2017). institutional initiatives to formalise professional development in lms proficiency have also been effective (harkness, 2015). considering our quadrant model of lms acceptance/hesitancy and levels of competence, we propose a framework of levels of lms proficiency that formalises the professional development of staff involved in online teaching. furthermore, we propose that professional development for using the lms is an ongoing element of academic culture—from initial conversations through to development of advanced skills and reflective practices. this continuum is shown in table 1, where we refer to a “pre-proficiency” level that addresses the need to engage with hesitant adopters, moving through to an expert level of proficiency. in this framework, we suggest that the “proficient” level is the minimum level of achievement required for staff who are both teaching online and developing courses with an online component. we also suggest that most academics involved in online teaching should aim to achieve the “advanced” level of proficiency. in our experience, early adopters of the lms, and faculty lms “champions”, are now at the advanced level and can mentor others at lower levels of proficiency. the framework considers those at the level of “expert” proficiency include software developers who can modify the functionality of the lms to integrate it with other platforms, and staff who have formal responsibility to instruct others in using the lms. it’s possible that those at the expert level are not involved directly in online teaching but are employed in academic support roles. although it could be argued that the professional development proposed in table 1 is difficult to schedule into an already precarious work/life balance, we argue that responsible autonomy necessitates the need for all relevant staff to become proficient in the use of their lms. institutions also have a responsibility to factor this training into workload time allowances. furthermore, we argue that this responsibility should be shared equally in teaching teams to maintain flexibility during periods of staff absence and to ensure equality of duties. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(2) 61 table 1 a suggested framework for formalising professional development of proficiency with an lms level abilities and attitudes duties and culture pre-proficient can perform some functions in the lms recognises the value of the lms and is willing to learn about it may be hesitant to use the lms seeks training opportunities or has discussions about hesitancy collegial willingness to engage with mentors proficient can perform all basic functions required to run a course has some confidence in using the lms uses the lms for course teaching and leading takes responsibility for own proficiency advanced can perform advanced administrative functions and uses specialised features is confident in using and teaching with the lms develops awareness of students’ experience with lms responsible for mentoring others; ensures team members are proficient point of call for basic troubleshooting expert complete understanding of lms software and functions very confident in using the lms to a professional and specialist level learning designer who trains others formally in workshops provides support and integration with learning needs of course teams the framework highlights the supportive culture required to help academics to achieve a level of proficiency that is appropriate for their online teaching if using the lms is a sound pedagogical choice. the framework does not explicitly require considering the student experience while attaining initial proficiency with the lms; however, we suggest that institutions continually monitor the student experience to remain informed about interactions between students and academics in all types of course delivery (online, blended, and face to face), and understand the role of the lms in fostering student engagement with learning opportunities. as proficiency increases, the academic can reflect on the student experience and gain valuable insight into the current use of an lms, and then feed this back into the framework for professional development. educators need to be aware of the student experience and behaviour with online pedagogies, how an understanding of the lms and knowledge of other tools needs to match requirements to provide what works—and how to explore new possibilities for engaged and effective learning. for example: which pedagogies can be effectively scaled up to large cohorts—and which can’t? academics also need to pay particular attention to developing an online pedagogy of care to promote student engagement and a sense of connection (burke & larmar, 2021). academics require ongoing professional development and support to be successful (and remain successful) in their online teaching (martin et al., 2019; schmidt et al., 2016). professional development increases the likelihood that they will pursue online course delivery after the pandemic, and it may address concerns and misconceptions held by some academics about online teaching at university. it is incumbent on the university to support and empower academics in this central role to develop their online teaching skills. in addition, the academic should demonstrate a responsible autonomy in which they acquire technical competence, remain guided by both discipline-specific evidence and generic evidence-based pedagogies using online tools, and maintain awareness of the student experience. the drive to digitalise higher education seems to be a global phenomenon (saari & santti, 2018) and academics should be convinced of the necessity of this digitalisation and thus implement it willingly. the 2020 lockdown presented challenges and opportunities to academics regarding 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(2020). the adoption and use of moodle learning management system in higher institutions of learning: a systematic literature review. american journal of online and distance learning, 2(1), 1–21. https://ajpojournals.org/journals/index.php/ajodl/article/view/489 biographical notes stephen brown stbrown@aut.ac.nz stephen james brown graduated in 1993 with a bsc (hons, class 1), and completed a phd in 1997 from the university of wolverhampton, uk. he has held lectureships at the university of london, demontfort university (uk), massey university (nz), and federation university (aus). dr brown’s research interests are in student engagement and attitude to the stem subjects, and the study of chemistry at undergraduate level. dr brown collaborates internationally with colleagues in australasia, particularly at central queensland university, australia, and the university of the south pacific, fiji. lyn murphy lyn.murphy@aut.ac.nz lyn murphy is a senior lecturer in health management at auckland university of technology. she has a diverse academic background in education, health, psychology, management, and accounting, and has more than 30 years’ teaching experience from business and health faculties. lyn has served on several new zealand boards, including local bodies, and has held government directorships. her primary area of research is in obtaining value in health. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(2) 65 kay hammond kay.hammond@aut.ac.nz dr kay hammond completed a phd in psychology from the university of auckland, and an msc in tesol from aston university. she has taught at universities in new zealand and japan. her research interests include the scholarship of teaching and learning, with a particular interest in student and staff wellbeing. she recently won an excellence award for online team teaching from auckland university of technology. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. brown, s., murphy, l., hammond, k. (2021). learning management system adoption by academics: a perspective following the forced lockdown of nz universities due to covid19 in 2020. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(2), [55–65.]. highton, m., fresen, j., & wild, j. 28 making academic oer easy: reflections on technology and openness at oxford university melissa highton, oxford university jill fresen, oxford university joanna wild, oxford university abstract due to its stringent entry requirements, academic reputation and world ranking, oxford university in the united kingdom is perceived by some as being a closed, exclusive, and elitist institution. as learning technologists working in the institution, we have experienced an enthusiasm amongst academic colleagues for openness in publication and practice enhanced by new technologies, which reflects their long-demonstrated commitment to publication and the dissemination of new knowledge. advances in digital technologies and the emergence of online platforms for global dissemination have enabled oxford university seminars, lectures, and public addresses, many by famous figures, to be shared with an international audience. this article charts the journey oxford has made in opening up educational content and describes the ways in which we have worked to ensure that the value added by technology aligns with current academic practice in the institution. keywords: education; distance education; e-learning; flexible learning; open education; open learning; online learning; blended learning; technology-enhanced learning introduction in keeping with this issue‘s theme of opening up previously closed environments, this case study of oxford university‘s involvement in recent open educational resources (oer) projects provides an opportunity to reflect on the factors driving the success of open educational content. the authors hope that this paper will contribute to the small, yet fast-growing body of knowledge on the topic of oer creation, sharing, and use, and thus broaden the base on which future metaanalyses can build. an oxford education offers an exciting combination of privilege and open-mindedness. oxford university is a complex institution with characteristics and traditions established over 900 years. staff and students work in a closed physical environment—shaped by gates, lodges, cloisters, walled gardens, and private quadrangles. the business of the university, however, is characterised by a deep commitment to publication, communication, and the dissemination of new knowledge. in traditional modes of education the university has established a reputation for excellence, having one of the oldest and largest university presses and a continuing education department of international renown. a commitment to public dissemination of knowledge is not new—its roots are in the university extension movement more than a century ago: journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(2) 29 in the late 19th century oxford was one of the pioneers of the university extension movement, which enabled audiences around the uk to hear what some of its lecturers had to say on a wide range of topics. the openspires project [see later in this paper] is the 21stcentury equivalent, though, with the benefit of the web, the audiences are now global and we hope even more diverse. it is a pleasure to contribute to this important venture, which is opening up oxford like never before (mcdonald, n.d.). as discussed in this paper, new technologies have made it possible to further lower the barriers to accessing that knowledge, allowing us to ―[r]etain our original mission of making the scholarship of the university accessible to wider audiences‖ (michie, 2011, para. 1). on most evenings during term time there are research seminars and talks across the university that attract small but interested audiences. much of the teaching provision is based on traditional methods of small-group or one-to-one discussion. this paper does not attempt to delve into much historical detail or describe oxford teaching, but focuses on trends in attitudes towards technology-enhanced learning in our own experience at this and other institutions, and the shifts in thinking and practice which have occurred during our recent openspires and other oer initiatives. first we discuss some historical themes concerning the barriers to widespread academic ‗buy-in‘ for learning technology activities, and then we explore some of the developments (internal and external to the institution) which brought about new opportunities and changes in attitudes and behaviour. the significant oer projects completed at oxford are described, and the continuing support for sustainability and embedding such initiatives into educational practice is discussed. recent developments are foregrounded against our reflection on historical trends and changing attitudes to copyright, sharing, collaborative production, and reuse of learning materials. having started with the production of free and publicly available podcasts on itunes u in 2008, oxford university now produces open educational content on an institution-wide scale. various studies funded by jisc 1 (mansell, wilson, robinson & highton, 2010; geng, marshall & wilson, 2011) have evaluated our oer activity as being successful. this success is a result of adopting a devolved model of content production which reflects the collegiate nature of the institution and provides a clear workflow process for departmental support staff. hence it is easy for academic staff to become involved in the process, and to require minimal support. oxford university‘s oer material is free for reuse in education worldwide and is clearly labelled with a creative commons licence. all material is syndicated through rss and made freely available in uk subject centre portals, the uk national oer repository jorumopen (http://www.jorum.ac.uk), and the oxford university podcasts site (http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk). set in stone the challenges for learning technology managers and leaders have always been in defining the place technology should take in a university‘s teaching and learning strategy to best meet the needs of a particular institution, and in identifying and putting in place the mechanisms to encourage academic buy-in. accordingly, any strategy that effectively encourages the uptake of oer must be informed by original thinking and reflection about the culture of the organisation and lessons learned in other places. working as learning technologists during the 1990s, we regularly encountered two barriers which limited the extent to which we could support colleagues in making materials available online: technical difficulties and concern over loss of ownership of content. the microsoft scholars project lists 15 major factors which inhibit the uptake by academic staff of technology 1 jisc: joint information systems committee, uk: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/ http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/ http://www.jisc.ac.uk/ highton, m., fresen, j., & wild, j. 30 enhanced teaching and learning. one of the factors is ―[u]ncertainty of intellectual property rights in an electronic environment‖ (microsoft scholars project, 1997, cited by newton, 2003, p. 413). that finding, in 1997, contributes to our historical lens, focusing on ‗then‘ and ‗now‘. off-the-shelf electronic learning materials such as computer-based training tutorials, multimedia tutorials and simulations on cd-rom have been available for more than two decades, as described in the seminal text book by alessi and trollip (1985). although learning technologists (also called instructional designers) at various universities, who were involved in the design and development of such interactive multimedia, formed communities of practice and suggested the idea of sharing some of their outputs, they were met with resistance—academics tended to prefer to ‗do it themselves‘. however, two decades ago it was not easy for academics to develop their own computer-based education materials. at oxford, teaching is largely delivered to small groups. tutors and supervisors meet their students regularly to give one-to-one guidance for a highly personalised learning experience, so there has been some reluctance to use electronic learning materials that are commercially available, or have been created and built at other institutions or by other academics. as a result, learning technologists, here and at other face-to-face institutions, continued to design and develop customised, one-off, low-impact, labour-intensive multimedia tutorials of limited sustainability. timeand labour-intensive authoring packages were used to design and develop interactive tutorials. a rule of thumb often quoted (elearning guild, 2002) was that it took a learning technologist around 100 hours to develop one hour of courseware at a basic level (i.e. not involving complexities such as simulations). such tutorials were then ‗set in stone‘, and were not easy to adapt or modify. indeed, when an academic who had commissioned their ‗pet‘ project left the institution, the materials were found to be so tied to the person or institution that use and adoption of the electronic tutorial usually came to an abrupt end, and the electronic asset rapidly fell into disrepair. large distance education providers such as the open university, whose core business depends on is self-study learning materials, found solutions in a more industrial model of production, with an entire section of their labour force dedicated to the production of courseware, learning resources, and activities. even when the internet made it possible to update and share materials more easily, academics were understandably reluctant to expose their own learning materials (such as slideshows) on departmental or library websites. in our experience, it was not uncommon for an academic to attend a conference and find some of their own slides appearing in a student presentation. in the late 1990s, the prevailing academic ethos was one of tight ownership of intellectual property, and society at large had not yet engaged with the idea of openness and due acknowledgement. using virtual learning environments (vles) and learning management systems (lmss) became increasingly popular as a way to restrict access to teaching materials. material released on the internet in the 1990s was considered by many to be in the public domain and available to be used in any way. copyright information and advice was not widely included in online learning materials or resources such as images—and when it was, it was often difficult for a lay user to understand. this added to uncertainty amongst academics (microsoft scholars project, 1997, cited by newton, 2003, p. 413) and the fear of inadvertently infringing copyright—they often inserted third-party materials into their lessons or presentations in the belief that it was acceptable since it was ‗in the public domain‘, for ‗educational purposes‘ and for a ‗limited audience‘. but sharing such materials with the whole world is a different story, and the concerns of academics clearly needed to be addressed. openly licensed materials go a long way to ease concerns about both sharing one‘s own intellectual property, and using that of others. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(2) 31 beginning to open up bissell and boyle (2007) take us back 20 years and challenge an internet novice to predict which will come first: open, electronic encyclopaedias; open-source software development; or a vast network of free and open education resources. indeed, all three phenomena have materialised, and we focus here on the opening up of universities‘ approaches to sharing and distributing educational content during the decade since mit launched their open courseware initiative (mit, 2011). the oecd report ―giving knowledge for free‖ (oecd, 2007) refers to the ―apparently extraordinary trend‖ (p. 9) that is emerging, and reports why this is happening, who is involved, and what the most important implications are. two major developments seem to have contributed to this open and ‗free knowledge‘ approach (lane & mcandrew, 2010). first, in the late 1990s early forms of open licenses started to emerge as a spin-off from the concept of open-source software (wiley & gurrell, 2009) and in response to the incompatibility of the traditional forms of copyright with the nature of, and philosophy behind, the world wide web. second, the recent advent of web 2.0 technologies has considerably changed the patterns of use of the web from one-way broadcasting to participatory information sharing and collaboration. since then, a plethora of easy-to-use digital technologies has been developed that allow academics to produce and share educational content in a variety of formats. early attempts at internet-based approaches in the 1980s and early 1990s superseded correspondence education, which was the first level in taylor‘s (2001) five-generation model. correspondence education consisted of written study guides, telephonic communication, the occasional audio-cassette tape, and a long wait for postal feedback on an assignment. advances in digital media, such as usability improvements in commercial software packages and the availability of free software, now mean that academics can easily record audio commentaries on slideshows or audio feedback to students. audio and video podcasts can be recorded with entrylevel, handheld devices, and can then be made available easily through institutional vles. the challenge now lies in bringing simple, easy-to-use digital technologies closer to academic staff in scalable ways across large institutions while retaining that ‗do it yourself‘ feeling, and to showcase their usefulness in enhancing both academic practice and the student learning experience. the term open education resources was first used in 2002 during a unesco workshop on open courseware in developing countries (unesco, 2011). there are a number of different definitions of oer which share some fundamental values: namely, that learning resources are licensed for unrestricted distribution and offer the possibility of adaptation, improvement, and reuse. the cape town declaration defines open educational resources as ―openly licensed course materials, lesson plans, textbooks, games, software and other materials that support teaching and learning‖ (open society institute, 2007, para. 3). it goes on to state that these resources should be ―... freely shared through open licenses which facilitate use, revision, translation, improvement and sharing by anyone‖ (ibid., para. 8). at oxford, we use the following definition of oer: ―…teaching, learning and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property licence that permits their free use or re-purposing by others‖ (atkins, brown & hammond, 2007: p. 4, quoted by white & manton, 2011; masterman & wild, 2011). taking a historical view, it is important to place current oer practice in the context of previous initiatives towards re-useable learning objects. lane and mcandrew (2010) argue that open licensing and the expansion of digital technologies ―seem to be enabling oer to have wider highton, m., fresen, j., & wild, j. 32 acceptance into individual and institutional practice‖ (p. 952) compared with learning objects (lo) which appeared in the early 2000s. although both lo and oer are ―fairly recent and interrelated‖ (ibid., p. 953) and they raise similar issues around ―accessibility, discoverability, granularity and reusability‖ (ibid., p. 955), oer are much closer to teachers‘ everyday practice. this development is due mainly to recent technological and social developments such as the proliferation of online communities and social networks created around user-generated content, and greater use of digital technologies for learning, both inside and outside the classroom. also, oer explicitly address teachers‘ concerns about the issues of plagiarism and copyright infringement already mentioned in this paper. both lane and mcandrew (2010, p. 960) and casey (2011) argue that the power of oer to become a trigger for change in current educational practice lies in the fact that they focus less on individuals and ways to optimise their teaching practice, which was the main motivation behind lo. instead, the involvement with oer and the concept of openness raises ―systemic and soft issues (such as institutional tradition, structures and cultures)‖ (casey, 2011, p.1), and invites reconsideration of existing approaches to education. an early landmark in oxford‘s commitment to oer was the university‘s decision to offer a flexible, locally developed vle. to ensure that the decisions about openness remained with the institution rather than a commercial software provider, oxford university selected an opensource software platform for our virtual learning environment in 2005. lee (2008) describes how the principle of openness dictated the choice. he argues that the technical barriers to opening up education are probably the easiest to overcome, but are not to be underestimated. the next step was to support opening what he refers to as ‗cultural gates‘; that is, encouraging academics to share materials. to better understand academic attitudes towards the sharing and use of educational resources, masterman and lee (2005) conducted a small study with lecturers in english literature across three universities: oxford university, oxford brookes university, and the university of leicester. the study revealed that ―academics are willing to release their material if they are a) protected from litigation; b) protected from criticism; c) given an incentive to do so; and d) furthering their discipline‖ (lee, 2008, p. 57). online and free although there had been some oer activity amongst small groups or individuals in the university, oxford‘s first institution-wide release of learning materials online was in october 2008 when we launched our online collection of podcasts and corresponding itunes u site. 2 by this time podcasting was becoming increasingly well known as a social and mobile technology for news and entertainment, and academic colleagues seemed ready to become involved, as long as the technical, legal, and reputational factors were addressed by the central technical, legal, and marketing teams. the success of this initiative can be seen in the volume of materials currently flowing from academic departments and colleges. oxford university currently has over 3000 audio and video podcasts from all subject areas, free to download for personal use. the material has been provided by high-profile academics and features talks, interviews, lectures, and panel discussions. oxford has experienced considerable success with its podcasting website and itunes u presence—since the launch in 2008 the number of downloads has reached 14 million; there are over 2700 published items in total, several of which regularly reach the top ten; and at least three podcasts have reached number one in the global download charts. 2 oxford podcasts: http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/ and itunes u: http://itunes.ox.ac.uk http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/ http://itunes.ox.ac.uk/ journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(2) 33 increasingly open although the trend towards sharing open-source software has been strong at oxford for a number of years, the university‘s engagement with oer is mainly the result of a recent initiative funded by the uk hefce 3 and managed jointly by the higher education academy and jisc. the overall role of this initiative for the uptake of oer in united kingdom higher education institutions is not to be underestimated—since 2009, hefce-funded oer projects have resulted in the release of a large body of openly licensed educational materials across the united kingdom, the creation of institutional strategies and workflows for the production of oer, and a clearer understanding of benefits and challenges of sharing oer (mcgill, beetham, falconer & littlejohn, 2010; 2011). openspires as we built on the success of the oxford podcasts collection, it became clear to the central learning technologies group that a sustainable process was required to formalise the creation and maintenance of such collections. the openspires 4 project was part of the institutional strand of the first call under the jisc open educational resources (oer) programme (oer1). the aim was to assess and report on the implications of a research-led institution releasing oer on a large scale, by addressing the concerns of licensing, litigation, criticism, and impact. openspires set out to release educational audio and video content as oer, making it free for ―reuse and redistribution by third parties globally, provided it is used in a non-commercial way and attributed to its creator‖ (mansell, wilson, robinson & highton, 2010, p. 5). the project aimed to ―support academic content creators in the production of these materials and in the change of practice required to make informed decisions about releasing their material as oer‖ (ibid.). openspires provided us with the opportunity to explore with academic colleagues their perceptions of intellectual property rights and associated issues, and their position of comfort in relation to new media platforms. content generated during the life of the openspires project reflects the academic activity of the university by focusing on audio-visual recordings of research seminars and talks, and supporting resources. the university already had a cost-effective content creation process in place, resulting from the investment made to present oxford materials in itunes u and because there was already a steady flow of this material being created every day. our assets are unique, ‗born digital‘ and licensed at source with sign-off from the head of the relevant academic department. we adopted a devolved model of content production which provides a clear workflow process for department support staff to follow, thus minimising academic support time. we chose a clear, well-defined format for audio and video recordings to reduce the demands on academics, to standardise workflows, and to reduce the costs of production. where possible, we provided advice and guidance on the best format for the recording—for example, video, screencast, or audio only—so that the subject matter is represented in the best way possible. one of the outputs from the openspires project was the commitment by oxford university computing services to provide a continuing service, based on a set of sustainable policies on workflow and storage, and an agreed open-licensing process that allows departments from across the university to regularly publish high-quality open content for global reuse. academics have challenged us, as they should, but we have been able to support them in making informed choices about content they wish to produce, the licensing they wish it to carry, and the platforms on 3 hefce: higher education funding council for england: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/ 4 openspires: http://openspires.oucs.ox.ac.uk http://www.hefce.ac.uk/ http://openspires.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ highton, m., fresen, j., & wild, j. 34 which it is published. in the first year, more than 150 oxford academic podcasters and visiting speakers donated material to support their subject communities. each contributor signs a creative commons licence that allows their material to be promoted for reuse in education world-wide. we worked closely with the institutional marketing team and developed a clear communication strategy to improve the discoverability of the digitised material, thus leading to consistently high download figures. we were able to provide reports and usage statistics, and many academic colleagues have received positive email feedback directly from learners and listeners: receiving email feedback is great—you don‘t get much feedback from within the university so to receive it from listeners around the globe is great. once a flow of oer materials from within the university was established, we began to consider how our materials could be clustered alongside materials from other higher education providers. the community of practice at oxford is shaped and defined by shared history, tradition, and repertoire. we argue that (in the context of oxford) the primary unit of change is not the individual or the institution, but the informal ‗communities‘ which academics form within colleges as they pursue shared endeavours over time. during our oer projects we explored a range of ways to support change and agency in those communities by working with small groups and local support staff to develop skills in digital media, and to identify events that would yield assets (recordings) of high value and widespread interest. in 2010 oxford was awarded funding for two more projects to work with neighbouring institutions to understand their own institutional implications and to investigate local solutions for sustainable oer release. the ripple project 5 involved harper adams university college and oxford brookes university, and the triton project 6 ran jointly with cambridge university. together we considered opportunities for new scholarship and how oer provides another dissemination mechanism for research, extended reach, and public engagement. the outcomes of these projects were, in turn, the release of more oer materials and some local institutional change, as shown by the following comments from workshop participants: the value lies in direct influence on infrastructure and processes. … the project has accelerated the pace of development both on workflows and infrastructure for wider scale release of oer. … ripple has helped us to identify the need to place a strategic emphasis on identifying suitable oers at programme level as part of curriculum development and review, and on … the reasons for doing oer and its relevance to us. listening for impact in 2005, academic colleagues reported their wish to be protected from litigation, protected from criticism, given an incentive, and supported in furthering their discipline (lee, 2008, p. 57). by 2011 oxford university had built up a collection of over 3000 podcasts, a third of which are licensed as oer. new questions began to arise. it became necessary to step back and assess the effect of the resources on the people who had been accessing them: ―what kind of information do learners want?‖ ―what have they gained from using the resources?‖ we thus embarked on another project designed to assess and measure impact. various analyses were conducted, both quantitative and qualitative, including a news and media analysis of publicity that had already been generated about oxford podcasts, and an investigation of email messages and informal 5 http://openspires.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ripple 6 http://openspires.oucs.ox.ac.uk/triton http://openspires.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ripple http://openspires.oucs.ox.ac.uk/triton journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(2) 35 feedback. a series of surveys were conducted, including customised questionnaires to departments and students, and questions inserted in regular surveys for new students (geng, marshall & wilson, 2011). key findings show that oxford podcasts are popular globally, and their popularity is growing; oxford podcasts benefit both current student and external learners and teachers; a fair portion (15%) of accesses comes directly from mobile devices. we worked hard to analyse the large volume of traffic on the apple itunes u site, to make local improvements (including a dedicated oxford podcasts tool within our vle), and to build better search and landing pages for each podcast series on the oxford podcasts web portal (ibid.). at the same time, oxford hosted a national oer impact study, 7 also funded by jisc, to investigate the use and re-use of oer in teaching and learning in higher education in the united kingdom. the results show that there is growing interest amongst academic staff in using oer to support their teaching and learning practice, and that digital literacy skills are key to success (masterman & wild, 2011). digital literacy skills include knowing where to find appropriate resources, how to evaluate their fitness for purpose, how to evaluate their quality, and how to adapt them to suit one‘s own teaching context. however, whether a person decides to engage with oer in the first place depends largely on their beliefs about teaching and learning and their general disposition towards sharing and reuse (masterman & wild, 2011; masterman, wild, white, & manton, 2011). one of the success factors uncovered by the oer impact study is the role played by provenance—the quality and reputation of the producing institution play an important role in the use of oer from that institution; that is, materials produced by higher education institutions have a certain ‗stamp of quality‘ for their users (masterman & wild, 2011, p. 20). then and now according to browne, holding, howell, and rodway-dyer (2010), ―[w]ithout academic buy-in oer has no future‖ (p. 5). indeed, slow adoption of educational technology amongst academics (for a variety of reasons) is well known (fresen, 2011). what has changed in the intervening years, in terms of academic buy-in and advances in digital media? the maturation of creative commons licensing and platforms for global dissemination have resulted in a reduction of intellectual property and technical barriers. what about reputation, reward, and links to teaching practice? if an activity is to be sustainable beyond initial seed funding, academic colleagues need to feel motivated to continue to contribute. our projects have demonstrated that, with some consultation and discussion, academics seem to be remarkably open to the idea of creating and releasing oer. the intrinsic rewards are demonstrated by these comments, gathered during our academic staff surveys within the openspires project: releasing podcasts suited my subject (censorship). i was keen to disseminate my material as widely as possible, particularly as my work involves releasing previously secret documents. i feel my job is to disseminate our knowledge and enthusiasm for our subject as widely as possible—this is why i support creative commons. it‘s a huge personal boost to receive feedback. as a teacher it is just what you want to hear. examples of the positive feedback received by individual oxford academics from users of their podcasts include: 7 http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning/oer2/oerimpact.aspx http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning/oer2/oerimpact.aspx highton, m., fresen, j., & wild, j. 36 i have recently enrolled in the [……] university with the plan to complete a ba in philosophy, but the first unit i have had to complete is a study skills unit which has been so boring and mundane i have been questioning whether to continue or not. your enthusiasm for philosophy is infectious and put me back on course to continue my studies. thanks again. can i just say how utterly engrossing they are—and how completely stimulating. i completed my undergraduate studies a great number of years ago, but listening to you lecture makes me yearn for study. for retired people like me podcasts of lectures (recorded raw, not dressed up as some have them, complete with distracting background music) are a boon. lifelong learning! our more able students are being encouraged to listen to the podcasts both to improve their understanding of the plays and to encourage them to believe that oxford is not a rarefied and unattainable target, but operates at a level they will find accessible. as head of ‗more able and talented‘ at a large state school, i am constantly looking for resources to improve our teaching and your podcasts are giving us just that opportunity. members of the english department are now using wittgenstein‘s dabbit illustration in the way you did and finding it to be a very effective approach. thank you for offering online your lectures on introductory quantum mechanics, and thank you for providing a pdf copy of your text. the text is a marvellous resource, and your lectures are exceptionally lucid and compelling. i am learning a great deal and enjoying them very much. i teach high school science and maths, and i hope i can pass along to my students (at least some of) these ideas with the same excitement and clarity. each year the university rewards teaching innovation and colleagues who podcast their content, particularly if they have been actively involved in producing and crafting oer. these awards lend increased coverage and profile to the activity. while we recognise that it is important to celebrate success and innovation, for the sake of sustainability we also hope that this activity will become embedded in everyday academic practice. evidence that oer production is already happening can be seen in the following comments received from some of the academic colleagues we worked with: recording my lectures has become a routine part of my life—i have slightly adapted my style now that recordings are released because i used to refer to handouts a lot but then i got inundated with email requests for the handouts from listeners. i‘m now linking podcasts to a new online course and they can be used as marketing materials to attract people to the course. i will be using podcast interviews as source material for my next book. these comments also hint at the general skills development and increasing open-content literacy of staff who are now confident in using technology and understand how their materials are being used. the concerns about licensing, litigation, and reputation remain, but the technology barriers seem to have diminished. with the changing landscape of higher education, and an ever-growing number of high-quality oers being produced and made freely available, there is growing recognition within institutions and among academics that effective teaching can produce quantifiable, valuable, and reusable outputs (mcgill et al., 2011) that can enjoy international recognition. although the values and underpinnings of the oer movement are strong and the availability of open educational content is increasing, its use and reuse is still hampered by lack of awareness of the concept of oer, lack of knowledge of where to search for oer, and the uneven saturation of resources in different disciplines (masterman & wild, 2011). although it is not uncommon for journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(2) 37 academic colleagues at oxford university to search the web for materials to use in their teaching, most tutors remain unaware of the growing pool of openly licensed educational resources. to raise academic engagement with oer at oxford, we began a programme of training activities to increase open-content literacy across the institution. we define open-content literacy as: ―knowing when and why open content is needed, where to find and share it, and how to create, evaluate, and use it in an ethical manner‖ (highton, 2011). investigating a situated practice of engagement with, and use of, oer in the context of higher education in the united kingdom is also the subject of a new research project by the third author of this paper in the scope of her score teaching fellowship. 8 the new study will explore practices that are currently emerging in this area, from the perspective of both their providers and beneficiaries. the aim of the study is to achieve a clearer understanding of successful practice, so that we can promote sustained engagement with, and use of, oer in teaching and learning in different institutional contexts. our experience with oer projects at oxford university indicates that academics tend to feel more comfortable when their oer materials are clearly credited to them. such acknowledgement hints at the changes afforded by the new media—in an audio or video podcast, the presenter is clearly identified and there is a low risk of anyone else using their material inappropriately. furthermore, because we have implemented processes and workflows to handle licensing and legal issues in ways that are institutionally acceptable, academics do not have to grapple with these challenges themselves. despite the prevailing message that universities and colleges should act in a rigorous, ‗business-like‘ fashion, in many cases individual teaching styles remain closely linked to professional identity and reputation. although the perceived advantage of oer is that they can be used in any context, information about attribution is critical to a user‘s ability to evaluate the content. this is to some extent confirmed by the findings from the oer impact study, in which experienced oer users expressed their preference for materials originating from higher educational institutions and other trusted organisations such as research institutes with established reputations (masterman & wild, 2011, p. 20). conclusion it is appropriate for a university with a global brand to be addressing challenges and extending its reach, and oxford university has recognised that oer activity is in line with its business, mission, and purpose. this alignment is reflected in several case studies included in official institutional marketing publications. the availability of oer contributes to outreach efforts, particularly in a traditional institution which may have been formerly regarded as being relatively closed—the oxford brand is being seen internationally in a new light, and academics are able to participate in extending this reach (geng et al., 2011). the cape town declaration suggests that we are on the ―cusp of a global revolution in teaching and learning. educators worldwide are developing a vast pool of educational resources on the internet, open and free for all to use‖ (open society institute, 2007, para. 1). our experience with oer projects at oxford university has demonstrated that technology may have reached a point where some of the technical, legal, and cost barriers have been removed far enough to enable colleagues to painlessly embrace new ways of working—motivated by their values and interests in disseminating their research widely in a way that was never possible or practical in the past. interaction with that global audience has brought reward and recognition to motivate contributors, and learning technology projects have built capacity within the institution. 8 http://www8.open.ac.uk/score/about_score http://www8.open.ac.uk/score/about_score highton, m., fresen, j., & wild, j. 38 references alessi, s. m., & trollip, s. r. 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(research report). retrieved from http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/elearning/oer/jiscoerimpactstudyrese archreportv1-0.pdf masterman, l., wild, j., white, d., & manton, m. 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(n.d.). advocacy for openspires. retrieved from http://openspires.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ mcgill, l., beetham, h., falconer, i., & littlejohn, a. (2010). jisc/he academy oer programme: pilot phase synthesis and evaluation report. retrieved from https://oersynth.pbworks.com/w/page/29688444/pilot%20phase%20synthesis%20and%20eva luation%20report mcgill, l., beetham, h., falconer, i., & littlejohn, a. (2011). jisc/he academy oer programme: phase 2 synthesis and evaluation report. retrieved from https://oersynth.pbworks.com/w/page/46324015/ukoer%20phase%202%20final%20report mit. (2011). mit open courseware: a decade of open sharing. retrieved from http://ocw.mit.edu/about/next-decade/ michie, j. (2011). about the department—welcome from professor michie. retrieved from http://www.conted.ox.ac.uk/about/index.php newton, r. (2003). staff attitudes to the development and delivery of e-learning. new library world, 104(10), 412–425. oecd. (2007). giving knowledge for free: the emergence of open educational resources. retrieved from http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/35/7/38654317.pdf open society institute. (2007). cape town open education declaration: unlocking the promise of open educational resources. retrieved from http://www.capetowndeclaration.org/read-thedeclaration taylor, j. c. (2001). fifth generation distance education. (higher education series report no. 40). retrieved from http://www.dest.gov.au/archive/highered/hes/hes40/hes40.pdf unesco. (2011). communication and information: open educational resources. retrieved from http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/access-toknowledge/open-educational-resources/ white, d., & manton, m. (2011). open educational resources: the value of reuse in higher education. jisc-funded oer impact study. retrieved from http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/elearning/oer/oerthevalueofreuseinh ighereducation.pdf wiley, d., & gurrell, s. (2009). a decade of development. open learning: the journal of open and distance learning, 24(1), 11–21. acknowledgements the writers acknowledge the financial contribution to some of the oxford research projects under the joint hea-jisc open educational resources programme and the hefce-funded score fellowship at the open university, uk. http://lamsfoundation.org/lams2011sydney/papers.html http://openspires.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ https://oersynth.pbworks.com/w/page/29688444/pilot%20phase%20synthesis%20and%20evaluation%20report https://oersynth.pbworks.com/w/page/29688444/pilot%20phase%20synthesis%20and%20evaluation%20report https://oersynth.pbworks.com/w/page/46324015/ukoer%20phase%202%20final%20report http://ocw.mit.edu/about/next-decade/ http://www.conted.ox.ac.uk/about/index.php http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/35/7/38654317.pdf http://www.capetowndeclaration.org/read-the-declaration http://www.capetowndeclaration.org/read-the-declaration http://www.dest.gov.au/archive/highered/hes/hes40/hes40.pdf http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/access-to-knowledge/open-educational-resources/ http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/access-to-knowledge/open-educational-resources/ http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/elearning/oer/oerthevalueofreuseinhighereducation.pdf http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/elearning/oer/oerthevalueofreuseinhighereducation.pdf highton, m., fresen, j., & wild, j. 40 biographical notes melissa highton melissa.highton@oucs.ox.ac.uk melissa has management responsibility for the learning technologies group in the oxford university computing service; she has institutional responsibility for e-learning strategy, the vle, and it skills and training. she is a fellow of kellogg college and works closely with the e-learning research group in the department of education. she is the senior manager responsible for oxford‘s current oer initiatives and the development of open-source learning technologies. jill fresen jill.fresen@oucs.ox.ac.uk jill has extensive experience as a learning technologist in a variety of higher-education institutions. her portfolio includes working closely with academics to identify needs and opportunities for effective use of a variety of technologies, particularly the institutional vle. she is responsible for designing and developing help and support resources, and academic staff training courses and materials. joanna wild joanna.wild@oucs.ox.ac.uk joanna has been involved in researching the area of technology-enhanced learning since 2004. her main field of research is learning design, evaluation of learning technologies, and (currently) open educational practices. recently she was involved in the jisc-funded oer impact study and the esrc/epsrc-funded learning design support environment (ldse) project. joanna also has experience in supporting academic staff in their use of new technologies, an important part of her former role as a learning technologist. � this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. highton, m., fresen, j., & wild, j. (2011). making academic oer easy: reflections on technology and openness at oxford university. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 15(2), [28–40]. mailto:melissa.highton@oucs.ox.ac.uk mailto:jill.fresen@oucs.ox.ac.uk mailto:joanna.wild@oucs.ox.ac.uk http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ © distance education association of new zealand 71 interactive scenario design: the value of flowcharts and schemas in developing scenario-based lessons for online and flexible learning contexts t. m. stewart e-learning fellow t.stewart@massey.ac.nz m. e.brown director of distance education m.e.brown@massey.ac.nz a. weatherstone academic consultant a.e.weatherstone@massey.ac.nz centre for academic development and e-learning massey university (cadel) palmerston north, new zealand introduction distance education has been a central part of massey university’s focus since the first courses were offered in 1960. since then, the design of distance learning has moved from an ‘art’ (often left to teachers’ own devices), to a sophisticated craft and applied science involving institutional assistance and training. would-be distance course conveners now attend professional workshops on how to develop extramural courses. these workshops are based on contemporary principles of learning design, and the training is often followed up by one-to-one consultancies and checks during the preparation phase itself. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 71–90 © distance education association of new zealand 72 because the process was becoming increasingly complex, it was felt the existing training and staff support on distance education course design would be enhanced by an interactive problem-based scenario. this would be used as a visually engaging and valuable teaching tool, allowing the learning consultant to ‘walk’ workshop participants through it in a tutorial session, promoting discussion on questions posed by the scenario. however, the scenario would also be designed to be used as a stand-alone flexible learning exercise which novice distance course designers could explore in their own time. furthermore, in the spirit of open access, it would be made available to other new zealand distance providers to adapt and amend for their own training. the use of interactive problem-based scenarios in educational contexts is founded on the premise that students learn better by active engagement (that is, by doing things), and then reflecting on what was done—rather than simply listening (bruner, 1973; jonassen, howland, moore, & marra, 2003; schön, 1991). scenarios of this nature illustrate problems in context, and can aid in understanding the subject material and the motivation to learn it (hmelo-silver, 2004; mykytyn, pearson, souren, & mykytyn, 2008; schank, fano, bell, & jona 1993; tait, tait, thornton, & edwards, 2008). one lesson from the above literature is that manifestation of the problembased scenario paradigm in an e-learning context is often supported by an illustrated narrative or story, which the student must follow by clicking through the ‘scenes’. at various stages of the scenario the student is required to provide input. in this sense, interactive scenarios are ideally suited to supporting the concept of personalised learning (new zealand ministry of education, 2006). typically the story will take a ‘fly-on-the-wall’ approach, following a central character through a series of tasks. alternatively, the prose could be in the second person and the central character could be the student themselves. at certain points in the narrative the student may be asked to suggest further exploration, and/or analyse what is wrong and suggest remedies. while some details of a particular scenario and how it was used will be elaborated below, describing the scenario or making others aware of its existence is not the main purpose of this paper. while delivery tools and authoring software exist to construct scenarios to be delivered electronically, one of the most important (and time consuming) tasks in scenario-based learning is the design of the scenario itself. there must be real clarity about how the scenarios are created so they produce robust educational discussion (savin-baden, 2007). major considerations include the narrative, what journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 71–90 © distance education association of new zealand 73 components will be needed, how the scenario will be used within a lesson, and how it will support the learning outcomes. although it is a very creative activity, answering these questions can be a difficult intellectual process. however, it is essential that this precise planning is done before constructing the scenario in any authoring/delivery tool—otherwise the result can be a disorganised mess. this paper details a methodology used to construct interactive scenarios, using an example for illustration. in particular, the paper describes how flowcharts and simple text templates were used as valuable aids to scenario design and planning. the case study illustrates that, although course development is a dynamic and iterative process, quality learning designs require careful planning and appropriate scaffolding using a combination of design techniques. this conclusion supports the view that learning design is about making sure that choices and decisions are explicit throughout course development. sbl interactive although the methodology outlined below is generic, some explanation of the authoring tool used to convert the scenario to an electronic format is necessary in order to appreciate the headings used in the schema tables and storyboards referred to later in this paper. this tool is sbl interactive (sbli) (anon, 2009). sbli is an updated version of pbl interactive, which is a scenario-based authoring and delivery system made available to all new zealand tertiary institutions in late 2006 (stewart, 2007). the what-you-see-is-what-you-get (wysiwyg) interface makes it easy to construct scenarios and scaffold them during student playback. the software package consists of a client-based scenario builder for authoring, and a player for scenario delivery. there is a server version of the player, which can be used to deliver scenarios over the web, and a client version, which can be used to run scenarios direct from media on the client computer. players extract the scenario from a scenario data file (produced by the scenario builder) which is essentially a package of xml documents. sbli uses the same interface for both authoring and delivery (see figure 1). the root object in a scenario is the location, which may represent a realworld location (say a building) or a conceptual location (for example, journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 71–90 © distance education association of new zealand 74 reflections). locations may contain further objects such as items and actions. each of these objects is described by the content window, which can hold text, images, hyperlinks (to embedded or external content), forms (which provide feedback on clicking), and embedded multimedia, all formatted by standard html code. objects can be set to accrue a cost, either in money or time. items linked to a particular location appear in the environment window. the environment window background graphic can change depending on the location selected, and gives the user exploring a scenario a feel for what they might see in the general area. items can contain their own actions and contents, and they can also be collected during the course of a scenario and transported to different locations. in doing so, further functionality of that item may be revealed. collected items are revealed by the collection tab, and can be ‘uncollected’ and placed in the current environment window. figure 1 the sbli player (top) and builder (bottom) showing part of a scenario journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 71–90 © distance education association of new zealand 75 all objects in a scenario are hidden or revealed by a system of prerequisite properties associated with that object. for example, in one point in our scenario, the central character reads a letter of complaint about a course from an ex-student who happens to also work on the campus. only when that letter is read does the location (the central character’s office) become visible in the scenario so that she can be visited and interviewed. one of the strengths of sbli is the ease of authoring. a specialist programmer is not required. properties (prerequisites, costs and so on) are easily attributed to objects, text, and images using a properties panel (see figure 1), and forms can be simply inserted in the content window with no scripting whatsoever. however, while sbli provides a platform to turn scenarios into an electronic web-based exercise, it does not help in the creative task of developing the original content. problem-based scenarios are often like a film script (errington, 2005) with an unfolding story that allows for a number of interactive artefacts (such as web forms for input or graphics representing an object that students may have to examine). developing such scenarios requires a combination of very good planning and iterative visions of the script, which gradually takes the shape of the ‘hard content’ that will appear in the final product. as alluded to above, simple table-based word documents, flow diagrams, and storyboards are invaluable low-tech planning tools for developing the scenario. the following section outlines the method by which these tools were used to develop the distance education course scenario. the method we know that course planning is a creative rather than linear process (laurillard, 2002). however, this does not mean that teachers should be left to discover (by osmosis) their own idiosyncratic model(s) of learning design. there is growing appreciation of the value of providing teachers with a learning design toolkit to support effective pedagogy (conole & fill, 2005). the steps that follow describe a robust framework for developing scenariobased e-learning products and solutions. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 71–90 © distance education association of new zealand 76 step 1: scenario descriptor the first task was to come up with a scenario descriptor. the descriptor summarised the plot and how the scenario would be embedded into a lesson for the learning outcomes (see table 1). it is an important document, which serves as an anchor for further development. (note that the word ‘student’ in this context refers to either a workshop participant or someone working through the scenario external to the workshop.) table 1 the scenario descriptor for the distance materials preparation workshop name home improvement: a distance course assessment synopsis the plot involves a young lecturer who has been given the job (by their hod) to revitalise a flagging distance course. the past course convener has retired and our hapless young academic only has a few short months to: firstly, examine the existing course to identify any deficiencies; and secondly, to make improvements where feasible. the narrative will be in the second person; the student plays the role of the central character. students working through the scenario will see examples of the existing administration and study guides and associated e-learning material. these components will have flaws, which the students will be encouraged to identify. furthermore, within the scenario our student will have conversations with both ex-students and collaborating staff. further clues as to course deficiencies will be identified from these videoed conversations. what are the expected learning outcomes? students will be made aware of common deficiencies in study material course design and delivery and how they can affect learners. this should help them to avoid these pitfalls when they design courses in the future. when and how will the course be delivered? the scenario will be presented as a walk–through, tutor-led demonstration during a workshop on study material preparation. it will also be available, in modified form, as an online scenario for selfreflective study, and for other institutions to download, amend, and/or use. what help will students get? students will be prompted by the tutor during the live walk-through but they are expected to fully participate in the analysis of the deficiencies. what reflection is required and what feedback is given? students will be prompted for reflection and analysis by a combination of multi-choice and short-answer questions. feedback will be given immediately. what study materials/ resources are available? how will they be available? students will have workshop materials available. these include paperbased guides on preparing good distance education courses. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 71–90 © distance education association of new zealand 77 what form does the assessment take? assessment is formative only. no scores will be kept. can the scenario be worked through many times or just once? many are there model answer(s)? yes will students work in teams or alone? the course will be presented as a group exercise in real time, facilitated by a tutor. however, the scenario can also be worked through alone. step 2: flowcharting the scenario as the scenario was to be presented via the web through a series of clicks, a flowchart was needed to determine the various interactive and content screens. initially a whiteboard was used in a brainstorming process to flesh out the plot. once an acceptable structure was produced, this became part of the planning documentation (see figure 2). a skeleton (a blank sbli scenario devoid of content) was then produced with placeholders for the main locations, items and actions, just to ensure the proposed flow worked. “home improvement” scenario – proposed locations and actions start (scenario explained) read/view reflect ring ex-student reflect and exercises course outline study guide e-learning component letters of complaint (object) your office (start) introducing yourself answer phone (audio) confirm hod meeting actions given task by hod (video) check the assessment scores (object) actions actions linked material h.o.d.’s office your office (again) summary and end talk to other course contributors (videos) reflect prereq. your office (again) actions staff room prereq. your office (again) talk to frank (video) reflect actions frank’s orchard prereq. your office (again) talk to cathy (video) reflect actions cathy collin’s office figure 2 scenario flowchart journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 71–90 © distance education association of new zealand 78 step 3: developing the content using table schemas a planning document containing a series of tables was developed. initially the table held ideas and (later) final information that related to, or would be transferred directly to, sbli. these tables were sequential (roughly following the sequence outlined in the flowchart), to make up one large schema. the main table type was called the content schema. table 2 shows a content schema template. repeating tables of this type were used to plan (and finally hold) the scenario narrative. each content schema table related to a particular content screen; that is, contextual information that related to the scenario story was relayed to the student when an object (such as a location, item, action, or hyperlink) was clicked. each row in the table related to particular properties of the object in the sbli environment. table 2 a content schema template where in scenario? where does this object lie in the scenario tree? insert the pathway here (e.g. general locations ). object type and name insert the type and name of the object that is clicked on to reveal this content page. it could be a location (e.g. office), an item (e.g. flowers), an action associated with a location or item, or an internal hyperlink associated with an action. if object is location or specify the image that will be seen in the environment window in sbli. if object is item specify the icon that will represent the item. is it collectable? (y/n) prerequisite what needs to be done before this object appears? or what makes it unavailable? content what textual content will the student will see when they explore (click on) this object? media what media will be incorporated into the content (i.e. video, audio, still images)? hyperlinks what hyperlinks (to external resources or embedded internal resources) will be included in the content? navigation instructions what instructions (if any) should the students be given about what to do next? journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 71–90 © distance education association of new zealand 79 prerequisites are any prerequisites set elsewhere in the scenario by clicking on this object? cost is there a cost in time or money? insert it here. during the development of the scenario, content schemas became living documents that were refined during a series of iterative visits. the first cut described the content in general terms. it allowed the author to see what needed to be written as narrative, what was needed as reference from the content (for example, an embedded pdf, or information under or through a hyperlink), and which multimedia resources to gather. once complete, feedback was sought. for example, table 3a shows a content schema table during the early development phase. other tables in the whole schema document were of a similar nature. table 3a a content schema table during the early development phase where in scenario general locations hods office (location)  object type and name action; about jenny. if object location or n/a if object item n/a prerequisite prerequisite triggered when the location “hod’s office” is clicked on content the text will introduce us to the hod. she is female, successful, and politically savvy. media there will be a static “head and shoulders” photo hyperlinks none navigation instructions students will be told to click on “your task”, which will have appeared in the action window prerequisites this will reveal the action “your task” immediately under the “about jenny” action cost n/a once the content was described, the schema would be revisited, fine-tuned, and the actual content inserted (i.e., the exact names of the objects and actions and the text the student would see in the content window). the file names of the identified resources would also be given, so the author knew exactly which multimedia or embedded file was associated with particular content (see table 3b). journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 71–90 © distance education association of new zealand 80 table 3b the same content schema table during later development where in scenario scenario hods office (location)  object type and name action; about jenny. if object location or n/a if object item n/a prerequisite “hod’s office” is visited content although only 35, jenny fountain has been head of the institute of crops and pasture for the past two years. before taking on the post, she had a successful career as a science administrator in one of the crown research institutes, having made her name as a leading researcher in crop science. her energy and political savvy has seen the institute start to grow under her stewardship. although you’ve only worked with her for a short time, she has your respect as someone with a clear vision and the will to drive it forward. media jennifer.jpg hyperlinks none navigation instructions now click on the action “your task” in the action window prerequisites set general locations hod’s office (location) your task (action) will be revealed cost n/a the corresponding screen in sbli appears in figure 3. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 71–90 © distance education association of new zealand 81 figure 3 final screen in sbli, developed from the content schema table shown in table 3b a second type of schema, the report schema, was included towards the end of this stage. this schema held interactive exercises and student feedback. report schemas were themselves of two types. one assisted with content for multi-choice and tick-box reports, and the other type helped with free-text input. report schema tables were inserted in sequence (as identified by the flowchart in figure 2) in the whole schema document following the content schema tables they related to. an example of a multi-choice/tick-box report schema table can be seen in table 4. as with the content schemas, the tables held the exact questions and feedback that were to appear in the interactive reports in sbli. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 71–90 © distance education association of new zealand 82 table 4 a multi-choice/tick-box report schema with questions and feedback content where in scenario? general locations  your office (location) admin guide (item)  object type and name action: reflect on admin guide prerequisite action: “read admin guide” has been visited preamble content a good administration guide should have a number of components. just what these are can sometimes depend on the subject being taught, but there are general features that are common to all. let’s examine these one by one, in the context of the administration guide you’ve just read. question this administration guide… the item the student should select score score visible response if selected response if not selected looks good to me 0 n/a at first glance it seems ok, but parts of it are very vague, and a number of important items have been missed out altogether! n/a just needs one or two additions 0 n/a no, it needs more than that. parts of it are very vague, and a number of important items have been missed out altogether! n/a appears seriously deficient 0 n/a yes. parts of it are very vague, and a number of important items have been missed out altogether! n/a isn’t worth the paper it’s written on! 0 n/a well, let’s not go that far. it does have some value. however, parts of it are very vague, and a number of important items have been missed out altogether! n/a navigation directions at the end of the feedback now let’s go through each section of the guide and critique it. click on new actions as they appear. some tips on what should be in any administration distance learning guide will be discussed at the end of this scenario. reveals action: study guide elements the content of this schema table in sbli is shown in figures 4a and 4b. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 71–90 © distance education association of new zealand 83 figure 4a screen in sbli developed from the report schema in table 4, posing reflective questions figure 4b screen in sbli developed from the report schema in table 4 after a selection was made journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 71–90 © distance education association of new zealand 84 once completed, the whole schema document consisted of a sequence of the tables described above. it could be read through, checked, and shared. with the exception of the multimedia content, which still needed to be produced, all the scenario content could now be pasted directly into sbli to construct a draft scenario. step 4: authoring in sbli actions and items were created, and the textual parts of the content window were simply pasted in from the schema document. icons for locations and items were obtained from libraries developed for previous scenarios. throughout the scenario, font styles were used to distinguish between the different roles the text played in the exercise. narrative text was presented in times roman. navigation instructions were presented in italics. for the first draft, the video and audio scripts were included as text in quotation marks, and images representing video clips were used as place markers to show where the video would appear. this allowed the author and other interested parties to view the scenario in a form that was similar to its completed state. when the scenario’s content was near completion, the reflective exercises were included. these exercises, taking the form of either multi-choice exercises or short-answer questions, were spread through the scenario and gave the students an opportunity to reflect and analyse the content. it was a simple job to paste them into the authoring tool from the report schema tables. verdana font was used to distinguish reflective prose from the narrative. this prose was also written in the active voice to directly communicate with the user, posing questions and encouraging reflection. step 5: adding the multimedia the multimedia had two functions within the scenario. the first function was to engage, and the second was to convey vital information. the multimedia sections are the most expensive part of any e-learning exercise, and they are also the most difficult parts to re-shoot or re-edit. before these were captured, therefore, the scenario was checked extensively and tried out on volunteers as a usability check. this testing resulted in some minor editing to both the content and the flow. once these edits were done, video scripts were finalised, actors arranged, and the video was filmed. it was decided to include a link to a written representation of the script dialogue under the media box in the content window to allow students journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 71–90 © distance education association of new zealand 85 exploring the scenario on their own to read the video dialogue if (for any reason) their computer was unable to play the media. after the video and audio was edited and included, the scenario was checked again by peers. minor tweaks were made at this point, and then the scenario was ready to use. use in a professional development session this scenario was piloted late in 2008 for a professional development (pd) session on developing distance course material. the session had five participants. after an introduction to what makes a ‘good’ distance course, the scenario was used as a 30-minute walk-through to show what does not constitute a good course, and some of the problems that can arise from less than adequate study material. the reflective questions embedded in the scenario were posed to the group. using the scenario in a group environment (even a small group) was a new experience, because online scenarios are usually self-paced to support flexible learning. using the scenario in a workshop raised a number of issues: would the scenario text be large enough to be read easily via the data projector? how much of the text should participants read (rather than the facilitator)? would interest be sustained if the scenario was used in this way? how much value did the scenario add to the workshop? participants found the scenario a novel way to start thinking about writing distance materials. although they found the problems used in the study guide example ‘too obvious’, they found it useful in terms of reflecting on the complexities of the teaching and learning process for distance delivery. focusing on ‘what should not be done’ helped raise questions about levels of support, consultation, collaboration, the curriculum, and student needs. there were problems however, in using the scenario in a small group. these problems related mainly to the form of access; the font was too small, participants had to rely on the facilitator to proceed, so it took longer than expected to work through. amendments to the scenario are planned to address these concerns. nevertheless, the pilot provided sufficient evidence that interactive scenarios have great potential in the professional development of staff, especially when face-to-face workshops are blended with the advantages of flexible delivery through online self-paced learning resources. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 71–90 © distance education association of new zealand 86 scenario availability the scenario is available for viewing and/or downloading and amending at the ako aotearoa national centre for tertiary teaching excellence website (stewart, 2009). further thoughts the scenario produced was a useful addition to massey university’s training materials. margolis and bell (1984), summarising knowles’s (1980) seminal work on the way adults learn, make the point that experience is the richest resource for adult learning. they argue that “the core methodology for adult learning programs involves active participation in a planned series of experiences, the analysis of those experiences, and their application to work and life situations” (margolis & bell, 1984, p. 17). in accordance with dewey’s (1938) original “‘experience, reflection and learning” model, a simulated experience with reflective exercises seems to go some way towards providing this learning experience if first-hand practical experience is not possible. this is what the scenario aims to do, both in a workshop environment and as a self-study module, or through a blend of both delivery strategies. notably, irrespective of the instructional context, the scenario can be used to implement chickering and gamson’s (1987) seven principles of good practice for supporting learning: good practice encourages student–teacher contact.1. good practice encourages cooperation among learners.2. good practice encourages active learning.3. good practice gives prompt feedback.4. good practice emphasises time on task.5. good practice communicates high expectations.6. good practice respects diverse talents and ways of learning.7. the key point is that these principles can be implemented through interactive scenarios because they can embed and provide a rich context for active and meaningful learning. importantly, the crucial ingredient is not the software but rather the assumptions and learning design(s) that underpin the end product. in our experience, a robust planning framework helps to ensure that choices (about content, rich media, learning activities and so on) constructively align with the original learning intentions. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 71–90 © distance education association of new zealand 87 the design approach refined during this process has proved invaluable. using simple table-based schemas and flow diagrams for scenario development may seem a minor, even trivial methodology. however, this is not the case. it is always tempting to jump right into the authoring tool and start constructing scenarios without a clear plan of all the components. this is a big mistake. the non-linear nature of most interactive scenarios, with their hidden content and pre-requisite triggers, can make it difficult to see all the component parts and how they relate to one another once the scenario is fixed in the authoring tool. tools such as sbli are certainly useful to quickly prototype scenarios but, as with designing websites, good planning and storyboarding of scenarios is essential. some scenario-based authoring tools under development, such as the ‘emergo’ toolkit (nadolski, 2007; westera, nadolski, hummel, & wopereis, 2008) incorporate planning tools. however, simple techniques such as using flow diagrams and table-based schemas can also provide this framework if they are not incorporated in the main authoring program. in many respects, the major contribution of this article is to show that low-tech solutions to learning design still have a place. they can be viewed as a framework for ‘conversation’ with one’s self. most of all, they enforce a discipline and methodology on the scenario development process. table-based schemas are also flexible. for example, the senior author uses slightly different schemas to develop diagnostic scenarios for plant pathology lessons. sbli has a collections function where objects (say a plant’s roots) collected in one scenario location (say a grower’s field) can be used in another location, such as a laboratory. when in the laboratory, many tests and observations on the roots which were unavailable in the grower’s field (such as examination under a microscope) are now available. this is made possible by objects being flagged as ‘collectable’ in sbli, and associated prerequisites being set on these objects so that their properties can change depending on the scenario location. because the schemas are simple text tables, they can be adapted easily to this type of scenario simply by adding a few extra property rows, such as collectable items. lastly, once scenarios are captured in a generic format such as a fullyfleshed schema, they can be used and delivered in a variety of different ways, perhaps without using computer technology at all! they are an easily accessible archive, independent of any particular software platform. given the time it can take to create scenarios and the rate at which software is constantly evolving, durable content is especially important. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 71–90 © distance education association of new zealand 88 acknowledgements the authors would like to thank ako aotearoa for funding this project; gordon suddaby, director, cadel, massey university for facilitating it; and the volunteer actors who appeared in the video and audio clips. references anonymous. (2009). sbl interactive. retrieved april 30, 2009 from http:// www.sblinteractive.org bruner, j. (1973). going beyond the information given. new york: norton. chickering, a., & gamson, z. (1987). seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education. wingspread journal, 9(2). retrieved 30 april, 2009 from http://www.johnsonfdn.org/publications/conferencereports/ sevenprinciples/sevenprinciples_pdf.pdf conole, g., & fill, f. (2005). a learning design toolkit to create pedagogically effective learning activities. journal of interactive media in education 8. retrieved 20 may, 2009 from http://www-jime.open.ac.uk/ dewey, j. (1938) experience and education. new york: collier. errington, e. (2005). creating learning scenarios: a planning guide for adult educators. palmerston north, new zealand: cool books. hmelo-silver, c. e. 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(2008). the use of problem-based learning to enhance mis education. decision sciences journal of innovative education, 6(1), 89–113. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 71–90 © distance education association of new zealand 89 nadolski, r., hummel, h., van den brink, h., hoefakker, r., slootmaker, a., kurvers h., & storm j. (2007). emergo: methodology and toolkit for efficient development of serious games in higher education. retrieved april 30, 2009 from http://dspace.ou.nl/handle/1820/1046 new zealand ministry of education. (2006). let’s talk about: personalising learning. wellington: the ministry. savin-baden, m. (2007). a practical guide to problem-based learning online. london: routledge. schank, r. a., fano, a., bell, b., & jona, m. (1993). the design of goal-based scenarios. journal of the learning sciences, 3, 305–345. schön, d. (1991). the reflective turn: case studies in and on educational practice. new york: teachers college press. stewart, t. m. (2007). tools and techniques for scenario based e-learning for new zealand tertiary students: prototype to adoption. in ict: providing choices for learners and learning. proceedings ascilite, singapore. retrieved april 30, 2009 from http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/ singapore07/procs/stewart-t.pdf stewart, t. m. (2009). home improvement: a distance course assessment scenario. retrieved april 30, 2009 from http://akoaotearoa.ac.nz/ community/tools-delivering-scenario-based-e-learning-both-locally-andacross-internet/resources/page tait, m., tait, d., thornton, f., & edwards, m. (2008). development and evaluation of a critical care e-learning scenario. nurse education today, 28(8), 970–80. westera, w., nadolski, r. j., hummel, h. g. k., & wopereis, i. g. j. h. (2008). serious games for higher education: a framework for reducing design complexity. journal of computer assisted learning, 24, 420–432. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 71–90 © distance education association of new zealand 90 biographical notes t. m. stewart e-learning fellow terry stewart has used and developed tools for scenariobased learning within his own discipline of plant protection for over 21 years. this activity won him a new zealand tertiary teaching award for innovation in 2003 and a deanz award in 2008. he is currently seconded from his home institute (institute of natural resources) on a part-time e-learning fellowship to facilitate and promote scenario-based learning at massey university. m. e. brown director of distance education mark brown is the director of distance education at massey university. he is a member of the new zealand academy of tertiary teaching excellence and is past recipient of a national award for sustained excellence in tertiary teaching. associate professor brown currently chairs the university’s teaching and learning committee. a. weatherstone teaching consultant anna weatherstone has worked in distance education for 20 years. her activity in this time has included designing, writing, and teaching distance courses. she is currently a teaching consultant at massey university, providing academic development in the area of instructional design for teaching and learning at a distance. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 71–90 journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(2) 35 lecturer attitudes and behavioural intentions to use learning management systems in vietnam pham ngoc thach, hanoi university phuong hoai lai, hanoi university abstract this study aims to explore lecturer attitudes to, and intentions for, using a learning management system (lms) in a vietnamese university. its two main purposes are to (a) identify the factors that influence lecturer attitudes and intentions to use an lms, and (b) examine the causal relationships among the factors. to achieve this aim, the study used davis’ (1985) technology acceptance model (tam) as a baseline. the study expands the original model to include two constructs: perceived internet self-efficacy (pis), and support to use (su). the results of the study revealed that pis was a significant direct predictor of lecturers’ perceived ease of use and behavioural intention to use an lms. however, the support to use construct did not predict perceived ease of use. the study suggests that institutions should conduct an in-depth survey of teacher needs to assist with making wellinformed decisions about developing an lms for future emergencies. keywords: learning management system (lms); technology acceptance model (tam); attitude; intention; structural equation modelling (sem); vietnam introduction the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) that emerged at the end of december 2019 caused an unprecedented phenomenon during which students at all levels were forced to study online. online learning had never been so vital for the education sector. during this period, most higher education institutions (heis) used live video-conferencing tools such as google workspace (formerly g suite) to conduct classes. these makeshift online lessons could hardly satisfy students and teachers, many of whom had never been online for learning and teaching before. the migration from offline to online course delivery met government policies that stated, “school is out, but class is on” (bich, 2020). however, many issues emerged, including the technological and academic readiness of both teachers and students, and quality assurance of online lessons. public universities in many developing nations lack technological platforms and formal online learning management systems (lmss) for communicating with students or their teaching staff (talidong & toquero, 2020). hence, they cannot fully support the online learning process. students, forced to communicate synchronously with their instructors and peers through free applications such as zoom and google workspace, suffered from significant anxiety and concern, which affected their behaviour (baloran, 2020; thúy & trường, 2020). thus, institutions needed to develop fully functional lmss to counteract the anxiety and concern so students could study whenever they want—not only during the online in-class hours through synchronous lessons with the instructors, but also after class hours. thach, p. n., lai, p. h. 36 vietnamese heis include national and regional universities, junior 3-year colleges, and academies that award undergraduate and post-graduate degrees (quốc hội, 2018). before the 1990s, all of vietnam’s universities and colleges were public institutions, and it was not until 1998 that the first private university was established (pham & fry, 2002). as of 2019, the country has about 65 private universities, most of which operate as for-profit businesses and depend almost entirely on student tuition revenues (moet, 2020a, chau et al., 2020). recently, however, a few economic groups and companies have invested in upgrading operational universities or setting up new ones and running them according to business models. examples are phenikaa university of a&a – phenikaa group, hoa sen university of nguyen hoang group, and vinuniversity of vingroup joint stock company (pham, 2020). during the covid-19 outbreak, most vietnamese heis had to switch to online teaching and learning. although a few universities had used this mode of lesson delivery and had a certain level of readiness, most had no option but to start training their teachers and students on pedagogical and technical skills for this new way of learning. online lessons were delivered from the end of february to the end of may 2020, but online teaching and learning continued after social distancing restrictions were lifted. teachers and students either went to their offices or stayed at home and continued to deliver and access online lessons via zoom or google workspace. they also used online chat tools, such as zalo and facebook, for communication. although some educators and teachers consider this emergency delivery of lessons to be online learning, specialists in the field believe video-conferencing applications cannot replace a fully functional lms. the video-conferencing applications were preferred by most universities because not all teachers and students were well-prepared to use lmss in their institutions. zoom or google workspace were more economical and user-friendly, and provided many educational tools in one application (spathis & day, 2020; thanh et al., 2020). before covid-19, the government of vietnam and moet had issued many policies and directions to encourage schools and heis to deliver online courses and services to students and the public. a national television channel is also designated for teaching languages, general knowledge, life skills, and school subjects such as mathematics, physics, and chemistry, especially before the entrance examination to university in vietnam (normally in july). because of the need for long-term online learning in response to covid-19, moet has also provided guidance on quality assurance of online learning, especially the official dispatch no. 988/bgdđt-gdđh on quality assurance of online distance teaching (moet, 2020b). nevertheless, few studies have been conducted in vietnam on aspects of online learning such as online learning styles, study outcomes, instructor perceptions, and experiences in online teaching. review of related literature over recent decades, lmss such as blackboard, moodle, and webct have provided tools and functions for course management, online group chat, discussion, and course evaluation to support teaching, learning, and assessment (fathema et al., 2015; walker et al., 2016). learning management system tools and functions allow students to interact with course content and peers and instructors synchronously and asynchronously (moore, 1989). an lms gives learners and teachers access to data. such data is also valuable for administration, quality assurance, and research (walker et al., 2016). in this context, it is necessary to understand both teacher and learner perceptions of, and readiness to use, an lms. although some teachers perceive that teaching with an lms is the same as teaching face to face, others disagree and maintain that they need different competencies and tools to prepare content, and to communicate with and assess online learners (martin et al., 2019). journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(2) 37 a typical lms has key tools such as grade books, course materials, forums, and assessment matrices. whether these tools are effective for the instructors (e.g., lecturers) and learners (university students) depends very much on the users themselves. earlier research has concluded that one-size lms does not fit all (walker et al., 2016) and that the effectiveness of an lms depends on the attitudes and competencies of the instructors (alharbi & drew, 2014; walker et al., 2016). however, as learners become the centre of an online learning environment, their digital engagement—or lack of it—in online learning activities also has an important effect on the quality of learning (doe et al., 2017). indeed, student and faculty satisfaction are the two critical components of quality in online teaching and learning, and are closely related (bolliger & wasilik, 2009). institutions have a crucial role to play in the creation and implementation of an lms. first, institutional administrators are often responsible for decisions to invest and maintain online courses and programmes, which include training for technical and academic staff. it has been claimed in past research that having a good understanding of factors affecting the adoption and use of an lms can help education managers to make decisions about training teachers in the design, development, and implementation of online courses and encouraging learners to study online more effectively (kultur & yazici, 2014). in other words, understanding teacher and student perceptions and attitudes towards adopting an lms are some of the critical criteria university leaders use to make decisions about investment in online learning. unfortunately, in the case of lms adoption, decisions are sometimes driven by authorities, not research (walker et al., 2016). past studies have used a range of frameworks and methods to understand instructor attitudes and experiences about teaching online and using an lms. earlier studies relied on the technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge (tpack) framework “to describe how teachers’ understanding of educational technologies and pck interact with one another to produce effective teaching with technology” (koehler & mishra, 2009, p. 62). more recently, the faculty readiness to teach online (frto) framework was used to measure teachers’ attitudes, knowledge, readiness, and ability for online teaching (martin et al., 2019). the core issue in these frameworks was the teachers’ integration of knowledge about technology, pedagogy, and subject content so that they can be ready for a virtual environment. however, the results of past studies have been inconclusive about how good and how satisfied instructors were in the integration or use of technology in teaching (bolliger & wasilik, 2009; walker et al., 2016). previous studies on the adoption of an lms have also been based on the technology acceptance model (tam) and later versions (tam2 and tam3) (davis, 1985; venkatesh & bala, 2008). the baseline tam model is shown in figure 1. figure 1 technology acceptance model (tam; davis, 1985) in this study, two modifications were made to the baseline model: (a) adding two external constructs (perceived internet self-efficacy and support to use) and (b) omitting one baseline variable (actual use). this omission was based on survey results that indicated less than 30% of the teachers had some experience in online teaching, suggesting that many of them were not thach, p. n., lai, p. h. 38 familiar with an lms. one of the main foci of this study was to seek their attitudes and behavioural intentions to use an lms. the next part of this paper presents brief definitions and the inferences of the two additional constructs. figure 2 proposed research model note: pis = perceived internet self-efficacy, su = support to use, peou = perceived ease of use, pu = perceived usefulness, att = attitude towards using, and biu = behavioural intention to use. perceived internet self-efficacy (pis) in the literature, internet self-efficacy is considered to be the confidence of individuals in their capabilities to use the internet for different purposes (kao et al., 2014). in online learning and teaching, internet self-efficacy correlates with student and teacher performance and satisfaction (chang et al., 2013; tabata & johnsrud, 2008). in studies about using an lms, it was revealed that users with higher internet capabilities have more positive attitudes about the ease and usefulness of an lms, and vice versa (fathema & sutton, 2013). researchers have used scales to measure student and teacher internet self-efficacy (jansen et al., 2017; kim & glassman, 2013). in this study, teachers’ internet self-efficacy was measured through their technical competencies, which included their knowledge and skills in using applications, communication tools, and learning systems, as well as their readiness to teach online (martin et al., 2019). this construct included items that measured the participants’ perceived beliefs about their confidence in using online tools (such as being familiar with the platforms, conducting online surveys, and using social networks for online interaction), as well as their overall satisfaction with the outcomes of past online teaching (such as their own knowledge and skills in online teaching, online interaction with students, and support from relevant stakeholders such as faculty and university leaders). based on prior literature, three hypotheses were formulated about the relationships between pis and perceived usefulness (pu), perceived ease of use (peou), and attitude towards using (att). the justification for these hypotheses is that if lecturers are confident in using the internet for online teaching, they will find an lms easy to use, recognise the effectiveness of using technology for teaching, and have positive attitudes to adoption. h1: pis has a significant positive effect on lecturer peou of an lms. h2: pis has a significant positive effect on lecturer pu of an lms. h3: pis has a significant positive effect on lecturer att of an lms. att su pis biu pu pe journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(2) 39 support to use (su) earlier studies have concluded that institutional support for lecturers’ teaching online in general, and adopting an lms in particular, is one of the facilitating conditions (fathema et al., 2015; ngai et al., 2007). this comprises favourable support that teachers receive to perform their tasks (teo, 2010). it can be in the form of technical, financial, and academic resources that institutions provide for online teaching (venkatesh & bala, 2008). this support is an important factor that affects teachers’ perception about the ease and usefulness of using an lms (fathema et al., 2015; ngai et al., 2007; teo, 2010). during the covid-19 crisis, technical problems (such as poor internet connectivity, teachers’ lack of pedagogical knowledge and skills in course design and online learning control, etc.), meant that the need for institutional support became even more pressing (moralista & oducado, 2020; rapanta et al., 2020). the current study proposed three hypotheses to examine the effect of su on the peou, att, and biu in an lms. h4: su has a significant positive effect on lecturer peou of an lms. h5: su has a significant positive effect on lecturer att of an lms. h6: su has a significant positive effect on lecturer biu of an lms. method participants and online courses the participants were 206 teachers at a vietnamese university. they were teachers of foreign languages (such as english, chinese, and japanese) and those who taught other subjects (such as business administration, information technology, banking, and finance) in english and french. they started teaching online from the end of february 2020, when vietnam banned large gatherings and required social distancing. as mentioned earlier, due to the emergency, lecturers were trained to use applications such as zoom or google workspace to deliver online lessons. technical support was also provided during the teaching periods, but the content was designed to be taught online without any pedagogical assistance. table 1 presents information about the participants. thach, p. n., lai, p. h. 40 table 1 participant profile frequency percentage gender female male total 176 30 206 85.4 14.6 100 online teaching experience no yes total 147 59 206 71.4 28.6 100 types of courses practice-based theory-based total 129 77 206 62.6 37.4 100 academic rank bachelor masters phd associate professor total 12 153 40 1 206 62.6 74.3 19.4 0.5 100 tenure under 5 years 6–10 years 11–15 years 16–20 years over 20 years total 42 61 65 32 6 206 20.4 29.6 31.6 15.5 2.9 100 nationwide school closures and social distancing resulted in online teaching being implemented from the end of february to the end of may 2020. teachers stayed at home in the capital city of hanoi or their hometowns to deliver online lessons via zoom or google workspace. they taught online for all courses of language practice, interpreting, and translation (for language majors), and specialised courses (for non-language majors) with the exception of physical education. some teachers used the university’s moodle as part of their lms to store lessons, but most developed their own teaching materials (e.g., slides and assignments) to deliver via zoom or google workspace. instrument development as mentioned earlier, this study added two constructs to davis’ (1985) tam model; that is, teacher pis and su (institutional support for teachers who are teaching online). the former construct included items such as teacher capabilities in managing online classes, designing lesson content, using an lms, and using online materials. the latter comprised the support that teachers needed to conduct online surveys, to use tools to monitor student progress, to teach online better (online teaching pedagogy), and to enhance communication with students. these are the key competencies of teachers as specified in the tpack model, in which technology knowledge “requires a deeper, more essential understanding and mastery of information technology for information processing, communication, and problem solving than does the traditional definition of computer literacy” (koehler & mishra, 2009, p. 64). however, one construct—actual use— was deleted from the baseline model because most participants (over 71%) had not previously used an lms for online teaching (see table 1). there were two stages in the process for the instrument development and translation. in stage 1, all constructs were adapted from prior studies, translated into vietnamese, and re-worded to make them relevant to the specific context of the study. to ensure the content validity of the instrument, an expert judgement session was organised. eight teachers who were involved in online teaching during the covid-19 pandemic were invited to read the questions. they were asked to comment on whether the questions were clear and appropriate for this study. slight modifications (such as item deletion and addition and wording changes) were made to ensure the journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(2) 41 suitability of questions for this study. in stage 2, the questionnaire was piloted with ten teachers who were teaching online at the time. these teachers were not among the participants in this study. the cronbach’s alpha values for six constructs of the pilot questionnaire were considered good, ranging from 0.83 to 0.94, indicating that the developed instruments were reliable. the final survey questionnaire comprised 32 likert scale items on six constructs (pis, su, peou, pu, att, and biu). all internal consistency reliabilities (based on cronbach’ alphas) for all six constructs ranged from 0.862 to 0.938 (table 2), and were considered good (hair et al., 1998). data collection and analysis all teachers who taught online at the participating university (about 400) were contacted via email during their online teaching period. the email had information about the study and a link to the online survey. they were also informed that participation in the survey was voluntary. follow-up reminder emails were sent to increase the response rate. after 10 days, 217 teachers (54%) responded. however, after cleaning the data (deleting carelessly invalid responses), 206 responses were retained for analysis. table 2 measurement scales no. factor no. of items reliability adapted from 1 2 3 4 5 6 pis su peou pu att biu 10 8 4 3 3 4 0.869 0.882 0.871 0.834 0.938 0.862 martin, budhrani, and wang (2019) adapted from tpack framework (2009) venkatesh and davis (2000) venkatesh and davis (2000) venkatesh and davis (2000) venkatesh and davis (2000) note: all items were measured on a five-point likert scale, with 1 representing “strongly disagree” and 5 representing “strongly agree”. a two-stage approach for structural equation modelling (sem) was used for data analysis. first, a confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) was conducted to develop the measurement model. second, the proposed structural model was tested to examine the causal relationships among all constructs. the software program, analysis of moment structures (amos), and part of the statistical package for the social sciences (spss) software (arbuckle, 2007), were used to conduct the cfa and sem. confirmatory factor analysis was used to measure the construct validity of the instrument, and sem was employed to evaluate the fit of both the measurement and structural components of the proposed model. structural equation modelling was used because it could analyse both of the paths in the model, and test its goodness of fit. the two-stage approach employed in this study is fully supported by anderson and gerbing (1988) and hair et al. (2010), who recommended using cfa and then sem to investigate the relationships between factors. this paper also uses exploratory factor analysis (efa) on the basis that all items in the questionnaire were partially adapted from previous studies (mulaik & millsap, 2000). the approach employed to analyse the data would also give answers to the six hypotheses of this study. empirical results from efa, five latent variables were initially identified with kmo of 0.819 (> 0.5) and significant bartlett’s test of sphericity. the measure of sampling adequacy (msa) suggested sufficient samples for all items as all msa figures are larger than 0.50. furthermore, a few correlation indices are in the range of 0.8, and the determinant of the correlation matrix was 5.339e-7, greater than 0.00001, suggesting a potential problem of collinearity (tabachnick & fidell, 2013). besides, cumulative extraction sums of squared loadings were 56.048%, which is thach, p. n., lai, p. h. 42 higher than the cutoff level of 50%. the study did not rely on the eigenvalue cutoff rule but used a parallel analysis and scree plot to determine how many factors were needed for analysis. as is revealed, only three factors were sufficient where perceived ease of use is now measured by seven items (peou1-4 and pu1-3). factor loadings of each item were all larger than 0.4, which is considered acceptable (hair et al., 2010). principal component analysis also shows that the use of behavioural intention to use (biu) as a factor was satisfactory because cumulative extraction sums of squared loadings were 71.53% (> 50%), kmo was 0.801 (> 0.5), and bartlett’s test was significant (p-value = 0.000 < 0.05). the influence of these three factors on biu was then analysed. attitude towards using (att) is examined as a moderating factor in the model. from the analysis provided by efa, five constructs were used in the research model as shown in table 3. table 3 number of items in each factor no. factor no. of items measured by 1 2 3 4 5 biu su pis att peou 4 8 10 3 7 biu1-4 su1-8 pis1-10 att1-3 peou1-4, pu1-3 reliability of constructs reliability of factors are to be measured internally with the use of cronbach’s alpha as well as overall with composite reliability (cr) and average variance extracted (ave). cronbach’s alpha should be at least 0.6 (nunnally & bernstein, 1994), cr should be at least 0.70, and the ave at least 0.50 (hair et al., 2010). table 4 suggests that all constructs have acceptable cronbach’s alpha and cr. furthermore, all constructs, except for su and pis, reported ave values of above 0.5. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(2) 43 table 4 reliability validation convergence construct item cronbach’s alpha factor loading composite reliability average variance extracted behavioural intention to use biu1 biu2 biu3 biu4 0.862 0.750 0.817 0.733 0.850 0.868 0.622 support to use su1 su2 su3 su4 su5 su6 su7 su8 0.882 0.534 0.570 0.605 0.678 0.639 0.775 0.856 0.829 0.879 0.483 perceived internet selfefficacy pis1 pis2 pis3 pis4 pis5 pis6 pis7 pis8 pis9 pis10 0.869 0.541 0.615 0.623 0.588 0.656 0.605 0.720 0.676 0.764 0.660 0.877 0.420 attitude towards using att1 att2 att3 0.938 0.897 0.929 0.920 0.939 0.838 perceived ease of use peou1 peou2 peou3 peou4 pu1 pu2 pu3 0.894 0.633 0.755 0.734 0.736 0.687 0.774 0.823 0.892 0.543 convergent validity is achieved when all standardised estimates are greater than 0.5 and unstandardised estimates are significant (anderson & gerbring, 1988). discriminant analysis was run to examine whether correlations among constructs were sufficiently low. because most correlations of all pairs of constructs were lower than 1, discriminant validity had been reached. another approach is to check whether correlations with other items are smaller than the square root of the ave (fornell & larcker, 1981). the square root of the ave was presented diagonally, while the remaining values were squared correlations between constructs (table 5). thach, p. n., lai, p. h. 44 discriminant validity table 5 discriminant validity su peou pis att biu su peou pis att biu 0.695 0.222 -0.044 -0.029 -0.027 0.737 0.276 0.863 0.858 0.648 0.176 0.313 0.915 0.860 0.789 starting with the five constructs, the path analysis model with the use of the maximum likelihood method (mle) was analysed. the hypothesised relationships are summarised in table 6 and illustrated in figure 3. the sampled data supports five of the six paths specified in the model. the paths from pis to peou, peou to att, and peou to biu were statistically significant at a 1% level of significance. meanwhile, the paths from att to biu and pis to biu were significant at 5%. the path from su to biu was confirmed to be insignificant. standardised regression weights were all positive, so all paths were positively correlated. for example, the beta coefficient of pis to peou is positively significant, indicating that a higher level of pis is associated with a higher level of perceived ease of use. notably, peou reports the biggest effect on att (1.28), followed by the effects of peou on biu (0.75) and att on biu (0.32) (see table 6). table 6 model coefficients estimate s.e. c.r. p-value peou <-- pis peou <-- su att <-- peou biu <-- att biu <-- peou biu <-- pis 0.162 0.068 1.282 0.323 0.751 0.11 0.057 0.082 0.139 0.141 0.218 0.046 2.823 0.829 9.242 2.290 3.449 2.418 0.005 0.407 *** 0.022 *** 0.016 the bootstrap method was employed to test the reliability of estimates in the model (lunneborg, 1987). bias-corrected confidence intervals suggested that the standardised estimates for the paths from att to biu might not be reliable (see table 7). table 7 bootstrap analysis estimate lower upper p-value peou <-- pis peou <-- su att <-- peou biu <-- att biu <-- peou biu <-- pis 0.236 0.061 0.909 0.336 0.553 0.119 0.099 -0.064 0.806 -0.453 0.146 0.033 0.363 0.169 0.978 0.725 1.348 0.218 0.008 0.450 0.001 0.342 0.032 0.026 fit indices of the proposed model all indicators, except for chi-squared/df, are outside the acceptable range of values, showing that this might not fit the sampled data (see table 8). however, the values for comparative fit index (cfi), root mean square errors of approximation (rmsea), and tucker–lewis index (tli) are quite close to the suggested values. a model is acceptable if most fit measures are in acceptable values (schumacker & lomax, 2010). journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(2) 45 table 8 fit measures of the structural model absolute fit indices path model recommended level of fit relative chi-square (cmin/df) root mean square of error approximation (rmsea) standardised root mean residual (srmr) goodness of fit index (gfi) 2.398 0.083 0.072 0.748 < 3 < 0.08 < 0.8 > 0.9 incremental fit indices cfi (comparative fit index) ifi (incremental fit index) nfi (normed fit index) tli (tucker lewis index) 0.850 0.852 0.770 0.836 > 0.9 > 0.9 > 0.9 > 0.9 figure 3 path analysis the revised model is presented in figure 3. the fit indices considered to test the models are shown in table 8. overall, the model fitted the data well and showed a predictive power in determining paths from teachers’ pis to peou and then from their attitudes (att) to behavioural intention (biu) to use an lms. thach, p. n., lai, p. h. 46 hypotheses testing results table 9 hypothesis testing hypothesis critical ratios p-value decision h1: perceived internet self-efficacy has positive effects on perceived ease of use 2.823 0.005 supported h2: perceived internet self-efficacy has positive effects on behavioural intention to use 2.418 0.016 supported h3: perceived ease of use has positive effects on attitude towards using 9.242 <0.01 supported h4: attitude towards using has positive effects on behavioural intention to use 2.290 0.022 supported h5: perceived ease of use has positive effects on behavioural intention to use 3.449 <0.01 supported h6: support to use has positive effects on perceived ease of use 0.829 0.407 not supported note: pis = perceived internet self-efficacy, su = support to use, peou = perceived ease of use, pu = perceived usefulness, att = attitude toward using, and biu = behavioural intention to use. the sem results (summarised in table 9) revealed that only one external variable (pis) has a significant effect on teacher peou, att, and biu. five of the six proposed hypotheses were supported. the results indicated that the first external construct, pis, significantly affects peou, att, and biu. therefore, hypotheses h1, h2, and h3 were supported. however, no significant effect of su on peou was found, so hypothesis h6 was not supported. the results also indicated significant relationships among the original tam constructs (att and biu; peou and biu). figure 4 shows the results of the model. figure 4 results of the model journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(2) 47 pis is the only exogenous variable that is proved to be a significant determinant of other endogenous variables, namely peou and biu (figure 4). moreover, there is sufficient evidence that the endogenous variable biu is determined by three other factors of peou (β = 0.751, p < 0.001), att (β = 0.323, p < 0.05) and pis (β = 0.11, p < 0.05), with an r2 of 81.8%. this means that 81.8% of the variation of biu is explained by these three factors. similarly, peou is statistically evidenced to be determined by pis (β = 0.162, p < 0.001) with an r2 of merely 0.058, indicating that pis explains only 5.8% of the variation in peou. finally, att is statistically involved with peou (β = 1.282, p < 0.001), which accounts for 82.6% of its variation. all paths suggest that this model had predictive power in determining the use of an lms by faculty members. total effects table 10 total effects su pis peou att biu peou att biu 0.061 0.056 0.053 0.236 0.215 0.322 0.000 0.909 0.858 0.000 0.000 0.336 0.000 0.000 0.000 table 11 indirect effects su pis peou att biu peou att biu 0.000 0.056 0.053 0.000 0.215 0.203 0.000 0.000 0.305 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 the standardised indirect effect, or index of mediation (preacher & hayes, 2008), is shown in table 11. for our given data, peou’s indirect effect on biu is the largest at 0.305, which indicates an increase of biu of 0.305 of a standard deviation for every standard deviation rise in biu. bootstrapped bias-corrected confidence intervals are then used to check whether these indirect effects are statistically significant. as is revealed, the indirect paths from pis to att and pis to biu are proved to be statistically significant with standardised indirect effects of 0.215 and 0.203 respectively. discussion and conclusion the current study investigated the factors that influence teacher attitudes and behavioural intentions to use an lms, and to identify the underlying causal relationships among the factors using a proposed extension of the original tam framework (davis, 1985). data from 206 teachers who were teaching online during covid-19 in vietnam was collected and analysed. the study results generally supported the proposed model (with minor revisions) and confirmed the significant influence of perceived internet self-efficacy on teachers’ attitudes and behavioural intentions to use an lms. however, support from the institution did not seem to influence their attitude and intentions. the results of this study will be compared with the findings of other works. firstly, the results of this study revealed that perceived internet self-efficacy (pis) had a significant positive effect on perceived ease of use (peou) and behavioural intention to use (biu) of lms. this indicates the critical importance of teachers’ technological capabilities and means that teachers with higher self-efficacy find an lms easier to use than do those teachers who have lower self-efficacy. this result agrees with the findings of previous studies, which reveal that teacher pis is a significant factor in determining their use of technology (holden & thach, p. n., lai, p. h. 48 rada, 2011; yuen & ma, 2008). the result of this study also seems to be in accordance with the literature—teachers tend to be more confident in online teaching if their technical skills are good, and vice versa (degagne & walters 2010; green et al., 2009). altogether, past research on the tam model revealed that teachers’ confidence in their ability to use computers and the internet play a critical part in their intention to use lmss and to teach online in general (wingo et al., 2017). contrary to expectations, this study did not find a significant correlation between support from institutions and teachers’ poeu (p > 0.05). one of the possible explanations of this insignificant path was that these teachers had high internet self-efficacy already, so they did not care as much about, or need, support from the institution (e.g., training in online pedagogy and online communication with students). in addition, as mentioned earlier, over two-thirds of the teachers had not taught online before, so they might not have imagined how easy or difficult it was to operate an lms. these findings contradicted the results of teo’s (2010) study, which reported that support from the institution (or facilitating organisation) had significant positive effects on peou. the results of past studies about teacher perceptions about online teaching indicated that institutional support played a critical role—not only in teacher satisfaction but also in the success of an online course (chapman et al., 2004; lackey, 2011). nevertheless, teacher intention to use an lms and teach online generally also depends on other factors, including stipends, how their online teaching will be assessed, and the flexibility they could have (bolliger & wasilik, 2009). regarding the relationships among the constructs of the baseline tam model, the results of this study support prior research that indicates strong relationships among peou, attitude towards use (att), and biu. in line with past findings (lee et al., 2013), teacher att and biu was significantly determined by the peou. the positive effect of att on biu (farahat, 2012) was also supported in this study. these findings further validated davis’ (1985) claim that teacher attitudes and intentions to use an lms depend on their perceptions about its use and usefulness. implications this study used baseline tam as a framework to investigate teacher attitudes and behavioural intentions to use an lms in the context of emergency online teaching because of covid-19 in a developing country. it highlighted a few issues that institutions need to consider if they want to prepare well for a new normal; that is, building an lms for online teaching and learning. on the one hand, the study results revealed that teachers’ internet self-efficacy plays a very important role in having favourable perceptions about ease of use, which leads to positive attitudes towards use and intention to use an lms. on the other hand, the study findings seem to indicate that the business-as-usual support for teachers (e.g., for subject content, pedagogy, and knowledge) did not lead to better perceptions about ease of use of an lms. teachers could need other kinds of institutional help to ensure the quality of online teaching and learning, to protect their image when online, and to promote student engagement (wingo et al., 2017) and their perceptions about the benefits of teaching online in the context of (during and after) covid-19 pandemic (“the new normal”) (shenoy et al., 2020). with the significant and salient effect of teacher pis on their peou, att, and biu, it is suggested that when a new lms is adopted, institutions should inform teachers about features, usefulness, and technical issues that might be different from those in applications such as zoom and google workspace, which were used during the covid-19 pandemic. in addition, other relevant and practical issues such as online teaching remuneration, incentives, and even online teaching and learning regulations should be made clear before implementation (wingo et al., 2017). over two-thirds of participants in this study were not familiar with online teaching; hence, attention should be paid to exploring the technical and academic support that teachers require, with the goal of organising tailor-made training courses. creating a reliable network or support journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(2) 49 group to ensure the smooth running of an lms could help weaker teachers to develop positive attitudes toward an lms, which will, in turn, ensure they use it more. (hustad & arntzen, 2013). as mentioned earlier in this paper, the tam model has been used extensively in past research about teacher intentions and behaviour in the adoption of technology for online teaching. however, during the covid-19 pandemic, most teachers had to use available live videoconferencing tools for their online work, and had to change their mindset about online learning (shenoy et al., 2020). left with fewer options, they adapted to the new normal of education (moralista & oducado, 2020). this does not mean that institutions can expend less effort on training and technical support for teachers. past studies have revealed that, in addition to technical skills, emotions (e.g., anxiety) can hinder the effectiveness of online teaching (moralista & oducado, 2020; talidong & toquero, 2020). teachers do need strong institutional support to deliver online lessons in different forms and to keep up with effective pedagogical methods (rapanta et al., 2020). in summary, the study’s findings provide guidance for educational institutions to focus on the kind of training that will be needed to deploy both emergency online teaching due to similar catastrophic situations, and to provide long-term investment in an lms. the present study provides additional evidence of the strong relationship between teachers’ internet capabilities and their willingness to use an lms for teaching. although this study did not confirm the connection between institutional support and teachers’ perceived ease of use, it did partially substantiate the notion that teachers appreciated online teaching in general, and using an lms in particular. their special effort during the covid-19 pandemic can be considered to be a good foundation for institutions to build on and organise better online teaching modes for similar emergency situations. limitations a few limitations to this study need to be acknowledged. first, the data used in this study was from the teachers only; future research should include a more in-depth investigation of learners’ and education administrators’ perceptions on the use of an lms. second, the participants of this study were from a social science university, in which teachers could have lower technological competencies than those in technical institutions. the findings might not be transferable to other contexts without further research. third, more qualitative data should be collected to confirm the findings of quantitative analyses and to explore teachers’ in-depth perceptions about using an lms and implementing a blended teaching and learning mode. references alharbi, s., & drew, s. 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(2008). exploring teacher acceptance of e-learning technology. asiapacific journal of teacher education, 36(3), 229–243. https://doi.org/10.1080/13598660802232779 biographical notes pham ngoc thach thachpn@hanu.edu.vn thach pham is chairman of the board of trustees, hanoi university, vietnam. he has nearly 30 years’ experience of teaching english at different levels of study and in different environments: in class, online, and on television and radio. thach pham completed his phd at victoria university, melbourne, australia https://doi.org/10.1080/15325024.2020.1759225 http://jst.tnu.edu.vn/jst/article/view/3099 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5915.2008.00192.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5915.2008.00192.x https://doi.org/10.1080/13598660802232779 mailto:thachpn@hanu.edu.vn thach, p. n., lai, p. h. 54 in 2015. his particular interests are in using technologies for english language teaching and learning, producing educational materials, and teacher training. phuong hoai lai lhphuong@hanu.edu.vn hoai-phuong lai is a lecturer in the faculty of management and tourism, hanoi university, hanoi, vietnam. she has a master’s degree in finance and control, and is teaching data analysis, statistics and finance. her research interests and experience are in corporate finance, behavioural finance, and university autonomy. creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. thach, p. n., & lai, p. h. (2022). lecturer attitudes and behavioural intentions to use learning management systems in vietnam. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(2), [35–54.]. mailto:lhphuong@hanu.edu.vn http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ microsoft word editorial 23(1).docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1) 1 taking stock of our journal’s journey: a statement of impact alison fields, editor-in-chief, infosolutions maggie hartnett, associate editor, massey university abstract pausing to take stock of progress on a journey can achieve many things, including identifying how far you’ve come, which way you’ve come, and which way you want to go. a statement of impact for the journal of open, flexible and distance learning (jofdl) has been prepared, taking stock of the journal at the current time in its journey. this statement identifies the journal and its impact in terms of reach, use, and contribution to global academic research and publishing. the editorial is rounded off with an overview of the articles in this issue. keywords: open learning; statement of impact; journal metrics introduction taking the time to pause on a long journey, to take stock of how far you have travelled and what the journey has been like, is a good thing. it provides measures to ensure you are on track, that the journey is resulting in clear achievements, and that there is a clear path ahead. in new zealand the academic community took time in 2018 to do just this, with the 6-yearly performance-based research fund (pbrf) round. the purpose of pbrf is “to ensure that excellent research in the tertiary education sector is encouraged and rewarded” (tertiary education commission, n.d.). jofdl assisted many academics in this process by furnishing information on the extent of readership of their articles published in jofdl, and in identifying the range of locations in which jofdl articles may be accessed—including search engines, journal databases, and websites. in this editorial we take a look at the journal itself—its impact and its contribution to research and academic publishing. these conclusions were formalised in our application to cabell’s directory of publishing opportunities. cabell’s international1 provides a wide range of services for journal publishers and academics. it also provides analytic services, and whitelists and blacklists of journals. blacklisted items include predatory journals, while the whitelist identifies and quantifies bona fide journals. the directory describes this whitelist as a “curated list of over 11,000 academic journals spanning 18 disciplines [which] guides researchers and institutions in getting the most impact out of their research” (cabells scholarly analytics, 2017, n.p.) and provides institutions and academics with some surety of the quality of the journals they are engaging with. the following statement of impact for our journal now appears on cabell’s whitelist. 1 https://www2.cabells.com/ fields, a., hartnett, m. 2 jofdl’s statement of impact the journal of open, flexible and distance learning (jofdl) is a peer reviewed, gold openaccess online journal. jofdl has been published since 1995, starting under the title of journal of distance learning and evolving to journal of open, flexible and distance learning in 2011. it publishes articles related to open, flexible, and distance learning, broadly defined. it originates in new zealand and, until recently, has focused on the pacific rim. but it now has global coverage and reach. it’s the flagship journal of the flexible learning association of new zealand (flanz), previously known as deanz (distance education association of new zealand). the journal’s impact on the field of open, flexible, and distance learning is most noticeable in australasia but it has had a more global impact in recent years. while the number of articles is reasonably low, the number of citations these articles have received rates well. the journal has published 129 articles over its 23-year lifespan. of these 129 articles, 6 have been cited more than 50 times, 4 have been cited between 20 and 49 times, and a further 24 have been cited between 10 and 19 times. this indicates the journal is being read, and articles are of sufficient value for other academics to include in their work. an additional measure of impact is the number of views for each article, which has been recorded since the journal went online in 2011. of the 129 articles to date, 7 have had their abstracts viewed more than 1000 times, and a further 59 have had more than 500 views. in addition, 8 articles have been viewed in full more than 500 times, and a further 27 articles were viewed more than 200 times. this indicates a general level only because access is also available through several journal databases and clearing houses that include jofdl articles. influential articles include “becoming a ‘communal architect’ in the online classroom: integrating cognitive and affective learning for maximum effect in web-based education” by r. woods and s. ebersole (2003), which has been cited 74 times and viewed in full over 1000 times. this was an important work for its time. another article with similar statistics is “the disruptive potential of the massive open online course: a literature review” by j. jacoby (2014), which has been cited over 68 times and presents a detailed and useful literature review on an emerging topic in the field. as the content in this journal is largely practitionerand academic-based, and focuses on emerging practices in the emerging field of open, flexible, and distance learning, the overall impact is difficult to measure. journal content shares new thought about practice in this developing area of education and also explores concepts and applications. for a small journal with a comparatively low volume of articles, it appears to have a surprisingly high readership and value. articles in this issue this issue contains three articles from around the world, and this editorial. these papers present research in aspects of open, flexible, and distance learning, providing a rounded view of current areas of development. it’s a collection that’s likely to appeal to a broad range of readers. articles in the current issue are described below. the first article by heredia, carvalho, and vieira is a study that looks at a networked learning approach to the design of distance learning in higher education in developing countries. a case study drawn from a brazilian university identifies critical elements in design—including social context and social arrangements in the learning materials, learning management system, and interaction between students. these have particular relevance for success in distance learning in journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1) 3 developing countries and help identify ideas and processes which may aid the success of this form of learning in this context. the activity centred analysis and design (acad) framework was chosen as the basis for this study, and the use of re-usable design ideas is explored and applied in the context of distance learning in developing countries. henrikson looks in detail at the impact of the design of instructor presentation formats in online learning, particularly its impact on student responses in discussion forums. student responses in discussion forums in an american online course were analysed with the community of inquiry and practical inquiry models as the primary lenses, to identify if there were any significant associations between type of lecture presentation and the depth of cognitive presence in the initial discussion forum. the findings and practical implications of this research include a verification of the importance of teaching and social presence in online learning to improve student engagement, and an identification of the quality of the activities to achieve this aim as an important factor. the article by weaver and barnard explores the behaviour of second-year psychology students as it relates to their use of information sources while studying in an online distance learning context. the study took place in the open polytechnic of new zealand, one of the largest online distance learning institutions in the country. assignment reference lists for two assignments, from 36 students, were analysed—giving a total of 72 reference lists. results indicated that sources recommended by the instructor or library staff, including the textbook, were the most used. sources found elsewhere were less likely to be referenced. in addition, the number of sources referenced positively correlated to the assignment mark achieved. this was particularly the case for recommended sources such as the textbook. this study builds on earlier research by the same authors with first-year psychology students, and shows results consistent with that study. conclusion taking stock of the current position of the journal serves to highlight some of its achievements over the preceding years. it also serves to provide some assurance to both authors and readers that this journal provides a useful contribution to the field of open, flexible, and distance learning. this editorial provides a statement of impact which identifies some useful measures of impact in a quantifiable way with analytics and metrics, including number of article citations and numbers of article views. these indicate a good readership of the journal despite the small number of published articles. it also shows high citation statistics for key articles, attesting to the value of the content and of the journal itself. the journal’s journey continues. references cabells scholarly analytics. (2017). the journal whitelist. retrieved from https://www2.cabells.com/about-whitelist tertiary education commission. (n.d.). performance-based research fund. retrieved from https://www.tec.govt.nz/funding/funding-and-performance/funding/fund-finder/performancebased-research-fund/ biographical notes alison fields alison@infosolutions.co.nz alison is an information scientist and director of research at infosolutions. she conducts research in health information, is completing a doctorate in education, and contracts in the education sector. she is a fellow of the library and information association of new zealand aotearoa (lianza). her research fields, a., hartnett, m. 4 areas encompass e-learning, online learner support, health information, library services, and continuing professional development. alison is an executive member of flanz and editor-in-chief of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. maggie hartnett m.hartnett@massey.ac.nz maggie is a senior lecturer in the institute of education at massey university, new zealand, where she coordinates postgraduate digital technologies programmes and teaches in the areas of e-learning and digital technologies. her research interests include motivation and engagement in digital environments, digital inclusion, teaching and learning with digital technologies, support for digital learners, digital places, and spaces of learning. maggie is the associate editor of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. fields, a., & hartnett, m. (2019). taking stock of our journal’s journey: a statement of impact. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1), [1–4.]. microsoft word henrikson.docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1) 17 using online lectures to promote engagement: recognising the self-directed learner as critical for practical inquiry robin henrikson, seattle pacific university abstract this study analysed the relationships between teaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence in online learning environments (garrison, anderson, & archer, 2000), with an emphasis on examining ways in which the design of instructor presentation formats relates to student responses in discussion forums. both quantitative and qualitative analyses were used to determine the nature of student responses, primarily through the lens of the practical inquiry model (garrison, 2007), by coding all text in the initial student responses to content-based questions. twenty participants were randomly assigned to two sections in a graduate-level, teacher education course. one group was provided with metacognitive prompts throughout the asynchronous lecture presentation. they were asked to pause the presentation and document their thinking relative to the prompts. the other group was not asked to pause and write during the presentation, nor were there any metacognitive prompts embedded in their presentation. a pearson’s chi-square analysis was used to analyse the coding of the text, and a form of text analytics was used to seek out the nature of student learning and cognitive presence. there was no significant association found between the design of the instructor presentation and levels in the practical inquiry model. furthermore, the themes, number of total themes, and word count remained consistent between the two groups. keywords: online learning; student engagement; cognitive presence introduction alongside a rapid proliferation of online educational degree options for teacher-education programmes, there has been an increase in attention on the efficacy and effectiveness of such a methodology for preparing both pre-service teachers and those seeking to continue their education by earning advanced degrees (saltmarsh & sutherland-smith, 2010). focus on increasing the effectiveness of online programmes by improving student engagement in learning environments has been at the forefront of conversations (pittaway & moss, 2014). degree programmes, either partially or fully online, are considered to be online when students engage in course options without needing to meet face to face to complete a course (richardson & swan, 2003). online learning, distance education, or the “flipped classroom” design (herreid & schiller, 2013) provide an advantageous avenue for pursuing post-bachelor degrees due to the methods of course content delivery and its ability to provide more equitable opportunities (moore & graham, 2003). online learning has evolved in design and implementation (lee, 2017). there have also been increased efforts to include opportunities for synchronous communication in a primarily online learning context (mcbrien & jones, 2009). with ever-increasing options for designs of henrikson, r. 18 online programmes, it is essential to explore best practices for maximising the quality of student engagement and learning. while online learning brings many advantages, there are also many design considerations to be made when creating an online learning environment, including the technologies to be used to ensure ease of participation and collaborative learning (palloff & pratt, 2003). considerations include the audience, ways in which participants (including the instructor) will interact with each other, how participants will receive feedback, and whether the course is designed as fully online or blended (shearer, r., in moore & graham, 2003). shearer (2003) writes that although students choose to take online classes for the autonomy provided, it is also essential to ensure they complete the course successfully—given that they are often in an isolated learning environment. this dichotomy creates inherent challenges when creating optimal online experiences and recognising that the interactions between individuals in the online community are central to their learning (beldarrain, 2006; garrison & cleveland-innes, 2005). a focus on creating diverse student engagement strategies to maximise learning ought to be a central consideration when designing online learning experiences. so far, research has focused on strategies for improving presence in the classroom through initial engagement strategies while recognising the diverse needs of the individual learner (bonk & zhang, 2006; mandernach, 2009; pi & hong, 2016; crook & schofield, 2017). this current study focuses on recognising the difficulty in allowing for student autonomy and independence through flexible learning options, while ensuring a viable and consistent learner experience by analysing presence in a classroom. the author seeks to uncover the nuances of how to deepen cognitive presence by manipulating social and teaching presence through lecture presentation design. the findings compel online instructors to consider the needs of the self-directed learner by finding ways to make transformational design shifts that could lead to authentic deepening of student learning in a typically asynchronous learning. furthermore, the results compel future researchers to explore whether it is possible to produce deep levels of cognitive presence in an online asynchronous course by manipulating design features of the learner’s experience with strategies that increase student engagement. theoretical framework metacognition and adult learning theories when we recognise the contributions from knowles (1980) regarding theories of adult learning (andragogy), there are several considerations to be made when designing opportunities for engaged communities of learning. knowles (p. 56) emphasises the importance of internal processes that motivate the learner for inquiry-based exploration that is relevant to their needs and context. however, as brookfield (1986) writes, other variables contribute to the effectiveness of adult learning, including context, political atmosphere, and group dynamics, to name a few. these contribute to an overall climate of learning that ought to be considered in both traditional and online learning environments. brookfield also cautions that the self-directed adult learner may require a level of scaffolding and involvement of other learners in developing metacognitive strategies. these types of engagement strategies include opportunities for learners to reflect on their individual learning needs, understanding how to carry out their plan for learning, and how to meet their learning objectives. understanding the unique learning needs of adults better equips instructors to create effective learning opportunities that maximise metacognitive skills through reflection and collaborative engagement. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1) 19 engagement designing opportunities for maximised student engagement in online learning is an integral component of designing overall student learning experiences. manderdach (2009) explains that the feelings of isolation in an online community may be more pronounced than in a face-to-face setting because students might be learning in physically isolated spaces. these spaces are not likely to have the features of a traditional classroom setting. this is an important consideration given the relationship between engagement and learning, and it is even more pronounced when measured through the lens of the three interdependent components of online presence. in the context of online learning, the success of students meeting the learning goals rests on their willingness to be active participants of the content presented in the course and to engage in monitoring their own learning process (bomia, beluzo, demeester, elander, johnson, & sheldon, 1997, p. 294). in a general description of the process of active learning in the online environment, bonk and zhang (2006) provide a framework of r2d2: read, reflect, display and do. here they describe the learner’s engagement with the content presented in a variety of modalities. reading, exploring other resources and listening to lectures, video presentations, and/or podcasts occurs during the read phase. the second phase specifically attends to the needs of a variety of learning preferences through multi-modal methods. it provides opportunities for the learner to reflect on their learning. consideration should therefore be made for instructor roles – along with lesson design and peer interaction—to maximise student engagement in both a traditional classroom setting and in the context of online learning. bonk and zhang (2006) add that one way to do this is by providing opportunities for collaborative, written dialogue in discussion forums. paying particular attention to the ways in which online course designers use presentation modalities to maximise student engagement and presence is especially relevant to this study. there has been little research on specific ways in which instructors can use video to increase social presence (borup, west, & graham, 2012). crook & schofield (2017) describe the purposes of the lecture presentation in an online learning setting and explain that the learner’s sense of agency is a critical consideration for increasing participation. they connect this with how students make meaning through their experiences. homer, plass, & blake (2008) found that learners’ feelings of engagement differed, depending on whether video was included in the powerpoint presentation they viewed. more relevant to this discussion was the finding that individual preferences affect the learning experiences of the students, perhaps even more than the design of the presentation itself. the authors make a compelling argument for course designers considering learner preferences when creating presentations and other content to meet the needs of the individual learner experience. manderdach (2009) conducted a study exploring changes in student engagement when instructor-personalised multimedia supplements were included in online courses. the comparison group in manderdach’s study was an online course without instructor-personalised media (such as narrated powerpoints and videos). student engagement questionnaires, cumulative final exams, and grades were used as outcome measures for both groups. manderdach conducted a one-way analysis of variance (anova) that showed no significant group differences relative to the engagement survey or learning (outcomes). openended responses on the engagement survey indicated students were engaged with the instructorpersonalised media. manderdach (2009) notes that there were discrepancies in the quantitative and qualitative findings and these differences should be further explored. these discrepancies include results that show students in the group with instructor-personalised multimedia supplements feel more engaged in their environment, but the quantitative measures lack evidence to support this. these findings emphasise the need to deepen the body of research that focuses on discerning transformational pedagogical changes that could lead to significant group differences in both student learning and levels of student engagement. henrikson, r. 20 specific organisational structures and considerations for creating a quality online learning environment are critical for achieving high levels of engagement (richardson & swan, 2003) and ensuring that course participants receive a quality experience. the community of inquiry (coi) framework for measuring engagement in an online learning environment includes three aspects of “presence”: social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence (garrison, anderson, & archer, 2000). according to garrison et al. (2000), social presence includes designing opportunities for students to interact with each other and considers ways in which students can express themselves with their peers in a safe environment. teaching presence focuses on the learner’s quality of experience as a result of the teacher creating opportunities for engaging students through a variety of instructional methods. teaching presence considers not only how the course is organised to promote quality engagement, but also how the teacher interacts with their students to influence levels of interaction and learning. sustained teaching presence is controlled most directly by the course instructor (anderson, rourke, garrison, & archer, 2001). cognitive presence focuses on opportunities for students to engage with the academic content. it includes students’ abilities to adapt new knowledge to previous understanding and to connect and apply new information. bloom’s taxonomy of learning (forehand, 2005) takes into account the progressions by which a learner engages with and processes new information through a variety of learning experiences. generally speaking, there are levels of learning that progress (not necessarily in order) from lower levels of learning, such as knowledge and understanding, to higher levels of learning, such as evaluation and synthesis. bloom’s taxonomy has also been divided into three main domains: cognitive, affective, and psychomotor. while it’s certainly not a direct parallel, the concept of cognitive presence in the coi framework reflects this hierarchy of learning by using the practical inquiry model (akyol & garrison, 2011), in which students progress through stages of learning—from asking questions and creating a sense of wonderment, to applying and integrating this new knowledge in different ways. one difference between bloom’s taxonomy and the coi framework is the need to recognise that the coi framework takes into account the experience of learning as created by teaching presence and social presence. the three components of the coi framework are interdependent, while bloom’s taxonomy focuses solely on the learner and their progression of learning. according to kanuka & garrison (2004), students’ experiences with levels of cognitive presence contribute to their success in achieving higher-level learning experiences. understanding the interdependence between social, teaching, and cognitive presence is critical (berge, 1995; anderson et al., 2001; garrison et al., 2001). shea and bidjerano, (2008) write, “[t]he community of inquiry framework (coi) focuses on the intentional development of an online learning community with an emphasis on the processes of instructional conversations that are likely to lead to epistemic engagement” (p. 544). this paper focuses primarily on students’ movement through the levels of cognitive presence by intentionally guiding the ways teaching presence and social presence are provided to students. four levels of cognitive presence can be measured with a specified set of descriptors. akyol and garrison (2011) describe a triggering event, in which students recognise a problem and display a sense of questioning, puzzlement, or wonderment. in exploration, students exchange information with one another, suggesting new ideas, brainstorming, and making other intuitive leaps. in the third stage, integration, students synthesise their ideas and (possibly) provide solutions. finally, in the resolution stage, students apply and test their ideas, and defend their solutions. this study builds on previous work of seeking to understand the instructor’s role in influencing the depth of cognitive presence in online learning environments. this investigation uses the practical inquiry model’s four stages of cognitive presence: triggering event, exploration, integration, and resolution (garrison, 2007), to better understand how students can interact with instructor information and how it might affect their depth of knowledge and learning process as journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1) 21 demonstrated in a discussion forum. the investigator sought to explore whether, by scaffolding the meta-reflective process during an initial lecture presentation that has opportunities for dialogue, it would be possible to engage students in the early stages of the practical inquiry process before moving into more formal discussions and collaboration with peers in a discussion forum. this descriptive, mixed-methods study explores the relationships that teaching presence and social presence could have with cognitive presence, as documented by student written responses in discussion forums. the researcher was interested in determining whether participants’ asynchronous dialogue while viewing a lecture presentation (similar to that of synchronous dialogue during a lecture) would have any effect on later discussions—in comparison with a group that did not have any opportunity for dialogue during a lecture presentation. methodology while we recognise the interdependence between cognitive, social, and teaching presence, we also need to investigate how an online course instructor’s course design and implementation influences the level of student engagement. any online learning structure should have many opportunities for students to maximise their engagement and learning. this interplay may be evident through learning opportunities such as presentations, group work, discussion forums, and other collaborative assignments. for this study, one initial method of content delivery was through screencast presentations, during which students engaged in learning content-specific information as presented by the course instructor. using the coi framework, and specifically focusing on cognitive presence, the researcher sought to explore how the design and implementation of screencast presentations influences how students responded to initial discussion forum prompts. this quantitative study used mixed forms of data using qualitative data analysis (qda), regression analysis, and text analytics. qda was used to code text for stages of cognitive presence by coding student text in their initial discussion forum responses. a pearson’s chi-square analysis was then used to determine any statistically significant associations between the type of lecture presentation and student responses. further data analyses were conducted through a form of text analytics to determine common themes and facets. research questions 1. are there statistically significant associations between the type of lecture presentation and the depth of cognitive presence within the initial discussion forum? 2. what levels of cognitive presence are evident in discussion forums in response to scaffolded reflective prompts during prerequisite online presentations compared to those without scaffolding? 3. were there other differences in regards to themes, document sentiment and word count between the two groups? participants all 20 participants in this study were enrolled in a fully online course. there were 12 female and 8 male participants. all participants were current teachers with a range of 2–15 years of teaching experience. the participants were enrolled in a master of education graduate programme. the courses in this 2-year programme were either completely online or blended. all students had previous experience with both models. institutional review board approval was granted on march 1, 2017, approximately 3 months before the course was launched. henrikson, r. 22 design all 20 participants were randomly assigned to one of two sections of the same course through an online programme that assigns groups; that is, the researcher entered all names into a programme called “random team generator” (www.randomlists.com) to create two groups. both groups were asked to watch an initial lecture presentation before responding to one or two questions in their respective discussion forums. the videos were embedded (linked) in their discussion forum. the videos, which were 6–23 minutes long, included information pertinent for the topic and goals for the week. there were five presentations (5 weeks) included as the focus for this study. the instructor used two approaches to scaffold student thinking and engagement in the lectures. group one had reflective (metacognitive) questions interspersed throughout the five lecture presentations. these “engagement pauses” aligned with the levels of bloom’s revised taxonomy of learning (krathwohl, 2002) to ensure that the questions asked in the lecture presentation provided the participants with opportunities to engage in thinking aligned to bloom’s revised taxonomy levels: apply, analyse, and evaluate. the prompts were intentionally placed in the presentations to elicit the participants; thinking about how the content applies to their own instructional practice, how it might or might not align with their current thinking, and how it could be modified to meet their classroom context. this group’s lectures were all viewed in vialogues, a tool into which lecture presentations and other videos can be uploaded, and participants can watch and comment in a running dialogue box in real time. the participants in group one were prompted to pause the presentation, and to respond to reflective prompts posed on the vialogue during the presentation. for example, as a viewer, they would watch the presentation, be asked a question (engagement pause), and then be prompted to stop the presentation and type their response in the vialogue dialogue window. they could also read and reply to previous comments left by their peers in response to the same questions in the presentation. the participants then continued viewing the presentation. this pause, reflect, and write (engagement pause) process was repeated three to five times throughout each of the five presentations. group two listened to the same lecture presentation but the lecture was recorded without engagement pauses or prompts to stop and write. their lecture presentations were viewed through a link to a zoom mp4 file and not held in any other application. after viewing the lecture, participants in both groups responded to one or two questions in their respective discussion forums. these questions were the same for both groups and were aligned with the learning goals and content in the lecture presentations. they were generally application-type questions, in which participants were asked to reflect on their current teaching context and apply the learning to their own practice and experiences. the analysis comprised two steps. first, an initial coding of all text in the discussion forum was conducted; then, using the results of the coded text, a pearson’s chi-square was used to determine whether there were significant associations between the design of the instructor presentation (whether it was integrated with engagement pauses or not) and themes (stages of cognitive presence) in the student discussions. a content analysis was conducted by coding text from the initial discussion prompt responses using the practical inquiry model’s four stages of cognitive presence. the researcher copied and pasted all of the text from the 5 weeks of discussion, for all participants, in both groups, into two separate spreadsheets. one spreadsheet contained columns of text for each of the 5 weeks for group one. another spreadsheet contained columns of text for each of the 5 weeks for group two. these columns were labelled with the group and week number to identify the group’s discussion after the coding was complete. the researcher then took the text from each week and from both groups, and copied it all onto a third spreadsheet that did not identify groups or weeks. this resulted in a third spreadsheet with ten columns of text but journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1) 23 no identifying labels. the researcher therefore could not identify which group the text came from, or the questions asked in that particular week. coding (using a pearson’s chi-square analysis) was used to determine any differences between the groups in terms of depth of learning. the coded categories of cognitive presence as described by kanuka & garrison (2004) include: (1) triggering event – where students exhibit a sense of puzzlement; (2) exploration – where students search for information to make better sense of the problem (this includes exchanging ideas with peers); (3) integration – where students assimilate new information in their pre-existing schema to make sense of the new information; (4) resolution – where students apply and test their new knowledge and/or solve their problems. all applicable statements, phrases and/or sentences were coded with one of these four levels of the practical inquiry model. as the researcher read through each sentence pulled from the discussion forums, they coded it with a relevant theme from one of the four categories (see table 1). table 1 samples of text aligned with each level of cognitive presence levels of cognitive presence example triggering event “something i would like to learn more about is diversity in how i collect information from my students. i have been stuck in a system that is driven by fully guided instruction and would like to know how this looks . . . in an inquiry-based learning environment.” exploration “i appreciated the examples provided in the chapter. the grading scheme presented in this chapter for the science class, which was based on the collection of student evidence of each standard and then an opportunity to match a performance on an end assessment . . . this really interested me as it provided a feedback loop that moved learning forward, was evidence based on performance, effort, and knowledge but it also felt like a manageable method that could be implemented for most subjects and ages in some format.” exploration [participants gave examples that referred to readings, presentation and/or sharing ideas about classroom practice] integration “it was really eye-opening for me to read that ‘from literally thousands of research studies, selfreports are unreliable” (anonymous, p. 88). this makes sense because there is really no accountability and students can change their answers based on [those of] their peers. therefore, recently i borrowed some mini whiteboards from a colleague and engaged students in articulating their thinking in a more challenging way.” resolution “i have found that classroom behavior and clarity from students has improved since i began displaying rubrics in my openings.” phrases or sentences in the ten columns of text were identified and coded (highlighted) with one of four colours, depending on the level of cognitive presence shown. the researcher was interested in determining the total number of incidents of each stage of cognitive presence in the discussions in each group. they also compared the groups to determine henrikson, r. 24 how student thinking is scaffolded during the presentations that may be demonstrated in the text of their discussions later in the week. the researcher also wanted to answer the question of whether the nature of the discussions varied based on the students’ initial presentation of information and collaboration in the vialogues. as a second qualitative component of this study, a form of text analytics (semantria [www.lexalytics.com]) was applied to explore semantic linguistic algorithms in the text. (semantria is an excel add-on.) an application programming interface (api) is used to submit the text to semantria for analysis. all text was analysed for the following linguistic components: 1. response sentiments (positive, negative, neutral) 2. themes in the text (nouns and phrases that are relevant to the research), including total number of generated phrases. semantria searches text that is entered into excel—in this case, all of the text pulled from the discussion forums for all 5 weeks for both groups. the program then identifies positive, negative, and neutral tones from the text and uses sentiment scores to assign a response sentiment to each theme, entity, and category extracted. this program also extracts themes from the text (including meaningful phrases pulled from sentences) to determine the nature of the dialogue within and between the groups. the program then categorises the themes into topics, based on the context from sentences and phrases. results a pearson’s chi-square analysis was run to determine whether there was a significant association between the design of the instructor’s presentation and themes in student discussions. according to field (2009), pearson’s chi-square test is appropriate for determining whether there is a relationship between two or more sets of categorical variables. because the researcher compared the frequency of each of the stages of cognitive presence found by coding the text, a pearson’s chi-square analysis is suitable. a non-significant association was found between the type of instructor presentation and how the students responded in the discussion forum based on stages of cognitive presence found in the text. (see table 2). the pearson’s chi-square test displays percentages across categories and across groups. the table shows the number of cases in each category (i.e., stages of cognitive presence within each of the groups (group with engagement pauses and group with no engagement pauses). it also contains the number of total cases in each category to compare the cases between the two groups. for example, in the first row (the no engagement pauses during lecture group, or group two), the columns display each of the counts and the total count for each of the four stages of cognitive presence found in that group. additionally, in the first column (triggering event) the rows display each of the counts and the total count of the two groups. the table also displays counts and expected counts. the expected counts indicate the number of cases that would be categorised in each of the stages if left to chance, compared with the actual count based on the coding (field, 2009). the values in the count and expected counts are quite similar, indicating that there might not be a statistically significant association. the percentages (adding up to 100%) are also displayed in two categories: % within lecture type and % within student response. for example, across the first row of no engagement pauses during lecture, the % within lecture type for all four categories of cognitive presence gives a total of 100%. this shows how the frequency of the four stages of cognitive presence was divided up as a percentage within each group. another way to display the percentage is to look at how each of the four stages of cognitive presence were divided up between the two groups. for example, looking vertically in the triggering event column, the two figures in the % within journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1) 25 student response categories add up to 100% because it shows the percentages of the two groups (lecture types). a total of 312 coded phrases were analysed for both groups. overall, the highest theme of 40.1% of the student discussions was classified under the theme of exploration. the theme of resolution had the lowest overall total of 4.5%. this is also consistent in both groups. there were more coded phrases in group one, resulting in more occurrences in each of the levels of the coi framework (176, compared with 136 for group two). both groups had the greatest number of responses in the exploration category, followed by triggering event, integration, and resolution. however, group two had more instances of participants’ responses categorised at the level of resolution than group one. some assumptions need to be met when using pearson’s chi-square. the first is independence of data—this assumption has been met because this is not a repeated-measure design. the second assumption is that the expected frequencies should be greater than five (field, 2009) and this assumption has also been met. there was a non-significant association between the type of lecture presentation and the way in which students responded in the discussion x² (3, n = 312) = 2.569, p = .47. this seems to indicate that the type of lecture presentation did not have a significant effect on how the students responded in their discussion forum. the spss output also indicates that no cells have an expected count of fewer than five, which means that the chi-square statistic should be accurate (field, 2009). table 2 participant responses for each lecture type because the researcher was interested in gaining a better understanding of the nature of the discussions, another component of this study involved analysing themes and text sentiment. the text analytics software, semantria, was used to extract themes in both groups. themes were henrikson, r. 26 generated by extracting context and meaning from the entities. the underlying intentions of the text were also considered (www.lexalytics.com). any plural forms of the themes were combined. for example, formative assessment was combined with formative assessments, and learning target with learning targets. sixty-eight themes were extracted from group two, and 82 themes were extracted from group one. for example, the theme formative assessment occurred 13 times in group two. of those 13 times, none of those occurrences was expressed in a negative way, 5 occurrences were expressed in a neutral way, and 8 were expressed in a positive way. in group one, the theme formative assessment occurred 20 times. of those 20 times, none was expressed in a negative way, 8 were expressed in a neutral way, and 12 were expressed in a positive way. table 3 shows the breakdown of themes and sentiments for group two. table 4 shows the themes and sentiments of group one. learning expectations and formative assessment were in the top five for both groups. note that some of the themes appear to be very similar (e.g., learning expectations and learning targets). but because semantria uses context to create the distinct themes, caution is advised when assuming that these terms are synonymous. the program does not necessarily define the themes; it simply differentiates them. for example, while some might use the two terms synonymously, learning target could refer to a very specific technique for communicating a general learning expectation. on the other hand, both groups wrote about using exit tickets, but one group used the term exit slip. these two terms probably refer to the same strategy, but the groups could use different vocabulary based on that of the first participant in the forum. overall, both groups showed similar themes and sentiments; however, although the questions were similar across both groups, the content of their responses varied. finally, the researcher was interested in understanding whether students tended to write more or less, given opportunities (or lack thereof) for documenting their initial thinking in their assigned mode of lecture presentation. for example, were the students who were asked to write initially in the vialogue already fatigued with writing? if so, they might not have been as willing to write as much in their discussion forum as those in the group who were not asked to write their initial thoughts. group two wrote 16,608 words in the initial discussion prompts over the 5 weeks, and group one wrote 16,563 words. although group one did, in fact, write less than group two, the difference is slight. table 3 themes and sentiments for group two journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1) 27 table 4 themes and sentiments for group one discussion given the rapid increase in the availability of online learning, it is critical to consider ways to increase social presence through participation and collaboration amongst participants (palloff & pratt, 2003), while also acknowledging the effect of student self-directed learning on active participation (bomia et al., 1997). as homer, plass, and blake (2008) also write, further consideration needs to be given to creating opportunities for the learner to choose the learning modality that best meets their individual needs. perhaps the scaffolding of the questions that were intended to create opportunities for deeper reflection of the topics actually limited the metacognitive process for some learners. both groups, whether provided with a more engaged approach to listening to the lecture or not, responded similarly in content discussed, word count, and themes. there were no statistically significant differences between groups with regard to how they progressed through the stages of cognitive presence as outlined in the practical inquiry model, although there were more instances of resolution in group two. this suggests that participants’ initial discussion forum responses did not necessarily differ based on the type of lecture presentation. while not statistically significant, the participants in group two showed more instances of demonstrating the resolution phase than those in group one. multifaceted methods for participant engagement in an online lecture presentation may therefore need to be not only transformational, but differentiated, to affect the stages of cognitive presence in other aspects of the course. this finding reinforces the need to consider the needs of the self-directed learner by creating multiple methods of engagement in an online presentation or other modality. as other researchers (garrison & cleveland-innes, 2005) found, the quality of teaching and social presence does have an effect on cognitive presence. as echoed by manderdach (2009), the change resulting from manipulating lecture presentations might not have been transformational enough to lead to any lasting learning differences; nor did it take into account the role of the “active” learner in assimilating their previous experience with the new information. another conclusion is that, since both groups were given the same prompts to answer in the discussion forum, any initial progression through the practical inquiry model while engaging in the initial lecture presentation was eliminated when confronted with new information (or, in this case, scaffolding by the questions). as palloff and pratt (2003) write, instructors can facilitate (not teach) within a learner-focused online environment. group one listened and interacted with their lecture and peers in the vialogues, then moved to their learning management system (lms) to answer the initial discussion questions and continue their written conversations in a self-directed way. this change in context could have hindered the continuation of learning and perhaps delayed progression through the levels of cognitive presence. after combining plural forms of the same theme, text analytics further confirmed the similarities in themes and theme sentiment across both groups. the assumption was that, because the presentations in group one were scaffolded, there would be fewer themes overall. this was not henrikson, r. 28 the case. the scaffolding and opportunities for students to reflect on their learning while participating in viewing the lecture yielded no relationship with the topics discussed in the forum. there was a slight difference in the total word count (as shown above, group two discussions had 16,608 words; group one discussions had 16,563 words). this finding is not surprising given the assumption that participants had already written their initial thoughts in the vialogue forum and might not have wanted to repeat themselves in their initial response in the discussion forum. perhaps they experienced fatigue from already providing written dialogue, and were therefore not as motivated to respond in depth again. however, given this variation in total word count, the differences were minimal. several limitations in this study may have affected its internal and external validity. instrumentation is one type of extraneous variable that could have influenced the outcome of the coding totals (gall, gall, & borg, 2007). differential selection could also have been a factor, in that all of the participants have had significant previous experience—not only with one another, but with other instructors. it is also important to discuss the external validity of this experiment. because this was a discrete group, it is difficult to generalise the findings of this study to a larger population. these educators are learning within a graduate-degree programme and already have considerable experience with online learning. the results might have been different if this had been a first online class, or if the participants had not already had a great deal of knowledge, skills, and experience in the content. however, although there is some potential to generalise to a target population in a similar situation and demographic, caution is encouraged (gall et al., 2007). finally, it is important to note that this design measured associations, not cause and effect. although it might be tempting to conclude that the type of lecture presentation affected how students responded in the discussion forums, only relational observations should be made. practical implications these findings illustrate the complex nature of using strategies related to teaching and social presence to improve student engagement that leads to deeper learning. the study also demonstrates and emphasises the importance of considering not only the types of strategies that instructors use to increase student engagement, but the quality of those activities. adding opportunities for students to engage in metacognitive practices using a more traditional, one-way approach to improving instructor presence might not be sufficiently transformational to deepen students’ cognitive presence. it certainly does not take into account the self-directed nature of the adult learner and their ability to choose how they make meaning from the content they experience, regardless of the design. it would also be interesting to note any associations or differences in the depth of learning if the discussion had continued in the vialogue rather than asking the participants to continue the discussion in their lms. this would have allowed the students to engage in the content based on their own reflective practice, conclusions, and questions, rather than scaffolding their learning within prefabricated questions. online learners are critical thinkers who ought to take charge of their learning and take ownership of their own quality of experience and depth of learning (palloff & pratt, 2003). the facilitator of an online course should develop it with this in mind rather than simply replicating a face-to-face course. having said that, this course was not a simple replication of a face-to-face course. the instructor sought to engage the learners in effective pedagogy for online learning (it is imperative that instructors engage their students in deep learning, and opportunities for quality interactions with both their peers and with the instructor). however, the most important strategy is to recognise adults as self-directed learners and create opportunities for them to choose how they will engage in their learning through multiple modalities. strategies for increasing student journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1) 29 engagement in online learning environments is complicated and multi-faceted. modifying and/or scaffolding initial ways to engage in online learning might not be enough to negate the effect that the learner has on their own experience. conclusions in higher education, is essential for online instructors to understand how to facilitate a learnercentred online environment that increases engagement and cognitive presence by aligning practice with the theories of adult learning (androgogy). mezirow (1997) explains that, for the adult learner, new information is only a resource that is incorporated into their existing frame of reference. their learning may also be affected by their prior experience and through learnercentred dialogue and problem-solving with others. recognition of these interrelationships and the increased promotion of online learning is the first step; further investigation into the strategies for ensuring maximal levels of learning for adults is overdue. there is also a need for further investigation into the interplay between the self-directed nature of online learners and stages of cognitive presence that may change according to different learners’ experiences. haythornthwaite (2006) also recognises the influence that an online community of learners has on knowledge construction. this study underlines connections between course design and androgogy; the dialogue and collaboration in a discussion forum, led by the self-directed learner, will be more influential than any single method for increasing engagement through a lecture presentation. this further confirms conclusions made by palloff and pratt (2003), who indicate it takes more than simply modifying and/or scaffolding ways in which participants learn new information to improve the depth of their learning. rather, the continuum of experiences created by the facilitator, the students, and the design of the course ought to be major considerations and recognised as interconnected. perhaps the conclusions by pittaway and moss (2014) encapsulate the essence of how to create opportunities for deep learning when they emphasise the need for nurturing an online community of learners. building on previous research findings—specifically garrison and cleveland-innes (2005)—this study confirms the importance of understanding the qualitative nature of student experiences that lead to a deeper level of cognitive presence. transformational shifts in how instructors approach presence in their online classrooms needs to continue to be developed, specifically in relation to differentiating options for ways in which the learner engages with the content. simply shifting, supplementing, or augmenting instructor strategies to increase both teaching and social presence is not enough. it’s essential to focus on the learner-centred nature of student engagement that considers a collaborative approach to online learning. while the results of this study add to the current foundation of research on designing online experiences for the self-directed nature of the adult learner, it is also a call to action for any online course designer to recognise the integral interplay between the power of self-directed learning and the opportunities for collaboration needed for authentic online learning. references akyol, z., & garrison, r. 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(2008). measures of quality in online education: an investigation of the community of inquiry model and the net generation. journal of educational computing research, 39(4), 339–361. shearer, r. (2003). instructional design in distance education. in m. moore & w. anderson (eds.), handbook of distance education, (pp. 275–286). mahwah, nj: lawrence erlbaum. henrikson, r. 32 biographical notes robin henrikson henrir@spu.edu dr. henrikson is an assistant professor of education and chair of the med in teacher leadership programme at seattle pacific university. she teaches graduate-level online courses and her research focuses on effective online teaching and educational leadership. she also serves as an educational programme evaluator and school board director. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. henrikson, r. (2019). using online lectures to promote engagement: recognising the selfdirected learner as critical for practical inquiry. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1), [17–32.]. © distance education association of new zealand 51 reflections on e-learning from a communication perspective gary mersham the open polytechnic of new zealand wellington gary.mersham@openpolytechnic.ac.nz introduction while there are many approaches for understanding the e-learning phenomenon, communications theory provides an important perspective for mapping out the nature of the communicative acts that take place in e-learning (andrews & haythornwaite, 2007, p. 24). this paper is based on the premise that “(t)eaching and learning is negotiation of meaning” (brabazon, 2007, p. 101). the collaborative–constructivist perspective puts communication and interaction at the centre of learning. this perspective argues for enabling the “construction of meaning and knowledge through shared dialogue and the confirmation of understanding through mutual sharing and testing of ideas in a collaborative environment” (jones & cook, 2006, p. 262). while the guiding principle of constructivism is that learning is a search for meaning, in e-learning the possibilities for being misunderstood increase in many more ways. as zhang and xun (2006, p. 99) put it, “misunderstanding and miscommunication are more likely to happen and are less detectable in an online environment”. why is this so? how does occur it in the transactional process? communication modelling offers a way to understand, describe, and scrutinise communication in the e-learning context. definition of communication and theoretical discussion in the discipline of communication science, certain concepts are defined as being essential to the process of communication, and are inevitably present journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 51–70 © distance education association of new zealand 52 no matter which kind of theoretical model or approach is used. this essential structure of communication is referred to as the “triptych of communication” (van schoor, 1979; 1986; mersham & skinner, 1999, p. 7). the main elements are commonly labelled communicator, message, and recipient. communication is seen as a process of expression and interpretation. understanding is transactional, occurring through an exchange of meaning via cultural and technical codes. the model in figure 1 illustrates the three central components of the process: communicator, message, and recipient; the transactional process of encoding and decoding; and a series of contexts. figure 1 a graphical model of dialogical communication source: mersham and viviers, 2007 concerns about terminology the term e-learning itself suggests a biased view of education from the perspective of a dialogical communication model, because it comprises one letter that represents a property of technology (e for electronic) and the anticipated outcome (learning) for one participant in the interaction (thompson 2007, p. 162). the ubiquitous use of the term learner-centred as a quality indicator creates a distorted view of the negotiation of meaning. “in response to a perceived need to shift the focus from the instructor or the institution to the student, new terms have been coined that effectively eliminate one half of the social interaction formerly referred to as education” (thompson, 2007, p. 162). clearly, the missing half is the interaction between tutor/lecturer and learner, and this is a communication issue. substituting ‘learning’ for ‘education’ is happily uncontested within the call to democratise education by empowering students or learners. it has the sense journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 51–70 © distance education association of new zealand 53 of an incantation about it: if you name the promise (learning), it is brought into being by ‘linguistic fiat’. this promise falls into a wider, generally optimistic view of technology, and e-learning’s ability to deliver a variety of astonishing results that are divorced from any need to understand how and why it works from a communication perspective (mersham, 2008). in distance learning scholarship, distance has always referred to both a physical space that needs to be bridged, and the psychological and cognitive distance that characterises educational activity. saba argues that: [physical] separation can be bridged by communication technology, a fact demonstrated by the teachers and students everywhere. but if students and teachers are separated by the total lack of dialog, as occurs in many classrooms across the country and around the world, bringing them together until they stand nose to nose will not offer a solution (2003, p. 17). the focus on dialogue, a specific form of communication, is fundamental to understanding the broader challenges of education. e-educators claim to focus primarily on the pedagogy used with technology, yet the effect of the technology on the communication phenomenon is less considered. a key challenge for educators is to understand how communication takes place in various mediated forms, “because it is through these forms that we can see how they facilitate the different logics in terms of sensing, interpreting and reasoning” (van loon, 2008, p. 9). as well as ensuring that dialogic communication takes place between tutor and learner, e-learning must develop learners’ communication skills as they engage with fellow students in various fora. communication skills are relevant for life and are transferable between jobs and careers, while much technical learning becomes obsolete in a relatively short time. course designers and learning managers have largely ignored such realities. the continuing belief that communication skills can be ‘picked up’ along the way by teachers and students is erroneous. students spend much more time presenting their own examples and ‘monologuing’ than engaging with the ideas of fellow students (dysthe, 2002). it is commonly held that students will acquire team and group skills simply by completing group assignments. this is not so. students need to study group interaction as a separate and pedagogically valid set of content before embarking on group assignments (eunson, 2007, p. vi). journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 51–70 © distance education association of new zealand 54 various contexts of communication communication context describes the situation, setting, or environment within which the communication takes place. these circumstances influence the entire communication process (dwyer, 1990; mersham & skinner, 1999). de figueiredo and afonso (2006) say: [in e-learning] the intensive use of technology as a mediator (besides the traditional mediation of language), the decisive importance of the social dimension, and the paradoxical absence of presence (when the social dimension is so critically important) make virtual settings much more sensitive to the interpretation of context (p. 4). the communication discipline persistently refers to the effect of the contexts of communication: intrapersonal, interpersonal, small group, mass, and intercultural communication are commonly identified (de vito, 2000; trenholm, 2008; mersham & skinner, 1999; mcmillan, 2006). the e-educator needs to be aware and sensitive to communicative context(s). for example, a learning management system (lms), which is the ‘medium’ of exchange, presents opportunities to engage in all of the traditional contexts of communication—one-to-one and one-to-many, synchronous and asynchronous, in a flexible matrix of interaction—but certain encoding and decoding options are absent or limited as a result of the ‘absence of presence’ referred to above. missing codes of communication while it is possible to engage in synchronous interpersonal and small-group communication through video conferencing, important meaning-generating, non-verbal communication codes such as gaze behaviour, kinesics, facial expression, gestures, proxemics, and posture (mersham & skinner, 1999, pp. 18–28) are only partly (or not at all) accessible to parties in the interaction. the importance of the social dimension and the paradoxical absence of physical presence (‘proximity’) replaced with variations of electronic presence, is frequently glossed over or ignored in e-learning pedagogy. the problem of place it is unnecessary to repeat here the numerous accounts of the world’s ever-deepening love affair with technology in general (that is, all things e). journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 51–70 © distance education association of new zealand 55 techno-utopians at e-learning conferences de-legitimise older forms of correspondence or distance education by claiming that the convergence between telecommunications and computers represents a paradigm shift (harasim, hiltz, teles, & turoff, 1996). they suggest that ‘distance is dead’, implying that the physical place of educator and student alike matters little, and conveniently ignoring the cultural implications for communication of a sense of place (mersham, 2008). such ‘paradigm shift’ presentations, delivered in enthusiastic addresses crammed with invocations about empowerment and the impact of social media, are often simply about new software applications or programmes. it has been argued that electronic communications obliterate our sense of place because they present information in a decontextualised fashion—as if it emerged from nowhere because social place is separated from physical place (meyrowitz, 1985, p. 115). place becomes devoid of culture; it no longer matters where one is. as a result, communication loses its historical sense, and becomes abstract and individuated (van loon, 2008, p. 46). according to van loon, this separation creates a crisis that extends to the personal level. without place the individual finds it more difficult to attain a sense of integrity; the interpersonal responsibilities that go with a sense of place become loosened and disconnected from faces and from face-to-face encounters. in the interfaciality of electronic communications, participants suspend claims to ‘authentic being’ in favour of playful and performative assertions of the kind that are endemic in second life. the communication scientist’s dilemma the rush of pronouncements by technological optimists is paralleled with those of technological pessimists who are suspicious of computer-mediated communication. we are “abandoning face-to-face interaction in favour of (an inauthentic) life lived in cyberspace” (trenholm, 2008, p. 328). “the result of all of this connectivity is that we may be witnessing and hastening the end of real human communication” (sachs, 2007, n.p.). communication scholars, grounded in the paradigms of the humanities, are concerned with these important questions. what is ‘real’ and ‘authentic’ communication in the context of e-learning? throughout the discourse of communication studies one finds reference to the ideal type of communication as interpersonal, two-way, face-to-face, dialogic, and synchronous (van schoor, 1979; 1986). interpersonal communication is typically understood as being face-to-face, direct persona-to-persona journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 51–70 © distance education association of new zealand 56 communication, unassisted, uninterrupted, and unmediated by media technologies (o’sullivan, hartley, montgomery, & fiske, 1994). interpersonal communication occupies “a central position” in the communication panoply of contexts (tyler, kossan, & ryan, 2002, p. 184) and “is arguably the most important form of communication that humans undertake” (trenholm, 2008, p. 140). historically, people have sought to transact face to face, asserting the authenticity and richness of non-verbal and visual cues (burgoon, 1996; jones & lebaron, 2002; burgoon et al., 2002). for example, what lecturer in communication has not referred to the oft-cited proposition that in ideal face-to-face communications, the words we speak actually account for less than 10 percent of our meaning, non-verbal cues for more than half, and that other meta-linguistic codes (such as tone of voice) communicate the rest? to what extent can one talk of interpersonal communication in the e-learning context if it is not face to face? is interpersonal communication, for so long held up as the ideal type of dialogic, synchronous communication, really the philosophical benchmark we have made it out to be? we cannot easily transpose such ideal types into the electronic environment because our modelling supposes that many of the codes of interpersonal, face-to-face communication (non-verbal, gestural, haptic, and so on) are not present in the online environment. hallowell (1999, p. 63) states that “(t)he electronic world, while useful in many respects, is not an adequate substitute for the world of human contact” and weaver (1996, p. 19) warns that “(e) liminating direct contact in interpersonal communication almost has the effect of taking the personal out of interpersonal communication”. traditionally, interpersonal communication involves people (such as students and teachers) meeting physically in a real space (such as a classroom or lecture hall) at predetermined times. engagement in e-learning occurs in cyber space and time. no physical presences or spaces are necessary, and the interaction is computer mediated rather than interpersonally managed (witt & wheeless, 1999). hallowell (1999) argues strongly for the need for physical proximity in the teaching and learning environment. he introduces the concept of face time, which he defines as the physical interaction of people in one-on-one and/ or small-group scenarios. he calls this “an authentic psychological encounter that can happen only when two people share the same physical space” (1999, p. 59). while physical presence is a necessary condition for teaching and learning, engagement through emotional and intellectual attention is also a prerequisite. hallowell calls this “the human moment” (1999, p. 58). as open and distance learning increases in a globally competitive environment, journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 51–70 © distance education association of new zealand 57 removal of the human moment becomes more common. in education, psychology, and communication, numerous researchers including dewey (1964), rogers (1961; 1980), freire (1970), and arnett (1992) found that being involved in the human moment and actively participating in the transaction strengthens and harmonises cognitive, affective, and behavioural understanding. reasons for this improved understanding range from the heightened immediacy of physical engagement and the relevance of ‘voice’ to experiential, participative, hands-on criteria required for practical skills development (boud, cohen, & walker, 1993; grant, 1999). ryan (1999, p. 93) suggests that skills development is highly dependent on participants and tutors being in physical proximity. “new communication technologies tend to filter out important contextual and social cues” resulting in an “impoverished communication environment” which could “degrade the quality of communication, impair working relationships, and undermine task performance compared to face-to-face interaction unless communicators are able to compensate for such losses” (burgoon et al., 2002, p. 658). proximity, physiology, and communication burgoon et al. (2002, p. 673) found that the “proxemic, environmental and vocalic nonverbal cues” available in face-to-face communication result in heightened empathy, involvement, trust, and morale, and they questioned how successfully these outcomes could be achieved online or over distance. other codes that are absent from open and distance learning (apart from non-verbal visual codes), such as tactile and olfactory cues, are held by some to be very important in communication. while studies of non-verbal communication and body language are plentiful (for example, gumperz, 1992; burgoon, 1996; and burgoon et al., 2002), much less attention is paid to the role of chemical and hormonal neurotransmitters in communication. the energy levels and adrenaline rush of active involvement are often subjectively evident in interpersonal communication, giving rise to heightened states of motivation and well-being. studies suggest that physiological and chemical processes are triggered in physical interpersonal communication. it is known that lack of physical human contact damages a person’s emotional health and sense of identity. socially isolated people are less emotionally balanced and have lower immune-system responsiveness and lowered t-cell counts (taylor, 1994; steer, 2000; langer, 1989; trethewey, journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 51–70 © distance education association of new zealand 58 2001). hallowell (1999) suggests that isolation resulting from online learning might have the same consequences. human-to-human contact reduces the blood levels of the stress hormones epinephrine, norepinephrine, and cortisol. hormones such as oxytocin and vasopressin promote bonding and trust (hallowell, 1999). these hormone levels rise naturally when people are physically near to one another but are suppressed when people are physically separated. hallowell suggests that this is one reason why, for example, people find it much “easier to deal harshly with someone via e-mail than in person” (1999, p. 63). other people’s emotions (such as fear, contentment and/or sexuality) may be experienced and communicated by smell. memory, too, is often associated with smell (jacob, 2007). the communicative and territorial influence of the role of the vomeronasal organ has recently become an area of research (taylor, 1994). identified anatomically as a tympanic nerve, the vomeronasal organ serves as a sensory conduit which seemingly links other sensory organs communicatively— bringing this canal, cartilage, plexus, nerve, or organ (it is known by all of these names) into chemical concert. those patients who have a damaged organ, or have had it removed, seem to lose their ability to judge others astutely. they appear gullible and lose their intuitive ability to ‘size up’ a situation (grant, 2005, p. 98). the role of this organ might explain the source of expressions such as having a ‘nose for trouble’, ‘smelling a rat’, or experiencing ‘burning ears’. it may also explain feelings of instant attraction or repulsion when meeting someone for the first time (grant, 2005, p. 98). grant therefore proposes that exposure to both computer-mediated communication and face-to-face contact contexts will provide the best possible outcomes (2005, p. 103). other scholars suggest that the debate should focus on a wider definition of learning outcomes. farber (1998) finds that distance learning has enhanced testable, quantifiable knowledge outcomes but claims that although this is the sole standard of success in distance education, it is not the sole point of education. lievrouw (2001, p. 6) contends that education encompasses “the life experiences and socialization that result from personal involvement with the campus setting”. farber (1998, p. 797) claims that competence must be complemented by education. “‘if we want no more than measurable journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 51–70 © distance education association of new zealand 59 competence, it comes fairly cheap. but if we want education … we need to stop pretending that we can deliver the university experience on a screen.” farber (1998) asserts that: university educated people differ from other groups in terms of their cultural and political styles … they tend to be less authoritarian and dogmatic, are more flexible and tolerant of ambiguity, and show greater preferences for abstract, reflective thought, and rational, critical problem solving … the greatest influence on such attitudes and orientations is exposure to, and interaction with, other students (p. 797). the circumstances (communicator and recipient) mersham, rensburg, and skinner (1995, p. 5) argue strongly for the recognition of autobiographical and sociocultural circumstances in their model of communication. in spite of the commonalities that link us into the social structure, no two lives are ever the same in terms of individual experiences, expertise, and world view. “it is these personal circumstances that warn the communicator to remain constantly aware of the differences in life experiences of the various players in the communication experience” (mersham et al., 1995, p. 57). autobiographical and sociocultural circumstances of the educator what are the circumstances of academic communicators in e-learning? kanwar (2007) argues that they must revise many of their existing teaching practices. rather than delivering instruction, they should provide academic facilitation. the e-learning academic will be a sound scholar, a skilled communicator, a versatile instructional designer, a computer expert, and an effective mentor/guide. how many academics can claim that they currently meet this description? a social constructivist model emphasises the importance of networked connectivism—the collaboration of learners. this is perhaps the greatest challenge that academics face in e-learning. they have to be able to facilitate communication, not only between themselves and learners, but within the group of learners. this is clearly quite different from assigning a postgraduate student to conduct tutorials. hofmann (2003a; 2003b) argues that the online educator must understand the online learner’s experience by having themselves participated in journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 51–70 © distance education association of new zealand 60 asynchronous, synchronous, and blended programmes—so they understand the pedagogy. this understanding requires undertaking a detailed review of the programme design and strategies, and working with instructional designers to answer questions and clarify misunderstandings. academics will probably require training or retraining in the technology. not all academics want to be online facilitators. administrators must understand that facilitators need to be willing players and believe in the effectiveness of online learning. finally, the online facilitator’s administration needs to be supportive. the facilitator’s preparation time may exceed that required for contact environments. administrators need to realise that preparing to teach online takes time, and they must balance workloads accordingly. as well as participating in live online events, facilitators need to be able to communicate with participants throughout the course. they need time to answer questions, respond to posts, and review assignments. for every hour of synchronous facilitation in a blended programme, there may be many more hours of asynchronous facilitation and administration. clearly, the educator needs to be sensitive to their own sociocultural circumstances and the worldview of their own cultural and social life. for example, for many distance and e-learning students, english is a second language. this is particularly likely if the institution offers courses to students who live in different countries with different cultural norms and official languages. new zealand is also increasingly characterised by ethnic and cultural diversity. autobiographical and sociocultural circumstances of learners motivation, self-discipline, self-organisation, and time management are probably the most commonly identified characteristics of successful e-learners (hofmann (2003a; 2003b; petrova & sinclair, 2008, p. 25; blandin, 2006, p. 72). the demographics and psychographics of learners who engage in fully online programmes vary from those in contact programmes. online learners are more likely to be working full or part time, be mature-age learners, and come from a wider range of socio-economic groups. a new online learner is often a person of working age who needs continuing professional development combined with full-time employment. they may have little time for journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 51–70 © distance education association of new zealand 61 synchronous instruction. the number of such academic customers is rising in both developed and developing countries. the loss of important contextual information and non-verbal cues, so indispensable to proponents of face-to-face dialogical communication, may be viewed as an advantage by some students if it blurs social class and obscures race, gender, and age (aithaus, 1997). less-confident students can participate in a kind of rhetorical safe-house where they feel comfortable asking questions online and in private. this opportunity demonstrates the flexibility that e-learning provides in meeting the unique sociocultural and individual circumstances of each participant. learners will increasingly come from a more diverse set of sociocultural circumstances—at the national level in new zealand, and at the international level when institutions offer courses to residents of other countries. not only are there greater challenges at the level of the prime code of communication (written and spoken language), but also in the many protocols of cultural codes of engagement. the codes in the model (see figure 1), where coding is indicated, two types of communication codes—cultural and technical—can be distinguished. technical codes are important. for example, two of the most common technical decoding issues that discourage e-learners are low bandwidth and incorrect computer configurations (munzer, 2002). content created for high bandwidth is often unsuitable for recipients using dialup access. incorrect browser and pc settings are another common cause of e-learner defection. many online courses use java, javascript, and browser plug-ins. for example, courses using the chat function in the moodle course management system must have java embedded. java requires the learner’s workstation to have java virtual machine (jvm), which is usually included in the web browser installation; however, the version may be outdated and cause errors that are difficult to track. javascript is also included in the browser installation and, like java, has different versions and types. microsoft and netscape both have their own versions of javascript. for example, a course using microsoft’s javascript version 1.2 will misbehave when launched from a browser that supports only version 1.1. the errors generated by mismatched versions are elusive and difficult to troubleshoot. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 51–70 © distance education association of new zealand 62 when a course contains audio, video, or rich simulations that the web browser isn’t programmed to handle, plug-ins step in to deliver the media. the most common of these add-ons to the web browser are macromedia’s flash player and microsoft’s media player. if a course is programmed properly, it will recognise when the necessary plug-in is missing and ask the user to visit the vendor’s website to download and install the proper software. but including the code to find and install a plug-in is not always the ideal solution. if learners go to the vendor’s site to install the plug-in, they may be forced to leave the course and may have to restart their computer to install the plug-in. they may exit the course improperly, losing course bookmarks and causing tracking problems. cultural codes are concerned with natural language in all its cultural forms— written, spoken, visual, and so on. language consists of signs and symbols arranged into codes according to the rules that govern their use; for example, written letters, words, and grammatical construction. this area is a locus of interest for communicologists studying e-learning. cross-cultural and transnational communication has opened up an array of coding and decoding challenges for e-learning as institutions increasingly realise that learners come from different cultures, political systems and lifeworlds, and that these differences have profound effects on how they interpret course material. moves toward fit-for-purpose industrial systems that employ transferable learning objects may lead to incorrect assumptions about cultural fit and authenticity. technical coding can help practitioners to take cultural differences into account. for example, the new zealand open source virtual learning environment project has developed mäori, tongan, and samoan language packs for moodle. the medium the choice of medium or lms is a major consideration in e-learning. this software facilitates management of educational courses, including course development, presentation, and administration. the best-known examples of lmss include moodle (2001), blackboard, (1997) and webct (1997). e-learning pedagogy exists in direct and mutually dependent relationships with the technologies, supporting and allowing certain activities while preventing others. this relationship is referred to as the affordance of the journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 51–70 © distance education association of new zealand 63 technology (gibson, 1979). it is not solely the property of the technology, but rather the way the application is used in real contexts by both experts and novices, that defines its affordance (anderson, 2007, p. 2). social, political, personal, economic, and other contexts constrain and define the ways in which the technology is actually used. if any learning is to be gained at all, it will occur through message making. teachers and students do this together; creating meanings in what arnett (1992) calls “dialogic education”. as postman and weingartner (1969) suggest: as soon as students realize that their lessons are about their meanings, learning is no longer a contest between them and something outside of them …. it makes both possible and acceptable a plurality of meanings …. and this is the basis of the process of learning how to learn, how to deal with the otherwise ‘meaningless,’ how to cope with change that requires new meanings to be made (p. 97). according to anderson (2005), the greatest challenge and opportunity facing e-learning is to put into practice the e-pedagogy that relates to social interaction and collaboration. his definition acknowledges that a great deal of learning can be social activity, but does not exclude individual learning or learning that extends beyond the cohort and, especially, face-to-face groups. rather, the definition focuses on the lifelong learning needs of users to control, in various dimensions, their learning—while not excluding the opportunity to meet with, share, and develop knowledge and understanding in many types of social context. levin (2004) describes such affordances as new patterns of interconnection in the educative process. e-learning varies the relationship among the elements of speaker/writer, audience, and the message content. for example, a single teacher, lecturer, or course tutor may address a whole class of e-learners at one time; at other times, the communication may be one-to-one; and at yet other times, a single e-learner may send a message to the class as a whole on a bulletin board or as part of an ongoing dialogue. in some respects these patterns of communication are no different from their face-to-face versions, but the asynchrony potentially available to e-learners makes for a more reflective dynamic. critically, from the recipient’s point of view in communication theory, the reader/student/e-learner is more in control of the rhetorical process. the technology provides opportunities to manoeuvre that are not available in non-mediated communication. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 51–70 © distance education association of new zealand 64 however, communication opportunities in e-learning are under-used and ineffective when they are grafted onto courses that are rooted in pedagogic models and practices with which they are not aligned. for example, reports state that communications facilities were little used when added to existing distance education courses and were unlikely to achieve worthwhile teaching and learning outcomes (erlich, erlich-philip & gal-ezer, 2005; fung, 2004; kear, 2004). if a course is designed with all the necessary materials provided for learners, and with assessment that rewards only the outputs from each individual student, there is little room for exploiting the pedagogic potential of communications media. similarly, if a course package provides everything the students need for their assessment, learners see no benefit from consulting external sources of information (kirkwood, 2006), and they will ignore collaborative–constructivist ideals. conversely, if a course is conceived and designed on the basis of a model that requires communication with other learners, and using online resources, learners will engage actively with these activities (kirkwood & price, 2008). integrated course design of this kind requires the communication rationale to be made explicit (not simply assumed to be self-evident), and the expectations of learners to be managed appropriately. in the organisational context, choice of medium is important because an lms locks the institution into a software platform and there are no commonly used standards that define how the learner’s performance within a course should be transferred from one lms to another. increasingly, organisations are agreeing to share common platforms, particularly moodle, that use open standards. these standards create a base for long-term interoperability and cost benefits that accrue from membership of a global community of educators involved in its development. licensing and technical support for proprietary platforms have proved to be more costly and less flexible for institutional modification and development. conclusion teaching and learning is the negotiation of meaning through communication. the pedagogy of e-learning requires not only communication between teacher and learner, but also facilitation of communication among learners, and between learners and other knowledge sources and stakeholders. contexts of communication and their attendant coding and decoding journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 51–70 © distance education association of new zealand 65 possibilities do not necessarily occur in e-learning in the same way as they do in traditional face-to-face and distance (correspondence) environments. whatever name it takes—open learning, flexible learning, e-learning, e-education, or blended learning—it is clear that communication scientists and e-educators will have to consider their customary approaches to the understanding of communication and to try to answer the question: “how does the process of mediation shape our lived teaching and learning experiences?” references aithaus, s. l. 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(2006). the dynamics of online collaboration. in a. de figueiredo & a. afonso (eds.), managing learning in virtual settings: the role of context (pp. 98–116). london: information science. biographical note gary mersham has 20 years as a communication professor in various contact universities on three continents. he became interested in how communication takes place in e-learning when he joined the open polytechnic of new zealand, where he is currently associate professor of communication in the centre for social sciences. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 51–70 microsoft word nichols test 8.docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(2) 49 addendum: reading and studying on the screen mark nichols, the open university abstract in 2016 the article “reading and studying on the screen: an overview of literature towards good learning design practice” (http://www.jofdl.nz/index.php/jofdl/article/view/263/200) was published in the journal of open, flexible and distance learning (nichols, 2016b). the article overviewed comparative studies related to reading on screen and reading from print, and proposed recommendations for on-screen learning design. this addendum to that article considers additional studies that have been analysed in subsequent blog posts (see “an update to ‘reading and studying from the screen’” [http://tel-lingit.blogspot.com/2018/02/an-update-to-reading-and-studying-from.html] and “a further update to ‘reading and studying from the screen’” [https://tel-lingit.blogspot.com/2018/11/a-further-update-to-reading-and.html]) up to the end of november 2018. as this is an invited addendum, i’ll take the opportunity to adopt a more personal and self-disclosing style to talk more about my own position and experience regarding digital education and on-screen reading. this piece alternates is both scholarly and polemic. keywords: cognitive load; learning design; online only; on screen; print introduction the issue of whether digital education should require students to read from a screen has been one i have encountered frequently over the last 15 years. in 2015 i was working for open polytechnic as the first of many courses were released in a solely online, on-screen mode (see nichols, 2016b, for a description of what this immediately led to). i am a strong advocate of digital education: i’m also well aware of the reluctance many academics and students feel about on-screen reading. in 2015 (perhaps belatedly) i decided to review the literature related to onscreen reading and comprehension, as these are important to digital study. i was both surprised and bemused to learn that such studies tend towards concluding there is no significant difference (nsd) between reading on screen and in print. in the detail of these studies i discovered factors that can make “on screen” a more effective medium. my 2016 article provided advice to learning designers that would mitigate the uncritical reading style on-screen readers can tend to adopt in an attempt to make on-screen study more effective and engaging. because the issue of screen versus print remains contentious, and also prompted by discussions at the open university uk, i decided to keep an eye on the literature to see whether my advice remained relevant and my summary of the literature further substantiated. at the end of november 2018, the additional articles i’ve since considered (some published subsequent to my article and others not initially included) tend to confirm my initial work, and further nuance it. this addendum reports on what 29 of those articles have added to the work first published in nichols, m. 50 2016. the additional articles were recommended by mendeley1 as a complement to my previous study in the area. it’s fair to summarise the literature findings as represented in my 2016 article as follows. • the experience of reading on screen is different from reading print; however, there is nsd overall in terms of comprehension. • extended text (more than 1200 words) can be more difficult to engage with on screen, and it may be that significant differences—in favour of print—occur beyond this word count. • on-screen reading is typically perceived by readers to be of a genre not conducive to serious study. • there are navigational and tactile differences between books and on-screen readers. onscreen text lacks the familiar physical markers that readers use to assist with navigation and progress (resulting in haptic dissonance and increasing cognitive load). • on-screen reading may require more mental effort (cognitive load), depending on how it is designed. i concluded that learning designers could apply techniques that would improve the performance of on-screen readers. recommendations • orientate students to the potential dynamics of on-screen reading, making them more deliberate and focused about their reading behaviour by: o contrasting reading as finding information, and reading as contemplating for understanding o encouraging electronic highlighting and note-taking to paraphrase and query the text o promoting focused reading, with all online distractions (such as twitter feeds, browser tabs, skype channels and im clients) closed during the reading session o encouraging readers to monitor their progress against learning objectives, and to be deliberate about their understanding. • if extended text is unavoidable, prompt the students as to how they should engage with it in the form of lead indicators (e.g., “be sure you fully understand the context surrounding the diagram on p. 13”; “pay specific attention to the method used in the study”; or “be sure you understand the main reasons behind the argument. it will be helpful for you to list them”). • scaffold the cognitive load that is appropriate for the level of the student. recognise that students taking early courses will probably need more guidance and feedback. • use a clean, reading-friendly on-screen interface without clutter and distraction. • minimise scrolling as a reader behaviour, so that text can be read in a more stationary way. • be deliberate in the design of on-screen text by: o chunking text logically, in similar sizes as much as possible o preparing on-screen text to optimise the on-screen display in a reflowable manner, to maximise flexibility o providing as much textual land-marking as possible, including diagrams, summaries, and position indicators o embedding activities and additional media in the text as part of a consistent presentation 1 mendeley is reference-management software owned by elsevier. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(2) 51 o as a guide, providing activities every 1000 words, to provide feedback and help reinforce key ideas and concepts (excepting book chapters or articles, which frequently cannot be edited) o minimising in-text hyperlinks and ensuring that any used are of direct relevance. • if pdf formats cannot be avoided or extended text cannot be edited (for example in book chapters or articles), make these resources available through a print-on-demand service, or provide versions that are easy to print. this advice, which still stands, has the effect of reducing the cognitive load for the reading task (rouet, 2009). based on subsequent reading and experience, all i would add now is that we should also provide students with clear advice as to what sort of devices might most benefit them as on-screen readers (more on this below). it’s also clear that we have much more to learn about what it means to read on screen. the issue: screen versus print fundamentally, the issue is not one of screen versus print. it is whether a digital-based approach to education design would disadvantage students on the grounds that reading from a screen is inferior to reading from print. any critique of comprehension for screen and print reading ought to consider this context of what is at stake. the issue is not whether print should be provided to distance students—it’s whether designing modules to be printable serves the best interests of students, and whether a requirement for print effectively limits sound educational design, given the benefits of a digital approach (see nichols, 2016b, pp. 34–35 for a list of advantages of an on-screen or digital education approach). it’s not unusual for advocates of digital and online education in traditional distance education organisations to be quickly—and incorrectly—misinterpreted as simply trying to do away with print (usually in the form of books that have traditionally been provided to students). as long as the issue is defined as one of “screen versus books”, it’s not possible to bridge the gap between the different opinions. on-screen reading is a feature, but not necessarily a requirement, of digital education. it’s important to nuance just what is being usually advocated by those (like me) who are eager to point out nsd in comprehension between reading on screen and print. if i seem somewhat defensive at this point, it’s because i have been misinterpreted in this way and have learned to be very careful in how i frame my advocacy for the on-screen experience. as an aside to digital education advocates, i have no agenda to do away with print to save costs (although cost reduction is an advantage that should not be ignored). as explained in the aforementioned benefits of a digital approach, the goal is to unlock the potential of digital education in such a way that the student’s likelihood of success is not compromised by having to read from a screen. if screen reading hampers comprehension, then moving from a print-based learning design approach to a digital-based one hinders student success. if there is nsd in comprehension between the two, then a much stronger (in my view, decisive) case can be made for learning design to be digital-based. that there is, in fact, nsd overall signals that educators ought to be relaxed about being more digitally focused. my initial article pointed out that learning designers can actually improve the on-screen reading experience for students by being mindful of their practice and by encouraging students to be more mindful in their on-screen reading. to apply the various and real benefits digital tools might offer to education, the decision to base learning design on a digital rather than print foundation is fundamental. the decision for a learning design that is digitalor print-based is binary; in contemporary expressions of distance and online education, a learning design is either digitalor print-based. nichols, m. 52 • if a learning design is print-based, learning design decisions are limited to what can be achieved in print (which, i hasten to add, does not rule out the print being supplemented with other media). in print-based learning design a digital version might be available; however, the student experience loses nothing if the digital version is printed. • if learning design is digital-based, the student gets no benefit from printing all of the required elements of study, since a significantly greater pedagogical choice and a richer series of student support data is applied to the learning experience. it’s not possible to print embedded video, interactive exercises or other learning activities without breaking the flow of learning. although the basis of learning design is binary (either digitalor print-based), the actual mix of digital and print resources used for study in a digital-based design can be considered as a sliding scale. in a digital-based learning design the issue is not so much whether print is used, but rather what print is used for. from my understanding of the evidence available, literature supports the notion of a digital-based design with print options available where lengthy reading is required. even in a digital-based design, print options might be reserved for articles, books, or book chapters that are narrative (i.e., where the books are not intended to also serve as learning guides, which might effectively make the entire module design a print-based one). in my view, print is perfectly appropriate for articles, book chapters, and books that are written in the format of articles, book chapters, and books. i am expressly against the notion of preparing learning guides in printable form and embedded in those formats. i am also of the view that printed forms of articles, book chapters, and books need not necessarily be offered in print as well as digitally. in an attempt to be clearer rather than labour the point, i am saying that print can still play a part in a digital-based learning design. while everything ought to be available to students digitally, long readings (assimilative resources) might also be available in print. i am advocating a digitalbased learning design in which print is not the limiting factor of what can be designed. good practice would, in my view, provide a digital version of works over 1200 words that students could either print themselves or order through a print-on-demand service. from my understanding of the evidence there is no imperative for students to be given print at all, provided the recommendations listed earlier are applied. however, in recognition of the strong student preference still apparent in the literature, good practice would make it possible for these extended readings to be printed as well. good practice would also encourage students to develop effective on-screen reading behaviours (including those that minimise computer vision syndrome [cvs] as outlined in the initial paper).2 not supplying print by default is not, in my view, evidence of bad practice. i am conscious that i stray into matters of learning design, but in my view the matters of onscreen reading in education settings and learning design are inseparable. there is much more to learning than reading, and for learning design to be limited to what is possible to read in print is an abdication of the educator’s ultimate responsibility and a denial of the true potential of digital education. given that, in the right circumstances, there is nsd in comprehension between reading on screen and print, it follows that the benefits of digital design decisively outweigh the apparent benefits of a print-based one. (i address issues of student preference and learning to read on screen further on in this addendum.) 2 it is often claimed that reading from a screen brings on headaches, and that many students who work with screens all day prefer print by night. this warrants a response beyond this addendum. the advice relating to cvs seems to address the issue for the most part. adopting different advice for on-screen reading, as outlined later in this paper, might also make a positive difference. providing a print option for extended narrative, as i suggest as good practice, does provide these students with a mechanism to address their concern. institutions might choose to cover the costs of printing for students who claim on-screen reading is difficult (i.e., beyond preference). journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(2) 53 preference for reading print the argument that students prefer print tends to be a start-and-end point for those against a digital approach to learning design. studies, many international in scope, continue to confirm student preference for printed materials (baron, calixte, & havewala, 2017; mizrachi, 2015; mizrachi, salaz, kurbanoglu, & boustany, 2018; zhang & kudva, 2014). this finding is unremarkable; the reasons students have for this preference are well defined and well understood. as mentioned in the previous section, it is still possible to make some allowances for print preference if extended reading is required. the actual issue—whether digital-based learning designs are viable for education—goes well beyond that of student preference for reading in print, and into matters of student outcomes. the further studies considered since my 2016 article serve to further nuance the general student preference for print. one article suggests that the extent of student print preference can be quantified. in their work on e-textbooks, terpend, gattiker, and lowe (2014), discovered that “10 percent of individuals will still adopt the hardcopy text even if it is priced at 3.5 times the e-text” (2014, p. 164). they also found that the price point at which all students would purchase a printed text over an electronic one is around 111.59% of the e-text price. in my initial article, i footnoted that, at the time of writing, “there were no published studies identifying the percentage of students who prefer an on-screen-only education experience” (nichols, 2016b, p. 35). i was incorrect. mizrachi (2015) found that, of her respondents, “about 18% agreed or strongly agreed with a preference for reading electronically” (2015, p. 305). this nicely matches the “up to 20%” figure i included in the paper, citing open polytechnic findings from that same year and inferred results from a recent open university study. mizrachi further found that an electronic version of a reading of fewer than five pages would be preferred by 47.7% of respondents, and that almost half (49%) of doctoral students and over one-third (35%) of postgraduate students were found to prefer digital/on-screen resources over print ones. similarly, zhang and kudva found that e-book adoption is positively influenced by “the number of books read, the individual’s income, the occurrence and frequency of reading for research topics of interest, and the individual’s internet use, followed by other variables such as race/ethnicity, reading for work/school, age, and education” (2014, p. 1695). it’s possible that respondents to questions relating to media preference project more than just their typical reading activity into their response. for example, baron et al. (2017) found that 65% of their sampled students (18 to 26 years) were likely to report multi-tasking while reading on screen. this may be a factor behind the 92% who reported better comprehension from print. it’s also interesting to note that 35.4% of that same study’s respondents preferred a digital format for shorter academic texts (slightly fewer than the number from mizrachi above). additional studies provide alluring insight into actual student behaviour in on-screen reading. one quote from a participant is revealing: “‘sometimes i forgot i was reading a textbook. i had to train my brain to think critically when reading because usually when i’m on a device it’s for recreation’” (dobler, 2015, p. 488). studies have also found that 80–90% of participants reading on laptops (mizrachi, 2015; mizrachi et al., 2018), which are arguably not the most convenient means of engaging with on-screen reading (see ‘advice for students’ below). this practice might help to explain the overwhelming rejection of on-screen reading by students. improving students’ perceptions of onscreen reading may well help them to succeed with it (ross, pechenkina, aeschliman, & chase, 2017). it’s not unusual for students to self-report reduced comprehension from on-screen reading. however, we need to be clear as to what this finding implies, because student perceptions of print being better are at odds with experimental findings that signal nsd. this is an example of subjective perception and objective data not matching. one interesting study (kretzschmar et al., nichols, m. 54 2013) used eeg and eye-tracking technology to test cognitive engagement with text in print, an e-reader, and a tablet device for short texts. the article clearly demonstrates the relationship between preference and performance for print and digital reading—there was nsd between the three devices, and no evidence that device reading requires more physiological effort. deciding to not provide a digital-based learning design, or to resist it, on the grounds that students prefer print and self-report learning better from it, is indefensible on the basis of literature evidence. students may not fully appreciate the long-term benefits of being required to do something that they do not prefer, nor understand what a digital-based approach to learning design might mean for their ultimate success. in my article i wrote that, “effective on-screen reading skills are important for 21st century professionals” (2016b, p. 34), which can defensibly include students as they advance through their studies. students who are confident and accomplished on-screen readers will have developed an essential professional skill that will serve them well across their studies and beyond, a skill that they will value more as they advance in their studies (mizrachi, 2015; zhang & kudva, 2014). further comparison study findings several studies reinforce the finding of nsd in comprehension from reading on screen and reading print. chen and catrambone (2015), for example, found nsd in their comparison of onscreen and print comprehension in treatments of 1000 words, even though there was a print preference across their sample. the authors speculate that younger readers are likely to be more confident reading from the screen, even if their preference is to read from print. it’s of particular interest that the on-screen readers performed as well as the print ones, even though the print readers took more time (and more notes). in a similar study with younger (grade 10 and early university) respondents, this time in the “natural school setting and not in an artificial laboratory treatment” (sackstein, spark, & jenkins, 2015, p. 4), the finding was again nsd, although students with previous experience in using ipads were able to complete the task quicker than average (with no adverse effect on their results). my own published comparison of the student experience for two versions of the same module (one in print and the other online only), also found nsd for various measures of student success (nichols, 2016a), although it is clear that many students studying online opted to print the materials rather than read them on screen. several treatments in yet another study, confounding participants’ cognitive pressure as they read on screen and from print, also found nsd difference (sidi, shpigelman, zalmanov, & ackerman, 2017), although the authors suggest that “the lengthier the text, the more it is susceptible to the technological disadvantages associated with screen reading (e.g., eye strain)” (2017, p. 63). a small group studied in young (2014) also found nsd, despite a clear participant preference for print and the use of substantial articles. finally, singer trakhman, alexander, and berkowitz (2017) found nsd in overall comprehension for readings of around 550 words, but cautioned that digital readers tended to read more quickly and overestimate the effectiveness of their reading. a study by porion, aparaicio, megalakaki, robert, and baccino (2016) provides a useful baseline comparison for reading on screen and in print. the treatment provided the same conditions—using a large screen in place of paper and showing the same page view of 1000 words on both. the authors conclude that “if we fulfil all the conditions of paper-based versus computerized presentation (text structure, presentation on a single page, screen size, several types of questions measuring comprehension and memory performances), reading performances are not significantly different” (2016, p. 569). requiring students to engage with on-screen text also leads towards nsd outcomes, which proved to be the case when participants were required to read and edit 600-word papers as an on-screen and print task (eden & eshet-alkalai, 2013). one study, an outlier in terms of finding in favour of print (kim & kim, 2013), raises a methodological issue. the conditions under which a study takes place can skew the findings. in journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(2) 55 the case of kim and kim, on-screen participants were approximately 36% slower in completing the task. further, those respondents who preferred print averaged comprehension scores of 61.59 and 79.30 for the on-screen and print reading treatments, whereas students preferring on-screen reading averaged 54.65 and 56.24 respectively. it seems from the methodology that the on-screen treatment required students to use a mouse to circle the correct answer in an electronic document (a facsimile of the paper version). the difference in average score across the two groups of 23% in a multiple-choice test in the print treatment requires more explanation than is offered in the article. until these questions are addressed, these outlier findings are probably best ignored. it might simply be that those participants (teenagers) specifying a preference for on-screen reading were weaker readers or had access to online social media, or that those using the on-screen interface were asked to indicate their responses by drawing on the screen. unfortunately the kim and kim study is included in an otherwise excellent work of metaanalysis (kong, seo, & zhai, 2018). it’s not clear whether excluding the kim and kim study, a clear outlier, might have brought the kong et al. summary to one of nsd. the meta-study finds “reading on paper was better than reading on screen in terms of reading comprehension” (2018, p. 138). however, the authors also conclude that, after 2013 (the year of the kim & kim paper), “the magnitude of the difference in reading comprehension between paper and screen followed a diminishing trajectory” (2018, p.138). the authors suggest that familiarity with print and cognitive load might explain the improvement in cognitive performance over time, giving an important indication that familiarity with on-screen reading and effective learning design can make a positive difference in equivalence. not all studies find nsd. one study compared student reading for approximately 450 words across various treatments (singer & alexander, 2017a) and found that participants reading print had greater comprehension of key points, even though participants self-reported that they thought they did better when reading digitally. in this study, while overall main-idea recall took place from the on-screen reading treatment, print provided better key point recall. in their abstract, stoop, kreutzer, and kircz (2013) claimed to find in favour of print; however, the article’s text concluded that results were “far from unequivocal” (p. 377), in that the print group scored better on 8 out of 24 questions (3 significantly) and scored higher overall (but not to a level of statistical significance), whereas the digital group scored better on the remaining 16 questions. the stoop et al. study is not, strictly speaking, a comparison of on-screen and print reading, because the on-screen treatment included a virtual mind map and video clips. ultimately, the article concludes that “[b]oth forms had advantages and disadvantages” (ibid.) importantly stoop et al. extend their study into learning design, which is arguably where studies must move if we are to learn more about the comparative merits of printand digital-based education. as the stoop et al. study indicates, reading needn’t always involve narrative text. a study comparing the ability of children in grades 1 to 6 in reading and answering questions, under time constraints, from a tablet and print, found in favour of the latter (lenhard, schroeders, & lenhard, 2017). generally, children doing the test on screen “worked faster but at the expense of accuracy” (2017, p. 427). in this study, though, children in the computer-based treatment group were not able to correct any mistakes, and there is no indication that children doing the printbased tests were able to correct their answers. a similar study (sidi, ophir, & ackerman, 2016), this time without a time limitation, found nsd. e-textbooks several large-scale studies consider the (typically undergraduate) student experience with etextbooks. a comparison study of the same module (one treatment with a commercial textbook and the other using an open-source, online text) found that using the online text increased student retention and decreased costs to students without hindering their performance (clinton, 2018). nichols, m. 56 denoyelles, raible, and seilhamer (2015) found there are clear trends towards more student adoption of e-textbooks; another finding is that using e-textbooks considerably improves student preference for them (dobler, 2015; gueval, tarnow, & kumm, 2015). in the dobler study, students used an e-textbook that included multimedia resources and, interestingly, 64.5% of participants reported that the e-textbook had a positive influence on their cognitive engagement. another study found that students using printed textbooks achieved higher grades, but not to a level of significance (terpend et al., 2014). e-textbook adoption studies generally recommend that instructors play a key part in helping students to make good use of the opportunities these resources provide (dobler, 2015), including the benefits of e-textbook study tools (van horne, russell, & schuh, 2016). e-textbooks can suffer from poor user-interface design (myrberg & wiberg, 2015), which works against their broader adoption. opportunities for further primary research consideration of the additional works cited in this addendum shows that there are different forms and conditions of on-screen reading. because not all on-screen reading situations are similar, or likely to be equivalent, a range of variables is possible in any comparison study. • there are multiple types of on-screen text. differences in e-text are evident in questions, briefings, learning guides, short articles, full-length articles, books, and other formats. length is a particularly important variable. many studies compare treatments that use materials of around 500 words. comparison of full-size book chapters and journal articles are missing from primary studies. • motivation for reading varies. reading aloud to a child is different to reading on a commute or studying a broad range of scholarly books for research. the reason for reading or studying a text is important and may make one or other mode of engagement (on-screen or print) more appropriate. • on-screen formats are multi-faceted. an on-screen format might be an html page with or without hyperlinks and embedded multimedia, a free-text version of a physical book, a pdf (fixed) version of a physical book, or a scanned page. each format has different features relating to page metaphor, user control over size and type of font, distraction (or enhancement), text search and selection, and text advance/review. • interfaces vary. the reading experience with a kindle app differs from that with a web browser or proprietary e-textbook interface. the extent to which these provide spatial feedback, synchronisation flexibility, and highlight/annotation options can differ markedly. • devices vary. the reading experience is different for e-text from a laptop screen, desktop monitor, kindle, ipad and smartphone. further primary research is needed across these permutations to provide a fuller picture of equivalence, and to provide clues as to which combinations might be optimal. an important article by mangen and van der weel (2016) should also be considered by researchers, as the authors define further dimensions of reading that are not adequately explored in the studies reviewed to date. defining reading is also a concern raised by singer and alexander (2017b), who propose that nsd findings are most consistent in treatments of up to 500 words (i proposed 1200 in my initial article). their claim, “when longer texts [than 500 words] are involved or when individuals are reading for depth of understanding and not solely for gist, print appears to be the more effective processing medium” (2017b, p. 1033), needs empirical confirmation. beyond the immediate concern of on-screen and print reading, experimental studies comparing student performance with print-based and digital-based learning designs are also pertinent to the journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(2) 57 concern of the initial article. the methodology i used (nichols, 2016a) could be applied under similar circumstances to advance thinking about the binary difference of learning design decisions. advice for students after considering the articles reviewed for this addendum, i am left with the impression that not enough is being done to assist students to constructively engage with on-screen reading options in their studies and when participating in comparative studies. mizrachi et al. are correct to suggest that “[i]nstructional designers could work towards helping students acquire the prerequisite knowledge to leverage digital texts through more explicit instruction on the navigation of e-formats” (2018, p. 28). more can be done to reassure students that a requirement for on-screen reading is, ultimately, to their advantage as 21st century learners and will better serve them as they advance to postgraduate study. on-screen reading skills can also extend to students developing digital workflows, which might include using bibliographic software (such as mendeley and zotero) for categorising, storing, annotating, and otherwise studying articles; trello for planning assignments and study sessions; and other applications for task management and note-taking. most of these solutions now synchronise seamlessly across devices and work well offline (with the exception of trello). more can be done to encourage students to become conscious on-screen readers who purposefully remove distractions as they read, deliberately read more slowly, and learn to apply highlighting and note-taking tools. students might also be better informed about how digital-based learning design can improve their overall study workflow. i suspect that advocates of on-screen reading are also leaving the actual reading device used by students to chance. that 80–90% of students read on screen using a laptop gives pause for thought, as laptops are neither as portable, nor as flexible to use, as tablet devices. in one of my blog posts related to this article (“a further update to ‘reading and studying from the screen’”) i describe my own on-screen reading setup, which is designed to maximise flexibility and a seamless transition from reading, to studying, to writing on the same device (in my case a microsoft surface 3) in different configurations. my on-screen reading behaviour is reinforced by including mendeley, onenote, and online library access in my workflow, and i have learned to close email, twitter, and social media access as i read and study. conclusion consideration of further literature related to on-screen and print reading since the article, “reading and studying on the screen: an overview of literature towards good learning design practice”, was published provides a richer understanding of the subject, but little change to my recommendations. the results of comparison studies remain mixed, tending towards nsd, with evidence that the effectiveness and experience of on-screen reading can be improved through learning design practice. as more module developers and universities shift towards digital-based learning design, student success and the student experience can be enhanced through the advice offered in the initial 2016 article and this addendum. importantly, new imperatives for research and a better range of advice for students needing to engage with on-screen reading can now be confidently suggested. testing across variables including type of on-screen text, motivation for reading, on-screen format, and interface and device will help to extend knowledge further. ultimately, the issue is not so much screen 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(2014). e-books versus print books: readers’ choices and preferences across contexts. journal of the association for information science and technology, 65(8). https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.23076 biographical notes mark nichols mark.nichols@open.ac.uk mark is a director associated with the pro-vice-chancellor students, the open university, uk. in february 2019 he takes up the role of executive director – learning design & development with open polytechnic, new zealand. see mark’s linkedin profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mbnichols/ this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. nichols, m. (2018). addendum: reading and studying on the screen. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(2), [49–60.]. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 33 reading and studying on the screen: an overview of literature towards good learning design practice dr mark nichols, director of technology enhanced learning, the open university abstract as distance education moves increasingly towards online provision, and because of the benefits provided by online approaches, students will be expected to engage with more resources available on screen. contemporary forms of reading from the screen include reading from tablet devices, lcd monitors, and smartphones. however, print remains the preferred means of reading text, and student preference for print is accentuated when reading involves thorough study (ackerman & lauterman, 2012; foasberg, 2014). education providers face an interesting challenge. although many learners prefer having access to printed materials, on-screen reading can improve education’s convenience, portability, media-richness, engagement, support, and data-evidenced practice. in this context it is timely to consider the potential for on-screen reading from the perspective of learning design. this article considers studies related to reading on screen, and suggests good practice principles for on-screen-only learning design. keywords: cognitive load; learning design; online-only; on screen; print introduction the screen is an everyday part of life for most people. cell phones have evolved into smartphones, and telephony now serves only a minor role. tablet devices are ubiquitous. tablet sales are tipped to surpass traditional laptop and desktop sales in 2016, and mobile (and smartphone) sales will go well beyond both (gartner, 2015). banking, travel, retail, and multiple service sectors are all transformed as a result of online technology, and are further shaped by mobile devices and access. information access is rapidly shifting on screen.1 over time, reading from the screen has become the norm for a number of activities. the vast majority of people, for example, read and respond to emails without first printing them. most adults in the united kingdom now access newspapers and magazines online (sweney, 2013), probably as a result of the uptake of tablet devices and smartphones. books and academic journals are also increasingly electronic. in 2014, e-books comprised some 30% of all book sales in the united states (bercovici, 2014); from january until august 2012, amazon.co.uk sold 114 kindle books for every 100 printed books (malik, 2012). while evidence suggests the overall proportion of e-book to printed book purchasing may be stabilising at about 1:3 (wallop, 2015), increasing investment in e-books and electronic journal services by higher education institutions means access to academic titles and articles is increasingly online. according to a jisc survey, online journals have now largely replaced print versions for faculty research purposes 1 the term ‘on screen’ is used here deliberately instead of ‘online’. online implies the need for consistent internet access. ‘on screen’ assumes that material might also be available offline – either by downloading or preloading the resources. reading and studying on the screen and addendum: two articles by dr mark nichols nichols, m. 34 (housewright, schonfeld, & wulfson, 20132). ready access to academic e-books is also improving, although title availability is not sufficiently ubiquitous and licencing arrangements are too challenging to make academic e-books a comprehensive solution for academic libraries at present (walters, 2013). on-screen opportunities the emphasis on the electronic word, the rapid uptake of tablets and smartphones, and the availability of internet connectivity provide substantial opportunities for providers of distance education. on-screen reading is no longer as inconvenient as it once was, and reading applications continue to develop. over the last decade or so, resource-based providers of distance education provided printed materials to students in the form of printed learning guides and readings, complemented with online discussion forums, media (frequently on videotape, cdrom, or dvd), and external internet links. additional learning materials can also be available online, although usually in a printable format. as the on-screen world becomes more familiar and central to academic research, an on-screen-only approach to education can be considered a step forward rather than a retrograde one—particularly if an on-screen approach involves more than simply converting a traditional print resource into an electronic format. an enhanced on-screen-only provision of education provides multiple additional benefits: • effective on-screen reading skills are important for 21st century professionals. • on-screen text can be seamlessly complemented with additional resources and references such as feedback activities, illustrative media, and glossaries. • on-screen information is extremely portable (limited only by the device used to access it), and can be made available and synchronised across various devices. • development of on-screen text is streamlined and more efficient, as print materials tend to be produced electronically and then require additional formatting, pagination, publication, storage, and distribution. on-screen information can be readily, immediately, and cheaply distributed and amended. • on-screen text can be manipulated and annotated by the end-user, and user notes can be easily shared. the user can manipulate text size and (frequently) font, colour, and contrast. • searches can be made for keywords across the whole text. • electronic accessibility services such as read&write for google chrome, and close captioning services, can be used by the reader (depending on the format). • user activity can be passively tracked through analytics. it is clear from this list that making print material available on screen (in the form of, say, pdf or epub files) is neither the point nor the objective. while on-screen text certainly is cheaper to distribute, the potential advantages to tertiary education institutions and their students go well beyond this. a deliberate and leveraged on-screen approach to learning design results in a learning experience that goes well beyond the limitations of a print-based paradigm. from the perspective of online distance educators, one of the more important aspects of onscreen reading is that of learning analytics, defined as “the measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, for purposes of understanding and optimizing learning and the environments in which it occurs” (solar 2011, in ferguson, macfayden, clow, tynan, alexander, & dawson, 2014, p. 121). such data, already captured in virtual learning environment (vle) transactions, becomes more powerful and discerning as more 2i used to print articles but read them on screen. however, paper provided me with security rather than focus, and this year i have stopped printing articles—although i do rotate my external monitor for a portrait view. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 35 detail is provided. but although analytics data captured from individuals might provide insight into tutorial interventions—even where on-screen reading is not required—little can be gleaned about the design of the course. at the level of the individual student, analytics are completely meaningless if students print their course materials or read them outside the vle. with onscreen reading analytics, “new ways of understanding trends and behaviours in students . . . can be used to improve learning design, strengthen student retention, provide early warning signals concerning individual students and help to personalise the learner’s experience” (de freitas et al., 2015, p. 1175). improvements in the availability of analytics data will have a profound influence on the student experience for online and distance learning. unprecedented insight into student behaviour in on-screen courses—at the collective level—will assist learning designers to craft materials based on actual use, resulting in more discerning, evidence-based and learning-friendly course materials. for example, analytics of the average time spent on a particular page, and the number of times students return to that page, can provide important clues as to the clarity of the material provided. the average study time and the influence of feedback exercises on average study time, can both be measured. as should be clear, the exercise does not aim to just garner better ways of presenting printed material on screen; instead, the intention is to optimise a text, media, and activity mix based on actual and objective feedback from collective use. on-screen materials, therefore, provide not only better access to richer materials but also their own feedback loop and evidence base. the passive collection of analytics data through on-screen engagement with materials alone provides significant potential to improve learning, and on-screen reading gives an immediate and detailed view of student progress and behaviour. a print orientation to learning design results in a catch-22. if learning designers develop for a printable world, they are unable to model design approaches that demonstrate print independence. it is a courageous institution that seeks to adopt an on-screen approach to education, particularly because students have a negative perception of the institution merely passing on the costs of printing, and the well-documented evidence of student preference for printed materials (ackerman & goldsmith, 2011; ackerman & lauterman, 2012; baron, 2015; foasberg, 2014; lauterman & ackerman, 2014; liu, 2005; noyes & garland, 2005; vandenhoek, 2013; woody, daniel, & baker, 2010).3 ultimately, however, the question of onscreen versus print transcends that of student preference. learning designers must seek to provide an on-screen learning experience that goes well beyond what is printable. (this is not to suggest that nothing ought to be printed, as outlined later.) student success and learning should be central to the debate of on screen versus print. if an onscreen learning experience is designed so that it improves educational outcomes and support, debate of on-screen versus print takes on a different tone and purpose. the potential benefits of on-screen learning to students, and whether on-screen learning results in cognitive impairment, are central to this revised debate. the benefits have already been disclosed. to further advance the debate, this article now overviews the literature relating to cognitive impairment from onscreen reading, and explores the conditions for how on-screen learning approaches might better support students. the article concludes with some recommendations for developing effective onscreen learning resources. 3 this perspective aligns with student feedback from both open polytechnic and the open university. as i prepared this paper, there were no published studies identifying the percentage of students who prefer an on-screen-only education experience, but independent research conducted by open polytechnic indicates that it could be up to 20% of its adult distance learners. nichols, m. 36 comparing on screen with print outcomes from literature comparing the comprehension of readers reading print and on screen are mixed, although a meta-theme of no significant difference (nsd) can be broadly applied. this conclusion is straightforward enough, but it glosses over some important details. dillon’s (1992) sentiment that the differences between reading from screen and paper defy single variable explanation remains valid, although some key themes can be discerned. the nsd finding has a consistency about it. in the late 1980s, in an early study comparing reading from crt monitors with reading print, “no significant difference was found in either reading speed or comprehension between screen and paper, or between dark and light character displays” (oborne & holton, 1988, p. 1). according to dillon (1992), early studies were unanimous that comprehension is not affected by on-screen or paper reading.4 in addition to measuring reader comprehension, early studies were concerned with the influence of hypertext (that is, text that links to other sections), which tended to have a negative effect on student comprehension (dillon, 1992). a meta-study, prepared some 15 years after dillon’s work, concluded that: . . . total equivalence [for reading from paper vs screen] is not possible to achieve, although developments in computer technology, more sophisticated comparative measures and more positive user attitudes have resulted in a continuing move towards this goal (noyes & garland, 2008, p. 1352). noyes and garland’s review considers the findings from multiple studies concerned with reading speed, accuracy, and comprehension. the authors conclude that “the situation is changing and it is probably fair to conclude that greater equivalence is being achieved today than at the time of dillon’s (1992) literature review” (noyes & garland, 2008, p. 1371). the variability of studies noted by dillon, and noyes and garland, is more recently confirmed by jabr in a sweeping summary of literature: [in studies] published since the early 1990s . . . a slight majority has confirmed earlier conclusions, but almost as many have found few significant differences in reading speed or comprehension between paper and screens (jabr, 2013, para. 6). echoing noyes and garland, jabr concludes that “[p]erhaps, then, any discrepancies in reading comprehension between paper and screens will shrink as people’s attitudes continue to change” (ibid., para. 28). even baron, nostalgic to the point of heavy bias for print reading, concedes that “[n]early all recent investigations are reporting essentially no differences” (2015, p. 12). indeed, several recent studies considering e-readers alongside paper and computer screens are emphatic that there is no difference in comprehension, whether you read on screen or from a printed page (margolin, driscoll, toland, & kegler, 2013; subrahmanyam et al., 2013). a further study suggests that familiarity with tablet devices makes a positive difference to deep-level comprehension, and concludes that tablets are superior to computer displays (chen, cheng, chang, zheng, & huang, 2014). another study reveals evidence of no cognitive performance difference between using printed textbooks and electronic ones when overall grades and perceived learning are considered (rockinson-szapkiw, courduff, carter, & bennett, 2013). growing familiarity with reading from tablets and smartphones seems to be making a difference. importantly, computer vision syndrome (cvs) does not seem to be a factor against on-screen reading, as reading from the screen is no more physically demanding than reading from paper. 4 it is useful to note here that ackerman & goldsmith (2011) also found no difference across subjects reading from crt and lcd displays. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 37 according to one meta-analysis, cvs is more likely to be caused by the position of the screen than by reading from it (koslowe, waissman, & biner-kaplan, 2011). nsd findings a number of studies are unambiguous in their nsd findings (margolin et al., 2013; rockinsonszapkiw et al., 2013; subrahmanyam et al., 2013). margolin et al. (2013) found no significant difference—for either recall or comprehension—between paper, computers, and e-readers. the study by subrahmanyam et al. (2013) indicates that requiring critical engagement with material can improve comprehension. the study investigated simple, medium, and complex tasks that included recall, comprehension, and report writing for samples using print and on-screen sources; it also considered reading speed and comprehension for print, computers, and tablets while testing for the influence of user multi-tasking. while it took multi-tasking readers longer to engage with the passages, “there was no effect of medium on reading comprehension” (p. 11). the study found that even students reading from paper tend to be distracted by technologies, with texting and talking on cellphones being most common. in the second part of their study, subrahmanyan et al. tested the rubric scores of one-page essays created by students who were provided with articles in print or by computer; or a computer, printer and internet combination. in the words of the study, “no significant differences were found between any of the three conditions for efficiency and output quality as measured by the [marking and grading] rubric” (p. 18), despite most respondents indicating they would prefer to engage with print. subrahmanyam et al. also found no significant difference between paper, laptop, and tablet in reading or report-writing tasks. finally, rockinson-szapkiw et al. (2013) found that e-textbooks are equivalent to print textbooks in terms of perceived learning and grades. it is anticipated that technology will continue to improve the nature of the on-screen reading experience (rockinson-szapkiw et al., 2013). indeed, in the rockinson-zsapkiw study, 90% of the 19.7% of students (n=106) who self-selected to use an e-textbook accessed it from a mobile device. it is also likely that the tools that are increasingly available to the on-screen reader (including note-taking, highlighting, social notes, enhanced displays, glossaries, and online links for further information) will continue to improve the effectiveness of on-screen reading (subrahmanyam et al., 2013). while previous studies may have been concerned with comparing texts that are in a page fidelity format (that is, a printed page compared with a pdf version of that same page), the adaptive and enriched potential for reflowable texts (text that reapportions itself based on screen and font size) will probably result in on-screen options becoming more popular and effective. further, there is evidence that students are becoming more familiar with digital annotation tools – to the extent that on-screen readers are more likely to type notes at source than to hand-write notes on printed materials (rockinson-szapkiw et al., 2013). contrary studies considered the literature associated with on-screen and print reading is beset by different study design in terms of both demographics and methodology. although the conclusion of nsd is a defensible one when literature is synthesised, some recent studies comparing computer screens and print clearly find in favour of print (mangen, walgermo, & brønnick, 2013; wästlund, reinikka, norlander, & archer, 2005) or else provide more nuanced results (ackerman & goldsmith, 2011; ackerman & lauterman, 2012; chen et al., 2014; lauterman & ackerman, 2014). two prominent reasons for these differences are overconfidence and cognitive load. several studies (ackerman & goldsmith, 2011; ackerman & lauterman, 2012; lauterman & ackerman, 2014; liu, 2005) have identified overconfidence (when a person’s subjective confidence is higher than it should be for effectiveness) as a feature of how on-screen readers tend to approach their reading tasks. nichols, m. 38 this overconfidence can be partly attributed to the reader’s familiarity with processing brief onscreen readings such as email (which varies in its formality) or news items. genre of use (that is, an internal sense that reading from the screen is a more casual and rapid exercise than reading from print) may be an important factor in overconfidence (ackerman & goldsmith, 2011; ackerman & lauterman, 2012; liu, 2005). the ackerman and goldsmith (2011) study found nsd in cognitive performance for on-screen and print reading when performance was subject to a limited time. however, when the two groups were permitted to self-regulate time, the on-screen group were overconfident and did not perform as well. on-screen readers invested less time, and their performance in tests was lower than that of print students although most had made notes by marking up the document as they read. however, the subsequent study of ackerman and lauterman (2012), using the same methodology, reversed these findings; when given free time with suggested time guidance, on-screen participant scores were no different from those of paper participants. under time pressure, though, the on-screen group did not perform as well. again, overconfidence was a factor in the relatively poor performance of the on-screen group, and there was evidence that reader preference for reading print or on screen also played a part. such findings indicate that there is nothing inherently disadvantageous in on-screen reading except that readers tend to approach it differently. as the ackerman and goldsmith (2011) study notes, “although people are reluctant to study on screen, they can potentially do so as efficiently as on paper” (p. 27). on-screen readers are possibly not aware of the reading strategies that would assist their learning, or are not sufficiently experienced with on-screen reading for it to work for them. lauterman & ackerman (2014) found that “the consistent screen inferiority found in performance and overconfidence can be overcome by simple methods, such as practice and guidance on in-depth processing, even to the extent that some learners become able to perform as well on screen as on paper” (p. 462). students for whom on-screen reading might impair cognitive performance can learn to read effectively on screen. cognitive load, the extent to which a reader’s limited short-term processing memory is engaged with a task, is the second prominent reason for differences in study findings on on-screen and print reading. it is claimed that the cognitive load demanded by on-screen reading is greater than that for print, either from a lack of physical clues regarding progress, haptic familiarity (not having the same ability to engage with the page by touch), or the need for readers to engage with additional navigational activity such as scrolling (destefano & lefevre, 2007; lauterman & ackerman, 2014; mangen, 2008; mangen et al., 2013; margolin et al., 2013; wästlund, norlander, & archer, 2008; wästlund et al., 2005). paper-based text has a definite fixity compared with on-screen text, and the physicality of a book or printed work provides additional navigational clues as to how far the reader has progressed. in contrast, e-reading forces a more virtual sense of navigation. it is theorised that this difference in navigability requires an e-text reader to focus on both progress and comprehension at the same time (jabr, 2013; mangen et al., 2013). however, cognitive load can decrease as tasks become more familiar and as strategies are made available, and learning strategies that improve cognition can also be suggested (kalyuga, 2009); worked examples and effective diagrams are two additional means whereby the cognitive load of learning may be reduced (ayres & gog, 2009). optimising page layout can also reduce the mental workload required for reading on screen (wästlund et al., 2008). cognitive loading is not an inevitable outcome of on-screen design strategies. reader distraction, primarily as the result of increased cognitive load, is also often cited as a disadvantage of on-screen reading (baron, 2015). studies confirm distraction has a detrimental effect on comprehension, whether it is from the temptations of social media (receiving an im, or opening a browser to see the latest news) or heavily hyperlinked text (tempting a reader to click elsewhere on a related theme, and breaking their reading flow). it is particularly clear that use of hypertext increases cognitive load, and hypertext should be minimised if applied at all (destefano & lefevre, 2007). education designers must take care to ensure that on-screen journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 39 reading takes place with as little distraction as possible. innovations such as reading view in the microsoft edge browser are specifically designed to reduce the cognitive load of reading web pages. literature suggests that, where comparative findings for on-screen and print reading find in favour of print, overconfident on-screen reading and cognitive loading are culpable. both of these factors can be addressed through deliberate learning design. making on-screen learning work the literature is clear that there are differences to the actual experience of on-screen reading, even if (ultimately) an nsd applies. generally, literature confirms that: • extended text of more than 1200 words can be more difficult to engage with on screen. • on-screen reading is typically perceived by readers of a genre to be not conducive to serious study. • there are navigational and tactile differences between books and on-screen readers; onscreen text lacks the familiar physical markers readers use to assist with navigation and progress (resulting in haptic dissonance and increasing cognitive load). • on-screen reading may require more mental effort (cognitive load), depending on how it is designed. these differences indicate the means by which learning designers can improve the on-screen reading experience. in the words of ackerman & lauterman (2012), “computerized learning suffers not necessarily because the medium provides a less supportive technological environment, but because learners do not recruit enough cognitive resources to succeed in the task (e.g. attention, memorizing strategies, self-examination)” (p. 1817). nor do comparative studies consider how the same learning outcomes might be addressed by print and a leveraged on-screen experience that includes analytics-based support, embedded media, social engagement, and feedback opportunities. ultimately the solution lies in how learning designers leverage the on-screen experience to transcend what is possible in print. if on-screen materials are to truly transcend print, a suite of learning design practices ought to be adopted. having text on screen is not the goal. the literature indicates the following general learning design practices for effective on-screen learning, and to minimise cognitive load and improve student outcomes. • orientate students to the potential dynamics of on-screen reading, making them more deliberate and focused about their reading behaviour by: o contrasting reading as finding information, and reading as contemplating for understanding o encouraging electronic highlighting and note-taking to paraphrase and query the text o promoting focused reading, with all online distractions (such as twitter feeds, browser tabs, skype channels and im clients) closed during the reading session o encouraging readers to monitor their progress against learning objectives, and to be deliberate about their understanding. • if extended text is unavoidable, prompt the students as to how they should engage with it in the form of lead indicators (e.g., “be sure you fully understand the context surrounding the diagram on p.13”, “pay specific attention to the method used in the study”, or “be sure you understand the main reasons behind the argument. it will be helpful for you to list them”). • scaffold the cognitive load that is appropriate for the level of the student. recognise that students taking early courses will probably need more guidance and feedback. nichols, m. 40 • use a clean, reading-friendly on-screen interface without clutter and distraction. • minimise scrolling as a reader behaviour, so that text can be read in a more stationary way. • be deliberate in the design of on-screen text by: o chunking text logically, in similar sizes as much as possible o preparing on-screen text to optimise the on-screen display in a reflowable manner, to maximise flexibility o providing as much textual land-marking as possible, including diagrams, summaries, and position indicators o embedding activities and additional media in the text as part of a consistent presentation o as a guide, providing activities every 1000 words, to provide feedback and help reinforce key ideas and concepts (excepting book chapters or articles, which frequently cannot be edited) o minimising in-text hyperlinks and ensuring that any used are of direct relevance. • if pdf formats cannot be avoided or extended text cannot be edited (for example in book chapters or articles), make these resources available through a print on-demand service, or provide versions that are easy to print. importantly, there should be a print option for extended narratives such as book chapters and scholarly articles. given that such narratives are not easily broken up for activities, nor provide effective analytics data beyond when a student may have started or finished them, and because such files are often not screen-size friendly, there appears no good reason for print to be withheld. the challenge for learning designers is to ensure that such readings are essential, and not better summarised or alternatively presented. whether such readings should be provided on enrolment or on demand, and who should pay for the printing, become interesting operational questions for institutions to answer. conclusion the debate as to whether distance education materials should be provided in print or on screen is demonstrated to go well beyond arguments of preference, and into the area of learning design. the literature largely confirms that there is no significant difference to learner comprehension if they read from print or on screen. those studies that do find a significant difference cite overconfidence and additional cognitive load as being responsible for the lower efficacy of onscreen reading, and both of these factors can be addressed through a deliberate approach to educational design. ultimately, the questions of on screen versus print come down to how an onscreen experience can be provided to maximise student success and equip students for the future. student orientation and designing for reduced cognitive load are foundational to their successful on-screen learning experience. learning designers must build on these foundations to further enhance student success in the form of analytics-based support interventions, evidence-based learning design, and improved learning activities. institutionally, the added reach and convenience of on-screen education enables further strategic possibilities while, at the same time, demanding more of its online systems. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 41 references ackerman, r., & goldsmith, m. 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(2009). instructional designs for the development of transferable knowledge and skills: a cognitive load perspective. computers in human behavior, 25(2), 332–338. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2008.12.019 nichols, m. 42 koslowe, k. c., waissman, h., & biner-kaplan, m. (2011). the blink frequency relationship between reading from a computer screen and reading from a printed page. optometry and vision development, 42(3), 168–171. lauterman, t., & ackerman, r. (2014). overcoming screen inferiority in learning and calibration. computers in human behavior, 35, 455–463. liu, z. (2005). reading behavior in the digital environment: changes in reading behavior over the past ten years. journal of documentation, 61(6), 700–712. http://doi.org/10.1108/00220410510632040 malik, s. (2012, august 6). kindle e-book sales have overtaken amazon print sales, says book seller. the guardian. retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/aug/06/amazon-kindle-e-book-sales-overtake-print mangen, a. 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(2013). screen reading habits among university students. international journal of education & development using information & communication technology, 9(2), 37–47. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1) 43 wallop, h. (2015, january 9). the kindle is dead, the book is back. or is it? retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/11335718/the-kindle-is-dead-the-bookis-back.-or-is-it.html walters, w. h. (2013). e-books in academic libraries: challenges for acquisition and collection management. portal: libraries and the academy, 13(2), 187–211. http://doi.org/10.1353/pla.2013.0012 wästlund, e., norlander, t., & archer, t. (2008). the effect of page layout on mental workload: a dual-task experiment. computers in human behavior, 24(3), 1229–1245. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2007.05.001 wästlund, e., reinikka, h., norlander, t., & archer, t. (2005). effects of vdt and paper presentation on consumption and production of information: psychological and physiological factors. computers in human behavior, 21(2), 377–394. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2004.02.007 woody, w. d., daniel, d. b., & baker, c. a. (2010). e-books or textbooks: students prefer textbooks. computers & education, 55(3), 945–948. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2010.04.005 biographical notes mark nichols mark.nichols@open.ac.uk at the time of writing this article dr mark nichols was executive director of education design services at open polytechnic. in february 2016 he began work as director, technology enhanced learning with the open university, united kingdom. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. nichols, m. (2016). reading and studying on the screen: an overview of literature toward good learning design practice. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(1), [33–43]. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(2) 49 addendum: reading and studying on the screen mark nichols, the open university abstract in 2016 the article “reading and studying on the screen: an overview of literature towards good learning design practice” (http://www.jofdl.nz/index.php/jofdl/article/view/263/200) was published in the journal of open, flexible and distance learning (nichols, 2016b). the article overviewed comparative studies related to reading on screen and reading from print, and proposed recommendations for on-screen learning design. this addendum to that article considers additional studies that have been analysed in subsequent blog posts (see “an update to ‘reading and studying from the screen’” [http://tel-lingit.blogspot.com/2018/02/an-update-to-reading-and-studying-from.html] and “a further update to ‘reading and studying from the screen’” [https://tel-lingit.blogspot.com/2018/11/a-further-update-to-reading-and.html]) up to the end of november 2018. as this is an invited addendum, i’ll take the opportunity to adopt a more personal and self-disclosing style to talk more about my own position and experience regarding digital education and on-screen reading. this piece alternates is both scholarly and polemic. keywords: cognitive load; learning design; online only; on screen; print introduction the issue of whether digital education should require students to read from a screen has been one i have encountered frequently over the last 15 years. in 2015 i was working for open polytechnic as the first of many courses were released in a solely online, on-screen mode (see nichols, 2016b, for a description of what this immediately led to). i am a strong advocate of digital education: i’m also well aware of the reluctance many academics and students feel about on-screen reading. in 2015 (perhaps belatedly) i decided to review the literature related to onscreen reading and comprehension, as these are important to digital study. i was both surprised and bemused to learn that such studies tend towards concluding there is no significant difference (nsd) between reading on screen and in print. in the detail of these studies i discovered factors that can make “on screen” a more effective medium. my 2016 article provided advice to learning designers that would mitigate the uncritical reading style on-screen readers can tend to adopt in an attempt to make on-screen study more effective and engaging. because the issue of screen versus print remains contentious, and also prompted by discussions at the open university uk, i decided to keep an eye on the literature to see whether my advice remained relevant and my summary of the literature further substantiated. at the end of november 2018, the additional articles i’ve since considered (some published subsequent to my article and others not initially included) tend to confirm my initial work, and further nuance it. this addendum reports on what 29 of those articles have added to the work first published in nichols, m. 50 2016. the additional articles were recommended by mendeley1 as a complement to my previous study in the area. it’s fair to summarise the literature findings as represented in my 2016 article as follows. • the experience of reading on screen is different from reading print; however, there is nsd overall in terms of comprehension. • extended text (more than 1200 words) can be more difficult to engage with on screen, and it may be that significant differences—in favour of print—occur beyond this word count. • on-screen reading is typically perceived by readers to be of a genre not conducive to serious study. • there are navigational and tactile differences between books and on-screen readers. onscreen text lacks the familiar physical markers that readers use to assist with navigation and progress (resulting in haptic dissonance and increasing cognitive load). • on-screen reading may require more mental effort (cognitive load), depending on how it is designed. i concluded that learning designers could apply techniques that would improve the performance of on-screen readers. recommendations • orientate students to the potential dynamics of on-screen reading, making them more deliberate and focused about their reading behaviour by: o contrasting reading as finding information, and reading as contemplating for understanding o encouraging electronic highlighting and note-taking to paraphrase and query the text o promoting focused reading, with all online distractions (such as twitter feeds, browser tabs, skype channels and im clients) closed during the reading session o encouraging readers to monitor their progress against learning objectives, and to be deliberate about their understanding. • if extended text is unavoidable, prompt the students as to how they should engage with it in the form of lead indicators (e.g., “be sure you fully understand the context surrounding the diagram on p. 13”; “pay specific attention to the method used in the study”; or “be sure you understand the main reasons behind the argument. it will be helpful for you to list them”). • scaffold the cognitive load that is appropriate for the level of the student. recognise that students taking early courses will probably need more guidance and feedback. • use a clean, reading-friendly on-screen interface without clutter and distraction. • minimise scrolling as a reader behaviour, so that text can be read in a more stationary way. • be deliberate in the design of on-screen text by: o chunking text logically, in similar sizes as much as possible o preparing on-screen text to optimise the on-screen display in a reflowable manner, to maximise flexibility o providing as much textual land-marking as possible, including diagrams, summaries, and position indicators o embedding activities and additional media in the text as part of a consistent presentation 1 mendeley is reference-management software owned by elsevier. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(2) 51 o as a guide, providing activities every 1000 words, to provide feedback and help reinforce key ideas and concepts (excepting book chapters or articles, which frequently cannot be edited) o minimising in-text hyperlinks and ensuring that any used are of direct relevance. • if pdf formats cannot be avoided or extended text cannot be edited (for example in book chapters or articles), make these resources available through a print-on-demand service, or provide versions that are easy to print. this advice, which still stands, has the effect of reducing the cognitive load for the reading task (rouet, 2009). based on subsequent reading and experience, all i would add now is that we should also provide students with clear advice as to what sort of devices might most benefit them as on-screen readers (more on this below). it’s also clear that we have much more to learn about what it means to read on screen. the issue: screen versus print fundamentally, the issue is not one of screen versus print. it is whether a digital-based approach to education design would disadvantage students on the grounds that reading from a screen is inferior to reading from print. any critique of comprehension for screen and print reading ought to consider this context of what is at stake. the issue is not whether print should be provided to distance students—it’s whether designing modules to be printable serves the best interests of students, and whether a requirement for print effectively limits sound educational design, given the benefits of a digital approach (see nichols, 2016b, pp. 34–35 for a list of advantages of an on-screen or digital education approach). it’s not unusual for advocates of digital and online education in traditional distance education organisations to be quickly—and incorrectly—misinterpreted as simply trying to do away with print (usually in the form of books that have traditionally been provided to students). as long as the issue is defined as one of “screen versus books”, it’s not possible to bridge the gap between the different opinions. on-screen reading is a feature, but not necessarily a requirement, of digital education. it’s important to nuance just what is being usually advocated by those (like me) who are eager to point out nsd in comprehension between reading on screen and print. if i seem somewhat defensive at this point, it’s because i have been misinterpreted in this way and have learned to be very careful in how i frame my advocacy for the on-screen experience. as an aside to digital education advocates, i have no agenda to do away with print to save costs (although cost reduction is an advantage that should not be ignored). as explained in the aforementioned benefits of a digital approach, the goal is to unlock the potential of digital education in such a way that the student’s likelihood of success is not compromised by having to read from a screen. if screen reading hampers comprehension, then moving from a print-based learning design approach to a digital-based one hinders student success. if there is nsd in comprehension between the two, then a much stronger (in my view, decisive) case can be made for learning design to be digital-based. that there is, in fact, nsd overall signals that educators ought to be relaxed about being more digitally focused. my initial article pointed out that learning designers can actually improve the on-screen reading experience for students by being mindful of their practice and by encouraging students to be more mindful in their on-screen reading. to apply the various and real benefits digital tools might offer to education, the decision to base learning design on a digital rather than print foundation is fundamental. the decision for a learning design that is digitalor print-based is binary; in contemporary expressions of distance and online education, a learning design is either digitalor print-based. nichols, m. 52 • if a learning design is print-based, learning design decisions are limited to what can be achieved in print (which, i hasten to add, does not rule out the print being supplemented with other media). in print-based learning design a digital version might be available; however, the student experience loses nothing if the digital version is printed. • if learning design is digital-based, the student gets no benefit from printing all of the required elements of study, since a significantly greater pedagogical choice and a richer series of student support data is applied to the learning experience. it’s not possible to print embedded video, interactive exercises or other learning activities without breaking the flow of learning. although the basis of learning design is binary (either digitalor print-based), the actual mix of digital and print resources used for study in a digital-based design can be considered as a sliding scale. in a digital-based learning design the issue is not so much whether print is used, but rather what print is used for. from my understanding of the evidence available, literature supports the notion of a digital-based design with print options available where lengthy reading is required. even in a digital-based design, print options might be reserved for articles, books, or book chapters that are narrative (i.e., where the books are not intended to also serve as learning guides, which might effectively make the entire module design a print-based one). in my view, print is perfectly appropriate for articles, book chapters, and books that are written in the format of articles, book chapters, and books. i am expressly against the notion of preparing learning guides in printable form and embedded in those formats. i am also of the view that printed forms of articles, book chapters, and books need not necessarily be offered in print as well as digitally. in an attempt to be clearer rather than labour the point, i am saying that print can still play a part in a digital-based learning design. while everything ought to be available to students digitally, long readings (assimilative resources) might also be available in print. i am advocating a digitalbased learning design in which print is not the limiting factor of what can be designed. good practice would, in my view, provide a digital version of works over 1200 words that students could either print themselves or order through a print-on-demand service. from my understanding of the evidence there is no imperative for students to be given print at all, provided the recommendations listed earlier are applied. however, in recognition of the strong student preference still apparent in the literature, good practice would make it possible for these extended readings to be printed as well. good practice would also encourage students to develop effective on-screen reading behaviours (including those that minimise computer vision syndrome [cvs] as outlined in the initial paper).2 not supplying print by default is not, in my view, evidence of bad practice. i am conscious that i stray into matters of learning design, but in my view the matters of onscreen reading in education settings and learning design are inseparable. there is much more to learning than reading, and for learning design to be limited to what is possible to read in print is an abdication of the educator’s ultimate responsibility and a denial of the true potential of digital education. given that, in the right circumstances, there is nsd in comprehension between reading on screen and print, it follows that the benefits of digital design decisively outweigh the apparent benefits of a print-based one. (i address issues of student preference and learning to read on screen further on in this addendum.) 2 it is often claimed that reading from a screen brings on headaches, and that many students who work with screens all day prefer print by night. this warrants a response beyond this addendum. the advice relating to cvs seems to address the issue for the most part. adopting different advice for on-screen reading, as outlined later in this paper, might also make a positive difference. providing a print option for extended narrative, as i suggest as good practice, does provide these students with a mechanism to address their concern. institutions might choose to cover the costs of printing for students who claim on-screen reading is difficult (i.e., beyond preference). journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(2) 53 preference for reading print the argument that students prefer print tends to be a start-and-end point for those against a digital approach to learning design. studies, many international in scope, continue to confirm student preference for printed materials (baron, calixte, & havewala, 2017; mizrachi, 2015; mizrachi, salaz, kurbanoglu, & boustany, 2018; zhang & kudva, 2014). this finding is unremarkable; the reasons students have for this preference are well defined and well understood. as mentioned in the previous section, it is still possible to make some allowances for print preference if extended reading is required. the actual issue—whether digital-based learning designs are viable for education—goes well beyond that of student preference for reading in print, and into matters of student outcomes. the further studies considered since my 2016 article serve to further nuance the general student preference for print. one article suggests that the extent of student print preference can be quantified. in their work on e-textbooks, terpend, gattiker, and lowe (2014), discovered that “10 percent of individuals will still adopt the hardcopy text even if it is priced at 3.5 times the e-text” (2014, p. 164). they also found that the price point at which all students would purchase a printed text over an electronic one is around 111.59% of the e-text price. in my initial article, i footnoted that, at the time of writing, “there were no published studies identifying the percentage of students who prefer an on-screen-only education experience” (nichols, 2016b, p. 35). i was incorrect. mizrachi (2015) found that, of her respondents, “about 18% agreed or strongly agreed with a preference for reading electronically” (2015, p. 305). this nicely matches the “up to 20%” figure i included in the paper, citing open polytechnic findings from that same year and inferred results from a recent open university study. mizrachi further found that an electronic version of a reading of fewer than five pages would be preferred by 47.7% of respondents, and that almost half (49%) of doctoral students and over one-third (35%) of postgraduate students were found to prefer digital/on-screen resources over print ones. similarly, zhang and kudva found that e-book adoption is positively influenced by “the number of books read, the individual’s income, the occurrence and frequency of reading for research topics of interest, and the individual’s internet use, followed by other variables such as race/ethnicity, reading for work/school, age, and education” (2014, p. 1695). it’s possible that respondents to questions relating to media preference project more than just their typical reading activity into their response. for example, baron et al. (2017) found that 65% of their sampled students (18 to 26 years) were likely to report multi-tasking while reading on screen. this may be a factor behind the 92% who reported better comprehension from print. it’s also interesting to note that 35.4% of that same study’s respondents preferred a digital format for shorter academic texts (slightly fewer than the number from mizrachi above). additional studies provide alluring insight into actual student behaviour in on-screen reading. one quote from a participant is revealing: “‘sometimes i forgot i was reading a textbook. i had to train my brain to think critically when reading because usually when i’m on a device it’s for recreation’” (dobler, 2015, p. 488). studies have also found that 80–90% of participants reading on laptops (mizrachi, 2015; mizrachi et al., 2018), which are arguably not the most convenient means of engaging with on-screen reading (see ‘advice for students’ below). this practice might help to explain the overwhelming rejection of on-screen reading by students. improving students’ perceptions of onscreen reading may well help them to succeed with it (ross, pechenkina, aeschliman, & chase, 2017). it’s not unusual for students to self-report reduced comprehension from on-screen reading. however, we need to be clear as to what this finding implies, because student perceptions of print being better are at odds with experimental findings that signal nsd. this is an example of subjective perception and objective data not matching. one interesting study (kretzschmar et al., nichols, m. 54 2013) used eeg and eye-tracking technology to test cognitive engagement with text in print, an e-reader, and a tablet device for short texts. the article clearly demonstrates the relationship between preference and performance for print and digital reading—there was nsd between the three devices, and no evidence that device reading requires more physiological effort. deciding to not provide a digital-based learning design, or to resist it, on the grounds that students prefer print and self-report learning better from it, is indefensible on the basis of literature evidence. students may not fully appreciate the long-term benefits of being required to do something that they do not prefer, nor understand what a digital-based approach to learning design might mean for their ultimate success. in my article i wrote that, “effective on-screen reading skills are important for 21st century professionals” (2016b, p. 34), which can defensibly include students as they advance through their studies. students who are confident and accomplished on-screen readers will have developed an essential professional skill that will serve them well across their studies and beyond, a skill that they will value more as they advance in their studies (mizrachi, 2015; zhang & kudva, 2014). further comparison study findings several studies reinforce the finding of nsd in comprehension from reading on screen and reading print. chen and catrambone (2015), for example, found nsd in their comparison of onscreen and print comprehension in treatments of 1000 words, even though there was a print preference across their sample. the authors speculate that younger readers are likely to be more confident reading from the screen, even if their preference is to read from print. it’s of particular interest that the on-screen readers performed as well as the print ones, even though the print readers took more time (and more notes). in a similar study with younger (grade 10 and early university) respondents, this time in the “natural school setting and not in an artificial laboratory treatment” (sackstein, spark, & jenkins, 2015, p. 4), the finding was again nsd, although students with previous experience in using ipads were able to complete the task quicker than average (with no adverse effect on their results). my own published comparison of the student experience for two versions of the same module (one in print and the other online only), also found nsd for various measures of student success (nichols, 2016a), although it is clear that many students studying online opted to print the materials rather than read them on screen. several treatments in yet another study, confounding participants’ cognitive pressure as they read on screen and from print, also found nsd difference (sidi, shpigelman, zalmanov, & ackerman, 2017), although the authors suggest that “the lengthier the text, the more it is susceptible to the technological disadvantages associated with screen reading (e.g., eye strain)” (2017, p. 63). a small group studied in young (2014) also found nsd, despite a clear participant preference for print and the use of substantial articles. finally, singer trakhman, alexander, and berkowitz (2017) found nsd in overall comprehension for readings of around 550 words, but cautioned that digital readers tended to read more quickly and overestimate the effectiveness of their reading. a study by porion, aparaicio, megalakaki, robert, and baccino (2016) provides a useful baseline comparison for reading on screen and in print. the treatment provided the same conditions—using a large screen in place of paper and showing the same page view of 1000 words on both. the authors conclude that “if we fulfil all the conditions of paper-based versus computerized presentation (text structure, presentation on a single page, screen size, several types of questions measuring comprehension and memory performances), reading performances are not significantly different” (2016, p. 569). requiring students to engage with on-screen text also leads towards nsd outcomes, which proved to be the case when participants were required to read and edit 600-word papers as an on-screen and print task (eden & eshet-alkalai, 2013). one study, an outlier in terms of finding in favour of print (kim & kim, 2013), raises a methodological issue. the conditions under which a study takes place can skew the findings. in journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(2) 55 the case of kim and kim, on-screen participants were approximately 36% slower in completing the task. further, those respondents who preferred print averaged comprehension scores of 61.59 and 79.30 for the on-screen and print reading treatments, whereas students preferring on-screen reading averaged 54.65 and 56.24 respectively. it seems from the methodology that the on-screen treatment required students to use a mouse to circle the correct answer in an electronic document (a facsimile of the paper version). the difference in average score across the two groups of 23% in a multiple-choice test in the print treatment requires more explanation than is offered in the article. until these questions are addressed, these outlier findings are probably best ignored. it might simply be that those participants (teenagers) specifying a preference for on-screen reading were weaker readers or had access to online social media, or that those using the on-screen interface were asked to indicate their responses by drawing on the screen. unfortunately the kim and kim study is included in an otherwise excellent work of metaanalysis (kong, seo, & zhai, 2018). it’s not clear whether excluding the kim and kim study, a clear outlier, might have brought the kong et al. summary to one of nsd. the meta-study finds “reading on paper was better than reading on screen in terms of reading comprehension” (2018, p. 138). however, the authors also conclude that, after 2013 (the year of the kim & kim paper), “the magnitude of the difference in reading comprehension between paper and screen followed a diminishing trajectory” (2018, p.138). the authors suggest that familiarity with print and cognitive load might explain the improvement in cognitive performance over time, giving an important indication that familiarity with on-screen reading and effective learning design can make a positive difference in equivalence. not all studies find nsd. one study compared student reading for approximately 450 words across various treatments (singer & alexander, 2017a) and found that participants reading print had greater comprehension of key points, even though participants self-reported that they thought they did better when reading digitally. in this study, while overall main-idea recall took place from the on-screen reading treatment, print provided better key point recall. in their abstract, stoop, kreutzer, and kircz (2013) claimed to find in favour of print; however, the article’s text concluded that results were “far from unequivocal” (p. 377), in that the print group scored better on 8 out of 24 questions (3 significantly) and scored higher overall (but not to a level of statistical significance), whereas the digital group scored better on the remaining 16 questions. the stoop et al. study is not, strictly speaking, a comparison of on-screen and print reading, because the on-screen treatment included a virtual mind map and video clips. ultimately, the article concludes that “[b]oth forms had advantages and disadvantages” (ibid.) importantly stoop et al. extend their study into learning design, which is arguably where studies must move if we are to learn more about the comparative merits of printand digital-based education. as the stoop et al. study indicates, reading needn’t always involve narrative text. a study comparing the ability of children in grades 1 to 6 in reading and answering questions, under time constraints, from a tablet and print, found in favour of the latter (lenhard, schroeders, & lenhard, 2017). generally, children doing the test on screen “worked faster but at the expense of accuracy” (2017, p. 427). in this study, though, children in the computer-based treatment group were not able to correct any mistakes, and there is no indication that children doing the printbased tests were able to correct their answers. a similar study (sidi, ophir, & ackerman, 2016), this time without a time limitation, found nsd. e-textbooks several large-scale studies consider the (typically undergraduate) student experience with etextbooks. a comparison study of the same module (one treatment with a commercial textbook and the other using an open-source, online text) found that using the online text increased student retention and decreased costs to students without hindering their performance (clinton, 2018). nichols, m. 56 denoyelles, raible, and seilhamer (2015) found there are clear trends towards more student adoption of e-textbooks; another finding is that using e-textbooks considerably improves student preference for them (dobler, 2015; gueval, tarnow, & kumm, 2015). in the dobler study, students used an e-textbook that included multimedia resources and, interestingly, 64.5% of participants reported that the e-textbook had a positive influence on their cognitive engagement. another study found that students using printed textbooks achieved higher grades, but not to a level of significance (terpend et al., 2014). e-textbook adoption studies generally recommend that instructors play a key part in helping students to make good use of the opportunities these resources provide (dobler, 2015), including the benefits of e-textbook study tools (van horne, russell, & schuh, 2016). e-textbooks can suffer from poor user-interface design (myrberg & wiberg, 2015), which works against their broader adoption. opportunities for further primary research consideration of the additional works cited in this addendum shows that there are different forms and conditions of on-screen reading. because not all on-screen reading situations are similar, or likely to be equivalent, a range of variables is possible in any comparison study. • there are multiple types of on-screen text. differences in e-text are evident in questions, briefings, learning guides, short articles, full-length articles, books, and other formats. length is a particularly important variable. many studies compare treatments that use materials of around 500 words. comparison of full-size book chapters and journal articles are missing from primary studies. • motivation for reading varies. reading aloud to a child is different to reading on a commute or studying a broad range of scholarly books for research. the reason for reading or studying a text is important and may make one or other mode of engagement (on-screen or print) more appropriate. • on-screen formats are multi-faceted. an on-screen format might be an html page with or without hyperlinks and embedded multimedia, a free-text version of a physical book, a pdf (fixed) version of a physical book, or a scanned page. each format has different features relating to page metaphor, user control over size and type of font, distraction (or enhancement), text search and selection, and text advance/review. • interfaces vary. the reading experience with a kindle app differs from that with a web browser or proprietary e-textbook interface. the extent to which these provide spatial feedback, synchronisation flexibility, and highlight/annotation options can differ markedly. • devices vary. the reading experience is different for e-text from a laptop screen, desktop monitor, kindle, ipad and smartphone. further primary research is needed across these permutations to provide a fuller picture of equivalence, and to provide clues as to which combinations might be optimal. an important article by mangen and van der weel (2016) should also be considered by researchers, as the authors define further dimensions of reading that are not adequately explored in the studies reviewed to date. defining reading is also a concern raised by singer and alexander (2017b), who propose that nsd findings are most consistent in treatments of up to 500 words (i proposed 1200 in my initial article). their claim, “when longer texts [than 500 words] are involved or when individuals are reading for depth of understanding and not solely for gist, print appears to be the more effective processing medium” (2017b, p. 1033), needs empirical confirmation. beyond the immediate concern of on-screen and print reading, experimental studies comparing student performance with print-based and digital-based learning designs are also pertinent to the journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(2) 57 concern of the initial article. the methodology i used (nichols, 2016a) could be applied under similar circumstances to advance thinking about the binary difference of learning design decisions. advice for students after considering the articles reviewed for this addendum, i am left with the impression that not enough is being done to assist students to constructively engage with on-screen reading options in their studies and when participating in comparative studies. mizrachi et al. are correct to suggest that “[i]nstructional designers could work towards helping students acquire the prerequisite knowledge to leverage digital texts through more explicit instruction on the navigation of e-formats” (2018, p. 28). more can be done to reassure students that a requirement for on-screen reading is, ultimately, to their advantage as 21st century learners and will better serve them as they advance to postgraduate study. on-screen reading skills can also extend to students developing digital workflows, which might include using bibliographic software (such as mendeley and zotero) for categorising, storing, annotating, and otherwise studying articles; trello for planning assignments and study sessions; and other applications for task management and note-taking. most of these solutions now synchronise seamlessly across devices and work well offline (with the exception of trello). more can be done to encourage students to become conscious on-screen readers who purposefully remove distractions as they read, deliberately read more slowly, and learn to apply highlighting and note-taking tools. students might also be better informed about how digital-based learning design can improve their overall study workflow. i suspect that advocates of on-screen reading are also leaving the actual reading device used by students to chance. that 80–90% of students read on screen using a laptop gives pause for thought, as laptops are neither as portable, nor as flexible to use, as tablet devices. in one of my blog posts related to this article (“a further update to ‘reading and studying from the screen’”) i describe my own on-screen reading setup, which is designed to maximise flexibility and a seamless transition from reading, to studying, to writing on the same device (in my case a microsoft surface 3) in different configurations. my on-screen reading behaviour is reinforced by including mendeley, onenote, and online library access in my workflow, and i have learned to close email, twitter, and social media access as i read and study. conclusion consideration of further literature related to on-screen and print reading since the article, “reading and studying on the screen: an overview of literature towards good learning design practice”, was published provides a richer understanding of the subject, but little change to my recommendations. the results of comparison studies remain mixed, tending towards nsd, with evidence that the effectiveness and experience of on-screen reading can be improved through learning design practice. as more module developers and universities shift towards digital-based learning design, student success and the student experience can be enhanced through the advice offered in the initial 2016 article and this addendum. importantly, new imperatives for research and a better range of advice for students needing to engage with on-screen reading can now be confidently suggested. testing across variables including type of on-screen text, motivation for reading, on-screen format, and interface and device will help to extend knowledge further. ultimately, the issue is not so much screen versus paper, but how we might create the conditions in which studying on screen becomes at least equivalent to studying print materials, so that we nichols, m. 58 can confidently adopt a digital-designed approach to learning design. if we adopt a digital-based design we can unlock an entire suite of support and learning activity possibilities that would not otherwise be optimally provided (ross et al., 2017). that there is, overall, nsd in reader comprehension for screen and print formats should increase our courage for removing print as a constraint to further developing educational systems. references baron, n. s., calixte, r. m., & havewala, m. 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(2017b). reading on paper and digitally: what the past decades of empirical research reveal. review of educational research, 87(6), 1007–1041. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654317722961 singer trakhman, l. m., alexander, p. a., & berkowitz, l. e. (2017). effects of processing time on comprehension and calibration in print and digital mediums. the journal of experimental education, (21 december), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220973.2017.1411877 nichols, m. 60 stoop, j., kreutzer, p., & kircz, j. (2013). reading and learning from screens versus print: a study in changing habits: part 2 – comparing different text structures on paper and screen. new library world, 114(9/10), 371–383. retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262918447_reading_and_learning_from_screens_v ersus_print_a_study_in_changing_habits terpend, r., gattiker, t. f., & lowe, s. e. (2014). electronic textbooks: antecedents of students’ adoption and learning outcomes. decision sciences journal of innovative education, 12(2). https://doi.org/10.1111/dsji.12031 van horne, s., russell, j., & schuh, k. l. (2016). the adoption of mark-up tools in an interactive e-textbook reader. educational technology research and development, 64(3). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-016-9425-x young, j. (2014). a study of print and computer–based reading to measure and compare rates of comprehension and retention. new library world, 115(7–8), 376–393. https://doi.org/10.1108/nlw-05-2014-0051 zhang, y., & kudva, s. (2014). e-books versus print books: readers’ choices and preferences across contexts. journal of the association for information science and technology, 65(8). https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.23076 biographical notes mark nichols mark.nichols@open.ac.uk mark is a director associated with the pro-vice-chancellor students, the open university, uk. in february 2019 he takes up the role of executive director – learning design & development with open polytechnic, new zealand. see mark’s linkedin profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mbnichols/ this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. nichols, m. (2018). addendum: reading and studying on the screen. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(2), [49–60.]. nichols1 nichols2 © distance education association of new zealand 108 mary simpson university of otago dunedin, new zealand rovai, a. p., ponton, m. k., & baker, j. d. (2008). distance learning in higher education: a programmatic approach to planning, design, instruction, evaluation and accreditation. new york: teachers college press (pp. xi, 212). the title of this book immediately caught my eye. i have long advocated that we need to focus on a programmatic approach to the design and delivery of distance education programmes. when i looked beyond the title, i noticed the authors. all are writers/researchers whose work i have found valuable. opening the book and reading through the list of contents confirmed that this book was likely to be of value. that, with some reservations, proved to be the case. the focus of distance learning in higher education is on higher education institutions that use online technologies. however, people working in any distance education institution will find value here. the core processes that form the framework for the book apply in most settings. the attention to working at a programme level is, in my opinion, a real strength. distance learning in higher education is one of a small number of titles that fill a gap in the literature that usually focuses on development and planning at course or group-of-courses level. the authors state that they aim to balance theory and practice—and they do this well. they draw on the theoretical frameworks of constructivism, adult teaching and learning, computer-mediated communication, sense of community, presence, self-directed and autonomous learning, and social equity. these theoretical frameworks fit well in the new zealand context, and the themes are picked up in the chapters and linked to useful guidelines. distance learning in higher education is also practical and readable. you will want to dip in and out of this book. for example, when you develop new programmes for distance delivery, or consider how you can further support your students, or consider issues of quality assurance, this book is likely to be one that you will reach for. the chapters are a good length. the detail is sufficient but not overwhelming. in fact, you may find that the chapters are introductory or provide a way to quickly review a topic, rather than b o o k r ev ie w s journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 108–115 © distance education association of new zealand 109 b o o k r ev ie w s presenting a complete picture. the chapters certainly don’t have enough information to provide a comprehensive picture of the complexities of any of the topics, but they could be the catalyst for you to explore further. the authors’ focus on strategic planning is a strong theme. as well as devoting a chapter to strategic planning, they emphasise organisational management throughout. the chapter on strategic planning gives a good framework, and the principles are presented again in later chapters, particularly those on programme and course design, programme evaluation, and accreditation. this emphasis on the need for careful and systematic planning at an institutional level develops the programmatic theme of the book well. the chapter on online discussions (chapter 7) is a good example of how the authors weave the practical and the theoretical together. this chapter provides excellent suggestions for building and maintaining interaction based on the theoretical framework outlined in the first chapter. the need for design-driven, well-planned activities is made strongly, and there is good guidance on the development of cooperative and collaborative group activities. again, i found myself reflecting on my practice and ways to refine it. i was pleased to see chapters on gender and culture alongside those topics outlined in the book title. it was good, too, to see links to research in those areas. however, gender and culture sit a little uncomfortably alongside other topics in this book. the issues raised by gender and culture are challenging. considerable attention has been given to equity in distance education, but the issues are complex and the contexts are changing. those complexities are not really addressed here. distance learning in higher education is an american book and, although parts of the content and examples don’t work for us, most of it does. chapter 9, which is about institutions and programme accreditation, is least relevant for us because of its american focus. it’s a pity, because some accreditation issues are of international concern. although the authors mention that distance education can have a global reach, they don’t explore that possibility and the associated issues. they link these issues to culture, but the links aren’t really made to the earlier exploration of that topic. overall, a wider worldview would have been valuable in this chapter. this book is a good addition to the literature on distance education. it will be particularly valuable if you are new to the field because it provides many links to a wide range of research literature on distance education. the reference journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 108–115 © distance education association of new zealand 110 list will provide you with some excellent sources for further reading. if you are an experienced distance educator, you will revisit familiar ideas, research, and writing, and i’m sure you’ll also find the book prompts you to consider how you can refine and develop your practice. and then there are links to resources and ideas that are likely to be valuable for everyone. the final sections of the book contain strategic planning examples, quality assurance frameworks, a good glossary, a grading rubric for participation, and the list of references. consider adding this book to your own collection of reference material and make sure your institution adds a copy to the library. b o o k r ev ie w s journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 108–115 © distance education association of new zealand 111 dr bill anderson university of otago dunedin, new zealand rennie, f., & mason, r. (2004). the connecticon: learning for the connected generation. greenwich, ct: information age (pp. vii, 169). at the tertiary institution where i work, almost 90 percent of students own their own laptops and over half routinely bring them onto campus where they have wireless access to the internet. how does that change the ways in which people learn? it isn’t just formal on-campus learning either. distance students at this institution all say that they have internet access—a large majority through broadband. generally, new zealand is increasingly connected to the internet. we really are seeing the connected generation referred to in the title of this book—a generation that believes in being online not going online. i read this book because mason and rennie are both pioneers—i’d always thought of mason, in particular, as a visionary during the early years of e-learning. her subsequent collaboration with frank rennie, and their work in the highlands and islands of scotland, provided wonderful examples of the potential of the internet to enable social and economic development. my hope was that there would be lessons—even 5 years on from publication—that would be useful to me as i grapple with the ongoing questions of how best to take advantage of the affordances of the internet in my work in distance education. rennie and mason coined the word connecticon to describe the three layers that create the connected information communities that are the basis of the internet in its widest sense. they describe those three layers as being the physical infrastructure of the network, the humans at each terminal or node of the network, and the interactions that occur between users and between devices. they claim that when these three layers are mixed together, “ubiquity, speed and global scale provide the heat to cook this into something we have not tasted before” (p. 5). the book is their attempt to explain the nature, impact, and implications of the connecticon within the domain of learning. the concept of community is central to this book. in their second chapter, rennie and mason tackle the problem of defining community so that the definition can withstand the varied contexts in which they later use the term. b o o k r ev ie w s journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 108–115 © distance education association of new zealand 112 their attempt is one of the better ones. within a brief chapter they lay out what community means for them, dismissing the idea of virtual communities in favour of the notion of networks. while their argument is a sound one, they face the constraint that the term communities has a ubiquity that is difficult to escape in the world of e-learning. and they don’t manage to escape, quickly reverting to the term online communities as being equivalent to online interactive networks. however, for the discriminating reader, the distinction made between communities and networks is a valuable one that leads to a more nuanced analysis of e-learning. having established networks/communities as a foundation, the authors move on through a series of chapters that discuss various aspects of learning in the connecticon. in chapter 3 they present a case for the importance of connectivity in learning based on a brief analysis of ‘traditional’ teaching. while accepting that blending some online connectivity with face-toface teaching solves some problems, they suggest that wider issues facing higher education simply cannot be solved without a wholehearted move to e-learning. chapters 4 and 5 investigate community networks and the potential of broadband respectively, while chapter 6 focuses on the use of learning objects, notions of open content, and the development of learnercentred resources. many readers might find this section of the book less instructive. the publication date is 2004, so it is at least 5 years since the text was committed to paper. the lessons that the authors describe, the cautions that they urge, and the potential that they look toward have all been written about more fully. these chapters will not provide much for readers who have kept pace with e-learning literature. after this point, the book becomes more interesting again. two chapters about learning take the reader in a new direction as the authors start to consider the implications of the connecticon rather than the elements that comprise it. in chapter 7, discussion of pervasive learning relies on two notions—ubiquity and mobility—which are also central to the discussion of informal learning in chapter 8. my earlier comments about laptop ownership and wireless access suggest why this is an important section. i can complement those opening comments with the observation that, amongst our students, internet-capable cellphone b o o k r ev ie w s journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 108–115 © distance education association of new zealand 113 access is also rising sharply, giving truth to mason and rennie’s statement that “personal communications are increasingly able to be mobile and operate through an infrastructure of networks that can pervade every aspect of our lives” (p. 108). the learning ecology that derives from such opportunities is only just starting to be recognised and planned for on any scale. alongside learning ecologies, two other key concepts emerge in the discussion in these latter stages of the book: they are the attention economy and situated learning. both concepts are seen to have particular relevance to higher education institutions which will need to wrestle with their implications. because they are not outside the huge range of information that exists on the connecticon, formal educational institutions will need to address two matters. first, they must help their students learn how to focus their attention on information that is relevant to their own goals and ends and, second, they must encourage them to learn through active participation in social processes rather than simply through acquisition of facts. we will all recognise the points of the previous paragraph. librarians have been telling us the first, and adult educators have been telling us the second, for years. mason and rennie have pulled these ideas into the arena of the connecticon and tied them together well—but 5 years on, the impact is somewhat lost. overall, i didn’t find the vision that i expected in this book. the trajectory that mason and rennie mapped out for e-learning back in 2004 is one with which i am now quite familiar. had i read this book 5 years ago it would have been quite influential on my thinking—and rightly so, as it turns out. reading it now reminds me how quickly things can change—particularly with regard to ideas about, and possibilities for, the ways in which learning occurs. is anyone brave enough to predict the next 5 years? b o o k r ev ie w s journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 108–115 © distance education association of new zealand 114 b o o k r ev ie w s ken stevens faculty of education memorial university of newfoundland newfoundland, canada maeroff, g. i. (2003). a classroom of one: how online learning is changing our schools and colleges. new york: palgrave macmillan (pp. xiv, 306). a classroom of one is about the reality of the virtual world and how it is changing schools and universities. maeroff writes from the perspective of a traditional university teacher who is trying to make sense of the changes that have been brought about by the ‘revolution’ in online learning. maeroff focuses on the phenomenon of an increasing number of higher education courses that are being taught entirely over the internet, thereby enabling students to earn degrees without entering classrooms. for many traditional university teachers this phenomenon is troubling but cannot be ignored. the question is: what does it mean for the future of education? on one level, this is a descriptive book that provides the reader with a broad and comprehensive perspective of the evolution and current directions of online learning and how it is changing educational institutions, particularly those in the tertiary sector. on another level, the book raises big questions: what is a ‘school’ now that online learning has become mainstreamed? what is ‘teaching’ in an environment that uses traditional face-to-face instruction alongside online learning? what is a ‘classroom’ in an environment in which teaching and learning can take place at any time and in almost any place? maeroff wrote most of a classroom of one from research he carried out on the internet—visiting websites, entering chat rooms and reading threaded discussions. the challenge in writing this book, he notes, was to take a snapshot of a cyclone. online learning is dynamic and changing rapidly, and is therefore difficult to encapsulate fully at any moment in time. a classroom of one, however, is really about the big picture—the issues that underpin the revolution in online learning. while providing a good overview of electronic interaction between teachers and learners in online instruction and their adaptation to teaching and learning in this environment, maeroff sets the stage for discussion about issues that many distance and online teachers journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 108–115 © distance education association of new zealand 115 b o o k r ev ie w s may not consider in their professional lives. in places he is contentious, suggesting, for example, that the humanities and liberal arts will not fare well in online learning because, “most students who turn to web-based instruction want to learn about application, not theory” (p. xii). one observation that may resonate with new zealand readers is that online courses are increasingly located in a business-oriented landscape that focuses on careers, accreditation and regulated education. the connection between the rise of online learning and the business of education is timely, as is the connection between online learning and globalisation. maeroff predicts that, in this changing and globalised environment, online learning is here to stay. as part of the globalised world, online learning is shaped by that world and, in turn, helps give it meaning: some educationalists regard online learning as a device apart, an alternative pursuit forever marginalized at the fringes of institutions. they are mistaken. online courses will edge closer to the mainstream with each passing year, so much so that eventually few distinctions will be made between courses taken online, courses taken in the classroom, and courses that incorporate attributes from both settings. (pp. xii–xiii) a classroom of one is about how online learning is changing the ways schools and universities are organised, how teachers teach and how students learn. in spite of this, maeroff does not support the view that schools will become victims of online learning. his bottom line is that the classroom will not be rendered obsolete by e-learning, but that online courses are here to stay. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 108–115 microsoft word koh-hulbert format.docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 29 the role of nonverbal communication in asynchronous talk channels josiah koh, open polytechnic of new zealand tara hulbert, open polytechnic of new zealand abstract with the increased adoption of online learning (even greater as a result of the covid-19 pandemic), online asynchronous discussions have become a mainstay of many online learning platforms. as teachers struggle to communicate and connect with students due to the forced transition online, we can better appreciate the differences between traditional nonverbal communication in a face-to-face environment and that of online nonverbal communication. because digital literacy underpins the whole online learning experience, and because nonverbal communication (nvc) cues such as body language and paralanguage are not visible in asynchronous text-based online learning, this paper presents the relationship (if any) between electronic nonverbal communication (envc) and teaching/social presences and digital literacy, as well as its role in student motivation and engagement. a correlational study was conducted using surveys to gather data from 88 level 5 business area students. the data was analysed using a pearson’s correlation analysis. the study has found that there is a correlation between envc and the social/teaching presence and digital literacy in the asynchronous online discussions, and that envc is related to teaching and social presences, but not to digital literacy. keywords: online learning; electronic nonverbal communication; envc; asynchronous talk channels; online communication introduction since the start of the covid-19 pandemic, online learning has become even more critical for delivering education (lederman, 2018; khalil et al., 2020). this is reflected both in the burgeoning size of the market (technavio, 2021), and student preference for online delivery remaining high (bashir et al., 2021). asynchronous online delivery still dominates online learning as the main means of delivery (schaffhauser, 2017), and talk channels are a key feature of such systems. these are often designed as avenues for students to conduct meaningful discourse with their teachers and fellow classmates, to demonstrate their grasp of relevant topics, and to share their personal experience and reflections. thus, they are often described as the “heart of the virtual classroom”. however, the sudden shift to online learning has also meant that some teachers struggle to communicate and connect with students (carrillo & flores, 2020; moorhouse, 2020). this is partly because of the differences between traditional nonverbal communication in a face-to-face environment and that of online nonverbal communication (khalil et al., 2020). koh, j., hulbert, t. 30 background the relationship between nonverbal communication cues and learning has been well documented (schneider et al., 2022; wahyuni, 2018). hence, it is not surprising that positive nonverbal communication cues are associated with improved academic performance, student engagement, and motivation (schneider et al., 2022; wahyuni, 2018). however, nonverbal communication in the online learning environment is traditionally thought to happen insufficiently often in online learning to be a factor of consideration (mcbrien et al., 2009). because online activities continue to integrate with every aspect of life, al tawil (2019) recognised that nonverbal communication cues exist significantly in online asynchronous learning environments. a follow-up pilot study in 2021 (koh, 2021) has indicated that these nonverbal communication cues not only exist online, but there is significant correlation between the teacher and social presences, and student engagement and motivation. given the recent developments, we ask the following research questions. 1. what is the correlation between nonverbal communication in the asynchronous online talk channels and the presences (teacher/social/digital) of online learning? 2. what is the correlation of nonverbal communication in the asynchronous online talk channels and student motivation and engagement? literature review given that nonverbal communication in online learning environments has recently been noted to play a significant role in online learning outcomes, let’s look at an expanded view of the literature on electronic nonverbal communication, pedagogical theories of learning in technological environments, and discussions about the technology and asynchronous discussion/talk channels. electronic nonverbal communication (envc) al tawil (2019) coined the term “envc” for nonverbal online communication. she argues that because it is distinctly different from face-to-face nonverbal communication (due to the absence of body language and paralanguage), the distinction between the terms should be made clear. envc can be viewed in the context of being text based and non-text based. text-based envc is based on the actual words and text used in the communication. this includes word choice, sentence structure, and phrasing. emoticons and emojis are also considered to be text-based envc because they convey an emotion or feeling (gajadhar & green, 2005). non-text-based envc is viewed as being any information that is communicated outside that of the words used. this includes the profile picture, the font choice and style, and the perceived effort and tone of the communication. this is because additional meaning is implied and assigned to the communication to psychologically paint a more complete picture in the reader’s mind (al tawil, 2019). these envc cues are presented in four main aspects: tone, style, effort, and timeliness (t.e.s.t). tone is the perceived manner of online communication. the interpretation of tone goes beyond the choice and phrasing of words—it includes multiple layers of cultural and societal context (sheerman-chase et al., 2011), in which words have different connotations and so communicate different messages in context. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 31 style refers to the stylistic choices of how discussions are presented. for instance, a sentence in uppercase seemingly “shouts” at the reader and communicates aggression. style also extends to the length of responses and choice of font. the amount of effort that students perceive their teachers to have invested in the communication also matters. long, standardised replies to a query are usually perceived as being inauthentic. conversely, single word responses communicate disinterest and a lack of genuineness on the part of the teacher to engage with students. genuineness looks at how “real” the teacher is perceived to be. the level of genuineness perceived by students also communicates a picture of the teacher, and communicates what they are trying to say with their words (al tawil, 2019). timeliness, or chronomatics, is another important factor in how envc cues are communicated. a slow response, or no response, is often taken very negatively (e.g., a “read” receipt on a whatsapp message). interestingly, an immediate response also communicates a lack of authenticity or that the answers are likely to be from a databank of templated answers (koh, 2021). in traditional face-to-face teaching, nonverbal communication has been shown to have a significant impact on the success of teaching (bambaeeroo & shokrpour, 2017), but in an online e-learning environment, these nonverbal elements have even greater importance and impact on the way students learn, adopt, and (by extension) predict student success (al tawil, 2019; koh, 2021) community of inquiry (coi) model in the context of online learning, the coi model is a framework designed specifically to better understand learning through an online medium (garrison, 2017). this constructivist framework captures the dimensions of higher education in computer-based online education succinctly, defining them as social, cognitive, and teacher presences. each presence, and the interactions between them, constitutes an aspect of the online educational experience (fig. 1). the social presence looks at the ability of students/participants to express a projection of themselves which is “most authentic”. the cognitive presence looks at the ability to derive meaning and purpose. the teaching presence looks at how the design and facilitation of the processes help students to achieve a certain learning outcome(s). figure 1 community of inquiry model note: this model is adapted from garrison, d. r., anderson, t., & archer, w. (2000). critical inquiry in a text-based environment: computer conferencing in higher education model. the internet and higher education, 2(2–3), 87–105. koh, j., hulbert, t. 32 figure 2 technology acceptance model each dimension is complemented with a 4-phase model of practical inquiry; that is, triggering an event, exploration, integration, and resolution. in most computer-based online education environments, the primary medium of communication would be via a text-based, asynchronous learning management system (lms). in such a learning environment, it is not clear if the communication will be as effective as more traditional media of oral and face-to-face communication. traditionally, teaching presence is thought to be more central to coi, and influences both social and cognitive presence. moore’s transactional distance theory moore’s transactional distance theory (moore, 1991) takes a more humanistic approach to viewing the educational experience by viewing it in terms of “transactional distance”, which is defined as a psychological and communication gap that exists due to physical separation. moore viewed the distance as consisting of three sets of variables. the first set looks at the “structure”—the design elements of what is to be learned. structure is often seen as being “rigid” or “flexible”, depending on the extent of goal prescription, model of delivery, nature of the course, and the ability to adapt to learner needs. the second set of variables looks at the interaction or communication among and between the teachers and students. this includes teacher–student and student–student interactions. key considerations of this set of variables are the quantity (i.e., frequency) and quality of interactions. the quality can be viewed via the lens of the ability to resolve a student’s questions and problems. the third set of variables is the “autonomy” of the student—the student’s ability and confidence to learn. learner autonomy is very closely affected by individual self-determination and selfdirection, which, in turn, is affected by the two other aspects of the theory. moore’s transactional distance theory posits that the three aspects have an inverse relationship, meaning an increase in one aspect can lead to decreases in the other aspects. technology acceptance model (tam) the technology acceptance model (tam) was developed by davies (davis, 1989) and has since been used widely in many studies of the behaviour arising from the acceptance of technology. the basic premise of the model is that the primary components of the tam (perceived ease of use; perceived usefulness) affect attitudes towards adoption which, in turn, affects the behavioural intention and actual use of the system. it draws a causal relationship between the perceptions and attitudes and behavioural outcomes. tam has been used extensively in the context of online learning (mulwa et al., 2012; sheng et al., 2008). causal links were drawn between the perceptions and behavioural outcomes. although tam is still a technology-focused model, there have been some limited applications in communication spaces (maican et al., 2019). the perception and subsequent adoption of online journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 33 communication and collaboration tools are one of the factors that help to predict academic success (maican et al., 2019) asynchronous discussions as online learning developed, online discussion channels were created so that distance learners who were learning asynchronously would have an avenue for reflection, debate, and critical discourse of topics with another person (hew & cheung, 2013). in addition, the messages, or “posts”, are visible to all participating students and give them the option of either actively participating (i.e, replying or writing new posts) or participating passively (i.e., just reading the exchanges). students can engage with each other more “meaningfully” and at a deeper level because they are not penalised for a delayed response and can take more time to structure and compose better responses (garrison, 2009; putman et al., 2012). asynchronous talk channels intentionally encourage sharing of, and debate about, experiences and knowledge by allowing students to proactively participate in self-enforcing collaborative learning (kozan & richardson, 2014). discussion posts also remain online, allowing students to revisit them as often as necessary (garrison, 2009). due to the time-delayed nature of asynchronous discussions, students can also do more research before posting their responses online. this elevates the level of discussion and gives a greater sense of understanding of the topics. the time delay also means that students can identify the critique on their responses as critiques rather than personal attacks (kemp & grieve, 2014). this encourages more online learner participation. arguably, active participation has led to higher levels of student academic achievement and student satisfaction (romero et al., 2013). methodology before we discuss the methodology of the research, we will explore some context on the theoretical paradigm underpinning this project. a pragmatist approach (e.g., dewey, 1938) is most suitable for this project. pragmatism, as defined by the apa dictionary of psychology, is “a philosophical position holding that the truth value of a proposition or a theory is to be found in its practical consequences” (apa, n.d.). this project is designed primarily as an applied project, so having a paradigm that allows for both theoretical rigour and flexibility will be suitable . because there is an expectation that the project will contribute in theory, practice, methodology, and policy, it will be more useful if the findings can be generalised and broadly applied, rather than relating to just a small focused sample group. this new knowledge would also be grounded in practicality and be nuanced enough for the results to be interpreted accurately. research process to meet the research goal and answer the research questions, this project will undertake the research in three stages, as seen in fig. 3. figure 3 research process flow stage 1: development of theoretical framework stage 2: conduct of study and analysis of result stage 3: conclusion koh, j., hulbert, t. 34 stage 1: development of theoretical framework the first step in stage 1 is to build the theoretical framework. this guides the study and frames how it will proceed. the theoretical framework will leverage the literature review and synthesise the information and models into a working model for this study. stage 2: conduct of survey and analysis of results the next stage is the conduct of the study. in line with the pragmatist approach, a semi-structured survey was used due to its speed, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness (gürbüz, 2017). by adapting the survey instrument by arnaugh et al. (2008) to account for digital literacy, the 40-question survey instrument aims to explore the impact of envc on student outcomes. this survey was administered via an online cloud-based survey software over 14 days. students from a new zealand-based fully online distance provider studying level 5 business courses were invited to participate in the project. in total, 850 invitations were sent out. having students from the same course lessens the possible variability of experience due to subject areas and delivery methods. it also means that the experience of the students can be attributed to similar events that have happened at the same time. to mitigate the concerns of power differential between students and researchers/teachers, the survey was non-identifiable and confidential. students from the researchers’ courses were excluded. using the data collected, a correlational analysis was then conducted. the pearson’s product moment correlation (pearson r) was selected to compute the coefficient of correlation due to its reliability and ease of use because it is based on the method of covariance (creswell & plano clark, 2017). it provides information about the magnitude and direction of the relationship. a 95% confidence interval was selected for this study as that is mostly commonly used. qualitative data was thematically synthesised with the analysis of the quantitative data collected. the integration strategy used was the data linking strategy, where data was combined (or linked) to each other via “association, comparative or relational analyses” (bazeley, 2018). this allowed for more nuance in the way both sets of data corroborate, elaborate and/or illustrate each other, and allowed for easier detection of group patterns, relationships, and differences (bazeley, 2018). stage 3: conclusion once the analyses were completed, a final conclusion could be drawn on the relationship between envc, online learning, and student outcomes. although this stage also meant the conclusion of the scope of this project, the final product can be disseminated and incorporated into existing and new workshops, courses, and public scholarship. this will ideally help to propagate the theoretical framework and provide a possible solution to online teaching. theoretical framework the coi, tam, and envc models have led and illuminated the way forward for many studies, although each model has its limitations. used in the context of an online teaching framework, they sit too narrowly within their own philosophical underpinnings and applications. because the theoretical framework had to reach across the approaches, a pragmatist approach was suitable (evans et al., 2011; ryu, 2020). the coi model is invaluable as a pedagogical framework for online education because it describes the educational experience. however, although it has been validated by many later studies (burgess et al., 2010; fiock, 2020; lin & reigeluth, 2019), the coi model does not, by itself, indicate a causal link between one aspect of communication and the outcomes. additionally, the concept of educational experience is not well explored in the coi model, and it does not explore individual aspects of the educational experience. moreover, not all real-world applications of the coi model have resulted in the predicted levels of success (jézégou, 2010). journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 35 this has however, been attributed to implementation issues, rather than weakness in the model itself (garrison et al., 1999). the tam model, on the other hand, draws a link between the technology and behaviour well. online learning is predicated on student’s digital literacy, because that determines the student’s autonomy in their learning. this also harks back to the coi model where the context, and the medium of communication on which the communication happens ,is important to the educational experience (koh et al., 2022). the technology acceptance model has also been linked to positive educational experiences (mulwa et al., 2012). however, the obvious weakness of tam is that it is designed primarily as a model of technological acceptance behaviour, rather than as a model of pedagogical outcomes. while some studies have shown the relationship between technology acceptance and improved academic success (maican et al., 2019), these studies tend to be limited in scope, focusing too narrowly on system use as the outcome, and the attitudes that get to that outcome. however, the two models need to be underpinned by a pedagogical model for more pedagogical coherence. moore’s transactional distance theory provides a good underpinning as it allows the models the space to interact. each model has aspects that can map clearly and coherently onto moore’s theory. and yet the three models do not account for the existence and presence of envc. nonverbal cues affect the overall student experience significantly (koh, 2021) and should be included in how communication, especially online, should be framed. a more nuanced and balanced manner of communication can be conducted using the t.e.s.t model, but t.e.s.t is also not without its weaknesses. it is a communication-based model but relies on the validity of the coi model that informs it. in short, by using a pragmatist approach and synthesising the three models, a theoretical framework can be drawn (fig. 4). this approach has the distinct advantage of drawing from several fields of study that can contribute greatly to students having better student outcomes and an improved experience. figure 4: proposed theoretical framework research findings koh, j., hulbert, t. 36 after cleaning for duplicates and incomplete surveys, a total of 88 responses were deemed suitable. this was a response rate of approximately 10.35%. there were more female (75%) than male respondents (25%), and there was a roughly representative spread of respondents across the age bands (table 1). the data seems to be distributed normally, fitting the requirements of having the z value for the variables within the range of -3.29 to +3.29 (aryadoust & raquel, 2019). the z values are obtained by dividing the skewness and kurtosis by the relevant standard errors. table 1 spread of the participants age band number male female 18–24 9 (10.23%) 1 8 25–29 19 (21.59%) 2 17 30–34 24 (27.27%) 7 17 35–39 11 (12.5%) 2 9 40–49 16 (18.18%) 3 13 50–59 9 (10.23%) 3 6 on average, the number of courses that the students have taken range from 1 to 20, with an outlier at 50. most respondents (90.7%) have taken more than one course online, indicating a level of familiarity with online learning. a table of correlations was derived from spss and is presented in table 2—envc and teaching presence and social presence have a significant correlation. however, envc does not have any significant relationship with digital literacy. this result is similar to the pilot study done in 2020 (koh, 2021). breaking it down further by age band (table 2a), envc and teaching presence were most significantly correlated at age 30–35. other age bands, such as 18–24, are also highly correlated but not statistically significant, mainly due to the number of participants. envc and social presence was significantly correlated for the 40–49 age bands. the 35–39 band were also highly correlated, but not statistically significant. most interestingly, at the 35–39 band, there seems to be an inverse relationship between digital literacy and envc. this suggests that as the envc decreases, the level of digital literacy actually increases, which seems to be an anomaly. table 2 table of correlations between envc and the dimensions teaching presence social presence digital literacy envc pearson’s correlation 0.45 0.27 <0.001 sig. <0.001 0.01 0.990 journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 37 table 2a correlations between envc and the dimensions by age band age band teaching presence social presence digital literacy envc: 18–24 pearson’s correlation 0.65 -0.11 -0.22 sig. 0.059 0.787 0.578 envc: 25–29 pearson’s correlation 0.33 0.24 0.21 sig. 0.167 0.326 0.385 envc: 30–34 pearson’s correlation 0.43 0.17 0.03 sig. 0.034 0.427 0.887 envc: 35–39 pearson’s correlation 0.46 0.51 -0.69 sig. 0.158 0.108 0.019 envc: 40–49 pearson’s correlation 0.43 0.82 0.02 sig. 0.099 <0.0001 0.955 envc: 50–59 pearson’s correlation -0.07 0.29 0.49 sig. 0.865 0.443 0.183 generally speaking, envc from the teachers teaching the courses has a significant impact on the students’ motivation and engagement. envc cues on other aspects have significantly less impact (table 3). breaking it down further by age bands (table 3a), it seems that envc in teaching and social presences has a significant effect on student engagement in the 30–34 band. other areas of significance would be the envc in digital literacy for 25–29 year olds. for envc in the social presence for the 40–49 age band, engagement is highly correlated, although not statistically significant. envc also has a significant relationship with motivation, especially in the teaching presence. however, the strength of the relationship could be categorised as weak. interestingly, digital literacy for 25–29 year olds has a significant relationship with motivation (table 3a). in fact, for that age band, envc in digital literacy has a significant impact on motivation and engagement— much more than teaching presence or social presence. motivation seems to be inversely related to envc in the social presence for 40–49 year olds, as the level of envc may not encourage motivation. table 3 table of correlation between envc and motivation and engagement motivation engagement envc: teaching presence pearson’s correlation 0.21 0.25 sig. 0.05 0.019 envc: social presence pearson’s correlation 0.11 0.14 sig. 0.304 0.196 envc: digital literacy pearson’s correlation 0.18 0.16 sig. 0.101 0.138 koh, j., hulbert, t. 38 table 3a: table of correlations between envc and motivation and engagement by age band age bands motivation engagement envc: teaching presence (18–24) pearson’s correlation 0.19 0.58 sig. 0.660 0.104 envc: social presence (18–24) pearson’s correlation 0.09 -0.12 sig. 0.810 0.759 envc: digital literacy (18–24) pearson’s correlation 0.08 0.05 sig. 0.843 0.894 envc: teaching presence (25–29) pearson’s correlation -0.37 <0.001 sig. 0.121 0.986 envc: social presence (25–29) pearson’s correlation -0.02 0.02 sig. 0.922 0.940 envc: digital literacy (25–29) pearson’s correlation 0.47 0.48 sig. 0.04 0.036 envc: teaching presence (30–34) pearson’s correlation 0.28 0.41 sig. 0.193 0.046 envc: social presence (30–34) pearson’s correlation 0.19 0.44 sig. 0.373 0.033 envc: digital literacy (30–34) pearson’s correlation 0.08 -0.09 sig. 0.721 0.673 envc: teaching presence (35–39) pearson’s correlation 0.35 0.06 sig. 0.285 0.853 envc: social presence (35–39) pearson’s correlation 0.48 0.34 sig. 0.136 0.305 envc: digital literacy (35–39) pearson’s correlation -0.21 -0.26 sig. 0.526 0.464 journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 39 envc: teaching presence (40–49) pearson’s correlation 0.38 0.48 sig. 0.165 0.068 envc: social presence (40–49) pearson’s correlation -0.58 -0.42 sig. 0.019 0.103 envc: digital literacy (40–49) pearson’s correlation 0.27 0.24 sig. 0.316 0.363 envc: teaching presence (50–59) pearson’s correlation 0.25 0.09 sig. 0.521 0.824 envc: social presence (50–59) pearson’s correlation 0.09 0.13 sig. 0.816 0.741 envc: digital literacy (50–59) pearson’s correlation 0.01 -0.41 sig. 0.986 0.278 discussion in answering research question 1, this study finds that there is a strong correlation between envc and online learning, primarily in the areas of teaching and social presence (table 2). this discovery corroborates the role of teaching and social presences in online learning (kilis & yildirim, 2019; zilka et al., 2018) but, more importantly, it quantifies the correlation. the findings have found that teacher presence and social presence have significant relationships with envc, but not for digital literacy. in an online learning environment, the talk channels serve as a more “informal” medium of communication and act as a pre-built “marketplace” where students and teachers can communicate freely. the fact that digital literacy does not have a significant relationship with envc is a further indicator of moore’s transactional distance theory holding true in this study. translating it to moore’s theory, asynchronous talk channels provide an avenue for increased “interaction” between students and teachers, and then we would see decreases in the “structure” and “autonomy”. this translates to less transactional distance between teachers and students than in a purely self-driven online course. with the increased interaction, reduced structure and transactional distance in an online asynchronous talk channel, envc cues are also picked up and interpreted more acutely. thus, this translates to a stronger relationship between nonverbal communication in the asynchronous online talk channels and the teacher and social presences of online learning. when we explore the findings from research question 1 in more depth, we see that they also indicate that envc has the strongest correlation when it comes to how it influences the teaching presence in online education, indicating that students tend to be more perceptive of envc cues in the instructional realm. there are three possible reasons for this phenomenon. the first is the demographics of the student participants, almost all of whom were studying alongside other life and work commitments. this meant that the learners tended to be more transactional in their koh, j., hulbert, t. 40 approach towards learning (kara et al., 2019). as they juggled their limited time between work, family, and studying, social connections via talk channels were not a high priority. another reason indicated was the possibility of using other asynchronous communication channels external to the school’s learning environment. these channels could include private social media groups or forum discussions (e.g., reddit, discord) or even comments sections on selected videos (e.g., youtube). so, although online discussions are happening, they do not include the tutor and might not be focused as sharply on learning. the third reason for students being more perceptive to envc cues due to the teaching presence could be because teachers are the main touchpoints in an isolated online learning experience (kotera et al., 2021; menchaca & bekele, 2008). students tend to perceive online education as being a more solitary style of study (jensen et al., 2021). as the “only constant”, teachers thus represent a large part of online interactions (wang et al., 2021). as the transactional distance between learner and teacher decreases, and with the structure of the material already determined, there is more dialogue between teacher and student. as such, students may be better primed and more sensitive to the envc cues that teachers can transmit digitally. interestingly, although digital literacy and awareness underpins the whole online learning experience, there is no correlation between the level of digital literacy and the interpretation of envc cues. this is especially interesting as it shows that envc is still primarily a communication issue, and is not affected by the students’ level of digital familiarity. this is also suggests that teachers need not be it experts, or be the most it savvy person, to be well perceived or presented online. however, we also note that because most of these participants have already studied online, the level of impact of digital literacy on their ability to interpret envc cues may have been severely muted. research question 2 looks at the correlation between envc and the effect on student motivation and engagement. the results show that envc did not have a strong direct correlation with student motivation and engagement. however, if broken down by the envc cues interpreted due to each element of online learning, it becomes clear that envc cues from the teaching presence play a statistically significant role in student engagement and motivation. envc cues from teaching presences show a higher degree of correlation between engagement than with motivation. this aligns with current literature on motivation and engagement, especially in online learning environments (chiu, 2022; kang & zhang, 2020). this correlation could also be due to the fact that student motivation and student engagement differ greatly in terms of their makeup and determinants. student engagement is viewed as the psychological investment manifested as participation in the course activities and tasks. engagement is affected by a multitude of factors, of which the most prominent are motivation, teacher presence (anghelache, 2013; kraft & dougherty, 2013), community of learners (domun & bahadur, 2014; gedik et al., 2013; kim & callahan, 2013; teräs & herrington, 2014; trévidy et al., 2017) and envc factors (al tawil, 2019; koh, 2021). however, engagement is a manifestation (an outward display) which means that it is not as affected by intrinsic factors. therefore, communication by teachers here can make a difference in how students decide to engage, even if the engagement is not motivated by the desire to learn. another possible reason for higher levels of engagement in relation to envc is the fact that engagement is easier to measure, and so teachers can gear their communication towards encouraging engagement. modern lmss can show when the student last logged in, how many hours they spent studying, the level of learning interactions, the number of mouse clicks, and so on. teachers can use these metrics as shorthand to see if students are engaged with the course journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 41 material, and communicate accordingly. students can interpret the envc cues on the need for more engagement with course activities and talk channel postings, thus resulting in a higher correlation. this also is in line with current literature showing that higher levels of teaching presence lead to higher levels of engagement (zhang et al., 2016). in lieu of an immediate way to measure motivation levels, engagement levels are often used as a proxy for motivation levels (harrison et al., 2017). despite engagement and motivation being intertwined, it is also important to differentiate that student motivation is fundamentally different. motivation works multi-dimensionally, and is often defined as “an impetus or inspiration to act toward an end” (ryan & deci, 2000). unlike engagement, motivation is both an art and a science because it can be very hard to deterministically pinpoint what contributes to it, or what generates it. however, many studies over the years have indicated factors that could affect motivation, including teacher presence (bullock & fletcher, 2017; radel et al., 2010) and the community of learners (bullock & fletcher, 2017) motivation can be viewed through intrinsic and extrinsic lenses. intrinsic motivation is selfdetermined and hence not as affected by external influences (lee et al., 2012). this could explain why envc cues do not have such a significant impact on motivation (because it is intrinsically driven). extrinsic motivation is driven by external factors such as getting good grades, and so is more affected by external factors such as communication from the teacher. as such, envc still has a correlation with student motivation, but it is less due to the presence of the intrinsic portion of motivation. interestingly, social presence did not show a statistically significant relationship with student motivation and engagement. like the relationship between envc and teaching presence, social presence seems to be affected by the nature of delivery and the demographics of students. talk channel participation is often viewed as optional and these working adult students will choose to participate only if necessary (kehrwald, 2008). in addition, students usually enrol in online studies for other than social reasons (hew & cheung, 2013). this shows that students do not view the social discussions as critical to their learning in an online environment. more critically, this suggests a lack of intrinsic motivation, which then leads to a lack of student engagement. however, this seems to suggest that a community of learners in an online asynchronous talkchannel environment does not have the same effect as a community of learners in a traditional setting. the same can also be said for digital literacy. because of the level of digital literacy, envc does not have any significant effect on student motivation and engagement. as online learning students, they have a higher level of self-efficacy. this could explain why envc cues have very little effect on the level of engagement (winne, 2005). because a student has to have a certain level of confidence in their own digital skills before embarking on an online course, the envc cues arising from a lack of digital familiarity may not apply as strongly here, which in turn also explains the statistically insignificant correlation between digital literacy and student outcomes (motivation and engagement). despite that, most surprisingly, the results showed that digital literacy correlated significantly with motivation and engagement among 20–29 year olds. in fact, the correlation between envc arising from digital literacy and student outcomes is much stronger than envc cues from teacher and social presences. more research would need to be conducted to have a clearer view of this unusual departure from the norm. one possible reason could be that this age group spends the most time online by a significant margin (johnson, 2022) koh, j., hulbert, t. 42 conclusion this study has shown that envc and the teaching presence are significantly related and that envc teaching presence has a significant relationship with motivation and engagement. hence, it is imperative that teachers understand how their communication affects how students learn. however, this study is limited by its reliance on self-reported data from the survey. more research will be needed to develop a better understanding of the role of nonverbal communication in a text-based asynchronous online learning environment. conducting more indepth qualitative studies will give a better and clearer view of why respondents responded the way they did. this study will help inform how teachers can “teach” online and even influence how ai teachers could improve their responses to students. online learning and asynchronous talk channels are here to stay, so understanding the role and importance of envc can shape how teachers are trained, the delivery of online teaching, and the pedagogy of teaching education via talk channels. references al tawil, r. 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(2018). teacher presence and social presence in virtual and blended courses. journal of information technology education: research, 17, 103–126. biographical notes josiah koh josiah.koh@openpolytechnic.ac.nz josiah koh is a lecturer in business management at open polytechnic of new zealand. he holds a masters in enterprise resource planning management from victoria university. josiah has substantial teaching experience, having taught courses in the areas of business management, statistics, business computing and operations management. his research interests include teaching and learning, artificial intelligence in education, online communication, and online learning. tara hulbert tarahulbert@gmail.com tara hulbert has a bachelor’s degree from the university of wisconsin (whitewater) (marketing/communications) and a master’s degree from the university of wisconsin (milwaukee) (communication). she has taught at the university level for over 20 years in the united states and new zealand in the area of business, marketing and communication. tara is passionate about helping others to use effective applied communication practices across industries and settings. most recently, tara has applied her knowledge to digital work in online learning, social media, and digital marketing. you can find her online at @kiwiamericans. koh, j., hulbert, t. 48 appendix a: survey questions project overview the purpose of the project will assist us in determining the ways in which nonverbal communication affects student motivation and engagement levels, and the role digital literacy plays in online learning. we intend to present the findings of the research in a journal article and as a presentation at conferences. nonverbal communication is the way information is transmitted and interpreted in addition to the written text. specific cues include the response time taken, the tone, style and length of response. data collected from this survey will remain anonymous. the researchers will maintain confidentiality by restricting access to the data. they will not be collecting the information from the courses the researchers teach. all results will be stored in a secure storage facility. the survey consists of 40 questions and should take you around 45 minutes to complete. this survey is broken down into 5 sections. • section 1: about you • section 2: teaching presence • section 3: social presence • section 4: digital literacy • section 5: final questions by participating in this survey, you agree to the terms and conditions set out in the information sheet. thank you in advance for taking the time to share your experience. section 1: about you q1: which country are you taking this survey from? q2: what is your age range? q3: how many online text-based modules/course/subjects have you undertaken thus far (in your lifetime)? q4: how long (how many years) have you been an online learner in a primarily text-based environment? q5: what is your general impression towards e-learning in a text-based environment? q6: how is/was your experience with e-learning in a text-based environment? here are some key definitions that could help you in understanding some of the terms in the questions below. nonverbal communication in an electronic context (nvc) refers to the communication of messages that are outside that of the written texts. for instance, the use of emoticons and choice of words could convey a message that is more than just the words of the text. motivation refers to the impetus to complete the course/module. engagement refers to the psychological investment in a course. this can be expressed by participating in the course activities and tasks (e.g., participation in the discussion channels (such as forums etc.) or taking part in the course activities that may or may not be graded.) journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 49 section 2: teaching presence q7. based on your most recently completed online text-based course/module/subject, to what extent do you feel that the teachers helped you in your e-learning experience? q8. based on your most recently completed online text-based course/module/subject, to what extent did the teacher impact your motivation while learning online? q9: based on your most recently completed online text-based course/module/subject, did you feel that the teachers responded in a timely manner? q10: how long do you think should be acceptable for the teacher to take to respond to you? q11: based on your most recently online text-based completed course/module/subject, how genuine did you feel your teacher to be? q12: based on your most recently completed online text-based course/module/subject, to what extent does the teacher’s tone (e.g., how things are worded or emphasised with punctuation) impact you positively or negatively? q13: based on your most recently completed online text-based course/module/subject, to what extent does the length of your teacher’s response impact your impression of the teacher positively or negatively? q14: based on your most recently completed online text-based course/module/subject, to what extent does the formality of your teacher’s style of writing impact your impression of the teacher positively or negatively? q15: based on your most recently completed online text-based course/module/subject, to what extent does the frequency of your teacher’s response impact your impression of the teacher positively or negatively? q16: based on your most recently completed online text-based course/module/subject, how comfortable were you in communicating to your teacher online in online talk channels/forums? q17: how helpful was your teacher/kaiako in acknowledging you personally as an individual? q18: what impact did your teachers have on the way you engaged in learning online in a text-based environment? q19: overall, how did your teachers’ presence affect your experience in the course? section 3: social presence q20: based on your most recently completed online text-based course/module/subject, what impact did the online talk channels/forums have on your motivation in online learning? q21: based on your most recently completed online text-based course/module/subject, how frequently did you actively participate in the social aspect of online learning? (e.g., post/reply/comment in the talk channels etc.) q22: did you passively participate in the social aspect of online learning in this online text-based environment? (e.g., read posts) q23: what impact did actively engaging in the talk channels with other students have in making you feel like part of the class? q24: did passively engaging in the talk channels with other students make you feel like part of the class? q25: what impact did these interactions (both passive and active) have in engaging you to participate in the studying activities (e.g., discussions over the forums/ doing tasks together etc.) of the course? koh, j., hulbert, t. 50 q26: what sense of connection/belonging to the course did you feel as you went through the course in this online text-based environment? q27: to what extent do you think talk channel/forum interactions should be controlled/regulated by the teacher? (e.g., should your social interactions be managed by the teacher) q28: if you knew that your next course would be with the same teacher and students, what impact would that have on your decision to take that course? section 4: digital literacy q29: generally speaking, how digitally savvy do you consider yourself to be? q30: generally speaking, how digitally savvy do you consider your classmates to be? q31: based on your most recently completed online text-based course/module/subject, how digitally savvy do you consider your teachers to be? q32: how familiar are you with online etiquette (manners and rules)? q33: how often do you misinterpret messages in your online text-based course? (e.g., find out later that you misunderstood something between teachers/students/course material) q34: how does misinterpreting messages impact on your engagement to participate in the various activities (e.g., forum discussions) in the same online course? q35: how does misinterpreting messages impact on your motivation to complete the course? q36: how much impact does your familiarity with digital tools have in making you more willing to engage (in the various activities such as forum discussions etc) with the online course? q37: what impact does your familiarity with digital tools have in making you more motivated to complete your course? q38: if you were told that that the same technology was going to be used for the next course, how much would that impact your decision to continue online learning? section 5: final questions q39: what impact does the online learning experience have on your decision to continue e-learning? q40: what impact would having the same combination of these factors (e.g. same teacher, same classmates, same learning management system) have on you continuing to learn in this online e-learning environment? 7-point likert scale used: 1 = most negative: 7 = most positive) this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. koh, j., hulbert, t. (2022). the role of nonverbal communication in asynchronous talk channels. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2), [29–50.]. microsoft word miano format.docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 51 an initial assessment of soft skills integration in emergency remote learning during the covid-19 pandemic: a learners’ perspective leomar c. miano, southern luzon state university abstract faculty members’ soft skills are vital for developing students’ knowledge, understanding, values, and skills. how teachers integrate soft skills with the subject matter influences how their students acquire the skills they need in their academic life and beyond. soft skills are a key factor for students’ success—not just in their academic work, but also in their careers. these skills are also highly sought by employers when recruiting new graduates. the main purpose of this study was to determine students’ perceptions of soft skills integration in emergency remote learning (erl) during the covid-19 pandemic. a self-constructed questionnaire distributed through google forms was used for data collection. forty-three bachelor of science in business administration (bsba) first-year students from southern luzon state university (philippines) participated in the study. it was found that most bsba first-year students perceived that soft skills were moderately integrated during erl. there was a mean of 3.16 for personal skills, 3.02 for character-building skills, and 2.95 for organisational skills. it was also found that there was no significant difference in students’ perception of the integration of soft skills in emergency remote learning when the students were grouped according to gender and learning modalities. this paper suggests that further study should be conducted with a wider scope. keywords: soft skills; integration; emergency remote learning; learners introduction the education system in the philippines has been severely affected by the covid-19 pandemic. some schools, colleges, and universities decided to end the second semester of the academic year (2019–2020) earlier than prescribed. however, some universities chose to continue the semester by providing distance learning to their students. moreover, during the initial month of the covid-19 outbreak in the philippines, semestral classes of higher education institutions were interrupted by the class suspensions. although most universities were not ready for online or distance learning, they switched immediately and adopted this learning modality so they could continue to provide quality education. transitioning from traditional learning to distance learning—and integrating soft skills in the course—can be a challenge. soft skills, in particular, are usually learned in face-to-face classes, and integrating soft skills in distance learning can challenging for the professors. faculty members’ soft skills are vital for developing students’ knowledge, understanding, values, and skills. however, research shows that tertiary education graduates lack soft skills. according to sunarto (2015), the main reason for tertiary graduates’ failure in their later careers is their inability to master soft skills such as honesty, cooperation, decision-making, problem-solving, and so on. these skills are missing in higher education teaching. if this was an issue among miano, l. c. 52 faculty members before the covid-19 pandemic, it would be an even bigger challenge in distance learning. one of the vital aspects of education sustainable development (esd) is to help students develop their attitudes, skills, and knowledge. as such, the key elements of esd include curricula, approaches to teaching, and students’ learning and experience on their academic journey (ngang et al., 2014). according to tang (2018), two aspects of lecturers’ soft skills acquisition are effective and quality teaching, and managing student skills. but how can teachers manage students’ skills effectively if they are learning at a distance? in the malaysian context, soft skills can be integrated into all aspects of generic skills that comprise the cognitive elements associated with non-academic skills (ministry of higher education, malaysia, 2006). although there are no specific soft skills, most of these skills are coupled with positive values, leadership skills, team workforce, communicative skills, and life-long learning. soft skills are identified as the most important skills in the current global job market, especially in the fast-moving era of technology (ministry of higher education, malaysia, 2006). the reorientation of education for sustainability also relates to the importance of these so-called soft skills. as such, graduates from higher learning institutions who need these skills to meet the requirements of the job market, will be indirectly exposed to the skills envisioned in esd. much research and many expert opinions were sought to determine the specific soft skills to be implemented in malaysian higher learning institutions. based on the research findings, seven soft skills have been identified to be implemented in all higher learning institutions in malaysia. they are (1) communication; (2) thinking and problem-solving; (3) team work; (4) life-long learning and information management; (5) entrepreneurship; (6) ethics, morals, and professionalism; (7) leadership. teachers need to have these skills if students are going to acquire them. on the other hand, there are two requirements for effective classroom interaction. the first is a pleasant atmosphere in the classroom with friendly relationships among the participants, and the second is encouraging students to become effective communicators in a foreign language (dagarin, 2004). classroom interaction is a two-way process; the teacher influences the learners and vice versa. interaction can proceed harmoniously, or it can be fraught. according to guerrabaez (2019), a fundamental challenge for universities is that education must meet current societal needs, and current educational settings must be revised. moreover, myers et al. (2014) explained that creating an online environment that develops team building and interpersonal skills is complicated by factors such as student isolation and the individual-centric model of online learning that encourages discrete study rather than teamwork. this change in the perception of teaching and learning soft skills is fundamental because it recognises that environmental influences affect individual behaviour through intermediate cognitive processes (such as imagination, representation, and thought), which are indispensable for learners’ development. that is, the theory of social learning can be the theoretical foundation on which educators can promote and defend the need for direct training in soft skills. because soft skills are fundamental for students’ professional and personal training, comprehensive training is needed in higher education institutions. soft skills are considered indispensable for the proper exercise of citizenship, respect for human rights, and creative conflict resolution (oecd, 2015). the comprehensive training of university students must not only include the theoretical and practical knowledge relating to a profession, but also methodologies that aim to promote autonomy in learning, creative problem-solving, critical thinking, commitment to society, and persistence in the face of adversity (sanchez-ruiz et. al., 2011). soft skills have several features relating to an individual’s ability to manage emotions. these include character attributes, communal courtesy, conveying information, speech and vocabulary, manners, cordiality, and hopefulness—all of which have an effect on social interactions (klaus, 2008). soft skills are also considered to be an individual’s distinct traits—they raise their journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 53 potential to associate with others, to work, and to unlock new opportunities for professional growth (pratt, 2019). in many instances, soft skills relate to personal characteristics such as positivity, duty, sound judgment, humour, and uprightness. soft skills include all potentiality which, as well as being practical, might require a person to be other-centered; to be empathetic, sociable, cooperative, peacemaking, communicative, and to lead others. a person might secure an interview by using hard skills, but soft skills can often secure and keep the appointment (marical, 2012). furthermore, muthumanickam (2008) maintains that soft skills also comprise communication, collaboration, emotional stability, an ability to counteract hardship, and decisiveness. emergency remote learning is an alternative or unplanned method for teachers to deliver instruction from a distance because the learners were simply not able to physically attend face-toface classes (shisley, 2020). covid-19 posed a threat in the educational institutions that shifted courses to the virtual classroom; many institutions have cancelled face-to-face classes, and have required students to study from home to help avoid the virus (rahiem, 2020). according to hodges et al. (2020), ert is a temporary change in the mode of instruction because of the crisis. it requires using entirely remote teaching approaches for instruction or education that would otherwise be provided face to face or in blended or hybrid courses. they will revert to the previous model once the crisis or emergency has finished. as mentioned by raciti (2010), higher education must have a clear intention of strengthening students’ personal development and increasing their capacity to recognise and interact with the environment in a responsible, participatory, innovative, ethical, and socially meaningful manner. from an educational perspective that recognises the importance of soft skills, university education is perceived to be more than simply training for the labour market. professional development is directly related to personal development. as part of the academic community, faculty members have to ensure that they provide students with quality education, even during disruption to their education due to the covid-19 pandemic. given the importance of integrating soft skills in emergency remote learning, this study aimed to determine the extent to which tertiary school teachers integrated soft skills in distance learning. the following were the specific objectives. 1. to identify the distance learning modalities of students in terms of: a. asynchronous b. synchronous c. hybrid 2. to determine the integration of soft skills in emergency remote learning as perceived by the respondents in terms of: a. personal skills b. character-building skills c. organisational skills 3. to test the significant difference in the integration of soft skills in emergency remote learning as by the respondents as to: a. distance learning modality b. gender miano, l. c. 54 theoretical framework this study is based on kearsley and schneiderman’s (1998) engagement theory, which emerged from the experience of teaching in the electronic and distance education environment. the ultimate concept of engagement theory is that students must have meaningful learning engagement activities and interactions. however, this principle of learning engagement occurs only during the traditional learning process and without technology to facilitate learning engagement. engagement theory is a conceptual framework for technology-based teaching and learning. this theory is based on the creation of successful collaborative teams that are meaningful to someone outside the classroom. these three components, summarised by relate– create–donate, imply that learning activities: (1) occur in a group context, (2) are project-based, (3) have an external focus. moreover, zarzycka et al. (2021) stated that active participation in distance classes, and positive use of standardised online asessment tools, influence the processes of communication and collaboration among students. the study contributes to distance learning literature by adding to our understanding of distance learning during a pandemic, and through the lens of engagement theory. it also has practical implications for all active participants in the educational process. methodology to investigate the integration of soft skills in erl during the covid-19 pandemic, the researchers used a quasi-descriptive method. the participants in this study were 43 bachelor of science and business administration (bsba) first-year students who evaluated their professors on how they integrated soft skills into erl during the initial implementation of enhanced community quarantine (ecq) in the philippines. the instrument used in this study was a selfconstructed questionnaire distributed through google forms and formatted on a 4-point scale with an interpretation ranging from “highly integrated” to “not integrated”. the data collected from the google form was tabulated, tallied, and computed using the spss/pc 2020 version. the data remained confidential and anonymous. respondents were asked to not put their names on the questionnaires and were assured that only the researcher would access them. results the results and analysis of the study were based on the data gathered. significant findings, interpretation, and discussion are presented using the diagram and tables. the university students of southern luzon state university experienced erl during the initial implementation of community quarantine in the philippines. the university used asynchronous, synchronous, and hybrid modalities. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 55 learning modalities of students the data (see fig. 1) revealed that most bachelor of science in business administration (bsba) first-year students use hybrid learning (54.3%; n = 25), followed by asynchronous (26.1%; n = 12) and, lastly, synchronous (19.6%; n = 9). hybrid was a common choice over synchronous learning because of the cost and connectivity probems with the internet, and some students don’t have devices for distance learning. in the hybrid modality, students attend synchronous and asynchronous classes. according to verde and valero (2021), spanish universities also adopted this modality from september 2020. this setup allowed students to continue learning during the disruption caused by the covid-19 pandemic. according to kearsley and shneiderman (1998), technology can facilitate involvement in ways that would be impossible to achieve otherwise. thus, engagement theory is meant to serve as a conceptual foundation for technology-based teaching and learning. figure 1 modalities used by first-year bsba-students gender the data revealed that most of the bachelor of science in business administration (bsba) firstyear students are female (63%; n = 26). males were 37% (n = 17). figure 2 gender of first-year bsba students miano, l. c. 56 table 1 descriptive results of personal skills legend: 1) 1.00–1.49 = not integrated; 2) 1.50–2.49 = slightly integrated; 3) 2.50–3.49 = moderately integrated; 4) 3.50–4.00 = highly integrated; sr = scale response, vi = verbal interpretation personal skills personal skills, as perceived by the respondents, are presented in table 2. the descriptive results based on the overall mean of 3.16 (sd = .54) revealed that students agree that teachers moderately integrated soft skills into erl during the covid-19 pandemic. all the questions asked and answered agree, and it is interpreted as moderately integrated. this result implies that teachers were able to integrate personal skills into the lessons even during the sudden change in learning modalities because of the pandemic. according to kearsley and shneiderman (1998), engaged learning encompasses all student activities that entail active cognitive processes—such as creation, problem-solving, reasoning, decision-making, and evaluation. table 2 descriptive results of character-building skills legend: 1) 1.00–1.49 = not integrated; 2) 1.50–2.49 = slightly integrated; 3) 2.50–3.49 = moderately integrated; 4) 3.50–4.00 = highly integrated; sr = scale response; vi = verbal interpretation character-building skills character-building skills, as perceived by the respondents, are presented in table 3. the descriptive results based on the overall mean of 3.02 (sd = 0.60) revealed that students agree that teachers moderately integrated soft skills into erl during the covid-19 pandemic. all the questions asked and answered agree, and it is interpreted as moderately integrated. this result implies that teachers were able to integrate character-building skills into the lessons even during the sudden change of learning modalities because of the pandemic. according to kearsley and no. personal skills m sd sr vi 1 my teacher integrates communication skills into the lesson 3.15 0.51 agree moderately integrated 2 my teacher integrates decision-making skills into the lesson 3.04 0.46 agree moderately integrated 3 my teacher integrates problem-solving skills into the lesson 3.13 0.58 agree moderately integrated 4 my teacher integrates honesty and integrity skills into the lesson 3.30 0.59 agree moderately integrated overall mean 3.16 0.54 agree moderately integrated no. character-building skills m sd sr vi 1 my teacher integrates resiliency skills into the lesson 3.06 0.53 agree moderately integrated 2 my teacher integrated career management skills into the lesson 3.15 0.66 agree moderately integrated 3 my teacher integrates network relationship-building skills into the lesson 2.91 0.58 agree moderately integrated 4 my teacher integrates innovation skills into the lesson 2.97 0.61 agree moderately integrated overall mean 3.02 0.60 agree moderately integrated journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 57 shneiderman (1998), engagement theory is founded on the concept of forming successful collaborative teams that work on ambitious projects that are relevant to people outside the classroom. teachers—but also parents, students, and society—are responsible for influencing children’s character and building students’ character in distance learning. cooperation is required at all levels (hodges et al., 2022). furthermore, yulianti and sulistiyawati (2020) highlighted technology as it is used in the development of students’ character through the blended learning mode. table 3 descriptive results of organisational skills no. organisational skills m sd sr vi 1 my teacher integrates cross-cultural skills into the lesson 2.95 0.51 agree moderately integrated 2 my teacher integrates diversity skills into the lesson 3.02 0.61 agree moderately integrated 3 my teacher integrates coaching and mentoring skills in the lesson 2.89 0.64 agree moderately integrated overall mean 2.95 0.59 agree moderately integrated legend: 1) 1.00–1.49 = not integrated; 2) 1.50–2.49 = slightly integrated; 3) 2.50–3.49 = moderately integrated; 4) 3.50–4.00 = highly integrated; sr = scale response; vi = verbal interpretation organisational skills organisational skills, as perceived by the respondents, are presented in table 4. the descriptive results based on the overall mean of 3.02 (sd = .60) revealed that students agree that teachers moderately integrated soft skills into erl during the covid-19 pandemic. all the questions asked answered agree, and it is interpreted as moderately integrated. this result implies that teachers were able to integrate character-building skills into the lessons even during the sudden change of learning modalities because of the pandemic. according to thach and murphy (1995), organisational skills are one of the technical competencies that teachers in distance education should demonstrate. if integrated into the class, this teaching competency can be acquired by students even in erl. furthermore, oliveira et al. (2021) highlight that, while some platforms support classroom dynamics, teachers and students note a lack of engagement and human interaction. teachers couldn’t see whether students comprehended the lesson because they kept their cameras turned off most of the time. small details, such as doubtful facial expressions, which were easily observed in face-to-face lectures, were not seen in this technology-mediated context. this is a disadvantage of erl because it is difficult to integrate skills into the lessons. miano, l. c. 58 table 4 the difference in integration of soft skills when grouped by gender variable 1 variable 2 mean 3.034118 3.024828 variance 0.214976 0.260819 observations 17 29 hypothesised mean difference 0 df 36 t stat 0.063153 p(t<=t) one-tail 0.474997 t critical one-tail 1.688298 p(t<=t) two-tail 0.949994 t critical two-tail 2.028094 gender the average difference between males and females is not statistically significant because the t-value, which is 0.94, is greater than 0.05. this result implies that there is no difference in perception between male and female students regarding the integration of soft skills by the tertiary school teachers. table 5 the difference in integration of soft skills when grouped according to learning modalities source of variation ss df ms f p-value f crit between groups 0.155505 2 0.077752 0.295218 0.745977 3.231727 within groups 10.53491 40 0.263373 total 10.69042 42 learning modalities the average difference among bsba students when grouped according to the learning modalities is not significant. the p-value of 0.74 > 0.05 implies that there is no statistically significant difference in the perception of students regarding the integration of soft skills in erl during the pandemic. according to the study of iglesias-pradas et al., (2021), organisational factors can contribute to the successful implementation of emergency response learning, which may have a positive impact on students’ academic performance. however, the analysis does not find differences across courses with different class sizes or delivery modes. discussion this paper discusses the integration of soft skills in distance learning as assessed by the learners during erl during the covid-19 outbreak. the findings showed that learners’ perceived soft skills were moderately integrated during remote learning. the ministry of higher education (2006) discusses the importance of soft skills integration in teaching and learning. teachers have a major obligation to develop students’ soft skills because they are vital for holistic development. schulz (2008) suggested that educators should integrate and practice the concept of soft skills in class to improve students’ skills. moreover, teachers should be creative to enhance students’ soft skills (shoffner, 2011). according to ngang et al. (2015), the most effective and efficient way to journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 59 learn these skills is by integrating them in the course while learning hard skills during class. therefore, a significant effect of the teaching and learning process in developing soft skills among students in universities will be realised. however, teachers and students were forced to adapt to the global situation and adjust their learning modes to continue studying in the midst of a pandemic. according to verde and valeo (2021), to continue learning, students and teachers had to adapt to the global situation, and change their teaching–learning methodology. in addition, the result of the study into the integration of soft skills (such as personal skills, character-building skills, and organisational skills) is that students do not perceive erl to be fully integrated. in relation to engagement theory, the idea of creating successful collaborative teams that are meaningful to someone outside the classroom is summarised by relate–create– donate. this implies that learning activities must (1) occur in a group context, (2) be projectbased, and (3) have an outside focus. although erl uses technology to conduct classes, some faculty use off-line modules to deliver learning, and this modality does not integrate communication and collaboration among students. the study contributes to the distance learning literature by adding to our understanding of distance learning amid a pandemic through the lenses of engagement theory. it also has practical implications for all active participants in the educational process. conclusion the academic performance of students depends not only on intellectual ability but also on nonacademic aspects such as soft skills. students’ academic success may be influenced by how they participate in all aspects of learning. soft skills are one of the major components of student success that should be emphasised by their professors or teachers. even when all higher educational institutions implement erl because of the covid-19 pandemic, the integration of soft skills in lessons should not be taken for granted. however, based on the initial assessment conducted on bsba first-year students, the results showed that somehow the soft skills were being integrated into the lesson. personal skills, character-building skills, and organisational skills are moderately integrated. references dagarin, m. 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(2021). distance learning during the covid-19 pandemic: students’ communication and collaboration and the role of social media. cogent arts & humanities, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/23311983.2021.1953228 biographical notes dr. leomar c. miano leomar_miano@yahoo.com dr. leomar c. miano is currently the head of the gender and development office and the director of the office of extension service, an internal quality auditor, and an assistant professor of the college of business, administration, hospitality, and accountancy at southern luzon state university in lucban, quezon. she graduated from adventist university of the philippines with a doctor of philosophy in commerce and a major in business management. her interests include teaching, research, and extension services. she has presented her research in local and international forums, and is published in an international and university-based journal. she also serves the community by providing technical expertise through extension activities funded by the university and lgu. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. miano, l. c. (2022). an initial assessment of soft skills integration in emergency remote learning during covid-19 pandemic: a learners’ perspective. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2), [51–61.]. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(2) 55 the potential for building high-school students’ vocabulary using an ipod touch and gaming app jennifer redd, san josé state university denise schmidt-crawford, iowa state university abstract this study focused on the potential for building 25 high-school students‘ word knowledge by using a mobile learning device and gaming app. using a game as an instructional tool is a portable way for students to engage with content. the amount of vocabulary mastered after using the app on the mobile device was examined in relation to a pre-test and a post-test, completed 3 weeks apart. the aspects investigated were the transfer potential of learning on a mobile device, and the variation in performance levels. the results indicated a direct correlation between the pre-test score as a predictor for the post-test score. also, the choice of techniques used to play the app indicated that participants called upon the ‗process of elimination‘ and ‗roots/word parts‘ as tools to help them master the vocabulary. these findings point to the potential for incorporating a game as an instructional tool for vocabulary development. keywords: mobile devices; gaming; vocabulary; high-school students introduction as technology evolves, so must the use of technology tools in education (facer et al., 2004; rosen, 2010). innovations have led to the development of mobile-device software that enables informal learning to take place anywhere and at any pace. of particular interest is the ipod touch gaming application (hereafter ‗app‘) called the vocab challenge. this app supports mastering specific words in a variety of contexts such as definitions, synonyms, antonyms, and connotations. this study examined how a mobile learning device, along with a vocabulary app, might establish a rich gaming environment that is conducive to acquiring words that are frequently found on the scholastic assessment test (sat) taken by many american high-school students. in the literature review, we investigate the theoretical foundation for the app‘s design as it relates to gaming and good game design characteristics. the use of a mobile device and the possibilities for learning in an informal environment are further investigated as a tool to extend the vocabulary development that can help high-school students in later educational scenarios. redd, j., schmidt-crawford, d. 56 literature review theory of gaming the use of gaming as a pedagogical tool is well established. however, using mobile devices, which allow individuals to learn at their own pace and in their own time, is a new development. lenhart (2009) notes that 74% of united states teenagers aged 12–17 own an ipod or mp3 player. nearly 97% of united states teenagers play games on a console, mobile device, or computer (lenhart et al., 2008). behind the activities and actions of a game rests a theory of gaming. botturi and loh (2008) say ―within game theory, the structural elements of a game exist as rules, turns, collaboration and competition, where winning, or fun, is modeled as numerical payoff. game theory tries to explain how playing (a game) works, and defines games as an interactive process striving toward payoff‖ (p. 7). thus a game provides the overall structure for reaching a goal (provenzo, 1991). the goal is the intended outcome of interacting with the game, which leads the player to acquire knowledge, perfect a skill, solve a problem, or modify an attitude (steinberg, 1991). the goal that is to be achieved in the game should be aligned with the activities that have to be completed to keep the player playing (shelton, 2007). games limit the amount of time, space, and resources a player encounters so that they use problem-solving strategies to find solutions (holland, jenkins, & squire, 2003). games need to provide a unique balance of challenge and inquiry without being so difficult that they cause frustration. game theory links game design and learning as a way to test frameworks for understanding (holland et al., 2003). every action requires the participant to think about their course of action, choose what to do, experience the action, and then reflect on that action before making future decisions (paras & bizzocchi, 2005). the decisions result in formulating branches that create new paths to progress through the game (poundstone, 2006; salen & zimmerman, 2004). components and features necessary for good game design crawford (1984) explains that there are four components essential for designing a game: representation—a closed formal system where there are rules; interaction—actions while in the game; conflict—struggles endured while facing obstacles; and safety—a safe way for real-life activities to be experienced. successful games usually encourage active discovery learning while providing a unique balance of competitiveness and enjoyment (blachowicz & fisher, 2008; child, 1993; gee, 2008). the most successful gaming programmes are learner initiated, learner controlled, and intellectually engaging (jonassen & reeves, 1996; nitsche, 2008). ryu and parsons (2009) note that active participation in learning allows the learner to test ideas and approaches based on their prior knowledge and experiences (feedback)—they can then apply this knowledge to new situations. feedback is a message presented once a response is made, and includes providing overall results, correct answers, and a rationale for why a response is wrong (child, 1993; leblanc, 2006; steinberg, 1991). the feedback provided in games allows for the development of skills that can be transferred either to later scenarios in the game, or to operational environments (dempsey & sales, 1993). games therefore allow for remediation to take place depending on the responses generated (steinberg, 1991). if a player is challenged or makes an incorrect choice, they can rehearse alternative approaches based on the feedback, and so learn from their mistakes (holland et al., 2003). journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(2) 57 gaming as an informal learning environment gaming brings about new learning opportunities for students. shaffer, squire, halverson, and gee (2005) explain that games will not replace learning in schools, but will offer ways in which more powerful modes of learning can be incorporated anywhere and at any time. computer and video games offer new approaches to learning material in an individualised, interactive, and guided environment (child, 1993). gaming environments give players chances to fail without the pressures of the external factors of grades and mandatory work (botturi & loh, 2008; squire, 2005). informal learning occurs by engaging with intentional, but not too structured, activities that are completely controlled by the learner (marsick & watkins, 1990). games on mobile devices support learning to happen anywhere by allowing learning to transpire in a combination of physical, digital, and communicative spaces (facer et al., 2004; rogers, 2009). taking learning out of the structured environment of a typical classroom that has set time periods, and expanding it onto mobile devices that tap into the unrestricted realm of after-school time and weekends at any location, has the potential to engage learners even more (bongey, cizadlo, & kalnback, 2006; putman & kingsley, 2009). caronia and caron (2009) reported that most (44%) use of ipods for academic purposes occurs at home. engaging in educational activities on a mobile device helps to relate to the interests and needs of young people growing up in a technologically mediated environment, and offers opportunities for multitasking (rosen, 2010). vocabulary development, word knowledge, and gaming terminology and words used in games can tap into a variety of content areas. blachowicz and fisher (2008) note ―games and word play can provide a context in which students can enjoy word learning and develop word consciousness‖ (p. 50). games provide a way for words to be presented in an organised manner that can extend the school day and amount of time spent working in a content area. nagy and anderson (1984) note that direct vocabulary instruction can cover only a small percentage of the words that children should actually know. an average highschool student knows 45,000 words (pinker, 1994). this number is small in proportion to the number of distinct words present in language, which nagy and anderson (1984) estimate to be around 88,500. vocabulary-enriched games might provide this extra support for learners to achieve success and build their vocabulary word bank. methodology this study explored the growth and transfer of high-school students‘ vocabulary from pre-test to post-test. the major research questions explored were: 1. how does a portable media device (i.e. ipod touch) and a gaming application (i.e. vocab challenge app) affect high-school students‘ vocabulary development and word knowledge over time? 2. how do certain word-study strategies influence students‘ success in vocabulary mastery? 3. based on high-school students‘ self-perceptions, what effect does the use of a mobile device have on learning vocabulary? data collection tools four instruments were used to collect data from participants. two surveys were administered: one at the beginning of the study and the other at the end. the first survey, vocabulary acquisition via ipod touch survey 1, gathered demographic information and technology-use characteristics about each participant. the second survey, vocabulary acquisition via ipod touch survey 2, gathered information about participants‘ overall experience with the ipod touch redd, j., schmidt-crawford, d. 58 and the vocab challenge app. vocabulary tests were used at the beginning and the end of the study to discover each participant‘s knowledge and understanding of words. each test contained 20 words. the vocabulary test was composed of words found in the app. there were five questions of each type (antonym, connotation, definition, and synonym) of equal difficulty level on each test. the difficulty levels were based on a group of university students (n = 62) that took a 40-item vocabulary test, which was then broken down, analysed, and separated into two tests (pre-test and post-test). cronbach‘s alpha was computed to test for reliability, resulting in a reliability coefficient of 0.65 on the pre-test items and 0.62 on the post-test items, and meeting the minimally acceptable level (>0.60) of consistency among items (klassen, 2004). the fourth instrument was a daily log form that participants used to keep track of their use of and progress with using the vocab challenge app. participants the participants were enrolled at one of two high schools, high school 1 and high school 2, in neighbouring towns. students in these two high schools were targeted because of their locations relative to the university researchers who conducted the study. high school 1 was a large suburban high school with approximately 1451 students in grades 9–12. high school 2 was a small rural high school with approximately 360 students in grades 9–12. thirty-one students volunteered to participate in the study. once the data were collected and reviewed, it was revealed that six participants did not log any use of the ipod touch and app. these participants were excluded from the data analysis. this left a sample of 25 students (9 males and 16 females). from this sample, 11 (3 male and 8 female) belonged to high school 1 and 14 (6 male and 8 female) belonged to high school 2. the participants‘ ages ranged from 14 to 17, with an average age of 16. most participants were in 11th grade: 8% (n = 2) in 9th; 24% (n = 6) in 10th; 60% (n = 15) in 11th; and 8% (n = 2) in 12th. most participants were caucasian (68%) (see figure 1). figure 1 ethnic background of participants (n = 25) research procedures participation in the study lasted for 3 weeks and involved two sessions. the researcher visited the two high schools, gave a presentation, spoke to school personnel, and handed out flyers. interested students or school personnel then contacted the researcher to set up a meeting time. before participation, each participant and one of their parents signed a consent form. the first session involved taking the 20-item, multiple-choice vocabulary pre-test and a brief online survey titled vocabulary acquisition via ipod touch 1. the second session involved each participant completing the 20-item vocabulary post-test and a brief survey entitled vocabulary acquisition via ipod touch 2. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(2) 59 results the first research question focused on the development of vocabulary that may have occurred during the study. the mean score for all participants (high school 1 and high school 2) on the pre-test was 13.80 (sd = 2.02, min = 9, max = 18) out of a possible score of 20. the mean on the post-test was 14.16 (sd = 2.81, min = 7, max = 19) out of a possible score of 20. both tests contained five questions of each type (antonym, connotation, definition, and synonym). figure 2 provides mean scores per question type on both the pre-test and post-test items. participants experienced a slight decrease in their performance in the mean scores between the pre-test and post-test on the connotation and definition items. there was an increase in the mean score on the antonym items and a slight increase on the synonym items between the pre and post-tests. scores on the antonym post-test were 0.88 higher than on the pre-test. a t-test indicated there was a significant difference in the antonym pre-test and post-test items t(24) = -3.23, p = 0.0018. 95% ci: (-1.44, -0.32). figure 2 participants’ mean scores on the preand post-tests based upon question type an ordinary least-squares regression analysis was calculated to determine the relationship between the dependent variable and several independent variables such as the pre-test score and the level of student engagement. to discover the overall level of student engagement, a principal components analysis was performed on the following survey items denoting students‘ emotions: ‗bored‘, ‗challenged‘, ‗confused‘, ‗frustrated‘, ‗pressured‘, and ‗satisfied‘. these emotions were rated on a five-point frequency scale from ‗never‘ to ‗always‘. a graph of the proportion of variance indicated that these variables fell primarily on three components, thus ‗confused‘ (0.71), ‗satisfied‘ (-0.75), and ‗challenged‘ (0.69) were calculated (statsoft, inc., 2011). together, the components created a level of student engagement. for each component, the measures were combined to result in a score for each participant (decoster, 1998). the regression was run with the dependent variable of the post-test score, the independent variables of the pre-test score, and the ‗confused‘, ‗satisfied‘, and ‗challenged variables‘. the regression indicated that the pre-test score was a significant predictor of the post-test score: b = 0.77, t(24) = 2.98, p = 0.007. this indicated that depending on the score earned on the pretest would result in a 0.77 increase on the post-test, r 2 = 0.42, f(4, 20) = 3.55, p = 0.0241. redd, j., schmidt-crawford, d. 60 the app itself tracked specific information relating to game play; that is, the percentage of performance on each game and the number of words students encountered while using the app. the percentage performance for each game was combined and averaged for all participants to give them an overall performance level within the app (see table 1). table 1 game performance (reported as percentages) game type participants’ game performance m sd definition game 56% 0.12 antonym game 60% 0.17 synonym game 68% 0.14 connotation game 74% 0.09 average performance on the app games 65% a regression examined the potential relationship between the post-test score (dependent variable) and the two items that were tracked through the app (independent variables). the performance average of the games in the app significantly predicted the post-test scores: b = 0.10, t(24) = 2.27, p = 0.033. this indicated that for every one unit increase in the performance average, there is a 0.10 point increase in the post-test score if all other explanatory variables are constant. influence of word study strategies on vocabulary mastery the second research question examined the types of word study strategies (‗guessed‘, ‗learned at school‘, ‗process of elimination‘, ‗roots/word parts‘, ‗remembered it from the summary page‘, ‗remembered it from another game‘) that students used to master vocabulary. based on a sixpoint frequency scale ranging from ‗never‘ (1) to ‗very frequently‘ (6), participants (n = 25) rated the word study strategy they used most frequently: ‗process of elimination‘ the most (m = 4.60), then ‗guessed‘ (m = 4.24), which was followed closely by ‗roots/word parts‘ (m = 4.20). the third question focused on participants‘ self-perceptions of their learning experience with a mobile device. these questions centered on the aspects of mastery learning and active learning. each statement was rated by participants using a five-point scale ranging from ‗strongly disagree‘ (1) to ‗strongly agree‘ (5). overall, participants tended to agree that they remembered the words more by working with them in four ways (m = 3.88) and that they felt actively involved in their learning by using the touchscreen and shaking the ipod (m = 3.60). however, the participants were not confident (m = 3.28) that they had mastered the words using the app. the level of difficulty experienced by the participants while using the ipod touch, and the various activities within the vocab challenge app were analysed to see what effect this may have had on performance. based on a seven-point scale ranging from ‗very difficult‘ (1) to ‗very easy‘ (7), participants did not report having any difficulty navigating the ipod touch. overall, the participants found the difficulty level of the app quite low (see table 2). journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(2) 61 table 2 difficulty rating of app design item level of difficulty m sd navigating the ipod touch 6.56 0.58 playing the app overall 6.20 1.00 understanding the rules of the definition game 6.50 0.66 understanding the rules of the antonym game 5.76 1.36 understanding the rules of the synonym game 6.20 1.12 understanding the rules of the connotation game 6.32 0.95 navigating the pages 6.24 0.78 reading the font 6.50 0.73 discussion the participants‘ experiences gave an insight into using educational mobile games as a tool for informal learning. the participants engaged in the use of the gaming app primarily in three locations: home, car/bus, and school/study hall (from most frequent to least reported), for varying amounts of time during the 3-week time period. the aspects of informal learning, mastery learning, transfer, and engagement all emerged as contributing factors to the results. informal learning the results indicated that there was a slight positive association between the score on the pre-test and the score on the post-test. this may be due to the fact that participants entered with differing prior knowledge. for example, those from high school 1 had an average grade-point average (gpa) of 3.96 out of 4.00, whereas participants from high school 2 had an average gpa of 3.57 out of 4.33. every person has a different composition of vocabulary that connects with previous experience and knowledge (pearson, hiebert, & kamil, 2007). the difference in the amount of participants‘ prior knowledge may have played a role in the number of words correctly identified on the two tests, resulting in no significant difference between the performances on the two tests. further information was gathered on the specific items on the pre-test and post-test. the questions were analysed according to the type of question (definition, antonym, synonym, and connotation) presented in the app. the definition and connotation question scores did not increase from the pre-test to post-test. this finding indicates that knowledge of the words (definition and connotation) was not achieved before the participants took the post-test. the words may not have been encountered for a few reasons. the fundamental property of informal learning is to allow learning to happen anywhere and anytime (shaffer et al., 2005). the individualised and self-guided experience within the gaming environment allowed the participants to work at their own pace whenever they had free time. one limitation of this study was that the window of game play was only 3 weeks, and the amount of time the participants spent on the app varied greatly. graves (2008) explains that students should work with a word more than once to aid in vocabulary building. some participants self-reported only a small amount of time using the app, thus limiting the amount of interaction with the words between the two tests. some only used the app for 10 minutes, whereas others used it for 500 minutes. this large variation in the time spent interacting with the words could account for the large standard deviation (2.81) in the post-test scores. redd, j., schmidt-crawford, d. 62 another important component that relates to the amount of time students spent on the app is the aspect of self-reporting. after each game-play session, participants were instructed to record the amount of time the game was played, to the nearest 5 minutes. they were also to record the number of words encountered within the app (this number was cumulative). the amount of time positively correlated (0.61) with the number of words encountered. unfortunately, the self-report aspect limited the precision provided by this recording measure. since this type of data could not be verified by an external validation measure (the number of words that should be mastered during any given time period), the number of minutes and words encountered across all participants were analysed. as a result, discrepancies were found. for example, one participant noted using the app for around 20 minutes, encountering 78 words; whereas another, who also recorded 20 minutes, encountered 635 words. this also occurred at the high end— one participant recorded 230 minutes and encountered 2,457 words, whereas another participant who logged 10 minutes more (240) encountered only 938 words. the lack of a consistent and built-in timer in the game may have skewed the amount of time played and how this related to the number of words encountered. the game was built on the principles of mastery, which could only be achieved by interacting with a word in four games and correctly answering the questions relating to it (modality, 2010). to explain the level of mastery and active participation in the learning process, the participants answered three questions. the participants agreed (m = 3.88) that working with the words in four ways helped them to remember the words. this rating indicates that the repetitive nature of interacting with the words helped the students to remember them. however, participants were then asked if they felt they had mastered the words by using the app. participants rated this as neutral (m = 3.28). gee (2008) explains that within the gaming environment the player needs to become an active participant to gain the full learning experience. if the participants did not feel they were actively involved in the learning experience, they also felt that they had not mastered the vocabulary words. thus, most participants in this study did not really feel the app helped them master the vocabulary words, and that conclusion was reflected in the small difference between the pre-test and post-test results. vocabulary mastery the level of commitment and investment in the learning process was reflected in the techniques that were frequently used to play each game. vocabulary acquisition requires a variety of techniques and methods (nagy & anderson, 1984). the three techniques used most frequently by participants in this study were, in descending order: ‗process of elimination‘, ‗guessed‘, and ‗roots/word parts‘. ‗process of elimination‘ was the strategy that the app maker, modality, and the princeton review had designated and promoted as the strategy to use, and the result of ‗frequent use‘ correlates with this purpose (modality, 2010). another strategy used was ‗roots/word parts‘. participants may have learned this technique by using scholastic assessment test/american college testing study materials, or in high-school english classes. association based on previous encounters and connections with other words can help to build up vocabulary (murphy, 1991). the other strategy participants used was ‗guessing‘. if participants were guessing, it‘s possible that no true vocabulary mastery occurred during the study. guessing may have occurred during the game play because the participants encountered 20 words before they received corrective and informational feedback. the variation in the participants‘ strategies displayed the potential provided by informal learning, where the learners use the learning techniques that they deem suitable to meet the goal. knowledge gained informally on a mobile device can transfer to the formal environment (pachler, bachmair, & cook, 2010). it is possible, therefore, that the fluctuation in use of the strategies may be related to the strategies the learners had already learned. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(2) 63 transfer learning new vocabulary can be done through games, repetition, and practice. gee (2005) noted that good games actively involve players in the experience through their actions and decisions. successful games offer a combination of active and enjoyable learning experiences (blachowicz & fisher, 2008; child, 1993; gee, 2008). the participants‘ overall app score (combination of the antonym, connotation, definition, and synonym game scores) had a significant relationship with the post-test score. by actively engaging in the games on the app, the participants increased their scores on the post-test. this implies that their learning experiences using the app were transferred to a new environment (taking a test). transfer involves linking one experience to another—if the participants gained vocabulary knowledge experience from the app, they would then be able to apply it to another scenario (gee, 2003; hunter, 1995). the transfer of knowledge from the app to the post-test may be exemplified by the results on the post-test for the antonym game. statistical significance was noted between the antonym pre-test score and the antonym post-test score, t(25) = -3.23, p < 0.01. participants‘ self-reported game statistics ranked this game the most difficult and the least satisfying. this difficulty may have caused the participants to increase their attention during the game because they had to think about what the word meant and then determine which of the three options was the opposite. the interaction within the game may have reintroduced participants to the concept of an antonym and refined their ability to determine what an antonym is in a testing situation. this interactivity, player positioning, and choice may have contributed to the significant increase in the score for this type of question (dickey, 2005). engagement the participants‘ level of engagement varied throughout the study. the principal components analysis indicated that the factors of ‗confused‘, ‗satisfied‘, and ‗challenged‘ were the most prevalent. a player‘s decisions in a game affect the future outcomes in the game (nitsche, 2008). participants who felt ‗confused‘ from the beginning would have continued to transfer this feeling throughout their experience of the app. the participants‘ emotional rating indicated that, overall, they had a negative ‗satisfied‘ level with the experience. the lack of intellectual engagement and a feeling of competition may have caused the participants to feel this way. another reason for lack of satisfaction is associated with the third emotion exhibited: ‗challenged‘. a high level of difficulty may have led to participants feeling overwhelmed and choosing multiple incorrect answers, resulting in the reported emotions of being ‗satisfied‘ and ‗challenged‘. using a mobile device provides a way to construct knowledge and gain meaningful experiences related to learning tasks (rogers, 2009). as blachowicz and fisher (2008) explain, games and word-play provide a way to develop word knowledge. the results illustrate that the app can provide a vocabulary learning experience by promoting informal learning, mastery learning, transfer, and engagement. conclusion mobile devices give learners an opportunity to build their vocabulary knowledge at a pace that suits them. if encounters with words are repeated over time, there is some potential to develop a stronger, more robust vocabulary (graves, 2008; pearson et al., 2007; pressley, disney, & anderson, 2007). the participants‘ prior vocabulary was a significant factor in their performance on the post-test. the time factor also contributed to the post-test results. participants need time to interact with the words so that they can then transfer this knowledge from the device‘s simulated learning experience to practical uses in reading, writing, and testing activities—it is important to take this time into account. redd, j., schmidt-crawford, d. 64 the study had a few limitations. first, the number of students who could participate at any one time was limited by the number of devices (ipod touch) available—both in terms of individual ownership and from the researcher. second, the motivation for participation may have influenced participants‘ attention to detail when self-reporting the data. for example, all participants who provided an email address were entered in a draw for itunes gift cards. this meant that, regardless of whether they used the app for 10 minutes or 500 minutes, participants had the same chance of winning the cards. for some, the lack of a specific amount of time required may have affected their motivation for using the app. this could be addressed in a follow-up study—still with a focus on informal learning—but with a minimum number of minutes to use the app. the game-play would vary across participants and the times and days used, but a minimum level may provide more motivation and engagement. also, if this study is replicated, the lack of consistency of the self-reporting measure of time versus the number of words encountered should be investigated. if the software were updated to internally record the amount of time spent, the degree of inaccuracy in reporting this measure would be reduced. further research could explore the possibilities for transfer from the vocabulary used on this app. the type of vocabulary activities may also be investigated further; for example, antonym activities, which had an effect, versus other types of activities (connotation, definition, and synonym). as more schools implement one-to-one initiatives, portable devices are getting into the hands of learners in formal learning environments (holcomb, 2009). however, the participants in this study did not generally own their own ipod touch, and borrowing one and having to return it limits the potential for future and continued use with the vocabulary. this study took place in an informal learning environment, but future studies could investigate what would happen if the mobile device was also used formally, and whether this results in larger gains in vocabulary knowledge. references blachowicz, c. l. z., & fisher, p. 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(2010). rewired: understanding the i-generation and the way they learn. new york, ny: palgrave macmillan. ryu, h., & parsons, d. (2009). designing learning activities with mobile technologies. in h. ryu & d. parsons (eds.), innovative mobile learning: techniques and technologies, (pp. 1–20). new york: information science reference. salen, k., & zimmerman, e. (2004). rules of play: game design fundamentals. cambridge, ma: mit press. shaffer, d. w., squire, k. r., halverson, r., & gee, j. p. (2005, october). video games and the future of learning. phi delta kappen, 87(2), 104–111. shelton, b. e. (2007). designing educational games for activity-goal alignment. in b. e. shelton & d. wiley (eds.), the design and use of simulation computer games in education, (pp. 103– 130). rotterdam, the netherlands: sense. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(2) 67 steinberg. e. r. (1991). teaching computers to teach. 2nd ed. hillsdale, nj: lawrence erlbaum associates. squire, k. (2005, august/september). changing the game: what happens when video games enter the classroom? innovate journal of online education, 1(6), http://innovateonline.info/pdf/vol1_issue6/changing_the_game__what_happens_when_video_games_enter_the_classroom_.pdf statsoft, inc. (2011). electronic statistics textbook. tulsa, ok: statsoft. retrieved from http://www.statsoft.com/textbook/ biographical notes jennifer redd jennifer.redd@sjsu.edu jennifer redd is an instructional designer with ecampus at san josé state university. her research interests include mobile-device learning for students from pre-k to college levels, english education, and technology-based academic interventions that relate specifically to the development of reading and writing skills. denise schmidt-crawford dschmidt@iastate.edu denise schmidt-crawford is an associate professor and director of the center for technology in learning and teaching at iowa state university. her research focuses on teachers‘ development of technological pedagogical content knowledge (tpack) and her teaching interests include using technology as a tool for innovation in schools and teacher education. � this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. redd, j., schmidt-crawford, d. (2011). the potential for building high-school students‘ vocabulary using an ipod touch and gaming app. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(2), [55–67]. http://innovateonline.info/pdf/vol1_issue6/changing_the_game-__what_happens_when_video_games_enter_the_classroom_.pdf http://innovateonline.info/pdf/vol1_issue6/changing_the_game-__what_happens_when_video_games_enter_the_classroom_.pdf http://www.statsoft.com/textbook/ mailto:jennifer.redd@sjsu.edu mailto:dschmidt@iastate.edu http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ microsoft word weaver-barnard.docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1) 33 source use by second-year psychology students in online distance learning nancy evans weaver, open polytechnic of new zealand estelle barnard, open polytechnic of new zealand abstract literacy skills and behaviours of university-level students are of wide interest today. the research reported here fits in this tradition. it examines second-year psychology students’ source use in a course taught through online distance learning (odl). the number of sources used increased across assignments. most used were the textbook, instructor sources, and librarian-selected sources. the mark achieved increased with number of sources, instructor sources, and librarian-selected sources. compared with previous research on firstyear students, instructor and librarian-selected sources were frequently referenced by both sets of students, and source use related positively to their marks. this research expands the literature by comparing beginning and more advanced students; by replicating previous results; and by examining two assignments from odl students. keywords: citation analysis; source use; psychology students; online distance learning overview and rationale this research is an attempt to further understand and measure the literacy skills and behaviours of university-level students, an important and ongoing concern in librarianship and the academic world today. as napier, parrott, presley, and valley (2018) point out, those working at the coal face—such as instructors and librarians—know very well that “a gap exists between where instructors would like their students to perform and where those students actually are” (p. 120) in terms of ability to find, interpret, and incorporate into writing the most relevant academic literature. simply stated, university-level students need to understand information literacy if they are to achieve academically. the association of college and research librarians (acrl) noted in their framework that true information literacy involves “the set of integrated abilities encompassing . . . the discovery . . . , understanding . . . , and use of information . . . .” (american library association, 2015, introduction, para. 5). one aim of the framework is to enable librarians, instructors, and other professionals to work together to “connect information literacy with student success” (ala, 2015, introduction, para. 6). the research reported here focuses on the use of information by students and its relation to student success in their course, and so it fits in this tradition. one tool that has been used to gauge student use of information is citation analysis. in this method, in-text citations (brief acknowledgements of sources in a paper at the point where information is used) and/or source lists (either bibliographies, which list all sources consulted; or references, which list all sources cited), are collected from written work (see burton, 2010, for these definitions). source variables (e.g., number of sources, type of sources, origin of sources) are then measured, and sometimes other variables are also considered (e.g., student or faculty author, before or after library instruction). the research described here uses citation analysis and weaver, n. e., barnard, e. 34 builds on earlier work by the same research team (weaver & barnard, 2015) to measure source use by psychology students at the open polytechnic of new zealand (opnz). in that earlier work the researchers analysed the reference pages from two assignments (l1 and l2), both assignments of beginning-level psychology students, to determine their source use. these students all studied by distance, through print course materials and an active online campus platform. the number and type of sources used were analysed, and relationships between source use and the mark achieved were examined; differences between the first and second assignments were also noted. in the research described here, the focus changed to look at students at the next level of study. these are second-level students (equivalent to the middle year of university study in systems where a bachelor’s degree takes 3 years to complete) from the same psychology department; they were enrolled in a course for which the prerequisite is the course studied by these researchers in 2015. these students seemed, therefore, to be a natural focus for the next study—they are taking one possible step on from the introductory course that was researched initially. again, the number and type of sources used in the two required assignments, the relationships between source use and the mark achieved, and differences between the first and second assignments were examined. this research expands the literature in three ways. it adds to the small number of studies of source use by students in online distance learning (odl); it examines two successive assignments, again not often included; and, by calling on the 2015 findings, it allows a comparison of source use by students at two levels of study in the same programme and seeks to test whether those initial findings can be confirmed. the study had three aims: to investigate the number and types of sources used by these second-level students; to statistically test relationships between variables; and to determine whether source use differs between first-level and secondlevel students. literature review analysing student writing citation analysis can be used to examine any type of writing which includes citations and/or source lists and, in, particular it has been widely used in research on student writing. a variety of studies published in early 2015 was examined in an earlier paper (see weaver & barnard, 2015, for details) and is recapped now for new readers before moving on to more recently published analyses of student writing and source use. in earlier studies, citations have been analysed to compare print and online materials (e.g., knight-davis & sung, 2008; de groote, 2008), to measure differences between student and faculty use of sources (e.g., watson, 2010), and to evaluate effectiveness of library instruction (e.g., clark & chinburg, 2010; mcclure, cooke, & carlin, 2011). of most relevance, ludovico and wittig (2015) reported that first-year university students tend to “use resources which they perceive to be most scholarly” (p. 34). in their study, these were mostly books, followed by journal articles. other researchers (e.g., davis & cohen, 2001; carbery & leahy, 2015) also found that students use a variety of resource types (books, journal articles, electronic resources, etc.). the sources students use can be affected by such variables as library training (e.g., rafferty, 2013) and advice and recommendations from their instructors (davis, 2003; mcclure, cooke, & carlin, 2011). that last variable—the influence of the instructor—was also prominent in the results from jones and allen (2012), who examined student satisfaction and success using group discussions. they found that beginning students relied heavily on handouts from the journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1) 35 instructor, or instructor-assigned readings, and that more advanced students move on from there to use sources such as journal articles that they find for themselves. building on these reports, the researchers’ 2015 study aimed to extend the literature by filling some gaps: many published studies looked at only one writing example from each student so could not test whether source use changed with experience in the course; sample sizes were often quite small; and students studying by odl were often not included in the study. in the researchers’ first study (weaver & barnard, 2015) two successive assignments were collected from students; a course with large enrolment was studied to provide a larger sample; and odl students were the focus. main results included that the most referenced sources for these beginning-level students were relevant to the assignment and provided by the instructor (echoing the findings of davis, 2003; mcclure et al., 2011, as well as what jones & allen, 2012, found in their discussion groups). journal articles, the textbook, and the instructor’s assignment-relevant material were most popular. source use did change across assignments, though, with the influence of the instructor seeming higher on the first assignment, while the use of library and other sources went up on the second assignment. it was also found that some source variables were related to marks: the number of sources used overall (in particular the number of instructor sources used), and the use of one type of librarian-selected source, all correlated positively with the mark the student achieved; that is, more of any of those linked to higher marks. several relevant studies have been published since 2015. datig (2016), who used a combination of focus groups and citation analysis to study source use by undergraduate social science students near the end of their studies, found that journal articles and books were widely used in completing essays. especially interesting was her finding that “professors and other mentors” affected the sources students chose to use (p. 74). one of the participants in that study put it this way: “there is a kind of famous paper by this guy whose name i don’t remember but it’s really famous. he [the mentor] recommended i read it . . . .” (p. 75). lantz, insua, armstrong, and pho (2016) also looked at more than one assignment from each student. their students, too, were in their first year of study (although in an english course rather than psychology). these researchers also used citation analysis, but they applied it to bibliographies rather than reference pages. they found heavy use of journal articles (especially in the first assignment), that more sources were used in the second assignment, and that use of some types of sources increased in the second assignment (in this instance, reference sources such as encyclopaedias, and websites). from outside academia, a marketing research project conducted by a textbook publisher is also relevant (sage publishing, 2017). in a survey of 190 psychology students at a sample of united kingdom universities, sage found that students are heavily influenced in the course resources they buy (and perhaps then go on to use in assignments) by recommendations from their lecturer; lecturers have a major influence on the resources students use that are not on the specific course reading list; and almost all students now access and use ebooks and other online resources. these recent results fit well with, or complement, the current researchers’ 2015 findings. they also suggest other ways that research might move forward: many studies now examine web use and e-sources as well as print (e.g., lantz et al., 2016), and many supplement citation analysis with more “ethnographic” approaches, such as having students maintain a diary of how they pursue research or by including observation of student research behaviour (dunne, 2016). in the study reported in this paper, some of these issues were addressed while keeping some strengths from the 2015 methodology (e.g., examining two assignments from each student to allow analysis of any change with experience in the course). weaver, n. e., barnard, e. 36 context and hypothesis of this study this research was undertaken at the open polytechnic of new zealand (opnz), new zealand’s largest odl institution with some 30,000 students from across new zealand and around the world. all courses have strong online support and enrichment, and some also provide print-based materials and require students to purchase a textbook. the library holds print and online sources, all library training is online, and librarians work with instructors to select and make resources available to students. links to librarians are embedded on online course pages. our research team consists of a librarian and a psychology lecturer. the team have worked together for more than 10 years, including on 73212 thought, memory & language, the course studied here. it’s a second-level course focusing on cognitive psychology. the prerequisite for this course is 73195 general & applied psychology, which is the course studied earlier (weaver & barnard, 2015). all of the currently tested students had therefore successfully completed the course last examined. further, because these 72212 students come from the population of 73195 students, they “look like the students studied earlier (although they now have more psychology and course writing experience). this group is therefore especially appropriate for further study. like 73195, 73212 requires students to run experiments and write up results in two laboratory reports (l1 and l2) using american psychological association (apa) format. in 73212, students are reminded how to cite and reference, which is a skill they began to master in 73195 and other first-level courses. for each assignment 5% of the overall mark is allocated to citing and referencing. in all assignments, students were required to use at least three primary sources; in later offerings of the course that requirement went up to a minimum of five primary sources for the second assignment. (students were also permitted to use their textbooks or other secondary sources, but those did not count towards the primary sources.) three hypotheses were evaluated: 1. any resource provided or recommended by the instructor would be frequently used. this hypothesis is based on the literature and on the 2015 study. as a corollary to this first hypothesis, it was expected that the pattern of use of instructor vs. library and other sources might change between l1 and l2, as it did in the 2015 study. 2. assignments for which students used more sources would receive higher marks than assignments for which students used fewer sources. this seems logical because students who put in more work on an assignment (and one measure of this might be using more sources) would be expected to do better, and it also was part of the 2015 findings. 3. the use of sources from the instructor or the library (i.e., the sources provided or recommended by the academic professionals associated with the course) would be positively related to the mark achieved. as a corollary, it was expected that there would not be a relation to mark for other sources (i.e., those found some other way by the student). again, these hypotheses reflect the 2015 results and the literature. note: no specific hypotheses were made about differences between level 5 students, as revealed in the earlier study, and the current level 6 students. there is little literature that reports on differences over time or experience between comparable student groups so the comparison here was exploratory rather than designed to test specific hypotheses. it was of interest to test whether the 2015 results would be replicated here, or if these more advanced students would show a different pattern of resource use. for example, in 2015 the less advanced students made little use of resources they found themselves (i.e., sources other than those provided by or recommended by course instructors or librarians). would this “other” source use go up among these more advanced students, who are probably more experienced in the use of the psychology literature? would they make less use of instructor and librarian-selected sources? as well as testing journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1) 37 hypotheses, the researchers wanted to answer these questions by repeating the study—this time with level 6 students. method participants participants were recruited from opnz students enrolled in 73212 thought, memory & language in the years 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017. based on previous research (weaver & barnard, 2015), this course was chosen for two reasons: (1) it is a higher-level course (opnz level 6 is equivalent to second-year study at a university) than the beginning-level course (73195 general and applied psychology) studied previously; and (2) its prerequisite is 73195. these 73212 students therefore resemble those studied earlier, having themselves been students in that beginning level course at one time, and were considered to be a good comparison sample. since the previous research was completed, opnz has reviewed its policy on researchers using student documents. in the 2015 study, the researchers were able to sample all submitted student assignments without specific permission from students. because 73195 has a large number of enrolments, quite a large sample (n=124) of student work was available from a single course offering. under the new policy, however, researchers had to ask students for permission to use their assignments: students had to respond to an emailed request and specifically grant permission for the researchers to examine their work. as expected, only some students replied to the requests. in addition, as an upper-level course, 73212 enrols far fewer students than does the large introductory 73195. overall, 69 students were enrolled in this course across the 5 years, and 55 of these submitted both assignments. all 55 were contacted, and 36 (65%) gave permission to analyse their assignments. materials materials for analysis were the reference pages from both assignments (l1 and l2) of these 36 students. all students submitted both assignments, and all of them chose to submit online. ecopies of the 72 reference pages were collected. procedure the proposed research was reviewed and approved by the opnz ethics committee. names and contact details of all students who submitted both assignments in the chosen years (n = 55) were obtained from course records. each student was then emailed with information about the planned research and a consent form, and those who gave permission were asked to respond with a “yes” by email. those who did not reply were emailed a second time, and telephone messages were left. overall, 36 of the 55 students (65%) gave permission. their reference pages were collected from the opnz online repository of student assignments and printed for ease of coding. the students’ marks were also collected. analysis proceeded as described below. all participants were asked if they wished to receive the results at the study’s conclusion; those who so wished were sent a summary of the results. weaver, n. e., barnard, e. 38 results student identity was removed from the collected pages to protect anonymity and replaced with a code. researchers saw only these codes during analysis. the following details were collected from each reference page. • total number of sources referenced (possible range of values: whole numbers from 0 upward). • whether or not the set textbook was referenced (0 or 1). • whether or not the learning guide was referenced (0 or 1). (this guide is a set of printed and online course modules given to all enrolled students; it focused on specific course topics.) • whether or not the writing guide was referenced (0 or 1). this guide is a required book that teaches apa writing style. • number of additional instructor sources referenced (whole numbers from 0 upward). these are journal articles, textbook chapters, and other materials specifically recommended by the instructor. most relate to a particular assignment and are linked on the online course page. others are mentioned by the instructor in the learning guide, on the course page, or originate in another way from the instructor. • number of librarian-selected sources referenced (whole numbers from 0 upward). these are books, articles, chapters, and other materials relevant to the course in general and chosen by the psychology librarian in consultation with the instructor. they are linked to the online course page and to the course on the library link. • number of sources of other origin referenced (whole numbers from 0 upward). these are any other referenced sources excluding all the above (i.e., sources obtained in other ways by the student). print sources were examined separately from online sources in this category. descriptive statistics were calculated to summarise the data. statistical tests were then run to evaluate specific hypotheses. all tests were evaluated at the .05 probability level. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1) 39 descriptive statistics of source use the mean and the range from lowest to highest (or the percentage of use for those variables with possible values of only 0 or 1) were calculated for l1 and l2 for all source types (see table 1). table 1 source type and use in l1 and l2 source variable mean or % range of values obtained number of sources used l1 l2 types of sources used textbook l1 l2 learning guide l1 l2 writing guide l1 l2 additional instructor sources l1 l2 librarian-selected sources l1 l2 other origin: print l1 l2 other origin: online l1 l2 6.64 7.86 94% 83% 2.8% 2.8% 0% 0% 1.44 2.03 2.64 3.14 .53 .47 1.06 1.36 2 to 20 4 to 30 0 or 1 0 or 1 0 or 1 0 or 1 0 or 1 0 or 1 0 to 3 0 to 5 0 to 10 0 to 13 0 to 4 0 to 7 0 to 7 0 to 6 analyses of sources used in the first assignment (l1), the mean number of sources used was 6.64. this increased to 7.86 for l2. for l1 the least number of sources used by a student was 2 and the most was 20. on l2 the least was 4 and the most was 30. (median and mode were also calculated and showed no unexpected extremes: the median was 6 for l1 and 7 for l2; the mode was 7 for both assignments.) to test the significance of the difference between the means, a paired t-test was run on the data from the 36 participants. because it was hypothesised that the l2 mean would be larger than the l1 mean, a one-tailed test was run. the difference was significant, t(35) = 2.27, p <.05. students used significantly more sources for their second assignment than for their first assignment. the types of sources used were then analysed. weaver, n. e., barnard, e. 40 instructor sources the first source type examined was sources that the researchers believed students would think of as originating from the instructor; that is, sources the instructor told them to purchase or use, or that the instructor provided or referred them to. this group includes the textbook; the learning guide; the writing guide; and other materials (e.g., journal articles relevant to a specific assignment) originating from the instructor, which are labelled “additional instructor sources” in table 1. the results of the analysis are that some of these instructor sources were heavily referenced in the assignments, while others were not referenced at all. the textbook was mentioned by almost everyone: in l1, the textbook was referenced by 94% of students; in l2 it was also very frequently referenced (83%). the learning guide and the writing guide were much less frequently referenced: about 3% of students referenced the learning guide in l1 and in l2; no one referenced the writing guide in either assignment. of most interest was the use of the additional instructor sources because these sources were used frequently in the 2015 research with beginning-level students (see next section for more comparison with the earlier study). in the current research, the number of additional instructor sources varied slightly in the years studied because the online course page was dynamic, the modules in the learning guide were edited and updated, and the instructor added and subtracted resources over the 5 years. as a rough summary, there were usually three specific sources available as links on the course page for each assignment, and a number of other sources were mentioned by the instructor in her online posts, in module-linked resources on the course page, and in the modules themselves. any source that came from one of these origins was labelled an additional instructor resource. how often were these additional instructor sources used? most students did reference these sources: of the 36 students, 29 (81%) referenced at least one of them in l1, and 33 (92%) referenced at least one in l2. the mean number of additional instructor sources used in l1 was 1.44, ranging from 0 to 3 sources; the mean in l2 was 2.03, ranging from 0 to 5 sources. a onetailed paired t test was run to see if the difference was significant, and it was: t(35) = 2.33, p < .05. more of the additional instructor sources were used for l2 than for l1. librarian-selected sources librarian-selected sources consisted of books, journal articles, and other resources collected by the opnz psychology librarian in consultation with the course instructor; they are relevant for the course but not necessarily for any particular assignment, and are described to students as “background” reading or “additional” material. these sources can be accessed from the online course page or via the general library link if the student searches by course code (73212). as with the instructor sources, this list is dynamic and changes over the years; a typical year from those sampled would have a list of about 18 sources. these librarian-selected sources were referenced by most students in both assignments. in l1, 32 of the 36 students (89%) referenced at least one of them, and 34 students (94%) referenced at least one in l2. the mean number of librarian-selected sources used in l1 was 2.64, ranging from 0 to 10 sources. the mean number of librarian-selected sources used in l2 was 3.14, ranging from 0 to 13. this difference is, however, not significant: t(35) = 1.125, p = .13. sources of other origin any source listed on a student’s reference page that did not clearly come from the instructor sources or the librarian-selected sources was categorised as “other”. relatively few students used this type of source: for l1, 21 of the 36 students (58%) used another source; for l2, 27 of the 36 students (75%) did so. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1) 41 print and online sources were examined separately in this category. first, print and online sources were compared within each assignment. the result was that for both assignments students used fewer print sources of this type than online sources. in l1, a mean of .53 print sources were used (ranging from 0 to 4 sources) and 1.06 online sources (0 to 7). this difference was significant: t(35) = 2.22, p < .05. in l2, a mean of .47 print sources were used (0 to 7) and 1.36 online sources (0 to 6). this difference was also significant: t(35) = 3.33, p < .05. second, l1 and l2 were compared within source type. for print sources, about the same number were used for the two assignments: in l1, the print mean was .53 (0 to 4), while in l2 the print mean was .47 (0 to 7). this difference is not significant. for online sources, somewhat more were used in the second assignment than in the first assignment: in l1, the online mean was 1.06 (0 to 7), while it was 1.36 (0 to 6) in l2, but this difference is also not significant. analyses of sources used: comparison with earlier data in this section the new level 6 data is compared with the data collected earlier on level 5 students. (for full details of the previous research, see weaver & barnard, 2015.) the first analysis was of number of sources used. level 6 students used a mean of 6.64 sources for l1 and a mean of 7.86 sources for l2, which was a significant increase. in the previous study of level 5 students, the same pattern was observed, and it was again significant, but these beginning psychology students used fewer sources for both assignments than did the level 6 students: a mean of 3.62 sources for l1 and 5.34 sources for l2. types of sources used (instructor sources, librarian-selected sources, other sources) by the two groups of students were then compared. instructor sources most of the earlier students used the textbook for l1 and l2 (59% and 79%), but the rate of use was higher for the level 6 students in the current study (94% and 83%). both groups of students used the learning and writing guides very infrequently (1% to 16% for level 5 students, 0% to 2.8% for level 6). overall, the textbook is a popular source to reference by a clear majority of students regardless of level of study, while neither the learning guide nor the writing guide is a well-used source. for additional instructor sources, the closest comparable resource to those analysed for these level 6 students is a set of journal articles provided to the level 5 students by their instructors. in the earlier research these instructor sources were well used, especially in the first assignment. the most popular of the three articles was referenced by 83% of level 5 students in l1 and 43% in l2. in the current analysis of level 6 students’ assignments, 81% referenced an additional instructor source for l1, and 92% for l2. so all students do use these additional instructor sources frequently, but level 5 students tended to decrease their use in the second assignment while the level 6 students tended to increase their use. librarian-selected sources the mean number of librarian-selected sources used by the level 6 students was 2.64 in l1 and 3.14 in l2; there was a trend to higher use in the second assignment but it was not significant. level 5 students used librarian-selected sources less frequently (an average across the two types of .055 used on l1 and .57 l2) but, again, the trend was for an increased use for l2. other sources relatively fewer level 6 students used “other” origin sources than used sources from the instructor or the library. within an assignment, students used significantly fewer print than online weaver, n. e., barnard, e. 42 sources of this “other” type. across the assignments, print sources used were about the same for l1 but there was a trend towards using more online sources than print in l2. the research on level 5 students did not separate print from online “other” sources. combined, relatively few students used other sources but more did so for l2 (means were .38 on l1 and 1.72 for l2). analyses of marks for the first analysis of marks, the mean mark and range of marks for each assignment were calculated for the level 6 students. on l1 the mean mark achieved was 71.39 out of 100 possible marks (a letter grade of b+ on the opnz scale), and scores ranged from 54 to 92. on l2 the mean mark achieved was 75.42 (a-), with a range from 55 to 92. the increase was small but significant: in a one-tailed paired t test, t(35) = 3.04, p < .05. most students therefore increased their mark when they moved on to l2. variables that might be related to marks were then analysed. overall number of sources as related to marks on both l1 and l2 there was a positive relationship between number of sources on the reference page and the mark achieved. for l1, r = .27, p = .059. for l2, r =.35, p < .05. using a significance level of .05, assignments with more sources tended to get higher marks on both l1 and l2, significantly so on l2. type of source as related to marks in the instructor sources, almost all students referenced the textbook and almost no students referenced the learning guide or the writing guide, so no further testing was done. for the additional instructor sources, on the first assignment, r = .29, p < .05, so there was a significant positive relationship. on the second assignment, r = .24, p = .07. to summarise, using more of the additional instructor sources did relate positively to marks, but significantly so only on l1. did the use of librarian-selected sources relate to marks? as with the additional instructor sources, the answer is “yes” but significantly so for only one of the assignments: for l1, r = .26, p = .059, while for l2, the relationship was stronger, with r = .39, p < .05. using more librarianselected sources did, therefore, relate positively to marks, but this was significant on only the second assignment. did the use of sources from some other origin relate to marks? the use of print sources was analysed separately from the use of online sources. for print, there was no significant relationship on either assignment. for online, the result was the same, with no significant relationship to marks on either assignment. analyses of mark achieved: comparison with earlier data open polytechnic level 6 students achieved a mean mark on l1 of 71.39 (54 to 92), while the mean mark for l1 for the level 5 students was 64.47 (18 to 91). on l2, the mean for level 6 was 75.42 (55 to 92) while the mean for level 5 was 62.06 (17 to 91). overall, the more advanced students tended to do better. when tested statistically, the drop from l1 to l2 was small but significant for level 5 students; the increase from l1 to l2 for the level 6 students was also significant. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1) 43 overall number of sources as related to marks on both l1 and l2—for both sets of students—there tended to be a small positive correlation between number of sources on the reference page and the mark achieved. for the level 6 students, this positive relationship was significant for the second assignment; for the level 5 students it was significant for both assignments (at the .05 level). type of source as related to marks was the use of particular types of sources related to marks? for the level 6 students, use of the additional instructor sources tended to relate positively to marks, significantly so for the l2 assignment. for the level 5 students, more use of instructor-supplied journal articles tended to relate to a higher mark achieved, significantly so for the l1 assignment. for librarian-selected sources, more sources used related to higher marks, significantly so on l2, for both the level 6 and the level 5 students. for both l1 and l2 and for both groups of students, there was no significant relationship between the use of other sources and the marks. comparison across years finally, note needs to be made that in the analyses reported above for the level 6 students, the researchers summed across 5 years of the course. numbers enrolled each year were low, and reduced further when data could be collected from only those students who gave permission. hence, analysis for any individual year would have been based on very few individuals. basing conclusions on just a few participants seemed more problematic than summing across years. in addition, while aspects of the course did change over the years, assignments stayed much the same. many of the sources provided to students also stayed the same, so it seemed reasonable to combine years. still, it is good to do at least a cursory examination of possible differences across years. summing across years, students used more sources on l1 (mean = 6.64) than on l2 (mean = 7.86). was this true of all the years? this pattern did hold for 4 of the 5 years tested. what types of sources were used? almost all students from all years (34 of the 36 students) used the textbook; almost no students used the learning guide (1 of 36 students) or the writing guide (0 of 36 students). summed across the years, students used more of the additional instructor sources for l2 (mean = 2.03) than l1 (mean = 1.44). year by year, that same pattern of a higher mean for l2 than l1 held for 4 of the 5 years. was there more difference across years for the other two types of sources? no. more of the librarian-selected sources were used for l2 than l1 (means of 3.14 vs. 2.64) when summed across years, and that pattern held for 4 of the 5 years tested. for the other sources, summed across years, about the same number were used on both assignments for print sources but somewhat more used for l2 than l1 for online sources. year by year, print use varied on l1 compared with l2, but online use did go up for l2 compared with l1 in 4 of the 5 years. as to marks, the overall mean mark across years was 71.4 on l1 and 75.4 on l2. for l1, all years were within 4.9 marks of that overall mean. for l2, all years were within 6.2 marks of the overall l2 mean. in 4 of the 5 years, l2 marks were higher than l1 marks. weaver, n. e., barnard, e. 44 discussion data summary and evaluation of hypotheses what sources do level 6 students studying psychology through odl use in their assignments, and how does source use relate to their marks? the most used sources came from the course experts (i.e., the instructor and the library), including the textbook that instructors encouraged students to buy, additional resources provided by the instructor, and the course-related library resources. students used sources they found for themselves less often. as for marks, there was a significant increase in overall marks from l1 to l2. the mark achieved went up with the overall number of sources referenced, the number of additional instructor sources referenced, and the number of librarian-selected sources referenced, although this change was not always significant for both assignments. the use of sources the students found in other places was not significantly related to their marks. the data across the 5 years of course offerings were quite consistent, with all major measures repeated in at least 4 of the 5 years. these data generally support the three hypotheses. first, students did often reference recommended sources from the instructor and from the library; they were less likely to reference sources they found elsewhere. second, the number of sources referenced related positively to marks, significantly so in one of the assignments. third, in particular, the number of instructor and library-recommended sources related positively to marks for at least one assignment, while the number of other sources the students found did not relate to their marks. no specific hypotheses had been formed about how these level 6 students would compare with the level 5 students tested earlier, but an important goal of this research was to allow that comparison. the result overall was that while level 5 students tended to use fewer sources and receive lower marks than the level 6 students, their patterns of source use were quite similar. students studied across the two levels frequently referenced sources recommended or provided by their instructors; all used at least some types of librarian-selected sources quite often; there was less use of sources they found in other places; both groups of students used more sources on l2 than on l1. as to relation to mark achieved, again the pattern was similar across both groups of students: students who used more sources tended to achieve higher marks; those who specifically used more of particular instructor and librarian-selected sources tended to achieve higher marks; the use of other sources found by the student did not relate to marks. there were some other interesting results. first, even these level 6 students made heavy use of their textbook. why would even these more advanced students reference their textbook so often when it is a secondary source and they know the assignment emphasised using primary sources? one possible reason is that textbooks are expensive in new zealand, so a student who purchases one might want to use it as much as possible. in fact, most of our students do purchase the textbook. in this time of easy (and often free) online access, it might seem surprising that students would purchase an expensive text. but, remember first that opnz students study by distance and are located all around the country and sometimes overseas, so they are unlikely to meet classmates face to face and so cannot share books easily. second, opnz library policy is that textbooks are never loaned to students. could the textbook be obtained elsewhere without buying? some data were collected to try to answer this question. over the years tested in this research, two editions of the textbook were published. the 2013 edition is not held by any public library in new zealand and only by three polytechnics/universities, from which students can borrow only if they are enrolled at those institutions. it is not available as an ebook. the 2016 edition is held in print at only one new zealand university; as an ebook it is available only for enrolled students at that university. older editions can be downloaded (illegally) but the editions used in the course for the years tested are harder to obtain in new zealand. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1) 45 a second interesting finding is the occurrence of differences between l1 and l2. many of these differences seem to make sense: the overall number of sources used increased for the second assignment; the use of particularly relevant instructor sources and librarian-selected sources increased; the use of the textbook decreased. except for the textbook (which went down in their l2), those patterns also held for level 5 students in the earlier study. finally, it was a pleasant surprise to find that many of the tested results achieved statistical significance. because of opnz’s requirement that students must give permission before their assignments are analysed (whereas in the earlier research free sampling of all submitted assignments was permitted), it was expected there would be far fewer assignments to study and that this might affect significance levels. but, in fact, there was quite a high return rate (65%), and as reported in results, many findings achieved significance. almost all results that did not achieve significance were at least in the predicted direction. it is acknowledged that requesting student permission to study their assignments is a good protection of participant rights and, in this research at least, it did not unduly affect significance. the findings reported here relate well to previous research. first, they replicate for level 6 students much of what was found for level 5 students (weaver & barnard, 2015). both sets of students frequently referenced sources from course experts (the instructor, the library), more so than they referenced other sources they found for themselves. use of sources in general and of most of those from the experts went up for l2 as compared with l1. the number of sources used overall and the number of sources used from these experts related positively to marks, while the use of other sources did not. these results also replicate those from other researchers. jones and allen (2012) found “an emphasis on the using of sources that were provided by the tutor” (p. 102) in their study of psychology students. similarly, davis and colleagues (e.g., davis & cohen, 2001; davis, 2003) also found the instructor influenced the number and quality of sources cited. lantz et al. (2016) found that up to 30% of students consulted their textbooks (in a course where, like the opnz course studied here, the instructor encouraged students to use the required texts). librarianselected sources, in particular those relevant to the specific course or assignment, were often referenced by opnz students and by those studied by other researchers: rafferty (2013) found that the most-cited sources related to the specific course. in case studies that included psychology students, calkins and kelley (2007), echo other researchers in noting that “many undergraduates are unable to discriminate between credible and noncredible sources” (p. 151). this isn’t a surprise, but it is a possible reason why students rely so heavily on materials that are recommended or provided by experts. the increase in the use of sources, and in particular the use of additional instructor sources and librarian-selected sources, may have occurred for several reasons. pragmatically, students were told in the assignment to use more sources for their second report so, indeed, you would expect that to happen. secondly, students should gain from the experience of information search and source use in l1, and from the feedback given on that first report when it is returned to them. (indeed, one of the authors, who is the course instructor and marks some of the first assignments, often writes specific encouragement to increase source use on the second assignment.) the increased number of sources may also reflect students’ growing “scholarliness” and obligation to use more sources to develop that “scholarliness”. in fact, jones and allen (2012) report that their psychology students realise that expectations increase as they progress in their studies. as one of their students put it, “they expect a lot more referencing, a lot more books used, and you can’t just use one book and get all your information from there you have to look for journals, books, loads” (unnamed informant quoted by jones & allen, 2012, p. 105). lantz et al. (2016) also found increased use of at least some types of sources on the second assignment, echoing the current result. weaver, n. e., barnard, e. 46 limitations, implications and future research there are, of course, cautions and limitations to this research. data were collected from students in only one course, in one discipline, at one institution, and all students were using a combination of print and online resources to study by distance. in addition, researchers were able to study only those assignments from students who gave permission. it could be suggested that this sample favours students who do well in the course or who are at least interested enough to continue their involvement with it. for most of the analyses, data were summed across 5 years of the course. while the researchers believe this does fairly reflect most years, discrepancies may have been overlooked. what are the implications of this research for instructors and for librarians? in earlier research with beginning-level students (weaver & barnard, 2015), it was found that instructor recommendations of sources seemed to be most influential on source use early in the course, with librarian-selected sources increasing in frequency of use later. the researchers suggested then that instructors might help most at the start of a course, when students seemed to be relying on their recommendations, and that librarians might intervene a bit later in a course, after the first assignment, when students seemed more willing to move beyond instructor recommendations. in the present study with more advanced students, there was more frequent use of library resources for both assignments than had occurred by the beginning students, and instructor sources were also well used for both assignments. the overall number of sources used was also higher for the more advanced students. clearly, students are making more use of the librarian-selected sources (as well as the instructor sources) by the time they reach the second assignment—perhaps they are encouraged by feedback received on the first assignment or by being more familiar with the resources later in the course. the recommendation now might be that students should be helped earlier to move beyond the sources provided to find more of their own sources—this may be the focus needed for instructor and librarian intervention with these more advanced students. a second implication of this research, both here with the level 6 students and earlier with level 5 students, is that the use of sources beyond those from instructors or the library seems to have less effect on the mark achieved. this result is difficult to interpret because the number of such other sources used was so small (i.e., no effect may have been obvious because so little data could be analysed). perhaps that very fact—that the students studied here reference few sources beyond those recommended by the instructor and the library—is the most important aspect of this finding. this may lead future course leaders to modify the assignment to clarify that students should find more of their own sources (at least for the second assignment), and it may lead the instructor and the librarian to work together to help students take that next step towards scholarly behaviour and scholarly writing. in 2015 the researchers proposed to continue their work by analysing a different course and, in particular, a higher-level course. that is the research reported here. they also suggested that they might then go on changing their method, moving from citation analysis to a more qualitative approach. this change of tactic is echoed in several recent studies by other researchers: dunne (2016) used “ethnographic” research that followed five undergraduates in their “research journey” by having them record a diary of their information-seeking behaviour, by observing them as they researched, and by conducting post-research interviews. datig (2016) combined citation analysis with focus groups to examine research by advanced undergraduates. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1) 47 there are interesting questions to be studied in what might be called the cognition of source use. how do students think about an assignment and then decide how to find sources? are they influenced not just by instructors and librarians but also by practicalities such as how long an article or chapter is, or how easy it is to find or to read? when they find a source for themselves, how do they determine whether it is of a high enough academic quality and whether it is truly relevant to the assignment? interviews, questionnaires or other ethnographic methods seem to be the best strategies to begin answering these questions. conclusion after researchers completed an earlier study of level 5 psychology students, two assignments were collected from students at the next level of study. the number and type of sources referenced and the marks achieved were examined, and three hypotheses were evaluated: that students would use recommended sources from the course professionals, probably more often than sources they found elsewhere; that students who used more sources overall would achieve higher marks; and that students who used more instructor and more librarian-selected sources (but probably not sources that they found elsewhere) would tend to achieve higher marks. all these hypotheses were supported on at least one assignment of the two studied. current results were also compared with those obtained earlier from beginning-level students. there were many similarities: in the type of sources used most frequently (preference for sources from instructors and the library over those found elsewhere), in the change from the first to the second assignment (increasing source use), and in the relationships between source use and marks (more sources related to higher marks; more sources from instructor and library related to higher marks). comparisons were made with the literature on citation analysis and student writing, some implications for instructors and for librarians were considered, and ideas for future research were suggested. acknowledgement we thank our managers and colleagues for their support, dr. zlatko kovacic and dr. lincoln hely for statistics advice, and our students for their enthusiasm and effort in completing their course assignments. special thanks to those students who gave permission for us to analyse their course work in this research project. references american library association. 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(2017). student marketing research project 2017, produced by bam agency (technical report). london, england: author. watson, a. p. (2010). tips for conducting citation analysis in an academic setting. mississippi libraries, 74(1), 14–16. retrieved from http://www.misslib.org/resources/documents/mlarchive/ml2010spring.pdf journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1) 49 weaver, n. e., & barnard, e. (2015). a citation analysis of psychology students’ use of sources in online distance learning. journal of library & information services in distance learning, 9(4), 312–329. https://doi.org/10.1080/1533290x.2015.1127865 biographical notes nancy evans weaver contact via estelle barnard: estelle.barnard@openpolytechnic.ac.nz nancy is a cognitive psychologist, recently retired as principal lecturer in psychology at the open polytechnic of new zealand. she has worked in face-to-face and distance learning for 40 years in colleges, polytechnics and universities in the united states and new zealand. nancy is a member of the american psychological association. her teaching and research interests centre on memory and knowledge representation, perception, applied cognition and ergonomics, and the psychological aspects of grief. estelle barnard estelle.barnard@openpolytechnic.ac.nz estelle is a librarian at the open polytechnic of new zealand and has been a librarian in various roles over the years. her interests are providing online learning support, information literacy instruction and research assistance to faculty. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. weaver, n. e., & barnard, e. (2019). source use by second-year psychology students in online distance learning. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1), [33–49.]. © distance education association of new zealand 91 video conferencing in distance learning: a new zealand schools’ perspective rachel roberts eprincipal taranet taranaki, new zealand introduction distance learning is characterised by the separation of place and/or time between teacher and learners and learning resources; it involves interactions that are synchronous or asynchronous; it can be conducted through a variety of media and may employ a variety of delivery methods. technology is a tool that enhances distance learning (lai, pratt, & grant, 2003). the evolution of distance learning is generally described as generational, a term that relates to the technologies and pedagogies prevalent at a particular time. scholars vary in their categorisation of the generations in relation to distance learning. a simple overview of the generational stages begins with the correspondence phase and its reliance on print-based media; then radio and television were effective means of broadcasting to the masses; the next generation used computer-assisted learning and advances in telecommunications (audio and videoconference). and that brings us to the current generation, which uses the internet for distance learning (rumble, 2001, in lai et al., 2003). web 2.0 technologies are already on the stage to be generation five in the distance learning story. some scholars have included a systems approach as a step in the generational timeline, in acknowledgement of large-scale distance educational institutions such as the open university, which led to “new ways of organising technology and human resources, instructional techniques and educational theories” (moore & kearsley, 2005, p. 33). journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 91–107 © distance education association of new zealand 92 video-conferencing solutions video conferencing is a synchronous audio and video telecommunications technology in which people are able to see and talk to others from two or more separate locations. it can also support the sharing of files, applications, and electronic workspaces. the two main types of video-conferencing systems are desktop and dedicated systems (becta, 2003). desktop video conferencing operates through a normal computer. this type of conferencing is most suited to one-to-one communication, and is used in some new zealand classrooms for small-group conferencing. this is a good low-cost option for schools (western, 2006). one example of how desktop video conferencing is being used in distance learning is project live, an initiative of the northern health board school. the aims of project live are to increase student/teacher contact and facilitate peer interactions, enhance face-to-face tutorials, and share teacher expertise across the school (northern health board school, 2007). dedicated video-conferencing systems usually comprise a video camera and codec device for recording, compressing, and sending video and audio data across a network; two television monitors (one to view the local site and another to view connecting sites); and an audio unit and controlling device (mason, 1994). figure 1 dedicated video-conferencing system journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 91–107 © distance education association of new zealand 93 data can be inputted through a document camera or connected data device such as a laptop. nationally, an increasing number of secondary schools are collaborating to use dedicated video-conferencing systems to provide distance learning opportunities for their students. these schools have formed a national video-conferencing network linked through a virtual private network. history of video conferencing video conferencing in distance education has developed from the broadcasting generation through the media of television. the first interactive video conferencing took place through the cabling of closed-circuit television connections. satellite television links that were originally broadcast then became interactive by linking audio, and delivery of distance learning took place through satellite television beamed to different locations. participants could use the telephone to ask questions and engage in discussion. this form of distance learning required a studio for the television production, and technicians to provide support on all receiving sites. the national university teleconference network (a consortium of american universities) was an early user of this technology (duning, 2000). in the 1970s, video conferencing was trialled across telephone networks but the quality was too poor to be effective. faster digital networks improved the quality of transmission in the 1980s, but it was still too expensive for general adoption. advances in video compression, improved bandwidth and ip (internet protocol) technology in the 1990s improved the quality of video conferencing, but cost was still a prohibitive factor for general educational uptake. it wasn’t until the early 2000s that widespread availability of increased bandwidth, lower prices for equipment, and standardisation and interoperability of networks led to greater uptake by many sectors. at this time, video conferencing began to be known in new zealand education as a tool to support distance learning. web-based video conferencing became a commonly used technology in homes, offices, and schools as the inception of cu-seeme led to a plethora of free services and software such as skype, msn messenger, and net meeting (wikipedia, 2007). key stages in adopting video conferencing there were several stages in the growth and development of distance learning through video conferencing in new zealand secondary schools. in the early 1990s, the correspondence school was the first in the school sector to journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 91–107 © distance education association of new zealand 94 begin trialling telecommunications technology. casatech, a group of seven canterbury schools, was initiated in 1994. these schools collaborated to teach classes to each other’s students through an audiographics network (browning, 2005). by 1996, other school networks using audiographics had been established. they were tositech (top of the south island schools cluster), centraltech (lower north island schools), ngata memorial college, and rangitikei college. funding from the ministry of education (moe) rural schools pool enabled these networks to grow (moffatt, 1996). kaupapa ara whakawhiti matauranga (kawm) was the first e-learning cluster to form, and one of their main goals was to use video conferencing to enhance learning opportunities for their students. established in 2000, kawm has grown to over 20 schools spread all over new zealand from kaitaia to invercargill; it includes the mäori boarding schools, kura kaupapa, and east coast area schools. te kura hiko (the online classroom) was part of a wider ict project (with professional development for classroom teachers, and a shared infrastructure) which aimed to strengthen curriculum delivery. another key focus was the development of wharekura expert teachers to address the shortage of mäori medium subject specialists at the secondary level (stewart, 2001). although kawm were pioneers in providing video-conferencing learning opportunities for their students, it was otagonet that would provide the model for many other new zealand schools to follow. community trust funding in 2001 delivered fully equipped broadband video-conferencing facilities for every school in the cluster (“otagonet shows the way,” 2002). otagonet developed a virtual private network, which was to become the telecom schoolzone service that is used by the majority of e-learning schools today. otagonet also documented their journey with extensive formal research (notably e-learning initiative: evaluation of the otagonet project, a report submitted to the community trust of otago; and the work of 2004 efellow lynda walsh-pasco, from teletubbies to teleteacher: effective practices in video conference teaching). a key enabler of the e-learning cluster development nationally was the improvement in bandwidth afforded by project probe (2002–2005). this was a joint government initiative that aimed to ensure all schools, including the most rural and remote, had access to broadband (egovernment, 2007). the moe funding of a national video conferencing bridge (“ict importance backed,” 2003), and investment in the development of the virtual learning network (vln) (“transforming the learning environment,” 2006), were journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 91–107 © distance education association of new zealand 95 also important factors in the initiation and development of new e-learning clusters and their collaboration within a wider national network. the vln, which originated within the correspondence school, and is now a division of the moe ict unit, has a central role in coordinating and anticipating the future needs of clusters. the correspondence school, new zealand’s largest distance learning provider in the school sector with a roll of 16,000, provided some video-conferencing support to early clusters such as kawm (waiti, 2005) and otagonet (the correspondence school, 2002), but did not play a pivotal role in the development of online learning communities. derek wenmoth, then esection head of the correspondence school, had envisioned that: there is no longer going to be a highly centralised focus on the correspondence school. we will have an anchoring role, networking schools to ensure the breadth of curriculum is provided…. broadband will also enable schools to deliver education in a more collaborative way— moving away from teacher/student relationships towards the development of learning communities (“broadband on its way,” 2002, ¶ 33). the correspondence school may not have gone on to collaborate with schools because of the restructuring that was taking place within the school at that time. around 50% of the school’s 20,000 students were in fact already attending traditional secondary schools, using tcs courses to supplement the limited subject offerings of what was available to students in their own school. the transition into an elearning environment, i thought, provided a wonderful opportunity to not simply supplement our existing school system, but to transform it! unfortunately, at a time of increasing scrutiny into costs etc., the opportunity for transformation was lost to those on the conservative side of the fence—and so we go on building new old schools…. (wenmoth, 2007, ¶ 1–2) the correspondence school has recently begun to offer video conference support again, with a number of classes being offered on the vln brokerage website for the first time in 2009. the appointment of a vc coordinator within the correspondence school has helped it to work more collaboratively with cluster schools, enabling them to identify areas of need, and providing classes alongside other schools to help fill the curriculum gaps. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 91–107 © distance education association of new zealand 96 in 2008 and 2009, e-learning cluster leadership funding was made available to school clusters by the moe to maintain cluster leadership roles and cross-cluster relationship building, with a key goal of e-learning cluster sustainability. this has given rise to “a new type of leader among new zealand’s schools—the eprincipal. not principals in the traditional sense, the eprincipals are tasked with managing clusters of schools that deliver virtual classes through the internet” (“leaders of the e-learning evolution”, 2008, n.p.). this group of e-learning leaders, who have named themselves mahi tahi (‘working as one’) have made a difference within their own clusters and nationally as they collaborate to support e-learning in schools. they have worked to develop and refine policy and procedure for the delivery of online learning, share best practise, provide professional learning opportunities for teachers, develop student support networks and structures, set up programmes such as scholarship mentoring, and gifted and talented students; identify areas for innovation; support research; and look for opportunities to include the wider community and support new schools and clusters as they join the vln. a strong leadership base in the e-learning clusters has also been reflected by a growth in the number of students enrolled in online classes. for example, in the taranet cluster of the schools, the student roll has grown from 40 students in 2007 to 104 in 2009, with 21 new classes being offered, compared with 12 new classes in 2007 (roberts, 2009). video conferencing in the new zealand school sector as discussed, school e-learning clusters have existed in new zealand since the early 1990s but have grown exponentially in number since 2003. browning (2005, p. 3) defines them as, “a regional or interest-based cluster of schools that use one of, or a selection of, icts (including video conferencing) to enable the sharing of resources, staffing and students, thus creating a virtual community of practice where the benefits to all involved are greater than the sum of the individual contributions”. there are approximately 15 e-learning communities actively operating within new zealand, with more schools considering joining or forming an e-learning community (allot-mcphee, personal communication, august, 2007). all participate in the delivery of and access to online classes through the vln (www.virtuallearning.school.nz). in 2009 there are 252 schools and 154 e-teachers participating in the vln. there are 1401 student enrolments and 212 classes (reisch, personal communication, march 2009). journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 91–107 © distance education association of new zealand 97 figure 2 e-learning clusters 2009 source: www.virtuallearning.school.nz the growth and development of these e-learning communities has been ‘organic’; practice has been shared amongst the communities by osmosis—not by design. schools have seen the possible opportunities and collaborated to enable those opportunities with (until recently) little formal national coordination. they follow a similar learning/teaching model, in which videoconferencing sessions are scheduled to a national timetable, and students work independently during their non-contact time to complete work that many access through web-based learning management systems. students continue to interact with their teacher and their class members through these online learning environments, email, and (sometimes) instant messaging and text messaging. most follow a contributed staffing model whereby schools that contribute a class to the national network are able to access other classes from that network for their own students. all clusters have a priority enrolment for students from their own schools before they enable access to students nationally. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 91–107 © distance education association of new zealand 98 students in small rural schools now have as much choice as those in large city schools. access to distance learning through video conferencing offers senior students more choices for subject selection. in some schools this has led to the retention of students who might have previously left the district to attend secondary school. it has also led to the retention of teachers because they are able to teach in their chosen areas of expertise (baldwin, 2006). there is also a higher level of support than is possible through the correspondence school (baldwin, 2006), as well as increased student motivation (browning, 2005). the ability to see your teacher and peers every week can enhance the ‘social presence’ of participants and make the learning experience more positive and enjoyable (walsh-pasco, 2005; mason, 1994). social presence is one of the four main factors affecting teaching and learning effectiveness in video conferencing and is “defined as the extent to which a communication medium allows the actual physical presence of the communication partners to be conveyed” (short et al., 1976 in chan, tan, & tan, 2002, p. 280). the increased collaboration between schools has been a goal and a positive outcome for many schools participating in e-learning clusters (browning, 2005; waiti, 2005). the new zealand council for educational research (nzcer) has been commissioned by the moe to explore students’ experiences of learning in virtual classrooms. results from this research will be available in september 2009. common issues the logistics of a shared timetable, organisation, communication, and coordination between e-teachers, students, and schools within and across clusters has been challenging for schools. these challenges are being addressed as clusters develop procedures and protocols to govern the way they operate. technical barriers are a concern for some schools that have yet to develop a robust network infrastructure, have access to reliable technical support, or access to true broadband speeds. video conferencing brings a higher workload for e-teachers. teaching itself is a more intense experience during a videoconference lesson than in a traditional lesson, and more time is needed for adequate preparation (walsh-pasco, 2005). having appropriate release time and support for developing online courses is critical for teachers. one key to this is the need for professional development (blomeyer, 2002). professional development needs to be ongoing to help teachers make the transition to online teaching, and pedagogical training is as important as technical training (waiti, 2005). journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 91–107 © distance education association of new zealand 99 becoming an online teacher brings the same stress and workload as being a new teacher again (even for those teachers with years of experience), and is in itself a rigorous professional learning opportunity. teachers will need to learn new teaching strategies, adapt curricula, develop technical skills, and become familiar with a very different learning environment. an online class is more open and transparent than is teaching inside the four walls of the classroom—teachers are open to the scrutiny of others not only within their school, but across other schools as well. there is a need to have good systems in place to support teachers to ensure the provision of quality teaching. jeffares (2006) says, “(i)n order to better support our eteachers it is necessary … that eteaching be part of their performance appraisal, that they engage in ongoing professional development during the year and that we carefully guard their non-contact time” (p. 2). there is a need for better on-site student support in many schools. in-school support is important to the success of secondary-school e-learning students. “students need a place of supervised study where they have an adult taking an interest in their work and helping them to solve any problems they may have, helping them to organize their time and stay on task. they also need access to computers and other resources to support their learning” (jeffares, 2006, p. 1). all schools have a designated vc coordinator whose role it is to liaise with e-learning students, teachers, nzqa, and institutions. they organise supervision for assessments, provide access to learning materials, and are the main point of support for students. although they provide a valuable administrative service, they do not provide the level of learning support that is really needed. a good model of student support can be found at roxburgh area school where they have established a learning centre and appointed mteachers (mentor teachers) to work with students who are not in a face-toface class (pullar & brennan, 2007). sustainability is an ongoing issue. all clusters struggle to find renewable sources of funding. so far, funding has been accessed from short-term contestable sources such as community trusts and moe initiatives (ict professional development funding, collaborative innovations funding, extending high standards across schools and, more recently, e-learning cluster leadership funding). “funding eases the development of the distance education enterprise by putting in place basic people and organizational support services or by funding the development of new courses” (meyer, 2002, p. 5). journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 91–107 © distance education association of new zealand 100 this type of funding has been crucial for the establishment of new zealand e-learning clusters, but clearly this is not sustainable in the long term. part of the funding issue lies in the provision of shared staffing across schools, and the funding formula attached to students. most of the secondary-school e-learning communities participating in the vln work on a ‘tatau tatau e’ system based on the good will of all those involved. teachers are contributed to the e-learning faculty, and students access the courses with no money changing hands. as enrolments continue to grow nationally and the collaborations between different schools and e-learning communities ‘cross-fertilize’ at a growing rate, the simple exchange of students and teachers will not be adequate to ensure fairness and equity across all schools. in 2005, browning requested that the moe actively address the development of a suitable funding model. so far there has been no change to the funding models. as well as reliable funding, there are a number of success factors that would ensure the sustainability of e-learning clusters. they are: strong leadership, with school principals committed to and actively supporting the cluster; the development of a shared vision and a plan on how it will be achieved; a cluster culture where every school collaborates for the good of the whole group; quality teachers who also have a commitment to e-learning, and the appointment of staff specifically to coordinate e-learning in their schools; and support from the moe for improving infrastructure, providing broadband, and professional development (browning, 2005). future trends video conferencing and e-learning in new zealand schools has the potential to offer more than simply widening the curriculum choices of students. there are opportunities for students, teachers, and the wider community to connect with others and engage in a diverse range of activities limited only by our imagination. (for examples of these activities see http://bardwired.blogspot. com/search/label/video%20conferencing.) students are already engaging in digital conversations with experts and joining virtual field trips. teachers are tapping into a wider network of expertise through online professional learning opportunities such as workshops, curriculum support meetings, and conferences. a range of initiatives are currently being trialled and supported by the vln. the national library is trialling professional development for teachers in the use of their online resources. te kete ipurangi (tki), the online learning centre, has a schedule of digital conversations to familiarise teachers with the tki site and resources found there. music tuition has been trialled successfully and is continuing, with schools in remote locations journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 91–107 © distance education association of new zealand 101 having access to the expertise of tutors from the canterbury school of music. sport and recreation new zealand (sparc) has linked expert coaches to schools and regional coaches. in kura kaupapa, a project started in 2007 and continuing into 2009 is evaluating the effectiveness of online learning environments using lams, moodle, and adobe connect to support student learning outcomes in bilingual educational settings. a growing number of tertiary organisations offer courses to schools and their local communities through the vln. in 2008, otago polytechnic, wintec, and telford rural polytechnic offered 26 courses ranging from apiculture to early childhood education. natcoll has recently offered courses in digital media. the wider community is beginning to come on board, as is a group of dannevirke farmers who are studying with video conference support through crown agriculture research (reisch, 2009). there will be a rise in the number of urban schools that become involved in the vln, which has so far been over-represented by rural schools. in 2009, dunedinnet schools began teaching and learning online, as did wellington high school. schools see the vln as an opportunity to personalise learning by providing more tailored and flexible learning pathways for their students. a small number of primary schools are beginning to tap into the vln, engaging their students in digital conversations and exploring the sharing of teachers to provide language learning for year 7 and 8 students. these learning opportunities reinforce the core elements outlined in the revised new zealand curriculum. in terms of vision we want to see learners who are ‘connected’, ‘actively involved’ and ‘lifelong learners’. we want to improve competencies such as ‘managing self’ and ‘participating’. we want to develop a curriculum that embodies principles such as ‘learning to learn’ and ‘community engagement’ and we also want to foster values such as ‘innovation, inquiry and curiosity’. an environment such as the virtual learning network allows students to develop their own learning pathways, to selfmanage, to connect and to collaborate with others. (bolton & roberts, 2008, n.p.) another trend already making itself felt is the adoption of a range of technologies (as well as or instead of) video conferencing to support online learning. adobe connect, a web-conferencing tool, is widely used by southland schools for their online classes alongside audio conferencing. an ever-growing swag of web 2.0 tools, such as wikis, blogs, and podcasting, are being added to the e-teacher toolkit—along with skype, im, and text—to journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 91–107 © distance education association of new zealand 102 communicate with students. most e-learning clusters and schools have provided learning management systems such as moodle or knowledgenet, and teachers are actively developing online spaces for their classes. with professional learning support, e-teachers are now able to choose the most pedagogically appropriate tool and don’t need to simply rely on their once-aweek video-conferencing session to interact with their students. a significant trend of distance learning is the convergence of face-to-face learning with distance learning (new zealand ministry of education, 2004). the technologies and methodologies used in distance learning are increasingly being used in face-to-face teaching, so that on-campus students’ learning is often augmented by the use of web-based materials and multimedia presentations (lai, pratt, & grant, 2003, p. 14). what is evolving is a new form of ‘blended education’. in the future, teachers may or may not be in the same physical location as their students, and ict will be an integral part of virtually every lesson (browning, 2005, p. 3). this trend toward blended education is of particular importance to all new zealand schools, especially those that are embarking on distance learning through video conferencing as they struggle with the issues outlined above. conclusions tension is being felt in schools now, as the flexible, self-directed and open nature of distance learning crosses over into highly structured, timetabled, current traditional school settings. distance learning cannot be simply overlaid onto existing school systems. schools will need to transform to assimilate the traditional and 21st century models to better meet the changing needs of our students. the transition is not a simple one and will require a high level of leadership, commitment, and support, and an understanding that it is not a technological shift that will enable this—but a pedagogical shift. systems need to change at a school level: they also need to change at a national level. as e-learning communities have grown over the intervening years, many of the issues that they encountered have been common to all and, with the increased collaboration between e-learning communities in the provision of distance education, these issues have wider implications for the national network as a whole. secondary school e-learning communities journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 91–107 © distance education association of new zealand 103 have now matured to the stage where they need to develop a more structured, cohesive, arrangement than is currently in place. after a decade of innovation in the use of telecommunications technologies (first audio-graphics, then video conferencing) in some of our smaller secondary schools we are at a point where we must move from a ‘cottage industry’ approach to something that is more systemic. (wenmoth, 2006, ¶ 2). without losing local autonomy, e-learning communities need more centralised coordination and governance as well as the provision of adequate resourcing and sustainable funding models in order to continue to lead the way in the e-learning landscape. planning is currently underway amongst the mahi tahi group to form a national organisation with a view to sustaining growth and development of the vln community. discussions have begun on the development of a charter and the possible structures and roles of a national organisation. the challenge for every school that is part of this network is that they will each need to commit to sustaining this organisation from their own school’s resources, because there will be no further moe funding for cluster leadership. the purpose of a new independent organisation would be to provide guidance and support (especially for new schools and emerging clusters), address issues of sustainability, lead national educational activities (such as digital conversations, scholarship mentoring, and gifted and talented programmes), provide a national voice for clusters, take over development of the vln website, foster innovation, facilitate collaboration and the sharing of ideas through a coherent network, and provide professional growth for e-teachers and cluster leaders (allott-mcphee & pullar, 2009). when a sustainable national network can be assured, we will have an economy of scale that allows for the effective use of resources through collaboration and sharing within a network that is shaped and driven by the schools themselves. most importantly though, our students will continue to benefit from an enriched and extended curriculum that caters for their individual learning pathways within a ubiquitous and flexible learning environment. acknowledgments thanks for the input and work of the virtual learning network community: carolyn bennett (farnet); jan collier, phil buchanan (coronet); conor bolton (volcanics); clive hamill (centrenet); janet akhurst (baylink); dawn mitai-pehi (paerangi); anton coltham, andrew mcknight (welcom); journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 91–107 © distance education association of new zealand 104 inka helwig (the correspondence school); vicki smith (westnet); darren sudlow (cantatech); trevor storr (aorakinet); ken pullar, lynda walshpasco (otagonet); kymm mcphail (silc); pauline meinung (dunedinnet); maria krausse (westmount); sue winters, grey tuck, chris parsons, maurice jackways (ementors); chris allot-mcphee, eddie reisch, howard baldwin (ministry of education). references allot-mcphee, c., & pullar, k. 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(2007). video conferencing. retrieved july 28, 2007 from http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/video conferencing journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 91–107 © distance education association of new zealand 107 biographical note as one of the first graduates of massey university’s distance learning bachelor of education programme, rachel has first-hand experience of the value of ict in teaching and learning. she has actively pursued this interest by continuing postgraduate work in the area of learning and educational technologies and in her career pathway as bardwired ictpd facilitator, and in her current role as eprincipal for taranet. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 91–107 journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1) 63 sociodemographics and psychosocial experience of distance learners in nigeria: a comparison of singlemode and dual-mode universities tajudeen adebisi, obafemi awolowo university ile-ife taiwo olatunji, university of padua abstract the study explored the psychosocial experience of distance learners at the national open university of nigeria (noun) and the obafemi awolowo university (oau) in ile-ife. psychosocial experience refers to the aggregate outcome of events and feelings that define or affect a person’s knowledge and perception of their prevailing social environment. the study adopted mixed-methods phenomenology research design. we deployed multiphase mixedmethod sampling involving a quota sampling technique to select 182 respondents, and a purposive sampling technique to select eight interviewees selected from the initial respondents—four students from each of noun and oau. two researcher-designed instruments—a questionnaire and an in-depth interview guide—were deployed for data collection. the collected data were analysed with frequency counts, percentage analysis, and phenomenological analysis. analysis of their sociodemographic characteristics showed that the profile of the students at the dual-mode university (oau) reflects characteristics of conventional distance learners more than does the profile of the students at the single-mode university (noun). distance learners at noun and oau had both similar and different psychosocial experience. their experience was largely positive—only 14% and 12.3% of noun and oau students (respectively) had considered dropping out. factors affecting learners’ experience in both institutions included personal motivation, the flexibility and cost-effectiveness of distance learning, insufficiency of facilitator-led tutorials (at noun), and difficulties due to work and family responsibilities (at oau). the study concluded that nigerian distance learners possess the requisite psychosocial capacity to negotiate meaning and acquire knowledge in single-mode or dual-mode institutions. keywords: distance learners; characteristics; psychosocial experience; adult; nigeria introduction globally and constantly, the evolution of distance learning and education has ridden on the back of the dialectical relationship of the challenges and opportunities of globalisation and technologies. distance education, in the form of online education, will become mainstream by 2025, especially if parts of the globe provide enabling infrastructure and frameworks (palvia et al., 2018). the recent experience of the covid-19 pandemic is testament that distance learning is inevitable.1 from an institutional perspective, universities that were “prepared” had an easier transition to online mode during the lockdowns. as distance learning continues to gain wider usability, we must pay attention to learners’ sociodemographic and psychosocial dynamics— 1 data for this study were obtained before the covid-19 pandemic and we did not give particular attention to the impact of the pandemic. adebisi, t., olatunji, t. 64 beyond the attention given to universities’ technological and administrative readiness. these dynamics form an effective basis for planning and facilitating distance learning. in nigeria, as in other countries, there is an increasing acceptance of distance learning as a major channel of widening access to higher education for the population of 200 million. this transition can be justified because distance education provides higher education opportunities to a vast and underprivileged population (ajadi et al., 2008). in contrast, gulati (2008) noted that despite the desirability of distance learning, poor and sociopolitically disadvantaged groups in developing countries face the massive challenge of access occasioned by limited infrastructural development. universities in the nigerian system can be broadly categorised into three types based on ownership: those owned by the federal government, those owned by the 36 state governments (the country’s federating units), and those owned by private institutions (including religious organisations) or individuals. in 2020, there were 172 universities in nigeria, of which 44 were federal, 52 were state, and 99 were private (national universities commission [nuc], 2021). apart from noun, only 12 of the universities have accredited distance learning sub-systems: nine of these belong to federal institutions, two to state institutions, and one to a private institution. obafemi awolowo university ile-ife (oau) is one of the nine federal universities that have accredited distance learning sub-systems. although the federal government of nigeria owned and financed both noun and oau, the basic difference between noun and oau is their characteristic nature as distance education institutions. the former, founded in 2002, is a single-mode institution while the latter, founded in 1962, is a dual-mode institution. the singlemode institution (also known as the open university) is a dedicated distance teaching institution, while the dual-mode is an integrated model. the singleand dual-mode institutions are autonomous and mixed institutions, respectively. national open university of nigeria has become the country’s largest university with 424,562 undergraduate students, while oau is ranked 11th with 28,876 students (nuc, 2019). learners at noun and oau have the same socio-economic, sociopolitical, and socio-technological contexts. these contexts significantly affect the distance learners’ psychosocial experience. although the nigerian university system has undergone policy and structural developments, the percentage of unsuccessful admission seekers has continued to increase, corresponding to the nation’s growing population. there is an admission crisis in nigeria, and the traditional educational institutions and facilities do not cater for the enormous populace that needs higher education. according to nigeria’s ministry of education, over 700,000 candidates qualified for university entrance in 1999, but only 80,000 gained admission (commonwealth of learning [col] international, 2001). since 1999 the percentage of applicants admitted has been up to 50% (ohioze et al., 2013), but in 2002/2003, the percentage of admissions was as low as 5.2% (51,843 of 994,381 applicants). in 2017, nigerian universities had 1.7 million undergraduate students and 234,000 postgraduate students (varrella, 2020b). national open university of nigeria has admitted that the university enrolment rate of about 1% of the estimated 200 million population is a crisis (agency report, 2020). these statistics indicate that many nigerians who want to be at university lack the opportunity because of limited spaces in existing institutions. distance learning is therefore gaining popularity. meanwhile, there is an erroneous perception of distance learning programmes as being at a lower standard than conventional university programmes. distance learners will not always confidently declare they are distance learners. for instance, distance learning graduates cannot participate in the national youth service corps (nysc) scheme—a mandatory 1-year national service for all nigerian college and university graduates who are under 30. this discrimination stems from a perception of distance learning as having “second-option status”. stakeholders at noun had to journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1) 65 appeal and protest until the national lawmakers removed the word “correspondence” from the act that established the institution to allow noun’s under-30 graduates to participate in the nysc scheme, and for its law graduates to attend law school, a victory secured in july 2017 (baiyewu, 2017). however, distance education graduates from oau and other institutions still cannot participate in the scheme. in addition, factors such as personal characteristics, the learners’ coping capacities, the cost and stress of learning at distance, motivation for enrolment, family and work demands, and infrastructural deficit can affect the psychosocial experience of distance learners. sociodemographic variables, including age, sex, occupational status, marital status, and educational trajectory are usually prominent in an analysis of the distance learner profile and the planning and facilitation of distance learning (schneller & holmberg, 2014; arthur-nyarko et al., 2017; karpenko et al., 2017). stoessel et al. (2015) found that sociodemographic characteristics significantly determine the attrition patterns in distance learning programmes. most studies of noun have focused on the challenges and prospects (aboderin, 2015), the administrative problems (obioha & ndidi, 2011), and the use of technologies (ambrose & okpala, 2015; nwana et al., 2017; yakubu et al., 2019; bubou & job, 2020). ohioze et al. (2013) and kpolovie and obilor (2014) have also appraised open learning in nigeria by focusing on noun. among the few studies on oau are those of akande and sofowora (2011), which analysed the deployment of information communication technologies (ict) by distance learners of the bachelor of education programme at oau, and adewale and daramola (2013), which evaluated the opportunities and challenges of e-learning for distance learning at oau. there is a need to further explore the phenomenon of distance learning in nigeria, especially from the perspective of learners’ psychosocial experiences. while research has focused on the institutional level of operations, learners’ experience of the distance learning phenomenon also deserves attention. comparing the psychosocial experiences of distance learners in singleand dual-mode institutions in nigeria indicates the extent to which learners possess the requisite psychosocial capacity to acquire higher education at a distance. hence this study. the central research question of this study is: what is the psychosocial experience of distance learners in nigeria? thus, the specific objectives of the study are to: 1. determine the sociodemographic characteristics of distance learners in nigeria 2. compare the psychosocial experience of distance learners at noun with those at oau 3. examine the factors that affect the psychosocial experience of distance learners in nigeria. the following comparative study is significant because enrolment in singleand dual-mode distance learning institutions has become increasingly popular as a result of the admission crisis in nigeria. this country of more than 200 million consists mainly of young people, most of whom are constrained in their ability to acquire higher education amidst multiple institutional and socio-economic challenges. exploring the psychological experiences of distance learners is crucial in defining their characteristics and making adequate provision for distance. psychosocial factors are pointers to how stakeholders (learners, facilitators, administrators, and policy makers) in the distance learning system should play their roles effectively. the present study helps to define the beneficiaries of distance education in nigeria and provides evidence-based insights into understanding the psychology and social peculiarities of distance learners. those findings are useful to stakeholders and contribute to the body of knowledge on distance learning and education. in subsequent sections, we review the literature about sociodemographics and psychosocial experiences of distance learners, discuss socio-constructivism as the theoretical framework for the study, and explain the methodological decisions and procedures for the study. we then adebisi, t., olatunji, t. 66 present the results from the quantitative and qualitative analyses and discuss the comparative findings. in the last two sections, we state our conclusion, and provide suggestions for further studies. literature review learner-centeredness and self-directedness are central to distance learning, so understanding the characteristics of distance learners is imperative. askov et al. (2003) asserted that students who study successfully at a distance need to possess certain characteristics. studies in five european countries (i.e., finland, germany, greece, hungary, and the united kingdom) have shown that distance learners in higher education have particular features and experience (owusu-boampong and holmberg, 2015). in australia, part-time and older students engage in distance learning (latchen, 2018). rizvi et al.’s (2019) study on united kingdom distance learners emphasises the predictive power of sociodemographics in online learning. indeed, whether the education is delivered in print, video, or online, all distance learning programmes put certain expectations on students. adult learners have often been identified as the primary beneficiaries of distance education. they are often characterised by labels such as “working-class”, “family responsibility”, and “self-direction in learning”. schneller and holmberg (2014, p. 13) found that “a typical distance education student is a person in the midst of life, with family, children and/or work responsibilities”. as expected, modern distance learners have passed through primary and secondary education (at least) and have attained relevant skills for further (higher) education. ideally, these include computer, self-management, interpersonal, and sequencing skills. individual characteristics and skills combine with external contextual factors to form the psychosocial experience of distance learners. psychosocial experience refers to the aggregate outcome of events and feelings that define or affect a person’s knowledge and perception of their prevailing social environment. psychosocial experience combines personal and interpersonal factors. the personal–psychological dimension includes self-identity, purpose, self-confidence, and intrinsic motivation, while the interpersonal– social dimension includes relationships, extrinsic motivation, and societal context. research has indicated that lack of interaction, negative perceptions, and dependence on conventional education could cause a low level of motivation and satisfaction among distance learners (cakir et al., 2018). psychosocial developmental factors are central to human development in general (dunkel & harbke, 2017) and students’ wellness (robino & foster, 2018) in particular. psychosocial experience of distance learners includes the personal knowledge and opinions that manifest in how the learners feel about, or perceive, distance learning. their experience further manifests in their confidence, academic expectations, decision-making, disposition, and levels of satisfaction with phenomena in distance learning. in addition, the learners’ personality, motivation, activities, and encounters that come up during interaction with co-learners and facilitators can inform their experience. it should be noted that while certain characteristics are positive catalysts, some could hinder the success of distance learning. as indicated, distance learning students are likely to be selfmotivated, be comfortable working independently, and possess strong study and organisational skills (askov et al., 2003). however, they caution that not all adult learners possess these characteristics. characteristics such as being female, migrant, and fully employed increase the probability of dropping out, and motivation such as intrinsic and extrinsic goal orientation, task value, control beliefs and self-efficacy (bonito, 2013), increases some students’ commitment to graduation (stoessel et al., 2015). also, distance education can be adapted to meet the needs of the community being served (askov et al., 2003). that is, there is a need to assess the sociocultural and institutional contexts as well as the characteristics of the group of potential journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1) 67 learners to know what fits them best. the necessary adaptation of distance learning programmes to a certain group of people would make learning convenient and progressive. adult learners deal with many challenging and complex issues (career, family, and work) simultaneously, and they undergo a variety of biological, psychological, and sociocultural developmental changes that can interfere with the learning process (merriam & caffarella, 1999). thus, cercone (2008) recommended that weaknesses and strengths of adults should both be considered when designing distance learning programmes. this suggests that how the peculiarities of adults are channelled could determine whether the characteristics are negative or positive. this study assumes that the sociodemographic characteristics of learners could have huge implications for their learning and the nation’s distance education system. to a great extent, the prevailing contextual factors in wider society determine or influence the attributes that characterise distance learners. these attributes include socio-cultural, economic, financial, educational, geographical, infrastructural, and technological factors. for example, learners enrol in an online programme for two reasons: the first is an employment option that includes getting a job and having job security; and the second borders on the convenience and flexibility of distance learning (neighbors, 2004). another factor could be encouragement from friends and families. (social support for distance learners was further emphasised during the covid-19 pandemic [unesco, 2020]). in addition, students enrol in online education for ease of financial stress and the proximity of a study centre. distance learning democratises education and helps to overcome the challenges posed by geographic location, job status, or physical handicap (al-alawneh, 2013). these indicators suggest that personal and contextual factors affect how learners engage in distance learning. ajadi et al. (2008) summarised the prevailing context of distance learning and education in nigeria thus: the social and economic dimensions of providing education for the population, within the context of prevailing national circumstances of dwindling financial and other resources in the face of developments needs [sic] are heavy. the ever-continuing growth in nigeria’s population, the attendant escalating demand for education at all levels, the difficulty of resourcing education through the traditional means of face-to-face classroom bound mode, and the compelling need to provide education for all (efa) irrespective of environmental, social or cultural circumstances have meant that the country must of necessity find the appropriate and cost-effective means to respond adequately to the huge unmet demand for education. (ajadi, 2001, p. 1) theoretical framework this study hinges on socio-constructivism, which is an offshoot of constructivism. constructivism holds that the individual produces meaning, and that meaning depends on the individual’s previous and current knowledge structures and experience. socio-constructivism posits that knowledge is produced when individuals interact socially in talk and activities about common problems or tasks. lev vygotsky defined the zone of proximal learning, or zone of proximal development (zpd), as the process whereby learners solve problems beyond their present developmental capacity by collaborating with more capable colleagues (oloyede et al., 2009). adult teaching and learning is a process of negotiation involving the construction and exchange of personally relevant viable meanings (merriam & brockett, 2007). the implications of socio-constructivism for distance learning are observable in (1) the characteristics of the learner (a unique, self-motivated individual with a background and responsibility for learning); (2) the role of the instructor (a facilitator in a supportive learning environment who is involved in productive interactions between task, instructor, and the learner); and (3) the nature of the learning process (an active, collaborative, and social process) (oloyede et al., 2009). the theory adebisi, t., olatunji, t. 68 aligns with the notion of self-direction because it emphasises the combined characteristics of active inquiry, independence, and individuality in a learning task (merriam & brockett, 2007). a major criticism of socio-constructivism is that it is relativist, individualistic, and anti-realist (walker, 2015; noorsloos et al., 2017). socio-constructivism not only emphasises individual and personalised learning—it also promotes collaborative learning and practice. thus, socioconstructivism promotes social interactivity. in a way, the theory takes care of the anticipated sociological factors in the distance learning curriculum or programme. the educator sometimes sees the curriculum as “a selection from the culture” (jarvis, 2004, p. 24). in fact, “perhaps the crucial idea in teaching and learning lies in ‘relationship’” (jarvis 2004, p. 199). socioconstructivism dictates that social relationships and collaboration must happen for learning to occur. the facilitator must provide platforms for interaction among distance learners and between learners and facilitators. in summary, this theory is suitable for describing and drawing out the implications of distance learners’ characteristics and their psychosocial experiences in nigeria. understanding the characteristics and experience of distance learners is the starting point for designing and facilitating effective distance learning programmes. socio-constructivism explains how the distance learner, who is characterised by self-direction skills, negotiates the expression of their individuality and their interaction with others for effective learning. methodology this section explains the research design, sampling procedure, research instruments, data collection, and data analysis procedures. research design convergent (quan+qual) mixed-method design—also known as triangulation design (creswell & plano clark, 2007)—was deployed. this is the most traditional mixed-methods research design. the convergent design is used to collect complementary quantitative and qualitative data on the same topic to gain a maximal understanding of the research problem (creswell & plano clark, 2018). we used this type of mixed methods approach to validate and expand the quantitative results with the qualitative data. whereas the quantitative results tell us “if”, the qualitative results tell us “how” or “why” (terell, 2012). the study also adopted a phenomenological case-study research design. national open university of nigeria and oau were used as case-study comparative units and a phenomenological analysis was used to probe the inner experience of the research subjects about the research question. as in roberts’ (2009) study, our socio-constructivist standing that learning is socially situated effectively aligns with the phenomenologist view that individual perspectives of lived experience evolve as people interact with their environment and social contexts. overall, the research design enabled the researchers to pay attention to the participants’ individual experience and context. study sample and sampling techniques the study population consisted of distance learning students at noun and oau. national open university of nigeria is the archetype of open and distance learning in nigeria and has operated as a single-mode institution for 2 decades. as one of the nine federal public universities (out of the total of 12 universities) accredited to operate as dual-mode institutions, oau adequately represents the national practice of distance learning in nigeria. because the research aims to compare the groups of learners, we attempted to have sufficient categories of distance learners from the singleand dual-mode institutions represented in the sample. the original sample for the study consisted of 200 respondents who were selected with a multilevel mixed-methods sampling strategy. however, only 182 of the sample provided survey responses that were adequate for analysis. multiphase (post-stratification) mixed-methods sampling is a general journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1) 69 sampling strategy whereby different sampling techniques were used at different levels of the case study. phase i a quota sampling technique was used to select 100 research subjects from each institution to obtain quantitative data for the study. this technique is an availability sampling (not a probability sampling), which allows for selecting a representative sample and the facilitation of sub-group analyses (daniel, 2012). the initial 200-student sample was divided into four strata, two at noun and two at oau. there was an allocation of 50 subjects for each stratum at noun. the strata were the lagos study centre, lagos state (nounlsc); and osogbo study centre, osun state (nounosc). the two noun centres were selected for accessibility and because lagos has a representative population of people living in nigeria, while osogbo is the capital of osun state and is close to ile-ife where oau is located. the strata used at oau were the centre for distance learning (oaucdl) and the institute of education (oauied). the allocation for each stratum was 20 and 80 respectively. the centre for distance learning and oauied were the two sub-systems in the institution that were responsible for different forms of distance education. the centre for distance learning (the newer sub-system) catered for “online students” through a blended learning approach (face to face and online contacts) while oauied catered for “part-time students” through face-to-face contacts. phase ii to select the individual respondents in each stratum based on the quotas, we used the convenience sampling technique because of the difficulty associated with time limitations and accessing the roster or contact details of the distance learners in the institutions. phase iii a purposive sampling technique was used to identify eight participants from the 182 subjects who completed the questionnaire. interviews were then conducted to obtain qualitative data . a purposive sub-sampling ensured that one male and one female student were selected in each of the four sample categories, giving a total of four students from each institution. research instruments two instruments—a questionnaire and an in-depth interview guide—were deployed for data collection. the instruments were developed based on a review of the literature (merriam & caffarella, 1999; stoessel et al., 2015; neighbors, 2004; ajadi et al., 2008; cercone, 2008; alalawneh, 2013; schneller & holmberg, 2014; mittelmeier et al., 2019; rizvi et al., 2019). each of the instruments contained an introductory paragraph that stated the purpose of the data collection, assured confidentiality in data management, and sought the respondents’ permission. the questionnaire had two sections: section a sought to elicit data on sociodemographic characteristics of the distance learners (see table 2) and section b contained 11 statements with a 5-level likert scale ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree” to measure the learners’ perception of their psychosocial experiences (see table 3). the in-depth interview guide contained seven open-ended questions. 1. why did you enrol in a distance learning university programme? 2. how would you describe the distance learning experience you have had so far? 3. what are you satisfied with and what not with regards to instructional activities and resources? 4. how would you describe the interaction between you and the facilitators? 5. how would you describe the interaction between you and other students? 6. what other factors do you think have positively or negatively affected your engagement in distance learning? adebisi, t., olatunji, t. 70 7. what specific practices would you like to see sustained and what specific changes would you like to see? due to difficulties regarding time limitation and accessibility of distance learners, and because this study did not focus on the generalisability of results, the instruments were not pilot tested. rather, the usability (validity and reliability) of the instruments was determined through peer evaluation and triangulation. the peer evaluation was done by subjecting the instruments to correction by multiple researchers in educational sciences before they were administered. the researchers also compared the findings with the instruments. in line with the convergent mixedmethods design, triangulation was done by stratifying the sample and validating the quantitative data with the qualitative data. data collection and data analysis techniques the quantitative and qualitative data were collected concurrently in the third quarter of 2017. one of the researchers administered most of the research instruments, with an ad hoc research assistant, on different days. based on the earlier information from the administrative staff, we contacted students at nounlsc and nounosc. in the same manner, oauied students were contacted at the oau campus, but oaucdl students were contacted via email and telephone (for the questionnaire and interviews, respectively) based on the details received from the centre. the face-to-face interviews took about 20 minutes each. they were recorded on a voice recorder and transcribed within a week. during the interviews and administration of the questionnaires, researchers and assistants were mindful of relevant ethical issues and dealt with them as necessary. for instance, in the preliminary stage of each interview session, the researchers introduced the purpose of the data collection and sought the participants’ consent. in total, 182 copies of the questionnaire (93 from noun and 89 from oau) were found to be adequate for analysis; other copies were hardly completed. eight interview sessions were conducted as planned, with four students from noun and oau. the eight participants were coded as shown in table 1. table 1 codes for interview participants in the study s/n interview participant code 1 noun lagos study centre student 1 noun lscs 1 2 noun lagos study centre student 2 noun lscs 2 3 noun osogbo study centre student 1 noun oscs 1 4 noun osogbo study centre student 2 noun oscs 2 5 oau institute of education student 1 oau ieds 1 6 oau institute of education student 2 oau ieds 2 7 oau centre for distance learning student 1 oau cdls 1 8 oau centre for distance learning student 2 oau cdls 2 source: authors’ fieldwork analysis deploying the spss software, the quantitative data were analysed using frequency counts and percentage analysis. the qualitative data were subjected to phenomenological analysis manually following these steps: (1) epoche was set by declaring the socio-constructivist theoretical framework within which the study was situated (as shown in the literature review) and we discussed the findings later, in connection with the theory. (2) we did phenomenological reduction by categorising the most significant words, phrases, and statements from the interview transcripts into typical and atypical groupings. (3) imaginative variation was achieved by describing the meaning constructed by the distance learners and then making meaning of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1) 71 themes that came up, interpreting the findings in connection with the theoretical framework and the literature. (4) in the conclusion, we synthesised the textual and structural themes and showed how they have affected the nigerian distance learners’ psychosocial experiences. the quantitative and qualitative data were merged at the level of results presentation for corroborative interpretation. results this section presents the findings from the descriptive analysis and phenomenological analysis. sociodemographic characteristics of distance learners in nigeria table 2 presents responses relating to the sociodemographics of the noun and oau distance learners. a total of 93 noun students’ and 89 oau students’ responses were analysed. analysis showed that the average ages of noun and oau students were 26.2 and 31.8 respectively. the oau students were generally older than their counterparts at noun. students at oau were mostly female while most of the noun students were male, and there were more married students at oau than at noun. most of the oau students were parents, were employed, had educational qualifications higher than secondary-school certificates, and were self-sponsored. one of the “conventional distance learners” at oau emphasised her characteristics thus: “it is not easy; i am just trying my best […] to cater for family, for babies and to go to work and add learning” (oau ieds 2). conversely, most noun distance learners were sponsored by their parents or guardians. table 2 sociodemographic characteristics of the student-respondents s/ n items variables n: 182 noun oau f (93) % (100) f (89) % (100) 1 sex female 45 48.3 62 69.8 male 48 51.7 27 30.2 2 age noun students’ mean age: 26.2 oau students’ mean age: 31.8 16–25 26–35 36–45 46–55 56–65 56 28 4 3 2 60.4 29.7 4.4 3.3 2.2 14 54 16 5 15.9 60.2 18.2 5.7 3 marital status single 74 79.6 51 57.0 married 19 20.4 38 43.0 4 number of children 0 68 72.6 42 47.5 1–2 15 16.1 26 28.8 3–4 9 9.7 18 20.3 5 and above 1 1.6 3 3.4 5 employment status unemployed 40 43.0 10 11.2 self-employed 32 34.9 20 22.5 civil servant 4 4.7 26 29.2 private sector 16 17.4 33 37.1 6 highest educational qualification high school certificate 32 34.9 2 2.2 national certificate in education 3 3.5 54 61.0 adebisi, t., olatunji, t. 72 national diploma 18 19.8 5 5.6 higher national diploma 3 3.5 10 11.2 bachelor’s degree 21 22.1 10 11.2 master’s degree 11 11.6 2 2.2 other 4 4.7 6 6.7 8 sponsor(s) self 36 38.7 68 76.4 employer 1 1.1 scholarship 1 1.1 spouse 4 4.3 3 3.4 parent(s)/guardian 52 55.9 17 19.1 9 physically challenged yes 1 1.1 1 1.1 no 92 98.9 88 98.9 source: authors’ field survey the psychosocial experience of distance learners at noun and oau analysis showed that the distance learners’ psychosocial experience was more positive than negative in their distance learning endeavours. as indicated in table 3, distance learners at noun (65.6%) and oau (76.4 %) considered themselves fit for distance education, and only 14% and 12.3% respectively have considered dropping out of their programmes. students in both institutions believed they were aware of what it takes to learn at a distance. key phrases discovered in the data include “free will”, “option”, and “impact”. the majority from both institutions on both sides considered distance education to be more cost-effective than conventional schooling and that they had cultivated the necessary distance learning skills. they had largely positive dispositions towards using technology for distance learning. other examples of positive experience in both institutions bordered on healthy relationship between facilitators and learners, availability of facilitation resources, coping ability and good academic performance, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness of distance education. as expressed by a noun student, distance learning “is easy and it saves time . . . saves my time a lot” (noun oscs 1). students in both institutions confirmed that their lecturers regarded them as mature, adult students. one student said that their lecturers “do consider us in the sense that there are some regards they give us and there are some ways they treat us . . . that even gladdens our hearts” (oau ieds 1). table 3 students’ responses on the psychosocial experience of distance learners in noun and oau sn items inst. sd d i a sa 1 distance learning is for certain kinds of people, and i am fit for it. noun 17 18.3% 9 9.7% 6 6.4% 37 39.8% 24 25.8% oau 9 10.1% 9 10.1% 3 3.3% 38 42.7% 30 33.7% 2 my programme/course of study is credible and equivalent to the one offered in full-time studies. noun 1 1.1% 4 4.4% 5 5.4% 39 41.9% 44 47.3% oau 1 1.1% 4 4.5% 2 2.2% 35 39.3% 47 52.8% 3 i am not confident to disclose that i am into the distance learning programme. noun 42 45.2% 24 25.8% 8 8.7% 9 9.7% 10 10.8 oau 42 47.2% 23 25.8% 3 3.4% 11 12.4% 10 11.2% journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1) 73 4 distance learning programmes are more cost-effective than the programmes in conventional universities. noun oau 15 16.1% 5 5.6% 15 16.1% 12 13.5% 10 10.8% 8 9.0% 27 29% 30 33.7% 26 28% 34 38.2% 5 if i had the opportunity i would attend/switch to full-time studies. noun 15 16.1% 16 17.2% 21 22.6% 20 21.5% 21 22.6% oau 13 14.6% 22 24.7% 4 4.5% 29 32.6% 21 23.6% 6 i enjoy studying with gadgets such as android/windows phone, ipad, iphone, laptop, desktop computer, etc. noun oau 2 2.2% 8 9.0% 8 8.6% 14 15.7% 10 10.8% 10 11.2% 42 45.2% 32 36.0% 31 33.3% 25 28.1% 7 i do all kinds of online registrations, payments, and other processes by myself. noun 2 2.2% 1 1.1% 8 8.6% 36 38.7% 46 49.5% oau 6 6.7% 16 18.0% 7 7.8% 34 38.2% 26 29.2% 8 i have developed distance learning skills such as self-management, time management, and the use of a library/resource centre. noun oau 2 2.2% 3 3.4% 4 4.3% 4 4.5% 8 8.6% 5 5.6% 42 45.2% 49 55.1% 37 39.8% 28 31.5% 9 i have considered (or i am presently considering) dropping out of the programme. noun 53 57% 21 22.6% 6 6.5% 6 6.5% 7 7.5% oau 54 60.7% 20 22.5% 4 4.4% 1 1.1% 10 11.2% 10 i am not satisfied with the limited contact (physical and virtual) i have with my facilitators. noun 19 20.4% 12 12.9% 14 15.1% 24 25.8% 24 25.8% oau 16 18.0% 24 27.0% 11 12.3% 30 33.7% 8 9.0% 11 i am not satisfied with the limited contact (physical and via icts) i have with my co-students. noun oau 21 22.6% 14 15.7% 19 20.4% 27 30.3% 19 20.4% 12 13.5% 17 18.3% 24 27.0% 17 18.3% 12 13.5% source: authors’ field survey meanwhile, distance learners in the single-mode university (51.6%) and some in the dual-mode university (42.7%) wanted to have more contact (physical and/or virtual) with their facilitators. however, only 36.6% at noun and 40.5% at oau would like to increase contact with their colleagues. students at noun had more opportunities to interact among themselves than their counterparts at oau because they could meet frequently at study centres. the researcher observed this during the fieldwork. for instance, although the noun students reported that their facilitators did not come regularly, they did hold peer tutorials. unlike noun, oau had no study centres beyond the campus. this limited the frequency of physical meetings among the students, and the nature of the country’s roads meant that travelling long distances was financially demanding and stressful. sometimes it was demanding and frustrating (e.g., taking “leave from work to travel to ife to go and write the exam . . . it doesn’t make sense” (oau cdls 2). also, when referring to the relocation of their study centre, noun lscs 1 lamented that, “taking permission from my place of work to go to my study centre is always a challenge”. similarly, oau cdl students’ complaints about the inconvenience and cost of travelling were connected to the fact that the sub-system was initially planned to be in the form of online education. when referring to the school’s online distance learning sub-system as relatively new, oau cdls 2 stated, “there are definitely some challenges we’ve been having”. at oau, adebisi, t., olatunji, t. 74 students complained that, contrary to the original programme design, facilitators usually held classes during weekdays and such classes clashed with their working hours. according to one of the students, “we now told the woman that in the [application] form . . . what they wrote there was ‘designated weekends’. that’s why most of us collected the form” (oau ieds 2). students see this as inconsiderate and potentially having negative implications for their academic performance and other responsibilities: “. . . we should not run any programme that would affect our work” (oau ieds 2). students at oau also complained that “the calendar changes often” (oau cdls 1). in summary, the phenomenological analysis of the qualitative data showed that the noun students were self-motivated and their reasons for enrolment largely constituted the positivity of their experience, but their negative experiences related to institutional/operational and societal challenges and barriers. at oau, students’ motivation was the same as that for full-time students (they wanted to learn and achieve as much as the full-time students at oau) but their negative experience related to the operationalisation of distance education in the institution and wider socio-economic contexts. atypical findings also indicated that some learners at noun would prefer to enrol in full-time programmes, although they were not less active and positive about distance learning. atypical responses from oau students were the emphasis on the peculiar difficulties associated with distance learning and how the challenges frustrated them. factors that affect the psychosocial experiences of distance learners in nigeria the challenges that confronted the learners are apparent above. analysis showed that factors that shape the psychosocial experiences of the students include: (1) motivation for enrolment; (2) opportunities to socialise (more available at noun); (3) stress and cost of travelling (especially at oau); (4) inadequacy of resources (especially as it relates to insufficient lecture rooms for oauied students and issues with audio-visual materials for oaucdl students); (5) level of flexibility and cost-effectiveness (pronounced at noun); (6) difficulties because of work and family responsibilities (especially at oau); (7) unstable calendar and timetable (especially at oau); (8) healthy but a limited facilitator–learner relationship in both institutions. narrations of the noun participants showed that they were self-motivated and were enrolled in distance learning for a variety of reasons, which largely constituted the positivity of their experience. the main reason the students in both noun and oau chose to study by distance was the flexibility it offered for them to combine work and study. specifically, at oau, there were several reasons for individuals opting for distance learning. the oau students constantly referred to what was available in the full-time system and said that they expected to achieve education of similar quality. flexibility was linked to the need and ability to “to sponsor myself” (oau ieds 2). one oau student emphasised that “‘convenience’ is the key point; it’s the very reason i applied” (oau cdls 1). this student also understood convenience to mean the opportunity for selfsponsorship, and connected it with their employment status. meanwhile, flexibility in relation to combining studies and family responsibilities was not pronounced among noun students. however, negative psychosocial experiences of the nigerian distance learners related to the operational, institutional, and societal challenges and barriers. words such as “hitches”, “facilitation”, “economic” and “technological” surfaced in the analysis of the students’ negative situations. inadequate facilities (including lack of computers, poor internet connectivity, and insufficient instructional materials), expensive school fees, and pay-per-semester arrangements were sources of stress. but despite challenges, they were well motivated: “if i don’t want to consider the certificate and the motive i have behind schooling, i would have even quit” (oau ieds 1). negative experiences of oau distance learners related to the frustration associated with the dual-mode distance teaching institution and to the socio-economic contexts in the country. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1) 75 discussion the basic sociodemographic features relating to gender, age, marital status, and employment status show that the profile of distance students at oau—more than that of noun students—is aligned with previous findings (cercone, 2008; schneller & holmberg, 2014). that is, oau students tend to be typical distance learners. when viewed from the perspective of various parameters for determining who an adult is (such as those set out by oyedeji, 1988; merriam & brocket, 2007), these features indicate that oau distance learners are “more adult” than their counterparts at noun. this signals that the oau students are individuals with responsibilities that characterise adulthood. typical distance learners are often characterised by work and family responsibilities and self-directed learning (schneller & homberg, 2014 these learners are motivated by the convenience and flexibility of distance learning to manage their learning and employment. learners at the dual-mode university also had to consider their family responsibilities (neighbors, 2004). the basic sociodemographics of students at noun clearly show that, in recent times, individuals seeking to gain admission to noun are not only those seeking the opportunity to “work and learn” (which is the motto of the open university) but also those who see noun as a viable alternative to conventional universities. this trend is because noun has rapidly become nigeria’s largest university (varrella, 2020a; nuc, 2019). this aligns with trends in the united states: “postsecondary enrolments are rising, and it is clear the growth is online” (bronack et al., 2006, p. 219). more high school graduates now enrol in the university because of the difficulties associated with the processes to gain admission to conventional universities. these findings suggest that distance learners in nigeria are heterogeneous groups of people at different stages of psychosocial development. these patterns of sociodemographics could predict the learners’ disposition to their academic endeavours and commitment to graduation (rizvi et al., 2019). the results equally relate to mittelmeier et al.’s (2019) findings that demographic variables and access to resources determine distance learning experience. within the perspective of socio-constructivism, the distance learner is a unique, self-motivated individual with appreciable initial educational background and responsibility for learning. the learner can construct knowledge: “as individuals bring different background knowledge, experience, and interests to the learning situation, they make unique connections in building their knowledge” (tam, 2000, p. 57). the varying sociodemographic dynamics might also enrich collaboration in the learning process. stakeholders in distance learning institutions have a responsibility to pay attention to the shifting demographics and instructional design that would appeal to people who would traditionally be profiled as distance learners—and those in the emerging category. in line with the characteristic autonomy in distance learning and the principle of socio-constructivism, the learner should actively participate in determining the learning goals, strategies, and methods of learning (tam, 2000; bronack et al., 2006). self-directedness is associated with adult learning, but the likelihood of attrition is higher among female distance learners and those who are fully employed. therefore, no feature of the distance learners in this study could be strictly identified as positive or negative. the characteristics are neutral variables that could enhance or limit distance learning. socio-constructivist tenets dictate that facilitators of distance learning are responsible for supporting the learner to interact with the environment to acquire knowledge within an active, collaborative, and social process (oloyede et al., 2009). the implication here is that, despite the autonomous nature of distance learning, the learner does not interact with objects alone. according to the vygotskian framework, interaction with communities of learners and facilitators is foundational and occurs before learning at an individual level. positive experiences of noun and oau students, including their satisfaction with their contact with colleagues, provide a basis for effective social meaning-making. this experience boosts the learners’ adebisi, t., olatunji, t. 76 readiness, predicts their wellness, determines the level of motivation, and affects their academic performances (lupton, 2007; mason et al., 2010; oladejo, 2010; robino & foster, 2018; cakir et al., 2018). a student’s inability to interact with other students as much as they would like might have negative implications for their learning process. there could be a range of explanations for why most students at noun and oau did not indicate the need to have more contact with their colleagues. at noun, the study centres offered an opportunity to regularly reinforce virtual meetings. at oau, the learners, being typical distance learners, had come to terms with the fact that limited contact with facilitators and classmates is a characteristic of distance learning. another aspect of the social environment in socio-constructivist distance learning is the facilitator–learner relationship. results indicate that a significant number of learners from the two institutions expected more from the facilitators. these results align with the findings of vayre and vonthron (2016), where social support provided by teachers was the only interpersonal factor that influenced students’ engagement among teachers, peers, and family members. improvement sought by the learners relates to patterns of academic activities. for instance, the students in the single-mode institution were bothered by the unavailability, insufficiency, and unpunctuality of lecturers. the students in the dual-mode institution were challenged with incongruent communications regarding the details of instructional interaction. a most probable explanation for the challenge at noun is that most of the facilitators are lecturers that are employed in conventional universities on full-time contracts. some feel that these lecturers are already over-burdened at their primary workplace. moreover, oau students revealed that the financial implication of travelling from their residences to the university is huge. this affects their academic performance as they tend to miss most of the lectures scheduled during the week. the most effective approach for increasing the social nature of learning in this age is the optimal deployment of asynchronous communication technologies in institutions. a positive disposition to the technology among nigerian distance learners is essential because the ability to use ict is fundamental to distance learning in the 21st century. the disposition helps learners develop digital skills as the need arises. technology is central to socio-constructivist instructional design for distance learning (tam, 2000). however, challenges in the wider context limit an institution’s implementation of distance learning initiatives. for instance, the oaucdl initially planned to run fully online degree programmes but after academic activities started (in the 2013/2014 session), nuc rejected online degree programmes in nigeria (mohammed, 2015). the centre for distance learning settled for a 70:30 blended learning formula, where at least 30% of the academic activities must be face to face. the country still lacks adequate infrastructure to conduct virtual education. an irredeemable loss of one academic session at oau and other universities (mostly due to the covid-19 pandemic) also exposed the country’s lagging transition into modern distance learning. another factor that disrupts academic schedules in nigeria is industrial action (strikes) of university workers’ unions caused by several factors. these are examples of how prevailing macro-level policies and situations affect distance learning systems at micro and meso levels (ajadi et al., 2008). furthermore, motivational factors as a component of psychosocial experience show not only that psychosocial factors affect motivation, but also that motivational factors affect (positively) learners’ psychosocial experiences. thus, motivation and psychosocial factors in distance learning have a reciprocal relationship. this observation aligns with findings from recent studies (cakir et al., 2018; kara, 2021). conclusion analysis of basic socio-demographics showed that noun students are mostly unconventional distance learners, while oau students are typically conventional distance learners with attendance characteristics. open university students are perceived to have few responsibilities. some of them enrolled at noun under their parents’ instruction and sponsorship, demonstrating journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1) 77 that noun has become a reliable alternative to conventional full-time universities amidst the admission crisis. distance learning institutions, particularly noun, are solving social and educational problems by providing access and opportunities. the single-mode institution absorbs qualified candidates (especially youths) who would not otherwise secure prompt access to higher education. the characteristic features of distance learners at oau suggest that older working adults are more likely to attend dual-mode institutions. this phenomenon emphasises that leaders and facilitators of distance learning should possess some knowledge and skills in adult education and lifelong learning. distance learners at noun and oau had similar as well as unique psychosocial experiences. their experience was largely positive. despite challenges, they were well motivated. factors such as personal motivation, more opportunities to socialise, healthy facilitator–learner relationships, flexibility and the cost-effectiveness of distance learning, and irregularity or insufficiency of facilitator-led tutorials influenced noun students’ psychosocial experience. the oau psychosocial experience of oau students includes personal motivation, fewer opportunities to socialise, healthy facilitator–learner relationships, flexibility and costeffectiveness of distance learning, difficulties arising from work and family responsibilities, and costs and risks of travelling. the overall positivity observed among the learners shows that nigerian distance learners have the necessary psychosocial capacity to negotiate meaning and acquire knowledge—whether in single-mode or dual-mode institutions. their negative experience included unpunctuality and insufficiency of facilitators (especially at noun), lack of adherence to academic calendars and schedules (especially at oau), inadequate facilities, and risk and cost of travelling (at oau only). for both sets of students, negative experience and dissatisfaction related to institutional barriers and the socio-economic and infrastructural challenges evident in the wider society—although these might be aggravated or ameliorated by the individual learner’s socio-economic status. poor road networks, erratic electricity power supply, and weak (and expensive) internet infrastructures in the country challenge and limit educational activities and contribute to the negativity. these findings emphasise that distance learners are not necessarily independent students who only want to learn on their own. distance learners are not just self-directed; they are also interdependent. this finding is in line with the principle of socio-constructivism; the learners need to maintain a level of interaction among themselves and with their facilitators. also, for the learners’ self-directedness to be productive, it must align with the institution’s administration and planning responsibilities. recommendations this study has provided unique empirical insights to better understand the phenomenon of distance learning and the practice of distance education in nigeria by comparing the open university (noun) with a dual-mode institution (oau). it has documented evidence-based information on the distance learners’ sociodemographic features and psychosocial experiences in the two institutions. the information would be useful for stakeholders, including academics, researchers, educators, and policymakers. however, this study did not assess the learners’ academic performances. there is a gap for further evaluative enquiries into the comparative effectiveness of distance education in open universities and dual-mode universities. to better enhance the theory and practice of distance education in nigeria, further studies should compare the experience of distance learners in nigeria with the experience of their counterparts in other countries. also, our methodological approach did not use probability sampling; future research could use quantitative methods to test hypothetical relationships among variables that relate to the issue of nigerian distance learners’ psychosocial experiences. adebisi, t., olatunji, t. 78 based on the findings of the study, we make the following recommendations. 1. distance learning institutions that use a socio-constructivist approach should examine their students’ psychosocial potentialities at the start of programmes, and use orientation initiatives to make up for their deficiencies where necessary and possible. the responsibilities of learners and facilitators and the patterns of interactions in the community of learning should be described and clarified at the 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(2019). student’s acceptance of learning management systems: a case study of the national open university of nigeria. in a. tatnall & n. mavengere (eds.), sustainable ict, education and learning. ifip advances in information and communication technology, vol 564. springer, cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28764-1_27 https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11162-014-9343-x https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11162-014-9343-x https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/jeductechsoci.3.2.50 http://www.nova.edu/ssss/qr/qr17-1/terrell.pdf https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000375116 https://www.statista.com/statistics/1130770/largest-universities-in-nigeria/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1130794/number-of-university-students-in-nigeria/ https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0735633116656849 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28764-1_27 journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1) 83 biographical notes tajudeen adebisi tadebisi@oauife.edu.ng tajudeen adewumi adebisi obtained his bachelor’s degree (education/english), master’s degree (adult education), and doctoral degree (adult education) from obafemi awolowo university (oau), nigeria. he started lecturing in 2007 as one of the pioneer lecturers in osun state university, osogbo, nigeria. dr. adebisi is now lecturing in the department of adult education and lifelong learning, faculty of education, obafemi awolowo university, nigeria. he is an expert and consultant in the field of adult education, with specific interest in adult learning and human resource development, workplace learning, and vocational and technical education. he has written and published extensively in these areas. taiwo olatunji taiwoisaac.olatunji@phd.unipd.it taiwo olatunji obtained his b. a. ed (english) and m. a. (education) from the department of adult education and lifelong learning, obafemi awolowo university, ile-ife, nigeria. he is an erasmus+ alumnus (julius-maximillians university würzburg, germany). he is currently undertaking his ph.d. in the department of philosophy, sociology, pedagogy and applied psychology (fisppa) at the university of padua, italy. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. adebisi, t., & olatunji, t. (2022). sociodemographics and psychosocial experiences of distance learners in nigeria: a comparison of single-mode and dual-mode universities. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1), [63–83.]. mailto:tadebisi@oauife.edu.ng mailto:taiwoisaac.olatunji@phd.unipd.it http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ microsoft word brown-haupt.docx brown, c., haupt, g. 18 using personal mobile devices to increase flexibility and equity in learning in resource-constrained contexts cheryl brown, university of canterbury genevieve haupt, university of cape town abstract this paper examines how, in a resource-constrained context, access to personal mobile devices for first-year university students increases flexibility of learning and creates an environment of greater inclusivity at university. in 2016, at the start of their first year, 201 students in an extended degree programme in the humanities at the university of cape town were surveyed about their access to personal mobile devices (pmds). based on need, 68 students were given an entry-level tablet to use as their own for the duration of their studies. as a consequence of establishing a learning context in which all students had access to a pmd, the lecturers could engage students in a multimodal blended learning and teaching approach. this paper draws on data in the form of student surveys and focus groups and explores not only the challenges and opportunities for students in using pmds for their learning in and out of the classroom, but also the flexibility of learning enabled by pmds. the study shows that creating an equitable context in terms of physical access to digital technology extends students’ learning opportunities, but also presents some new challenges. keywords: personal mobile devices; digital divide introduction over the past decade, universities in south africa have recognised the role of educational technologies as tools to facilitate teaching and learning (czerniewicz & brown, 2009; bozalek et al., 2013). however, there remains an economic and moral dilemma for universities in south africa, as students come from diverse backgrounds, geographical locations, and material and technological capacities. consequently, access to information and communication technologies (icts) cannot be assumed (broekman, enslin, & pendlebury, 2002; brown, 2014; brown & pallitt, 2014; czerniewicz, 2015). this dilemma is not unique to the context of developing countries. while south africa ranks as the most unequal country in the world in terms of the gini index (i.e., the social economic status of a country; specifically, the gap in the distribution of wealth for a country’s residents) (world bank, 2016), new zealand ranks as the seventh most unequal country in the world (oecd, 2018). although the contrast in internet penetration between south africa and new zealand is quite marked (53% compared with 88%), (internet world stats, 2016), even developed countries such as new zealand are faced with digital inequities. for example, the māori ict report shows that 68% of māori households have internet access compared with the national average of 83% (ministry of business, innovation and employment, 2015). disparities of digital access have also been observed amongst young people in new zealand—socio-economic background influenced the number of digital devices in the home, the types of devices available, and whether the device(s) are shared or individually owned by students (hartnett, 2017). this serves to remind us journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(2) 19 that we cannot ever assume equality, and we need to consciously choose not to disadvantage particular groups of students due to their socio-economic or cultural contexts. e-learning and higher education in the south african context, the white paper on e-education states that icts can create access to learning opportunities, improve the quality of learning and teaching, and deliver lifelong learning (department of education, 2004). in addition, this paper suggests that icts can accommodate differences in learning preferences and remove barriers to learning by providing expanded opportunities and individualised learning experiences. higher education policy argues that the appropriate use of new media can support curriculum transformation and improve educational quality (ministry of education, 2001). likewise, the new zealand government has identified the need for tertiary institutions to use technology effectively if they are to maintain their relevance over the coming decades (marshall, 2012). marshall (2012) also notes that technology is seen as both driving the need for, and supporting, skills development. globally, the higher education sector has moved into a position where using icts is both inevitable and necessary to produce graduates equipped for the 21st century. for example, the concept of personal learning environments (ples) has been gaining ground as a way to tailor students’ learning experiences based on their strengths, weaknesses, and pace of learning (educause, 2015), and as a way to develop students’ personal and social learning spaces and experiences— thus empowering them to direct their own learning and develop self-regulated learning skills (dabbagh & fake, 2017). these changes further demonstrate that the discourse about technology-enhanced learning has moved beyond “if” to “how” students use digital tools in their learning (hämäläinen, kiili, & smith, 2016; davis, mullen, & feldman, 2017). but how do educators take advantage of these opportunities in the context of inequality? study design/approach in 2014, the department of higher education and training in south africa commissioned the university of cape town (uct) to “investigate whether the financial investment of a personal mobile device, whether on the part of the university or students themselves, adds value to the learning experience” (brown, 2014). as the project lead, uct collaborated with four other institutions across south africa (who had been doing various types of research in similar areas), in an endeavour to understand how access to pmds enabled greater flexibility and effectiveness of teaching and learning in the higher education sector, both in and out of the classroom (brown, haupt, king et al., 2017). the choice to explore pmds in the aforementioned project was based on: i) mobile penetration rates in the south african context (92% of young people own a mobile phone and 69% own a smartphone) (we are social singapore, 2017), and ii) research on personal learning which showed that students having their own devices was valuable in effectively addressing issues of learner control and personalisation (dabbagh & fake, 2017). while this scheme begins to address the issues of physical access, there is also the issue of epistemological access to educational technologies (bozalek & ng’ambi, 2015; chen & denoyelles, 2013; johnson, adams becker, estrada, & freeman, 2015; kilfoil, 2015; moje, 2007). as czerniewicz and rother note, inequality in education is a complex concept that extends well beyond the objectified cultural capital such as devices (2018). although the collaborative project adopted a lens of inequality overall and worked towards common objectives and debate (brown, haupt, king, et al., 2017), each institution framed their own contextually appropriate approach and line of research inquiry aligned with the project’s intentions (as can be seen in a paper by van rooyen & marais, 2018). in this paper we report on one sub-project which was located in the humanities extended degree programme at the university of cape town, south africa. the project was conducted with 5 lecturers and 201 brown, c., haupt, g. 20 students who registered for this degree in 2016 (brown, haupt, & hunma, 2018). the extended degree programme is an alternative way to complete the general bachelor of arts (ba) degree. in this version, students complete the ba degree in 4 years instead of 3. the students who participate in this programme showed potential on their university admission tests but required additional academic support. lecturers’ views and pedagogical strategies for incorporating pmds in their teaching in this programme have been described elsewhere (brown, haupt, & hunma, 2018). this paper focuses on the experiences and perceptions of the students who participated. the funding enabled the project team to provide a pmd to students who did not have one—thus creating a relatively equitable context of digital access. in this pilot, the team sought a device that was good enough for students learning needs, yet economical (because we wanted something that students could afford to buy themselves). the proline h0882m 10-inch tablet, with additional bluetooth keyboard and protective cover, was identified as an entry-level pmd. the cost was approximately r2500 (nz$250). during orientation week—before students started their course—a needs assessment survey was conducted (with the assistance of the lecturers) to determine whether students owned a pmd (i.e., mobile phone, laptop, or tablet) and whether the device was good enough for student learning (i.e., internet connectivity). seventy-five students (out of a class of 201) indicated that they did not have any device or had a pmd without internet connectivity. table 1 needs assessment needs assessment n (%) total class size at time of orientation 201 did not have any devices 75 (37%) of those 75 students under 18 18 to 22 25% 70% female 63% first-generation university student 52% n = 201 in addition to the initial survey, a variety of other data-gathering methods was used, including focus-group discussions, classroom surveys and internet-based surveys (table 2). journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(2) 21 table 2 overview of data collection strategies when n needs assessment survey (nas) across programme february 2016 201 digital literacy survey (dls) across programme april 2017 64 focus-group discussion (fg) nov 2015 (pre-pilot study)1 (fg1=14), may 2016 (fg2=37), nov 2016 (fg3=3), may 2017 (fg4=27) 81 jisc tracker survey (js) across programme february 2017 55 each year the focus groups comprised a different cohort of students. the focus groups that took place in may 2016 and november 2016 were therefore the same student cohort (but not necessarily the same students) in each focus-group discussion. the focus-group discussions were unstructured and sought to explore students’ academic and personal use of their device, the location of their use, and whether they experienced any benefits and/or challenges with the device. in this paper we use the jisc survey finding categories (jisc, 2017; newman & beetham, 2017) as a basis for a thematic interpretation and analysis of all of the focus-group data to provide qualitative illustrations of students’ experiences of using pmds. findings flexible learning all students had a pmd as a consequence of the project, but over two-thirds (67%) had more than one device (usually a tablet and smartphone, or laptop and smartphone). however, 87% of students indicated they still relied on computer labs, and 67% still used university printers. this response showed that, while pmds were useful for many activities, they did have limitations. qualitative data highlighted both the benefits and limitations: it’s a 50/50 for me because i use it for . . . my readings. i do it on my tab and then here . . . it’s to take notes and stuff during lectures. (fg2) the main reasons for using the computer labs on campus were to submit assignments and to print. other students indicated some of the challenges of small-screen mobile devices for particular types of activities: . . . with assignments, yes . . . things like mam [a module] which run the excel things, i would go to the labs (fg1) well, the thing is, i can’t really . . . do my essays and stuff on it because i have to . . . email it to myself and then go print. it’s a process. so, i would rather just go to the . . . labs (fg1) one of the benefits of having a pmd should be the opportunity to study anywhere, anytime. to some extent this is true—most students indicated they regularly used their devices when they were on the move. 1 we received funding for the pilot study late in 2015 and were able to distribute 31 devices to students in the extended degree programme in aug/sept 2015. we held a focus-group discussion in november 2015 with this group of students. brown, c., haupt, g. 22 figure 1 using pmds to learn on the move source: uct jisc survey, 2017, n = 55 however, in a developing context such as south africa, students’ flexibility is constrained by such factors as safety and security. students, especially those who live in low socioeconomic areas and travel to and from campus on public transport, are very aware of safeguarding their devices: when i go home during the weekend to the townships, you can’t carry a tablet around with you. it will be gone. (fg1) students also expressed fear of their personal property being stolen when using public transport to commute to campus, and highlighted how easily their personal property can be stolen: . . . when you stand . . . in the mornings, then someone’s following you. . . . you know what i’m thinking because everyone’s bumping against you. it’s like, tab, nice, close. only when you get here, and you are here and you are like, where’s my tab? (fg1) another limitation for students’ flexibility is the lack of access to the internet. ninety-five percent of students use wi-fi when on campus. off campus, 23% rely on public access (e.g., wi-fi hotspots in libraries, cafes, restaurants, shopping malls), and 36% of students have no internet access. table 3 students’ access to internet off campus type of internet access 3g/4g 22% adsl or multiple 19% public 23% none 36% source: uct jisc survey, 2017, n = 55 many students were frustrated at the lack of internet access: i can’t get my assignments because i don’t have the internet. so everybody else is, like, cool, i know what the xxx essay is about . . . but because i don’t have . . . i have a device but no internet, it’s just, you know, i’m powerless. (fg2). journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(2) 23 however, students learnt strategies to deal with this challenge: . . . on campus, i download everything and when i go home it’s available to me . . . for me to read. i don’t need to go on the internet to go and download, it was already on the tab. so, that was accessibility even at home without wi-fi. (fg2) personal mobile devices therefore enabled students to engage in digital learning activities when they needed to, but were limited by other issues such as security, screen size and internet access. students were aware of these issues and developed practices to work around the constraints. they used computer labs with desktop computers for aspects of work that needed a full-sized screen, downloaded resources to view offline when off campus without internet access, and didn’t use devices in contexts that posed a security risk. these strategies highlight that, even when we try to remove barriers to inequality, students’ life circumstances still provide challenges. formal versus informal learning personal mobile devices were used for a range of activities—both formal (in class, lecturer directed), and informal (out of class, student directed). in the course, programme lecturers made an effort to provide a range of resources which drew on different media (e.g., video, images, podcasts, and texts) to engage students with materials digitally (brown, haupt, & hunma, 2018). vula, the learning management system (lms), was a key means of disseminating these resources, and 74% of students indicated they relied on vula for their coursework (see table 4). . . . the tab came in handy because then my lecturer would put up slides, lecture slides on vula. so, i could literally lie in my bed and look at lecture slides. (fg4) half of the students surveyed also indicated they liked the collaborative features of vula. the chat feature was particularly foregrounded in focus groups: there’s a chat forum on vula on one of the side bars. i think that helps me a lot as well, because in there you can see what questions other people have, and also . . . with [xx] they respond very fast. so if you have a question and then i would like put it on. (fg3) table 4 use of vula at uct activity agree i rely on it to do my coursework 74% i enjoy the collaborative features 50% source: uct jisc survey, 2017, n = 55 the most frequent formal (course-based) activities were producing work digitally and finding information online. as a student commented in relation to their pmd: . . . all my notes are on there . . . lecture slides and everything [that’s] part of the research subject, i do my research on (t)here. (fg2) students used their pmds less to work online with others (perhaps because this was a campusbased course and it was possible to interact with classmates in person). in-class polls or quizzes and games and learning simulations were less frequently reported (see table 5), and the latter were referred to in the focus groups as only a recreational (not learning) activity. brown, c., haupt, g. 24 table 5 weekly learning activities using pmds (as part of the course) activity weekly finding information online 94% producing work in a digital format 85% creating a formal record of learning 60% working online with others 49% using a polling device or quiz to give answers in class 42% using an educational game or simulation for learning 27% source: uct jisc survey, 2017, n = 55 using the pmd to make, manage and access resources was the most frequent learning activity students reported engaging with in their own time: so . . . i could type my assignments in the comfort of my room . . . sometimes i would prefer not to watch the videos, but to record my own . . . stuff. so i would record the lecturers and . . . it would be much more better because i would use headsets . . . to listen. (fg4) over half of the students also looked for additional resources not prescribed by the lecturers (see table 6). table 6 weekly learning activities using pmds (in own learning time) activity weekly accessing notes and recordings 92% making notes or recordings 73% managing links and refs 71% watching/listening to learning materials 67% accessing learning on the move 56% looking for additional resources 51% discussing learning informally on social media 36% source: uct jisc survey, 2017, n = 55 focus-group discussion findings supported the survey results, with students indicating a similar range of activities. more specifically, students highlighted research as being an important use of their pmds: . . . all my notes are on there and . . . lecture slides and everything [that’s] part of the research subject. (fg1) . . . with sociology you get people that you have to do research on, so i can just go on youtube and hear what people say about that person and then i can go and read my book. (fg1) exam preparation was also a specific focus: i use the tab to download the past papers. (fg1) yes, for the exams. i was preparing for the exams. and doing some assignments and stuff. (fg 2) journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(2) 25 these examples demonstrate how having a pmd helped students with just-in-time learning support. these examples range from having course notes and recordings available for learning activities, to being able to search for information and explanations online to scaffold understanding of course content. the positive aspects are clear, but what about the negative aspects of pmds? research has indicated that having access to devices and the internet makes it harder for young people because they are more distracted (goyanes & catalán-matamoros, 2017), more isolated (kitsantas, dabbagh, chirinos, & fake, 2016), and (particularly in higher education) there is a concern that students are less likely to attend lectures (edwards & clinton, 2018). however, it appears from this study that these are organisational or educator perceptions and not how students see it. (see table 7.) table 7 weekly learning activities using pmds when a digital device is used in my course agree neutral disagree i am more easily distracted 25% 25% 47% i feel more isolated 14% 23% 60% i find it harder to motivate myself 10% 36% 49% i am less likely to attend class 16% 20% 63% source: uct jisc survey, 2017, n = 55 although a quarter of students indicated having a device was distracting, the majority didn’t. however, it seems that some students do learn to manage their distraction, as one student notes: if you’re distracted . . . you might miss something there. you’re busy researching and [the lecturer] says something else. (fg1) in terms of lecture attendance, nearly two-thirds disagreed that it made them less likely to attend class. this was reiterated in the focus groups where students concurred that: yes, i don’t . . . it’s . . . cooler. i don’t mind, i go to lectures. my parents paid, they expect me [to]. (fg3) and they realised the value of being present in the physical space in order to interact with lecturers. . . . also now isn’t it more like you can ask questions and stuff. (fg3) very few students indicated the devices made them feel isolated. in terms of their studies, one student indicated they used their tablet to: . . . communicate with my tutors through emails. (fg1) and many indicated the tablet was valuable for keeping in touch with family and friends: . . . it’s helpful for me, not only for academics but for my life as a whole seeing that i can communicate with family and everything using the tablet. (fg4) brown, c., haupt, g. 26 inclusivity the issue of equity and inclusivity is a significant reality in a resource-constrained context such as south africa. as one student said: for me . . . when i came here i didn’t have a laptop and financially i was not going to be able to have one. (fg3) the opportunity value of having a device can only be expressed in students’ own words: when i first came here it was . . . a different space coming from my school to university and everything was different. i didn’t even have . . . access to . . . laptops . . . now that we have to submit everything online using [a] computer. . . . i was still staying in my township, so it was quite hard to make things . . . on time. then the tablet came through. . . . but with the tablet i could actually do that at home and just submit on [the lms] with it. before i had the tablet, i had to . . . come here onto campus and work . . . write my assignment on a book and then come and type. so, it kind of made things a little bit more easier for me, to type, to save my assignments and to catch up even with my school things at home because. . . . even our library doesn’t . . . open [until] after eight. (fg3) this finding demonstrates that students weren’t completely without access to computers. they could come onto campus or go to the library to use a computer. however, this didn’t necessarily provide anywhere/anytime access. having the pmd meant they could combine their assignment preparation (which they had previously done off campus, on paper) with drafting their work. while this might appear to be a matter of efficiency, it clearly had a learning benefit for students because they could then continue with their study off campus when it best suited them. students reported very positively about the less tangible benefits of having access to a pmd and being able to learn digitally. table 8 shows that over two-thirds of students agreed that having a pmd enabled them to fit learning into their lives more easily. however, fewer found digital learning connected them better with other learners or lecturers (a finding that was not necessarily surprising as the course programme was campus based). table 8 benefits of digital learning when a digital device is used in my course agree neutral i am a more independent learner 70% 23% i understand things better 63% 36% i fit learning into life more easily 67% 25% i feel connected with lecturers 47% 38% i feel connected with learners 34% 52% source: uct jisc survey, 2017, n = 55 discussion a number of themes emerged from this study. we are reminded that inequality is not just a statistic but a lived experience. although institutions enable student access to icts through computer labs and on-campus wi-fi, learning doesn’t happen in only one space and at one time. flexibility, in terms of being able to study and learn where and when you need to, is hugely beneficial for the learning process—not just because it is convenient, but because students can fit learning in and around their other life responsibilities (including family and financial responsibilities) and be more independent in their learning. in the south african context, flexibility of anywhere/anytime learning was constrained by concerns about security and access to the internet off campus. however, students could manage these constraints strategically. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(2) 27 personal learning environments (ples) have been shown to be a critical part of how students negotiate and manage their own learning to “foster discussion, collaboration, and interaction, organisation” (dabbagh & fake, 2017, p. 28). however, a student can’t truly engage in personal learning without a personal device. students in this study indicated that having a pmd helped their understanding and connected them with lecturers and, to a lesser degree, other learners. for formal learning activities, students relied on the lms and used their pmds to access resources provided by their lecturers, and to produce assignments digitally. in their own time, they used their devices to make notes, manage resources, and search for additional (multi-modal) resources online. in the focus groups, students described the pmd as being valuable for researching assignments, note-taking, and planning and drafting assignments. the computers on campus were used primarily for printing and submitting assignments. lea uses the analogy of the assignment sandwich, creatively captured in a sketch note by barbour (2014), to describe the outer layers as institutionalised practices of assignment brief, rubric and completion, and the inner layers (filling) as the work and meaning-making students engage in as they construct the assignment from beginning to end (lea, 2013). the study found that pmds were most useful in assisting with these “inner layers” of learning. students used the pmds for research, reading, thinking, understanding, and preparation. these are the invisible informal strategies and processes of learning. the computer and computer lab still had a vital role to play at the end of the process (i.e., for the outer layer) for the aspects that involved a large screen and printer. by combining this process with the flexible opportunity afforded by having a pmd, students can pursue truly personalised learning pathways. conclusion this study has shown how one cannot and should not assume equity of technological access. even in contexts where access is assumed to be adequate, students’ diversity of socio-economic backgrounds will always result in issues of equality. although increasing numbers of students do have access to pmds, they are not all necessarily suitable for learning needs. campus-based facilities such as labs are very important and remain a necessity; however, the flexibility of personal mobile devices was highly valued by students and influenced how they used technology to support their learning. while there is no indication that pmds resulted in better marks or more success in terms of course completion, from a student perspective they did help to improve understanding, independence, and confidence. they also helped to achieve a greater sense of inclusivity. although these subjective benefits do not provide quantifiable evidence of success, they do contribute to creating a positive environment conducive to learning. negative concerns often raised by educators—such as distraction, isolation, and lack of motivation—are not foregrounded by many students in this study as barriers to learning. however, we acknowledge these difficulties and find ways to help students and educators address and overcome these issues. the study demonstrated that a relatively economical device such as a basic tablet was sufficient to help students bring their learning resources together and enabled them to undertake the invisible and private processes of learning—thus bridging the formal (lecturer-driven course-based learning) and informal (out-of-class, student-driven learning) contexts. brown, c., haupt, g. 28 references barbour, i. 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(2016). individuals using the internet (% of population). retrieved from https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/it.net.user.zs journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(2) 31 biographical notes cheryl brown, ph.d. cheryl.brown@canterbury.ac.nz cheryl is an associate professor of e-learning and co-director of the e-learning lab in the school of educational studies and leadership at the university of canterbury. previously she worked in the centre for innovation in learning and teaching at the university of cape town. her research interests centre on the role technological devices (e.g., cell phones and tablets) play in students’ learning in a developing context, and the development of students’ digital literacy practices. she has led research projects on digital education leadership, personal mobile devices in learning and teaching, and developing e-learning professionals in africa. genevieve haupt genevieve.haupt@uct.ac.za genevieve currently works as a researcher in the centre for innovation in learning and teaching at the university of cape town. her broad interest areas are social justice and social equality in higher education. over the last 10 years she has explored various issues (from access to success, etc.) in these areas of interest in higher education (i.e., primary, secondary, and tertiary). however, she has more recently engaged with issues of access to personal mobile devices in unequal contexts. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. brown, c., & haupt, g. (2018). using personal mobile devices to increase flexibility and equity in learning in resource-constrained contexts. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 22(13), [18–31.]. microsoft word higgins.docx higgins, a. 4 paradigms, distance learning, education, and philosophy andrew higgins, andrew higgins (ltd) abstract the premise of this brief opinion piece is that the fundamental paradigm of education appeared with plato. it is that there is a co-location in time and space of learners, teachers, and resources. the absence of any of these elements can lead to shortcomings in the meaning of the term “to be educated”. recent events such as covid-19 demonstrate that the paradigm is subject to challenge but that its premises are firmly established. it is recognised that there are complex philosophical and theoretical arguments surrounding distance education debates. it is not possible in a short article like this to canvass all the possible philosophical positions that affect education. pointers to these debates are referenced in the article. for the purpose of this article, “philosophy” is taken to mean that department of knowledge or study that deals with ultimate reality, or with the general causes and principles of things. more narrowly, it is the study of general principles of some particular branch of knowledge, experience, or activity—in this case, distance education or flexible learning. “theory” is taken to mean a scheme or system of ideas or statements held as an explanation or account of a group of facts or phenomena. keywords: educational philosophy; distance education introduction the article will focus somewhat on the australian and new zealand experiences of correspondence education because, when migrants arrived in these countries in the nineteenth century and moved into already inhabited land, there were no schools in the european sense. nor were there sufficient numbers of migrants to warrant the construction of schools or provision of teachers to remote or isolated places; therefore, governments needed to find a pragmatic solution to meet legislated requirements for students’ education. readers may wish to look at mccumber (2009) and gookol-ramdoo (2008) for a wider context. purpose the purpose of this opinion piece is to illuminate some of the difficulties experienced by distance educators in the philosophical sense. it will show that distance learning practice is still a highly pragmatic enterprise that is academically effective. however, despite its academic success distance learning is not accepted generally by the education profession because it challenges the most fundamental paradigm of western education; namely, the co-location in time and space of teachers, students, and resources. distance learning challenges the need for a place or institution (e.g., a school) for study. it appears to disrupt the social and economic imperatives of having a place to work. finally, distance learning challenges the socialisation purposes used by society through schools to enculture young people. the covid-19 lockdown involved shutting schools in many western countries, leading to the widespread use of “distance learning”, and the consequent questions about its efficacy. many journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2) 5 parents and teachers looked forward to a return to normal classroom activity. why did distance learning provoke so much angst? the practices of distance education, in the form of correspondence education in the school sector, have been understood for more than 100 years. some have argued that correspondence education has existed in the post-school sector for much longer (holmberg, 2003, p. 9). similarly, peters (2003) pointed to well-known distance education understandings. it’s not the purpose of this article to conduct deep contradictory analyses such as “peters wrote this” or “fullan wrote that”. the main aim is to start to explore why so many educators, especially in schools, believe that distance learning is inadequate or inappropriate. under the heading “priority of paradigms”, thomas kuhn (1962, pp. 45–46) wrote, “paradigms may be prior to, more binding and more complete than any set of rules for research that could be unequivocally abstracted from them”. he suggested the following reasons: 1. the severe difficulty of discovering rules that have guided normal science tradition. 2. theories are accompanied by their application during their exposition to the scientific community. therefore, rules have little use in such circumstances. 3. paradigms guide research by direct modelling and through abstract rules. 4. paradigms provide more reasonable flexibility than rules in handling scientific research problems. the shorter oxford english dictionary (1973, vol 2, p. 1507) defines a paradigm as “pattern, exemplar or an example”. paradigms if we were to substitute “education” for “science”, the debate about distance learning might take on another light by posing the question: is there, or are there, paradigms that govern “normal” educational traditions? much of what we do in education is governed by the notion of co-location of students, teachers, and resources in space and time. educational philosophers looked to aristotle and his mentor, plato, for a model of education. here we find guidance for a curriculum, the trivium (grammar, dialectic, rhetoric) and the quadrivium, (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music), who were the most suitable people to receive this curriculum, and how it might be taught (socratic dialogue). however, in the pre-socratic greek dialogues and myths, we find stories about prometheus and epimetheus. epimetheus, gifted by the gods with hindsight, created the animals. prometheus, gifted with foresight, created man (humans) and stole fire from the gods to help man overcome the animals. guthrie (1962) elaborates on the use of allegory in greek philosophy and, in particular, his work in volumes 3 and 4 explains much of the promethean / epimethean dichotomy. plato one of plato’s allegorical stories informing education is that of the cave in which people can see only shadows of reality as reflected by a fire (plato, n.d.). only those who escape the cave (in which they live) come into the light of reality. because plato was influenced by socrates, he used dialectic discussion to arrive at the “truth” of the matter being discussed. the term “truth” emerged in disagreements socrates had with earlier philosophers, the sophists, who believed that rhetoric would illuminate truth. plato believed that the perfect form of anything (in his tale, a perfect horse) could be found through logic and examination. plato’s philosophy was essentially higgins, a. 6 promethean and could be compared with european post-renaissance values. meanwhile, the promethean belief was expressed in other ancient philosophies; for example, in the apocryphal book of esdras: “great is truth and mighty above all things”. similarly, words in the christian bible “i am the light of the world” (king james, john 8:12), arguably hark back to plato’s light beyond the cave of myth and unfounded belief. the importance of these greek and christian allegories about moving from darkness to light, from perception to truth through knowledge created by logic and reason, cannot be overstated. its conjunction with teachers and schools forms the paradigm of western education. the platonic model required belief in a highly structured society, but this belief became impossible to maintain as the middle ages evolved into the european enlightenment. the shorter oxford english dictionary (vol 1. p. 630) identifies the origin of “education” as being from “educatio” or “to lead from” (harking back to the cave allegory), which today relates to systematic instruction or training. an educator, therefore, is someone who leads others (usually children or young adults) from a state of less knowledge to one of more knowledge and understanding. in plato’s allegory, they were leading students towards the light. these ideas are further elaborated in guthrie (1962). post-greek roman schools followed the greek model in both curriculum and structure. their continuation in some form appeared in post-roman monasteries and nunneries, in which people received education that was suited for church purposes. it was still given by scholars to students using a curriculum and books in a fixed place. the enlightenment in europe the enlightenment’s rediscovery of greek and roman educational practices and philosophies led to the writing of educational tractates from various western thinkers and writers. in his rights of man (2012 version), thomas paine stimulated a major move towards a more democratic (athenian greek, “demos”, meaning the common people: and “kratos” meaning strength) form of society with the aim of giving more people some voice in their own government. this stimulated a new kind of philosophy influencing education. jeremy bentham (1748–1832) espoused a philosophy that today is called “utilitarianism”. its basic axioms are: • pleasure (or happiness) is the only thing that truly has intrinsic value. • actions are right insofar as they promote happiness; wrong insofar as they produce unhappiness. • everyone’s happiness counts equally. these views influenced subsequent writers such as john stuart mill. in the educational and social context of the industrial revolution in the united kingdom, unrest—arising from the consequences of the french revolution—sparked concern about the safety of society. examples of this unrest were evident in peterloo in 1819 and the famine in ireland, which was exacerbated by the harsh corn laws. the governing bodies began to fear internal revolution. even “corresponding societies” who wrote to members about democratic ideas were thought to be seditious, and sunday school literacy classes were thought to be suspect (simon, 1960). educationally, the late-enlightenment philosopher, jean jacque rousseau, espoused the role of nature in forming pupils’ values (emile,1762), but his philosophy lacked any machinery to generate the kind of outcomes he sought. in how gertrude teaches her children, the swiss philosopher pestalozzi recognised those shortcomings. he believed there would be a need for state intervention, which was often opposed by churches; nevertheless, his view was “childcentered” (dewey, 1916, p. 93). journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2) 7 social reform increasing the number of people who could vote was a way to reduce societal tensions. the 1832 reform act did just that. james mill (father of john stuart mill) and other reformers used the utilitarian arguments to extend the franchise and to seek educational reform. the church of england opposed education reform, largely because groups such as the society for the diffusion of useful knowledge supported non-conformist views, and the church feared the rise of secularism. in reforming english (not scottish or irish) education, one leader, robert lowe (viscount sherbrooke) applied the benthamite pragmatic principles and said in parliament, “it will be absolutely necessary to compel our future masters [those newly enfranchised] to learn their letters”. (simon, 1969, p. 355). what the english pragmatists provided, through consequences of the reform act, was a machinery to bring about literacy and numeracy among people via the education acts of the 1870s. effect of british social reform on antipodean education the digression above is relevant to distance education because many migrants left the british isles between 1840 and 1900 with a clear expectation of receiving an education in their countries of destination—such as australia, new zealand, canada, and south africa. in the case of australia, the churches of various denominations sought to control education even in the most remote communities but did not have the wherewithal to do it. thus, for example, australia and new zealand adopted new education acts in the 1870s, making education free, secular, and compulsory for white children. for example, in new zealand the education act 1877 stated that education was to be free, secular, and compulsory. (because it was compulsory, it had to be free—and because the churches were unable to provide education, it became secular. here again the benthamite principles of utilitarianism were at work.) to meet the compulsory aspects of the legislation, newly established education departments dispatched young male teachers with horses and buggies to teach pupils on remote stations and properties, or in communities too small or too impermanent to establish schools. teachers often visited families only two or three times a year. under these conditions, education progressed very slowly, if at all, especially if the parents were illiterate. recruitment of young men into the military in world war i and the subsequent losses then made it too difficult to employ young itinerant male teachers, and the social mores of the time precluded the dispatch of single young women to isolated places. origins and performance of the corresponding schools some education departments used the mail service and correspondence education to enhance pupil-teachers’ skills; for example, through the university of western australia. correspondence became a pragmatic alternative. by 1921 most australian state departments, and new zealand, began withdrawing regular teachers from classrooms to prepare learning materials for isolated students. these materials were dispatched to pupils with activities to undertake. pupils returned their work, which the teachers corrected and sent back with the next mailout. so, did correspondence students learn? the australian council for educational research commissioned dr k. s. cunningham (1931) to research the performance of australian correspondence students in 1930 (i.e., when the first tranche of students began to graduate). this became the first comprehensive study undertaken professionally across all states. cunningham wrote, “the administration of public education in australia presents a striking picture of uniformity of general plan and almost complete centralisation” (p. 11). this confirmed the success of the intentions of the 1870s acts. higgins, a. 8 cunningham noted that all the australian states received enquiries from many parts of the world. table 1 correspondence pupils in australia in 1930 (adapted from cunningham, 1931, p. 19) state total number of correspondence pupils enrolled 1920–1930 number of correspondence pupils in 1930 total number of pupils enrolled in school (face to face and correspondence) in 1930 percentage of correspondence pupils in 1930 nsw 17,646 4733 295,378 1.6 qld 15,300 4700 164,532 2.85 wa 10,039 1900 66,000 2.9 sa 3,610 875 82,333 1.1 vic 5,817 756 225,946 0.3 tas 1,891 320 35,409 0.9 total 54,353 13,384 869,598 1.5 the table shows that in 10 years australia educated 54,353 pupils by correspondence education, although some of the enrolments may have been temporary pupils. similarly, in new zealand, the correspondence school (now te aho o te kura pounamu or te kura) commenced work in 1923 with 218 students and, by 1934, had 1,800 students. in recognition of the terms of the treaty of waitangi, te kura began teaching in te reo (the maori language) in 1949. cunningham reported the following information about pupil attainment. these pupils, “do the same work as children in ordinary schools” (p. 45). some of these students would have attended regular schools in the past but there is no evidence that this change affected their performance. in rates of progress (e.g., in queensland), correspondence pupils advanced at a rate of 88% of that of school-based pupils. in terms of examinations, at the end of primary (elementary) school, each state reported that correspondence school pupils did well. for example, the director of education in nsw stated, “those ex (correspondence school) pupils who have passed on to high schools after receiving all their primary education by correspondence have done remarkably well” (p. 49). similarly in new zealand, bewley (1996) reported that “approval for distance education comes more readily from the nz public and political sources than some educational ones” (p. 17). cunningham’s general summary (pp. 68–71) outlined the key principles for success as: 1. co-operation between parents and teachers 2. literate parents 3. use of a timetable 4. emphasis on quality of work 5. ensuring achievement 6. use of corrected assignment method 7. diagnosis of learning issues and employment of special needs teachers 8. using flexibility to enhance individual grading, instruction and advancement). 9. choosing english as a determinant for classification and advancement 10. encouraging reading journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2) 9 11. use of school newspaper or magazine 12. use of children’s local environment. correspondence theory and methodology moore and kearsley (cited in gookol-ramdoo, 2008) proposed the following transactional theory for distance education operations. methods like this have been used by distance education teachers in the school sector, mostly in correspondence schools, and are part of the correspondence success story (higgins, 1984). figure 1 moore and kearsley’s systems model of distance education. from gokool-ramdoo, “beyond the theoretical impasse: extending the applications of transactional education theory”, 2008. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/distance-educationactivity_fig1_26544859 cc 4.0 licence. there’s no question that distance learning is academically effective (cunningham, 1931). it also functions beyond the normal education paradigm. nevertheless, in deweyan terms the social purposes of schooling remain a high priority for making a cohesive society. perhaps the structure of society reinforces the educational paradigm. the obvious success of the correspondence system should be seen in the context of the prevailing educational philosophies affecting schools at the time. the main platonic paradigm of colocation of students, teachers, and schools determined what should be, but many teachers wanted to move away from the strict formalism and rote learning methods of the 19th-century classroom towards something more child focused. the american philosopher john dewey provided the philosophical rationale to do this. john dewey, the american influence concerning correspondence schooling, dewey (1916) wrote, “we have seen that a community or social group sustains itself through continuous self-renewal . . . by various agencies, unintentional and designed, a society transforms its uninitiated and seemingly alien beings into robust trustees of its own resources and ideals” (p. 10). dewey recognised the environment of higgins, a. 10 learning in his desire to see the general function of education as direction, control, or guidance, of which he preferred guidance (p. 23). the purpose of the direction or guidance arose in the context where the natural impulses of the young did not conform to the life customs of the group into which the children were born (p. 39). dewey’s philosophy played a major role in teacher preparation from the 1930s to the 1960s and beyond. it would follow (from dewey’s perspective and the influence he had on the teaching profession) that to engage in the craft and act of teaching, a school needs to engage the social purposes of teaching and, therefore, that teaching in the absence of a school would be somehow deficient (i.e., the pupils would not be “schooled” or socialised appropriately. ivan illich in the 1970s the philosopher ivan illich challenged the deweyan perspective in the south american context. illich openly challenged the need for traditional schools and was one of the most radical proponents of a different way of educating the young. he believed that teaching contributed to learning in certain circumstances, but that most people acquire knowledge beyond school. in his introduction, illich (1976) wrote that, “universal education through schooling is not feasible” (introduction, p. 1). he advocated instead for educational webs that heighten the opportunity for each individual to transform each moment of their living into one of learning, sharing, and caring (p. 2). his polemic attacked not only schooling but also hospitals, where reliance on institutional treatment renders independent accomplishment suspect (p. 3). yet western democracies long regarded education as a way out of poverty and ignorance. illich defined school as an “age-specific, teacher related process requiring full time attendance at an obligatory curriculum” (p. 25–6). illich referred to kuhn (1962) believing that the ritual of schooling hides a dissonance about schooling in society (p. 51). kuhn’s work recognised that identifying dissonance precedes the dissolution of an inadequate paradigm and the establishment of a new one. illich’s plea for the recreation of epimethean man is directly opposed to the deweyan notion of enculturing students into society’s norms through schooling. illich (1976) discussed the characteristics of his de-schooled society and proposed that it would involve channels of learning, namely: 1. reference services to educational objects such as libraries, laboratories, museums, and so on (p. 79) 2. skill exchanges such as apprenticeships (p. 87) 3. peer matching, such as partnering (p. 91) 4. reference services to educators; that is, non-institutionalised teachers (p. 97). it would be fair to say that these outcomes might be valued in the south american context but not in the western democratic one. nevertheless, within 50 years it became possible to envisage and even implement the four channels of a de-schooled society. how did this occur? during the 1920s distance educators adopted a range of technologies to reach out to students. for example, they used motor vehicles instead of horses and buggies, and one-way radio broadcasts for educational purposes. school broadcasts commenced in australia in 1933, reaching the most remote places. personalised radio teaching commenced in 1951, when a base at alice springs used the radio frequencies of the royal flying doctor service that were allocated to various schools of the air. a much more revolutionary approach that would affect teaching (but unrelated to education or its philosophies) began in the scientific community. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2) 11 effect of digital technology during the 1960s the united states advanced research projects agency network (arpan) allowed multiple computers to interact. in 1989 tim berners-lee invented a system of transmission control protocols (tcp) for arpan. he also developed a domain-naming system, called internet protocol (ip) addresses. these conjoined to create the world wide web. anyone with the right kind of computer and access to “bandwidth” could transfer information to anyone else with an ip address. berners-lee’s underpinning philosophy was based on a belief that information was a common good. in some ways the modern open education network and the open source movement reflect this ideal as well as a network free of governance. however, events intervened—forcing berners-lee to accept the need for some oversight to establish a digital rights movement (a version of digital copyright law) and to prevent abuse of the internet. from a distance learning perspective, the technology driving the world wide web and its belief in the philosophy of openness made it possible for students to access educational objects via digital libraries, to engage in skill exchanges, to meet digitally with peers anywhere in the world, and to meet educators. these are the categories that define illich’s de-schooled society. traditional schooling gradually adopted the world wide web (largely through library services) to give students access to all kinds of digital information to enhance their learning and research. library systems maintained security and digital rights management to ensure that schools could meet their legal obligations. in less than 20 years, such digital access in regular schools, and schools of distance education (australia), and te kura (new zealand) became normalised but still operated in the “bricks and mortar” paradigm. so, what changed the standard education paradigm? philosophy and technology played a part, but a virus (coronavirus disease 2019, or “covid-19”) caused governments and agencies to close schools, educational facilities such as tertiary education institutions and other places of learning, to protect society from infection. but western democracies insisted that people should continue to learn. so although students weren’t attending school and were not in the presence of a teacher, they required guidance and access to digital information. they also needed to draw on the skills of their colleagues, communicate with peers, and have access to regular teachers. communication technologies have transformed the act of teaching in as much as they have broken the nexus of: 1. time of learning 2. place of learning 3. pace of learning. one of the greatest challenges to the traditional schooling approach has been the use of face-toface live interactions between students and teachers, using applications such as zoom. however, for these to be successful in a home setting, teachers replicated the classroom. they did it by having morning class meetings online, and then having teachers take classes as if they were in a classroom together. the schools often insisted that learning be undertaken to the usual school timetable. this approach provided the necessary structure for online teaching and learning to occur without having to undertake the preparation necessary for comprehensive teaching in a digital mode. in some respects, it re-enforced the standard educational paradigm. social theory sociologists peter berger and thomas luckman (1966) wrote “the most important experience of others takes place in the face-to-face situation which is the prototypical case of social interaction. higgins, a. 12 all other cases are derivative of it” (p. 43). berger and luckman discuss three phases leading to socialisation, namely: 1. externalisation 2. objectification 3. internalisation (p. 149). their view arises from a belief that society has both objective and subjective reality. “to be in society is to participate in its dialectic” (berger & luckman, 1966, p. 149). here we take “dialectic” to mean critical inquiry. it follows that, for young people to become members of society, they must engage in some form of face-to-face interaction and some form of intellectually honest age-related level of dialectic transaction with others. this process is expected to be brought about and moderated by knowledgeable others (such as teachers) in a controlled environment (such as a school). there is a clear link through dewey to the socratic method, and even back to prometheus. distance education, which is academically effective, successful and sustainable does not appear to meet berger and luckman’s necessary state of face-to-face dialectic; nor do they appear to believe that socialisation of the young occurs effectively in isolation from the control of teachers in an institutional environment. is this why teachers (at the philosophical level) feel that distance education is not “genuine”? effect of covid-19 the first calls to reopen schools in the covid-19 lockdowns came from business communities in new zealand (although they knew that relaxing the rules would result in the virus spreading more widely) so parents and caregivers could return to work to meet the economic imperatives of earning a wage or making a profit. the second call to open schools came from parents or caregivers who felt unable to support their children’s learning as a teacher might, especially when trying to supervise several children simultaneously. these calls for a return to schooling demonstrate that there is not significant support for a deschooled society in the epimethean sense. the main thrust from the public demanded that the social functions of school, as highlighted in the benthamite pragmatism or the deweyan perspective, take priority. there appeared to be no argument that distance learning failed academically, except from those schools that feared students had not done sufficient schoolwork to complete mandatory certification requirements—such as for practical and examinations—all of which could have been completed online. the consequence of covid-19 for the paradigm of education and the co-location of students, teachers, and schools in time and space, is that the social functions of schooling (as opposed to the learning or academic purposes) demonstrate the triumph of prometheus over epimetheus. significance teachers working in rural and remote education quickly learned the importance of careful curriculum planning and thoughtful teaching strategies to help remote and rural students succeed. many of these strategies and techniques work just as well in the classroom setting. in pre-school and special-needs settings, having family or home tutor support is invaluable. in fact, without this support, learning is almost impossible. in remote and rural secondary schools, having a formalised and well-implemented student-support system can be the difference between success and failure. in the tertiary sector, communication between teachers and students needs to be open, transparent, and timely to help busy people do well in their studies. planning and journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2) 13 scaffolding make all the difference. it is not often possible to access in-class learning if students have to travel long distances to attend sessions. distance educators used the following headings to describe the circumstances of their students: • those at a distance (too far to travel to a facility) • overseas students who are required to study by law (e.g., in embassies) • students whose families travel extensively (e.g., showground workers, itinerant workers) • students having lengthy stays in medical facilities (e.g., in hospital) • approved students (often in prison) • students in the military (serving overseas or on ships) • professionals needing updates for continuing registration • professionals and workers who cannot leave their communities easily (e.g., for religious reasons) • students learning “on the job”. all of these students have different learning needs. teachers working in a distance or flexible mode develop strategies to meet learning needs, many of which originate with a “correspondence” model, even when it is outdated by the use of technologies. only recently have the technologies developed to the point where they can be used digitally and educatively. nevertheless, students who live on remote islands, for example, find that paper-based learning is robust, even if the humidity destroys the glue that holds the pages together. poor or unreliable digital communication technologies means that transmission is not guaranteed. if the electricity supply is insecure or uneven, computers will not work. those planning for teaching in a distance mode must take all these situations into account. curriculum considerations are also more complex when religious or cultural differences impinge on what can be taught and who can participate in particular aspects of learning. teachers in conventional classrooms rarely deal with these issues, but they are the concern of distance and flexible learning institutions. those engaged in distance learning probably think infrequently about theories of learning—and even less about the underpinning philosophies—because they are dealing, every day, with the pragmatic business of teaching their students. references bentham. j. (2019). stanford encylopedia of philosophy. item published 17 mar, 2015; substantive revision 28 jan, 2019. stanford university. berger, p., & luckman, t. (1966). the social construction of reality. penguin. bewley, d. (1996). distance education in new zealand. journal of distance learning, 2(1). bible. john 8:12 (king james version). cunningham, k. s. (1931). primary education by correspondence: being an account of the methods and achievements of the australian correspondence schools in instructing children living in isolated areas. acer. melbourne university press. dewey, j. (1916). democracy and education. free press. higgins, a. h. (1984). policy and practice towards the education of isolated children. (doctoral thesis, university of queensland). holmberg, b. (2003). distance education in essence. bis. university of oldenburg. higgins, a. 14 illich, i. (1976). deschooling society. marion boyars. gookol-ramdoo, s. (2008). beyond the theoretical impasse: extending the applications of transactional distance theory. international review of research in open and distance learning 9(3). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v9i3.541 guthrie, w. k. c. (1962). a history of greek philosophy. (vols. 3–4). cambridge university press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511518454. kuhn, t. (1962). the structure of scientific revolutions. university of chicago press. mccumber, j. (2009). philosophy vs theory: reshaping the debate. https://mondesfrancophones.com/espaces/philosophies/philosophy-vs-theory-reshaping-thedebate/ new zealand. education act. victoriae no 21 s88. (1877). paine, t.  (2012). rights of man. vols 1–2. cambridge university press. first published 1791, 1795. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781139177672 peters, o. (2003). learning and teaching in distance education. routledgefalmer. plato. republic. n.d. https://web.stanford.edu/class/ihum40/cave.pdf rousseau, j. j. (1762). emile, or on education. allan bloom (trans.), basic books, 1979. shorter oxford english dictionary. (1973). oxford university press. simon, b. (1960). history of education 1780–1870. lawrence and wishart. biographical notes andrew higgins higginsandrew499@gmail.com andrew worked and studied as a remote student in western australia, at the then western australian school of mines, kalgoorlie, (now curtin university). he studied through the university of queensland’s extramural studies department while working as a teacher in remote north queensland. he later tutored remote and rural tertiary students, and oversaw and taught in the rural secondary school support scheme via the queensland correspondence school before taking up an administrative role. as manager of distance learning, andrew oversaw the development and implementation of learning programmes for serving officers of the queensland police, especially in remote areas. he became president of the australian rural education research association and then president of the then distance education association of new zealand (deanz, now flanz). he has been director of e learning at a large new zealand university, has written widely on rural and distance education and on e-learning, sat on government advisory committees, appeared before parliamentary inquiries, and sat on a cabinet special purposes committee concerning education. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. higgins, a. (2020). paradigms, distance learning, education, and philosophy. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2), [4–11.]. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2) 1 raranga te kete aronui—weaving the basket: continuing with open, flexible, and distance learning alison fields, editor-in-chief, infosolutions maggie hartnett, associate editor, massey university abstract this issue of the journal uses the metaphor of raranga te kete aronui (weaving the basket of the pursuit of knowledge) as it continues the conversation of developing areas of open, flexible, and distance learning (ofdl). it comes at a time when the covid-19 pandemic has disrupted traditional face-to-face teaching in classrooms on a global scale, and the value of open, flexible, and distance learning has become starkly apparent. this issue has five articles which contribute to the ongoing knowledge presented in this issue. there are two articles based on educational theory: higgins explores the theoretical history of ofdl, and the work of nichols et al. is based on mezirow’s 10 stages of transformative learning. three research articles provide insight into a range of specific areas: sime et al. use networked learning theory to investigate the design of a social exploration mooc, irons and hartnett present exploratory research into the teaching of computational thinking in junior classrooms in new zealand, and nyugen describes the design and development of qualifications in early childhood education and care to meet a demand for new zealand home-based early childhood educators to be qualified. these are all contributions to our weaving and filling of te kete aronui. keywords: educational theory; flexible learning; online learning; learning design introduction this has been a fragmented and disrupted year, with the response to covid-19 creating many issues for traditional face-to-face learning. countries have experienced different levels of disruption, with some open again now for school attendance, others retreating into periodic lockdowns, and still others at stages in between. some of the challenges facing learners involve the rapid and often unplanned move to online learning. although it’s tempting to focus on the experience of teaching and learning during the pandemic, the journal of open, flexible and distance learning (jofdl) continues to move forward with high-quality research articles on the improvement and refinement of open, flexible, and distance learning. the metaphor of the kete, a woven basket, is part of the culture of new zealand. in māori mythology, the god tāne retrieved three kete during a quest: te kete tuatea (the basket of light), te kete tuauri (the basket of darkness) and te kete aronui (the basket of pursuit). one interpretation of these is: “the basket of light is present knowledge, the basket of darkness is things unknown, and the basket of pursuit is the knowledge humans currently seek” (taonui, 2006). we are continuing our weaving of this last basket, raranga te kete aronui, by building a knowledge base for those working in this developing area of open, flexible, and distance learning. fields, a., hartnett, m. 2 papers in this issue the papers in this issue present a wide range of topics in open, flexible, and distance learning through one position piece, three primary studies, and one flanz 2020 conference paper. we begin with the position piece by andrew higgins. higgins’ longstanding involvement in distance learning in australia and new zealand forms the basis of his thoughts in “paradigms, distance learning, education, and philosophy”. he explores the educational philosophy behind distance education, reaching back to plato and the rediscovery of greek and roman educational practices during the enlightenment. he then considers the effect of british social reform and the development of correspondence schools in australia and new zealand before looking at a number of theories relating to this area of education. distance learning has a long history. higgins outlines some of these foundations, and then considers the more recent effect of digital technology in this field. his final sections bring the debate about theoretical foundations of distance learning into the current time. he notes the challenges and significance of decisions made by distance learning practitioners today, and the underlying theories and philosophies of learning that support them. an international group headed by julie-ann sime has contributed the second article, which looks at designing a social exploration mooc. the team (from the uk, greece, and cyprus) consider how to develop an online learning community within a mooc, using the mooc titled “visual literacies: exploring educational practices and technologies” in their study. more specifically, the authors considered how an online learning community could be designed to promote social exploration through the contribution of gamification and a live-streamed seminar. sime et al. used networked learning theory, an approach that “emphasises openness and democratic relationships between teachers and learners, and supports diversity and inclusivity of participants” to build a more interactive, participatory, and effective mooc. this was linked with active tutor contribution to facilitate some of the mechanics and operation of the community. the work is a useful contribution to research in the design of learning communities and identifies further areas for later exploration in this field. irons and hartnett present exploratory research into the teaching of computational thinking in junior classrooms in new zealand, following the introduction of computational thinking in the new zealand technology curriculum in junior schools from 2020. they explain that “the purpose of the computational-thinking curriculum is to teach new zealand students to be more than consumers of technology, and to develop a greater appreciation of existing digital devices and how to create innovative digital technologies”. their focus is on teacher preparedness for this new area of curriculum with insights gathered from interviews with junior-school teachers in the areas of understanding, attitudes, perceived benefits, and assessment of computational thinking. the need for teachers to have support (in the form of professional development and resources) is discussed. this timely article is of immediate value for junior-school teachers in new zealand in this emerging area of teaching where there is currently little other literature. the article by nichols’ et al. explores transformative learning in vocational online and distance education. using mezirow’s 10 stages of transformative learning to underpin the study, this research investigated the transformative learning experiences of 499 students (past and current), across seven discipline areas, studying online at open polytechnic—a major online and distance vocation education provider in australasia. results indicated that online learning can be transformative and, when perspective transformation did occur, it was more common at the earlier stages of mezirow’s model. perspective transformation also tended to occur at the earlier stages of a programme of study (i.e., in the first year) and at different levels of study (i.e., diploma students indicated transformation had occurred for them as much as for students undertaking degrees). this article demonstrates that online education is a viable mechanism for transformative education. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2) 3 the next article is also situated in the context of open polytechnic in new zealand. nguyen et al. originally planned to present this work at the april 2020 flexible learning association of new zealand (flanz) conference, which did not go ahead due to the covid-19 lockdown. it reports on the design and development of a level 4 new zealand certificate in early childhood education and care to meet the growing demand due to the introduction of a mandatory requirement for all home-based early childhood educators to be qualified. the design and development of the new certificate was informed by the csi model (a pedagogical model for integrating constructivist and sociocultural learning principles with information and communication technology). the article presents a detailed account of the design and development phases in addition to initial feedback from students and employers from the first intake in 2020. reflections by staff closely involved in the work provide insight into what was required to develop a successful online programme. together these articles provide a balance of practical research, application, and theory, focusing on different aspects of open, flexible, and distance learning. references taonui, r. (2006). “ranginui – the sky – ranginui as knowledge and life”. te ara: the encyclopedia of new zealand. http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/ranginui-the-sky/page-2 biographical notes alison fields alison@infosolutions.co.nz alison is an information scientist and director of research at infosolutions. she conducts research in health information, and contracts in the education sector. she is a fellow of the library and information association of new zealand aotearoa (lianza) and has a doctorate in education. her research areas encompass elearning, online learner support, health information, library services, and continuing professional development. alison is an executive member of flanz and editor-in-chief of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. maggie hartnett m.hartnett@massey.ac.nz maggie hartnett is a senior lecturer in the institute of education at massey university, new zealand. she teaches in the areas of digital technologies and coordinates the postgraduate qualifications in digital technologies. she is also associate editor of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. fields, a., & hartnett, m. (2020). raranga te kete aronui—weaving the basket: continuing with open, flexible, and distance learning. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2), [1–3]. mailto:m.hartnett@massey.ac.nz http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(2) i introduction it is my pleasure to introduce this issue of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning (jofdl). we are proud to debut this two-issues-per-year publication cycle in 2011, which follows the recent re-naming of the journal, reconstitution of the editorial advisory board, and our move to an open, online format as part of our ongoing efforts to improve the journal as a scholarly outlet of the distance education association of new zealand (deanz). this second issue of the year, jofdl 15(2), is a themed issue, focusing on open educational practices (oep) as a mechanism for opening relatively closed educational systems. this theme is an extension of the growing use of open educational resources (oer). in highlighting the role of open content, oer have drawn attention to oep as a means to increase access to educational opportunities, widen participation in education, promote social justice, and potentially transform formal education through the concept of „openness‟. the recent open education quality initiative (opal) report titled beyond oer: shifting focus to open educational practice (opal, 2011) argues for the use of open content in the form of oer in combination with open educational structures in order to transform learning. the suggested transformation implies shifts toward both open education and open learning. these include three main movements. the first is innovation in adopting open educational practices within relatively „closed‟ educational institutions. the second is changes in the form of policy or regulatory interventions across a broad range of educational contexts in order to not only support but also promote openness on the part of educators in sharing what they have; for example, knowledge, resources, and networks. the third is increased attention to learner choice in the content, pacing, and mode of study in formal education as part of the „opening‟ of learning in formal and informal learning situations. these themes are explored in this issue, which seeks to advance understanding of the intersection of formal education, open education, and open learning with reference to open educational resources (oer), oep, and open learning architectures. the focus on oep is a timely accompaniment to the groundswell of activity around openness in 2011. open educational practices, which promote highly flexible open learning through innovative use of technology, are evident in the operation of increasingly popular learning-driven initiatives. peer-to-peer university (p2pu), the university of the people (uopeople), and innovative credentialling schemes such as the open badge project, are examples of open practices being used with online infrastructure and collaborative practices to support highly flexible learning. the open badge project is an innovative credentialling scheme which seeks to recognise learning associated with emerging literacies and skills. another notable example of oep in formal education is the oer university (oeru) concept, which has grown from a concept to a critical mass of over a dozen affiliated anchor partners in 2011. the oeru is a virtual collaboration of accredited educational institutions seeking to provide free learning and affordable credentialling to all students by combining oer, flexible learning pathways, and opportunities for credit on a reduced-fee basis from a network of accredited oeru member institutions (“oer university,” n.d.). some readers of jofdl will undoubtedly be familiar with this initiative due to strong representation from the new zealand, australian, and canadian education communities as founding anchor partners of the oeru. so, as 2011 draws to a close and we take stock of some of the accomplishments in open education this year, we invite you to explore the theme of open educational practices in jofdl 15(2). this issue contains five pieces, including four themed articles on oep and one nonthemed piece. the first article is an invited contribution from professor ulf-daniel ehlers, first author of the beyond oer opal report. his article provides an overview of the findings of the report, and highlights relevant aspects of the recommended shift in attention from open content in the form of oer to activity and supportive structures associated with oep. the second article, by tony coughlin and leigh-anne perryman, looks at the open university‟s openlearn oer introduction ii repository. coughlin and perryman explore differences in the representation of various disciplines within openlearn, and seek to both account for those differences and explore the implications of these differences for the agenda of widening participation through open education. the third article, by melissa highton, jill fresen, and joanna wild of oxford university, contrasts the prevailing views of oxford university as „closed‟, „exclusive‟, or „elitist‟, with the university‟s history of investment in openness via oer and more flexible, open practices. the authors draw a picture of openness at oxford that may resonate more than you expect. the fourth piece in this issue examines oer and oep in australia. carina bossu, mark brown, and david bull overview oer developments in australia before foreshadowing the results of an in-progress oer research project funded by the australian learning and teaching council. finally, the issue concludes with a non-themed article from jennifer redd and denise schmidt-crawford on the use of ipod touch apps to support secondary-school students‟ language skills. as editors of jofdl, mark nichols and i hope you enjoy this themed issue and the new twoissue publication cycle. we are always interested in your suggestions for future themes or other feedback on the journal. if you would like to comment, please email us at editor@deanz.org.nz. finally, look for our next issue in conjunction with the 2012 deanz conference to be held in april in wellington. references opal (2011). beyond oer: shifting focus to open educational practices. opal report 2011. essen, germany: open education quality initiative. oer university. (n.d.). in wikieducator. retrieved nov 15, 2011, from http://wikieducator.org/oer_university/home ben kehrwald university of south australia november 2011 mailto:mailtoeditor@deanz.org.nz http://wikieducator.org/oer_university/home journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 29 student engagement in distance-based vocational education anne yates, victoria university of wellington wendy brindley-richards, victoria university of wellington tony thistoll, open polytechnic of new zealand abstract students enrolled in distance education courses tend to have lower course completion rates than those who attend face-to-face classes (simpson, 2013). this article reports on a collective case study undertaken at a vocational, distance education provider in new zealand, whose course completion rates have risen over recent years to match those of similar face-to-face institutions. this research investigated institutional factors that have contributed towards this improvement, from the perspectives of the staff involved. results show staff believe there are key enablers and barriers to student engagement and course completion, but the barriers are not insurmountable. the implication is that distance education providers can improve student engagement and completion rates through effective interventions. keywords: distance education; student engagement; student retention; polytechnic student retention; barriers and enablers in distance education; vocational education introduction the open polytechnic of new zealand (opnz) is the largest distance-based vocational education institution in new zealand (open polytechnic, 2013). it typically caters for working people who are seeking to upskill and has large numbers of students who are older, female and/or second-chance learners. the polytechnic is a technical and vocational education and training (tvet) organisation and consequently is primarily concerned with “…the acquisition of knowledge and skills for the world of work” (neal & seelig, 2013). technical and vocational education and training have become priorities as more people need further employment skills to adapt to rapid economic, social, and technological changes (unesco & ilo, [2001?]). however, because tvet systems involve a wide range of target markets and different delivery models (neal, 2011), they are more complex than either compulsory or higher education systems. for example, opnz offers courses from level 1 (typically offered at high school) on the new zealand qualification framework (nzqf) through to level 7 (degree level). the diverse needs and abilities of the students therefore create challenges for student engagement and retention. although the distance delivery model allows accessible education, students enrolled with opnz have traditionally had low course completion rates (guiney, 2013b). however, in 2012 and 2013 opnz achieved marginally higher course completion rates than the polytechnic sector average yates, a., brindley-richards, w., & thistoll, t. 30 (tertiary education commission, 2013). this research seeks to discover, from the point of view of the staff involved, the institutional factors that led to these higher completion rates. literature review student engagement the literature has various definitions and descriptions of student engagement. robinson and hullinger (2008) define student engagement as students’ efforts to study, analyse, practise, solve problems and receive feedback, while suttle (2010) describes it as “the psychological investment of attention, interest, effort and emotional involvement expended in the work of learning” (p. 1). klem and connell (2004) identify two types of student engagement: ongoing engagement, which includes how students behave, think, and feel whilst studying; and reaction to challenge, which refers to how students cope when challenges arise. indicators of student engagement can be retention, progression, and attrition rates (coates, 2005; nichols, 2009; ross, 2010). in new zealand, educational performance indicators (epis) (which include course completion rates, progression to higher study, completion of qualifications, and retention rates) are used to assess delivery in the polytechnic sector and as measures of student engagement (anderson, 2011). course completion therefore tends to be synonymous with student engagement, because students who are engaged in their studies are more likely to complete (ross, 2010). measuring student engagement gives educational institutions valuable data about students’ learning (coates, 2005). retention and course completion are important for both the student and the institution because there are considerable costs (both financial and emotional) involved in not completing (simpson, 2013). as nichols (2011) notes, some students who drop out experience a “shattering of confidence that hinders them from considering further study” (p. 5). examining factors which lead to engagement and disengagement is therefore vital. enablers to student engagement in distance education studies such as chen et al. (2008) and robinson and hullinger (2008) assert that students who are satisfied with their learning provider are more likely to be engaged with their studies. this satisfaction stems from feeling they belong, and that they are accepted and affirmed as part of a learning community (boyle, kwon, ross, & simpson, 2010). whilst contact may be more challenging in distance education, robinson and hullinger (2008) argued that contact, along with prompt and appropriate feedback, are particularly important to encourage engagement. they also claim that having contact with study peers, and sharing multiple perspectives and ideas, also leads to increased engagement. barriers to student engagement in distance education barriers to student engagement “can be particularly challenging in a distance learning environment” (ross, 2010, p. 1). distance learners typically spend more time in employment, looking after dependants, and dealing with financial stress, so study is just one of many priorities (chen, gonyea, & kuh, 2008). employment demands create barriers (ashby, 2004) and, as guiney (2013a) claimed, while employers support employee absence to attend lectures, they are less supportive of employees completing online study in work time. furthermore, stone (2012) argued positive relationships between teaching staff and students contribute significantly to students’ academic success; however, forging relationships with distance students is challenging, due to little or no face-to-face contact. distance learning provides students with opportunities for active individual study, but chen et al. (2008) claimed journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 31 their ability to collaborate with others is limited and that distance students often experience feelings of isolation and little sense of belonging or connection with the education provider. a number of studies (e.g., nichols, 2009, 2011; robinson & hullinger, 2008; ross, 2010) described the personal barriers distance students face, such as a lack of the necessary technology (or skills to use it); insufficient literacy, numeracy and time-management skills; little selfconfidence, support, or outside encouragement; and being unprepared for the workload. anderson (2011) also claimed that poor course and assessment design, poor instruction, and a lack of appropriate and timely feedback can impede student progress, as can unsupported assumptions by staff about students, in which students are blamed for poor outcomes. these barriers can be particularly acute for tvet organisations, such as opnz, that deal with a wide range of students from diverse backgrounds and learning experiences (neal & seelig, 2013). current interventions since 2010, opnz has had an increased focus on student engagement and retention. guiney (2013b) has documented these in detail; however, the key foci of these interventions have been distance learning support, support for māori learners, teachers supporting distance students, and organisational interventions to improve support. distance learning support the polytechnic has recognised that students require different levels of support and it has developed a variety of models to support various student groups (guiney, 2013b). in particular, students who are studying at lower levels of the nzqf and those new to distance learning often require a higher level of support (guiney, 2013b). some strategies opnz has introduced to provide distance learning support include:  developing student profiles to help determine the most effective learning approaches  providing programme and student advisors (pasas) who assist students with preand post-enrolment processes and general course support  introducing a peer-mentoring scheme for first-time students  running online study skills and exam-skills workshops  developing online study materials. support for māori learners up to 90% of opnz students at level 1 are māori or pasifika (guiney, 2013b), so a number of strategies to help with engagement and retention of these students have been implemented. examples are: attempts to include whānau (family) in all activities, including māori and pasifika concepts and pedagogies in programmes, and a peer mentoring service (tuakana ako) for māori students (guiney, 2013a). the role of teaching staff teaching staff at opnz are closely involved in student engagement. strategies include pre-entry tests to identify students who are best suited to foundation-level study, and using learning management system analytics to monitor and track student activity and progress. teachers are also encouraged to contact students between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. when they are more likely to be available, and to use online forums and face-to-face study groups to provide support (guiney, 2013b). yates, a., brindley-richards, w., & thistoll, t. 32 organisational and structural interventions a number of organisational and structural interventions have also been implemented. these include the ongoing use of student satisfaction and engagement surveys, an organisation-wide student engagement tool to support monitoring, ensuring high-quality learning materials that have a consistent ‘look and feel’, and moving to more blended delivery models. while these interventions were reported in more detail by guiney (2013b), the perceptions of the staff involved in their implementation have not been recorded. this research seeks to document these perceptions. methodology the aim of this research was to identify staff perceptions of factors contributing to the improvement in course completion rates. it also aimed to discover their views on enablers and barriers to student engagement in tvet education. because the research investigated perceptions of factors that contribute to improved student course completions, an interpretivist paradigm was used (bogdan & biklen, 2007). this paradigm is appropriate because it focuses on personal constructions of knowledge and shared meanings (o’donoghue, 2007). ethical considerations were ensured by gaining ethical approval from the faculty of education human ethics committee of victoria university of wellington. volunteers were sought through the opnz staff daily email newsletter, and ten staff members (five female and five male) agreed to take part in semi-structured interviews. interviews were conducted on site at opnz in january 2014 and, to assist with confidentiality and lessen bias in the responses, interviews were conducted by the research assistant who was from another institution. if a participant was easily identifiable because they were the only person in their role at opnz, a number of strategies were taken to ensure confidentiality. these strategies include allocating pseudonyms, changing the gender of some participants’ pseudonyms, and generalising some details (see table 1). table 1 participants pseudonym role at opnz clara lecturer in social sciences craig adviser in the opnz learning centre foster senior manager at opnz jack lecturer in commerce martha faculty management owen librarian and liaison librarian on courses rick engineering trades lecturer rory senior manager responsible for many aspects of academic delivery, including research and student retention rose senior manager in strategy and analysis wilfred lecturer in construction questions focused on participants’ views of student engagement—they were specifically asked what they considered to be enablers and barriers. the interviews were transcribed verbatim and returned to participants for checking to ensure accuracy and to give participants the opportunity journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 33 to alter or remove comments. the transcripts were analysed using content analysis to categorise the data according to similar themes and patterns. following the inductive approach, two researchers independently identified themes from the data, and the themes were agreed after discussion. further axial coding resulted in three major codes within the concepts of enablers and barriers. the two main themes encompassed the three sub-themes (codes) of staff, students, and systems. these three sub-themes created both enablers and barriers. findings staff: enablers and barriers all participants were aware of opnz’s focus on improving student engagement and course completions and felt proud of the organisation’s achievements in recent years. for example: by really focusing we’ve been able to do things we never dreamed of. (rose) a few years ago our epis were awful, but over the last few years we’ve really turned that around. (rory) all participants were aware of the strategies and practices in place to improve student engagement. all spoke of the need for committed and knowledgeable staff, the need for staff to be competent in their roles, and the importance of continually striving for improvement. as craig acknowledged: you don’t want to sit still, we want to keep doing a better job. (craig) enablers participants identified two key aspects of staff involvement that have been particularly significant in increasing student engagement at opnz. these were a student-focused approach and the effect of high-quality resource design. a student-focused approach all staff recognised the need to be student focused, and that their job was to help students work to the best of their ability, to improve their qualifications, and to reach life goals. we’ve moved from a problem-solving approach which was “what are you having trouble with and we’ll help you to fix it” to a strengths-based approach where we focus on talking to the students about their goals and dreams and how they will use the skills they already have to help them study. (craig) key aspects of a student-focused approach include being flexible and proactive, and developing a sense of belonging amongst the students. rick spoke of supporting students by negotiating individual work plans and submission dates to take account of work and family commitments, rather than making all students adhere to the same dates. his faculty ensured a tutor and/or lecturer was available until 8 p.m. each evening for student phone calls, and they also arranged face-to-face student drop-in study groups if the numbers of students warranted this approach. there were 15 such study groups around new zealand at that time. all participants spoke of the need for staff to be proactive in encouraging student engagement. as craig said, “we don’t wait for students to contact us—we ring them”. participants provided information on the procedures followed by their departments. (for example, the learning centre targets all newly enrolled students and uses a peer-to-peer mentoring system whereby experienced students phone new students to discuss goals and ascertain any assistance needed.) yates, a., brindley-richards, w., & thistoll, t. 34 lecturers contacted all students within a set time of the course beginning, and then again at an agreed interval. the library contacted most degree-level students through library forums on the online course pages and were available to provide resources and assistance at the student’s request. multiple contact methods were mentioned, such as emails, phone calls, and text messages. several participants spoke of the need to make the students feel part of a learning community and to create a sense of belonging. the key thing is that students feel that they belong to the organisation. (craig) our engagement strategies are focused around trying to make the students feel they belong. (rose) i try to be really welcoming and open … you really do need to be available and respond quickly to things like phone messages and email. (clara) high-quality course and resource design there was also general agreement that course resources and course design are important enablers in student engagement. one participant described how he rewrote some mathematics materials because the original was too difficult, and the difference the changes made to students’ ability to engage with the material and the learning. barriers participants identified three staff-related barriers to improving student engagement. these were: the impact of poor course and resource design, negative attitudes towards students, and the impact of change management. poor quality course materials while there was general agreement that good course and resource design was important, participants in student support roles felt there were still some poor materials that were problematic for student engagement. examples included unclear assessment instructions, ambiguous tasks, excessive numbers of readings (in one case over 800 pages), and in one case a task was incorrectly labelled an essay when it was, in fact, a report. it was frustrating for student support staff to deal with constant student inquiries, but have no authority to have materials altered. on the other hand, time pressures, rather than reluctance, were cited by lecturers for not changing or updating materials. they felt they lacked time to deal with all their responsibilities. as jack shared: the difficulty is the time factor, getting time to support students, to mark assessments and do revisions. (jack) negative attitudes towards students negative attitudes to the students were identified as a further barrier. some participants spoke of colleagues with attitudes such as considering engagement to be solely a student responsibility, and therefore not improving course materials nor changing practice. some deficit attitudes towards students were expressed during the interviews. for example, one participant stated that if students could not be bothered working, there was not much that could be done. one expressed surprise at the poor technological skills of 19–20 year olds; and another commented on the lack of academic skills of some students. managing change while most staff were committed to improving their practice, participants in management roles spoke of the difficulty in effecting change. as rose commented “we’ve had to force a lot of practices that are good for the students”. she noted that “it’s quite frustrating getting messages journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 35 down” and martha agreed that “change is hard”. however, the exact nature of the change and the resistance was not explicitly shared. only one specific example of resistance was given, and this related to lecturing staff being reluctant to provide exemplars because they felt doing so gave the students too much assistance and was akin to cheating. on the whole, resistance to change seemed limited and, as craig commented: for the most part we have brilliant course material, we have fantastic lecturers. (craig) students: enablers and barriers students have a part to play in their own engagement in study, and participants identified a number of factors they considered either enabled or acted as a barrier to this engagement. enablers the participants identified four student-related enablers that help course completion. these related to how the students engaged with opnz for their learning and how they sought help when required. staff particularly identified the importance of correct course and programme choice, careful monitoring of progress, use of support services, and involvement in a learning community. correct course and programme choice participants emphasised the need for students to be guided into appropriate nzqf levels and amounts of study. for example, opnz strongly recommends students start with one course and, if successful, enrol for further study rather than taking on too much at the beginning. it was noted that students needed to be mentored into courses at an appropriate level. as clara said: …it’s not doing any favour to anyone to put a student into a course when they’re going to fail. (clara) participants also noted the importance of ensuring students were studying courses that helped them to achieve their life and work goals, because this ensures students are motivated to study. monitoring careful monitoring of student progress was mentioned by all participants as an important aspect of encouraging engagement. they felt systems were in place: there are a lot of safety nets here … there are enough interventions and enough different people that can intervene and help. (owen) monitoring occurs at all levels of the organisation and participants noted that this was an important aspect of improving student engagement and course completion rates. foster noted: we now really closely know who comes in, who’s engaged, what their success rates are, and we know that at a management level and a tutor level and administrator level. (foster) one aspect of monitoring that all participants mentioned was opnz’s policy to contact students within certain timeframes and then again at certain intervals but, as wilfred mentioned, the monitoring has to be supportive (for example, asking the student how they are getting on and whether they enjoying the course, rather than immediately suggesting they are falling behind). use of support services all participants noted the need for students to be supported academically, and a variety of services are available. all students were made aware of these support services, but first-time students and students with disabilities were specifically targeted. examples were given of students being provided with individual support, such as reader–writers or additional yates, a., brindley-richards, w., & thistoll, t. 36 mathematical tuition. however, as one participant mentioned, learning needs vary from student to student and staff need to be aware of individual students: you may not think that people who are in their 40s need support but actually sometimes they need it more than an 18 year old. (clara) involvement in a learning community most participants emphasised the importance of creating learning communities of staff and students. in their view, students were more likely to be engaged if they felt connected to the institution, and when multiple methods of contact (e.g., email, texts, phone calls) were used. creating opportunities for students to connect with each other was regarded as important, and online classrooms were seen to be an effective way of doing this. however, rick noted that his faculty preferred a face-to-face, study-group approach due to the practical nature of teaching a trade. barriers staff identified three barriers that particularly affected student engagement, course completion, and retention. these were: students lacking the necessary skills, time conflicts, and lack of faceto-face contact. students lacking necessary skills participants noted that the nature of opnz as a distance tvet provider meant that they had a significant number of students who were unprepared for the independent learning required for distance study. staff commented particularly that some of the students they dealt with did not have the computer, literacy and/or writing skills required for their study. as rick commented: i’ve had students over the years who i’ve spent huge amounts of time with to get them through their calculations … because they were no good at maths at school, they didn’t really learn anything from primary school onwards. (rick) in another example, he said: i’ve got one guy at the moment who can read but his actual comprehension of what he’s reading is quite poor, and also his ability to write—he can tell me the answer to something but for him to actually put that down in writing is almost impossible, so he has to have something to copy from. (rick) wilfred also commented that students coming into trades education have often left school with minimal education and some have to be taught very basic skills such as how to draw a straight line. clara spoke of students enrolling in social science courses who were unaware of the high level of statistical, research, and referencing skills required by the discipline. time conflicts due to the nature of students enrolled at opnz (older, female and/or second-chance learners) participants felt there were many demands on their time. for example, when staff contacted nonengaged students, reasons given for the lack of engagement included dealing with sick family members, work pressure, and the general busy-ness of an adult life. as clara noted: i think that one problem is incorrect expectations and unrealistic evaluations of how much time they have and i think a second reason for non-engagement is students who may actually realise how much work it is but haven’t thought about all the other aspects of their life. (clara) rick spoke of working with employers of apprentices to remove time conflicts, by managing assignment completion when work was quiet. he would also contact employers of non-engaged students to enlist their support. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 37 lack of face-to-face contact all participants talked about the importance of building relationships with students to encourage engagement and connection with the institution, but cited the lack of face-to-face contact as a particular barrier to establishing these relationships with distance education students. the challenge to distance education is to build those communities of learning without necessarily ever seeing people. (rose) two participants from trades education also commented that the kinaesthetic nature of trades was not always compatible with written, distance study, and that they adopted a blended approach by providing study centres. systems: enablers and barriers the polytechnic has made a number of system-wide changes to improve course completion and student engagement rates. some of these relate to the organisation of courses and programmes, and others have been systemic changes at a higher level. as with the other sub-themes, participants identified both enablers and barriers. enablers the enablers that were identified related to changes to both course structure and systems. participants particularly noted the effect of more structured courses; the increased focus on strategy, analysis and monitoring; creating an online presence; and the effect of forced student withdrawals. more structured courses participants recognised that certain types of courses had been problematic for student engagement and completion. these were courses that were open for enrolment every month, and students had 52 weeks to complete. the number of times such courses were offered was reduced, assessment due dates were introduced, and timeframes to complete were reduced to 35 weeks. as we’ve seen—if we change the way we offer courses, if we provide them in more solid chunks, if we have the right structure, the results will follow. (rory) the assessment due dates have made a difference, it structured things for people. (martha) focus on strategy, analysis and monitoring in 2009, opnz established a directorate named ‘strategy and analysis’. the mandate of this unit is to execute the strategy of opnz and direct the organisation in achieving organisational goals and objectives. five participants discussed the relevance of this unit and believed it made a major contribution to improvements in student engagement because it ensures opnz is constantly monitoring progress and planning future progress. although not all of the participants specifically mentioned strategy and analysis, they all noted the effect of the engagement tool, which was instigated by the unit, in closely monitoring enrolments and completions and alerting staff to non-engaged students. systems that allow close monitoring of student engagement were considered beneficial to improving engagement. as one participant said: we measure it [engagement] and that in itself is a huge change agent in that we now really closely monitor who comes in, who’s engaged, and what their success rates are. (foster) creating an online presence creating an online presence was also considered by most participants to encourage student engagement. lecturers said the online environment allowed the creation of learning communities through discussion boards and shared activities. owen, from the library, described how e-books are used far more extensively than in the past. he cites the convenience of these books in terms yates, a., brindley-richards, w., & thistoll, t. 38 of accessibility for students and less staff time needed to post materials. the student learning centre has also created online support materials. as martha commented: i see it [the online campus] as a useful way for students to not feel the distance as much. to see discussion forums where they can join in with other students and/or hear what the tutor is saying. (martha) online learning (rather than paper-based distance learning) had further advantages. rick spoke of the ability to share screens with students to demonstrate computer assisted design (cad) and to monitor students’ use of cad in the same way. using email to answer student queries was also seen as supportive to students as answers were guaranteed, whereas phone calls were often missed. withdrawing students a further administrative procedure, after all support mechanisms were exhausted, was withdrawing non-engaged students from programmes. all agreed this was effective in improving course completion statistics, and allowed staff to focus their time on those students who were engaged. however, one participant did comment that merely withdrawing students did not address engagement and could, in fact, mask issues that should be dealt with. barriers as with the other sub-themes, many of the barriers that related to systems at opnz were the converse of the enablers. participants particularly identified issues relating to managing open courses and addressing the diverse and complex needs of opnz learners. managing open courses although some of the open courses had been restructured, others still caused engagement issues. martha explains systemic difficulties: in open courses, you get 30 students now, then at the beginning of the next month you get another 30 students, so now you’ve got those 30 students plus the new 30 students, so you’ve got 60 students. and then the next month you’ve got another 30, so it builds up. so you can actually have over a hundred that are at various stages of the blocks so it is quite intensive, overlapping. (martha) the amount of time staff needed to spend in dealing with such courses was seen as a barrier. diverse and complex needs a further barrier offered was the diverse and complex nature of opnz as a distance tvet provider, meaning a single system cannot work for all. as rory explains: you’d like to think that distance education comes in one shape or flavour but it doesn’t. there’s no such thing as a typical programme here at the open polytechnic because they tend to run in very different ways. we also offer education from level 1 right through to level 7, and so we have different student needs. so it’s not easy to get a silver bullet in terms of how student engagement might look or a single system that will work for everyone. what works in one programme area for business may not be appropriate at all for early childhood education, and it may not be appropriate for engineering. (rory) all participants spoke of the range of needs such as mathematical skills for apprentices, referencing skills for degree-level courses, and the specific needs of māori and pasifika and firsttime students. the student base of a tvet provider is diverse and has many needs. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 39 discussion interventions and changes implemented by opnz over recent years have been part of a programme of continuous improvement, but are also a response to policy changes. until 2010, tertiary institutions in new zealand were funded by the total number of students enrolled; they therefore focused on attracting student enrolments. subsequently, funding became related to the percentage of students completing courses (ministry of education, 2010). as a tvet distance education provider, opnz faced a number of challenges in raising course completion levels. in the initial period of change opnz fared badly in this measure and risked losing funding— improving course completion rates therefore became crucial for the institution’s continuing existence. participants in this study came from a variety of roles within opnz, but all were well aware of the institution’s efforts over recent years to improve student engagement and, ultimately, course completion. they were positive towards the interventions and changes, took pride in the organisation’s achievements, and were unhappy with staff who were reluctant to change. participants articulated familiarity with interventions recommended by the literature to improve student engagement. these included early identification of students who might need help (gibbs, regan, & simpson, 2007), pre-counselling (such as guiding students to appropriate courses [nichols, 2009]), and a proactive approach to all students (barefoot, 2004). the institution-wide focus, and ensuring that staff are knowledgeable about effective interventions, have contributed to improved student engagement. a notable feature articulated by all participants was the desire to be student-centred; they all spoke of the need to create effective relationships with students in order to support learning (ross, 2010). this is a challenging feature of distance education and particularly of vocational training, because students have work demands that compete for their study time, and they are most likely to be available in the evenings. the addition of an online learning platform has improved student communication and connection with opnz and, consequently, has improved relationships. this improved communication among students and between students and lecturers is in keeping with social constructivism (vygotsky, 1986), which purports that learning takes place within a social structure and that interaction assists this process. moving paper-based distance education to online platforms is recommended by robinson and hullinger (2008), who claimed online environments allow distance students to discuss course work and stressful issues, and to share ideas. however, merely adding an online platform is not a solution, as the high dropout rate (around 93 percent) from massive online open courses (moocs) shows (times higher education, 2013, as cited in simpson, 2013). as anderson and simpson (2012) claim, teaching and learning must still focus on people, and we must tend to the mix of the human and the technological. participants seemed to be aware of this challenge. the student-centred approach included the recognition that unless courses and assessments meet student needs, they cause difficulties. however, there did seem to be some internal conflict over how to achieve this goal. some participants claimed not enough time was allocated to this task and that the logistics of achieving change quickly were therefore insurmountable. resistance by some staff to change materials was also reported, suggesting this is an outstanding issue. it also raises the question of who is responsible for materials and suggests that perhaps not only lecturers should have input. participants from learning support and the library made important contributions to students’ learning and had clear ideas about what was effective. as more institutions move to making materials available online, consideration of who is responsible, who has ownership and authority, and who has input, is needed. the diverse abilities of students enrolling in vocational education mean careful consideration needs to be given to the literacy levels of written materials. subject-specialist lecturers may need to take advice from literacy experts. yates, a., brindley-richards, w., & thistoll, t. 40 in one department a student-centred approach also included working with employers. as the literature (e.g., ashby, 2004; guiney, 2013a) has suggested that employers are not always supportive of distance learning, this is a useful approach. because students enrol in tvet institutions to improve their employment prospects, employers may, in fact, welcome inclusion. administrative procedures that can improve conditions likely to support student engagement are rarely reported in the literature. however, in this study, the importance of measuring and monitoring student engagement and having an institutional focus on student engagement was emphasised. interestingly, creating more structure (such as shortening completion timeframes and instituting submission deadlines) has improved course completion. one could speculate that complete openness does not create a sense of urgency for students and, consequently, procrastination increases. in particular, institutions that provide vocational training for part-time distance students, who have many competing demands on their time, may find that a more structured programme allows students to plan more effectively. creating structure also allows the institution to measure non-engagement and initiate action that will encourage engagement. withdrawing non-engaged students was seen as a mechanism for providing staff with more time to work with those who want to succeed. paloff and pratt (2003) could be seen to support this stance as they argued successful distance (online) students need technical skills, self-motivation, and self-discipline. if students do not have these qualities then perhaps withdrawal is necessary. however, when students enrol in courses with the intention of succeeding but then do not engage, withdrawal could be masking an issue rather than dealing with reasons for not engaging. however, because research into what happens to those who do not complete is rare (simpson, 2013), further investigation on this issue is warranted. participants described multiple interventions that suggest attention to a range of actions is needed. distance education scholarship emphasises the need for effective materials and resources (harasim, hiltz, teles, & turoff, 1995); interaction with teachers and each other (paloff & pratt, 2003); and a student-centred, empathetic approach (holmberg, 2005). participants in this study recognised the need for all of these but, due to the wide range of vocational programmes offered by opnz, a simple, one-size-fits-all solution is not possible. these differing perspectives created a picture that resonates with paloff and pratt’s (2003) model of distance education courses whereby the institution, the staff and the students all work to create effective learning. as paloff and pratt claimed, the institution must create systems that are conducive to learning, teachers need to offer both academic and non-academic support, and students must be active learners who are willing to contribute. the participants in this study identified factors related to staff, students, and systems which they believed contributed to increased student engagement. conclusion while acknowledging the small scale of this study, the findings do support and add to the literature on student engagement in distance vocational education. the student perspective is widely documented in the literature, but there is far less on staff perspectives. this study has painted a picture of a group of knowledgeable, dedicated tvet staff who firmly believe student engagement will improve with appropriate interventions. the implications are that distance education institutions can match face-to-face organisations in terms of student engagement and course completion, but they must enable staff to be student-centred. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 41 references anderson, h. (2011). how to increase student retention and success: a systematic, evidenceinformed approach. retrieved from https://akoaotearoa.ac.nz/how-to-increase-studentretention-and-success-systematic-evidence-info anderson, b., & simpson, m. (2012). history and heritage in distance education. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 16(2), 1–10. ashby, a. (2004). monitoring student retention in the open university: definition, measurement, interpretation and action. open learning: the journal of open, distance and e-learning, 19(1), 65–77. barefoot, b. (2004). higher education’s revolving door: confronting the problem of student dropout in us colleges and universities. open learning: the journal of open, distance and e-learning, 19(1), 9–18. bogdan, r., & biklen, s. (2007). qualitative research for education: an introduction to theories and methods. boston, ma: pearson education. boyle, f., kwon, j., ross, c., & simpson, o. (2010). student–student mentoring for retention and engagement in distance education. open learning: the journal of open, distance and e-learning, 25(2), 115–130. chen, p. r., gonyea, r., & kuh, g. (2008). learning at a distance: engaged or not? innovate, 4(3), 1–9. coates, h. (2005). the value of student engagement for higher education quality assurance. quality in higher education, 11(1), 25–36. doi: 10.1080/13538320500074915 gibbs, g., regan, p., & simpson, o. (2007). improving student retention through evidence based proactive systems at the open university (uk). journal of college student retention: research, theory and practice, 8(3), 359–376. doi: 10.2190/2296-8237-8743-nw7p guiney, p. (2013a). extramural students’ participation and achievement: trends, patterns and highlights. new zealand: ministry of education. guiney, p. (2013b). the open polytechnic of new zealand case study. in author, extramural students’ participation and achievement: trends, patterns and highlights (pp. 40–46) new zealand: ministry of education. harasim, l., hiltz, s., teles, l., & turoff, m. (1995). learning networks: a field guide to teaching and learning online. cambridge, ma: mit press. holmberg, b. (2005). the evolution, principles and practices of distance education. oldenburg: bis-verlag carl von ossietzky universitat. klem, a., & connell, j. (2004). relationships matter: linking teacher support to student engagement and achievement. journal of school health, 7(74), 262–273. ministry of education. (2010). tertiary education strategy 2010–2015. wellington: the ministry. neal, t. (2011). open and distance technical and vocational education and training (tvet): poor relation or knight in shining armour? paper presented at the 24th icde world conference on open and distance learning, bali, indonesia. https://akoaotearoa.ac.nz/how-to-increase-student-retention-and-success-systematic-evidence-info https://akoaotearoa.ac.nz/how-to-increase-student-retention-and-success-systematic-evidence-info yates, a., brindley-richards, w., & thistoll, t. 42 neal, t., & seelig, c. (2013). developing vocational skills with embedded literacy and numeracy in second-chance learners. paper presented at the seventh pan-commonwealth forum on open learning (pcf7), abuja, nigeria. retrieved from http://pcfpapers.colfinder.org/handle/5678/154 nichols, m. (2009). student perceptions of support services and the influence of targeted interventions on retention in distance education. distance education, 31(1), 93–113. nichols, m. (2011). intervention for retention through distance education: a comparison study. retrieved from https://akoaotearoa.ac.nz/download/ng/file/group-5/intervention-for-retentionthrough-distance-education-a-comparison-study.pdf o’donoghue, t. (2007). planning your qualitative research project: an introduction to interpretivist research in education. abingdon, uk: routledge. open polytechnic of new zealand. (2013). investment plan 2013–2015. lower hutt, new zealand: the open polytechnic of new zealand. paloff, r., & pratt, k. (2003). the virtual student: a profile and guide to working with online learners. san francisco, ca: jossey-bass. robinson, c. c., & hullinger, h. (2008). new benchmarks in higher education: student engagement in online learning. journal of education for business, 84(2), 101–109. ross, c. (2010). engaging distance students in learning: what matters to students, what motivates them and how can engagement in learning be fostered? lower hutt: new zealand: the open polytechnic of new zealand. simpson, o. (2013). student retention in distance education: are we failing our students? open learning: the journal of open and distance learning, 28(2), 105–119. stone, c. (2012). engaging students across distance and place. journal of the australia and new zealand services association, 39, 49–55. suttle, c. m. (2010). engagement in online courses. (doctoral dissertation, capella university). (umi 3412490) tertiary education commission. (2013). the performance of tertiary organisations: open polytechnic. retrieved from http://www.tec.govt.nz/reports/2012/open-polytechnic.pdf unesco. [2001?]. technical and vocational education and training for the twenty-first century: unesco recommendations. retrieved from http://www.tec.govt.nz/reports/2012/openpolytechnic.pdf vygotsky, l. s. (1986). thought and language (abridged from 1934; a.kozulin, trans.). cambridge, ma: mit press. http://pcfpapers.colfinder.org/handle/5678/154 https://akoaotearoa.ac.nz/download/ng/file/group-5/intervention-for-retention-through-distance-education-a-comparison-study.pdf https://akoaotearoa.ac.nz/download/ng/file/group-5/intervention-for-retention-through-distance-education-a-comparison-study.pdf http://www.tec.govt.nz/reports/2012/open-polytechnic.pdf http://www.tec.govt.nz/reports/2012/open-polytechnic.pdf http://www.tec.govt.nz/reports/2012/open-polytechnic.pdf journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) 43 biographical notes anne yates anne.yates@vuw.ac.nz anne yates is a lecturer in the faculty of education at victoria university of wellington, new zealand, where she teaches in the graduate diploma in teaching and ba programmes. anne has a background in distance education as the former programme director for the graduate diploma in teaching (secondary online) at victoria university and previously taught at te aho o te kura pounamu—the correspondence school. her research interests include distance learning (including e-learning) as an approach to learning, initial teacher education, and school-based assessment for national qualifications. wendy brindley-richards brindlwend@myvuw.ac.nz wendy brindley-richards is a former teacher who is now studying for a masters of educational psychology with victoria university of wellington. she was appointed from november 2013 until march 2014 as a faculty of education, victoria university summer scholar—a programme that aims to develop the research skills of postgraduate students. during this period she contributed extensively to the research project. dr tony thistoll tony.thistoll@openpolytechnic.ac.nz dr tony thistoll is strategic insight manager at the open polytechnic of new zealand. he currently leads a team of analysts to inform and execute the organisational strategy for open and flexible vocational education. his background is in product management and business development in the information and communication technologies (ict) industry. in recent years tony has combined postgraduate study with contract lecturing and has completed a phd in the field of entrepreneurship and innovation in the context of the ict industry. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. yates, a., brindley-richards, w., & thistoll, t. (2014). student engagement in distance-based vocational education. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 18(2), [29–43]. mailto:anne.yates@vuw.ac.nz mailto:brindlwend@myvuw.ac.nz mailto:tony.thistoll@openpolytechnic.ac.nz http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ yates, a., brindley-richards, w., & thistoll, t. 44 © distance education association of new zealand 26 formative assessment: evaluating the effectiveness of online quizzes in a core business finance course hamish d. anderson department of economics and finance college of business massey university palmerston north, new zealand introduction action without reflection can result in unproductive endeavour, and reflection without action is unlikely to produce any endeavour. feedback provided through formative assessment practices is critical to this action– reflection process and has been referred to as the “life-blood of learning” (rountree, 1987). feedback enables students to reflect on and monitor their own progress and then redirect their study endeavours to where they are most productive. if it is correctly structured, assessment should also inform teaching and improve learning (mctighe & ferrara, 1998). further, the act of reflecting on students’ formative assessment should show teachers where their teaching endeavour is most effective. over the last decade, the world wide web has become firmly established in the commercial world and is increasingly prevalent in education. the potential benefits that the internet provides to distance education—of flexibility, timeliness, and logistical advantages—are clear. developed and delivered appropriately, web-enhanced (or blended) education can also yield benefits of engendering active learning, and encourage reflection and application (eastmond, 1998). the results of early research into the effectiveness of computer-based learning aids in finance and accounting courses were mixed. er and ng (1989) concluded that computerised instruction yielded little benefit for teaching accounting concepts, while kachelmeirer, jones, and keller (1992) journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 26–40 © distance education association of new zealand 27 found that similar learning aids did help teaching of accounting courses. marks (1998) found that introductory graduate finance students with access to computerised formative testing achieved higher summative assessment grades than those students who did not have access to the software. gretes and green (2000) examined the use of computer-based assessment for student practice and feedback, and found a significant one-half letter grade difference between students who used computer-based practice tests and those who did not. the significant positive effect on student performance remained after controlling for students’ earlier academic performance. gretes and green (2000) also found a positive relationship between the number of practice tests attempted by students and course grades. qualitative feedback from students of online and computer-based assessment showed improved student motivation and increased incidence of revision and enhanced engagement with the subject material (thelwell, 2000; marriott & lau, 2008). according to bloom et al’s (1956) taxonomy, the lower learning objectives (such as knowledge, comprehension, and application) deal with the fundamental concepts that students need to know about a new topic, and how to place the basic information in its correct context. mastery of these lower learning objectives allows the learner to progress onto the higher learning objectives involving analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. the formative assessment in the core business finance course in this case study has always sought to allow students to achieve this progression. this article outlines the traditional pen-and-paper and online formative assessment models that have been used in the business finance course. the effectiveness of these formative assessment models is then analysed qualitatively and quantitatively, and a final word is provided on the administrative consequences of the change to an online formative assessment model. background this article outlines a major change in the formative assessment system used in a second-year core business finance course at the manawatu campus of massey university in new zealand. before 2002, the formative assessment system for the business finance course relied on students completing answers to regular problem sets. from 2002 onwards, mastery online quizzes, which covered specific learning outcomes, became the main formative assessment tool. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 26–40 © distance education association of new zealand 28 the change in formative assessment practice was driven largely by student feedback and rising administrative costs (both money and time). the business finance course is required or highly recommended for a number of majors— including finance and accounting—and therefore has substantial student numbers. the course is offered in distance and internal modes in semester 1 and again in distance mode in semester 2. over the past 8 years the business finance cohort has averaged 484 students per year, split (on average) between 167 internal students and 317 distance students. the rest of this article outlines the formative assessment system before 2002 and then details the change to mastery online quizzes. i then examine the links between the mastery quiz performance and final assessment for 135 students who completed the semester 1, 2008 distance offering. in particular, i analyse the late adopters of the mastery quizzes and track their performance in the final examination, as well as examining the effect of mastery quizzes on the borderline and academically weaker students. the old formative assessment system because the learning outcomes of business finance are very sequential, students need to master one topic before moving onto the next. repetition of problems and exercises is also an important learning method in financial mathematics. as such, formative assessment is a critical learning strategy which enables students to attain a comprehension level that, in turn, enables them to successfully negotiate the higher learning outcomes of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. before 2002, the main formative assessment tool for both internal and distance offerings of this course were regular problem sets for which students submitted answers by specified due dates. because of large class sizes, limited individual feedback was written; however, full worked solutions were provided. to encourage sequential learning in a large undergraduate class, students received a small participatory mark for each submitted problem set. this mark contributed to their final grade. as long as students submitted on time and had at least attempted most of the questions, they received the participatory mark. many students appreciated the formative assessment, as evidenced by the following comments: journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 26–40 © distance education association of new zealand 29 part of the paper is to complete regular tutorials. i have found that this has been instrumental in my learning—it really does facilitate the understanding of finance (secat,1 1998). i really liked how i had to hand in tutorials. kept me up to date and on top of my studies!! (secat, 1999). however, for every positive comment there was at least one negative comment. this was particularly true for distance students who have additional work and personal commitments, and whose study habits are not spread evenly throughout a semester. in fact, lack of flexibility was the most quoted reason for distance students not fully using the formative problem sets. the feedback below highlights the tensions in the assessment model. the problem sets were helpful and helped me pinpoint any areas where i had problems. however, the process is too inflexible and most extramural students study this way for the flexibility! (secat, 1998). although i agree that ongoing tutorial assignments during the course keeps you up to date and tests [sic] your understanding, i found little time to initiate my own learning techniques (secat, 2000). a review of student and marker feedback in 2001 highlighted that the problem-set system had a number of weaknesses that reduced the effectiveness of determining whether students were achieving the course’s learning outcomes. these weaknesses included the following: the problem sets were an inflexible learning tool for students.• because of limited resources, it was only possible to mark and provide • individual feedback on one question per submitted problem set. the feedback to distance students was typically given up to 10 days • after they had completed and posted their answers. there was evidence of plagiarism and copying of written answers • amongst students. there are increasing numbers of test-bank solution manuals on the • internet, and students were increasingly copying and pasting solutions from websites. 1 secat is massey university’s independent student evaluation tool that examines course design and teaching performance. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 26–40 © distance education association of new zealand 30 when i analysed the 2001 distance cohort, there was no significant difference in final examination marks between students who completed all formative assessment (53.8 percent average) and those who didn’t attempt any formative assessments (51.8 percent average). further, analysis revealed virtually no relationship between a student’s performance in the formative assessment and their performance in the summative assessment (the correlation was 0.05). in other words, students could not use the formative assessment to gauge whether they had achieved the course’s learning outcomes. at the same time, projected class rolls were expected to grow dramatically between 2002 and 2005. most of the total resources expended in running the problem-set formative assessment system were variable in nature. the time spent compiling the problem sets and solutions, marking, collating, recording, and distributing had to be repeated for every offering of the business finance course. further, as class rolls increased, so did most of the financial costs and the time spent administering the system. the limitations of the problem-set system and the challenges facing the course (highlighted above) led to a rethink of the formative assessment structure. from semester 1 in 2002, the course changed to online mastery quiz testing delivered through webct. structure of mastery quizzes the webct quizzes feature allows the instructor to develop quizzes from a number of question types including multiple-choice, calculation, shortanswer, matching, and paragraph. calculated questions allow the creation of questions in which the numerical inputs are randomly generated numbers. a new set of randomly generated variables is provided each time a calculated question is presented to a student. the student completes the calculation and enters their answer directly into the online quiz. the instructor can include a variance for rounding errors in the answer, and they can also indicate the number of decimal places required in the answer. the advantage of calculation questions over multiple-choice questions is that students cannot simply guess the answer. they need to understand and apply the concepts rather than relying on the odds of guessing correctly. webct allows the instructor to add a set of questions (typically on the same topic) from which they then choose how many they want to randomly select. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 26–40 © distance education association of new zealand 31 for example, two questions could be randomly selected from a set of 20 questions every time a student attempts the quiz. each quiz is then made up from a number of question sets. quiz difficulty must be controlled for fairness and to build student confidence as they progress through their studies. this control is achieved by ranking each question by level of difficulty (e.g., easy, medium, and hard) so that all questions contained in a question set cover the same topic and have the same overall level of difficulty. each randomly generated mastery quiz therefore has a consistent level of difficulty. the business finance mastery quizzes predominantly use calculation, matching, and multiple-choice questions. there are five mastery quizzes, which are drawn from a test bank of over 1400 questions (in 2002 the test bank had a total of about 800 questions). each of the five mastery quizzes covers specific topics that are linked to the learning outcomes of the course. each of the five mastery quizzes contains 15 questions that cover approximately 2 weeks’ work (quiz 1 covers the first 2 weeks’ work etc). students are considered to have mastered the material if they achieve 10 or more out of 15 on any quiz attempt. students receive a small participatory mark for each of the five quizzes they master. unlike the problem-set system, students must now demonstrate they understand most of the material (rather than simply attempting to answer a question) before they receive the participatory marks. students can complete each quiz as many times as they like right up to the final examination. at the end of the semester, each student’s highest quiz mark for each of the five quizzes is downloaded from webct. if their highest mark is more than 10 out of 15 for a quiz, they are awarded the participatory mark for that particular quiz. the value of the online quizzes and the huge question database is the ability for students to retest themselves multiple times throughout a semester, and to receive instant feedback. i encourage students to use the learning tool to identify the areas they have yet to master. this strategy targets their learning and revision most effectively. from the first time the quizzes were offered, student feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. a small sample of the feedback is shown below: mastery quizzes were fantastic, they were difficult enough to ensure you had to know the work to pass (secat, 2002). journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 26–40 © distance education association of new zealand 32 on-line tests fit well with the way i study, being able to test my knowledge and identify areas i’m deficient in, complete further study and then retest myself again (secat 2003). the online quizzes have been great, especially since i can do them over and over to aid my learning (secat, 2007). webct quizzes are excellent—invaluable (secat, 2008). the student feedback provides qualitative evidence that the change in formative assessment helps student learning and provides increased flexibility. however, i also quantify the effect on student learning by comparing a student’s mastery quiz performance with their internal assessment and final examination results each year. in the following sections i examine how the formative assessment tool affects student uptake. i then examine the performance of users and non-users of the mastery quizzes in the 2008 semester 1 distance offering. i also analyse the benefits of the quizzes for those students who were late adopters of the mastery quizzes as well as those students who are borderline or academically weaker. improved student use of formative assessment tool one of my primary goals of the mastery online quizzes was to increase the flexibility of the formative assessment tool, particularly for distance education students. to examine this issue, i analysed student uptake of formative assessment under the old tutorial problem-set system and compared it with online mastery quiz use. three years of data from 1999 to 2001 are used for the problem-set system, and data from 2002 to 2008 is used for the mastery quizzes. under the old system, only 59 percent of distance students attempted all formative assessment items. since 2002, 92 percent of students in distance learning cohorts have attempted all five quizzes, while 81 percent mastered all five quizzes at least once. although it was expected that distance students would experience the biggest benefits of the more flexible learning tool, internal student use also improved from 71 percent to 86 percent. the significant increase in students’ use of the formative assessment supports qualitative student feedback that the quizzes are a flexible learning tool. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 26–40 © distance education association of new zealand 33 how do users and non-users perform? to examine the effect of the mastery quizzes on student learning, i examined the 2008 semester 1 distance cohort. the assessment structure was broken into two internal summative assessments (assignment and test) and a final examination. the content of the internal summative assessment related to mastery quizzes 1 to 3, and the final examination covered material from the entire course. of the 162 students enrolled, 135 students completed the final examination. i restricted my analysis to the 135 completing students to enable tracking of student progress through the semester. of the 135 who completed the course, 15.6 percent achieved a final grade in the a range, 31.9 percent were in the b range, and 32.5 percent were in the c range. ten percent of the class received a restricted pass,2 and the remaining 10 percent received d or e grades. the following analysis compares the 2008 distance cohort results for the internal test with mastery quiz 3, which covered the same learning outcomes. table 1 presents the average test marks achieved by those who did not complete mastery quiz 3, those who used it but didn’t master the material, and those who mastered the quiz (i.e., scored 10 or more out of 15 at least once). the average grade for those who didn’t attempt the quiz was d. those who attempted but didn’t master achieved an average r (restricted pass) grade, and those who mastered the quiz 3 material achieved a baverage. table 1 also highlights that both the worst (minimum mark) and best (maximum mark) summative assessment marks improve as students move from the ‘didn’t attempt’ category through to the ‘mastered’ category. table 1 student use of online mastery quizzes and student performance in the summative test students who: number of students average test mark minimum mark maximum mark didn’t attempt 35 43% 20% 73% attempted but didn’t master 23 47% 23% 77% attempted and mastered 77 64% 30% 93% 2 restricted passes count as a credit towards most massey university degrees but do not meet pre-requisite requirements for enrolment in higher level courses. they are typically awarded for overall final marks of 47 to 50 percent. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 26–40 © distance education association of new zealand 34 each year i use similar results to explain risk and return, which is a key finance concept. i re-label each category as an investment opportunity and ask students to rank and choose the best investment. when the class has chosen the investment with the highest return and lowest risk, i point out that everyone can earn that return by simply investing time in completing the mastery quizzes! on closer inspection table 2 digs a little deeper to look at the 77 students who mastered quiz 3. the first column shows the highest score in any quiz 3 attempt, and the second column shows how many students achieved this as their highest score. those who achieved 10 or 11 out of 15 achieved an average of c+, compared to a b grade for quiz marks of 12 to 14. the average for those getting 15 out of 15 for one of their quiz attempts was b+. table 2 highest mark for students mastering the online quizzes, and their performance in the summative test highest mastery quiz mark number of students average test mark minimum mark maximum mark 10 10 57% 37% 73% 11 15 58% 27% 67% 12 15 65% 47% 87% 13 13 65% 47% 90% 14 13 67% 50% 80% 15 11 72% 50% 93% a similar result is found when comparing students’ average mastery quiz and final exam marks (see table 3). the average mastery quiz mark for each student is calculated using their best quiz attempt mark for each of the five quizzes. the average final exam mark increases from 45 percent for those not mastering the quizzes through to 69 percent for those averaging 14 or higher for each quiz. the minimum final examination mark also improves as the average quiz mark improves. the correlation between students’ average mastery quiz mark and their final examination marks is 0.54. the substantially higher correlation between the online quiz for formative assessment and the summative assessment, compared with the previous problem-set formative assessment system, is further proof that the online quizzes are more useful to students for gauging their achievement of the course’s learning outcomes. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 26–40 © distance education association of new zealand 35 table 3 average score across all mastery quizzes, and performance in the final examination average mastery quiz mark number of students average final examination mark minimum mark maximum mark below 10 25 45% 30% 63% 10 to 11 22 50% 34% 75% 11 to 12 37 55% 24% 83% 12 to 13 28 62% 43% 87% 13 to 14 12 64% 52% 89% 14 to 15 11 69% 48% 83% participation in the quizzes, mastering them, and attaining higher marks, all point to better student performance in summative assessment. however, from the above data and discussion it is not possible to determine whether the mastery quizzes lead to higher test grades, or whether the average quiz results simply reflect the level of understanding of the material. in other words, the academically better students may simply be more likely to complete and master the quizzes. in order to focus more closely on this issue, i first examined the academically weaker students. i then examined the students who used the mastery quizzes before the test and tracked their performance through to the final examination. dear sir, i’m struggling. what can i do to improve my chances of passing? i analysed the borderline and weaker students in the class using 43 students who achieved 50 percent or less in the internal summative assessment. by the end of the semester, 28 of these students had mastered the online quizzes (see ‘users’ in table 4). the other 15 students did not use or master the quizzes throughout the entire course (see ‘never mastered’ in table 4). interestingly, panel a of table 4 below shows that those who ‘never mastered’ the quizzes performed marginally better in internal assessment than the ‘users’ (44.1 percent compared to 41.4 percent average). however, the ‘users’ turned this around in the final examination by significantly outperforming the ‘never mastered’ group by 8 percent. as shown in table 4, the improvement in the internal summative assessment performance for the journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 26–40 © distance education association of new zealand 36 ‘users’ is significant (at the 1 percent level using both the parametric t-test and non-parametric wilcoxon rank test). table 4 the effect of online mastery quiz use and the performance of borderline and academically weaker students panel a sample size internal assessment final examination users 28 41.4% 50.7% never mastered 15 44.1% 42.7% difference -2.7% 8.0% t-statistic -1.80* 2.51*** wilcoxon rank test -1.51 2.63*** panel b sample size internal assessment final examination late starters 16 38.5% 49.6% never mastered 15 44.1% 42.7% difference -5.6% 6.9% t-statistic -2.19* 2.31** wilcoxon rank test -2.41** 2.38** *** statistically significant at the 1% level ** statistically significant at the 5% level * statistically significant at the 10% level however, some of the ‘users’ had mastered the relevant quizzes before they completed the course’s internal assessment, and these students could bias the findings. i therefore excluded the early users from the sample and ran the analysis again. the second analysis left 16 ‘late starters’ who had not mastered quizzes 1 to 3 before they completed their internal assessment but who went on to master all of the quizzes in the 4 weeks leading up to the final examination. the average internal assessment mark of 38.5 percent for the ‘late starters’ is now significantly worse than the ‘never mastered’ group who achieved 44.1 percent. so while the ‘never mastered’ were academically weak students, the ‘late starters’ were significantly worse before they completed the mastery quizzes. however, the ‘late starters’ managed to turn their performance around in the final examination by significantly outperforming the ‘never mastered’ group by 6.9 percent. put another way, the average ‘never journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 26–40 © distance education association of new zealand 37 mastered’ student started, continued, and finished the business finance course as a d-grade student. in contrast, the average ‘late starter’ converted their e from internal assessment to a c grade in their final examination. therefore—at least for the borderline and weaker students—using the formative assessment improves performance in the summative assessment. further, using the mastery quizzes is better late than never for these borderline and academically weaker students. so, to answer the question “what can i do to help my chances of passing?” i say, “use the mastery quizzes!” step right up. have i got a deal for you! i use summary statistics similar to those in table 1 to shamelessly promote the mastery quizzes as a self-help learning tool. the promotion appears to help, with 20 of 38 students who did not use the mastery quizzes before the first internal assessment then going on to use and master the online quizzes before the final examination. the first internal assessment averages for these two groups are virtually identical (56.5 percent for those who ‘never mastered’ and 57.2 percent for the 20 who mastered after the assessment due date). however, the average final examination marks for those who decided to use the mastery quizzes was 53.7 percent compared with only 42.7 percent for those who didn’t master the quizzes. while there will be some crossover between this group and the ‘late starters’ subgroup discussed previously, this result provides further evidence that student use has a positive effect on student performance in summative assessment. even if the mastery quizzes simply reflect—rather than improve—the level of students’ understanding of the material, the quizzes are clearly a very powerful tool for students to assess their overall understanding of the course’s learning outcomes. what do i get out of it? the mastery quizzes provide me with a wealth of summary statistics which highlight the areas and questions that students find difficult. this is the single most important feature of the quizzes for me, because i can pinpoint exactly which topics and concepts students struggle with. i can then target my teaching where it is most beneficial. students are often surprised at my ability to target my teaching—as though i have a higher power! journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 26–40 © distance education association of new zealand 38 hamish pitched the sessions at exactly the right level for the class—he seemed to know which areas and formulas would cause the most concern (secat, 2005). from an administrative point of view, the savings are considerable. after the initial investment of time in creating the test bank of questions, i now benefit from the way the system runs, marks, provides feedback, and automatically records progress. all of these activities were very labour intensive under the problem-set formative assessment system. the mastery quizzes had a large fixed administrative cost component of both time and resources, whereas the problem-set administrative costs were largely variable in nature. for the problem-set system, a normal semester offering would involve approximately 24 hours to prepare questions and solutions sets, and 84 hours of marking, writing limited individual feedback, and recording. the new system takes approximately 1 hour to reset and update each offering. therefore, the savings have been over 100 hours per semester, or 1400 hours between 2002 and 2008! however, i do set aside time at the beginning of each year to write and add adaptations of the previous year’s summative assessment questions to the mastery quiz test bank. as a final note, i have been able to share the mastery quizzes and large test bank with other teachers within my department. the semester 2 distance offering is typically taught by another teacher, and i have another colleague who teaches the wellington campus offering. these teachers appreciate the personal savings in administration costs. conclusion the mastery quizzes are a flexible on-demand learning tool that provides instant feedback to students. the shift to mastery quizzes has been a success in terms of qualitative student feedback, effect on student performance, and reduction in variable administration costs. in particular, the quizzes more clearly demonstrate students’ level of understanding of a particular area, and enable them to target their study more effectively. the online quiz delivery system is suitable for many types of courses, and is particularly relevant for those courses that have sequential learning outcomes. students gain significant learning benefits, and teachers and education providers gain benefits in terms of time and financial resources. however, these benefits must be weighed against the upfront cost of building journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 26–40 © distance education association of new zealand 39 the initial test bank. the size of the test bank is important if we want students to be able to retest themselves multiple times in a meaningful way. however, if you ask me whether i would embark on the change in formative assessment all over again, the answer would simply be: “absolutely”. references bloom, b. s., engelhard, m. d., furst, e. j., hill, w. h., & krathwohl, d. r. (1956). taxonomy of educational objectives: the classification of educational goals. handbook i: cognitive domain. new york: david mckay. eastmond, d. v. (1998). adult learners and internet-based distance education. new directions for adult and continuing education, 78, 33–41. er, m. c., & ng a. c. (1989). the use of computers in accountancy courses: a new perspective. accounting and business research, 19, 319–326. gretes, j. a., & green, m. (2000). improving undergraduate learning with computer-assisted assessment. journal of research on computing in education, 33(1), 46–54. kachelmeier, s. j., jones, j. d., & keller, j. a. (1992). evaluating the effectiveness of a computer-intensive learning aid for teaching pension accounting. issues in accounting education, 7(2), 164–178. mctighe, j., & ferrara, s. (1998). assessing learning in the classroom. washington, dc: national education association. marks, b. r. (1998). an examination of the effectiveness of a computerised learning aid in the introductory graduate finance course. financial practice and education, 8(1), 120–126. marriott, p., & lau, a. (2008). the use of on-line summative assessment in an undergraduate financial accounting course. journal of accounting education, 26, 73–90. rountree, d. (1987). assessing students: how shall we know them? (2nd ed.). kogan page: london. thelwell, m. (2000). computer-based assessment: a versatile educational tool. computers and education, 34(1), 37–49. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 26–40 © distance education association of new zealand 40 biographical notes hamish teaches finance at massey university in undergraduate and executive postgraduate courses. in 2008 he was awarded the national tertiary teaching excellence award for sustained excellence. a key theme running through his research is the effect of regulation or market structures on investor and management behaviour. journal of distance learning, 2009, 13(1), 26–40 microsoft word watts-andreadis-format.docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 91 first-year secondary students’ perceptions of the impact of ipad use on their learning in a byod secondary international school martin watts, edtech coordinator, international school in the netherlands ioannis andreadis, mathematics teacher, international school of the hague abstract this study uses a statistical survey over three consecutive years to show how the first-year students of a mid-sized bring your own device (byod) secondary international school perceive the impact of using their own ipad on their learning. the students’ perceptions show awareness of the usefulness and challenges associated with using their ipads in school life as well as at home. the students indicate several perceived benefits relating to having instant access to a variety of learning opportunities via the internet. however, they also indicate the challenges of keeping a balanced approach and avoiding overuse of their ipads inside and outside school (e.g., for gaming and social media). the original rationale for implementing the byod scheme did not anticipate specific benefits for students’ academic outcomes (grades). however, academic performance has continued to be monitored to identify any adverse effects associated with the scheme. students’ overall academic performance has not been adversely affected since the scheme was implemented. keywords: ipad; tablet technology; byod; middle secondary schools; classroom pedagogy introduction since the introduction of the ipad, there has been relatively rapid uptake of these devices in schools (young, 2016; erbes et al., 2016). this uptake has coincided with advances in processing power and the ubiquitous availability of wireless networking and high-speed internet connections. the advantages of using ipads in class include reliability, functionality, and availability (young, 2016). the main driver for using ipads or similar devices in the classroom has been the opportunity they afford for implementing 21st-century models of teaching and learning which specifically define the role of the teacher and redefine what, and how, the students learn (smith & santori, 2015). the ipad’s relative affordability has also made it an attractive choice for institutions wishing to take advantage of the bring your own device (byod) trend. however, as erbes et al. (2016) note, such programmes are most typical in affluent settings, such as private or international schools. this study took place in a large international school in the netherlands. the school is well resourced, and has a reliable and fast technology infrastructure. the school’s educational technology (edtech) team conducts an annual survey to collect data from students as part of an ongoing evaluation of the impact of technology on the student experience. the students of each first secondary year over three school years were asked to respond to questions about their perceptions of how their ipad use contributed positively or negatively to their learning. the data was obtained with an online google form survey questionnaire (see watts, m., andreadis, i. 92 questions in appendix a). the questionnaire was completed in the classroom with a supervising teacher to assure the authenticity of the students’ answers (see letter in appendix b). the students were also asked to estimate how much time they spent using the ipads—both at school and at home—and to provide feedback on potential distractions associated with using their electronic devices. the information gathered therefore provided an opportunity to support our research statement that using ipads empowers student learning—especially in environments where the integration of technology is mature, is supported effectively, and is monitored. for these reasons the team that prepared this study felt the data gathered would be of interest to educators and researchers, as was the case in previous work by the team in terms of the implementation of a device free lunch programme in secondary schools (andreadis & watts, 2022). another aim of this study is to promote the research methodology endorsed by theories of action research, in which the collection and analysis of data can be used to evaluate an implementation and determine the effects of change in the classroom (feldman & minstrell, 2022). the same authors caution that this methodology raises concerns about validity and reliability. in mitigation, feldman and minstrell (2019) point out that, with proper training, teachers can act as classroom researchers. the authors of this study, although currently teaching in school, have received training in research and have conducted university-based research. for the current study, it was decided to present the results over a period of three academic years (2017–2019), to avoid the impact of the covid-19 pandemic that affected the school community from february 2020. a brief history of the byod ipad programme at the study school the byod implementation at the school was informed by two models of education technology impact. firstly, the teacher pedagogical content knowledge (tpck) framework (mishra & koehler, 2006) describes how technology might assist with the communication and availability of learning content and support pedagogical approaches that enhance learner experience. secondly, the substitution augmentation modification redefinition (samr) model (puentedura, 2014) was adopted as a tool that provided the school with a vocabulary to articulate the educational impact of the use of technology on learning. the introduction of the ipad programme in the study school began with a pilot programme in the academic year 2014–2015. students were required to attend classes with an institution-owned ipad, which was available for each student in their first year of secondary school. students kept these devices as they progressed through the first 3 years of their middle year program (myp). the teachers also received a device and training to help them become familiar with the tool to support learning in the classroom (kontkanen et al., 2017; fenton, 2017). the programme included support for teachers by an ed. tech. coordinator, and six teacher representatives— drawn from different faculty areas—would provide training and subject-specific insight into using the devices in the classroom. this commitment amounted to 1.5 full-time educational (fte) teacher positions. the introduction of a byod 1:1 programme at the school was based on benefits that were discovered during the pilot phase of the project. the digital devices would: 1. support learning inside and outside the school 2. improve communication between students and teachers 3. provide access to a wide range of applications to further support learning journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 93 4. reduce the number of physical books carried by students 5. prepare the students for an increasingly digital future. one of the functions carried out by the edtech team is to conduct periodic deep dives into subject departments to evaluate the visibility of these models, and their potential effects, in classroom practice. the edtech team also ensures that software used in classrooms has measurable (or the potential for) positive effects based on these guiding models. thus, the school in this study has structures to promote the teacher’s self-efficacy in the use of the mobile device. the importance of this self-efficacy is emphasised by tilton and hartnett (2016). as part of an annual review of the impact of the implementation, feedback from students has been gathered at the end of each academic year from 2015–2016. despite some slight amendments to the survey instrument after the first year of data collection, the questionnaire items have remained consistent. the data collected from 3 years of identical questionnaires are the focus of this investigation. note that there was no expectation that academic results would improve as a result of introducing the devices. figure 5 shows that students’ average grade yearly performance was not adversely affected. on the contrary, there was a slight increase in performance. this was possibly due to the teachers being familiar with the devices and because the curriculum was enriched by their use. literature review research by the economist intelligence unit (2018) highlights the role played by technology in equipping students with the skills and attributes that will “transform businesses and influence economies” in the future (p. 2). the research identifies characteristics necessary for effective integration of technology into school curricula. these characteristics include appropriate teaching strategies, the teacher’s ability to teach 21st-century skills, and their ability to leverage the communication and interactivity facilitated by technologies. limitations of the potential impact of technology include lack of budget resources and a generally cautious approach to adopting these new technologies. in the study school, some of these limitations were overcome by adopting a byod model, and by providing teachers with support and training to increase their confidence and promote the application of technology across lessons at the school. the success or failure of introducing technology into the classroom can also depend on a variety of other factors, and the academic impact of a technology depends on how, where, and by whom it is being integrated. for example, kolb (2019) questions the value of integrating technology when it is used merely to support traditional pedagogical methods, stating the need to “consider value-added learning over traditional resources”. in some instances, the academic impact of technology can be minimal and in others it can be significant. the interplay of these determining factors can be complex and educators need to find ways to manage this complexity to identify the relative impact of the device. varier et al. (2017) clustered these factors into three categories relating to implementation, impact on instruction and skills, and impact on engagement and motivation. for the ipad (or any other device) to make a positive impact in the classroom, there must be a clear rationale for its introduction (kolb, 2019). this point is evidenced by several studies on the academic impact of device use in schools (langford et al., 2016). sung et al. (2016) distilled research from a large number of academic papers and found that using mobile devices had a larger positive impact than using laptops. however, the findings supported the need for educators to ensure that the pedagogical approaches matched the benefits of the devices. this was more evident in inquiry-led contexts, self-directed study activities, or when supporting cooperative watts, m., andreadis, i. 94 learning. results from kontkanen et al. (2017) suggest that: (i) teachers’ pedagogical approaches changed little in response to the new devices and remained largely teacher-centred, and (ii) students do not have the confidence to radically change learning styles to take advantage of the affordances of the devices. we can see that it is difficult to quantify the potential value that ipads add to teaching and learning because of the complex and often conflicting factors involved. nor can the effectiveness of these devices be taken for granted. burnett and merchant (2017) highlight the notion that the effectiveness of the device depends on external factors. tablets, then, do not exist in isolation; the opportunities they present need to be seen in relation to other classroom practices and to what is, or is not, valued. (p. 240) in studies of 1:1 classroom environments, it was reported that, when using tablet devices, “students become more self-directed, independent and collaborative” (varier et al., 2017, p. 984). younger students particularly favoured tablets, reporting that they preferred lightweight devices and age-appropriate games and applications. the study found that teachers in a 1:1 environment moved from a teacher-centred to a teacher-facilitating pedagogical environment. curry et al. (2019) carried out a survey on student perceptions of a 1:1 ipad implementation in a high school. students reported positively on the programme but noted that the integration was inconsistent among teachers. teachers at once realize the power and value of technology as a tool for learning, but it also requires that new methods be adopted in order to take advantage of it; otherwise, it has little to no impact on their students’ achievement. (frazier et al., 2019, p. 19) there is also evidence that students have responded to the use of devices in classrooms very positively. for example, howlett and waemusa (2019) reported that “device use increased their learning potential and satisfaction” (p. 72). dalby and swan (2019) report that using ipads in formative assessments contributed to effective learning and, in another study (retalis et al., 2018), mobile technologies were identified as motivating students and improving communication and engagement. the research results indicated that participating students are more positive about the ipad specifically being an excellent tool that helped them to organise and understand their courses. students have also reported positively about their performance and the nature of the activities (fabian et al., 2018). however, responses from students are not universally positive and their responses are mediated by their own experience of the devices outside school. for example, a study in italian schools (villaniet al., 2018) showed that students who have a higher level of acceptance of the device in school will use it more for learning and communication. yet another study carried out on grade 7 students in canada found small effects on student achievement but large positive effects on “equity, inclusion and diagnostic, formative, and summative assessment” (kirkpatrick et al., 2018). the importance of the student voice can vary depending on the methods used to collect the data. hence, the current work contributes further to the literature that is based on the collection of primary data (hartline et al., 2022) emanating from students’ voices. methodology in this work we followed the method of an online trend questionnaire (stockemer, 2019); that is, a survey in which the same questions were asked of different individuals over a period of time. the trend survey allows us to detect broad changes in the opinions of the participants over a period of 3 years. it was created with an anonymous google form (see appendix a) to collect data on the perceived impact of the ipads on the learning and wellbeing of the students. the questionnaire comprised a mixture of question types including likert-scale and multiplechoice items for quantitative data, and open-ended paragraph items for qualitative data. (see journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 95 appendix a). the number of survey responses was as follows: 140 in 2017, 150 in 2018, and 162 in 2019. the growth in the number of responses between 2017 and 2019 reflects the increasing number of students attending the school. the use of online questionnaires is an effective means of collecting data from younger respondents, “due to the overwhelming positive attitude of students towards these tools” (zou & lambert, 2017). zou and lambert’s paper also indicated that anonymous feedback was found to be more honest and reliable. hence, in the research shared in this paper, student voice, through their perceptions of using ipads for learning both in and outside of school, was collected anonymously via the online google form questionnaire. students completed the questionnaire in school. they were instructed to complete the questionnaire in silence and to not collaborate during the activity (see instructions shared with the supervised teachers in appendix b). it was stressed that their perceptions and attitudes to the device use were the key focus of the study. thus, we could analyse the results of this study as part of the yearly evaluation of the use of devices as a tool to empower the learning via the students’ school work. the questionnaire collected data in two main categories: the learning taking place at school, and ipad use at home. description of the collection of data the data presented in this paper are largely derived from a trend study (stockemer, 2019). the questionnaires were sent to cohorts of first-year students in the middle year program (myp) over 3 years (2017–2019). the survey was implemented in june of each academic year so, by the time the students responded to the questionnaire, they had completed almost 10 months of an academic year using the devices. the surveys were completed by all year 7 students (11–12 years old) during teacher-supervised lesson time. discussion using the ipad to support learning one of the most important elements of the decision to implement a 1:1 ipad programme was the belief that ubiquitous student access to technology would support their learning. to obtain some feedback from the students about their perceptions of the value of the ipad to support their learning we included several items in the survey. the question was a general one (question 2, appendix a) in which students used the 5-point likert scale to indicate how strongly they agreed, or disagreed, with the statement: “the ipad helps to support school work”. we used the percentages of the likert scale 1 and 2 for a negative attitude and the scale of 3, 4, and 5 for a positive attitude. the results are presented in fig. 1. watts, m., andreadis, i. 96 figure 1 student attitudes to the ipad to support learning (neutral responses not included) the quantitative data was supported by an opportunity for students to comment on their reasons for their item selection. most students commented on the ipad’s positive contribution to school work, especially when the device could benefit specific learning challenges. they highlighted the benefits of centralising resources and not losing the material, and supporting research. several indicated that using an ipad made a positive contribution to the environment. i think it is better for the environment and you won’t ever lose something that’s on your ipad because you care about your ipad. you can research what you don’t understand and also you can learn your technology and apps better. it’s a great new way of learning and you have the internet to work from. it’s great for me because when i have a spelling mistake it helps me and that’s great for my dyslexia. i think an ipad is really helpful for school work especially for eal students like me so they can translate and search up things if they don’t know something. i didn’t give it a 5 because sometimes it is distracting. a minority of student comments (8.6%) were negative about the ipad’s contribution to learning in class. most of these commented on the potential for distraction. some students also expressed a preference for using a laptop. because it is fun working with the ipad but it also distracts you from doing your work, since you will start playing games and you might get an email or a message and want to reply. i personally am not the biggest fan of it because a lot of people including me get distracted from their ipad and start doing different things than asked. because i don't think it is that important to use an ipad during school hours and stare into it for hours because it could affect our eyes. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 97 many kids use it to play games and it affects their academics and their learning because they don’t focus on work nor on the tasks at hand. the results reported in this study in terms of the impact of using the ipad on the learning digital efficacy of students further support the key finding in the literature (howlett & waemusa, 2019; retalis et al., 2018; dalby & swan, 2019) that the ipad can support student learning. using the ipad to facilitate learning at school in fig. 2 we summarise students’ perception of using ipads to facilitate communication with their teachers (question 5, appendix a), to support their completion of homework (question 8, appendix a), and to estimate their overall use in their lessons at school (question 10, appendix a). figure 2 use of the ipad at school and at home to support learning: agree or strongly agree to evaluate how often the devices were used in lessons, the students were asked to indicate the extent to which ipads were required during a school day. they were asked to estimate their daily use by indicating the proportion of lessons that required them to use the ipad. for example, in a 10-lesson schedule, 7 lessons where a device is used would be considered to be 70% or more of their daily lessons. the table in fig. 2 shows that most students selected the 70% option in each year of the survey. a small number (7.4%) used the ipad in less than 50% of their lessons. classroom observations supported the finding that most lessons required using technology as part of the learning process, including (for example) accessing resources. there have been no significant differences between student responses each year. overall, the data indicated a positive view of the value the ipad brought to supporting homework activities, with positive perceptions consistently above 60%. students were also invited to add a written comment if they found that the ipad did not support their homework. their negative responses could be characterised in four types: procedural, technical, behavioural, and watts, m., andreadis, i. 98 pedagogical. procedural problems included issues such as teachers insisting that students complete homework on paper, as indicated in the answer of one student below. because most teachers want it on paper anyway but procedural issues also included issues relating to teachers’ lack of confidence in the devices. technical problems reported by students related to apps not saving properly, accidental deletion of work, lack of familiarity with an application, and problems uploading work. well, sometimes the ipad can randomly [delete] things meaning you have to do it again, and it can also run out of battery. thus, the results presented in this study further support those obtained by fabian et al. (2018), where students responded positively to the statement that using ipads for school work supports their school work. use of the ipad for non-school-related activities at home in this section we explore some of the unforeseen issues that have emerged from the byod programme; for example, overuse of devices for non-school-related activities. in fig. 3 (a 3-d stacked bar chart), respondents reported their perceived average non-school-related use of the devices each day. this question was included in the survey to ascertain the degree to which students could manage their non-educational use of the device. the results showed that around 50% used their device for 2 hours or less at home per day. they are also consistent across consecutive years of the study. figure 3 also shows that over the 3 years, around 25% of students self-reported that they sometimes struggle with too much screen time. almost half of the students also reported that their device use resulted in anger from their parents. figure 3 use of the ipad at home journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 99 unanticipated outcomes of using the ipad inside and outside of school non-educational use of student devices is explored further in fig. 4, where students were asked to rate the occurrence of activities supported by the devices that distract students from school work. in the school in this study, the students own their devices, so the school did not restrict personal applications loaded onto the device. the following uses of the ipad were considered to be the main non-educational uses of the devices by students in all years of the study. social networking was identified by approximately 30%, watching videos by around 10%, and playing games by around 40% of students. figure 4 top activities that distract from school work as reported in other research into the use of ipads in schools (mccoy 2013; 2016), using the device for gaming, social networking, and watching videos for recreation were identified by the students as actual or potential distractions. the impact of the ipad on academic results we were interested to consider whether students’ positive learning perceptions were consistent with their actual learning outcomes as measured by their yearly average grade performance, and also in mathematics, english, humanities, and digital design. the middle year program uses a grade scale from 1 to 7, with 7 being the highest grade. to provide a benchmark, we also included the yearly performance from the 2 years before the full implementation of the byod, from the school years 2014/15 to 2018/19. the results are presented in fig. 5. watts, m., andreadis, i. 100 figure 5 average myp grade (scale 1 to 7) from 2015 to 2019 there was no specific anticipation that academic outcomes, as measured by grades, would be significantly improved. the vision for introducing the devices focused mainly on the qualitative benefits that the devices might bring to support learning and communication, and to prepare students for a technology-rich future. however, any large-scale, planned change in a school should not negatively affect outcomes. figure 5 shows a summary of myp grades over the study period. the data indicate no significant changes to academic outcomes. student perceptions across three cohorts of first-year students indicate that learning inside and outside of school is indeed positively affected by the devices, as was communication between students and teachers. students estimated that approximately 70% of in-school lessons involved ipads. data from the period of the study showed no negative impact on student grades since the introduction of the byod scheme. conclusions even at this initial stage of exploring the pedagogy associated with ipad technology, our findings suggest that a structured professional learning programme could help teachers to move from enhancement to transformation. although best practice is not yet ubiquitously evident, and further research is needed in this emerging field, there are promising signs that ipad use will bring about a pedagogical shift that will further support enhanced student learning. the feedback from students also revealed that they were generally positive about the effect of an ipad on their learning. students reported that they used the devices in approximately 70% of their lessons each week and that the ipad helped them to communicate with their teachers and to complete homework. most students self-reported up to 2 hours per day of non-school-related use. about half of the respondents admitted that overuse of the device for non-school-related activity led to tensions at home. students did express a degree of concern about distraction. they identified social networking, games, and watching video content on the devices as the main causes of distraction from their school work. this study also considers the impact of the ipad on the academic results of students during the period covered before the implementation and during this study. overall, the implementation of the byod ipad programme had no negative effect on academic results. 4.87 4.91 4.97 4.96 5.06 5.19 5.27 5.55 5.42 5.45 4.98 5.2 5.42 5.23 5.52 5 5.3 5.2 5 5.52 5.28 5.19 5.38 5.22 5.31 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 average myp grade mathematics english humanities digital design average performance journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 101 acknowledgements we would like to thank the editor and the two anonymous referees for comments that greatly improved the paper. references andreadis, i., & watts, m. 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(2017). feedback methods for student voice in the digital age. british journal of educational technology, 48(5) 1081–1091. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.12522 biographical notes dr martin watts m.watts@ishthehague.nl dr. martin watts currently coordinates edtech at the international school in the netherlands. he has 30 years’ experience as an educator, teaching mostly about, and with, technology in secondary schools or higher education. his doctoral focus was educational management, but as a teacher educator, he has published research in online mediation of reflective practice among beginning teachers. dr ioannis andreadis i.andreadis@ishthehague.nl dr. ioannis andreadis is a mathematics teacher at the international school of the hague in the netherlands. he completed a doctorate in infinite dimensional symplectic geometry and published papers in the areas of noisy dynamical systems, mandelbrot set, and geometry. while working as a secondary teacher, he has expanded his research activities in the recurrence plots analysis and of the educational impact of electronic devices in secondary schools. watts, m., andreadis, i. 104 appendix a: the questionnaire used to collect the data (anonymised by the authors) ish ipad use survey: students to help the school provide the best lessons for you, please answer the following questions about how you are using your ipad. your responses are anonymous. the survey will take 5–10 minutes. think carefully about each of your responses. be as accurate and truthful as you can. do not discuss your responses with other students. q1. please indicate your gender. a) male b) female c) other q2. how do you feel about having an ipad to use for your school work? likert scale: from 1 (unhappy) to 5 (happy) q3. if you wish, explain your answer. q4. please indicate your preference below. a) i learn best without technology b) i learn best with an ipad c) i learn best with a laptop d) other q5. how much does your ipad help you to communicate with your teachers? likert scale from 1 (does not help) to 5 (helps a lot) q6. how much do you agree with this statement? having the ipad means that i carry fewer items in my school bag. likert scale from 1 (disagree) to 5 (agree) q7. which app helps you learn best? a) socrative b) kahoot c) padlet d) other q8. to what extent does the ipad make completing your homework easier or more difficult? likert scale from 1 (makes it difficult) to 5 (makes it easier)) q9. if it is not easy please write why. q10. on average, in how many of your lessons do you use your ipad on a school day? likert scale from 1 (0% ) to 10 (100%) q11. on an average school day, how many hours do you spend on your ipad not doing school work? journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 105 likert scale from 1 (less than 1 hour) to 6 (6 hours or more) q12. on average, how many hours do you spend on your ipad at home each day? likert scale from 1 (less than 1 hour ) to 6 (6 hours or more) q13. do you sometimes feel you spend too much time on non-educational activities on the ipad? a) i find it difficult to manage my non-educational ipad time b) i feel i can manage my non-educational ipad time well q14. have your parents ever got angry with you for using the ipad too much? a) yes b) no q15. what sort of online activities distract you most from school work? a) none, i only use my ipad for school work b) online social networking c) playing games d) other q16. do you have any concerns or suggestions regarding the use of technology here at school? we value your feedback. watts, m., andreadis, i. 106 appendix b: instructions shared via email with the supervisors during the completion of the online questionnaire dearest colleagues, please forward this link to your year 7 ddes students. the link allows them to access the ipad survey for [year]. please complete the [year] ipad survey questionnaire [link to the google form] • the survey should take 7–8 minutes to complete, depending on how the students choose to respond (there are some questions that provide the option to explain their ideas and thoughts on the use of technology in the classroom). • students should not discuss their responses with other students. • the success of the survey relies upon the views and feedback of each student. thanks very much for supporting this y7 ipad survey. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. watts, m., andreadis, i. (2022). first-year secondary students’ perceptions of the impact of ipad use on their learning in a byod secondary international school. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2), [91–106.]. karaka-clarke, te h., fletcher, j., macfarlane, a., bell, b. 4 kōrero mai: kaiako experiences of synchronous online teaching and learning in new zealand te hurinui karaka-clarke, university of canterbury jo fletcher, university of canterbury angus macfarlane, university of canterbury bryanna bell, university of canterbury abstract online teaching and learning programmes allow ākonga who live in isolated areas, or who have differing learning requirements, to study by distance. maintaining student engagement in the online environment is an important aspect. this article explores how kaiako (teachers) can engage their ākonga (students) better in online environments. the article has a particular emphasis on supporting māori learners, who represent 25% of the new zealand school population. five kaiako were interviewed about their experience of teaching new zealand secondary school students online. the study found that the kaiako had some awareness of bicultural values and practices, but lacked confidence in embedding it in their online teaching, which was limited to synchronous timetabled sessions with some communication by text and email. the time provided for online students was considerably less than for the secondary students in traditional classrooms. keywords: online learning; secondary schools; bicultural practices; kaiako; ākonga; tuaka-teina; te reo māori; language learning introduction online learning the place where students learn is not necessarily within the traditional four walls of a classroom. learning by distance provides alternatives for many students. in 2020 and 2021, responses by governments (e.g., lockdowns and social restrictions) to the covid-19 pandemic have meant that online methods of teaching have become the foremost way for remote learning for all sectors of education—both in new zealand, and internationally (doucet et al., 2020). looking ahead, in a world where a pandemic has led to immense changes in society, teaching and learning in schooling could be delivered with hybrid models that include online and face-to-face in-person instruction. the future of hybrid teaching has been a key focus in education, especially as there is a possibility of further school closures due to lockdown measures. tracey and richey (2005) have defined distance education as “educational programs in which students and the instructor are separated by place and often time . . .” (tracey & richey, 2005, p. 17). although online learning may be perceived as innovative, it is not a new development. innovations such as the development of pens, paper, books, and the mail system have made distance education accessible since the 19th century. from its inception in 1922, the new zealand correspondence school was predicated on a distance learning model (bewley, 1996). distance learning occurs when the teacher and student are not working together at the same journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(2) 5 physical site. early distance learning was supported by radio broadcasts to support mail lessons. since the advent of the technical correspondence school, which was established in 1946 to provide resettlement training for returned service personnel after world war ii, new zealand has become a leader in distance learning (seelig et al., 2019 ). however, distance education has undergone dramatic change since 1946. teachers have employed online technology tools such as conferencing, messenger, email, chat, live video, and forums. the strategy that arouses the most interest is simultaneous interaction between teachers and students. (menezes & rodriguesjunior, 2009). the way online learning is facilitated has been influenced by changing educational values and philosophies. distance education has been known by many names, including “distance learning”, “open education”, “networked learning”, and “online learning”. regardless of the term, these types of distance education share some common attributes. they provide a structured learning experience in which engagement can take place away from the educational institution, in the comfort of one’s home or workplace; and the experience can lead to degrees or other academic credentials (tracey & richey, 2005). print-based correspondence schools were some of the first institutions to offer distance education. in europe’s pre-industrial era, education was primarily available to only males of privilege, but the advent of correspondence in the 1920s made education accessible to the rest of the population. in a short time, correspondence education became a worldwide phenomenon (tracey & richey, 2005). as technology developed, so too did the methods employed by correspondence providers. the invention of the spark transmitter led quickly to the adoption of radio as a medium of communication for the new zealand correspondence school. it was, and in some countries still is, used to support print-based correspondence materials. technology continued to develop and, in the 1950s, television broadcasts were used for new zealand secondary school credit courses. the development of satellite television in the 1960s provided access to more remote students. the high-fidelity era produced stereo, transistor radios, and cassette tape players. further technological developments produced video cassettes, cds, and dvds. computers, laptops, ipads and smart phones now provide distance students with two-way synchronous communication if they have wifi or broadband capability. to enable schools to embrace technology, the ministry of education was charged with making e-learning more accessible by increasing investment in information and communication technology (ict) and ultra-fast broadband for schools (ministry of education, 2021a). however, schools providing hardware in the form of laptops and tablet computers was also a significant feature of support for distance learning. since 1922, distance learning in new zealand has been provided by te kura (te aho o te kura pounamu), formerly known as the correspondence school. in 2008 te kura began digitising resources so they could provide services through a digital online network rather than pen, paper, and post. barbour and bennett (2013) suggest that technological developments were supported by the ministry of education’s e-learning strategy (ministry of education, 2006). this helped pave the way for establishing distance education by groups such as casatech in canterbury, otagonet in the otago region, and farnet in the far north of the north island. these three regional networks eventually became the vln (virtual learning network). the vln enabled schools with limited subject resources, skills, and expertise to offer a broader curriculum choice to students by using online synchronous technology. teachers and online learning although it is argued that online communication lacks the paralinguistic features of kanohi ki te kanohi (face-to-face) interaction (menezes & rodrigues-junior, 2009), language teachers have realised the potential of online technologies, and have instinctively been at the forefront of karaka-clarke, te h., fletcher, j., macfarlane, a., bell, b. 6 integrating these technologies in their teaching and learning programmes. the concept of whānau and the pedagogical philosophy advocated by smith (1995) explains that māori values and practices derived from whānau are used as teaching and learning pedagogies. core values such as manaakitanga (sharing and caring), aroha (respect), and whakaiti (humility) are common features of kura kaupapa māori. cooperative teaching and learning concepts such as tuakana (elder) and teina (younger), derived from whānau obligations in which older siblings teach and care for their younger siblings, are normalised aspects of the pedagogy. the use of collaborative activities provides a culturally appropriate environment in which cooperative and collective attitudes and values can be practised. sharing knowledge, respecting and tolerating the knowledge and world views of others, consensus discussion, and decision-making are primary examples of cooperative and collaborative pedagogies in action (smith, 1995). teachers of second languages employ these pedagogies to raise their students’ levels of proficiency and communicative competence in their target language. māori students māori (the indigenous people of new zealand) are a significant percentage of secondary students in new zealand schools. recent figures from the new zealand ministry of education (2021b) report that “new zealand european” is the dominant ethnic group (48%), with māori (25%), asian (14%), pasifika (10%). there is a range of other ethnic backgrounds. the affirmative focus on providing a culturally inclusive bicultural education system in new zealand emphasises māori values (see ministry of education, 2009, 2015). for example, the ka awatea study, which reported successful accounts of māori secondary school leavers (macfarlane et al., 2014), found four replenishing mātauranga (educational) themes. firstly, mana motuhake (whānau identity, attitudes, and values) was an affirmative context of māori identity through which students connected significantly with their māori culture. in addition, the behaviour of the student in wider society was reinforced by māori values such as manaakitanga (reciprocal hospitality and respect between individuals or groups) and māhaki (being inoffensive, humble, and tolerant). secondly, there is mana tū (a sense of courage and resilience). successful māori students in the study had positive self-efficacy and self-concepts, had high expectations, and enjoyed physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing. mana ūkaipo (a sense of place) was also evident and, when learning related to relevant and meaningful contexts, this strengthened the understanding and learning for successful māori rangatahi school leavers. finally, mana tangatarua (a sense of being able to navigate between two worlds), was apparent. mana tangatarua supports many māori living in the two worlds of 21st century new zealand. for these māori secondary students, academic success did not come at the expense of their māori identity. the research in this article focuses on how kaiako can create more engaging online synchronous language classes for distance secondary school ākonga (students). particular attention is paid to the new zealand primary and secondary school demographics, which show that 25% of students are maōri (ministry of education, 2021b). review of the literature te taha tinana (physical wellbeing) is one of the cornerstones of durie’s (1994) te whare tapa whā strategy for māori health. durie highlighted the important role of metaphor in the māori language to illustrate concepts and ideas. in the context of this research, ako (teaching and learning) aligns with durie’s notion of te taha tinana because this is how the kaiako (teacher) brings their programme to life. good teaching practice requires a number of elements to be effective, including culturally responsive pedagogy, effective use of resources, and an appropriate environment that encourages ākonga engagement and achievement. culturally responsive practices respond to and acknowledge the cultural background and languages of the learner by incorporating them within culturally and contextually relevant teaching content. one journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(2) 7 example is the use of te reo māori words that are common to both kaiako and ākonga. the word “ako” (reciprocity) is used as the foundation for their relationship as teacher–student to reflect the notion of reciprocal learning. macfarlane (2004) describes ako as reciprocity in teaching and learning. that description suggests that the status of kaiako and ākonga are interchangeable. according to moorfield (2003), ako is “to learn, study, instruct, teach, advise”. the two notions of teaching and learning are therefore implicit in the single word of ako. the education council of new zealand (2017) also supports macfarlane’s idea that ako means teachers need to take responsibility for their own learning, and that of māori learners. teaching and learning can equate to schooling, but can also describe learning that takes place at home or away from school. education is not confined to inside the classroom walls; nor is it solely the domain of kaiako. the importance of having a safe learning environment, māori being allowed to be māori and have kanohi ki te kanohi (face-to-face interactions) (new zealand council for educational research, 2004), is the physical manifestation of te taha tinana. palmer (2002) described how having a fully functioning body, transformation through life cycles, and pursuit of good health are key indicators of te taha tinana. tiakiwai and tiakiwai (2010) recognised the importance of establishing a suitable e-learning environment. specifically, issues of time, space, and place—as well as the integration of e-learning into classroom teaching and learning practice—needed careful consideration. students adapted quickly to the new learning environment and often took greater responsibility for their learning (tiakiwai & tiakiwai, 2010). the design of the tools was identified as playing a major role in facilitating engagement with e-learning at all levels. influential factors in e-tool design and development include differences in how language and symbols are used—these can increase the difficulty of transferring knowledge forms into digital concepts. the reliability, availability, accessibility, and cost-effectiveness of the technological infrastructure affected the ability of schools, classrooms, teachers, and students to use tools effectively. additionally, unreliable technology increases teachers’ workloads, particularly within the wharekura (māori-medium secondary schools). moreover, in wharekura all classes required a supervising teacher—placing an additional burden on kura (schools) that were already facing staffing shortages (waiti, 2005). digital divide economically disadvantaged students frequently do not have computers or ipads in their homes or, if they do, they may be scarce—especially when large families are competing for computer time. furthermore, the digital divide affects students who live with the unstable internet connections that often occur in rural areas—and even in some densely populated urban areas that have “black spots” of unreliable connectivity. a study of new zealand and german primary and secondary school teachers and principals who were coping with online learning during the lockdowns enforced during the covid-19 pandemic, found a need for specific skills to support learning in online environments (fletcher et al., 2021). in both of these countries, the scarcity of access to online learning resources was due to poor connectivity or lack of time available to use computers. students in less well-off contexts were more liable to be obstructed by online resource problems. similarly, evans et al. (2020), found that the home environments of some students was often noisy; siblings using the same space hampered learning. theoretical perspective “he awa whiria: braided rivers”, developed by macfarlane et al. (2015), uses the metaphor of the braided rivers of the canterbury region. he awa whiria acknowledges that there are two epistemologies at play in new zealand. the first is mātauranga māori (the body of knowledge originating from māori ancestors, including the māori world view and perspectives) and the karaka-clarke, te h., fletcher, j., macfarlane, a., bell, b. 8 second is western knowledge. each has mana, integrity, and legitimacy. like a braided river, there are points where those two epistemologies agree and converge. there also areas where they differ and diverge. digital technology is a point at which western technology and mātauranga māori can converge to enhance outcomes for māori. the developments of digital technology in the late 20th century and current 21st century are recent realisations of those rākau ā te pākehā (tools and opportunities). tā apirana ngata, whose hapū included te whānau-a-te ao, ngāti rangi, te whānau-a-karuai, and ngāti rākairoa, was born in te araroa on the east coast of the north island in 1874. tā apirana ngata (ngata, n.d.) conceived the notion of this convergence of western knowledge and mātauranga māori in his statement: e tipu e rea mō ngā rā o tō ao, ko tō ringa ki ngā rākau a te pākehā, hei ora mō te tinana, ko tō ngākau ki ngā taonga a ō tīpuna māori, hei tikitiki mō tō māhunga, ko tō wairua ki tō atua, nāna nei ngā mea katoa. grow and branch forth for the days destined to you, your hands to the tools of the pākehā [non māori people] for the welfare of your body, your heart to the treasures of your ancestors as adornments for your brow, your spirit to god, who made all things. macfarlane et al. (2015) have built on this metaphor with their theoretical perspective (described above) which captures the essence of the braided rivers. methodology this research sought to explore how teachers can create more engaging online synchronous language classes for distance secondary and tertiary students of te reo māori. qualitative research was selected because it provides an opportunity for research participants to express their personal feelings, emotions, thoughts, perspectives, and insights. this allows for the personal qualities of research participants to be integrated with the data. furthermore, denzin and lincoln (2005) described qualitative research as the study of things in their natural environment, to understand events or trends in terms of the meaning people bring to them. in a focus-group interview, participants can interact and discuss topics presented by the researcher. the aim is to gain a collective viewpoint rather than an individual perspective. this is supported by cohen et al. (2011, p. 436) who state: “. . . the reliance is on the interaction within the group . . . yielding a collective rather than individual view”. focus-group interviews are valuable for gathering data on attitudes, values, and opinions; for empowering participants to speak in their own words; and for encouraging groups rather than individuals to voice their opinions and examine attitudes and beliefs (willis et al., 2016). group processes can help people to explore and clarify their views in ways that would be less accessible in one-on-one interviews (kitzinger,1995). focus-group interviews enable research participants to use the energy generated by the group to invigorate and stimulate an atmosphere in which issues and topics can be discussed openly, and opinions can be expressed without researcher interference. differences of opinion are more important than consensus. research particpants may be able to tell stories or make jokes during the collegial atmosphere of focus-group interviews, which may be more difficult in a one-on-one interview (carter & henderson, 2005). participants and the focus-group interview the focus group comprised six kaiako who were delivering synchronous online programmes for secondary schools in new zealand. they all taught at a mid-socioeconomic rural secondary school that delivered online teaching and learning programmes to secondary schools nationwide. their ages ranged from 30 to 40 years. the subjects offered online were nominated by the school leaders to meet the needs of all ākonga, particuarly those who wanted to access subjects that were not core subjects within their individual secondary school programme. the subject areas of journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(2) 9 the kaiako varied widely but included english, art history, and accounting. the rationale for conducting a focus-group discussion was to encourage the kaiako participants to verbalise their opinions and beliefs freely. this would allow deeper exploration of what they perceived to be the factors that kaiako could use to create more engaging online synchronous language classes for distance ākonga of te reo māori. the focus-group interview was semi-structured to allow the kaiako participants to interact with each other—thereby stimulating engaging discussion and debate. in preparation for the individual interviews, kaiako participants were sent copies of the interview schedule a fortnight before the interviews took place. questions enquired about the kaiako experiences in engaging their online ākonga, successful strategies for engagement, and issues or challenges they may have experienced when teaching in online environments. the focus-group interview was audio-recorded and later transcribed. the transcriptions were sent back to the research participants for checking. table 1 shows that all of the focus-group participants were teaching in the secondary sector. they were all classroom kaiako for more than 10 years, and had taught online for at least 2 years. the most experienced kaiako had been teaching in an online environment for 5 years. table 1 the six focus-group participants name age range online teaching experience kaiako/ākonga sector pīwaiwaka 30–40 3 years kaiako secondary pūkeko 30–40 3 years kaiako secondary kākāpō 30–40 2 years kaiako secondary kea 30–40 4 years kaiako secondary kākā 30–40 5 years kaiako secondary tūī 30–40 5 years kaiako secondary data analysis the approach used to analyse the data was underpinned by the grounded theory coding framework espoused by charmaz (2014). charmaz advocates at least two main phases of coding: initial and focused. the initial phase involves the naming of each word line, or segment of data. during the initial coding phase, charmaz (2014, p. 116) suggested that the researcher should continually ask themselves the following questions: “what is this data a study of? what do the data suggest? from whose point of view? what theoretical category does this specific datum indicate?” during the focused phase the researcher collates the most frequently recurring initial codes “. . . to sort, synthesise, integrate, and organise large amounts of data (charmaz, 2014, p. 113). charmaz (2014) explained that focused codes appear more frequently among the initial codes, or have more significance. focused coding speeds up the analysis process without sacrificing the detail. this type of coding consolidates and refines the initial coding while emphasising the themes that are most important to the researcher. findings the secondary school kaiako taught a variety of secondary school subjects using a synchronous online platform to ākonga in schools throughout aotearoa new zealand. thus, an opportunity for synchronous online classes was provided for ākonga who wanted to study a subject that was not offered in their school. although these kaiako had 10 to 20 years of classroom experience, karaka-clarke, te h., fletcher, j., macfarlane, a., bell, b. 10 they had been involved in the synchronous online delivery of secondary school subjects for only 2 to 5 years. these participants were leaders in their subject areas and were selected by the school principals to teach the online synchronous subjects due to their specific subject expertise, plus their ability to facilitate online learning in an effective and supportive manner. none of these kaiako were māori. each kaiaka was given a pseudonym. the names chosen for the focus-group participants are taken from “ngā manu o te wao nui a tāne” (the birds of the great forest of tāne nui ā rangi). the names also reflect some of the characteristics of the research participants. for example, pīwaiwaka was a fidgety person who couldn’t sit still for long, and kākā was quite a loud participant who liked to chatter. the names chosen for the focus-group participants also weave their contributions into the overall theme of tāne nui ā rangi and his ascent to the heavens. at the time of the interview kākā and tūī had been teaching in an online synchronous community for 5 years, kea for 4 years, pūkeko and pīwaiwaka for 3 years, and kākāpō for 2 years. the themes that emerged from the focus-group interviews were the types of technologies used by kaiako; the challenges and advatages; establishing relationships in an online synchronous environment; and wairuatanga and whakawhanaungatanga: knowing your learners. digital technology used by kaiako all of the kaiako used the same digital platform to deliver programmes because this was the technology preferred by their school networks. each kaiako has a 1-hour timetabled class per week with their ākonga from around new zealand. google hangouts allowed members to initiate or participate in text, voice or video chats—one-to-one or in a group. google hangouts is similar to skype but allows more people to enter the “classroom” at the same time. kaiako were also able to see all of the ākonga in a hangouts community. google hangouts has a virtual classroom that enables kaiako and ākonga to interact collaboratively, no matter where the ākonga are in new zealand, as long as there is internet connectivity. kākā confirmed that hangouts has a chat column down the side of the screen, which was useful for ākonga whose audio was not working. they could keep up the discussion because other ākonga used the chat function to update them, and they could use the chat box to ask and answer questions of each other or the kaiako. ākonga and kaiako also used other digital platforms to communicate. for example, they used google drive to keep track of ākonga progress. if ākonga and kaiako were on google drive at the same time, kaiako could monitor what the ākonga were doing, what they had done, and when they did it. kea stated: “i happened to be on live at the same time and they were doing the work and i was doing the work . . . and i could see when they’d done what”. kaiako also used google communities for online communication with their ākonga. pīwaiwaka shared that the ākonga had other tasks to do during the week and used google communities to contact each other or the kaiako. pīwaiwaka found that google communities were groups created on specific topics to engage other users who had a special interest in that topic. pīwaiwaka: i think it is great and really enjoy using google communities because it provides a forum for anyone with an interest in the topic we’re researching or discussing to enter and contribute to the conversation. my students actually see how the topic is relevant and used in practice out there in the wider community and not just confined to classroom theory. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(2) 11 the kaiako set up google communities so they could support their ākonga with the weekly tasks that they needed to complete before their next synchronous online meeting. this enabled ākonga and kaiako to ask and answer questions, catch up, and generally discuss the tasks when time allowed. google communities provides a platform on which kaiako can upload resources, content, information, and blogs, or comment on anything related to the ākonga’s tasks. kea said that google communities provided a fantastic opportunity for collaboration. kākāpō added that having access to google communities helped their online community to bond, connect, form closer relationships, and remain in contact in the same way that facebook does for many people. according to tūī, kaiako did not use facebook for teaching. however, some of their ākonga started their own facebook pages to maintain contact with each other. tūī continued that kaiako were not part of the ākonga facebook communities and they actively discouraged the ākonga from using this platform for study. tūī: i actively discourage my students from using facebook for study purposes. the main reason is that anybody can access facebook pages even if they’re not a member of it. security is really important. facebook was better suited to “socialising” and strengthening relationships, especially between those who had not met each other face to face. facebook also allowed ākonga to freely discuss the content or anything to do with the course without the supervision of the kaiako. one example cited by tūī was that some of the ākonga were finding the course difficult but were too embarrassed to tell the kaiako. one of the ākonga from tūī’s school was able to pass that message on, and tūī was able to adjust the teaching accordingly. tūī: i wasn’t aware that one of my students didn’t understand the content that i was teaching. however, after they had spoken on their facebook page, one of their friends informed me privately that xxxx was too embarrassed to ask. i was able to clarify the misunderstanding as a normal part of my teaching without drawing attention to that particular person. pūkeko elaborated that kaiako used email and text to communicate with their ākonga. kaiako and ākonga could send and receive texts and emails instantaneously, because everyone had smartphones. most recipients of texts and emails responded almost immediately. this was important when there was a need to clarify content or information about the course. texts and emails were sent to an individual or the groups of people concerned. the one important boundary the kaiako put in place was that they could be contacted or would respond to texts and emails only during certain hours and on certain days. this was generally not an issue for most ākonga. pūkeko: she [student] might email a lot . . . so you get a text and you can read it and you can respond or not in your own time and emails are a similar extension to that. you know the students won’t often pick up the phone if i ring, but if i email and it’s written down so i’ve got a record of it, they’ve got a record of it. they can have a think about it. if it’s not convenient right now they can email me back the next day or the day after or i can say that email i sent you on the 15th march, the information’s there but here it is again . . . so email is really handy for us cos our students have a lot of anxiety. they don’t want to talk to someone they’ve never met. karaka-clarke, te h., fletcher, j., macfarlane, a., bell, b. 12 challenges and positives one of the most challenging aspects of synchronous online teaching for kākā was that the kaiako dominated the class by talking too much. this reduced the ability or opportunity for ākonga to interact and therefore reduced the effectiveness of the class. this was quite an issue in a class that met for only 1 hour a week. kākā was acutely aware that they tended to dominate the online session and was trying to address this issue. kākā: i know that my teaching of the online class is quite different to the way i teach my face-toface classes. my online classes are much more teacher-centred as i have so much to teach and very little time . . . to teach it. both tūī and pīwaiwaka agreed with kākā’s assertion and recognised that they might also be dominating their classes. they say that this often occurs out of concern for their ākonga’s progress, which is often difficult to gauge with only one contact hour per week. tūī: i find i do tend to do a lot more talking teaching in a synchronous class than i do in my faceto-face classes. i feel the need to clarify and explain myself a lot more as i only get this once-a-week opportunity to see my class, unlike my face to facers who i see at least three times a week. to address this challenge, the kaiako understood that they needed to use all of the digital platforms available (e.g., text and email) to keep closer tabs on their ākonga. google hangouts sessions addressed this issue to a certain degree, but usually only the ākonga who were on top of their work were proactive in providing evidence of their progress. tūī: i find google hangouts allows me some of the extra time i need with my online students. although i encourage all of my students to join our google hangout sessions, it is often the ones who are up to date who use the opportunity. they’re more than likely wanting clarification that they’re on the right track or not. it is not until it is getting closer to the due date of the assessment that others tend to join us. google communities also allowed kaiako to go online and comment on ākonga work. pīwaiwaka clarified this when she said, “we need to use all of the tools at our disposal to ensure our ākonga are on track, including hangouts, texts, email and other mediums that technology provides.” notwithstanding this, technology is not infallible and can actually create some challenges. for example, kaiako experienced the instability of the infrastructure that supports the digital technology in some schools and the lack of appropriate hardware for accessing the online network. pūkeko stated that some ākonga had not been able to join google hangouts classes because they were unable to get online. pukeko: one school, for example, very early on at the start of the school year, was so disorganised that their online students did not even have access to a computer, let alone their own space from which they could have class with me. my students used their initiative and borrowed a laptop from one of their friends and had class in their common room. we could see other students in the background moving about, eating their lunch etc. it was not very good at all especially for my students’ learning. i had to personally address the issue with the school before they realised that there was an issue and finally resolved it. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(2) 13 in another instance kākāpō had ākonga whose schools had blocked access to some websites and this caused accessibility issues to google hangouts and google communities. kākāpō: this particular school had blocked the students’ access to certain sites, as most schools do. however, their policy also included the very sites that my students needed to access to engage online in my subject. tūī related a story about some of their ākonga whose school initially provided them with a computer without video capability, and then replaced that with a computer with video, but no microphone. however, most of the software, hardware, and infrastructure issues were resolved and the ākonga were able to access the 1-hour online synchronous classes when required and with the right equipment. pūkeko stated that an unexpected challenge had been that it seemed to take longer to get through content online than in face-to-face classes. this can be particularly difficult for ākonga who are the only ones in their school studying their subject in an online community. pūkeko suggested that the courses should be run over 2 years rather than one, because good time management is an issue for some ākonga. pūkeko: i have a couple of “lone rangers” in my course; students who are the only individuals in their schools taking my subject. they tend to need a bit more time and support than the others as they do not have anyone to talk or discuss things with other than us in our 1-hour weekly online meetings. kākā supported this observation, explaining that online learning requires ākonga to take much more agency and responsibility for their learning than they might in face-to-face classes. for example, their face-to-face classes were allocated revision time which was not necessarily available to online ākonga. the online ākonga were allocated only 1 hour per week of time to interact with the kaiako, in contrast with their face-to-face classes at their schools, which allowed at least 3 hours per week of contact time. kākā commented: “my online students have to take more responsibility for their learning as i do not have the same amount of time to spend with them as i do with my on-campus students.” however, pīwaiwaka responded that the flexibility to manage their time was an advantage; ākonga who did take agency and responsibility were able to focus on what was important for their learning, and tended to achieve good results. those ākonga were able to personalise the course to suit their needs. pīwaiwaka: online learning does require the students to be self-starters who can work independently. they only have a limited amount of contact time online with us each week and need to find time around their other subjects to complete the work for me. tūī added that another positive aspect of the online synchronous delivery was that the subjects were optional. therefore, the ākonga who opted into this type of learning were usually interested in the subject. tūī continued, saying that the kaiako responsibility in this case was to deliver content and the ākonga were free to interpret that in a context that suited them. this provided a mechanism for ākonga “buy in” which stimulated more interest and focus in the subject area. karaka-clarke, te h., fletcher, j., macfarlane, a., bell, b. 14 tui: there is a certain type of student who opts for online learning. they are most often in my opinion, highly motivated over-achievers. they already understand that choosing to study a subject online will require more enthusiastic energy than what they require for their oncampus learning. another positive aspect of this online learning was that ākonga were able to draw from their learning in other subjects at their own schools to assist them with their online study. kākāpō: one of the many pearls of wisdom i offer all of my students, not just my online ones, are that they need to draw from the things they already know to help them understand the new stuff. all pieces of information and learning can be connected. kākā added that ākonga in their subject area were more successful in their internal assessments than the externals. kea: the students nowadays are so much more aware of the number of credits they need to gain their ncea (national exams) credits for levels 1 to 3. many of them rely on achieving their ncea by accumulating internal credits alone, and once they’ve done that they have no need to sit any external exams. however, pūkeko added that most of the ākonga that studied their subject needed the external credits to gain university entrance. they had to be studious and motivated. pūkeko hoped that the ākonga’s online grades would equate with the face-to-face ākonga in their class. relationships kākā mentioned that their school encouraged everyone to learn and recite their mihi (their personal background in te reo māori) when introducing themselves. all of the kaiako implemented this philosophy in a variety of ways in their online programmes. tūī said that for the first task of their online class everyone had to produce a pictorial collage titled “who am i?” tūī: i ask my students to prepare a pictorial collage as a way of introducing themselves to the rest of the cohort and myself. i see it as a visual/virtual mihi. the students can include anything they like in it and i encourage them to tell us about their interests and hobbies as well as their whānau. kākā agreed ,saying that they did something similar in an introductory class called ‘this is me’, which helped the kaiako to learn something about the ākonga. all of the kaiako agreed that the teacher–student relationship was important. kea stated that the ākonga with whom they had a strong relationship seemed to produce work of a higher standard that those with whom the relationship was less substantive. kea: it is my experience that the students that i have gotten to know really well and have a strong connection with tend to produce high-quality work. they are also really enthusiastic about the subject i teach so that combination of connection to both myself and the subject seems to be a really important ingredient for the production of quality work. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(2) 15 however, all kaiako still found it difficult to really get to know their ākonga. pūkeko and kākāpō agreed, saying getting to know the ākonga well was a challenge. pūkeko: . . . i suppose because i have taught face-to-face classes for the majority of my career [and] i am still having difficulty working out the best strategy to get to know my students, or to form a relationship with them. pīwaiwaka strongly supported pūkeko’s assertion and considered that it was more difficult to establish meaningful relationships with online ākonga than with their on-campus ākonga, stating: “i would say it [establishing relationships] is harder online. i feel like even at the end of the year i don’t really get to know them as a person.” pūkeko agreed with kākā but added that it also helped if the students had added information to their profile: “i often look at their profiles to give me a better idea of who my students are.” kea said that there were some opportunities to have an informal chat and get to know ākonga better, especially while you waited for all of the ākonga to join the class—adding that: “i quite often have to wait before everyone is online. that gives me an opportunity to have off-the-record chats with the students and i can get to know them better.” kākāpō said that the more interaction you had with the ākonga the better you got to know them. as an example, kākāpō said: “. . . last year i had a lot of hangouts with two individuals and i got to know them very well.” kākā confirmed kākāpō’s statement, saying that she organised a weekend field trip with her group of ākonga. there were the same permission, health and safety and risk analysis issues as there were for on-campus ākonga. this was a way of getting to know not only the ākonga, but also their parents really well. their relationship was founded on a basis of faith and mutual respect to the point where some of the ākonga were comfortable addressing her by her first name. kākā was also comfortable with being called by her first name as the relationship between kaiako and online ākonga from that between kaiako and on-campus ākonga was different. kākā: i encourage the students to call me by my first name as i believe it promotes a better teaching and learning relationship in my online classes. i also use other forms of technology to maintain contact with my students, texting being one of them. i think texting between the kaiako and their ākonga requires a different type of relationship, a more social relationship which engenders more familiarity. even with a more familiar relationship it can be difficult to determine the mood or demeanour of ākonga in an online situation. pīwaiwaka: sometimes the students can be obscured from view and not engaging and the nuance that is easily discernible in face-to-face situations is often not so obvious online. other ākonga choose to retreat or fade into the background and that makes it difficult to get a feel for their mood or that something else may be going on for them. there may be other distractions for the students as well. kākāpō: [in] one of my classes the students were obviously in the year 13 common room as there were other ākonga wandering around and microwaves pinging in the background. the physical environment, activity and community just made it more difficult to develop let alone strengthen our relationship. karaka-clarke, te h., fletcher, j., macfarlane, a., bell, b. 16 however, the strength of the relationship depended entirely on the level of communication between kaiako and ākonga. kea: the relationship relies on how much the ākonga are willing to share with you. communication is a two-way thing. sometimes i get to know my students really well but it all depends on how much they tell you about themselves, what’s going on for them and that sort of small but important talk. relationships can also be strengthened by good communication between the kaiako and the ākonga support/liaison person (known as the ed) at the school. pīwaiwaka: the ed is responsible for ensuring that the students are keeping up to date with their online work and assisting with any difficulties the students might be experiencing. they can then resolve the issue in school or involve the teacher if necessary. the ed is also often privy to information which the kaiako is not, and can bring the situation into context for the kaiako. kaiako stated that using the internal assessments was also a good avenue for getting to know their ākonga better. pīwaiwaka: one of the internal assessments provided a perfect opportunity to analyse the written work submitted by the students. i was able to advise them about their writing style and how it could be adapted to suit the upcoming internal assessment. this positive feed-forward helped to strengthen the relationship between the student and myself. internal assessment is a way to acknowledge students’ strengths and weaknesses, which i believe also helps to strengthen the relationship. kaiako often took the opportunity to remain online after the scheduled class time to discuss their feedback with those ākonga who wished to do so. pūkeko: this one-on-one time is very rewarding as teachers can give personalised help to individuals which the whole cohort may not necessarily require or benefit from. this time also provides teachers with an opportunity to catch up with individual ākonga with whom they need to discuss progress or lack of progress. i think that this one-on-one time also helps to foster trust and nurture our online relationship. wairuatanga and whakawhanaungatanga: knowing your learners engaging in māori tikanga (māori customary practices or behaviour) that explicitly acknowledges and transparently addresses the values that determine relationships and pedagogy is critical for the success of māori ākonga. when applying tikanga to online learning in school, the six kaiako in this research agreed that although relationships in a synchronous online community were just as important as in face-to-face classes, they weren’t necessarily one of the foci of their classes. when prompted, the kaiako were able to use māori words to describe the way in which they had developed their relationship with their ākonga. the kaiako were familiar with the ministry of education document “tātaiako” (ministry of education, 2011) and its five cultural competencies for teachers. these competencies are whanaungatanga (relationships with students, school and community, with high expectations); wānanga (communication, problemsolving, and innovation); ako (practice in classroom and beyond); manaakitanga (values of integrity, trust, sincerity, and equity); and tangata whenuatanga (place-based, sociocultural journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(2) 17 awareness and knowledge). “tātaiako” provides a strong guide for kaiako and their schools to facilitate positive and supportive relationships and to personalise learning with māori learners, so they can enjoy success as māori. however, although the teachers were aware of these competencies, they were not necessarily sure how they implemented them in their online teaching and learning programmes. 1. whanaungatanga whanaungatanga (relationship building) was by far the competency with which kaiako were most familiar because they were aware of the importance of relationships in their teaching and learning, and there was quite a tangible aspect to it in that they could actually see and hear whanaungatanga in action. pūkeko: as i understand whanaungatanga, it is about relationship building, so it is easy to integrate into my programmes. it is built on the mihi which we all do at the start of the year. whanaungatanga is an integral part of any teaching and learning programme in our school, so it is just an extension into the online classes. 2. wānanga when prompted further, the kaiako agreed that wānanga (forums for discussion) and ako were inherent in their teaching and learning. they identified wānanga as the discussion and dialogue that took place in their classes. this was another very visible competency which, after a bit of probing by the researcher, kaiako were able to identify as being a critical part of their teaching and learning programmes. kākā: i encourage wānanga or group discussion. it is a great way to learn about what my students know and what they do not understand. it is also a very good way for the students and i [to get] to know each other and how they think as individuals. i think wānanga helps develop whanaungatanga or the group to bond or come together. they’re confident to express themselves amongst their peers. 3. ako ako was also clearly visible, but much of the online teaching programmes were didactic or kaiako-centred rather than ākonga-centred or reciprocal. programmes were didactic to ensure that kaiako could cover the content they felt needed to be taught for the ākonga to succeed in their ncea achievement standards. pūkeko: i understand ako as reciprocal learning, which means opportunities to learn from one another. that does not only mean the students learning from me as the teacher, but also me learning from them and them learning from each other. while i do try to encourage and use ako in my online teaching as much and as often as possible, as previously stated time is limited [and] much of my teaching is teacher-centred. i find it is the only way i can get through the content to ensure the students are ready for their ncea exams. 4. manaakitanga for most of the kaiako, manaakitanga was much less obvious because they spent only 1 hour per week online with their ākonga. generally, the pastoral care and manaakitanga aspects of their online teaching and learning programmes were the responsibility of the ākonga’s host schools. in some cases, the kaiako took responsibility for the manaakitanga of their ākonga if their issue related to their online programme. for example, kākā took her ākonga on a field trip. karaka-clarke, te h., fletcher, j., macfarlane, a., bell, b. 18 kaka: the time and effort required to organise the trip was well worth it in the end. the students had time to bond better in a face-to-face experience, which helped achieve the learning goals that i had set. the kaiako felt, in general, that manaakitanga was linked to whanaungatanga although they were not entirely clear as to how each of the competencies or values were connected to wairuatanga. kea: i think manaakitanga or caring is important in building whanaungatanga or relationships. i think that it also has a role in creating wairuatanga, which for me is more about creating a safe atmosphere or learning environment where everyone can have and voice their own opinions without fear. i’m not sure that wairuatanga is meant in that way but that is how i would interpret it. 5. tangata whenuatanga after much discussion, the kaiako unanimously conceded that the tātaiako competencies of manaakitanga, combined with tangata whenuatanga, provided a foundation for wairuatanga. manaakitanga, pūkeko stated: “. . . provided the ethic of care which included psychological, physical, social and spiritual wellbeing of . . . ākonga. tangata whenuatanga provided an ethic of care which was culturally appropriate.” on reflection, the kaiako acknowledged that while they had considered the psychological, physical, and social needs of the ākonga, they had explicitly avoided delving into their spiritual needs. tūī: i think that because our schools are supposed to be secular and that my general understanding of wairua has to do with religion, i tend to avoid or even not consider spirituality in my teaching and learning programmes—whether thay are face to face or online. i don’t want to face a backlash from parents. kea thought that spiritual needs of the ākonga were intimately linked to the social and emotional needs of their ākonga. the kaiako had assumed the host schools were providing for the spiritual and emotional needs of the ākonga, and they did not recognise emotional and spiritual needs as their responsibility. kaiako did, however, admit that it appeared that when there was a strong sense of whanaungatanga amongst the ākonga, the online interaction was better. the kaiako therefore decided that whanaungatanga was a key element in ensuring that the emotional and spiritual needs of the ākonga were well catered for in the learning environment. conclusions it was evident in this research that much of the teaching was kaiako-centred, rather than ākongacentered or reciprocal. when prompted, the kaiako had some awareness of the five tātaiako competencies and other values to support māori learners embedded in many new zealand ministry of education publications (see, for example, ministry of education, 2009, 2015; education council of new zealand, 2017), but they were not confident in how to embed this in their online teaching. further professional development in this area is critical. we contend that the ministry of education or other external agencies that are charged with funding or informing excellence in education should target extra sustained professional development funding to secondary schools where online learning is situated. the focus would be to ensure that māori tikanga, as expressed in “tātaiako”, is explicitly actioned. a safety net of agencies such as the education review office (government inspectorate of schools) and local iwi (tribe) can support and guide the principal and their leadership team as they use this supplementary funding to journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(2) 19 improve outcomes for all learners, but particularly māori. the benefits accruing from this, we contend, would begin to address the competencies teachers are charged with demonstrating as they seek to continue their teacher registration. this, in turn, would have a positive effect on the success of māori learning as māori. there was less time available for online delivery than for to face-to-face teaching, which raises the question of whether online students are being marginalised by having less teacher contact. the online teaching was synchronous, which meant that students needed to adhere to the timetable. we strongly contend that teachers video-record online teaching sessions (e.g., with zoom). this would provide more flexibility for students who could not attend the timetabled session, and give them an opportunity to revisit the teaching and revise learning. google hangouts was the primary means of communication with students for the more structured online teaching, but kaiako reflected that they tended to dominate the discourse more in this form of online teaching than they did when teaching in person in the traditional classroom setting. they used emails and texts to connect with ākonga on a more personal level, and to develop a rapport with individuals. this article highlights that in new zealand secondary schools, where 85% of students are māori, online learning has become standard practice. this is particularly the case for students who select a curriculum area that is not offered at their home school. students who live in more remote areas, or whose choices are limited to online learning, use this mode to undertake their secondary schooling. it’s critical that delivery of online learning by kaiako is culturally responsive and uses contextually relevant pedagogical practices underpinned by bicultural values. these are clearly articulated in ministry of education documents (see, for example, ministry of education, 2009, 2015; education council of new zealand, 2017). furthermore, the advent of the global covid19 pandemic, which has challenged the very notion of what schooling looks like and how it can be delivered, has made it even more pressing to enhance the delivery of online teaching and learning. never, in recent history, has the call for developing hybrid models of schooling been so apparent. harris and jones (2020) propose that covid-19 has irreversibly changed school leadership and how teaching and learning occur, with crisis and change management skills now being essential for all school leaders. we call for further research in this area to build and strengthen opportunities for all learners, but particularly for māori students who have been marginalised in schooling for decades. acknowledgement we would like to acknowledge the six kaiako who gave their time freely and shared what was happening in their online teaching. without their valued input and honest reflections, this research to inform future teachers would not have happened. references barbour, m., & bennett, c. (2013). the farnet journey: effective teaching strategies for engaging māori students on the virtual learning network. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 17(1), 12–23. bewley, d., 1996. distance education in new zealand: an historical sketch. journal of distance learning, 2(1), 14–25. carter, s., & henderson, l., (2005). approaches to qualitative data collection in social science. in a. bowling & s. ebrahim (eds.). handbook of health research methods: investigations, measurement and analysis. open university press. (215–229). charmaz, k. (2014). constructing grounded theory (2nd ed.). sage. karaka-clarke, te h., fletcher, j., macfarlane, a., bell, b. 20 cohen, l., manion, l., & morrison, k. (2011). research methods in education (7th ed.). routledge. denzin, n., & lincoln, y. (2011). qualitative research (4th ed.). sage. doucet, a., netolicky, d. m., timmers, k., & tuscano, f. (2020). thinking about pedagogy in an unfolding pandemic: an independent report on approaches to distance learning during covid 19 school closures. unesco. durie, m. (1994). whaiora: maori health development. oxford university press. education council. new zealand. (2017). our code, our standards. education council. https://teachingcouncil.nz/assets/files/code-and-standards/our-code-our-standards-ngatikanga-matatika-nga-paerewa.pdf evans, c., o’connor, c. j., graves, t., kemp, f., kennedy, a., allen, p., bonnar, g., reza, a., & aya, u. (2020). teaching under lockdown: the experiences of london english teachers. changing english: studies in culture and education, 27(3), 244–254. https://doi.org/10.1080/1358684x.2020.1779030 fletcher j., klopsch b., everatt j., and sliwka a. (2021). preparing student teachers postpandemic: lessons learnt from principals and teachers in new zealand and germany. educational review (special edition). http://doi.org/10.1080/00131911.2021.2007053 harris, a., & jones, m. (2020). covid 19: school leadership in disruptive times. school leadership and management, 40(4), 243–247. https://doi.org/10.1080/13632434.2020.1811479 kitzinger, j. (1995). qualititative research: introducing focus groups, british medical journal, 311, 299–302. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.311.7000.299 macfarlane, a. h. (2004). kia hiwa rā: māori students; plea to educators. new zealand council for educational research. macfarlane, a., webber, m., cookson-cox, c., & macrae, h. (2014). ka awatea: an iwi case study of māori students’ success. university of canterbury. macfarlane, s., macfarlane, a. h., & gillon, g. (2015). sharing the food baskets of knowledge: creating space for a blending of streams. in a. macfarlane, s. macfarlane, & m. webber (eds.), sociocultural realities: exploring new horizons, (pp. 52–67). canterbury university press. menezes, v. l., & rodrigues-junior, a. s. (2009). investigating interaction in an efl online environment. in r. de c. v. marriott & p. l. torres (eds.), handbook of research on elearning methodologies for language acquisition (pp. 53–68). information science reference. ministry of education. (2006). enabling the 21st century learner: an e-learning action plan for schools 2006–2010. the ministry. ministry of education. (2009). ka hikitia: managing for success māori education strategy. education counts. ministry of education. (2011). tātaiako: cultural competencies for teachers of māori learners. new zealand teachers council/te pouherenga kaiako o aotearoa. https://teachingcouncil.nz/assets/files/code-and-standards/our-code-our-standards-nga-tikanga-matatika-nga-paerewa.pdf https://teachingcouncil.nz/assets/files/code-and-standards/our-code-our-standards-nga-tikanga-matatika-nga-paerewa.pdf https://doi.org/10.1080/1358684x.2020.1779030 http://doi.org/10.1080/00131911.2021.2007053 https://doi.org/10.1080/13632434.2020.1811479 https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.311.7000.299 journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(2) 21 ministry of education. (2015). shaping education: future direction—te tāreinga mātauranga. http://shapingeducation.govt.nz/recovery-programme/background-2 ministry of education. (2021a). your school’s ict network. https://www.education.govt.nz/school/digital-technology/your-schools-ict-network/ ministry of education. (2021b). school rolls. https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/statistics/6028 moorfield, j. c. (2003). māori dictionary. https://maoridictionary.co.nz/ new zealand council for educational research (2004). critical success factors and effective pedagogy for e-learning in tertiary education. nzcer. ngata, t. a. (n.d.). hangarau matihiko: e tipu e rea. [blog]. core blog: he kōrerorero, he whakairo. http://blog.core-ed.org/blog/2017/07/hangarau-matihiko-e-tipu-e-rea.html palmer, s. (2003). hōmai te waiora ki ahau: te ara whakamua—towards the establishment of construct validity. in l. w. nikora, m. levy, b. masters, w. waitoki, n. te awekotuku, & r. j. m. etheredge (eds). proceedings of the national māori graduates of psychology symposium 2002: making a difference. proceedings of a symposium hosted by the māori & psychology research unit at the university of waikato, hamilton, 29–30 november 2002 (pp. 87–94). hamilton, new zealand. https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10289/863/nmgps_paper_palmer.p df?sequence=1&isallowed=y seelig, c., cadwallader, a., standring, d. (2019). transformational change in delivery at open polytechnic. journal of learning for development, 6(1). https://jl4d.org/index.php/ejl4d/article/view/328 smith, g. g. (1995). whakaoho whānau: new formations of whānau as an intervention into māori cultural and educational crises. he pukenga korero, 1(1), 18. tiakiwai, s. j., & tiakiwai, h. (2010). a literature review focused on virtual learning environments (vles) and e-learning in the context of te reo māori and kaupapa māori education. ministry of education. https://thehub.swa.govt.nz/assets/documents/42612_litrevvles-finalv2_0.pdf tracey, m. w., & richey, r. c. (2005). the evolution of distance learning. distance learning, 2(6), 4. waiti, p. (2005). evaluation of kaupapa ara whakawhiti mātauranga (kawm). ministry of education. https://www.nzcer.org.nz/system/files/kawm.pdf willis, g., sullivan-bolyai, s., knafl, k., & cohen, m. z. (2016). distinguishing features and similarities between descriptive phenomenological and qualitative description research. western journal of nursing research, 38(9), 1185–1204. https://doi.org/10.1177/0193945916645499 http://blog.core-ed.org/blog/2017/07/hangarau-matihiko-e-tipu-e-rea.html https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10289/863/nmgps_paper_palmer.pdf?sequence=1&isallowed=y https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10289/863/nmgps_paper_palmer.pdf?sequence=1&isallowed=y https://jl4d.org/index.php/ejl4d/article/view/328 karaka-clarke, te h., fletcher, j., macfarlane, a., bell, b. 22 biographical notes te hurinui karaka-clarke tehurinui.clarke@canterbury.ac.nz te hurinui karaka-clarke is of te arawa and ngāi tahu descent. he affiliates to tūhourangi/ngāti wāhiao, ngāti pikiao, ngāti whakaue, ngāti rangiwewehi, waitaha, a kāi te ruahikihiki. te hurinui is currently the deputy head of school and a senior lecturer in the school of teacher education in the faculty of education at the university of canterbury. jo fletcher jo.fletcher@canterbury.ac.nz jo fletcher is the doctoral co-ordinator in the school of teacher education in the faculty of education at the university of canterbury. angus macfarlane angus.mcfarlane@canterbury.ac.nz angus hikairo macfarlane is of te arawa and scottish descent. he affiliates to ngāti whakaue and ngāti rangwewehi. angus was until 2020 the professor of māori research at the university of canterbury. he is now emeritus professor in the child wellbeing institute at the university of canterbury. bryanna bell bwb36@uclive.ac.nz bryanna bell is of ngāti porou descent. she is a secondary school teacher of te reo māori and science. bree is also a promising young researcher who has aspirations to complete her phd. creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. karaka-clarke te h., fletcher, j., macfarlane, a., & bell, b. (2021). kōrero mai: kaiako experiences of synchronous online teaching and learning in new zealand. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(2), [4–22.]. mailto:tehurinui.clarke@canterbury.ac.nz mailto:jo.fletcher@canterbury.ac.nz mailto:angus.mcfarlane@canterbury.ac.nz mailto:bwb36@uclive.ac.nz http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ microsoft word jdl08_introword.doc journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 1 introduction bill anderson, mary simpson university of otago dunedin, new zealand what is distance education? we asked ourselves this as we were discussing the themes of the 2008 deanz conference. our question was not about definitions as such, but rather about one of the beliefs that underpinned a long-time interest in education at a distance. the discussion had been sparked in several ways. first, one of us had been preparing a presentation which included a discussion of the ways in which face to-face students increasingly are being required to undertake learning activities away from the classroom. second, in a chapter that we are writing jointly, we suggest that face-to-face students have become underprivileged through the requirement of physical presence at learning sites. finally, we remembered a conversation with a deanz member who noted the conference themes seemed to indicate a return to a broader concern for education at a distance, rather than the narrower focus of how technologies might support such learning. during our discussion, we remembered the speech given by the first chancellor of the united kingdom’s open university at its charter ceremony. the chancellor, lord crowther, spoke of four aspects of openness that underpinned the creation of the open university: openness as to people, places, methods, and ideas. the notion of distance is almost incidental. distance education exists as a practical, and essential, solution to the problem of openness to places. there is a lot at stake here. who controls the place of study—the institution or the student? acceptance of openness to places, and with that to distance education, cedes the right of control over place of study to the student. the “my place” theme of the deanz 2008 conference reflects the sense of control that distance students might have. often though, distance education is not a matter of choice between on-campus or distance study on the student’s part; the choice is between being able to study or not. the lingam and burnett article in this issue highlights just how much of a necessity distance education still is, by discussing the externalisation of a teacher education programme at the university of the south pacific (usp). externalisation was a response to the geographical spread and remoteness of many of usp’s 12 member nations, and to the costs and difficulties associated with requiring attendance at a usp campus. the necessity for distance education still exists in new zealand, but often not for the reasons cited by lingam and burnett. it is, for example, only by means of distance education that large numbers of people are able to upgrade qualifications and continue to engage in ongoing professional development—activities that would otherwise be constrained or even made impossible by the inflexibility of work hours and the importance of time with family and friends. central to distance education is the right to choose journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 2 to study where one needs, as much as to where one prefers. openness as to methods recognises that distance education is always mediated by technology. technologies used in distance education are chosen for their contribution to, and sympathy with, the objectives of learning. lord crowther explained, “every new form of human communication will be examined to see how it can be used to raise and broaden the level of human understanding” (1969). a major issue is learner access to the technologies of learning and teaching. we recall dr. michael moore saying that his first question regarding distance education projects in south america was always, “how far, on average, do learners have to walk to the nearest telephone?” in new zealand, a major emphasis on building national capacity and capability in digital technologies has seen tremendous growth in distance education courses that employ such means to communicate with students and support their learning. the most recent information about internet access in new zealand tells us that 80.6 percent of households have access to the internet and 48.7 percent have broadband of some form. access rates are higher than average within the 30 to 49 age range for both internet and broadband access (v. nicholls, personal communication, june 25, 2008). these broad statistics disguise a more complex picture of access. education and income levels are major predictors of internet and broadband access; the more advanced the education and the higher the income, the greater the likelihood of internet and broadband access. in the 2006 census, just over one-quarter of new zealand households without internet access (at that time 35 percent of households did not have access) cited cost as the reason for lack of access. however, where household internet access is not possible, other means of access are used. while it is important to be thoughtful about technology choices and to be careful about internet-based courses for distance students, there are now greater opportunities to maximise the benefits that e-learning can bring. the deanz conference’s “my space” theme aligns itself closely with e-learning through its use of the term virtual education. the third deanz conference theme is “my learning.” for a long time, distance education has been concerned with issues of course design and pedagogy and has paid less attention to the learner and strategies for learning at a distance. a renewed focus on learning strategies relevant to distance students would be valuable. past evidence of the particular value of cognitive and metacognitive strategy use in distance study was reviewed in anderson (2007). a recent study (puzziferro, 2008) confirms the importance of learning strategies and study skills such as time management, self-regulation of effort, and study environment, which were significant predictors of student success in online courses. in discussing openness as to ideas, lord crowther described the human mind as a fire which has to be set alight. surely the strategies required by students to learn successfully are the oxygen needed for the fire to burn brightly. we have not mentioned so far the fourth openness, as to people. we wonder whether, in the new zealand context, openness as to people is something we take for granted. in journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 3 contrast to the education situation in the united kingdom in the late 1960s, new zealand tertiary education has a very low entry threshold to any subsector of the tertiary sector. there is also successful distance education available for preschool children. openness as to people echoes the ethos of “equality of opportunity” that has pervaded new zealand education since the time of fraser and beeby. the issue of access to web-based technologies also bears on this aspect of openness. baggaley (2008, p. 45) suggests that, because of access issues, openness to people is becoming an aspirational ideal rather than an actuality in distance education. his solution, based on openness to methods, prescribes using a mix of technologies (p. 47). the articles by higgins and krieg and by du plessis, walker, and naughton in this issue reflect all four types of openness within the new zealand context. they describe activities that represent the ongoing exploration of ways to provide students with an education that serves their needs regardless of the constraints of time or space. this journal issue concludes with two reviews. given the historical frame of this editorial, it is worth giving particular mention to one of those reviews. burge’s book records the lessons and the metalessons of an early generation of distance education leaders. it is surprising how many of those lessons are relevant today, in the same way that a concern for distance education can still find relevance in the four aspects of openness laid out by lord crowther in 1969. references anderson, b. (2007). independent learning. in m. g. moore (ed.), handbook of distance education (2d ed.). mahwah, nj: erlbaum. baggaley, j. (2008). where did distance education go wrong? distance education, 29(1), 39–51. crowther, g. (1969). address at the charter ceremony of the united kingdom’s open university. retrieved july 24, 2008, from http://www.col.org/colweb/webdav/ site/myjahiasite/shared/docs/daniel_ crowther_speech_1969.pdf puzziferro, m. (2008). online technologies: self-efficacy and self-regulated learning as predictors of final grade and satisfaction in college-level online courses. the american journal of distance education, 22, 72–89. journal insides v1.indd © distance education association of new zealand 29 social presence and online communication: a response to mersham benjamin kehrwald senior lecturer, online and distance education school of curriculum and pedagogy massey university college of education palmerston north, new zealand b.a.kehrwald@massey.ac.nz introduction in the preceding issue of this publication, gary mersham (2009) asserted views drawn from communication theory to offer alternative perspectives on understanding, describing, and scrutinising online communication. in doing so, he challenged educators to consider the effects of technology on the processes of online communication and interaction, which are key components of certain types of technology-enhanced learning (tel). his case presented a number of confronting issues with the design, implementation and conduct of tel. clearly, there is merit in examining the use of technology in order to raise awareness of these points as tel moves increasingly into the mainstream. moreover, including a communication theory perspective inevitably enriches our understandings of communication in the context of distance education. nevertheless, aspects of mersham’s (2009) case undermine its effectiveness and may promote misunderstanding. in particular, mersham focuses on the challenges of computer-mediated communication (cmc) and various problems with the conduct of online learning, citing (a) the need to develop particular communication skills and the relative ignorance of these needs on the part of learning designers and managers; (b) the diffi culties caused by an “absence of presence” and absence of physical proximity; (c) missing codes of communication in cmc; (d) questions of integrity, reality, and authenticity in online communication; (e) problems arising from a lack of communicative context, including the particular “autobiographical and journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 29–46 © distance education association of new zealand 30 sociocultural circumstances” (p. 59) of the communicators; and (f) potentially dehumanising effects of mediating technologies. however, while the context for the discussion is clearly distance education in general and technologyenhanced distance education in particular, mersham excludes important work from the fi eld of distance education, including research on communication theory in the context of distance education. the result is an incomplete or limited view of the issues in question and little, if any, acknowledgment of potential solutions to the problems highlighted in the article. thus, there is an opportunity to respond to mersham (2009) with reference to literature from distance education and related fi elds to answer mersham’s critical assertions about online communication and to clarify the relationships between communicative problems in tel and good practice by e-educators. the case below identifi es an approach to these issues via participant experiences with technology-mediated communication and interaction. it responds to mersham’s assertions regarding direct versus mediated experience, relational communication in cmc, online learners’ experiences of the reality and authenticity of online communication, the creation of communicative context, the operation of social presence, support for ‘the human moment’ in interactive processes, and the development of learners’ communications skills for use in cmc. the article concludes with implications for practice in tel situations involving cmc. approach central to this discussion is the mediating role of technology. after canvassing a number of issues related to the effects of mediation, mersham concludes with the question: “how does the process of mediation shape our lived teaching and learning experiences?” (2009, p.70). this question provides a focal point for my response. this article seeks to move conversations about online communication beyond identifying potential communication diffi culties to a point that includes contemporary understandings of cmc that address communicative problems and inform good practice with cmc in education. specifi cally, this article refers to users’ experiences with presence, social presence, and the social dynamics of technology-mediated environments to respond to issues raised by mersham (2009), including (a) the alleged primacy of face-to-face communication; (b) “real” and “authentic” communication in the context of tel; (c) the establishment of communicative context in cmc, and (d) the development of participants’ communication skills, including ways of interpreting online communication. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 29–46 © distance education association of new zealand 31 in addressing these issues, the case draws extensively from research that is situated in participant experiences of cmc in authentic contexts. the rationale for this approach is two-fold: first, the focus on participant experience and activity foregrounds a view of human agency over technology and mitigates views that technology determines human behaviour. given the focus on learner activity, learner-centeredness, and agency in contemporary tel, this point is especially signifi cant. second, as outlined by walther (1992; 1995), there is a clear difference between experimental studies of mediated communication and those drawn from fi eldwork. the implications of this point are that communication in authentic (open, real world) situations is different from communication in laboratory (controlled, closed) situations and that there is an important role for subjectivity and human agency in communicative processes. if we consider only theoretical perspectives and those drawn from controlled research situations, then we ignore the role of human agency and the richness of “the human moment” (mersham, 2009, p. 57) that results from the meeting of two human subjects. the combined focus on human agency, human experience, and authentic activity supports conclusions that are highly relevant to the practice of tel. terminology like mersham (2009), i am critical of the term e-learning, which is too often a catch-all. in this article, i prefer to use the term technology-enhanced learning (tel), which implies a favourable view of technology. in doing so, i risk springing the trap of casually exchanging education for learning, as highlighted by mersham. this is a calculated risk, based on a view of tel that emphasises learning activity as central to the questions of meditated experience highlighted by mersham and echoed in this response. also, in using the term tel, i acknowledge the existence of a wide variety of tel contexts, including those that do not involve dynamic human–human communication, as in the use of cdand dvd-based materials. therefore, my discussion of issues of communication in tel refers particularly to a subset of tel that includes online communication and interaction. this subset has historically been referred to as ‘online learning’, but has expanded to include variants such as networked learning, combinations of online and offl ine learning, and a myriad of forms under the banner of blended learning. the key feature in question is the use of cmc to support and facilitate learning. this article refers to a growing body of evidence that identifi es benefi ts of the ‘technology-enhanced’ view of education. aided by hard-won experience, continuing research, and the increasing ubiquity of cmc, educators have journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 29–46 © distance education association of new zealand 32 laboured to realise the potentials of tel by continually improving their practice. the focus on the future of tel has clearly shifted from defending the viability of technology in education to acknowledging the potential afforded by the technology. research illustrates continued efforts to identify good practice in the design (e.g. bruckman, 2004; ganesan, edmonds, & spector, 2002; gunawardena, 1998; jona, 2000; jones & asensio, 2002; ravenscroft & mcalister, 2006; sims, 2006), development (barab, makinster, & scheckler, 2004; de laat & lally, 2004; schlager & fusco, 2004; steeples, jones, & goodyear, 2002; wiley & gurrell, 2009) and implementation of online learning (e.g., overviews by coomey & stephenson, 2001; garrison & anderson, 2003; mayes & de freitas, 2004). as tel has matured, it has become clear that using technology has not changed the nature of learning. rather, what has changed is how educators facilitate and support learning with technology as an enhancement (spector, 2002). so, although the choice of the term tel is value-laden, it provides an entree to discussions that include both theoretical and practical considerations in the use of technology in support of education. a paradox critics suggest that technology-mediated education is diffi cult, impersonal, and even dehumanising. as highlighted by mersham (2009), participants are physically removed from one another. they experience other participants only indirectly, as mediated by the available technologies. channels of communication are restricted, and communicative cues present in faceto-face communication are fi ltered out by the mediating technology. mersham alludes to these problems in identifying missing aspects of online communication, diffi culties with communicative codes in cmc, and questions of real and authentic communication online. these claims are neither new nor original. media richness theory (daft & lengel, 1986; daft, lengel, & trevino, 1987) and early social presence theory (short, williams, & christie, 1976) both premised assumptions about interpersonal communication on a ‘cues fi ltered out’ view of media. despite this view, which emphasises the limiting qualities of various media, a signifi cant portion of users of text-based communication, including early online user communities (rheingold, 1993), interest groups (baym, 1998), and online learners (kehrwald, 2008; in press) report overwhelmingly positive experiences with online communication. they refer to interpersonal connection, richness of interactions, and productive qualities of their online relationships as indications of the power of networked media and their ability to connect people. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 29–46 © distance education association of new zealand 33 this paradox suggests that cmc and interaction can be a rich, rewarding experience that is highly engaging and even ‘addictive’. how is this possible given the apparent limitations of the medium? a growing body of literature on tel suggests that a response to this paradox lies in understanding the role of human agency in the use of technology. more specifi cally, social presence operates as a form of human agency in which users of cmc use existing communication skills, adapt to new or unfamiliar conditions, expand their communicative repertoire to overcome the perceived limitations of cmc, and achieve successful communication (kehrwald, 2010). a response to mersham mersham (2009) posits a key question regarding cmc in his examination of the potential of online interaction: “is interpersonal communication, for so long held up as the ideal type of dialogic, synchronous communication, really the philosophical benchmark we have made it out to be?” (p. 56). he goes on to construct a case against technologies that fi lter out social and contextual cues. while the points about differences between face-to-face and technology-mediated communication are well taken, they ignore current understandings of the nature, role and function of social presence and the important role of human agency and adaptation in mediated communication. in particular, contemporary understandings of the nature, role, and function of social presence address a number of mersham’s criticisms of online communication. the illusion of direct experience presence refers to the extent to which mediated experiences seem unmediated (kumar & benbasat, 2002; selverian & hwang, 2003). presence theory is concerned with the effects of mediation on experience “especially as our awareness of the mediation oscillates, fl ickers and sometimes fades” (biocca, burgoon, harms, & stoner, 2001, p. 1). in other words, presence creates the illusion of direct experience (sometimes called ‘reality’) in mediated situations. there are three particular types of presence: telepresence, which refers to the experience of a technology-mediated place or situation as though the experience were not mediated; co-presence, which refers to the notion of being there together; and social presence, which extends copresence to specify the presence of another salient social actor—thus creating an opportunity for meaningful interaction and related social activity (nowak & biocca, 2001). journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 29–46 © distance education association of new zealand 34 identifying and relating to communicative partners in cmc short, williams, and christie (1976) defi ned social presence as “the degree of salience of the other person in a mediated interaction and the consequent salience of the interpersonal interaction” (p. 65). notably, this defi nition predates widespread use of cmc. over the last 30 years, defi nitions of social presence have increasingly emphasised relational aspects of communication, including a sense of individuals’ abilities to (a) perceive others (collins & murphy, 1997); (b) gauge the tangibility and proximity of others (mcleod, baron, & marti, 1997) and (c) project themselves into an online social unit (caspi & blau, 2008; rourke, anderson, garrison, & archer, 2001) by signalling their willingness and availability for communicative exchanges (kehrwald, 2008). more recently, research into online learners’ experiences has identifi ed two key aspects of social presence: fi rst, that there is an ‘other’ party present in the environment as evidenced by their contributions; second, that the ‘other’ exists and is identifi able as a real person—a human being, with all the characteristics thereof, including personality, emotion, personal history, and context (kehrwald, 2008). real and authentic communication questions of the reality and authenticity of cmc that are premised on a cues-fi ltered-out view, including those raised by mersham (2009), are at odds with the relational view of social presence described above. research shows that while various media affect the way communication is experienced, individuals are adept at overcoming the perceived limitations of a particular communicative situation and making themselves understood (slagter van tyron & bishop, 2009; walther, 1992, 1995). despite assertions of a cuesfi ltered-out view of online communication, users of cmc not only experience one another through online communication, but they perceive one another as real, human actors and viable partners for interaction (caspi & blau, 2008; kehrwald, 2008; swan & shih, 2005). notably, this determination of other participants as real was seen to be a foregone conclusion by experienced online learners (kehrwald, 2008). furthermore, online learners are seen to experience one another in ways that lead to rich, engaging, and productive interaction (thorpe & godwin, 2006; tu & mcisaac, 2002; wallace, 2003). questions of authenticity of online communication appear to be based on the likelihood that participants represent themselves accurately as genuine communicative partners. in tel, this point is addressed though appreciation of tel as a purposeful endeavour. it is important to note that in many (though not all) tel situations, learners have made conscious journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 29–46 © distance education association of new zealand 35 decisions to study in a technology-enhanced mode or have chosen to do so because of perceived advantages of such systems. such conscious choices defi ne tel situations as a particular type of goal-directed activity. because participants in these situations have a shared goal of learning, the instances of negative behaviours, including assertions of false identities or “playful and performative assertions” (mersham, 2009, p. 55) are greatly diminished. rather, participants in tel situations are more likely to be united by shared purposes that are related to learning in particular courses, or to performing specifi c tasks (kehrwald, 2008). creating communicative context the relational view of social presence is supported by communication theory, which suggests that there are two dimensions of communicative messages: fi rst, the topical content, which includes the subject under discussion and, second, the relational content, which defi nes the nature of the relationship between the sender and receiver of the message (walther, 1992). in face-toface encounters, relational information is conveyed by a variety of verbal and non-verbal cues including voice, facial expressions, gestures, and other body language. by indicating the nature of the relationship between parties, the relational aspects of communication provide contextual information that allows messages to be situated and inevitably infl uences the interpretation of messages (burgoon & la poire, 1999). relational information includes communicators’ “autobiographical and sociocultural circumstances”, identifi ed by mersham (2009, p. 59) as critical to the development of communicative context, as well as skills, abilities, beliefs, levels of experience, indications of willingness for ongoing interaction, signs of personality and demeanour, and regular demonstrations of attendance in the online environment. messages without relational information are more likely to be misinterpreted due to a limited amount of communicative context. these effects are particularly signifi cant in text-based cmc because of the limits of text-only communication. owing to a lack of non-verbal cues, textual messages must convey both topical and relational aspects of messages via text (riva, 2002). social presence cues provide the mechanism for cmc participants to enhance the meaning of their messages and improve the likelihood of successful communication. such cues include instances of personal disclosure, which provide contextual information about the communicator; affective statements, which establish the humanity of the communicator, support his or her salience as a potential partner for interaction, and provide information about his or her willingness to communicate; interactive statements which invite further communication; journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 29–46 © distance education association of new zealand 36 cohesive statements which indicate the state of the relations between communicators; and other contextual information that may be specifi c to the communicative situation (see kehrwald, 2008; rourke et al., 2001; swan & shih, 2005). the operation of social presence social presence cues are part of a complex system of social information processing that allows individuals to receive and interpret information related to social situations and to respond accordingly (slagter van tyron & bishop, 2009). this processing is achieved through a combination of the projection of social presence by communicators and the interpretation of messages by recipients. this interpretation involves not only reading available social presence cues but also adapting existing communication skills to overcome diffi cult or unfamiliar communicative conditions. first, social presence is projected by communicators through a variety of communicative cues. although the channels of communication are diminished and non-verbal cues, for example, may not be present in cmc, other cues such as emoticons (i.e., ‘smileys’), forms of address, acronyms, and other specifi c written conventions are available to signal participants’ intentions, dispositions, and understanding. second, recipients of messages identify and interpret the cues present in online communication to evaluate social situations, and respond accordingly. if the information provided is incomplete or insuffi cient to provide communicative context, the recipients exercise subjective agency in interpreting the messages. one way they may do this is by adapting existing communication skills from other contexts. in this situation, “participants… attempt to adapt to the new social environment and proceed in processing any social information available even if that information is in the absence of many of the social cues participants are accustomed to” (slagter van tyron & bishop, 2009, p. 292). they do this through both ‘projecting’ particular characteristics into the unknown situation, and fi xing the meaning of messages by relating them to previously experienced communicative situations (kehrwald, 2010). recipients also learn to make sense of incomplete messages by studying the communication modelled by more experienced peers to extend their communicative repertoire. in most online learning environments there is a space for discussions amongst the group of learners. this space provides an important venue for modelling effective online communication and norming communicative behaviour. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 29–46 © distance education association of new zealand 37 while certain cues may be fi ltered out in cmc, the negative effects of this fi ltering are mitigated by the combination of (a) textual cues that replace the missing cues and (b) communicators’ ability to effectively ‘read between the lines’ through subjective interpretation to fi ll communicative gaps. a higher incidence of social presence cues and greater communicator skill in both projecting and reading social presence both result in richer communication. from absence to presence and the “the human moment” social presence is not an either/or proposition involving the ‘presence’ or ‘absence’ of other communicators. there is a continuum of presence, which includes various states of presence—from ‘absence’ to the establishment of presence and mutual relations and on to more involved levels of psychological and behavioural involvement (see figure 1) (see also biocca, burgoon et al., 2001; biocca, harms, & gregg, 2001; kehrwald, 2010). increasing operation of social presence absence telepresence co-presence co-location potential for feedback projection into a group access to another mind development of relationships intersubjectivity interdependence mutuality psychological involvement behavioural involvement figure 1 continuum of social presence (adapted from kehrwald, 2010) at the left side of the continuum is ‘absence’, an extreme lack of social presence. at the right is ‘interdependence’, a complex relational state involving strong interpersonal connections that affect individuals’ behaviours as part of collaborative activity. in between (left to right) are states of increasing connection and involvement related to the operation of social presence. the continuum of presence foreshadows a myriad of possibilities for the development of authentic online communication that includes not only basic communication, but also interpersonal interaction, social connection, networks of interpersonal relations, and the development of complex social structures. participants’ social presence, including indications of their willingness and availability for interpersonal transactions, is an important consideration in cmc. the issues of others’ attendance in the online environment, attention to online communication, and awareness of other individuals as potential communicative partners, all promote a sense of immediacy that supports successful online communication. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 29–46 © distance education association of new zealand 38 mersham (2009) argues that “the human moment”, based on authentic psychological encounter involving “engagement through emotional and intellectual attention” (p. 56) is a feature of high-quality learning experiences. i agree. the point of difference between mersham’s view and my own relates to the assertion that “physical presence is a necessary condition for teaching and learning” (p. 56). at the heart of the human moment is the ability for two (or more) individuals to realise interpersonal connections that are suffi ciently rich to (at the very least) include psychological involvement and affect changes in one another’s attitudes, beliefs, skills, or knowledge. some have suggested that this the very defi nition of learning (see spector, 2002). notably, mersham allows that the detrimental effects of a cues-fi ltered-out view can be addressed if “communicators are able to compensate for such losses” (p. 57). i assert that social presence provides such compensation and humanises tel by promoting interpersonal interaction, the development of relations between individuals, and the social and psychological involvement that underpins ‘the human moment’. social presence and the related development of interpersonal relations that promote collaboration represent online participants’ efforts to humanise their learning experiences and realise the potential of online learning as an active, social process that leverages the technological connectivity, but overcomes the limits of the mediating technologies, to create productive social connectivity (kehrwald, in press). the development of e-learners’ communication skills given a relational view of social presence and the continuum of presence described above, there are key questions about the development of e-learners’ abilities to establish, cultivate, and use social presence in cmc. the participant–dependent nature of social presence means that it can be learned by individuals or cultivated amongst a group of users. recent research has shown that although novice online learners do not come to tel with the skills of experienced online learners, they can apply the social skills they have derived from face-to-face communication, adapt those skills to fi t new communicative situations (slagter van tyron & bishop, 2009), and develop new communication skills based on the extent and quality of their experience with online communication (kehrwald, 2008). these communication skills can be grouped into two broad types. the fi rst type includes those skills that involve conveying social presence. online journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 29–46 © distance education association of new zealand 39 learners must learn to project themselves as viable communicative partners with identities that include relevant personal characteristics. considerations in the cultivation of an online social presence include the contexts in which the communications occur and the type of communicative task (conrad, 2002; rourke et al., 2001; yoo & alavi, 2001), as well as the particular traits of the individuals involved including communication skills (kehrwald, 2008; tu & mcisaac, 2002), cultural dispositions toward particular types of communication (gunawardena, 1998; tu, 2001), or particular skills such as literacy or keyboarding skills (tu, 2002; tu & mcisaac, 2002). the second type of skill includes the abilities to read and interpret social presence cues—recognising familiar social cues, learning about new types of cues, reading available information in a nuanced way, and fi lling in information gaps through various forms of subjective interpretation including projection and ‘seeing as’, in which readers of social presence interpret available information and fi x the meaning of ambiguous or unclear messages (kehrwald, 2010). cultivating these skills should be viewed as a developmental process. novice online learners bring existing communication skills to cmc situations and learn through ongoing interaction and experience. good communication is modelled by online teachers and more experienced learners. novice online communicators expand their communicative repertories with the benefi t of guidelines in study materials, the modelling of online facilitators and more experienced learners, and the benefi t of increasing experience of online communication. implications for practice the case above is signifi cant insofar as it extends the conversation begun by mersham (2009) to inform online teaching and learning practice. at the outset, i referred to mersham’s key question: how does the process of mediation shape our lived teaching and learning experiences? while the pursuit of best practice in tel is ongoing, the ideas above provide guidance for a range of tel practitioners including online learners, online teachers, course designers, and staff who support both teaching and learning in technology-mediated situations. first, we consider learners. learners who are new to cmc need help to develop online communication skills. these skills relate not only to establishing and maintaining a social presence, but also to reading and making sense of journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 29–46 © distance education association of new zealand 40 the social presence of others. given the dynamic nature of online learning environments and the nature of the interactive processes that constitute learning activity in these environments, the ability to skilfully read and send social presence cues is likely to have a considerable effect on learners’ experiences of tel, when online communication and interaction are integral to the learning process. as i have argued elsewhere, online learners must have the ability, opportunity and motivation to communicate and interact online (kehrwald, 2008). regrettably, most novice adult online learners do not come to online learning environments with the skills to establish and cultivate an online social presence. therefore, tel programmes that use cmc and online interaction should include a developmental approach to ‘learning to learn online’. activities should be structured to (a) provide models of good practice in online communication, including the cultivation of social presence; (b) motivate learners to establish and cultivate a positive social presence; (c) create explicit opportunities for all participants to establish an online social presence; (d) generate interpersonal interaction that supports ongoing demonstrations of presence and the development of relations between individuals; and (e) structure relatively low-risk experiences from which learners can learn to both convey an ongoing social presence and read the presence of others. while it is common practice amongst skilled online facilitators to create an introductory ‘getting-to-know-you’ task, the particulars of such a task are important. introductory activities should be structured so that they require learners to provide information that is relevant to establishing a social presence, including identifi ers (preferred name), personal context (educational history, professional background), instances of personal disclosure (personal circumstances, interests, motivations for study), and opportunities for personalisation (images and other media such as an audio introduction, a personal profi le). the particular parameters of each introductory task should be tailored to elicit the information that is necessary to promote the establishment and cultivation of social presence. the rationale for such establishment tasks should be explicit so that learners can see value in completing them. whenever possible, existing relationships should be identifi ed and promoted alongside the establishment of new ones (kehrwald, in press). interaction should be initiated as soon as possible. introductory tasks should include a clear reason to respond to others. this may be tied to the introductions, as in the case of welcoming new peers, or may be a separate task, as in a discussion activity on group norms or the particulars of the course environment. notably, the opportunity to interact is not suffi cient. learners need to see a clear benefi t from the time and effort they invest journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 29–46 © distance education association of new zealand 41 in interaction. for example, foreshadowing the opportunity to self-select collaborative partners may motivate learners to invest in early interaction. next, there are important roles for online teachers and designers of tel. both should be aware of the pitfalls of online communication and interaction as well as the role of social presence to support more complex social activity. although learning tasks frequently include collaboration, the social dynamics of the course are often overlooked. there is potential for a mismatch between the intentions of the learning task and the existence of a supportive social infrastructure within the course. designers and teachers must avoid assumptions about participants’ abilities and willingness to establish and maintain an online social presence, read and understand the social presence of others, participate in ongoing interaction, or reach a state of productive collaboration. if participants do not have an established social presence or there is no form of ongoing interaction within which interpersonal relations can develop, the likelihood of productive collaboration is greatly diminished. in particular, online teachers must develop a repertoire of online communication skills, including the ability to project themselves into online environments and to read the nuances of textual communication from novice online learners. in terms of helping learners read social presence cues, teachers should model the establishment and maintenance of an appropriate social presence through their own communications and ongoing interaction. moreover, they should draw on experienced online learners to lead and model appropriate social activity. for experienced teachers who have carefully honed face-to-face presentation skills and the ability to skilfully project themselves into physical spaces, developing an equal mastery of online communication can be a challenge. institutions need to be mindful of the time and energy required to develop and maintain online teaching skills. conclusion online communication is at the very core of much tel, which draws upon the connectivity of networked technologies to create opportunities for interpersonal interaction at a distance. social presence is a critical element of such tel systems for its role in supporting online communication and related processes of interpersonal interaction, collaboration, and the development of social structures such as communities. while technology and media have potentially detrimental effects on human communication, social presence is an important form of human agency that humanises participants’ experiences of technology-mediated social activity. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 29–46 © distance education association of new zealand 42 in closing, i want to emphasise my support for mersham’s efforts to initiate discussions of online communication in this publication. the issues he raises are relevant to both scholars and practitioners of distance education. the case above extends the conversation. it is my hope that readers of this journal will continue it further as they apply these ideas in their work, and that they will report back as the relationships between social presence, online communication, technology-mediated social activity, and users’ experiences of tel are more 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(2001). media and group cohesion: relative infl uences on social presence, task participation and group consensus. mis quarterly, 25(3), 371–390. biographical note benjamin kehrwald benjamin kehrwald is senior lecturer, distance and online education in the massey university college of education where he coordinates postgraduate programmes in e-learning. he has been working with learning technologies since 1992 in the usa, japan, australia, and new zealand. he specialises in the design, development, implementation, and research of online learning with a particular emphasis on technologymediated social processes. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 2010, 14(1), 29–46 microsoft word nichols choudhary standring.docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2) 43 exploring transformative learning in vocational online and distance education mark nichols, executive director learning design and development, open polytechnic neeru choudhary, lecturer, open polytechnic doug standring, executive director marketing and communications, open polytechnic abstract perspective transformation (the enduring development of a person’s understanding, the reformulation of their experience, and new ways of acting in the world) is widely understood to be an important outcome of adult education. various studies performed over the last 30 or so years since mezirow’s theory was first proposed have confirmed its presence and importance in higher education. however, the question remains as to whether transformative learning takes place in vocational distance and online education—particularly if it’s not explicitly promoted. this paper investigates the extent of transformative learning taking place in adult learners studying at a distance, online. drawing on king’s learning activities survey (las), open polytechnic students (n=499) across seven qualifications (six discipline areas) responded to a survey asking about their experience of perspective transformation. the instrument also sought insight as to how vocational providers of vocational online and distance education might promote transformative learning outcomes in learners. survey results show evidence of perspective transformation in students to varying degrees that are mainly determined by the qualification being studied. the results also reveal which instructional design approaches and teaching activities might contribute to transformation. keywords: transformational learning; perspective transformation; online education; distance education; vocational education introduction transformative learning theory holds that perspective transformation—the enduring development of a person’s understanding, the reformulation of their experience, and new ways of acting in the world—is a central objective for adult education (mezirow, 1991, 2000, 2009, 2018). the theory recognises that “critical dimension of learning in adulthood that enables us to recognise and reassess the structure of assumptions and expectations which frame our thinking, feeling and acting” (mezirow, 2009, p. 90). it describes that element of education that transcends the addition of knowledge and skill to the broadening of reasoning, perspective, practice, and outlook. self-reflection, critical discourse, and problem-solving are some of the learning strategies that encourage transformative learning. nichols, m., choudhary, n., standring, d. 44 mezirow proposes 10 stages of transformative learning: stage 1: a disorienting dilemma. stage 2: self-examination with feelings of guilt and shame. stage 3: a critical assessment of epistemic, socio-cultural or psychic assumptions. stage 4: recognition that one’s discontent and the process of transformation are shared and that others have negotiated a similar change. stage 5: exploration of options for new roles, relationships, and actions. stage 6: planning of a course of action. stage 7: acquisition of knowledge and skills for implementing one’s plans. stage 8: provisional trying of new roles. stage 9: building of competence and self-confidence in new roles and relationships. stage 10: a reintegration into one’s life on the basis of conditions dictated by one’s new perspective. (king, 2009, p. 5) many studies demonstrate the validity and importance of mezirow’s stages; however, the theory does not appear to have been researched from the perspective of vocational, online, and distance education. open polytechnic is australasia’s largest dedicated provider of online and distance education. it specialises in providing flexible, distance, and online learning for vocational qualifications. most of the qualifications offered by the polytechnic are taught solely online, except for some that have a blended learning approach. qualifications on offer range across a multitude of subject areas—from certificate to diploma and degree level, giving students opportunities in some subject areas to staircase from level 1 to level 7 on the new zealand qualifications framework. literature review the concept of transformative learning is related to brookfield’s ideological critique and freire’s critical pedagogy (mezirow, 2018), in that the objective of transformative learning is to not only inform students as learners, but to have them deepen as people. kegan (2018) helpfully defines transformative learning as an alternative to informational learning; the difference being between “how” things are known and “what” is known. although both forms of knowing are valuable and have their place, it is the latter that develops epistemological (“way of knowing”) maturity. the effects of transformative learning can be encountered at the level of an individual course as well as across a qualification (boyer et al., 2006; hodge, 2011; hyland-russell & syrnyk, 2015; king, 2009) it’s also likely that the dynamics of transformation differ across subject areas (hyland-russell & syrnyk, 2015). student context is also an important factor (greenhill et al., 2017). mezirow (2000) highlights that transformative learning involves an analysis of adult learning and how adults are transformed through reflection, rational discourse, and emancipatory action. the theory continues to be developed, for example in the directions of threshold concepts (hodge, 2019), mindfulness, and spirituality. transformative learning theory has been examined in multiple contexts, including vocational education (becker, 2017; choy, 2009; roessger, 2014; wilhelmson et al., 2015). while the concept of transformation is a feature of some vocational education literature, the term is not journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2) 45 usually applied in the technical sense (angus et al., 2013; colley et al., 2007). few studies address how transformative learning theory might be applied to vocational settings (becker, 2017; greenhill et al., 2017; hodge, 2010; roessger, 2014; wilhelmson et al., 2015). those that do address this context tend to have limited sample sizes and highlight the variety of level, context, and discipline that vocational education is concerned with. some technical studies investigating vocational learning do confirm transformative learning (duveskog et al., 2011; hodge, 2010, 2011), and emphasise the role of the trainer in enhancing these outcomes. online education is demonstrated in early studies to be transformative in post-graduate study (boyer et al., 2006; ziegler et al., 2006) and, conceptually, to online education in general when reflective activities are emphasised (meyers, 2008). whether online and distance learning is transformative in the sense proposed by mezirow is yet to be investigated and is portrayed as an open question (hoskins, 2013). online and distance education is underpinned by instructionally designed materials provided to learners (lockwood, 1994, 1998; shearer & park, 2019; simonson et al., 2009; vai & sosulski, 2016). such materials serve as a learner’s primary means of instruction. instructional design typically starts with translating the graduate profile of a qualification into a series of learning outcomes that serve as the basis of assessment and learning activities. the part-time, distributed student base and asynchronous nature of online and distance education make it difficult to employ the usual means of perspective transformation across adult students, particularly interpersonal discussion related to power dynamics (brookfield & preskill, 2005; freire, 1972). in the case of vocational education, task-oriented outcomes often reduce the need for critical reflection, which is another primary means of promoting transformation (mezirow, 2018). there is a literature gap in the exploration of transformative outcomes in sub-degree, undergraduate, and vocational online and distance education. it’s also clear from literature that determining whether transformative learning has taken place is not enough; the transformative process is also of interest (mälkki & green, 2014; snyder, 2008). perhaps the dearth of comprehensive studies has its root in the fact that, as is probably the case globally, new zealand vocational qualifications tend to explicitly promote graduate performance (that is, what can be done) rather than perspective transformation (how a student’s view of the world and themselves might change). despite this, it’s difficult to consider students ready for work or further study if they have not, to some extent, further developed their assumptions about themselves, and the world they are part of, as an outcome of their education. methodology in 2016 an online version of king’s (2009) learning activities survey (las) was sent to recent open polytechnic graduates (from 2 years earlier) and current students who had completed 50% of their open polytechnic programme, across the disciplines of arts, business, teaching (early childhood education [ece]), information and library science, legal executive studies, and psychology. the breadth of qualifications was selected to provide a potential contrast by subject area. the population size across the qualifications selected was 4,109. a total of 499 survey responses were received; however, only 405 survey responses across seven qualifications (including both a bachelor and diploma in business) provided sufficient information for analysis. the las (king, 2009) was used to obtain data on the respondents’ transformative learning experiences. the las measures whether a learner experienced a change in perspective during their educational activity and, if so, what factors contributed to it. the instrument was used to nichols, m., choudhary, n., standring, d. 46 answer some key research questions related to transformation perspective change in distance, online, vocational education: 1. to what extent are expressions of online and distance education transformative, in the technical sense of mezirow (2009)? 2. what elements of the vocational online and distance education experience are considered transformative by students? 3. what, if any, are the differences in perspective transformation experienced by students across different subject areas? the las instrument has four major parts. 1. part 1 is based on mezirow’s original 10 stages of perspective transformation, and so relates to research question 1. to determine the extent to which transformation occurred, respondents were asked to check which of 13 statements they experienced as they studied. 2. part 2 explores which experiences may have contributed to the perspective transformation, to measure those elements of the online and distance education experience that are considered transformative by students. part 2 of the las assists with the answer to research question 2. 3. part 3, available only to those respondents who reported transformation, includes further questions that identify which learning activities were influential (relevant for research question 2). 4. part 4 collects demographic information, including the qualification studied by the respondent (required for addressing research question 3). descriptive statistics and pearson’s chi-square analysis were applied to the respondent data; for the third research question the hypothesis tested was h0: there will be no differences in the transformative learning experiences identified across subject areas. findings and analysis the population size across the qualifications selected was 4,109. of the 499 survey responses received (return rate of 12%) only 405 provided sufficient demographic data (including qualification identifier) for the purposes of analysis (table 1). table 1 frequency distribution of respondents by qualification qualification n % bachelor of arts 25 6 bachelor of business 110 27 bachelor of teaching (ece) 45 11 diplomas in information and library science 47 12 diplomas in psychology 57 14 legal executive diploma 58 14 new zealand diploma in business 63 16 405 100 journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2) 47 research question 1 was concerned with the extent to which expressions of online and distance education were transformative. recall that mezirow proposes 10 stages of transformative learning: 1. a disorienting dilemma. 2. self-examination with feelings of guilt and shame. 3. a critical assessment of epistemic, socio-cultural or psychic assumptions. 4. recognition that one’s discontent and the process of transformation are shared and that others have negotiated a similar change. 5. exploration of options for new roles, relationships, and actions. 6. planning of a course of action. 7. acquisition of knowledge and skills for implementing one’s plans. 8. provisional trying of new roles. 9. building of competence and self-confidence in new roles and relationships. 10. a reintegration into one’s life on the basis of conditions dictated by one’s new perspective. (king, 2009, p. 5) note that the las does not specifically apply the terms “guilt” and “shame”, preferring instead to measure whether the respondent continued to agree with their former beliefs. participants were asked to select statements in the las that applied to them as a result of their open polytechnic study experience. the statements selected revealed that stages 1 to 3 were most prominent and revealed a great deal of variance in transformative experience across qualifications. this is shown in table 2. table 2 frequency distribution of respondents to 10 stages of transformation qualification stage (showing % of respondents) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 bachelor of arts 24 12 8 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 bachelor of business 26 4 4 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 bachelor of teaching (ece) 76 58 36 18 13 11 7 7 7 7 diplomas in information and library science 38 23 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 diplomas in psychology 67 53 21 12 11 7 5 4 4 4 legal executive diploma 16 9 5 2 2 2 2 0 0 0 new zealand diploma in business 24 16 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 of the stages proposed by mezirow, most experienced the “disorienting dilemma”. “selfexamination” was next—this was most common in bachelor of teaching (ece) and the diplomas of psychology, where it might be anticipated. nichols, m., choudhary, n., standring, d. 48 there is clear variance of transformation across qualifications, most notably in the bachelor of teaching (ece) and diplomas in psychology (most transformative), and the legal executive diploma (least transformative). of all the qualifications, only the bachelor of teaching (ece) and diplomas in psychology had students who reported experiencing all 10 stages of transformation. table 3 shows the frequency distribution of respondents who did not identify with any stage of mezirow’s framework. table 3 frequency distribution of respondents who couldn’t identify with any stage qualification no stage (%) bachelor of arts 44 bachelor of business 41 bachelor of teaching (ece) 9 diplomas in information and library science 36 diplomas in psychology 9 legal executive diploma 71 new zealand diploma in business 41 research question 2 was concerned with which experiences may have contributed to perspective transformation. of the survey respondents (n=405), some 49% (n=198) reported that they experienced a perspective transformation during their open polytechnic study. of this number, 81% indicated that their transformation experience took place because of their course. the las instrument provides respondents with a list of possible contributors to their transformative experience. of the n=65 respondents who indicated a person influenced their transformation, most (22%) indicated their lecturer’s support was definitive (see table 4; note that multiple selections were possible). lecturer support was particularly influential in the teaching (ece) and psychology disciplines. table 4 percentage contribution of people to self-reported student transformation influencer of transformation another student’s support 5% a challenge from your lecturer 14% your classmates’ support 5% your lecturer’s support 22% another open polytechnic staff member’s support 4% note that open polytechnic courses are designed for independent study; that is, students are seldom purposefully directed to contact their lecturer or other students. of the n=179 respondents who indicated assignment work (i.e., study tasks) influenced their transformation, most (58%) indicated “personal reflection” was responsible. however, 52% also indicated “assigned readings” (table 5). journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2) 49 table 5 percentage contribution of study task to self-reported student transformation assignment (study task) class / group projects 15% verbally discussing your concerns 12% writing about your concerns 14% an essay 37% personal journal 12% self-evaluation 42% the non-traditional structure of a course 5% activity or exercise 26% internship or placement 6% lab experiences 2% deep, concentrated thought 29% personal reflection 58% personal learning assignment 21% assigned readings 52% other (stated) 11% the “other” responses from table 5 included “further personal research” and “the noho marae experience”. some important caveats are required with reference to tables 4 and 5. firstly, the results apply to those students who self-reported that they experienced perspective transformation as a result of their studies. the las indicated that only 11 respondents progressed through all 10 stages proposed by mezirow (table 2), hence participants considered themselves to have experienced transformation despite not having done so on mezirow’s terms (although all had experienced at least one stage). secondly, with respect to table 5, it could be that the term “assignment” misled respondents into thinking that it referred to actual assignments, rather than all learning activities. this could have reduced the number of responses. finally, not all open polytechnic courses use the same interventions. for example, “lab experiences” were indicated by only 3 of the 57 psychology student respondents. “internship or placement” is an intervention used only for the teaching (ece) qualification. “an essay”, “personal reflection”, and “assigned readings” (study tasks that have the highest association with transformation), were much more evenly spread across qualifications. to this extent, the data reflect the use of these interventions across all qualifications, rather than indicating the relative importance of one approach over another. it is clear, though, that all approaches might be encountered by students studying vocational qualifications in online distance settings. research question 3 was concerned with the question of what, if any, differences in transformative learning dynamics exist across different subject areas. demonstrating that there are differences by subject area is straightforward enough. the las checks which, if any, of mezirow’s 10 stages were experienced by a respondent (table 2). in a follow-up question the las queries whether respondents believe they had experienced a time when they realised their values, beliefs, opinions, or expectations had changed—a question that has respondents selfreport their overall impression of perspective transformation. those respondents who reported no overall impression of perspective transformation are shown in table 6. nichols, m., choudhary, n., standring, d. 50 table 6 frequency distribution of respondents reporting no stages of transformation qualification no transformation (%) bachelor of arts 44 bachelor of business 55.4 bachelor of teaching (ece) 17.8 diplomas in information and library science 46.8 diplomas in psychology 31.6 legal executive diploma 81.0 new zealand diploma in business 63.5 the pattern of self-reported overall perspective transformation taking place reinforces that the bachelor of teaching (ece) and diplomas in psychology are the most transformative, and the legal executive diploma least transformative. the hypothesis tested for research question 3 was h0: there will be no differences in the transformative learning experiences identified across different subject areas. the basis selected for testing h0 was self-reported perspective transformation. the effect of discipline can be seen in table 7; pearson chi-square tests indicated that transformative learning experiences do vary across disciplines (table 8). table 7 count of self-reported transformation by students across discipline areas subject area no transformation transformation n % n % arts 11 44% 14 56% bachelor of business 61 55% 49 42% information and library studies 22 47% 25 53% legal executive 47 81% 11 19% psychology 18 32% 39 68% teaching (ece) 8 18% 37 82% new zealand diploma in business 40 64% 23 207 51% 198 49% table 7 shows that disciplines such as teaching (ece) and psychology, which emphasise selfreflection and self-awareness, tend to promote perspective transformation whereas legal executive studies, which tend to focus more on subject knowledge, do not. of those legal executive students self-identifying as transformed, the highest attribution (n=4) was to assigned readings. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2) 51 table 8 chi-square tests of self-reported transformation by discipline area value df asymptotic significance (2sided) pearson chi-square 55.046 6 0.000 likelihood ratio 58.555 6 0.000 linear-by-linear association 14.399 1 0.000 number of valid cases 405 table 8 shows a statistically significant relationship across discipline and self-reported transformation, so we reject the null hypothesis; there are differences in the experiences of perspective transformation across subject areas. while this finding is clearly supported by the data, it should be remembered that disciplines use different instructional design activities for very different graduate profiles. the nature of the qualification outcomes are likely to promote or preclude perspective transformation, in addition to the actual subject area being studied. discussion and conclusion the findings clearly demonstrate that online and distance vocational study can be transformative. it is apparent that the nature of the subject itself influences the potential for transformation. subject areas such as psychology, which often challenge students to see themselves and those around them in new ways, are inherently more transformative than subjects associated with legal executive education. it is possible that graduate profile requirements promoting self-reflection and critical thinking also promote perspective transformation. the selection of qualifications for this study was intentional and supports the following additional conclusions. first, diploma qualifications can be as transformative as degree qualifications. this is apparent from comparing the diplomas in psychology with the results from all degree qualifications, and the new zealand diploma in business with the bachelor of business. second, though not immediately apparent from tables 2 and 3, students are as likely to experience transformation in the first half of their programme as they are across the whole. there is evidence that beginning, committing to, and successfully completing at least one year’s fulltime equivalent tertiary study at a distance has the potential to be transformative. third, instructional designers and teaching staff in vocational online and distance education can, and ought to, encourage transformational outcomes alongside their obligations to achieve qualification graduate profiles, even where those profiles might not specify transformative outcomes. deliberate efforts to encourage perspective transformation can be made in both course materials and direct teaching interventions. fourth, instructional designers have considerable influence over the level of transformation experienced by learners. encouraging personal reflection and selecting perspective-challenging readings are two effective ways to encourage students to enhance transformation. it is clear from the findings that self-reported transformation of students in vocational online and distance education are influenced both by instructional choices and the discipline being studied. it should be noted that instructional choices and disciplines are, in fact, related; discipline areas such as teaching (ece) and psychology lend themselves to self-evaluation and personal-reflection activities. the importance of assigned readings and essays—both of which can encourage reflection and require a student to rethink their perspectives—are clearly important mechanisms for vocational educators to use in transforming students’ perspectives. nichols, m., choudhary, n., standring, d. 52 a final comment needs to be made in relation to how perspective transformation is measured. only 11 of the 405 respondents used in the analysis recorded experiencing all 10 of mezirow’s stages of perspective transformation, although almost half (49%) indicated there was a point at which they realised their values, beliefs, opinions, or expectations had changed. this discrepancy indicates that a progression through mezirow’s stages might represent a guide to educational practice, rather than an essential series of steps. it could also indicate a discrepancy between understanding perspective transformation in the technical sense used by educational theorists, and a more popular sense. implications vocational online and distance education can be transformative; 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(2015). enabling transformative learning in the workplace: an educative research intervention. journal of transformative education, 13(3), 219–238. https://doi.org/10.1177/1541344615574599 ziegler, m. f., paulus, t. m., & woodside, m. (2006). this course is helping us all arrive at new viewpoints, isn’t it? making meaning through dialogue in a blended environment. journal of transformative education, 4(4), 302–319. https://doi.org/10.1177/1541344606294819 biographical notes mark nichols mark.nichols@openpolytechnic.ac.nz dr mark nichols is executive director learning design and development at open polytechnic of new zealand. mark has an extensive background in open and distance learning. his linkedin profile is at https://www.linkedin.com/in/mbnichols/ neeru choudhary neeru.chaudhary@openpolytechnic.ac.nz dr neeru choudhary is a lecturer in business management at open polytechnic of new zealand. she holds a ph.d. and masters in business management (ob/hrm) from india. neeru has substantial teaching experience, having taught courses in the areas of business management, organisational behaviour, and hrm. her research interests include teaching and learning, leadership, motivation, and employee satisfaction. doug standring doug.standring@openpolytechnic.ac.nz doug standring is executive director of marketing and communications at open polytechnic of new zealand ltd. he is one of aotearoa new zealand’s most experienced open, distance, and flexible learning (odfl) professionals with expertise in odfl strategy, management, product innovation, and business models. he holds a master arts (first class) from massey university and a graduate diploma in international relations (distinction) from the london school of economics and political science. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2) 55 this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. nichols, m., choudhary, n., & standring, d. (2020). exploring transformative learning in vocational online and distance education. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2), [43–55.]. microsoft word dron format.docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 7 technology, teaching, and the many distances of distance learning jon dron, athabasca university abstract the “distance” in “distance learning”, however it is defined, normally refers to a gap between a learner and their teacher(s), typically in a formal context. in this paper i take a slightly different view. the paper begins with an argument that teaching is fundamentally a technological process. it is, though, a vastly complex, massively distributed technology in which the most important parts are enacted idiosyncratically by vast numbers of people, both present and distant in time and space, who not only use technologies but also participate creatively in their enactment. through the techniques we use we are co-participants in not just technologies but the learning of ourselves and others, and hence in the collective intelligence of those around us and, ultimately, that of our species. we are all teachers. there is therefore not one distance between learner and teacher in any act of deliberate learning— but many. i go on to speculate on alternative ways of understanding distance in terms of the physical, temporal, structural, agency, social, emotional, cognitive, cultural, pedagogical, and technological gaps that may exist between learners and their many teachers. and i conclude with some broad suggestions about ways to reduce these many distances. keywords: distance learning; technology; technique; teaching; technological distance; distributed cognition introduction in these pages i will argue that all intentional learning, and most that is unintentional, is the result of a complex, creative, human web of technology in which all of us participate; that we, the technologies we use, and the technologies we create are co-participants in a rich, ever-unfolding tapestry that shapes who we are, how we think, and how we act in the world; and that almost all that we learn consequently occurs as a result of a myriad of technologically entangled teachers. this means that all learning is at a wide range of distances from a vast, interconnected web of teachers, any of whom may play a pivotal role in its success. therefore, the concept of “distance learning” as a description of a single gap between a learner and a teacher is insufficient to characterise how it occurs. i will describe some of the consequences of this perspective, discussing alternative dimensions of distance and what that means for those whose job is to teach. but first, to understand the technological nature of teaching we must understand the nature of technology. the technological nature of education tech (especially digital tech) tends to get the limelight when we speak of technologies in education, but kelly (kelly, 2010, loc. 209) observes that poetry, dance, paintings, and literature are as much technologies as are computers and software, and there are as many technologies of prayer as there are technologies of steam (franklin, 1999). technologies do not have to be dron, j. 8 physically instantiated. some technologies, such as mental arithmetic or meditation, can occur entirely within the private confines of a single human mind: they are cognitive gadgets (heyes, 2018) that are not just the grist (the stuff we remember) but also the mill (how we organise and make use of that stuff). language is a technology too (changizi, 2013; kelly, 2010; rheingold, 2012; ridley, 2010; wilson, 2012). kelly (2010 loc. 659–660) describes technology as “not a thing but a verb”, although it is both. some technologies are things that we do (writing, say), others are things that have been done (again, writing). while many dictionaries call it the application of science, most technologies ever created have used nothing even approximating scientific theory, methods, or findings; for example, archetypes such as steam engines (mumford, 1934, p. 215) and bows and arrows (derex et al., 2019). it is more accurate to describe science— at least in its methods, tools, and theories—as kinds of technology (arthur, 2009, locs. 943–946; ridley, 2015, loc. 2207). w. brian arthur’s “the orchestration of phenomena to our use” (arthur, 2009, loc. 51), provides a definition that makes sense of this complexity, and that is both discriminating and exhaustive. it captures both the “noun” and “verb” aspects of technology, encompasses both its physical and its non-physical manifestations, and it accommodates both the application of science (phenomena discovered by scientific methods) and technologies of faith or art, with equal ease. phenomena may be things that happen, things that exist, causal chains, things we believe, things we imagine, ideas, capabilities and so on. in simpler terms, technology is the organisation of stuff to do stuff. any stuff. almost all technologies are assemblies that are built from and contain other technologies (arthur, 2009): the stuff that is organised to do stuff usually includes other stuff that is organised to do stuff. for example, this paper (a technology) contains words, rules of grammar, letters, apa citations and so on, that are themselves part of a massive web of interconnected technologies. most technologies solve problems, and technologies that form part of an assembly are often counter-technologies (dubos, 1969) to others in that assembly that cause the problems they must solve. for example, terms/semesters, timetables, lecture theatres, campuses, grades, mandatory attendance, plagiarism detection systems, and many other widespread features of educational systems are counter-technologies designed to deal with problems initially created by the invention of lectures (dron, 2016). and many of our most cherished methods of formal teaching are counter-technologies to the problems those counter-technologies have caused, such as students whose intrinsic motivation is undermined by them. anderson (2009) characterises the relationship between pedagogies and technologies as a dance, while fawns (2022) thinks of them as parts of an entangled, complex whole. however, methods of teaching (pedagogies), as well as the theories and principles that inform them, are technologies, too. we orchestrate tools, words, actions, structures, principles, and methods, combined with beliefs about how people learn, to bring about learning. pedagogies are only ever components of an assembly, not standalone technologies, and they never come first. there must be other technologies available to be used as part of a teaching method before that method makes any sense at all and, at least in a formal context, many other technological phenomena, from curricula to timetables to programme regulations, need to be accommodated in advance. it is easy but mistaken to focus on the most visible parts of the assembly that are technologies in their own right and to treat them as a synecdoche for the whole. it makes little more sense to make claims about, say, the educational value of computers in the classroom than it does to make claims about the educational value of their power supplies. it is not computers that make a difference but how they are used, and that use is itself a technology: a set of methods, practices, and ways of assembling them with other stuff, including pedagogies. the computer provides only some of the many situated phenomena that are orchestrated for any particular learning context. the same is true of all the technologies that can be used for learning, including pedagogies. although the parts may be critical to the success of the whole, what matters is the whole, not the parts. there are virtually no technologies that, assembled with others, cannot journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 9 make a positive contribution to learning, and virtually none that cannot make a weak or even a negative contribution, including widely praised constructivist pedagogies (e.g., andrews et al., 2011; clark, 1982; lassnigg, 2017). in fact, because they require greater skill and because simple logic dictates that most teachers probably have average or below average skills, constructivist approaches tend, on average, to be less successful—by most measures—than those based on well-designed, well-tested, and more prescriptive methods such as direct instruction (de bruyckere et al., 2015; hattie, 2013). this is because the roles teachers play in their enactment (not so much as users but as participants) may be performed more or less well. the more technique that is required of a teacher, the more their individual skill matters. “technique”, like “technology” has multiple contested meanings, but i use the term here to simply mean the stuff people do with the stuff that has been done. techniques are technologies that are enacted by people. techniques may be hard, repeatable methods of doing something: a technique for building houses, a technique for multiplication, and so on. it is possible to perform a hard technique of this nature correctly or incorrectly. potential variance from the ideal is, though, implicit in the term. we rarely use the word “technique” when describing how to select items from an application’s menu bar because there is one and only one way of doing it. to call something a technique typically implies that it can be achieved well or less well. soft techniques are the idiosyncratic, personal, and almost never-repeating ways that an individual may participate in a technology. soft technique is what makes my style of writing different from yours, and one teacher’s use of a pedagogy unlike that of any other. there are typically no standards of correctness against which soft technique can be measured. although we may recognise better and worse teaching, we cannot ever say it is the best or worst it can be. soft techniques fill gaps left by those that are harder. the more gaps there are to fill, the more our skill and creativity matter, and the more idiosyncratic the results will be, for better or worse. poor hard technique with great soft technique may therefore result in excellence: a three-chord blues song with fluffed notes, say, may move us as much as a perfectly performed symphony. conversely, great hard technique but poor soft technique may not guarantee it. a teacher who applies a well-proven pedagogical method precisely, but without feeling or adaptation to learner needs, may fail to support learning as effectively as one who uses poor hard technique objectively, but who fills the gaps with creativity and passion. this is at least part of the reason why there is very little difference between the efficacy of fully certified teachers who have undertaken a lengthy course of study and those who have received provisional certification after a day or two of training (goldhaber, 2002; goldhaber & brewer, 1999). however, while there are few innate benefits to be gained from using more or better hard techniques (or, indeed, more or better technologies in general) each new hard technique we learn opens up new adjacent possible empty niches or, more succinctly, adjacent possibles (kauffman, 2019) that afford new opportunities to do more, new gaps to fill. for any technology there is no predictable limit to what we can add, or assemble it with, to create something new. even for something as simple as a screwdriver, the possible uses—from murder weapon to back scratcher—and consequently the number of possible forms of our own participation, are unprestatable and indefinitely large (kauffman, 2019). the same is true of pedagogical methods and the vast array of technologies that they may be organised with. all of us organise stuff to learn, not just those designated as teachers. learners are always the most significant organisers of stuff, including stuff organised by a designated teacher to help them to learn, but this is just the very tip of a huge iceberg. other teachers may include other learners; textbook authors, editors, and illustrators; designers of classrooms; creators of curricula; software designers; learning designers; makers of college regulations; librarians and so on. but this, too, only scrapes the surface. architecture, for example, teaches. the opportunities campuses afford to see others learning, to talk in corridors and common rooms, to facilitate interaction, and so on, may be integral to the effectiveness of in-person institutions. as a result, dron, j. 10 poor formal teaching or even a total absence of it can (if other teaching technologies like curricula, timetables, textbooks, classrooms, and dialogue with other students are available) sometimes lead to exceptional learning outcomes (dron, 2023). the internet, too, is awash with teachers, intentional and otherwise, from creators of tutorial sites and videos to q&a forums like stackexchange or quora. almost all the environments and technologies in which we participate teach. technologies are not just means to the direct ends to which they are put; they are embodiments of the thinking that went into them and, through our participation, they become part of our own cognition. johnson (2012, loc. 149), for instance, describes how the nearmiraculous avoidance of a major plane disaster was not just the result of the skill of the pilot but “a kind of duet between a single human being at the helm of the aircraft and the embedded knowledge of the thousands of human beings that had collaborated over the years to build the airbus a320’s fly-by-wire technology”. this is equally true of what we internalise in our individual minds. almost all of what we know, we know from others, and much of it is technological in character: words, methods, theories, techniques and so on. we are parttechnology as much as, through our participation, technologies are part-us. and technologies are as much part of our hearts and souls as they are of our minds. most of the soft roles we play when participating in any technology, from cooking to writing a love letter, are part of what makes our lives richer and more connected with others. technologies participate in our distributed cognition (gibson, 1977), and they are co-participants in the collective intelligence of which we are a part. they are the things that make us smart (norman, 1993): their smartness is, in a meaningful sense, part of our own. for clark (2008), technologies are not just enablers but physical extensions of our minds. in sharing our technologies, we literally share our minds with others. it is in this sharing that we learn not just skills and facts, but how to be human. no one is an autodidact. our teachers include innumerable named and nameless souls stretching back into the indefinite past. in any act of intentional learning, and most that are unintended—we are coparticipants, part of a massively distributed, technology-mediated gestalt teacher with countless others, stretching back in an unbroken line to the dawn of recorded history and beyond. this means that virtually all learning is, in part, at a wide range of distances from those who taught us. distance learning the concept of distance learning has until now usually been used to characterise a gap (however it is measured) between teachers and students. by acknowledging the many co-participants in any intentional learning experience, including the technologies they produce, we can stop thinking about whether learning is at a distance from teachers or not, and think instead about how distance is distributed, which teachers matter most, and dimensions of distance that might matter. we might, for example, consider some or all of the following overlapping, mutually affective, but distinct kinds of distance. (bear in mind that there are almost always multiple distances between the multiple teachers involved in most learning journeys.) • physical distance: there is usually greater salience to interactions with those to whom we are physically close. closeness allows us to use different and (generally speaking) more flexible technologies than those available to learners who are not co-present, and for a broader range of phenomena to be orchestrated. it provides relatedness, one of the three central pillars of intrinsic motivation (ryan & deci, 2017), for free, albeit that support for the other two needs, autonomy and competence, may (without great effort) be significantly curtailed (dron, 2016) and so demand counter-technologies such as active learning approaches or ways of personalising learning to bring about successful learning. simply sharing a physical environment with others requires accommodation—using technologies such as turn-taking, hand-raising, and organised seating. it allows social phenomena that are part of our genetic heritage to be part of the assembly, from pheromones to hugs. it allows us to use the act of travelling to and from a location, and journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 11 the commitment that entails. to a large extent, physical proximity to teachers matters only in this one special case of in-person learning. otherwise, it usually makes little difference whether the learner and their many teachers are separated by one kilometre or thousands. • temporal distance: arguably more important than physical distance, a large amount of what we intentionally learn is through stuff that was created by someone in the past. greater temporal distance makes direct communication with the creator more punctuated, and sometimes (for instance when they are dead, or when they are us at a previous time) impossible. temporal distance also relates to pacing. individuals may benefit from asynchronous time to reflect between posts or wait in frustration for support from others. synchronous discussion may be less reflective but may support some kinds of bonding more effectively (haythornthwaite et al., 2000), and may support pedagogically useful phenomena like interpersonal entrainment (liam et al., 2019) that would be impossible asynchronously. • structural distance: the technologies for learning may be organised in ways that materially impact learning, including role/organisational hierarchies, classroom layouts, the organisation of online systems, relationships between elements of a system, and so on. brand (2018) notes that all stable systems are pace-layered, with larger and slower changing elements having the greatest structural influence, while smaller and faster changing elements fit into their contours, only rarely having more than small, incremental effects overall. each layer may be thought of as structurally distant from the next. this is as true of the technologies of learning (and, indeed, all technologies) as it is of ecosystems and civilisations, from the effects of classrooms or learning management systems on how learning happens within them, to the effects of legislation on institutions. often, the effects of larger, slower, structurally more distant elements on the smaller, faster changing elements (students, say) in an institutional system play a very large role in determining how learning happens, from the imposition of forms of assessment to specifications for course length or even pedagogical method. structural distance to a teacher may be traversable, while structural distance to a governing body rarely will be. • agency (or empowerment) distance: agency is the ability for a learner to control their own learning trajectory. agency distance acts as a rough corollary to anderson’s (2016) concept of agency presence. conventionally, it might be seen as relating to the learner’s independence to learn, or their autonomy but, as we have seen, no one is a truly autonomous or independent learner. however, a learner may be more or less dependent, thanks to the imposition of hard rules and norms reducing their agency, thus increasing agency distance. there are, though, many other aspects of the process that that can reduce learners’ agency, from inadequate prior knowledge to weaknesses in pedagogical practices. having agency is not just a question of having choice: in fact, too many choices can be overwhelming, to the point of being at least as bad as having no choice at all (schwartz, 2004). to be in control, simply having choices is not enough. we need the capacity to make informed choices and the power to act on them (garrison & baynton, 1987). if not, we need the power to delegate control to someone with more knowledge or skill, and to take that control back again when it is no longer needed (dron, 2007). agency distance shares much in common with moore’s (1997) concept of transactional distance. while transactional distance speaks in part to the psychological gulf between a learner and a teacher, its communication gulf is primarily concerned with the extent to which a teacher controls the learning trajectory (moore calls this “structure”) or the learner is in control (moore calls this “autonomy”), with what moore calls “dialogue” allowing negotiation of control (dron, 2007). dron, j. 12 • cultural distance: culture is, to a large extent, defined and enabled by the technologies that it employs. franklin (1999) sees the two as virtually synonymous. however, culture is also concerned with shared values, albeit that all technologies embed or express values, as they are enacted and as they intertwine with our lives and our societies (bijker, 2005). we are all parts of very many overlapping cultures, from families to mac users to religions to nations, all of which have unique knowledge, norms, and, more often than not, vocabularies that are only meaningful to those within them. becoming part of a culture is, to a large extent, concerned with adopting the methods, practices, tools, and hard techniques associated with it, from specialised language to rituals or citation practices (dron, 2019). the more that these technologies and values diverge from our own, the greater the cultural distance, and thus the more difficult it will be to learn. • social distance: among the most important phenomena orchestrated in a teaching context are those of relatedness. social distance is concerned with how close we may feel to those from and with whom we learn, as well as with identity and belonging. social distance may significantly affect our motivation to learn (ryan & deci, 2017) and there are strong arguments to be made that all learning is essentially social in nature (bandura, 1977). although interaction with others is most significant in determining social distance, this is not just to do with whether we engage directly with them. for example, we may identify with celebrities, religious icons, or thought leaders even though we may not know them personally and even though we may not expect a reaction from them. indeed, we may feel empathy with authors and creators of artefacts who are long dead. similarly, even in entirely static texts or videos, skilled soft technique can draw us into what holmberg (2020) describes as “guided didactic conversation”, even if a teacher is not present. social distance has a rough corollary in the concept of social presence (rourke et al., 1999) in the community of inquiry framework. it also relates closely to the psychological gulf that accompanies the dynamics of transactional distance (moore, 1997). the technologies we employ, and the soft techniques we add to the assembly, can make a significant difference to social distance. • emotional distance: this is concerned with the extent to which we are moved by what and how we are learning, our desire to learn it, the frame of mind with which we go into it, and how we share our emotions with or perceive the emotions of others contributing to the process. this has a rough corollary in the concept of emotional presence (cleveland-innes & campbell, 2012). emotional distance is often highly influenced by the passion that is expressed through the soft technique(s) of the teachers involved in the process: poor soft technique can lead to indifference, while passion in a teacher (including writers of books, other learners, and so on) can arouse our own. • cognitive distance: this is concerned with whether we have the foundational knowledge and cognitive tools (mainly technological in character) to make what we intend to learn part of our adjacent possible. it is, on the one hand, concerned with whether we have developed the hard techniques that are internal to our own minds and bodies that are needed as part of the assembly and, on the other, the knowledge on which they rely. if the level of challenge is too high or too low, the effects could be worse than simple failure to learn: intrinsic motivation may suffer (ryan & deci, 2017), reducing the chances we will ever do so. cognitive distance is also concerned with the extent to which the cognitive processes of the many teachers who might be involved in a learning event (including the learners) are revealed to the individual learner, whether directly, through interaction, or through reflection. cognitive distance, in this sense, has a rough corollary in the concept of cognitive presence (garrison et al., 2001). • pedagogical distance: this relates to the methods of teaching (pedagogies) employed by all contributors to the process. in a classroom, in which a designated teacher orchestrates many of the phenomena, pedagogical distance to the teacher may be very low while, for independent learners without direct guidance or those told by the teacher to solve journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 13 problems for themselves, it may be quite high. the greater the pedagogical distance, the more that depends on learners’ own pedagogies or those of others (such as writers of wikipedia articles) to whom they turn. pedagogical distance has a rough corollary in the concept of teaching presence (anderson et al., 2001). different measures of distance may matter in different ways to different learners in different contexts, and there are many overlaps and dependencies between them. for example, a higher social or cognitive distance may lead to a greater emotional distance, while greater cognitive distance may increase agency distance. sometimes, greater distance in one dimension can be compensated for by less distance in another, as predicted by anderson’s interaction equivalence theorem (miyazoe & anderson, 2010). technological distance all of these distances could be reframed, directly or indirectly, as different kinds of technological distance. by this i mean the technological gap between what the phenomena (including all the technologies in the assembly) afford, and what the complete assembly requires for learning to succeed. this includes hard or soft technique as well as any other technologies and phenomena that may need to be assembled to bring about learning. while three of the distances i describe above (pedagogical, cognitive, and cultural) are explicit examples of technological distance, the rest depend on and entail technologies, from language or ritual to carpentry or the internet, to reduce distance. for instance, social distance relies on the technologies that mediate our interactions with others (from words to social media), emotional distance relies on both such technologies and the soft technique of participants, and so on. what makes it worth distinguishing them are the other phenomena they orchestrate, and the purposes to which they are put. technological distance can be reduced by pre-orchestrating some of the phenomena needed to learn. this is largely what designated teachers attempt to do when they organise stuff in a classroom or online course. they use technologies, from chairs to pedagogical methods, that make learning easier. more often than not, they assemble other stuff that has already been organised for learning—from lecture theatres to textbooks, all of which are designed or can be used to reduce the effort needed to teach by pre-orchestrating phenomena that play a teaching role. for instance, a general discussion forum might need a great deal of additional orchestration of phenomena by all participants if it is to play an effective role in learning, so much organisational, pedagogical, and subject matter skill may be needed: the technological distance is high. conversely, an adaptive tutoring app running on a tablet might demand relatively little additional orchestration or components unless it is difficult to use or run. other technologies, from internet connections and web searches to diagramming and books, can be added to close the technological distance. in any act of intentional teaching, whether formal or not, it is often desirable for the technological distance to be low for “hygiene” technologies that support but that do not directly promote learning (for instance, to access and navigate a digital system), and higher for those that do, thereby requiring the learner to fill in the gaps themselves in personally meaningful ways. however, it is important to be aware of the many less obvious activities and structures that teach. for example, the physical effort needed to travel to a classroom could play an important pedagogical role in preparing for learning (salas et al., 2011) so something as simple as scheduling two classes in one room could reduce technological distance but adversely affect learning. also, if the gaps are too large, learners may be confused, lacking the cognitive tools to connect the new knowledge and skills, in which case these must be provided. this relies heavily on a clear understanding of what is in the learner’s adjacent possible and what is not. as hattie dron, j. 14 (2013) puts it, learning must be visible, and that demands additional methods to add to the assembly, from interpreting expressions to marking assignments. conclusion there is and can be no generalisable science of teaching (although it may use phenomena discovered through science) because it is a fundamentally technological activity. the methods, tools, components, and techniques we use provide endless variety that is unprestatable, the effects of any of which can rarely be generalised—and then only provisionally until the technologies or the assemblies around them change. it is difficult if not impossible to accurately predict which individual technologies (whether pedagogies or nails) will work better than others, because it is only the assembly that matters, and the assembly is always unique. how it is done, by all the teachers involved, often matters more than what they do. however, much can be done to equip teachers (formal or otherwise) with technique (soft and hard) that can be used to better adapt to each unique context. for example, rich, informative stories that others can apply in their own practices can ignite passion, provoke new ideas, inspire new methods, and suggest new ways for tools to be used in different assemblies. making learning visible can help us to understand the diverse distances learners must cross; open sharing can increase the adjacent possible for everyone; building from small, open, easily assemblable pieces, be they digital, conceptual, physical (or whatever) can provide more adjacent possibles; and so on. above all, as educators, we need to remember that the purpose of education is not (just) to make machines in the heads of others, but to support them in participating more fully in the world as active participants, problem solvers, and creative assemblers of phenomena; to be makers, not just instantiations of technologies. seeing education through a technological lens thus provides a means to see teaching as a fundamentally human, creative, meaning-filled 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(2017). self-determination theory: basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness. guilford. salas, c. r., minakata, k., & kelemen, w. l. (2011). walking before study enhances free recall but not judgement-of-learning magnitude. journal of cognitive psychology, 23(4), 507–513. https://doi.org/10.1080/20445911.2011.532207 schwartz, b. (2004). the paradox of choice: why less is more. harpercollins. wilson, e. o. (2012). the social conquest of earth (kindle ed.). liveright. biographical notes jon dron jond@athabascau.ca professor jon dron is the associate dean, learning & assessment in the faculty of science and technology at athabasca university, canada, and a british national teaching fellow. his latest book, how education works: teaching, technology, and technique is scheduled for publication by au press in spring 2023. website: https://jondron.ca/ this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. dron, j. (2022). technology, teaching, and the many distances of distance learning. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2), [7–17.]. nguyen, n., everiss, l., rosewarne, s., vladinova-aylor, k., ippel, j., boyd, m. 56 programme design for an online learning environment: stories from designing and developing the new zealand certificate in early childhood education and care (level 4) programme nhung nguyen, auckland university of technology liz everiss, education consultant sonja rosewarne, open polytechnic kalina vladinova-aylor, open polytechnic johanna ippel, open polytechnic melanie boyd, open polytechnic abstract the new zealand certificate in early childhood education and care (level 4) programme was designed and developed when a level 4 early childhood education qualification became mandatory for all educators working with children and families in the new zealand early childhood education home-based sector. this occurred at a time when open polytechnic was undergoing a transformational change programme to ensure ongoing innovation in open distant flexible learning (odfl). this paper provides insight into the design and development of a fully online, level 4, early childhood education and care programme. several “stories” focus on pedagogy that empowers learners in an online flexible distance learning environment, innovative teamwork, and initial feedback from stakeholders. the pedagogy underpinning the development of the programme is informed by the integration of sociocultural and constructivist theories with information communication technology (ict), as specified by the pedagogic model of integrating constructivist and sociocultural learning principles with information communication technology, key educational design principles, and the assessment approach. in the first phase, work focused on designing at a programme level; work in the second phase developed the three courses that met qualification specifications set by the new zealand qualifications framework (nzqf). the desired pedagogy and innovative teamwork resulted in very positive initial feedback from stakeholders. the paper recommends that feedback from stakeholders be formally collected in the new year. keywords: online learning; learning design; course development; early childhood; information technology; constructivism; sociocultural; education introduction as a result of the review of home-based early childhood education (ece), the new zealand government decided that educators in the home-based sector would be required to hold at least a level 4 ece qualification (kōrero mātauranga, 2019). the open polytechnic (op)—with a unique position in online distance flexible learning (odfl)—designed and developed the new zealand certificate in early childhood education and care (level 4) programme. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2) 57 this programme comprises three courses: • early childhood practice for children’s wellbeing • understanding young children’s learning and development • professional practice for early childhood education and care. these 20-credit courses are fully online. to enrol in the programme, students need to volunteer or work in a licensed ece service for at least 3 hours a week. the ece programme was designed and developed in the context of op transformation and, together, our team constructed an innovative way to design it. the innovation had two aspects: 1. the theoretical framework underpinning the programme design 2. the process and way the team worked together. the theoretical framework focused on scaffolding and ensuring the design of the ece programme met the requirements of the new zealand qualification authority (nzqa). some important requirements for the design and delivery of the ece programme were: the sociocultural theories underpinning the programme, the integration of learning and practice, and assessment in practice. these requirements were hard to meet, especially when the programme was to be delivered fully online without any face-to-face assessment or class interaction. the programme needed to empower learners in an online flexible distance learning environment. this required careful mapping to show how ict as tools / artefacts would support learning. in the context of the op’s transformation, the ece programme was one of the first programmes developed in a new organisational structure. the team needed to create a new way of working that included developing processes to support successful design and development of the programme. a diverse group of people with different expertise, professional backgrounds, and experience in early childhood education, adult teaching and learning, and course design were brought together. different perspectives and ways of thinking and working brought a breadth and depth to the development process that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. the shared vision of a programme of study was to respect, empower, educate, and upskill the students, and to advocate and support quality care and education in home-based ece settings. this joint and shared vision sustained the team and enabled them to work constructively, collaboratively, and seamlessly throughout the project. this paper shares our journey of design and development, which started with the theoretical framework underpinning the design and development of the ece programme. the paper then follows our journey as the team continued with the process—using the framework and working together. we then relate stories from stakeholders involved in the design, development, and delivery of the programme. the stories describe some of the stakeholders’ work, perspectives, and evaluative thinking. finally, we share what we learnt from our journey; some of these findings may be useful in other contexts. pedagogy: theoretical framework underpinning the programme the design, development, and delivery of the programme were underpinned by sociocultural theories, woven with te whāriki, the national early childhood curriculum. (te whāriki is a bicultural curriculum underpinned by the principles of te tiriti o waitangi. it is also an inclusive curriculum for diverse students.) because this programme was developed for online learning, the integration of ict and pedagogies was guided by the csi model (nguyen & williams, 2016). nguyen, n., everiss, l., rosewarne, s., vladinova-aylor, k., ippel, j., boyd, m. 58 this section: • explains the pedagogic model • outlines the key educational design principles that guided the development of these courses • presents the assessment approach underpinned by sociocultural theory. the csi model the relationship between learning and ict is presented in figure 1. the nature of learning can be explained by sociocultural and constructivist theories. that is: • learning occurs in social contexts (sociocultural theories). • learning entails individual creation and organisation of knowledge (constructivism). figure 1 the pedagogic model of integrating constructivist and sociocultural learning principles with ict (csi model) (nguyen & williams, 2016) from a sociocultural perspective, learning occurs in social contexts. cognition (i.e., intelligence or knowledge) is distributed across social systems among people, learners, cultures, artefacts, environments, and situations (pea, 1997; salomon & perkins, 1996; salomon & perkins, 1998). learning is situated in contexts and activities. learning occurs in social contexts ict: artefacts promoting interaction social aspect sociocultural theories learning occurs in social contexts ict: artefacts promoting interaction individual aspect constructivist theory learning facilitating learning with mediational tools ict: offering learning flexibility journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2) 59 students learn by: • participating in social organised activities • interacting with people • interacting with artefacts: tools, ict and learning resources • (cobb & bowers, 1999; greeno, 1997; salomon & perkins, 1998). learning is facilitated with mediational tools such as signs, diagrams, virtual reality, language, experimental equipment, technical tools, and technology. ict tools can be used to: • create social organised activities • promote interaction between students and others in social networks, students and students, students and learning resources • facilitate the co-construction of knowledge in social contexts (bernacki et al., 2020) • offer flexible learning environments for students. from a constructivist perspective, learners create and organise their own knowledge in order to learn (fosnot & perry, 2005; von glasersfeld, 1989). as a tool, ict can support learners to construct their knowledge and create multi-modalities of learning. jonassen et al. (1998) noted that students internalise more information through a visual modality than they do through other sensory modalities. visual tools (e.g., colours, photos, and diagrams), audios, and videos assist learners to internalise information effectively, and to construct their own knowledge. ict can also give students opportunities to construct their knowledge in symbolic forms (such as words, diagrams, photos, videos, virtual reality) and organise their knowledge in structured systems (such as mind maps, structured folders, and databases). key educational design principles to help the development team to incorporate the theoretical framework in course development and meet nzqa’s requirements, key educational design principles were created. these principles, which were underpinned by the theoretical framework, outlined specific actions we needed to accomplish when developing the ece courses. the key principles are listed below. 1. sociocultural theories are integrated with ict and underpin the design, development, and delivery of the new zealand certificate in early childhood education and care (ecec) (level 4) programme. key indicators are: • designing learning activities that are based on the ece context, and that require students to accomplish these activities in their own ece settings • designing learning activities that require students to interact with artefacts (e.g., videos, course content on the iqualify learning platform, websites, reading) and to construct their own knowledge and skills • fostering student interactions that may be between students in online discussion activities, using question forms, with learning resources, with mentors / supervisors / academic staff and through tuakana (older / more experienced) and teina (younger / less experienced) relationships in the workplace (where tuakana help or guide teina). 2. the programme is underpinned by te tiriti o waitangi and the new zealand early childhood curriculum framework, te whāriki. nguyen, n., everiss, l., rosewarne, s., vladinova-aylor, k., ippel, j., boyd, m. 60 3. the programme is informed by inclusive pedagogies, and acknowledges our pacific location and the diverse contexts of aotearoa new zealand. 4. praxis is central to the programme, so practice–theory–practice are integrated (students work at least 3 hours per week at early childhood settings). 5. ict tools are used as artefacts to support students’ learning. 6. key learning activities, assessment tasks, and processes are interrelated and embedded in practice. the collected evidence is cumulative, and provides evidence to show competency in practice. 7. constructive alignment is ensured at course and programme levels. 8. literacy and numeracy are embedded in the course content and learning activities. assessment framework the “assessment in practice” approach developed for the programme by dr margaret brennan is informed by cultural historical activity theory (chat) which is closely aligned with the sociocultural family of learning theories, and highlights the context and collective nature of learning, with an emphasis on what people do and think (brennan, 2018). the assessment approach follows a learning cycle of “prepare, enact, reflect, query”. prepare professional practice activities are developed for each module so that both students and kaiako (educator) have time to prepare before learners participate in the setting. activities align with course content and learning outcomes. enact each week students engage in professional activities and discussion in their early childhood settings to fulfil practice activity requirements. reflect and query after leaving the setting, students record their participation in the activity and reflect on their experience. as part of the reflection students also develop a professional question or observation to discuss with their kaiako the following week. evidence / verification student participation in the practice activities is observed by kaiako, who verify students’ hours in the setting, their participation in the practice activity, and that the professional discussion took place. this assessment approach asks students to both enact and articulate their developing professional knowledge, skills, and dispositions in the early childhood setting. importantly, this approach also provides evidence of students’ ongoing opportunities to participate in professional activities and discussions with kaiako while in the early childhood setting. teamwork: design and development underpinned by the theoretical framework, the design and development of the ece programme commenced. the core team working on the design and development included a principal learning designer, a principal curriculum designer, an academic staff member, a project manager, a content creator, learning designers, digital designers, editors, and content reviewers (a māori journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2) 61 appraiser, a content reviewer from the home-based sector, and a content reviewer from an early childhood centre). the team’s work was divided into two phases: design and development. the design phase focused on the work at a programme level, while the development phase focused on the work at a course level. a comprehensive sector review process was integral to the design and development of this programme. each course received specific input from the ece home-based sector and māori practitioners. their input at the early stages of development ensured that framework documents and course outlines accommodated desirable key learning and progressions while also meeting nzqa qualification requirements and strongly embedding the principles and strands of te whāriki. the sector review provided guidance for contextualising theory, ensuring the provision of strong, evidence-based practice examples, and the use of appropriate terminology. the sector review team also provided resounding support for the integrated programme approach, including assessment, which asks students to deeply interrogate their learning, work with complexity, and link theory to practice. we agreed that students should be viewed as competent, confident, and able to draw on their own experience. the work of the team in the design and development phases is outlined below. design phase the key work conducted at the design phase comprised: • mapping the content and assessment (a six-step process shown in fig. 2) facilitated by the principal learning designer, and conducted by the principal curriculum designer, academic staff, and principal learning designer) • developing educational design principles (developed by the principal learning designer, reviewed by the principal curriculum designer) • designing the assessment framework (developed by an expert). six-step process of mapping the content and assessment the mapping of the content and the assessment of the ece programme is presented in figure 2. this process has six steps: analysis, big picture and programme mapping, content mapping, constructive alignment, assessment mapping, and finalising content and assessment mapping. in step 1, the principal learning designer analysed information about the programme and prepared for workshop 1. the work involved: • analysing the nzqa descriptor (including graduate profile and conditions) and the academic case • collecting and analysing information about the old programme (e.g., programme structures, information about students, passing and completion rates, stakeholders / employers) • reading the content and assessments of the courses in previous and similar programmes • brainstorming the educational design approach • providing information and design tools / templates to support the team attending the workshop to: o brainstorm constructive alignment (learning outcomes–module content–assignment) o map the content of modules and assignments based on learning outcomes. nguyen, n., everiss, l., rosewarne, s., vladinova-aylor, k., ippel, j., boyd, m. 62 figure 2 process of content and assessment mapping at programme level participants in workshop 1 (step 2) included the principal curriculum designer, the academic staff member and the principal learning designer. the team discussed the programme, students, educational and assessment approaches, and overall content. they then used the template designed in step 1 to brainstorm key content and resources that aligned with learning outcomes. this work prepared the principal curriculum designer and the academic staff member for content mapping in step 3. after the workshop (step 3), the principal curriculum designer and the academic staff member continued to use the template document from workshop 1 to work on content mapping for the three courses. the document was then sent to the principal learning designer. when they received the document, the principal learning designer developed constructive alignment mapping (step 4). based on the principal curriculum designer’s and academic staff member’s work, the principal learning designer revised and added more content to the document, drafted descriptions of the assignments, and prepared for workshop 2. in workshop 2 (step 5), the principal curriculum designer, academic staff member, and principal learning designer discussed assessment and constructive alignment mapping. the team also reviewed and revised content mapping. 4. constructive alignment mapping 1. analysis 2. workshop 1: big picture and programme mapping 3. post-workshop 1: content mapping 5. workshop 2: assessment mapping 6. finalising content and assessment mapping content and assessment mapping process journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2) 63 in step 6, the principal learning designer finalised the content and assessment mapping document, including constructive alignment mapping at a programme level. the principal curriculum designer and asm reviewed and agreed on the mapping. after completing the ece programme content and assessment mapping document, the educational design principles and the assessment framework in the design phase, the team moved to the development phase. development phase in the development phase, the ece development teams created and designed the content, learning activities, and course assessments based on the programme content and assessment mapping, the educational design principles, and the csi model. the principal learning designer led learning designers in designing three ece courses. she facilitated workshops, reflective conversations, and reflective activities so the learning designers could continuously reflect on their work and the course material in light of these educational design principles. she reviewed the courses, gave constructive feedback and guidance to the learning designers at the early stages of course development, and signed off the online courses when they were completed. the learning designers coordinated the work at a course level. they designed the online courses, liaised with course team members (e.g., the content creator, bicultural appraiser, reviewers, digital designers, editors) to ensure the work flowed smoothly. they also received feedback from the principal curriculum designer, the academic staff member, and the principal learning designer, and revised the online courses based on the feedback. the principal curriculum designer worked closely with the principal learning designer, the content creator, the academic staff, and the team to provide guidance and support. she reviewed the online courses to ensure the quality of the programme. the principal curriculum designer was responsible for the final sign-off. the content creator of these ece courses was a renowned scholar and expert in the ece field. working with the team, and guided by the content and assessment mapping document, she created the content, learning activities, and assessments. the sociocultural theories underpinned the design of learning activities (e.g., professional practice activities that required students to implement theories in their practice, interact with kaiako in the ece setting, and participate in online discussion with peers and lecturers). the content creator noted that the requirement to dispense with a set text made the writing process more time consuming and complex, because of the need to rework information previously found in set texts, particularly when similar material was not available in web-based readings. the project manager managed the course development. she made sure the work ran smoothly, minimised risks, and solved problems. she provided support, liaised with the business owner and the business sponsor, and managed the budget and timeline. every team member was well qualified and experienced in their area of work. they showed a strong passion for their work and worked professionally, collaboratively, and constructively until all three courses were completed. their experience in course design and development contributed to a programme of study that was well received by the sector. the stories below provide more insight into the experience of individual team members. nguyen, n., everiss, l., rosewarne, s., vladinova-aylor, k., ippel, j., boyd, m. 64 stories in this section we share stories from the academic staff member, the project manager, and the learning designers who were involved in the design, development, and delivery of the programme. the stories are a snapshot of their work and perspectives. academic staff’s work and initial feedback from students and employers the academic staff member in this programme was very experienced in early childhood teaching grounded in sociocultural theory and guided by te whāriki, a bicultural curriculum that “holds the promise that all children will be empowered to learn with and alongside others by engaging in experiences that have meaning for them” ministry of education, (2017, p. 13). this staff member saw a high level of congruence between the theoretical framework and design and development principles that underpinned the design and development of the new zealand certificate in early childhood education and care (level 4), and her own teaching and learning philosophy. the academic staff member also needed to ensure that the course design considered the students’ needs by, for example, enabling students to: • balance study with work and family commitments • use prior knowledge and skills as tools for learning • construct knowledge and understanding through carefully designed learning experiences and resources • actively participate in an online community that embraces the māori concept of ako, where learning and teaching is reciprocal—resulting in both teacher (facilitator) and learner contributing to the learning process. at points throughout the development process the academic staff member provided feedback that ensured student characteristics, experience, work, and life contexts were understood by the content creator and development team. feedback was given on the organisation, flow of learning experiences, and the scaffolding needed to support students in familiarising themselves with the course structure, resources, and requirements. an example of this was ensuring the programme design met the practicing requirements of educators working in a range of early childhood services (e.g., home-based education and care, playcentre, certificated playgroups, education and care centres, and licensed hospital-based education and care services). this was achieved by adopting “assessment in practice” which enabled students to engage in professional practice that included supervision and assessment of learners’ skills and competence in authentic ece settings. the academic staff noted: this approach to assessment is proving to be very successful, with students discovering the highly contextualised complex nature of their work with children and whānau and how it is informed by theory. most of the students in this programme were very motivated because the long-term sustainability of employment of home-based early childhood educators depended on their gaining a level 4 early childhood education qualification (brennan, 2018) early childhood educators coming into the programme were often apprehensive about studying online because they had limited access to technology and the internet, and limited computer experience and engagement online. they clearly articulated a preference for hard-copy learning materials. in spite of these barriers, early childhood educators thrived as students in the online journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2) 65 environment. all new students received learning mentor support to navigate the online course— the first such contact was made 2 weeks before the course started, and support continued for 4 weeks. according to gilly salmon (2013), this first stage of the learning journey helps with the transition to online learning. it was evident that a personalised experience breaks down the feeling of apprehension and uncertainty about studying online and sets the students up for successful flexible distant online learning. the academic staff member / facilitator created a friendly, supportive communication style. she began with introductory and icebreaker activities in which learner and facilitator introduced themselves and were invited to share one thing they hoped to learn from the course, and one thing they thought would be a challenge. these activities generate student interaction and online “socialisation” as students connect with others’ experiences. she was amazed at the depth of experience and passion amongst students. this socialisation, which provided a good foundation for more structured, informative exchange, was an important stage in their online experience. later they engaged in the course content and discussed their understanding online in discussion activities and talk channels. the academic staff member believed her teaching presence was critical for students retaining momentum in their study. her teaching presence was reflected in emails and phone calls with individual students. weekly course announcements guided and supported students throughout the course. these announcements added dynamism and vitality to the course, and made each course offering relevant to the particular cohort of students. announcements generally highlighted important content, summarised online discussion, and provoked more in-depth thinking and reflection. they consolidated links between theory and practice, encouraged students to revisit prior learning, and acknowledged their collective effort and progress. the academic staff member shared her observation on the effect of this ece programme on students: it is clearly evident that students in this programme of study are becoming increasingly independent and responsible for their own learning, more self-reflective and computer savvy. i believe one of the most important outcomes of the programme is the depth of professional knowledge and understanding that has enriched the practice of early childhood educators enrolled in this programme. it is evident to me that there is a renewed appreciation of how important the role of early childhood educator is to the lives of very young children. from written assignments and documentation of practice, i see that most feel they are privileged to be involved in the education and care of young children and their families and carry out their work with great pride and enthusiasm. i also see that students’ perception of themselves as competent, confident students capable of taking on the challenge of the next course has increased over the course of their study. although there was no evaluative student data available for this programme at the time of writing this article, the academic staff member noted that she had received positive feedback from students and employers. she received much appreciation and many thanks from students and employers for her support for students. for example, the academic staff member said students appreciated that she always encouraged them through the talk channel, motivating them to find their potential. the academic staff member shared that one employer was very proud of the students’ achievements and the amazing growth of these individuals, and thanked her for her support. nguyen, n., everiss, l., rosewarne, s., vladinova-aylor, k., ippel, j., boyd, m. 66 project manager’s reflections the project manager was responsible for projects that developed new, or redeveloped existing, educational programmes. one of the project manager’s main tasks was to manage risks. the highest risk on this project was finding a suitable content creator / subject matter expert who could create content reliably and in very tight timeframes. having a tight timeframe was another big risk, because the old programme was expiring and the open polytechnic needed to offer the replacement programme promptly. in the project manager’s view, several factors contributed to the successful completion of this project. • in the design phase, the principal learning designer, the principal curriculum designer, and the academic staff member developed the content and assessment map to set up the framework and principles and to guide the programme development. gaining agreement between representatives of parts of the organisation on the direction of the development ensured we didn’t face additional delays in the development stage. the content and assessment map was available to all course development teams as a constant reference point throughout the development phase. • after an initial delay, the team managed to secure the services of a very experienced and highly respected subject matter expert / content creator who wrote all three courses. • sector reviewers’ and bicultural appraisers’ immediate feedback on the draft content gave us confidence that what we were developing was relevant for the sector and for our diverse students. • input from the academic staff member at stages of the development gave us confidence that we were not only developing relevant content but we were designing it to support the delivery to a specific level of students (at level 4 on the nzqf). • learning designers were ready to step in and provide additional guidance and support whenever necessary. • when issues inevitably occurred, we had a supportive project team of professionals who focused on understanding the issue and finding a swift solution. • we were able to manage and mitigate risks throughout the project, presenting available options and recommendations to support timely decision-making at project governance level. learning designers’ feedback feedback from learning designers who worked intensively on developing the ece programme was very positive. according to these learning designers, the content and assessment mapping was invaluable. it provided a clear roadmap for the project team to develop the course, and allowed them to focus on the required instructional design elements. completing the content and assessment planning upfront was also a reason for development being completed 1 month ahead of schedule and well within the allocated hours for the project. thanks to this brilliant piece of work [upfront content and assessment mapping] being undertaken, it set the scene for the rest of the development. every programme should do the same. the initial planning meeting (where members of the core project team attend a 1-day planning session to plan a course in detail) was one of the best planning meetings i had been involved in thanks to this work being completed at the programme level and prior to course development beginning. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2) 67 the educational design principles were highly appreciated by the learning designers. one learning designer shared her thoughts: the educational design principles that were established for the programme also provided an excellent opportunity to really reflect on the work i had done throughout the development. the learning designers who worked on the ece programme appreciated constructive, strengthbased and high-trust teamwork. they said they had very positive working experiences. one learning designer said: when i think about working on this program[me] the following emotions and feelings become explicit: • professionalism • respect • knowledge • trust • friendliness this way of working provided the learning designers with opportunities to work in a team that behaved with professional integrity, trusted each other, and respected each other’s knowledge areas—thereby creating a supportive and friendly work environment. according to them, the reviews and sign-off of the courses were done in such a manner that they did not feel intimidated, but experienced another learning opportunity. i loved the fact that i was learning. i could be creative and implement new [learning design] solutions. the support i received made it possible for me to feel as though i am part of the team even though i am not on site. the learning designers’ positive working experiences were also reflected in their appreciation of other team members. it is amazing to have the dx [digital experience] team on hand for all complex development. the work done by . . . copyright clearance is also a critical part of this process. she gives peace of mind. a project manager that understands the project, stakeholders, and content is key to success. as well as providing this positive feedback, the learning designers suggested: i would love to hear more about the feedback received from the students. having multiple editors over the various courses makes the transfer of knowledge difficult. i think part of the editor’s briefing—if they work on a programme with multiple courses— should be to update the stylesheet to reflect how they have worked and what needs to be transferred to the next course. in general, they had strong confidence in the quality of these ece courses. i have no doubt that the quality is of a high standard. the rigorous review process making use of various reviewers and thus ensuring that the quality is of the standard required. making use of a respected and well-versed author ensured the quality of the subject matter and this will eventually impact on the word-of-mouth perceived value and quality of the programme. nguyen, n., everiss, l., rosewarne, s., vladinova-aylor, k., ippel, j., boyd, m. 68 conclusion this paper shared our stories of designing and developing the new zealand certificate in early childhood education and care (level 4). underpinned by the csi model, the key educational design principles and the assessment approach, the design and development of the programme were completed effectively and efficiently. team members had a very positive working experience, and initial feedback from students and employers showed great appreciation. reflecting on the success of the ece programme design and development, it is suggested that some of the key factors that contributed to this success could be used in other contexts. these key factors are: • upfront content and assessment mapping at a programme level, underpinned by the theoretical framework, which is specified by educational design principles and the assessment framework • constructive, strength-based and high-trust teamwork, guided by innovative work process that was constructed by the team • a highly qualified, experienced, expert, dedicated team of principal educational designer, principal curriculum designer, project manager, content creator, educational designers, the academic staff, reviewers, digital designers, and editors. in february 2020, there were 226 students enrolled in this programme. although the initial feedback was positive, it is suggested that feedback from students, employers, and alumni should be formally collected to support the ongoing improvement of the ece programme. references bernacki, m. l., greene, j. a., & crompton, h. (2020). mobile technology, learning, and achievement: advances in understanding and measuring the role of mobile technology in education. contemporary educational psychology, 60, 101827. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2019.101827 brennan. m. (2018). proposal for early childhood practice assessment approach. unpublished manuscript. open polytechnic. cobb, p., & bowers, j. (1999). cognitive and situated learning perspectives in theory and practice. educational researcher, 28(2), 4–15. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x028002004 fosnot, c. t., & perry, r. s. (2005). constructivism: a psychological theory of learning. in c. t. fosnot (ed.), constructivism: theory, perspectives, and practice (pp. 8–38). teachers college press. greeno, j. g. (1997). response: on claims that answer the wrong questions. educational researcher, 26(1), 5–17. https://doi.org/10.2307/1176867 jonassen, d., carr, c., & yueh, h.-p. (1998). computers as mindtools for engaging learners in critical thinking. techtrends, 43(2), 24–32. kōrero mātauranga. (n.d.). conversation: review of home-based early childhood education. https://conversation.education.govt.nz/conversations/review-of-home-based-early-childhoodeducation/changes-suggested-for-home-based-ece/qualifications/ https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2019.101827 https://doi.org/10.3102%2f0013189x028002004 https://doi.org/10.2307/1176867 https://conversation.education.govt.nz/conversations/review-of-home-based-early-childhood-education/changes-suggested-for-home-based-ece/qualifications/ https://conversation.education.govt.nz/conversations/review-of-home-based-early-childhood-education/changes-suggested-for-home-based-ece/qualifications/ journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2) 69 new zealand ministry of education / te tāhuhu o te mātauranga. (2017). te whāriki: he whāriki mātauranga mō ngā mokopuna o aotearoa — early childhood curriculum. https://education.govt.nz/assets/documents/early-childhood/els-te-whariki-earlychildhood-curriculum-eng-web.pdf nguyen, n., & williams, p. j. (2016). an ict supported sociocultural approach to improve the teaching of physics. asia-pacific science education, 2(1), 2. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41029016-0008-2 pea, r. d. (1997). practices of distributed intelligence and designs for education. in g. salomon (ed.), distributed cognitions: psychological and educational considerations (pp. 47–87). cambridge university press. salomon, g., & perkins, d. (1996). learning in wonderland: what computers really offer education. in s. kerr (ed.), technology and the future of education. nsse yearbook (pp. 111– 129). university of chicago press. salomon, g., & perkins, d. n. (1998). individual and social aspects of learning. review of research in education, 23(1), 1–24. https://doi.org/10.3102/0091732x023001001 salmon, g. (2013). e-tivities: the key to active online learning. (2nd ed.). routledge. von glasersfeld, e. (1989). cognition, construction of knowledge, and teaching. synthese, 80(1), 121–140. acknowledgement great thanks to dr margaret brennan who designed the assessment approach and created the content of the ece courses. your expertise, scholarship, experience and hard work in ece are greatly appreciated. thank you so much to the ece design and development team for your amazing work, your tireless contribution and a lot of laughter. it was a great pleasure working with you. biographical notes nhung nguyen nhung.nguyen@aut.ac.nz dr nhung nguyen is a lecturer – learning and teaching consultant at auckland university of technology. her teaching and research focus is on science education, technology-enhanced learning, learning design, online teaching, assessment, and curriculum design. she uses both quantitative and qualitative approaches, and values international and domestic collaboration in her research. liz everiss everissliz@gmail.com liz everiss is an education consultant. her master’s degree (master of arts, distinction) is in education. at the time of this project, she was principal curriculum designer, education and previously head of school, education at open polytechnic. these roles included responsibility for certificate and degree level education programmes. her research interests are in early childhood, teacher education and assessment. https://education.govt.nz/assets/documents/early-childhood/els-te-whariki-early-childhood-curriculum-eng-web.pdf https://education.govt.nz/assets/documents/early-childhood/els-te-whariki-early-childhood-curriculum-eng-web.pdf about:blank about:blank https://doi.org/10.1186/s41029-016-0008-2 https://doi.org/10.1186/s41029-016-0008-2 https://doi.org/10.3102%2f0091732x023001001 about:blank mailto:everissliz@gmail.com nguyen, n., everiss, l., rosewarne, s., vladinova-aylor, k., ippel, j., boyd, m. 70 sonja rosewarne sonja.rosewarne@openpolytechnic.ac.nz sonja rosewarne is a senior academic staff member at open polytechnic of new zealand. she has a master’s degree in education and is course leader of the level 3 and level 4 early childhood education certificate programmes, which are delivered online through the open polytechnic iqualify learning platform. she has been involved in the design and development of two level 3 and two level 4 certificate programmes in recent years. kalina vladinova-aylor kalina.vladinova-aylor@openpolytechnic.ac.nz kalina vladinova-aylor is a project manager at open polytechnic of new zealand. she has a master’s degree and manages and coordinates the development of educational programmes, assessments, and courseware. johanna g. ippel hanlie.ippel@gmail.com hanlie ippel is a learning designer currently employed by open polytechnic of new zealand. she has degrees in archaeology, information science, and library & information studies, and an mis. she has many years’ experience in e-learning, online learning, and blended learning development. her experience was gained locally and internationally. melanie boyd melanie.boyd@openpolytechnic.ac.nz mel boyd is an academic staff member at open polytechnic, where she teaches digital literacy, communication for learning, and social and health studies. she holds qualifications in adult teaching, adult literacy and numeracy, and e-learning and digital technologies and has taught in fields that include business administration, communication, and foundation and bridging learning. in recent years, her role as an educational designer has enabled her to delve into her passion for writing and designing technologyenabled courses and programmes. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. nhung, n., everiss, l., rosewarne, s., vladinova-aylor, k., ippel, j., & boyd, m. (2020). programme design for an online learning environment: stories from designing and developing the new zealand certificate in early childhood education and care (level 4) programme. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2), [56–70.]. mailto:sonja.rosewarne@openpolytechnic.ac.nz mailto:kalina.vladinova-aylor@openpolytechnic.ac.nz mailto:hanlie.ippel@gmail.com mailto:melanie.boyd@openpolytechnic.ac.nz http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ microsoft word mostafa.docx mostafa, f. 32 social media: a flexible collaborative learning space for teacher professional learning to integrate education for sustainability in schools fariba mostafa, waikato university college abstract the importance and need for education for sustainability (efs) are recognised in the new zealand curriculum. teachers face challenges, however, due to lack of support and professional learning about how to integrate efs in school curricula. social media can be used for teacher professional learning (tpl), and communication and resources can be combined to create flexible collaborative learning opportunities. however, there is little evidence to date of social media being used for tpl in efs. based on findings from a wider study exploring teachers’ perceptions of professional learning through social media in efs, this paper focuses on how social media facilitates flexible tpl in efs. the study adopted a mixed-methods approach using questionnaires, interviews, and a combination of document analysis and interviews in three phases. findings from phases 1 and 2 suggest that participants see tpl through social media as offering flexibility, and being useful for collaborative learning and support for teachers. in phase 3, these findings are used to design and establish tpl for efs teachers using google+ to facilitate synchronous and asynchronous interactions between teachers, efs experts, and resources. although participants understood the flexibility of social media for enabling collaboration and providing support opportunities in efs, the use of social media for professional learning is particularly attractive for teachers who work in rural and remote areas. keywords: education for sustainability; teacher professional learning; social media introduction and literature review our contemporary world is experiencing significant environmental problems that require immediate action. one course of action that has been advocated is education, particularly education for sustainability (efs) (unesco, 2014), which provides knowledge, positive attitudes and behaviour, and develops skills for living sustainably in the world (unesco, 2014). the new zealand curriculum has highlighted the importance of efs in line with international standards (ministry of education, 2007). sustainability, therefore, is a key theme in the new zealand curriculum and is integrated in its vision, values, and principles (ministry of education, 2016). the curriculum emphasises the interdisciplinary role of efs across all learning areas and suggests that efs enables students to contribute to a sustainable future (ministry of education, 2016). it also encourages new zealanders to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by new knowledge and technologies to protect a sustainable social, cultural, economic, and environmental future (ministry of education, 2007). a key aim is to raise citizens who are connected to the environment and can engage effectively in efforts towards sustainability in local and international communities. therefore, the integration of efs in education has been promoted journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(1) 33 as cross-curricular learning across all educational settings in the new zealand context (bolstad et al., 2015). however, its implementation is partial and limited, ranging from little or no efs in some schools, to advanced programmes such as enviroschools in others (eames et al., 2008). the enviroschools programme is a whole-school approach that aims to promote and support sustainability through learning, commitment, and taking action with respect to the environment (eames, 2010). in the new zealand context, efs is a holistic, interdisciplinary approach in which teachers and schools play a critical role in implementation and success (bolstad, 2005). however, schools and teachers face challenges in implementing efs and promoting involvement to integrate it with the curriculum. some teachers see the integration of efs into other subjects as a burdenand part of the problem of an “over-crowded curriculum”. this reaction is more evident in secondary than primary schools (eames et al., 2008, p. 45). to teach the subject, teachers need to determine appropriate information and knowledge to enhance students’ learning about sustainability. this can be challenging for teachers, who might have limited skills in integrating and teaching efs (taylor et al., 2019). although teachers may be willing to offer effective efs programmes, their lack of knowledge and teaching skills limit their practice (cowie & eames, 2004). some teachers are also unfamiliar with efs pedagogy (eames et al., 2008). in addition, teachers are usually constrained by busy schedules (timperley et al., 2007), which can limit their practice in efsrelated topics (cowie & eames, 2004; robertson & krugly-smolska, 1997; taylor et al., 2019). thus, to some extent, limited efs implementation can be due to teachers’ lack of professional learning (bolstad et al., 2015). taylor et al. (2019) have argued that teachers’ professional learning is one of the main determinants of successful efs implementation and the establishment of an effective, productive efs programme. the need to provide support for teachers and their professional learning has also been recognised as a key condition for incorporating efs in the overall education programme (unesco, 2014). however, a review of the literature has indicated a notable lack of teacher professional learning (tpl) programmes in efs since the 1980s (bolstad et al., 2015; chalmers, 2011). to improve the quality of teaching and enhance student learning and educational outcomes, professional learning has been recognised as a significant need and responsibility for teachers (owen, 2014; timperley et al., 2007; van schalkwyk et al., 2015). effective tpl facilitates teachers’ ongoing development of their knowledge and skills which, in turn, have a significant influence on student learning and achievement (admiraal et al., 2016; labone & long, 2016; timperley et al., 2007). as highlighted in the literature, tpl is effective when it is ongoing, timely, collaborative, intensive, focused on student learning, and conjoined with teaching practice (beach, 2012; kuusisaari, 2014; liu et al., 2016; opfer & pedder, 2011; timperley et al., 2007). two main tpl approaches, formal and informal, have been identified in the literature. formal professional learning takes place through courses, seminars, and workshops or events (darlinghammond et al., 2009). it has been argued that directing teachers to a specific type of formal professional learning improves their teaching practice (grigg et al., 2012) because such learning offers teachers new knowledge, skills, ideas, and teaching approaches (timperley et al., 2007). however, it is also claimed that formal methods, such as short courses or one-off sessions, may not be effective in tpl (mansfield & thompson, 2017; thacker, 2014), because they may be disconnected from the complexities of the classroom (opfer & pedder, 2011). in contrast, “informal learning is more prevalent in the workplace and potentially more effective than formal professional learning” to change teaching practice (thacker, 2014, p. 4). mostafa, f. 34 in tpl, collaboration is reported to be valuable and efficient in improving teaching practice and student outcomes (darling-hammond et al., 2009; mansfield & thompson, 2017). collaborative tpl is described as sharing information (mansfield & thompson, 2017), sharing ideas (cameron et al., 2013), and “sharing teaching practices and knowledge” (admiraal et al., 2016, p. 291). the role of collaboration is significant in tpl because learning can be viewed as a social activity that occurs in social groups and communities (lave & wenger, 1991; vygotsky, 1978). although collaboration is key to successful professional learning, time and distance can limit face-to-face peer collaboration (carr & chambers, 2006; deluca et al., 2014; timperley et al., 2007). for example, attending regular meetings to discuss and exchange ideas is challenging for teachers who live in different places with different teaching schedules (mansfield & thompson, 2017; opfer & pedder, 2011). social media can overcome these challenges by providing teachers with collaborative learning and fewer limitations (davis, 2015; deluca et al., 2014; trust, 2012). social media have been defined as technologies that help social interaction (bryer & zavattaro, 2011), online environments for networking and sharing information (osborne-gowey, 2014), and communication websites (kapoor et al., 2018). due to their collaborative nature, therefore, social media can be used for collaborative learning and mutual support (greenhow et al., 2018; meabon bartow, 2014). if they do take advantage of social media, teachers may be willing to participate in professional learning because, in contrast with formal learning, there are fewer limitations on time and place (anderson, 2006). also, learning through social media is not limited to a certain area or group but enables ongoing local and global collaborative and networking opportunities (ross et al., 2015). teachers’ experience of social media is also associated with their emotional needs, including “meaningful connections to combat isolation” (greenhow et al., 2018, p. 2260). despite global recognition of the flexibility of social media for learning in general, and tpl in particular (bolkan, 2014; forbes, 2015; kabilan et al., 2011; kuusisaari, 2014; ross et al., 2015; rutherford, 2013), a review of the literature suggests that, in new zealand, there is a dearth of research addressing tpl in efs. in responding to this situation, this study aims to understand and describe the ways in which social media facilitate tpl in efs. the aim of the study will be addressed by answering the research question: what possibilities and advantages do efs teachers see for tpl through social media? methodology and methods the study was carried out with a mixed-methods approach and volunteer sampling outlined in three phases. an online questionnaire comprising 21 questions, including four open-ended questions, was used for the first phase. open-ended questions were employed in the last section to enable respondents to write about whatever they regarded as relevant to tpl through social media. the questionnaire was sent to 1000 enviroschools (enviroschools, 2016), was available online for 6 weeks, and received 194 responses in that time. later, of the 194 returned questionnaires, those that included six or fewer completed questions were deleted from the data pool. as a result, the number of research participants for the statistical analysis was reduced to 176. as already mentioned, this paper reports a portion of the findings from a wider study that captured participants’ views and data concerning their social-media use, teacher professional learning in general, teacher professional learning in efs, and teachers’ perspectives on professional learning through social media in efs. for this paper, however, only those questions dealing with participants’ perspectives on professional learning through social media in efs were considered and analysed. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(1) 35 quantitative data from the closed questions was transferred to the statistical package for social sciences (spss) for further analysis. descriptive statistics of means and standard deviations were used to identify sample features and report the findings in a simple manner (pallant, 2010). qualitative data generated from open-ended questions was analysed through inductive thematic analysis (boyatzis, 1998; burnard et al., 2008). the qualitative data was categorised, reviewed, and interpreted in relation to the research questions (cohen et al., 2011; punch, 2014). the second phase was a qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews. the types of question and interview items were constructed based on the research findings in phase 1. five teachers who took part in phase 1, and agreed to participate in the second phase of the study, were interviewed to explore and clarify the findings emerging from the questionnaire. because the interviewees lived throughout new zealand, the interviews were carried out online and by phone, according to the participants’ preferences. with participants’ permission, audio recordings were made and the interviews were transcribed verbatim (johnson & christensen, 2012; punch, 2014). later, the interview transcripts were emailed to the participants for them to check the accuracy of what had been recorded and to enhance the validity of the data (guba, 1981). validation was valuable for rewording and clarifying some expressions and technical terms, as suggested by some of the participants. analysing data in this phase involved categorising aspects of tpl through social media to explain findings from phase 1 and find any patterns in the participants’ perceptions. findings from the first and second phases informed the strategy for the tpl community through social media to facilitate synchronous and asynchronous connections and communication between teachers and experts in the third phase. for synchronous collaboration, five webinars given by efs experts were run over the study period (november 2017 to july 2018). topics varied but centred on efs achievement standards. webinars gave teachers the feeling of engagement in face-to-face interactive meetings and involvement in a community. they also provided teachers with the opportunity to put questions to the experts, to hold discussions with other teachers, and to access shared resources. for asynchronous activities, two forums, questions and answers and discussions, were intended to provide teachers with opportunities to share and gain information through questions and peer discussion. under the links and resources tab, teachers could share or find resources. participants in the efs community comprised eight secondary school teachers who had indicated an interest in being part of the tpl community on google+. two of them had taken part in previous phases and were engaged in the third phase from the planning stage. later, when the community was established, six more teachers joined as community members. four teachers, however, did not actively contribute to the community’s activities and did not give consent to use their data in this study. consequently, there is no data to report in relation to them. to connect teachers with efs experts, two experts—a māori advisor and a moderator from the new zealand qualifications authority (nzqa)—joined our community. data-gathering in phase 3 mainly entailed semi-structured interviews which were supplemented with document analysis of participants’ posts and activities on google+. analysis of teachers’ posts on the google+ community, and video capture of the webinars, provided valuable information and helped in the design of more useful questions before conducting interviews in the last step of phase 3. participants in phase 3 were four secondary school teachers who volunteered to take part in the efs google+ community and indicated their willingness to participate in an interview. these four teachers are identified by their chosen pseudonyms as helen, blake, juno, and bruce. mostafa, f. 36 thematic analysis was used in this phase of the study to find the themes in the data and to identify implicit and explicit ideas in participant interviews on the topics. data was categorised with respect to the participants’ perceptions of their learning through social media. findings as table 1 indicates, the gender distribution of the questionnaire respondents was not equal; 90% (157) were female and 10% (18) male. this gender distribution is in line with the data reported on 2017 teaching staff by the ministry of education (ministry of education, 2018). table 1 demographic characteristics of respondents gender (n=175) frequency percentage female 157 90 male 18 10 to identify how questionnaire participants viewed the value of social media to facilitate their professional learning in efs, they were asked to indicate their agreement with six related statements. participants’ answers to each statement were defined as an ordinal variable from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). table 2 presents participants’ responses to those statements by calculating the mean and standard deviation for each statement. table 2 participants’ views regarding the use of social media for tpl in efs statements on participants’ views regarding the use of social media for tpl in efs mean sd social media can be useful for efs teachers to provide learning support for their colleagues. 4.08 0.63 social media can be useful for teachers’ collaborative learning in efs. 4.06 0.63 social media can be useful for learning about the environment and sustainability. 4.05 0.65 social media can help to build a professional learning network of efs teachers. 4.03 0.67 social media can help efs teachers feel less isolated in their work. 3.77 0.73 efs teachers should be using social media for their learning today. 3.42 0.83 as shown in the table, participants consistently agreed with the statements regarding teacher professional learning through social media in efs. to provide an overview of phase 1 participants’ perceptions regarding the potential use of social media for tpl, these individuals were asked to rate the potential of social media for tpl in efs on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the most useful. figure 1 shows participants’ responses, indicating that most (68%) rated the potential of social media for tpl in efs to be high by selecting a number between 5 and 9. this finding is in line with the outcomes of previous studies that address learning through social media (bexheti et al., 2014; carpenter, 2014; davis, 2015; holmes et al., 2013; ross et al., 2015; trust et al., 2016). journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(1) 37 figure 1 participants’ perceptions regarding the potential of social media for tpl in efs furthermore, a large percentage of phase 1 participants stated that they would probably join a social-media network for efs if such a network for teachers were available (80.5% of phase 1 participants). participants’ responses to open-ended questions suggested several advantages and possibilities for learning through social media. because responses did not include any quantities or measurable data, common themes were derived from their comments. open-ended questions gave me an opportunity to explore some themes in greater depth. the following section shows the main themes as they were perceived and described by participants. the participants are identified by the letter “t,” followed by a number from t1 to t135. findings from open-ended questions showed that flexibility was seen to be an important factor in professional learning through social media. one participant described tpl through social media as “on-demand and accessible for teachers when they need it” (t113). through social media, teachers have “easy access to resources and support based on their priorities and interests at any time, from anywhere” (t113). another teacher wrote: “because i live and work in an isolated area, i would be able to access learning in efs without having to travel long distances” (t164). phase 2 interviewees shared the same view; one remarked that “professional learning involves too much travel for me because i’m out in the country” (interviewee 2, interview phase 2) and “learning through social media is just timely and you do not have to go anywhere”. through recourse to social media, “if a teacher has any questions whatsoever regarding sustainability, the answers can be found quickly and easily” (t23). a teacher commented on the questionnaire: “learning through social media can be great and useful. you can do it anytime you would like to do it” (t63). these findings confirm previous findings in the literature (davis, 2015; greenhow et al., 2018; ross et al., 2015; trust et al., 2016). questionnaire participants believed that collaboration through social media would enable them to access support, resources, and updates (133/135 times in the open-ended responses). collaboration involves direct assistance from colleagues to “provide aids and/or materials for teaching” (t144), as well as “sharing experiences and knowledge” (t38) in teaching efs. it also affords indirect help through “guiding teachers towards the right direction and information” (t67). to gain more insight into teachers’ perceptions of accessing support through social media, phase 2 interviewees were asked to clarify the kind of support they would be looking for. an 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1% 2% 4% 5% 18% 17% 20% 17% 10% 6% pe rc en ta ge participants' rating of the potential of social media for tpl in efs social media's potential for tpl in efs mostafa, f. 38 interviewee said: “through social media, i would be looking for support around teaching . . . ideas, assessment schedules, and resources that have been used to deliver efs” (interviewee 1, interview phase 2). support for another interviewee also involved receiving information and material which could help in teaching efs: “support for me means seeing what other teachers did, and seeing their lesson plan and the term plan and how they linked to the curriculum” (interviewee 2, interview phase 2). participants also demonstrated interest in collaboration through social media to overcome isolation, due to the potential of social media to provide them with connection and communication opportunities. for example, one teacher commented on the questionnaire that “social media has the potential to decrease isolation of teachers, and keep them excited and up to date in their subject area” (t60). another teacher commented: “because i live and work in an isolated area, i would be able to access learning in efs through social media” (t164). this sentiment was also evident from the responses of phase 2 participants. four reported that they felt isolated because they worked in remote areas and did not have access to other teachers or experts to ask questions (interviewees1, 2, 3, 4, phase 2). they acknowledged the value of social media to facilitate connection and interaction among teachers and provide them with synchronous and asynchronous collaboration and support. for example, one interviewee remarked that “i am really frustrated by lack of support as an educator, mainly because i’m teaching in a rural area”. accordingly, she thought that “providing more opportunities for teacher education and resources for teachers through social media would be a good thing to improve efs” (interviewee 1, interview phase 2). she also praised the potential for social media to facilitate emotional support for isolated teachers. to trial these findings and obtain a better understanding of teachers’ perceptions, the study continued into the third phase. findings from previous phases were employed to establish a learning community for teachers who were engaged in efs achievement standards1 through google+. although teachers had shown interest and enthusiasm about joining a social-media network for tpl in efs in the first and second phases of the study, the community did not attract many members. only four teachers who worked in rural areas, or had no community of likeminded educators in their school, joined the learning community on google+ and engaged in community activities. as the following description reveals, all of these teachers—blake, bruce, juno, and helen—had limited or no face-to-face support and learning opportunities. blake was a secondary-school teacher in a remote area. he described his motivation for joining the community as “meeting other educators,” including efs experts and teachers, and he wanted to collaborate with others who were teaching the efs standards (blake, interview phase 3). for blake, the community provided opportunities to meet others and share ideas about teaching efs standards. bruce was a young teacher, teaching science, biology, and sport in a school with a traditional education system. he was the only teacher in his school who engaged with the efs achievement standards. to plan and set up the efs programme for next year, bruce needed support and ideas from others, and this motivated him to join the efs community. he found it useful to collaborate with others through this community. juno was a science teacher at a small school and joined the efs community in the hope that this initiative would produce solutions regarding the “use of social media and to make contact with a network of efs teachers involved in efs” (juno, google+). juno’s motivation for joining the 1 education for sustainability subject resources https://www.nzqa.govt.nz/ncea/subjects/education-forsustainability/levels/ journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(1) 39 community was to collaborate with efs experts, share contacts with anyone who needed advice, look for collaborators, and bring more teachers into the community. considering the limited number of teachers engaged with the efs standards, he was interested in using social media for collaboration, as he believed this was a way for teachers to work together. helen was also teaching in a remote area, and was motivated to join the community to collaborate with efs experts and teachers and develop wider connections. she believed that, while face-to-face collaboration is limited by time and place, social media can facilitate tpl in efs. despite the limited number of members, the community was used by participants for collaborative learning with other teachers and experts. findings from document analysis indicated that the google+ community enabled them to share and gain ideas and information, and access resources. participants joined both synchronous and asynchronous activities, such as webinars, discussion forums and question and answer forums. participants also shared resources, such as achievement standards levels 2 and 3, samples of student work, and marking rubrics for achievement standards levels 2 and 3. findings from phase 3 interviews were in line with previous findings in phases 1 and 2. interviews showed that interaction with efs teachers and experts was one of the satisfying features of the efs google+ community. participants indicated that synchronous interaction with other members and experts and asynchronous support from other teachers were valuable, and that interactive activities, such as the webinars, questions and discussions, as well as sharing resources and feedback, were beneficial for them. this finding was consistent with the study conducted by trust et al. (2016) on professional learning networks for teachers—in both contexts it could be seen that teachers use social media to collaborate as a way to overcome isolation. these findings are also consistent with a study by davis (2015), which indicates that social media can support teachers who do not have access to face-to-face collaboration and other support opportunities. in line with the study by greenhow et al. (2018), participants in the current study were convinced that social media has significant value for tpl in efs to provide peer support and collaboration opportunities. phase 3 interviewees clearly expressed their appreciation of support as an aspect of collaboration through the efs community. for bruce, support meant “knowing that if i have any questions or i need help, people [the community’s members] are there who have done it before and they would help me out” (bruce, interview phase 3). support was mentioned by helen as providing the opportunity to ask questions and give access to resources. as she explained, “in the absence of ministry [of education] support, you can easily get to an expert (through the efs community) to answer your questions” (helen, interview phase 3). for helen, support also meant access to resources and material which could help in teaching and assessing efs. juno joined the efs google+ community hoping to gain access to resources when needed and found “shared resources regarding standards 2.1 and 3.1 quite useful” (juno, interview phase 3). participants saw the value of synchronous interaction and asynchronous support from other teachers and experts through social media. the same values were identified in previous studies addressing social media for learning (carpenter, 2014; davis, 2015; holmes et al., 2013; ross et al., 2015; trust et al., 2016) in interviews that asked participants about their satisfaction with the community’s activities, all four interviewees affirmed that, through the webinars, they were satisfied with synchronous interactions with other members, including efs experts. for juno, taking part in the webinars provided an “opportunity to have a face-to-face discussion with efs experts.” he opined that when “teachers have many questions, it makes more sense to ask directly through a webinar rather than sending emails” (juno, interview phase 3). helen praised webinars for making it mostafa, f. 40 possible to meet other community members in the absence of the opportunity to meet them in person. “the webinars were great,” she said, “because you feel that you have met a person. meeting somebody (efs teachers or experts) in person is obviously ideal but webinars were good, second best if you like” (helen, interview phase 3). “we are teaching very much in isolation,” she continued. she endorsed webinars as a method to collaborate with others, particularly teachers and experts. similar findings were reported in a study by mcconnell et al. (2012). as discussed in his study, establishing a sense of community was an important element to encourage discussion and communication in online communities. in this regard, they recommended online videoconferencing as a useful way to develop a sense of being part of a group. as mentioned earlier, four of the five phase 2 interviewees and all phase 3 interviewees were working in remote areas or small schools. they felt isolated due to limited face-to-face support and learning opportunities. it was evident from this study, particularly from phase 3 findings, that social media can be used to facilitate tpl in efs by connecting teachers and providing them with resources and the possibility of interacting with others. findings from this study confirm that social media can provide support for teachers who do not have access to face-to-face collaboration and support opportunities (davis, 2015). conclusion the main conclusion to be drawn from this study is that efs teachers understand the potential of social media to facilitate connection and provide collaborative learning experiences. social media were endorsed by teachers as a means of providing them with a sense of being part of a learning community from which they could receive intellectual and emotional support to overcome isolation. building connections between teachers and facilitating synchronous and asynchronous interaction can help them interact with peers and experts as well as access support and resources. flexibility was seen to be an important element of learning through social media. participants stated that social media gave them easy access to resources and support, based on their own priorities and interests at any time and in any place. findings from this study showed that while flexibility is an important feature of tpl, using social media for professional learning is particularly attractive for teachers who work in rural areas. the results of this research demonstrated that tpl for teachers who work in such areas requires creating flexible learning environments that allow teachers to connect with colleagues and experts. this study confirms the view that social media has significant value for tpl in efs and provides peer support and collaboration opportunities for teachers in general. the study also endorses the understanding that social media has significant value in remote areas where efs finds less support, because of the potential for facilitating tpl and overcoming teacher isolation. limitations of the study this study focused on how teachers perceive the flexibility of social media. it did not investigate the possible challenges for participants in using social media in tpl. the study was also limited by dependence on the participation of volunteers and self-reported data. consequently, it is possible that these participants had a greater commitment to, and interest in, professional learning through social media than other teachers. in addition, the study was limited by the number of participants who volunteered to participate in phases 2 and 3. this research was confined to the context of tpl in efs and data was gathered from enviroschools teachers in new zealand. consequently, some of the findings might not reflect the opinion of teachers in general schools in new zealand. references journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(1) 41 admiraal, w., kruiter, j., lockhorst, d., schenke, w., sligte, h., smit, b., tigelaar, d., & de wit, w. 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(2014). unesco education strategy 2014–2021. http://unesdoc.unesco.org van schalkwyk, s., leibowitz, b., herman, n., & farmer, j. (2015). reflections on professional learning: choices, context and culture. studies in educational evaluation, 46, 4–10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stueduc.2015.03.002 vygotsky, l. s. (1978). mind in society: the development of higher mental process. harvard university press. biographical notes fariba mostafa fariba.mostafa@waikato.ac.nz fariba is a senior tutor at waikato university college. she has been engaged with sustainability throughout her life, as a teacher, student, and researcher. reflecting on her experience as a teacher and her phd findings, she has started to establish and develop a professional collaborative learning community for college teachers. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. mostafa, f. (2021). social media: a flexible collaborative learning space for teacher professional learning to integrate education for sustainability in schools. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(1), [32–44.]. microsoft word henrikson.docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1) 17 using online lectures to promote engagement: recognising the self-directed learner as critical for practical inquiry robin henrikson, seattle pacific university abstract this study analysed the relationships between teaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence in online learning environments (garrison, anderson, & archer, 2000), with an emphasis on examining ways in which the design of instructor presentation formats relates to student responses in discussion forums. both quantitative and qualitative analyses were used to determine the nature of student responses, primarily through the lens of the practical inquiry model (garrison, 2007), by coding all text in the initial student responses to content-based questions. twenty participants were randomly assigned to two sections in a graduate-level, teacher education course. one group was provided with metacognitive prompts throughout the asynchronous lecture presentation. they were asked to pause the presentation and document their thinking relative to the prompts. the other group was not asked to pause and write during the presentation, nor were there any metacognitive prompts embedded in their presentation. a pearson’s chi-square analysis was used to analyse the coding of the text, and a form of text analytics was used to seek out the nature of student learning and cognitive presence. there was no significant association found between the design of the instructor presentation and levels in the practical inquiry model. furthermore, the themes, number of total themes, and word count remained consistent between the two groups. keywords: online learning; student engagement; cognitive presence introduction alongside a rapid proliferation of online educational degree options for teacher-education programmes, there has been an increase in attention on the efficacy and effectiveness of such a methodology for preparing both pre-service teachers and those seeking to continue their education by earning advanced degrees (saltmarsh & sutherland-smith, 2010). focus on increasing the effectiveness of online programmes by improving student engagement in learning environments has been at the forefront of conversations (pittaway & moss, 2014). degree programmes, either partially or fully online, are considered to be online when students engage in course options without needing to meet face to face to complete a course (richardson & swan, 2003). online learning, distance education, or the “flipped classroom” design (herreid & schiller, 2013) provide an advantageous avenue for pursuing post-bachelor degrees due to the methods of course content delivery and its ability to provide more equitable opportunities (moore & graham, 2003). online learning has evolved in design and implementation (lee, 2017). there have also been increased efforts to include opportunities for synchronous communication in a primarily online learning context (mcbrien & jones, 2009). with ever-increasing options for designs of henrikson, r. 18 online programmes, it is essential to explore best practices for maximising the quality of student engagement and learning. while online learning brings many advantages, there are also many design considerations to be made when creating an online learning environment, including the technologies to be used to ensure ease of participation and collaborative learning (palloff & pratt, 2003). considerations include the audience, ways in which participants (including the instructor) will interact with each other, how participants will receive feedback, and whether the course is designed as fully online or blended (shearer, r., in moore & graham, 2003). shearer (2003) writes that although students choose to take online classes for the autonomy provided, it is also essential to ensure they complete the course successfully—given that they are often in an isolated learning environment. this dichotomy creates inherent challenges when creating optimal online experiences and recognising that the interactions between individuals in the online community are central to their learning (beldarrain, 2006; garrison & cleveland-innes, 2005). a focus on creating diverse student engagement strategies to maximise learning ought to be a central consideration when designing online learning experiences. so far, research has focused on strategies for improving presence in the classroom through initial engagement strategies while recognising the diverse needs of the individual learner (bonk & zhang, 2006; mandernach, 2009; pi & hong, 2016; crook & schofield, 2017). this current study focuses on recognising the difficulty in allowing for student autonomy and independence through flexible learning options, while ensuring a viable and consistent learner experience by analysing presence in a classroom. the author seeks to uncover the nuances of how to deepen cognitive presence by manipulating social and teaching presence through lecture presentation design. the findings compel online instructors to consider the needs of the self-directed learner by finding ways to make transformational design shifts that could lead to authentic deepening of student learning in a typically asynchronous learning. furthermore, the results compel future researchers to explore whether it is possible to produce deep levels of cognitive presence in an online asynchronous course by manipulating design features of the learner’s experience with strategies that increase student engagement. theoretical framework metacognition and adult learning theories when we recognise the contributions from knowles (1980) regarding theories of adult learning (andragogy), there are several considerations to be made when designing opportunities for engaged communities of learning. knowles (p. 56) emphasises the importance of internal processes that motivate the learner for inquiry-based exploration that is relevant to their needs and context. however, as brookfield (1986) writes, other variables contribute to the effectiveness of adult learning, including context, political atmosphere, and group dynamics, to name a few. these contribute to an overall climate of learning that ought to be considered in both traditional and online learning environments. brookfield also cautions that the self-directed adult learner may require a level of scaffolding and involvement of other learners in developing metacognitive strategies. these types of engagement strategies include opportunities for learners to reflect on their individual learning needs, understanding how to carry out their plan for learning, and how to meet their learning objectives. understanding the unique learning needs of adults better equips instructors to create effective learning opportunities that maximise metacognitive skills through reflection and collaborative engagement. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1) 19 engagement designing opportunities for maximised student engagement in online learning is an integral component of designing overall student learning experiences. manderdach (2009) explains that the feelings of isolation in an online community may be more pronounced than in a face-to-face setting because students might be learning in physically isolated spaces. these spaces are not likely to have the features of a traditional classroom setting. this is an important consideration given the relationship between engagement and learning, and it is even more pronounced when measured through the lens of the three interdependent components of online presence. in the context of online learning, the success of students meeting the learning goals rests on their willingness to be active participants of the content presented in the course and to engage in monitoring their own learning process (bomia, beluzo, demeester, elander, johnson, & sheldon, 1997, p. 294). in a general description of the process of active learning in the online environment, bonk and zhang (2006) provide a framework of r2d2: read, reflect, display and do. here they describe the learner’s engagement with the content presented in a variety of modalities. reading, exploring other resources and listening to lectures, video presentations, and/or podcasts occurs during the read phase. the second phase specifically attends to the needs of a variety of learning preferences through multi-modal methods. it provides opportunities for the learner to reflect on their learning. consideration should therefore be made for instructor roles – along with lesson design and peer interaction—to maximise student engagement in both a traditional classroom setting and in the context of online learning. bonk and zhang (2006) add that one way to do this is by providing opportunities for collaborative, written dialogue in discussion forums. paying particular attention to the ways in which online course designers use presentation modalities to maximise student engagement and presence is especially relevant to this study. there has been little research on specific ways in which instructors can use video to increase social presence (borup, west, & graham, 2012). crook & schofield (2017) describe the purposes of the lecture presentation in an online learning setting and explain that the learner’s sense of agency is a critical consideration for increasing participation. they connect this with how students make meaning through their experiences. homer, plass, & blake (2008) found that learners’ feelings of engagement differed, depending on whether video was included in the powerpoint presentation they viewed. more relevant to this discussion was the finding that individual preferences affect the learning experiences of the students, perhaps even more than the design of the presentation itself. the authors make a compelling argument for course designers considering learner preferences when creating presentations and other content to meet the needs of the individual learner experience. manderdach (2009) conducted a study exploring changes in student engagement when instructor-personalised multimedia supplements were included in online courses. the comparison group in manderdach’s study was an online course without instructor-personalised media (such as narrated powerpoints and videos). student engagement questionnaires, cumulative final exams, and grades were used as outcome measures for both groups. manderdach conducted a one-way analysis of variance (anova) that showed no significant group differences relative to the engagement survey or learning (outcomes). openended responses on the engagement survey indicated students were engaged with the instructorpersonalised media. manderdach (2009) notes that there were discrepancies in the quantitative and qualitative findings and these differences should be further explored. these discrepancies include results that show students in the group with instructor-personalised multimedia supplements feel more engaged in their environment, but the quantitative measures lack evidence to support this. these findings emphasise the need to deepen the body of research that focuses on discerning transformational pedagogical changes that could lead to significant group differences in both student learning and levels of student engagement. henrikson, r. 20 specific organisational structures and considerations for creating a quality online learning environment are critical for achieving high levels of engagement (richardson & swan, 2003) and ensuring that course participants receive a quality experience. the community of inquiry (coi) framework for measuring engagement in an online learning environment includes three aspects of “presence”: social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence (garrison, anderson, & archer, 2000). according to garrison et al. (2000), social presence includes designing opportunities for students to interact with each other and considers ways in which students can express themselves with their peers in a safe environment. teaching presence focuses on the learner’s quality of experience as a result of the teacher creating opportunities for engaging students through a variety of instructional methods. teaching presence considers not only how the course is organised to promote quality engagement, but also how the teacher interacts with their students to influence levels of interaction and learning. sustained teaching presence is controlled most directly by the course instructor (anderson, rourke, garrison, & archer, 2001). cognitive presence focuses on opportunities for students to engage with the academic content. it includes students’ abilities to adapt new knowledge to previous understanding and to connect and apply new information. bloom’s taxonomy of learning (forehand, 2005) takes into account the progressions by which a learner engages with and processes new information through a variety of learning experiences. generally speaking, there are levels of learning that progress (not necessarily in order) from lower levels of learning, such as knowledge and understanding, to higher levels of learning, such as evaluation and synthesis. bloom’s taxonomy has also been divided into three main domains: cognitive, affective, and psychomotor. while it’s certainly not a direct parallel, the concept of cognitive presence in the coi framework reflects this hierarchy of learning by using the practical inquiry model (akyol & garrison, 2011), in which students progress through stages of learning—from asking questions and creating a sense of wonderment, to applying and integrating this new knowledge in different ways. one difference between bloom’s taxonomy and the coi framework is the need to recognise that the coi framework takes into account the experience of learning as created by teaching presence and social presence. the three components of the coi framework are interdependent, while bloom’s taxonomy focuses solely on the learner and their progression of learning. according to kanuka & garrison (2004), students’ experiences with levels of cognitive presence contribute to their success in achieving higher-level learning experiences. understanding the interdependence between social, teaching, and cognitive presence is critical (berge, 1995; anderson et al., 2001; garrison et al., 2001). shea and bidjerano, (2008) write, “[t]he community of inquiry framework (coi) focuses on the intentional development of an online learning community with an emphasis on the processes of instructional conversations that are likely to lead to epistemic engagement” (p. 544). this paper focuses primarily on students’ movement through the levels of cognitive presence by intentionally guiding the ways teaching presence and social presence are provided to students. four levels of cognitive presence can be measured with a specified set of descriptors. akyol and garrison (2011) describe a triggering event, in which students recognise a problem and display a sense of questioning, puzzlement, or wonderment. in exploration, students exchange information with one another, suggesting new ideas, brainstorming, and making other intuitive leaps. in the third stage, integration, students synthesise their ideas and (possibly) provide solutions. finally, in the resolution stage, students apply and test their ideas, and defend their solutions. this study builds on previous work of seeking to understand the instructor’s role in influencing the depth of cognitive presence in online learning environments. this investigation uses the practical inquiry model’s four stages of cognitive presence: triggering event, exploration, integration, and resolution (garrison, 2007), to better understand how students can interact with instructor information and how it might affect their depth of knowledge and learning process as journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1) 21 demonstrated in a discussion forum. the investigator sought to explore whether, by scaffolding the meta-reflective process during an initial lecture presentation that has opportunities for dialogue, it would be possible to engage students in the early stages of the practical inquiry process before moving into more formal discussions and collaboration with peers in a discussion forum. this descriptive, mixed-methods study explores the relationships that teaching presence and social presence could have with cognitive presence, as documented by student written responses in discussion forums. the researcher was interested in determining whether participants’ asynchronous dialogue while viewing a lecture presentation (similar to that of synchronous dialogue during a lecture) would have any effect on later discussions—in comparison with a group that did not have any opportunity for dialogue during a lecture presentation. methodology while we recognise the interdependence between cognitive, social, and teaching presence, we also need to investigate how an online course instructor’s course design and implementation influences the level of student engagement. any online learning structure should have many opportunities for students to maximise their engagement and learning. this interplay may be evident through learning opportunities such as presentations, group work, discussion forums, and other collaborative assignments. for this study, one initial method of content delivery was through screencast presentations, during which students engaged in learning content-specific information as presented by the course instructor. using the coi framework, and specifically focusing on cognitive presence, the researcher sought to explore how the design and implementation of screencast presentations influences how students responded to initial discussion forum prompts. this quantitative study used mixed forms of data using qualitative data analysis (qda), regression analysis, and text analytics. qda was used to code text for stages of cognitive presence by coding student text in their initial discussion forum responses. a pearson’s chi-square analysis was then used to determine any statistically significant associations between the type of lecture presentation and student responses. further data analyses were conducted through a form of text analytics to determine common themes and facets. research questions 1. are there statistically significant associations between the type of lecture presentation and the depth of cognitive presence within the initial discussion forum? 2. what levels of cognitive presence are evident in discussion forums in response to scaffolded reflective prompts during prerequisite online presentations compared to those without scaffolding? 3. were there other differences in regards to themes, document sentiment and word count between the two groups? participants all 20 participants in this study were enrolled in a fully online course. there were 12 female and 8 male participants. all participants were current teachers with a range of 2–15 years of teaching experience. the participants were enrolled in a master of education graduate programme. the courses in this 2-year programme were either completely online or blended. all students had previous experience with both models. institutional review board approval was granted on march 1, 2017, approximately 3 months before the course was launched. henrikson, r. 22 design all 20 participants were randomly assigned to one of two sections of the same course through an online programme that assigns groups; that is, the researcher entered all names into a programme called “random team generator” (www.randomlists.com) to create two groups. both groups were asked to watch an initial lecture presentation before responding to one or two questions in their respective discussion forums. the videos were embedded (linked) in their discussion forum. the videos, which were 6–23 minutes long, included information pertinent for the topic and goals for the week. there were five presentations (5 weeks) included as the focus for this study. the instructor used two approaches to scaffold student thinking and engagement in the lectures. group one had reflective (metacognitive) questions interspersed throughout the five lecture presentations. these “engagement pauses” aligned with the levels of bloom’s revised taxonomy of learning (krathwohl, 2002) to ensure that the questions asked in the lecture presentation provided the participants with opportunities to engage in thinking aligned to bloom’s revised taxonomy levels: apply, analyse, and evaluate. the prompts were intentionally placed in the presentations to elicit the participants; thinking about how the content applies to their own instructional practice, how it might or might not align with their current thinking, and how it could be modified to meet their classroom context. this group’s lectures were all viewed in vialogues, a tool into which lecture presentations and other videos can be uploaded, and participants can watch and comment in a running dialogue box in real time. the participants in group one were prompted to pause the presentation, and to respond to reflective prompts posed on the vialogue during the presentation. for example, as a viewer, they would watch the presentation, be asked a question (engagement pause), and then be prompted to stop the presentation and type their response in the vialogue dialogue window. they could also read and reply to previous comments left by their peers in response to the same questions in the presentation. the participants then continued viewing the presentation. this pause, reflect, and write (engagement pause) process was repeated three to five times throughout each of the five presentations. group two listened to the same lecture presentation but the lecture was recorded without engagement pauses or prompts to stop and write. their lecture presentations were viewed through a link to a zoom mp4 file and not held in any other application. after viewing the lecture, participants in both groups responded to one or two questions in their respective discussion forums. these questions were the same for both groups and were aligned with the learning goals and content in the lecture presentations. they were generally application-type questions, in which participants were asked to reflect on their current teaching context and apply the learning to their own practice and experiences. the analysis comprised two steps. first, an initial coding of all text in the discussion forum was conducted; then, using the results of the coded text, a pearson’s chi-square was used to determine whether there were significant associations between the design of the instructor presentation (whether it was integrated with engagement pauses or not) and themes (stages of cognitive presence) in the student discussions. a content analysis was conducted by coding text from the initial discussion prompt responses using the practical inquiry model’s four stages of cognitive presence. the researcher copied and pasted all of the text from the 5 weeks of discussion, for all participants, in both groups, into two separate spreadsheets. one spreadsheet contained columns of text for each of the 5 weeks for group one. another spreadsheet contained columns of text for each of the 5 weeks for group two. these columns were labelled with the group and week number to identify the group’s discussion after the coding was complete. the researcher then took the text from each week and from both groups, and copied it all onto a third spreadsheet that did not identify groups or weeks. this resulted in a third spreadsheet with ten columns of text but journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1) 23 no identifying labels. the researcher therefore could not identify which group the text came from, or the questions asked in that particular week. coding (using a pearson’s chi-square analysis) was used to determine any differences between the groups in terms of depth of learning. the coded categories of cognitive presence as described by kanuka & garrison (2004) include: (1) triggering event – where students exhibit a sense of puzzlement; (2) exploration – where students search for information to make better sense of the problem (this includes exchanging ideas with peers); (3) integration – where students assimilate new information in their pre-existing schema to make sense of the new information; (4) resolution – where students apply and test their new knowledge and/or solve their problems. all applicable statements, phrases and/or sentences were coded with one of these four levels of the practical inquiry model. as the researcher read through each sentence pulled from the discussion forums, they coded it with a relevant theme from one of the four categories (see table 1). table 1 samples of text aligned with each level of cognitive presence levels of cognitive presence example triggering event “something i would like to learn more about is diversity in how i collect information from my students. i have been stuck in a system that is driven by fully guided instruction and would like to know how this looks . . . in an inquiry-based learning environment.” exploration “i appreciated the examples provided in the chapter. the grading scheme presented in this chapter for the science class, which was based on the collection of student evidence of each standard and then an opportunity to match a performance on an end assessment . . . this really interested me as it provided a feedback loop that moved learning forward, was evidence based on performance, effort, and knowledge but it also felt like a manageable method that could be implemented for most subjects and ages in some format.” exploration [participants gave examples that referred to readings, presentation and/or sharing ideas about classroom practice] integration “it was really eye-opening for me to read that ‘from literally thousands of research studies, selfreports are unreliable” (anonymous, p. 88). this makes sense because there is really no accountability and students can change their answers based on [those of] their peers. therefore, recently i borrowed some mini whiteboards from a colleague and engaged students in articulating their thinking in a more challenging way.” resolution “i have found that classroom behavior and clarity from students has improved since i began displaying rubrics in my openings.” phrases or sentences in the ten columns of text were identified and coded (highlighted) with one of four colours, depending on the level of cognitive presence shown. the researcher was interested in determining the total number of incidents of each stage of cognitive presence in the discussions in each group. they also compared the groups to determine henrikson, r. 24 how student thinking is scaffolded during the presentations that may be demonstrated in the text of their discussions later in the week. the researcher also wanted to answer the question of whether the nature of the discussions varied based on the students’ initial presentation of information and collaboration in the vialogues. as a second qualitative component of this study, a form of text analytics (semantria [www.lexalytics.com]) was applied to explore semantic linguistic algorithms in the text. (semantria is an excel add-on.) an application programming interface (api) is used to submit the text to semantria for analysis. all text was analysed for the following linguistic components: 1. response sentiments (positive, negative, neutral) 2. themes in the text (nouns and phrases that are relevant to the research), including total number of generated phrases. semantria searches text that is entered into excel—in this case, all of the text pulled from the discussion forums for all 5 weeks for both groups. the program then identifies positive, negative, and neutral tones from the text and uses sentiment scores to assign a response sentiment to each theme, entity, and category extracted. this program also extracts themes from the text (including meaningful phrases pulled from sentences) to determine the nature of the dialogue within and between the groups. the program then categorises the themes into topics, based on the context from sentences and phrases. results a pearson’s chi-square analysis was run to determine whether there was a significant association between the design of the instructor’s presentation and themes in student discussions. according to field (2009), pearson’s chi-square test is appropriate for determining whether there is a relationship between two or more sets of categorical variables. because the researcher compared the frequency of each of the stages of cognitive presence found by coding the text, a pearson’s chi-square analysis is suitable. a non-significant association was found between the type of instructor presentation and how the students responded in the discussion forum based on stages of cognitive presence found in the text. (see table 2). the pearson’s chi-square test displays percentages across categories and across groups. the table shows the number of cases in each category (i.e., stages of cognitive presence within each of the groups (group with engagement pauses and group with no engagement pauses). it also contains the number of total cases in each category to compare the cases between the two groups. for example, in the first row (the no engagement pauses during lecture group, or group two), the columns display each of the counts and the total count for each of the four stages of cognitive presence found in that group. additionally, in the first column (triggering event) the rows display each of the counts and the total count of the two groups. the table also displays counts and expected counts. the expected counts indicate the number of cases that would be categorised in each of the stages if left to chance, compared with the actual count based on the coding (field, 2009). the values in the count and expected counts are quite similar, indicating that there might not be a statistically significant association. the percentages (adding up to 100%) are also displayed in two categories: % within lecture type and % within student response. for example, across the first row of no engagement pauses during lecture, the % within lecture type for all four categories of cognitive presence gives a total of 100%. this shows how the frequency of the four stages of cognitive presence was divided up as a percentage within each group. another way to display the percentage is to look at how each of the four stages of cognitive presence were divided up between the two groups. for example, looking vertically in the triggering event column, the two figures in the % within journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1) 25 student response categories add up to 100% because it shows the percentages of the two groups (lecture types). a total of 312 coded phrases were analysed for both groups. overall, the highest theme of 40.1% of the student discussions was classified under the theme of exploration. the theme of resolution had the lowest overall total of 4.5%. this is also consistent in both groups. there were more coded phrases in group one, resulting in more occurrences in each of the levels of the coi framework (176, compared with 136 for group two). both groups had the greatest number of responses in the exploration category, followed by triggering event, integration, and resolution. however, group two had more instances of participants’ responses categorised at the level of resolution than group one. some assumptions need to be met when using pearson’s chi-square. the first is independence of data—this assumption has been met because this is not a repeated-measure design. the second assumption is that the expected frequencies should be greater than five (field, 2009) and this assumption has also been met. there was a non-significant association between the type of lecture presentation and the way in which students responded in the discussion x² (3, n = 312) = 2.569, p = .47. this seems to indicate that the type of lecture presentation did not have a significant effect on how the students responded in their discussion forum. the spss output also indicates that no cells have an expected count of fewer than five, which means that the chi-square statistic should be accurate (field, 2009). table 2 participant responses for each lecture type because the researcher was interested in gaining a better understanding of the nature of the discussions, another component of this study involved analysing themes and text sentiment. the text analytics software, semantria, was used to extract themes in both groups. themes were henrikson, r. 26 generated by extracting context and meaning from the entities. the underlying intentions of the text were also considered (www.lexalytics.com). any plural forms of the themes were combined. for example, formative assessment was combined with formative assessments, and learning target with learning targets. sixty-eight themes were extracted from group two, and 82 themes were extracted from group one. for example, the theme formative assessment occurred 13 times in group two. of those 13 times, none of those occurrences was expressed in a negative way, 5 occurrences were expressed in a neutral way, and 8 were expressed in a positive way. in group one, the theme formative assessment occurred 20 times. of those 20 times, none was expressed in a negative way, 8 were expressed in a neutral way, and 12 were expressed in a positive way. table 3 shows the breakdown of themes and sentiments for group two. table 4 shows the themes and sentiments of group one. learning expectations and formative assessment were in the top five for both groups. note that some of the themes appear to be very similar (e.g., learning expectations and learning targets). but because semantria uses context to create the distinct themes, caution is advised when assuming that these terms are synonymous. the program does not necessarily define the themes; it simply differentiates them. for example, while some might use the two terms synonymously, learning target could refer to a very specific technique for communicating a general learning expectation. on the other hand, both groups wrote about using exit tickets, but one group used the term exit slip. these two terms probably refer to the same strategy, but the groups could use different vocabulary based on that of the first participant in the forum. overall, both groups showed similar themes and sentiments; however, although the questions were similar across both groups, the content of their responses varied. finally, the researcher was interested in understanding whether students tended to write more or less, given opportunities (or lack thereof) for documenting their initial thinking in their assigned mode of lecture presentation. for example, were the students who were asked to write initially in the vialogue already fatigued with writing? if so, they might not have been as willing to write as much in their discussion forum as those in the group who were not asked to write their initial thoughts. group two wrote 16,608 words in the initial discussion prompts over the 5 weeks, and group one wrote 16,563 words. although group one did, in fact, write less than group two, the difference is slight. table 3 themes and sentiments for group two journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1) 27 table 4 themes and sentiments for group one discussion given the rapid increase in the availability of online learning, it is critical to consider ways to increase social presence through participation and collaboration amongst participants (palloff & pratt, 2003), while also acknowledging the effect of student self-directed learning on active participation (bomia et al., 1997). as homer, plass, and blake (2008) also write, further consideration needs to be given to creating opportunities for the learner to choose the learning modality that best meets their individual needs. perhaps the scaffolding of the questions that were intended to create opportunities for deeper reflection of the topics actually limited the metacognitive process for some learners. both groups, whether provided with a more engaged approach to listening to the lecture or not, responded similarly in content discussed, word count, and themes. there were no statistically significant differences between groups with regard to how they progressed through the stages of cognitive presence as outlined in the practical inquiry model, although there were more instances of resolution in group two. this suggests that participants’ initial discussion forum responses did not necessarily differ based on the type of lecture presentation. while not statistically significant, the participants in group two showed more instances of demonstrating the resolution phase than those in group one. multifaceted methods for participant engagement in an online lecture presentation may therefore need to be not only transformational, but differentiated, to affect the stages of cognitive presence in other aspects of the course. this finding reinforces the need to consider the needs of the self-directed learner by creating multiple methods of engagement in an online presentation or other modality. as other researchers (garrison & cleveland-innes, 2005) found, the quality of teaching and social presence does have an effect on cognitive presence. as echoed by manderdach (2009), the change resulting from manipulating lecture presentations might not have been transformational enough to lead to any lasting learning differences; nor did it take into account the role of the “active” learner in assimilating their previous experience with the new information. another conclusion is that, since both groups were given the same prompts to answer in the discussion forum, any initial progression through the practical inquiry model while engaging in the initial lecture presentation was eliminated when confronted with new information (or, in this case, scaffolding by the questions). as palloff and pratt (2003) write, instructors can facilitate (not teach) within a learner-focused online environment. group one listened and interacted with their lecture and peers in the vialogues, then moved to their learning management system (lms) to answer the initial discussion questions and continue their written conversations in a self-directed way. this change in context could have hindered the continuation of learning and perhaps delayed progression through the levels of cognitive presence. after combining plural forms of the same theme, text analytics further confirmed the similarities in themes and theme sentiment across both groups. the assumption was that, because the presentations in group one were scaffolded, there would be fewer themes overall. this was not henrikson, r. 28 the case. the scaffolding and opportunities for students to reflect on their learning while participating in viewing the lecture yielded no relationship with the topics discussed in the forum. there was a slight difference in the total word count (as shown above, group two discussions had 16,608 words; group one discussions had 16,563 words). this finding is not surprising given the assumption that participants had already written their initial thoughts in the vialogue forum and might not have wanted to repeat themselves in their initial response in the discussion forum. perhaps they experienced fatigue from already providing written dialogue, and were therefore not as motivated to respond in depth again. however, given this variation in total word count, the differences were minimal. several limitations in this study may have affected its internal and external validity. instrumentation is one type of extraneous variable that could have influenced the outcome of the coding totals (gall, gall, & borg, 2007). differential selection could also have been a factor, in that all of the participants have had significant previous experience—not only with one another, but with other instructors. it is also important to discuss the external validity of this experiment. because this was a discrete group, it is difficult to generalise the findings of this study to a larger population. these educators are learning within a graduate-degree programme and already have considerable experience with online learning. the results might have been different if this had been a first online class, or if the participants had not already had a great deal of knowledge, skills, and experience in the content. however, although there is some potential to generalise to a target population in a similar situation and demographic, caution is encouraged (gall et al., 2007). finally, it is important to note that this design measured associations, not cause and effect. although it might be tempting to conclude that the type of lecture presentation affected how students responded in the discussion forums, only relational observations should be made. practical implications these findings illustrate the complex nature of using strategies related to teaching and social presence to improve student engagement that leads to deeper learning. the study also demonstrates and emphasises the importance of considering not only the types of strategies that instructors use to increase student engagement, but the quality of those activities. adding opportunities for students to engage in metacognitive practices using a more traditional, one-way approach to improving instructor presence might not be sufficiently transformational to deepen students’ cognitive presence. it certainly does not take into account the self-directed nature of the adult learner and their ability to choose how they make meaning from the content they experience, regardless of the design. it would also be interesting to note any associations or differences in the depth of learning if the discussion had continued in the vialogue rather than asking the participants to continue the discussion in their lms. this would have allowed the students to engage in the content based on their own reflective practice, conclusions, and questions, rather than scaffolding their learning within prefabricated questions. online learners are critical thinkers who ought to take charge of their learning and take ownership of their own quality of experience and depth of learning (palloff & pratt, 2003). the facilitator of an online course should develop it with this in mind rather than simply replicating a face-to-face course. having said that, this course was not a simple replication of a face-to-face course. the instructor sought to engage the learners in effective pedagogy for online learning (it is imperative that instructors engage their students in deep learning, and opportunities for quality interactions with both their peers and with the instructor). however, the most important strategy is to recognise adults as self-directed learners and create opportunities for them to choose how they will engage in their learning through multiple modalities. strategies for increasing student journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1) 29 engagement in online learning environments is complicated and multi-faceted. modifying and/or scaffolding initial ways to engage in online learning might not be enough to negate the effect that the learner has on their own experience. conclusions in higher education, is essential for online instructors to understand how to facilitate a learnercentred online environment that increases engagement and cognitive presence by aligning practice with the theories of adult learning (androgogy). mezirow (1997) explains that, for the adult learner, new information is only a resource that is incorporated into their existing frame of reference. their learning may also be affected by their prior experience and through learnercentred dialogue and problem-solving with others. recognition of these interrelationships and the increased promotion of online learning is the first step; further investigation into the strategies for ensuring maximal levels of learning for adults is overdue. there is also a need for further investigation into the interplay between the self-directed nature of online learners and stages of cognitive presence that may change according to different learners’ experiences. haythornthwaite (2006) also recognises the influence that an online community of learners has on knowledge construction. this study underlines connections between course design and androgogy; the dialogue and collaboration in a discussion forum, led by the self-directed learner, will be more influential than any single method for increasing engagement through a lecture presentation. this further confirms conclusions made by palloff and pratt (2003), who indicate it takes more than simply modifying and/or scaffolding ways in which participants learn new information to improve the depth of their learning. rather, the continuum of experiences created by the facilitator, the students, and the design of the course ought to be major considerations and recognised as interconnected. perhaps the conclusions by pittaway and moss (2014) encapsulate the essence of how to create opportunities for deep learning when they emphasise the need for nurturing an online community of learners. building on previous research findings—specifically garrison and cleveland-innes (2005)—this study confirms the importance of understanding the qualitative nature of student experiences that lead to a deeper level of cognitive presence. transformational shifts in how instructors approach presence in their online classrooms needs to continue to be developed, specifically in relation to differentiating options for ways in which the learner engages with the content. simply shifting, 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(2008). measures of quality in online education: an investigation of the community of inquiry model and the net generation. journal of educational computing research, 39(4), 339–361. shearer, r. (2003). instructional design in distance education. in m. moore & w. anderson (eds.), handbook of distance education, (pp. 275–286). mahwah, nj: lawrence erlbaum. henrikson, r. 32 biographical notes robin henrikson henrir@spu.edu dr. henrikson is an assistant professor of education and chair of the med in teacher leadership programme at seattle pacific university. she teaches graduate-level online courses and her research focuses on effective online teaching and educational leadership. she also serves as an educational programme evaluator and school board director. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. henrikson, r. (2019). using online lectures to promote engagement: recognising the selfdirected learner as critical for practical inquiry. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1), [17–32.]. microsoft word shearer.docx shearer, r. l. 4 why do our theories matter? rick shearer, pennsylvania state university abstract all too often in our practice of distance education we overlook the history of the field and our theories as we embrace new technologies or, as in the past year, when we are forced to adapt to a regional or global crisis that necessitates a temporary move to a remote learning scenario. when we set our theories aside, this approach can lead us to recreate the wheel in our pedagogical approaches, and ignores the unique pedagogy of distance education and the unique characteristics of learners studying at a distance. this article looks at why our distance education theories continue to be critically important for us to constantly return to and reflect on. our theories help us to keep focused on the learner, learner characteristics, and the individualised nature of learning, while we undertake design and development work in partnership with faculty and other members of the design team. our distance education theories remind us to ask the hard questions about what we are trying to accomplish and to what end for the learner, and through which design strategies. keywords: transactional distance; community of inquiry; dialogue; social presence; autonomy; adult learner; design introduction recently a colleague asked about the importance of considering distance education theories in our designs. to me, after witnessing the rapid move to remote learning during the pandemic, when best practices and theories were mostly set aside, this was a great question. unfortunately, the rapid move to online remote learning led to many recreating the wheel and discovering for themselves aspects of online and distance education that have been discussed and researched in the literature over several decades. so why do our theories matter to how we approach our designs and how we think about pedagogical approaches for distance education? the simple answer is that they keep us focused on the learner, learner characteristics, and the individualised nature of learning. thus, examining and continually re-examining our theories can help us understand how they assist our designs, instruction, and overall distance education operations. further, as discussed by anderson, “much of our understanding of how and why learning happens and the best ways to design effective learning activities is enhanced when we work from theoretical models” (2016, p. 47). theories of distance education our distance education (de) theories are neither learning theories in the sense of how we think about motivation theory or cognitive learning theory; nor design models like addie, dick and carey’s model, or gagne’s nine events of instruction. they tend to fall between these models because they help us think beyond learning theories and design models. they get us to focus on journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(1) 5 how our learners—given their characteristics as adult learners—might individually approach learning, and thus how it will affect our course designs. theory of transactional distance our field encompasses a unique pedagogy due to the constant (or almost constant) separation of the learner from the instructor and the learning institution. therefore, our mission or goal was never to replicate the classroom learning experience, but to address the needs of the individual learner. moore’s (1993) theory of transactional distance (td), which was developed over several years of observations of de learning environments, exemplifies this goal. moore’s theory of td has three underlying variables (dialogue, structure, and autonomy) that work within a system to determine the td that each learner feels at a given moment or time during a course. in essence it is an educational transaction conducted through dialogue between two or more individuals, or as a guided didactic conversation with the text as discussed by holmberg (1983). the transaction is supported and constantly affected by structure and learner characteristics, and is unique for each learner. thus, td and the other three variables are dynamic and change for each learner from lesson to lesson, and course to course. td is both a geographical distance and a psychological distance and, as discussed by moore (1993) and demonstrated in work by saba and shearer (1994), as dialogue increases, structure and td decrease within the dynamic system. however, the distance experienced by each learner is affected by the autonomous characteristics of the learner and the learning style of the instructor. therefore, we can think of each of these variables as being on a continuum. how we, as designers, implement these variables in our designs will affect the td experienced by each learner. while numerous researchers have written about td over the years, many of these studies have focused on the overall notion of td in the psychological dimension, while excluding the systems nature of the theory and how the variables interact to contribute to td. thus, it is important to look at each variable and examine how they affect our designs and how they might affect learning. dialogue dialogue is probably the most discussed variable of the theory and some, such as gorsky and caspi (2005), would argue it is the most important. but what do we mean by dialogue in our designs? as defined by moore (1993), burbules (1993), and shearer (2010), dialogue is a unique subset of our overall educational conversation. it is that element of our educational conversation that leads to the creation of knowledge for the individual and group. it occurs in an open and trusted space, where dissenting opinions are welcome and openly debated. it is also a form of internal dialogue that leads to reflection, as discussed by rose (2013). however, as rose highlights, we need to allow time and space for reflection to occur, and that might not always fit well with our curriculum designs—where breadth is often valued over depth. further, in our courses we know that not all course curricula require a high degree of dialogue—they might be factual in nature, or they could be foundational courses that require more direct instruction. so, as we think about our designs and the outcomes of a course, what do we want the students to achieve? do we expect them to delve deeply into topics? if so, we must provide time and space for critical thought and reflection. for, as discussed by rose, reflection requires a “personal and social commitment . . . as a form of thought that takes place within solitude and slowness” (2013, p. 7). thus, if we want our learners to engage in deep thought or deep learning, this will dictate our design in terms of the pace and sequence of material covered. if we cannot allow time for indepth dialogue it probably will not occur, and we need to adjust the desired outcomes. if, however, we want a rich dialogic approach in our course, we will need to limit the breadth of material to allow more time to explore each topic through debate, reflection, and elaboration through dialogue. this notion of sequence and pace leads us to the second variable—structure. shearer, r. l. 6 structure structure is a multidimensional construct, as discussed by shearer and park (2019). it can be viewed as how the course is structured in terms of pace and sequence of learning, as the technological structure in terms of navigation, or—maybe the most critical view as discussed by moore (1993)—structure is how the course can adapt to the individual needs of each learner. this idea of adaptability to individual learners aligns with a recent study by shearer et al. (2020), in which the authors explored what learners are looking for in an educational experience. the study set aside technology and examined the personal dimension of learning, highlighting that learners wanted the courses to be more adaptable to their interests on a personal level, while maintaining a highly social component that allows for dynamic communities of inquiry. this adaptability ties into our notion of adaptive learning approaches that are more personalised; however, it also indicates that we need to be able to integrate an ability for the formation of dynamic learning communities within courses, to facilitate the social construction of knowledge around key areas of interest the students want to pursue. so how will structure affect the design of our distance education courses? this will depend on how we think about the integration of dialogue. if we want a highly dialogic experience, then structure needs to be low. in other words, the pace and sequence will not be as rigid as in a preproduced course, and it may allow for more adaptability to individual learners. flexibility and adaptability in our courses are a challenge for designers and instructors. providing experiences for each learner or small group of learners takes more time during course delivery because we need to monitor and interact within multiple learning paths for a variety of learning activities and learning assignments. thus, for a highly dialogic course with low structure, the design needs to focus on depth—not breadth—in terms of the time required by the faculty to be responsive to each learner. it also requires a more adaptive learning model where individual learning outcomes are negotiated at the beginning of the course. not all learners will want to end at the same point, although the broad learning outcomes need to be maintained. in some ways, this approach harks back to the early days of distance education (print-based, computer-based education—plato, cd-rom), where our delivery vehicles and designs focused on the individual and allowed learners to move through courses at their own pace and (often) sequence, although outcomes were predetermined. however, with the move to online and to a more group-based or cohort model, we have lost this individualised characteristic. finding a way back to this approach will require technologies beyond our current learning management systems (lmss), which replicate the in-class experience more than our earlier generations of distance education as described by anderson and dron (2011). autonomy autonomy is the element of td that truly gets to the heart of de; that is, to the learner. autonomy makes us focus on learner characteristics, which can affect how we think about dialogue and structure. it does not necessarily help us focus on all learner characteristics—such as access to technology, or technology literacy—but it helps us to think about how each individual might approach their de course. autonomy is also a type of wild card when we think about dialogue and structure, because each learner will determine how much dialogue they wish to have throughout the course. further, some learners will want lower structure to explore topics and others will want to adhere to the predesigned structure. thus, for some learners, low dialogue does not mean structure will be high. highly self-directed learners might want low structure but might not require high dialogue except with the instructor or select other students, and on their terms. thus, as we think about autonomy, we need to consider the concepts of self-regulation, motivation, metacognition, and other attributes that can affect how a learner wants to engage with a course. this ties back to our discussion on structure and how a course does or does not adapt to an individual learner’s needs. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(1) 7 autonomy is a difficult design variable because, in most cases, we do not know who our learners will be when we design a distance education course, or how they will change from semester to semester. so, how do we design for autonomy? as we think about our adult learners, their busy lives, and the variety of career interests they may have, it may be good to think about the types of careers that previous learners have had or wished to pursue when they took the course. this will broaden our thinking about the learning pathways we might want to integrate in a course and learning activities. however, it does not negate the fact that all learners need to accomplish certain early learning objectives. also, for designers and faculty, there is a balancing act between variety and faculty time. the more variety we have in a course, the more time it takes for both design and development, and for faculty time in terms of teaching and the level of dialogue that is possible. community of inquiry in recognition of the move to online learning in the mid 1990s, garrison et al. (1999) introduced the community of inquiry (coi) model to examine how our distance education designs and instruction needed to evolve to include an education learning environment that brings a more immediate form of dialogue and the social construction of knowledge into our distance education courses. community of inquiry is an important model/theory that was studied in some depth in the early 2000s—notably by scholars such as picciano (2002), and swan (2002), and it has continued to be examined by the original authors (garrison and anderson, 2003; garrison, 2017). in the model garrison et al. (1999) articulate three overlapping presences: cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence. at the centre of these overlapping presences, depicted as a venn diagram in the model, you find the ideal balance. as with the theory of td, these presences are dynamic and not necessarily set at the beginning of a course. each learner and group of learners ultimately decides their levels of social presence or cognitive presence in conjunction with, and through, the facilitation and guidance of the instructor through teaching presence. social presence of the three presences in the model, social presence was a unique addition to our theories and studies of distance education, as it was a concept often overlooked in de and online courses. in the early days of our move to online learning, as with earlier forms of de, we focused on content as the key element of the course and relied on the idea of a more guided didactic approach. however, the internet and the move to online learning facilitated by lmss opened up the possibility of more immediate forms of dialogue and reduced structure. this also shifted our thinking about how students could engage with the course, and how to make them feel less psychologically isolated. thus, a re-examination of social presence was a much-needed element of de, and the model helped us to refocus on social presence and to explore its role in distance education. short et al. (1976) defined social presence in the past as a very individual feeling of being seen or being there in a space. however, lombard and ditton (1997, cited in ijsselsteijn et al., 2007, p. 2) expanded on this definition for computer environments and suggested that it is a feeling of “perceptual illusion of non-mediation”. thus, it is a sense of being a part of the community of learning even when not physically present; it is about the engagement and interactions. garrison and akyol (2013) expanded on this idea beyond the sense of being there as an individual in a virtual space, to include how the idea of social presence affected the dialogue or cognitive presence of the group of learners, and brought about group cohesion and collaboration in the construction of knowledge. shearer, r. l. 8 cognitive presence in the coi model, within the theme of cognitive presence, was the development of the practical inquiry model (pim), which showed how learners move between the personal and shared worlds of knowledge, and how educational dialogue progresses from triggering and exploration posts or dialogic exchanges, to integration and resolution. the pim ties into the literature on deep learning as it relates to cognitive processes and has been fundamental in extending our online discussion classification systems as explored by henri (1992), laurillard (1993), offir et al. (2004), shearer (2010), and others. pim is important as it helps us to think about the desired outcomes of our discussion spaces and (as mentioned above in the discussion about dialogue), if we want learners to move to deep learning through critical thinking and reflection. it highlights that we need to allow time and space for learners to move back and forth between the personal space and the shared space of dialogue as knowledge is constructed. a key finding from many of these studies, and others by schreck (2011) and shearer et al. (2015) on educational conversations and dialogue in online courses, is how we do not usually see learners move beyond the exploration stage of the pim model. there are probably many reasons for this, relating to our designs and the need to cover the breadth of a curriculum instead of being able to design for depth. as many have noted, and has been mentioned by learners, we tend to be stuck in the mechanical nature of post once and reply twice, which does not move learners to integration or resolution of topics. thus, as we think about cognitive presence, the pim, and the concept of dialogue, we must also think about what we want as a learning outcome when we integrate discussions into our courses. if they are not well considered, they can be perceived as “busy work” to learners who do not understand why they should engage deeply in the dialogic exchange. teaching presence teaching presence in the model is key to a successful online course. it is the element of a course where the instructor measures and monitors the ebb and flow of the learning process by each student and the group. teaching presence goes beyond the organised learning experience and moves between direct instruction (through text) and indirect instruction through dialogic exchanges. it is here that the instructor adapts to the flow of social presence and cognitive presence. they decide when to step back to let a dialogue expand and follow different paths, and when to step in to redirect the dialogic exchange. the instructor also ensures each learner feels they are heard and has a sense of social presence in the group, and the instructor can adapt the flow, pace, and depth of material being explored. some could argue that this is where the presences come together but, as discussed above and as with transactional distance, the presences are dynamic, and each learner or small group of learners finds their balance throughout the course. within this view of teaching presence there is some overlap with the idea of structure in td. while structure involved how a course could adapt to individual needs, in coi the instructor is central to this process. they can determine the flexibility that is allowed and available in a preproduced online learning experience. effect on design and instruction as we think about these theories and models, it becomes evident that they are central to our course designs, and to instruction during delivery. they help us to think more deeply about our learning objectives and outcomes, and to ask ourselves why we are including certain content, learning activities, and assessments. for example, if we include a discussion forum in a lesson, what is its purpose? and how long will we allow the dialogue to unfold (1 week, 2 weeks, or longer)? if we want learners to achieve a level of integration, we must allow time and space for journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(1) 9 that to occur and facilitate the pauses in dialogue so it remains dialogue as discussed by neff (1988). further, does each learner need to follow the same path through a course? do we, as instructors, have time to allow for different paths and thus a variety of assessment strategies? this focus on dialogue and cognitive presence highlights how we can structure our content, and how open we are to the exploration of content and concepts by the learners, through dialogic paths. as mentioned above, theories and models keep us focused on the needs of the learners and the unique learning characteristics they bring to each course, whether they are adult learners or more traditionally aged students. the theories and models highlight the systems approach to our designs and the dynamic flow during instruction, as each learner and group of learners finds their own balance, and they remind us that our goal is not to replicate the classroom experience. distance education has a unique pedagogical approach that focuses on learners who are studying at a distance, and adult learners who have many competing demands on their lives. how could these theories and models have helped with the move to remote learning? as we reflect on the past 12+ months we can understand the frustrations of faculty, teachers, and learners who were thrust into remote learning—especially faculty and teachers who, without understanding the theories of the field or having the guidance of a designer, or the time to work with a designer to develop a distance course, were working in uncharted territory. it is also clear that faculty and learners became a bit less dissatisfied in subsequent semesters when faculty had more time to work with designers, tweak their online courses, and better understand the online learning experience. however, news articles still describe a high level of frustration, especially about synchronous delivery methods in which long times in front of screens can lead to burn-out by learners and the faculty. there have also been news articles about the failures of, and dissatisfaction about, the move to online. these are similar to the article by schaffhauser (2021), in which students complain about their online courses being full of what appears to be “busy work”. these news articles highlight how ignoring the theory and research of the field can lead to disastrous results in online courses, as discussed in a recent article on contact north (2021). thus, if teachers had more time to work with designers who are well versed in de theories and models, the overall impression of distance education and online delivery methods could have been very different. we can only hope that the rapid move did not damage the general perception of distance education and set us back years in terms of it being a recognised and valid form of learning. it is unfortunate that the quick move also focused primarily on a synchronous delivery method in which video was used in ways that are contrary to years of research. research has shown that our attention span when viewing video is short (7 minutes or less) (geri et al., 2017), and marketing research (wistia, 2011) shows a drop from 85% sustained attention for 30-second videos to 45% for videos of 5–10 minutes. further, bradbury highlights that in an in-person classroom lecture there is a “decline in students’ attention 10–15 minutes into the lecture” (2016, p. 1). thus, it should not be a surprise that long live video sessions using zoom or other tools were not as successful as hoped, and led to high levels of learner dissatisfaction and fatigue (schroeder, 2021). even when instructors insert a range of learning activities to break up the inherent presentation style of video, it is still a very passive medium, and it is easy to mute and point a camera away, or browse the web while on a video call. again, we see how this one element about media in our designs would have been used very differently if there was time to explore the research, work with knowledgeable designers, and understand the unique pedagogy of distance education. shearer, r. l. 10 equity and opportunity as we read the news today, we might feel we are on the verge of a new, long overdue awakening, when we regard everyone as equal. we’ve felt this before—during the 60s and at other times—but this time we hope it is different and that we will move towards an era of acceptance in which our similarities far outweigh our differences. this notion is likely to resonate with those of us in distance education because the drive for equity and opportunity has been a cornerstone of our field. as distance education and adult education leaders, researchers, and practitioners, we have worked for years to bring learning opportunities to the disenfranchised—those who could not avail themselves of traditional avenues for education. as wedemeyer (1981) wrote, it was a drive to educate those at the back door. ours is not a field of technology, although we use technology to achieve our goals. ours is a field of opening up educational opportunities. since the early days of rural delivery, correspondence education, computer-based education, and other forms, we have adapted our approaches to reach underserved audiences and provide a quality learning experience that fits with each learners’ time and place. thus, as we look at the definitions, theories, and practices, we see that de is a field of study and research that looks at the individual or small communities of inquiry that engage learners where they are, at a pace they are comfortable with, to help them meet their educational goals. the field is grounded in adult education that draws heavily on the principles of independence, selfregulation, intrinsic motivation, and autonomy, but also has a solid student support system to address individual needs. ours is a systematic approach to learning that focuses on the individual learner. so, as we look at the past year during the pandemic, it is important that we help others to not confuse the notion of remote learning (which focuses on technology fixes to simulate the classroom), with that of distance education and open-learning opportunities. it is unfortunate that the rapid move to remote learning to address traditional education during the pandemic has been confused with good online learning and what we know as good distance education. we hope we do not have to spend years repositioning the field. references anderson, t. (2016). theories for learning with emerging technologies. in g. velestsianos (ed.), emergence and innovation in digital learning: foundations and applications (pp. 35–50). athabasca press. https://doi.org/10.15215/aupress/9781771991490.01 anderson, t., & dron, j. (2011). three generations of distance education pedagogy. international review of research in open and distance education, 12(3), 81–97. bradbury, n. a. (2016). attention span during lectures: 8 seconds, 10 minutes, or more? advances in physiology education, 40, 509–513. https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00109.2016 burbules, n. c. (1993). dialogue in teaching (vol. 10). teachers college press. contact north. (2021, april 1). five ways online learning can turn into an unmitigated disaster. contact north. https://teachonline.ca/tools-trends/five-ways-online-learning-can-turnunmitigated-disaster garrison, d. r. 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(1994). verifying key theoretical concepts in a dynamic model of distance education. the american journal of distance education, 8(1), 36–59. schaffhauser, d. (2021, april 9). students complain: too much (busy) work in online classes. campus technology. https://campustechnology.com/articles/2021/04/09/students-complaintoo-much-busy-work-in-online-classes.aspx shearer, r. l. 12 schreck, r. (2011, march 9). continuing education, critical thinking, and virtual collaborative learning. paper presented at the university professional continuing education association. schroeder, r. (2021, january 20). zoom fatigue: what we have learned. inside higher ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/blogs/online-trending-now/zoom-fatiguewhat-we-have-learned shearer, r. l. (2010). transactional distance and dialogue: an exploratory study to refine the theoretical construct of dialogue in online learning. germany: vdm. shearer, r. l., gregg, a., & joo, k. p. (2015). deep learning in distance education: are we achieving the goal? the american journal of distance education, 29(2), 126–134. https://doi.org/10.1080/08923647.2015.1023637 shearer, r. l., & park, e. (2019). the theory of transactional distance. in i. jung (ed.), open and distance education theory revisited: implications for the digital era (pp. 31–38). springer. shearer, r. l., aldemir, t., hitchcock, j., resig, j., driver, j., & kohler, m. (2020). what students want: a vision of a future online learning experience grounded in distance education theory. the american journal of distance education, 34(1), 36–52. short, j., williams, e., & christie, b. (1976). the social psychology of telecommunications. john wiley & sons. swan, k. (2002). immediacy, social presence, and asynchronous discussion. in j. bourne and j. c. moore (eds.), elements of quality online education (vol. 3, pp. 157–172). sloan center for online education. wedemeyer, c. a. (1981). learning at the back door: reflections on non-traditional learning in the lifespan. university of wisconsin press. wistia. (2011). 4 ways to keep viewers engaged in an online video. wista. https://wistia.com/learn/marketing/4-ways-to-keep-viewers-engaged-in-an-online-video biographical notes rick shearer rxs57@psu.edu dr. rick l. shearer has been involved in the field of distance education for more than 35 years and has witnessed the evolution of the field from print to online. he recently retired from his previous administrative role as director of research with the world campus and is currently an adjunct faculty member with lifelong learning and adult education at pennsylvania state university. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. shearer, r. l. (2021). why do our theories matter? journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 25(1), [4–12.]. microsoft word jdl08_reviewsword.doc journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 1 reviews burge, e. j. (2007). flexible higher education: reflections from expert experience. maidenhead, england: open university press (pp. 172). this book reports on an ambitious two-stage research project designed to capture the experiential knowledge and pioneering tales of early distance educators. in the first stage of the project, 44 distance educators who are deeply involved in distance education and are spread across the world (including in new zealand) were interviewed. this first part of the book is, as sir john daniel says, like “walking through familiar territory in comfortable shoes” (p. 102). however, there is still much in the first section to prompt thought and provoke reflection. in the second stage of the project, seven expert commentators were asked to undertake a meta-level reflection on the chapters that had been developed from an analysis of the interview data. the guiding questions they used were broad, so comments in this section of the book are a mix of personal recounts, reaction to the themes, and advice to current practitioners and researchers in distance education. there is, in effect, a third and final stage to the project. the author’s own reflections are woven into the text and allowed a place as the final chapter. her familiarity and interaction with the data place her in a unique position to provide supplementary commentary. in addition, as an experienced distance educator herself, she brings a valuable lens to bear on the data. all in all, there is a rich mix of wisdom, experience, and advice. the book captures the experiences of many key leaders and early innovators in distance education. their experiences, summed up in themes such as “having no prior experience,” “access, respect, and responsiveness,” “managing technology,” and “learning from [their] achievements,” are brought to life through their words. a picture is built up of pioneer distance education researchers and practitioners and their work. it is a picture that many will still recognize. i see the book as one that will appeal to the broad range of educators who are involved in open, flexible, and distance education. all will find links to areas in which they work. the book makes a contribution to the field of distance education in three broad ways. first, it reaffirms the value of distance education and reminds us that distance education is a different and evolving form of education that requires teaching, management, and leadership that recognizes those differences and builds new practice on established strengths. second, the book reminds us that key issues such as access and quality still need to be addressed. finally, the book helps address gaps in knowledge about the history of distance education. this contribution is important. any field of study needs to understand its history and draw on that. this understanding is particularly important in the present context, where the advent and use of new technologies in distance delivery have brought people to the practice of distance education who have little or journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 2 no knowledge of the foundations they build on and the past experience that can inform their practice. as well as looking back, flexible higher education also looks forward. the expert commentators highlight the continuing importance of course design in times when we acknowledge the changing nature of our learners and the design challenges new technologies bring us. they also note the challenges associated with the blurring of boundaries between face-to-face and distance modes. there are reminders to not overlook the hardwon battles, particularly the acceptance of distance education, and to emulate the qualities such as resilience, persistence, and doggedness that the pioneers brought to their work. concerns about the variability of online learning and how to continue to ensure quality and flexibility are identified as critical current challenges. there are also suggestions for research and guidance for young and inexperienced distance educators. the final section of the book provides a valuable resource. there is a list of publications that participants provided in response to the request to offer readings that would be of interest to readers. those readings also had to be easy to locate and retrieve. the result is a reading list that could provide a firm conceptual underpinning for practitioners in the field of open, flexible, and distance education. an acknowledged gap in the book is the absence of voices from countries where english is not the first language. that experience waits to be captured. the focus of the book is higher education, so experience in school-based distance education has not been captured. that experience would be of great interest to distance practitioners in australia and new zealand in particular, where there is rich experience in compulsory sector distance education. another small point is that the book’s title does not reflect its focus on distance education. this book celebrates the work of early innovators and leaders in the field of distance education, reminds us about the achievements in distance education, and provides a rich picture of people who have made significant contributions to this field. the book starts by suggesting the interviewees “pushed conventional limits to create extraordinary learning opportunities” (p. 3). technologies and times have changed, but the challenge has not. that challenge needs to be taken up by those currently working in distance education. part of the challenge for us must be to place innovation alongside established understandings of distance education, to draw from experience, acknowledge the lessons learned, and then to continue to build. this time, we have prior experiences on which to draw. mary simpson university of otago dunedin, new zealand gorinski, r., & fraser, c. (2007). from targeting problems to tailoring solutions: the wairoa west cluster schools success strategy. wellington, new zealand: research division, ministry of education (pp. vi, 43). in an evaluation of rural schools in new zealand earlier this decade, the education review office (ero) noted: parents living in rural areas share the same educational goals as their urban counterparts. they want to journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 3 know that their children are in a safe environment, they want them to reach their academic potential, and they want them to emerge from the school system well prepared for the world of work or tertiary study. . . . however, for parents in many rural areas, the range of options available is limited. (ero, 2001, p. 1) the ero has identified an international problem facing governments in countries where some people live beyond the major population centres. how can young people and their families in small schools in rural communities be provided with opportunities that are comparable to those expected by their urban counterparts? the wairoa west cluster schools success strategy provides information about how school clusters can improve the education of young new zealanders. in examining this cluster of five small, remote primary schools, with a combined roll of 120 students, gorinski and fraser chronicle changes in student achievement, teaching practice, governance, and management, together with the development of a professional learning community between 1998 and 2004. they conclude: the initiative yielded some extremely successful outcomes for the wairoa west communities . . . including enhanced student academic and social achievement, improved staff retention, improved governance practice, a more clearly delineated interface between governance and management, the implementation of a more effective and reflective style of teaching practice and, significantly, the development of a strong and effective professional learning community. (p. 2) rural and distance educators will be familiar with the electronic networking of schools in new zealand into regional intranets, although after almost two decades there is not yet a substantial body of research about these structures and the processes within them. the qualitative research undertaken by gorinski and fraser may, therefore, be of interest to educators searching for outcomes of aligning schools with one another, whether in clusters, as in this study, or in internet-based networks in other parts of rural new zealand. the schools in the wairoa west cluster were all geographically isolated and ranged from decile one to decile seven. the subjects of gorinski and fraser’s research were overwhelmingly maori (ranging from 58 percent to 100 percent of school enrolments), and large numbers of the students in the five primary schools were the sons and daughters of farm workers and seasonal employees. students’ families were characterized by low levels of education and low levels of household income, and the schools in the cluster “shared a generalised history of student under-achievement” (p. 1). outcomes of the clustering of these five schools included improved student achievement and staff retention, as well as improved governance. for almost two decades, and preceding the advent of the internet in schools in new zealand, regional networks of schools have provided extended learning opportunities for rural new zealanders, based on academic and administrative integration between sites to facilitate collaborative teaching and learning. as journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 4 anyone involved in teaching in these linked schools will attest, there are different demands on teachers in these structures than in traditional face-to-face classrooms. gorinski and fraser provide useful information about the specific professional development requirements in the schools in the wairoa west cluster, many of which will be familiar to new zealand rural educators who teach in networked environments. this ministry of education report is a positive study of educational change in a small cluster of rural new zealand schools that provides insight into an aspect of education that has not received a lot of attention from researchers. the question distance educators will likely ask after reading from targeting problems to tailoring solutions is whether the next step should be to electronically network the wairoa west cluster, to enhance the sharing of educational resources in this region. references education review office (2001). rural education, education evaluation report. wellington, new zealand: ero. ken stevens memorial university of newfoundland newfoundland, canada journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(2) 1 history and heritage in distance education bill anderson, university of otago mary simpson, university of otago abstract distance education’s history is a tremendous resource for all involved in distance education. some aspects of that history provide enduring touchstones for present distance educators, creating a heritage that should not be overlooked as distance education continues to develop and expand. in this article we draw on the concept of generational frameworks to focus on particular developments that have shaped and continue to shape distance education. from those developments we identify and discuss seven elements that serve as the core features of the heritage that underpins our distance education practice. we challenge current distance educators to identify their own heritage elements and build on them as they contribute to the future of the discipline. keywords: distance education; history of distance education introduction we wrote this article because we were asked to tie together ideas that we felt were important theoretical, scholarly, or research-based signposts in our own practice. that is our goal here. don’t look for significant critique in this article—that has gone before. it was critique over time that drove us toward these signposts. however, we have read enough revisionist histories to have learnt that our own summation will be challenged by our readers’ critique, and challenges will contribute to debate about what has been valuable. we welcome that debate as part of an ongoing conversation about distance education. there will be gaps in our picture. others will have different opinions on history and heritage and it is inevitable that we have missed what some will see as crucial facets of distance education. we hope to spark awareness of our past, respect for pioneers and pioneering thought, and debate about the future. let’s begin. people have always learned through open and flexible means. we think of preachers, early itinerant storytellers, wandering minstrels, and groups of performers as early teachers. great thinkers also gathered around them people who were keen to listen, to debate, and to share ideas. however, it was the invention of the printing press that really allowed the beginnings of distance delivery. then, centuries later, the postal service created an opportunity for a more systematic planned approach to open, flexible, and distance education to develop. from this, access to learning opportunities for a wider range of people began to open up. this paper takes its beginnings from that point, as we consider our open, flexible, and distance education history and ask, “what, from that, is the heritage with which we move forward?” our concern is to ensure anderson, m., simpson, b. 2 we recognise and value heritage at a time when the possibilities presented by digital technologies mean it could be easily forgotten. probably every culture reminds us of the perils of looking only toward the new without considering the past. satanyana’s message from the early 1900s—that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it—continues to be relevant. over two millennia earlier, confucius wrote that we should study the past though we are to define the future. here in new zealand, the respect we see for māori elders and their guardianship of historical knowledge is a further remainder of the need to acknowledge past events and learn from them. however, not all history provides useful lessons. we need to be able to identify those aspects of history that add value to the present and should move with us to the future. defining what constitutes history is not entirely straightforward. in a simple sense it is the study of past events. however, we commonly describe some things as history when we mean that although they are past events they are no longer relevant to the present; when we talk of other events as ‘going down in history’ we mean they must be recorded; and, finally, we talk about events that ‘make history’. for us, history reflects all of these things. we need to know our past, as much as we can, in its entirety. we need to take from that whole the knowledge and events that have added value and moved the field forward; we need to consider events and ideas that inform the present and will continue to have value in the future. those value-adding events, developments, objects, and qualities become our heritage—a heritage built through the efforts of people. looking back we are not alone in wanting to represent distance education through an historical account. brief histories of distance education can be found in several places: handbooks (evans, haughey, & murphy, 2008; moore, 2007), journal articles (sumner, 2000), content analyses of journals, giving a sense of the trends in topics of interest to distance educators (berge & mrozowski, 2001; lee, driscoll, & nelson, 2007), and a small number of dissertations examine aspects of distance education from an historical perspective. in a unique way, burge (2008) personalises the activities of distance education pioneers and reflects on what their experiences mean for distance educators of today. all of those sources of history deserve some attention. the concept of distance education evolving through generations provides a helpful structure when considering history and heritage. in 1989 nipper, the first to use a generational framework, suggested three generations of distance education linked to production, distribution, and computer conferencing. subsequently, these three generations were often labelled correspondence, broadcast, and computer mediated. the first two generations are fairly universally accepted. however, different writers, building on nipper’s work, have constructed subsequent generations somewhat differently. moore and kearsley (2005) describe the third generation as developing a systems approach, while taylor (2001) says it was based on telelearning (audio/video conferencing). taylor goes on to suggest a fourth generation that is linked to flexible learning based on online teaching, and a fifth generation that exploits additional aspects of “intelligent” digital technologies. a generational framework highlights key developments. the diversity we note suggests different strands of development in different contexts. in the next section we use the concept of generations to probe distance education’s historical strands. we will briefly highlight key developments and challenges faced, before we identify those that constitute the heritage that contributes to our practice. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(2) 3 generations first generation the first generation of distance education was defined by print technology. although there have been examples of first-generation distance learning for hundreds of years, the combination of printing press technology and postal services made what is commonly known as correspondence education widely available. driven by a strong sense of social justice, correspondence education was provided by a variety of organisations, only some of which focused on qualifications. first-generation distance educators felt it was important to offer educational opportunities to those without easy access to education institutions. these groups often included women and working class people, since neither group was well served by formal education institutions. the foundations of group-based adult education can also be seen during the first generation of distance education. in the united states of america, land grant universities were formed—a central part of their mission was to reach out to people from all backgrounds through correspondence courses (moore & kearsley, 2005). similar vision, at a later time, can be seen in the development of our correspondence school (te kura), wea (the workers education association, now the book discussion scheme), the open polytechnic of new zealand (formerly known as the technical correspondence school and then the technical correspondence institute), and massey university (which was known as palmerston north university college when correspondence education was introduced). this first generation of distance education was characterised by a didactic teaching style—which holmberg (1960) called “guided didactic conversation”. alongside this interest in teaching style peters, working in germany, directed attention to the organisation and delivery of distance education. he examined the delivery of distance education in over 30 countries and developed a theory of industrialised education (black, 2007). thus a focus on guiding students through material that was systematically produced and distributed was evident in this generation of distance education. the beginning of research that focused on distance education was also seen during the first generation of distance education. such research was usually undertaken by distance teachers who wanted to reflect on their own practice (moore & kearsley, 2005). there were no journals devoted to distance education, and there were few formal opportunities to share research findings or promote engagement with the challenges and questions raised by distance education. second generation the ability to broadcast using technologies such as radio and television characterised the second generation of distance education. these broadcast technologies enhanced and added to distance education considerably (evans & nation, 2007). however, interaction between the teacher and the learner, or between learners, remained minimal. providing access was seen as important and continued to be a strong driver of distance education at this time. the use of broadcast technologies is well illustrated in the development of the uk open university (ukou) and its use of television. the australian school of the air, founded in 1950, continues to use radio broadcasts. the new zealand correspondence school used broadcast media with its broadcasts to schools. second-generation distance education saw an increase in scholarly and research work. wedermeyer, working at the university of madison-wisconsin, analysed the teaching process, considered it to be composed of areas that required specialist skills, and introduced the concept of team development of teaching materials (wedermeyer & najem, 1969). his team approach to the production and delivery of teaching material was adopted by the ukou, where the emphasis anderson, m., simpson, b. 4 was on high-quality courses designed for large enrolments. wedermeyer also pioneered courses that specifically focused on the study of distance education. research centres, journals, conferences, and distance education-focused associations developed during this time. early associations developed into the international council for distance education (icde ). the commonwealth of learning (col) was founded in 1987. national distance organisations were also established. academic journals emerged from the associations and distance education institutions, with most still available now. the concept of economies of scale was a driver in second-generation distance education—large course enrolments were seen to equate to good resource use. this approach supported the development of what john daniel (1996) later identified as “mega (distance) universities”— distance universities with over 100,000 students. these universities remain major providers of distance education with a continuing focus on access, cost, and quality. they reach millions of students. firstand second-generation distance teaching and learning tended to be delivered through structured material with communication dominated by the teacher. learning was generally regarded as an individual rather than a social process. learning models drew on cognitive or behavioural theories of learning. it was intended that information given in the material was there to be acquired by the student. that approach began to change with a growing recognition of the possibilities presented by interaction. moore’s theory of transactional distance (1993) recognised the importance of both structure and dialogue and, along with his influential editorial on interaction (moore, 1989), contributed to the move beyond first and second generations. subsequent generations as we noted earlier, a number of people have different interpretations of the subsequent generations of distance education, mixing the strengths of the first and second generations with the possibilities of conferencing. for the third generation, nipper focused on asynchronous computer conferencing to enrich delivery. taylor focused on the synchronous possibilities of teleconferencing (audio and video) which run counter to the flexibility of asynchronous distance education, and considered computer conferencing to be part of a fourth generation. moore’s third generation focused on the systemic nature of distance education, drawing on the effects of wedermeyer’s work and the practices of the ukou. his fourth generation was based on the potential of teleconferencing. despite the different terminology and areas of focus, the most common thread beyond the first two generations was the recognition of interaction. interaction has subsequently remained a central focus for distance education. video and audio teleconferencing were used quite extensively, particularly in the united states of america. in new zealand the use of teleconferencing was seen in the development of networks such as the university of otago audio network, otagonet (for otago schools), casatech (later cantatech, a group of mostly canterbury schools) and kawm (kaupapa ara whakawhiti matauranga) (roberts, 2009). both audio and video conferencing extended interaction and highlighted the need to develop facilitation skills (burge & howard, 1990). similarly, online computer-mediated distance education continues and extends the focus on interaction. these technologies support a move in distance education from the earlier focus on organisation and didactic teaching to a focus on the social construction of knowledge. when taylor (2001) first spoke of the generation of computer-mediated distance education 10 years ago, he suggested that many higher education institutions were just beginning to implement its possibilities. such distance education can recognise and support diversity. it is possible to develop smaller courses for smaller groups of students and to specialise in niche areas. these developments in distance education are characterised by the development of communities of journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(2) 5 inquiry, a focus on knowledge construction, and interaction between students and amongst teachers and students. work by garrison, anderson, and archer (1999) led the way, identifying the concepts of cognitive, social, and teaching presence as being likely to support the creation of communities of inquiry. a set of guiding principles to facilitate higher levels of teaching developed by kanuka (2002) provides another example of work that investigates teaching in online distance education. computer-mediated education has also caught the attention of face-to-face teaching institutions. it presents such institutions with possibilities for engaging with current students who seek greater flexibility in the delivery of courses, and with new cohorts of distance students. there is little doubt that we are seeing a convergence of face-to-face and distance teaching. the changes are fast-moving and are breaking down the boundaries between distance and face-to-face institutions, and distance and face-to-face teaching within institutions. however, technology use alone does not lead to change. many early uses of computer conferencing, and audio and video conferencing, while providing opportunities for greater student participation and control through interaction, remained largely controlled by teachers from teaching centres. when computer and teleconferencing were (and still are) used in this way, industrialised first-generation approaches continue. still, the possibilities of online computermediated education are exciting, and all institutions will have to consider its effect and the challenges it presents. innovation grounded in the history and heritage of distance education could lead and radically change teaching and learning. more recent developments still are in the throes of creating history in distance education. the turn to openness in resources, courses, and practices reflects the early concerns of distance educators. data mining and the relatively new field of learning analytics create opportunities to individualise learning in ways not previously seen. use of mobile technologies enables learning in places and spaces not previously conceived of as learning venues. these developments have the potential to be transformational and create new learning experiences, and to personalise the activity of learning. it seems fair to say we are at a crossroads. some institutions confidently claim to be forging ahead and are energetically embracing these new possibilities while others are unsure. transformation of teaching and learning requires careful exploitation of technologies, a deep understanding of teaching and learning, and expertise in the content area being delivered. time will tell if we really are developing new approaches to teaching and learning or are in fact returning to models associated with past generations. in order to realise the potential of recent developments, garrison and archer (2007) are clear that new research and theory development is needed to “…explain, interpret, and shape the new forms of educational practice that have been made possible by highly interactive communications technologies” (p.77). without that research, both teachers and students might not be supported to realise the potential of computer-mediated distance education. yet we still need to draw from scholarship that provides foundations for distance education as a field of inquiry, recognises the field’s central underpinnings of access and equity, and highlights the importance of recognising individuals and working to individualise the distance learning experience. garrison (1989) and harasim (1989) produced work that informed these developments. other distance educators such as tait (1988), rumble (2000), and simpson (2000) drew attention to the need for student support. evans (1994) and gibson (1998) both undertook work that focused attention on the characteristics and needs of distance students. kramarae (2007) and kirkup and von prümmer (1990) highlighted issues of gender disparity. more recently, the intensified interest in pedagogy has been reflected in the work of anderson and dron (2011) who extended the generations framework by introducing the concept of generations of pedagogy. work such as this remains central to the field. anderson, m., simpson, b. 6 evans and nation (2007) say our current challenge is to resist what they see as a trend to “old industrial approaches to distance education re-jigged into online forms” (p. 653). they urge us to address the challenges of constructivism and move our still conventional institutions to seriously embrace online teaching and learning. to do this we contend that we need more than individual innovators, important as they are. it is rare to find institutional and programme-focused planning for new forms of open, flexible, and distance education that is coupled with real commitment to action, to enriched, excellent teaching and an interactive, personalised high quality experience for students. different types of institutions will face different challenges. small institutions may prove to be more agile than the mega-universities or the conventional conservative universities. both distance and face-to-face institutions will have to address recent developments, given the ubiquity of computer-mediated teaching environments. questions of size (boutique or megainstitutions), globalisation, and credentialling will be part of the discussion. the future will look different for different institutions, teachers, and students. those institutions which are capable of flexibility will move us forward, simultaneously drawing on and creating the heritage of distance education. we cannot be sure what that future will look like, but flexibility and an understanding of the successes and challenges of the past must help us plot a path to that future. heritage … and looking ahead we’ve provided a sense of the development and history of distance education and a glimpse of the possibilities and challenges ahead. what are the signposts that we see as the heritage on which we’ve drawn, and what will we attend to in future? social justice and equity distance education is grounded in commitment to social justice and equity. while most (but certainly not all) in our country may have access to education, that access was not gained without a significant contribution from our distance education institutions. we should never take access for granted. it is a right and a means to personal, community, and national development. there is a fine balance between cost of education and access to education. it is a balance which, if not carefully considered, can easily lead to inequity. globally, mega-universities have been an outcome of distance education that has supported the principle of education for all. those universities continue to be very important. many have enrolments in the hundreds of thousands. they continue the distance education tradition of providing access and using technology on a large scale. technology use and mediation distance education is always mediated by the use of technology. technology has enabled flexibility and interaction in delivery. we see that quite powerfully in the recent developments. however, technology by itself can blind us to the needs of students and the need for good pedagogy. technology becomes most potent when we can no longer see it. our challenge would seem to be twofold: selecting the best technologies for our pedagogical purposes from all the options, and making those technologies invisible. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(2) 7 interaction interaction amongst people is at the heart of distance education. we have learnt a lot about interaction, and we have seen how carefully planned interaction can enrich teaching and learning. we need to undertake much more research to identify the nature, extent, and balance of both learnerand teacher-initiated interaction that best creates excellence in distance education’s particular contexts. teamwork high quality distance education calls for effective teamwork. the challenges of distance education have ensured that good teachers have always given thought to creating richness and variety in materials and resources to enhance learning. course development teams have alerted us to the range of skills needed to develop quality materials and resources. we have learned to accept that specialist expertise is often needed, and have found design and production teams to have immense value. in new zealand we are just beginning to recognise the worth of instructional designers but the relationship between teachers and instructional designers needs strengthening, and both need to find ways to work closely while keeping quality teaching and learning as their prime focus. a systemic process distance education is a systemic enterprise. the care and attention that systems thinking has brought to distance education design, teaching, policy and research work has built the foundations of the field. we must continue to identify how all aspects of the distance education enterprise contribute to and build on one another. scholarship research and scholarship in distance education builds the field for the future. distance education has a history and a body of scholarly work that provides a foundation for the r/evolution that new forms of distance education are bringing about. there is now a range of journals linked to distance, open, and flexible education. it is surely a strength that teachers and researchers from all disciplines are using distance, open, and flexible delivery methods and are writing about their effect on practice and the experience of students. scholarship in distance education is almost exclusively linked to post-compulsory education, but distance education (with students from pre-school to adult) has played a significant role in the compulsory schooling sector. this role and contribution to compulsory schooling needs closer attention. scholarship provides the foundation for sensible and defensible decisions and the foundation for young scholars to build on. it is essential that we support a new generation of scholars to add to the work we already draw on. a focus on people distance education must focus on people. teaching and learning is a shared enterprise in which the roles of both teachers and students need to be understood and valued. ultimately, it is the combination of the human, the technological and the organisational that works. the mix, and attention to balance of those three elements, must remain at the forefront of our vision. anderson, m., simpson, b. 8 conclusion some people are reluctant to call themselves distance educators these days. perhaps the term carries a connotation of being dated or out-of-touch. yet, knowingly or unknowingly, people draw on distance education’s history and heritage. in this exploration of ideas from distance education’s history we have highlighted what we discern as heritage, and hope that we will provoke readers to do the same. we can see ‘distance–type approaches’ gaining more prominence as the boundaries between distance and on-campus continue to blur. it is now quite usual for teachers to incorporate online activities into their teaching as they become excited by the possibilities. enthusiasm and innovation is certainly needed and is to be encouraged. however, enthusiasm without understanding may lead to nothing being done particularly well. that would devalue the work of those who have striven to create a heritage for others. our, and your, challenge is to continue to build on that heritage, to critically evaluate technologies (in their broadest sense) and pedagogies, and carefully consider how they can contribute to quality distance teaching and learning. references anderson, t., & dron, j. 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(2001). fifth generation distance education. retrieved from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.113.3781&rep=rep1&type=pdf. wedermeyer, c. a., & najem, r. e. (1969). aim—from concept to reality: the articulated instructional media program at wisconsin. syracuse, n.y: syracuse university publications in continuing education. biographical notes mary simpson mary.simpson@otago.ac.nz mary simpson is the associate dean (teacher education), college of education, university of otago. bill anderson bill.anderson@otago.ac.nz bill anderson is the director, distance learning, university of otago. � this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. anderson, b., & simpson, m. (2012). history and heritage in open, flexible, and distance education. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 16(2), [1–10.]. http://www.c3l.uni-oldenburg.de/cde/support/readings/tait88.pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.113.3781&rep=rep1&type=pdf mailto:mary.simpson@otago.ac.nz mailto:bill.anderson@otago.ac.nz http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1) 5 through their eyes: student perspectives alexandra hartline, biogen sheri conklin, university of north carolina amy garret dikkers, university of north carolina abstract connecting with students has been shown to increase motivation, satisfaction, and perceived learning while decreasing anxiety. connecting with students in an online or distance education environment can prove difficult. this study examined perceptions of higher education students who were enrolled in various modalities (e.g., hybrid, online asynchronous, and synchronous) during the covid-19 pandemic in the united states of america. the study found that a high perception of instructor connectedness in the asynchronous classes resulted in lower anxiety levels for students. four themes emerged from the results: the importance of instructor empathy; sociability; feedback; and course organisation. these helped students to connect to their instructor—thus reducing anxiety. keywords: instructor connectedness; social presence; online course design; online course facilitation introduction online learning is an appealing educational option because of its flexibility and convenience, but before the covid-19 pandemic online programmes were typically for adult learners. however, the pandemic forced instructors at many brick-and-mortar institutions to pivot to remote learning for all students. educators quickly became immersed in teaching remotely—in hybrid, synchronous, or asynchronous modes. after initially focusing on how to transfer content from a face-to-face environment to an online one, many instructors shifted or added a focus to building community and connecting in the online classroom space. by connecting with students, instructors humanise their courses, and this allows them to engage and construct meaning (gustafson & gibbs, 2000). for almost 2 decades researchers have been trying to determine what students value in online learning, and how they connect with their instructors. previous research has found that students appreciate caring, responsive instructors who establish communication methods between themselves and their students (conklin & garrett dikkers, 2021; hodges & cowan, 2012; sheridan & kelly, 2010; wise et al., 2004; whiteside, 2015). the facilitation method of the online instructor is crucial for establishing teaching presence or connectedness (mandernach et al., 2006; wise et al., 2004). instructional practices that support instructor connectedness include posting regularly to discussion boards, posting timely responses to emails and assignments, and modelling good online communication and interaction (kassinger, 2004; martin et al., 2018; palloff & pratt, 2003; whiteside et al., 2017). additionally, timely responses to questions, feedback on assignments, and video introductions have been deemed important to students, (martin et al., 2018; whiteside et al., 2017). many hartline, a., conklin, s., garret dikkers, a. 6 researchers have tried to define instructor connectedness and to understand how to connect with students; a few researchers have attempted to define instructor social presence from the students’ perspectives (sheridan & kelly, 2010). overall, there are a myriad of methods for connecting with students. our study focuses on providing the student perspective on how increased instructor connectedness is attributed to lower anxiety, and several methods used by instructors to connect with students. this study provides a voice to higher education students taking courses in multiple disciplines. facets of instructor connectedness there are several factors to be considered in a definition of instructor connectedness, including instructor-created materials, communication, and feedback. additionally, we consider outcomes of instructor connectedness such as student affect and motivation. student anxiety in the online classroom students may experience anxiety when faced with a distance education course, especially if they are unfamiliar with the online learning environment. bolliger et al. (2012) found that learner anxiety related to computers, the internet, and online learning in general. learners who had lower levels of technological anxiety felt higher degrees of satisfaction with the course. first-year and full-time students are more likely to be anxious when beginning an online course (abdous, 2019). since 2020, student anxiety has reached even higher levels in the face of the ongoing covid-19 pandemic and the transition to online instruction. wang et al. (2020) reported significant levels of stress among students, who noted particular concerns regarding their academic progress and future plans, academic performance, and ability to adapt to online learning. instructor connectedness within the range of student–instructor relationships, instructor connectedness and its effects on student outcomes have garnered particular research interest. many researchers have focused on connectedness or presence in asynchronous online courses. mehrabian (1968) describes closeness, or immediacy, as “the extent to which communication behaviors enhance closeness to and nonverbal interaction with another” (p. 203). gallien and ooman-early (2008) characterise connectedness as “a person’s sense of belonging or presence, feelings of support, and level of communication/interaction with the instructor” (p. 468), whereas d’alba (2014) defines connectedness as “perceived closeness between the student and instructor as well as the instructor and the student” (p. 8). overall, many definitions include perceived closeness, but gallien and ooman-early (2008) augment this definition by adding the emotional aspect of connectedness. the sense of connectedness to instructors has been linked to positive effects such as increased satisfaction and motivation. students who had informal interactions with faculty members (such as when faculty showed empathic concern for the student’s cognitive and emotional development) noted increased satisfaction with the education programme and intellectual outcomes (endo & harpel, 1982). these findings were corroborated in kim and lundberg’s (2015) study which showed the positive effect of student–faculty interactions on cognitive skill development. students also displayed higher degrees of motivation through their connections with faculty members, especially if faculty members demonstrated interest in students’ personal growth and career goals. learners who experienced high quality and frequent contact with faculty members in non-classroom contexts showed statistically significant increases in academic motivation (trolian et al., 2016). the students’ perception of being respected by their instructors is an important dimension of faculty–student interactions. students who feel respected by faculty journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1) 7 link this respect to increased motivation and self-confidence, while students who feel disconnected from their instructors reported a lack of motivation (komarraju et al., 2010). although much research has been conducted on instructor connectedness in the face-to-face environment, creating a solid connection between the instructor and student can prove more challenging in the online environment (martin et al., 2018). strategies to develop student connections consist of materials/videos created by the instructor (martin et al., 2018) and providing intentional and timely feedback that responds to students’ needs (sheridan & kelly, 2010). instructor-created course materials for connectedness using instructor-created course content has a beneficial effect on student and instructor interactions in the online classroom. instructor-generated course materials such as video introductions, course orientations, and instructional content have been found to foster instructor connectedness (conklin & garrett dikkers, 2021; martin et al., 2018). materials such as video introductions improve student perceptions of instructors as human. jones et al. (2008) demonstrated how instructor-created video introductions help to create positive relationships between instructors and students early in a course, and humanise the instructor in distance education courses. course orientations serve the essential function of situating students within the learning requirements and activities, and favourably influence student perceptions of the course. bozarth et al. (2004) reported that course orientations reinforced the time commitment and time management capabilities required for distance learning. course orientation is also linked to positive student feelings (ko & rossen, 2017). in addition to introductions and course orientations, instructor-created materials in the form of video content positively affect online students’ course experiences. students valued instructional videos generated by instructors (conklin & garrett dikkers, 2021; griffiths & graham, 2009; rose, 2009). they reported that videos made them feel they were in the room with the instructor, thus creating a connection. studies have found a positive correlation between instructor-created videos and student engagement in class discussions, overall course satisfaction, and student perception of value in instructor-made content through this connection. finally, asynchronous video communication engenders a feeling of interconnection in students (conklin & garrett dikkers, 2021; borup et al., 2012). significance of instructor communication a range of communication behaviour and methods have been shown to nurture instructor connectedness. regular announcements, particularly weekly, function as a form of student support by welcoming students to the coming week or unit, reminding them of imminent course assignments and other due dates, and demonstrating instructor involvement and encouragement. the implementation and use of regular announcements have contributed to students’ time management skills (kelly, 2014; ko & rossen, 2017). students appreciate timely instructor responses to email and other forms of communication. multiple studies have found that students rate timely instructor responsiveness very highly, especially if a response is received within 24 hours (conklin & garrett dikkers, 2021; miller, 2012; sheridan & kelly, 2010). martin et al. (2018) corroborated this research in their study of facilitation strategies and reported that students’ timely instructor responses were among the most highly rated strategies. providing multiple methods of communication also contributes to students’ perception of instructor connectedness in the online classroom. the option to connect with the instructor via a range of modalities ultimately facilitates cooperation, information exchange, and easy hartline, a., conklin, s., garret dikkers, a. 8 correspondence between the students and instructor (whiteside et al., 2017). conklin & garrett dikkers (2021) found that students valued connecting with their instructors through email and weekly announcements as well as synchronous meetings. their findings support existing literature on the importance of instructor availability through several modalities such as email, chat, discussion forums, phone, and face-to-face or synchronous meetings (martin et al., 2018; sheridan & kelly, 2010). power of instructor feedback for connection instructor feedback on assignments is an essential component of the student experience and provides numerous benefits to students and student perceptions of their instructors, especially if the feedback is personalised rather than collective. personalised feedback contributes to positive student performance, course satisfaction, and learner satisfaction with the feedback itself (gallien & ooman-early, 2008). early and frequent feedback positively affects student performance and retention while also creating a connection with the instructor (whiteside et al., 2017). prompt and constructive feedback not only generates a bond with the instructor—it can also reduce learner anxiety, isolation, and lack of engagement online (abdous, 2019). types of feedback— such as constructive, detailed, and descriptive feedback—provide beneficial contributions to learners and their perceptions of distance education courses and instructors. students desire constructive but positive feedback, which improves student satisfaction and their perception of improved progress (conklin & garrett dikkers, 2021; hosler & arend, 2012; shea et al., 2006). instructors’ feedback on student reflections has also been found to contribute to a sense of connectedness. journal entries and reflections facilitate communication on sensitive and personal topics and create a dialogue channel in a low-risk and non-threatening environment (black et al., 2000; martin et al., 2018). although feedback can be delivered in a range of modalities (e.g., text-based, video), research has shown that constructive, positive, and timely feedback promotes instructor connectedness because the learners perceive their instructors to be caring (conklin & garrett dikkers, 2021; borup et al., 2014; ice et al., 2007). instructor connectedness and student affect community of inquiry (coi) is a theoretical framework that is used to achieve higher-order critical thinking skills and to create a community of students and teachers in computer-mediated distance learning environments (garrison & arbaugh, 2007). the coi serves as a theoretical communication and interaction framework to support the learning process. its focus is on facilitating critical reflection on the part of the student, and critical discourse among teachers and student peers (garrison et al., 2000). community of inquiry is grounded in specific philosophical and epistemological assumptions and learning theories, and it aims to encourage higher-order cognitive processing in a collaborative/constructivist environment (garrison, 2011). there are three essential elements to coi: social, cognitive, and teaching presence (garrison et al., 2000). when designed in balance, these three elements create a collaborative environment comprising a community of learners (akyol & garrison, 2008). the increase in blended and online learning as options for students and instructors has been accompanied by a growth in research seeking to understand the intersection of emotion and technology and the resulting effect on student learning and motivation. seminal work on social presence (rourke et al., 2001; swan, 2002; swan & shih, 2005) outlined a social-presence coding scheme that specifically addressed the affective domain of learning, by detailing indicators of personal expressions of emotion, feelings, beliefs, and values. social-presence research and, specifically, research relating to instructors’ social presence, has continued to focus on the potential connection between the student–instructor relationship and student affect. it has been noted that positive instructor ratings and sirs (student–instructor relationship scale) led to higher student motivation (davis, 2003). positive ratings are also attributed to students’ journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1) 9 ability to master a task and take on instructor values (davis, 2003; frisby & martin, 2010). yong (2019) was able to confirm that when students perceived better relationships with their instructor, they reported higher affective learning as measured by motivation, task value, and self-efficacy. higher levels of student anxiety led to test anxiety, which indicates that students do not have a “secure base” for their learning tasks (yong, 2019, p. 162). although large lecture classes can reduce instructor connectedness, most studies have been at private universities where the expectations of students may be higher (gannaway et al., 2018; naidu & derani, 2016; yong, 2019). therefore, it is important to look at the student profile to generalise the results. creasey et al. (2009) developed a 36-item sirs-9 scale and researched relationship dimensions in face-to-face classroom settings. their survey of 94 students documented two relationship dimensions (instructor connectedness; instructor anxiety) via factor analysis and found correlations between these dimensions and learner achievement orientations. their research shows learners who felt more connected to their instructors experienced less anxiety than their peers, while learners who felt disconnected or threatened by their instructor experienced more stress. although this instrument was developed in a face-to-face setting, it has been applied in the online environment (e.g., lammers & gillaspy, 2013) and was validated in online courses. the current study makes several contributions to the literature. first, it supplies insight into instructor-to-student connectedness and student anxiety in multiple teaching modalities through quantitative and qualitative data. moreover, it reaffirms existing research on facilitation strategies that promote instructor connectedness and presents data that determine why some students connect with their instructors. it also augments the growing literature on instructor connectedness in higher education and provides a valid survey instrument that features survey items directly tied to the instructor connectedness and instructor anxiety relationship dimensions (hsu & goldsmith, 2021; martin et al., 2018, 2020). three main research questions guided the current study. 1. what aspects of instructor social presence do students respond to most? 2. what helps students connect to and trust their instructors? 3. do students feel less anxiety when there is a perceived connectedness with the instructor? method data discussed in this manuscript is from a mixed-methods study for which qualitative and quantitative data were collected concurrently. the overall purpose of the study was to understand student–instructor connectedness from the students’ perspectives, and the methods instructors used to connect with their students. in fall 2020, we conducted surveys with students and interviews with instructors. the focus of this manuscript is on the data collected from the fall 2020 student survey. the instrument was adapted from creasey et al.’s (2009) 36-item studentinstructor relationship scale (sirs-9) to conduct further research on student–instructor relationship connectedness and anxiety. the sirs-9 has good internal consistency with a cronbach alpha coefficient of .98. because the survey focuses on the outcomes (e.g., instructor connectedness and student anxiety), three open-ended questions were added at the end of the survey to ascertain how and why the students felt connected to their instructor. participants the regional public institution in the mid-south of the united states serves approximately 18,000 students. the week after an extended spring break in march 2020, all instruction shifted to remote delivery. the fall semester 2020 remained primarily remote, with 61% online, 25% hybrid, and 14% modified face-to-face delivery with social distancing and mask requirements. hartline, a., conklin, s., garret dikkers, a. 10 eleven instructors, teaching 22 courses, participated in the study. the instructors were determined from a previous study in spring 2020 in which students identified these instructors as employing successful strategies during covid-19 remote learning (conklin & garrett dikkers, 2021). a cross-section of instructors was selected across the primary academic colleges at the institution: business, education, arts and sciences, and health and human services. researchers contacted participants via their online course instructors after gaining permission from the instructors. the survey had a 12.8% response rate (n = 84; 13 men, 67 women, 2 non-binary, 2 prefer not to say). the instructors were using a variety of modalities (e.g., asynchronous, synchronous, faceto-face with synchronous) because the instruction occurred during the covid-19 pandemic (see table 1). most participants were undergraduates (96.4%), and 87% were in the age range of 18–24. table 1 select the modality of the course you are taking with the identified instructor frequency percent valid online – asynchronous 33 39.3 online – synchronous 29 34.5 face to face with zoom (remote) 22 26.2 total 84 100.0 instrument the survey instrument was adopted from creasey et al. (2009) to assess the student-to-instructor relationships. this 36-item sirs-9 was developed to tap into student–instructor relationship connectedness and anxiety. the students rated each item on a likert scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). eleven items related directly to instructor connectedness and eight items related to anxiety. three open-ended questions were added to the survey to gain insight into student perspectives. students were asked what the instructor did to make them feel connected or trust them, what they responded to in a course, and for additional information they would like to share. data analysis techniques included descriptive statistics for closed items on the survey as well as non-parametric analyses (e.g., kruskal-wallis, mann-whitney u) to determine if there was a significant difference between modalities and gender. established and emergent coding of qualitative responses from the survey’s open-ended questions was also used. established codes were based on conklin & garrett dikkers’ (2021) codebook, specifically focusing on communication, empathy, and course organisation. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1) 11 results in the following section, the quantitative and qualitative data analysis is presented with a discussion of the key findings. quantitative data descriptive statistics and non-parametric analysis were used to analyse the quantitative data. non-parametric analyses were conducted due to the low sample size. table 2 shows the comparison of means between class modalities. the connectedness mean between each group remained high while the anxiety of each group remained low. table 2 comparison on means between class modality connectedness anxiety online — asynchronous mean 3.7410 1.7852 n 33 32 std. deviation .97254 .86849 online — synchronous mean 3.6698 2.2037 n 28 27 std. deviation 1.00282 1.21050 face-to-face with zoom (remote) mean 3.3938 2.3125 n 22 22 std. deviation 1.06976 1.16481 additionally, a mann-whitney u test revealed no significant difference in the anxiety of males (n = 33) and females (n = 66), u = 307, z = -1.49, p = .135, r = x. the test also revealed no significant difference in the connectedness of males (n = 33) and females (n = 66), u = 379, z = -.655, p = .512, r =x. additional analysis was done by course modality specifically focusing on the online sections. a kruskal-wallis test revealed no significant difference in the anxiety of the three modalities (asynchronous, n = 33; synchronous, n = 66; and face to face with zoom, n = 22), h (2), = 3.37, p = .185. the analysis also revealed no significant difference in the connectedness of the modalities, h (2), = 1.19, p = .552. qualitative data four main themes emerged from the qualitative coding of open-ended responses: empathy, course organisation, feedback, and instructor personality. students were asked to explain what instructors do to gain their trust or allow the student to feel connected to the instructor. hartline, a., conklin, s., garret dikkers, a. 12 empathic facilitation overall, there were 35 references to empathic facilitation, with seven in the asynchronous class, eight in the face-to-face class with the synchronous component, and 20 in the synchronous courses. students alluded to instructors who went “above and beyond” and were “willing to take thought and feeling into consideration”. one student stated: instructor empathy is something i desire more now online knowing how stressful this has been on me and my friends and probably the same way with the faculty. instructors who are willing to work with you make me feel more valued as a student and a person especially in the online environment. another student wrote: my instructor’s good intentions are what made me trust him and feel a sense of connection. he went above and beyond what falls under his job description. . . students frequently used descriptive words and phrases such as “empathic”, “caring”, “good intentions”, “showed concern”, and “compassion”. instructors could convey empathy through multiple channels such as synchronous technologies (e.g., zoom), email, announcements, and asynchronous videos. course organisation students mentioned course organisation 15 times in the open-ended responses. although this organisation usually occurs before the class starts, it can convey that an instructor cares about their teaching and, therefore, about student learning. students mentioned being able to find content and assignments easily, and to work efficiently. for example, one student stated: “organization helps keep everyone less stressed, more level-headed, and on task.” another student said: “she really made it simple and laid out to understand the course material”, and another referred to course organisation and learning styles: the way she has structured the course has really shown me that she is trustworthy and willing to be flexible in any situation. what stuck out to me was for our lab they offered different things for different learning styles. feedback students discussed instructor feedback 13 times in response to the three open-ended questions. several students expressed the importance of quality instructor feedback to their learning. one student wrote: “in an asynchronous online course, quality feedback for your work that you do fully on your own is an important aspect to me.” another student described the components of quality instructor feedback and emphasised the significance of both positive and negative feedback. they observed: this instructor is very open and easy to talk to. during [course name] a lot of feedback is given, she gives amazing feedback about positives/what went well and negatives/what could have been done better, yet always ending with a positive note. she allows everyone to gain more to be successful in class and beyond the classroom. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1) 13 moreover, students indicated that quality feedback contributes to connection in the online classroom. one student declared, “i think an instructor who gives you feedback is important in building a connection in an online course.” instructors’ approach students referred to instructors as being approachable, friendly, and welcoming. for instance, one student stated: although i never met my instructor face to face, she was very welcoming and [responded to] to the needs of her students. her online lectures are not required because she records them, but i felt that going to [synchronous] class and being able to ask questions was very beneficial. she was always open to helping us in any way we needed so that we could better understand the material. many students stated the use of humour assisted with connecting with their instructor. students made comments such as: • she is very friendly and always wants us to talk to her. • . . . having a casual conversation with them. • she was funny and laid back. one student referred to instructor-created videos: i do not know dr. [instructor], nor have i met her in person, but her videos are relatable. she’s funny, gives great examples, and if i had the time to go to some of her reviews i feel i could ask her any question about the course and she’d answer. i love that she talks at a good pace, like she’s not a fast talker so you can write down what she says without having to rewind the video over and over. discussion this study has implications for instructors and instructional designers. the results recommend connecting with students through multiple tools; having a clear, organised course; providing positive yet constructive feedback; and approaching students with humour or a conversational tone. this study did not focus on online course design (e.g., organisation); but students highly valued the time and energy instructors took to provide a clear, organised course. the instructors in the current study were identified as being successful in keeping students connected to the course content, their peers and their instructor at the beginning of the pandemic in spring 2020. students in all of the course modalities (asynchronous, synchronous, and face to face with remote components) reported high levels of connectedness and low levels of anxiety. our results corroborate the study from creasey et al. (2009), stating that if instructor connectedness is high, students will have low anxiety. this finding supports the idea that community can be built in multiple online learning modalities through a number of strategies. in fact, the asynchronous group had the highest connectedness score and the lowest anxiety score, which supports recent research by martin et al. (2020), showcasing the power of connectedness in asynchronous learning. students commented on instructor empathy. they mentioned the tools used (e.g., announcement, email, video) to convey the message, but the focus of their comments related to the message, not the tool. students valued instructors who demonstrated care about their wellbeing. these messages can be conveyed via asynchronous video, student–instructor meetings, email, announcements, and so on. demonstrating care for the student as an individual, and for their learning, has been widely supported through the literature on instructor social presence (conklin hartline, a., conklin, s., garret dikkers, a. 14 & garrett dikkers, 2021; sheridan & kelly, 2010; whiteside, 2015; whiteside et al., 2017). the results of this study and previous research support using multiple modalities to communicate with students in a timely fashion, while conveying an empathic message which resonates with students (martin et al., 2018). students placed a high value on course organisation as a means of connecting with their instructor. they conveyed that the course organisation allowed them to focus on the content, thus lowering their anxiety. clear, organised course design facilitates the student learning process by allowing students to focus on the content rather than determining what is due and when it is due (conklin & garrett dikkers, 2021). finally, students mentioned the instructor’s approach, which includes humour and/or a conversational tone to project their personality. both of these aspects of instructor style can be employed through text, audio, or video. other studies have found that using a conversational tone improves the learning experience and increases student motivation, demonstrating the importance of the affective area of teaching and learning (conklin & garrett dikkers, 2021; swan, 2002; whiteside, 2015; whiteside et al., 2017). humour and conversational tone have been noted to increase instructor connectedness and increase student motivation (d’alba, 2014). limitations and future research there were limitations to this study. first, because the study was conducted during the covid19 pandemic, many instructors’ and students’ situations were not typical. instructors were teaching under a range of circumstances, and many were teaching in a blended or fully online environment for the first time. additionally, although the survey questions were designed to address instructor connectedness, students might not have knowledge that is relevant to instructor connectedness to provide appropriate answers to open-ended questions about teaching. however, we were explicitly seeking to understand students’ perceptions. finally, this survey was deployed specifically to courses taught by instructors who had been identified by students as being successful in shifting their classes to remote learning at the beginning of the pandemic. the researchers are now conducting a sequential exploratory mixed-methods approach (creswell, 2009) to further determine student perceptions on instructor connectedness and the effect of satisfaction and perceived learning. the researchers will deploy the survey used in this study with a larger population of students at the institution who have had a range of instructors, not just those identified as being successful during the pandemic. furthermore, those instructors who are identified as being successful will be interviewed to determine the practices they employed during remote teaching to ensure a successful class, and how remote teaching will affect their future teaching practices. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1) 15 references abdous, m. h. 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(2019, july). impact of student–instructor relationships on affective learning and test anxiety perceptions. in proceedings of the 2019 3rd international conference on education and multimedia technology (pp. 160–164). https://doi.org/10.1145/3345120.3345133 biographical notes alexandra hartline alexandrahartline@gmail.com alexandra hartline is a senior learning consultant at biogen. she holds an m.s. in instructional technology from the university of north carolina wilmington and an m.a. in bilingual and multicultural education from the universidad de alcalá de henares. her research interests include instructor connectedness, culturally situated learning, and metacognition. sheri conklin conklins@uncw.edu dr. sheri conklin is an assistant professor at the university of north carolina wilmington. prior to moving into this role, she worked as the director of elearning with a team of instructional designers. her research interests include online course design, instructor social presence, and faculty professional development. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1463631022000005016 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1463631022000005016 http://doi.org/10.1080/1463631022000005016 http://doi.org/10.24059/olj.v9i3.1788 http://dx.doi.org/10.24059/olj.v19i2.453 http://dx.doi.org/10.24059/olj.v19i2.453 http://dx.doi.org/10.2190/v0lb-1m37-rnr8-y2u1 http://dx.doi.org/10.2190/v0lb-1m37-rnr8-y2u1 https://doi.org/10.1145/3345120.3345133 mailto:ath9131@uncw.edu mailto:conklins@uncw.edu journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1) 19 amy garret dikkers garrettdikkersa@uncw.edu dr. amy garrett dikkers is an associate professor in educational leadership at the university of north carolina wilmington. her research is focused on teacher development and innovation in education (specifically online and blended learning). this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. hartline, a., conklin, s., garret dikkers, a. (2022). through their eyes: student perspectives. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1), [5–19.]. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(2) 41 playing catch-up: investigating public and institutional policies for oer practices in australia carina bossu, university of new england mark brown, massey university david bull, university of southern queensland abstract this article explores some of the most well-known open educational resource (oer) initiatives worldwide and then reports on oer developments in australia. it also discusses a current research project funded by the australian learning and teaching council (altc), including its design and methods of data collection and analysis. although the study reported here is ongoing, a survey of the tertiary sector to establish the current ‗state of play‘ of oers in australia has been completed. the authors examine a preliminary analysis that focuses mostly on oer policies at governmental and institutional levels. the analysis shows that the oer movement remains relatively immature in australia. also, according to the survey‘s participants, the government and educational institutions need to give much greater consideration to a regulatory framework in which the use of oer and open educational practices (oep) can be fostered and encouraged. isolated oer activities exist, but there appears to be a great deal of catching up required if australia is to have coordinated initiatives to foster innovation and a culture of more oeps. keywords: open educational practices; oer; open educational resources; oep; educational policies; research in oep introduction to date, many universities around the globe have launched open educational resource (oer) projects. wiley and gurrell (2009) claim that millions of learners have benefited from learning through oer materials, and many educational institutions, mostly distance education providers, have obtained significant rewards in terms of enhancing their reputations, increasing student enrolment, and developing innovative ways to produce distance learning materials. the movement supporting oers and, more recently, open educational practices (oeps), continues to gain momentum at a substantial rate. the rapid global expansion in the availability of quality oers and the development and trialling of a range of oeps is set to change the future landscape of higher education. new conceptions of delivery, curriculum development, pedagogy, and sustainable business will soon begin to challenge institutions to quickly consider the implications or run the risk of losing competitive advantage. the philosophy behind the oer movement is ―that of making educational materials a common or public good from which all, in theory, can benefit, but most especially those who receive the least benefit from current systems of educational provision, whether publicly or privately funded‖ (lane, 2008, p. 149). bossu, c., brown, m., & bull, d. 42 in australia, it appears that the use and adoption of oers to their full potential is still at the early stages. to some extent, this is understandable because the notion of free access to institutional curriculum and pedagogy runs counter to contemporary forms of university delivery and ownership of the content of educational programmes. australia is still grappling with issues such as licensing, intellectual property, and copyright. compared with the united states, united kingdom, and new zealand, australia‘s adoption of oer is hampered by immature policy frameworks and a dearth of research. nevertheless, there have been important institutional initiatives and government policy moves towards opening up australia. this article starts with an overview of some of the most well-known oer initiatives in other parts of the world before reporting on oer developments in australia. then the authors discuss a current research project funded by the australian learning and teaching council (altc), which surveys the tertiary sector to help establish the current state of play of oers in australia (brown & bossu, 2011). although the study reported here is ongoing, our preliminary analysis confirms our assumption that the oer movement remains relatively immature in australia. isolated oer activities exist but there appears to be a great deal of catching up needed for the nation to have coordinated or state-wide initiatives to foster innovation and a culture of more oep. some oer initiatives worldwide stimulated by funding from benefactors such as the william and flora hewlett foundation and unesco, the oer movement has been growing rapidly since 2001, providing educational content freely to learners across the world through the internet. educational organisations such as massachusetts institute of technology‘s (mit) have perceived benefits, both for themselves and learners, in distributing their learning resources in this way. the mit opencourseware (ocw) initiative, which was set up in 2001, makes content available freely from most of mit‘s courses and has inspired many similar institutional projects. when the mit ocw site was officially launched in 2003, there were 500 courses available. wiley and gurrell (2009) report that by 2004 there were 900, and in 2007 the total reached 1800. visitor numbers were even more impressive. by 2007, mit‘s ocw site had received more than 40 million visits (wiley & gurrell, 2009). today, the site total has reached 110 million visits by 78 million visitors from around the world (mit ocw, 2011). equally significant was the speed with which the mit ocw site demonstrated its value to the institution. the 2009 program evaluation findings summary reported that 35% of new mit students had based their choice of institution, in whole or in part, on their exposure to the mit ocw site (mit ocw, 2009). it was also reported that ―92% of students, 87% of alumni and 78% of faculty who have used the site rate it as very or somewhat valuable‖ (mit ocw, 2009, p. 1). although mit has a degree of self-interest in publicising these statistics to justify the original funding, the ocw project provided a catalyst for other universities worldwide and led to the establishment of the opencourseware consortium (ocwc). the ocwc celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2011 with over 200 institutional members and affiliates worldwide (ocw, 2008). by the end of 2006 there were signs that the oer movement had reached maturity and alternatives to the mit model emerged in europe. one of these, openlearn, was launched by the united kingdom‘s open university (ou) in october 2006, and was intended to publish the widest possible selection of ou course materials. it was also intended to do much more; its explicit goal was to engage and support self-directed learners using the latest web 2.0 technologies (shuller, 2006). the site would not only host user-generated content (material created by individuals and organisations outside the higher education sector), it would also provide social networking tools to empower users to build their own learning communities (shuller, 2006). in the first 18 months the openlearn site had received 3 million unique visits, and 75,000 people had registered as users (mcandrew et al., 2009). by april 2008, over 4400 openlearn users had become ou students (gourley & lane, 2009). journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(2) 43 at the same time, and running in parallel to these institutional initiatives, there were developments such as wikipedia, wikiuniversity, and wikieducator, amongst other mediawiki platforms. wikieducator, launched in 2006, is a dedicated global community of scholars, teachers, and trainers who are committed to the collaborative authoring and development of oers (wiley & gurrell, 2009). using these platforms, educators from across the globe are working together to build free oers that can be used in a variety of learning environments. importantly, unlike many earlier initiatives that focused on free access, these oers can be recontextualised and repackaged outside the wikieducator development environment and according to learners‘ needs. one of the ambitious strategies of the wikieducator community is to develop a free version of the educational curriculum by 2015 (wikieducator: about, 2011). currently, wikieducator has over 20,000 registered users, indicating that wikieducator is growing faster than predicted by its community council. in mid-2011 wikieducator had a total of 102,852 pages (all pages in the wiki, including talk pages, redirects, etc.), 29,266 uploaded files, and 41,679,925 hits (wikieducator: statistics, 2011). while these initiatives form the foundation of the oer movement, many more projects targeting different audiences and their needs have emerged recently. one such example is flickr, a repository of ―openly licensed photographs, which may be useful in a variety of educational settings‖ (wiley & gurrell, 2009, p. 16), as well as in other contexts, and is totally different from a suite of online lessons with related resources on a specific topic. a good example of the latter is the teacher education in sub-saharan africa (tessa) programme, which has been developed to meet the needs of teacher training in sub-saharan africa. a consortium of 18 national and international organisations, including 13 institutions in sub-saharan africa, tessa is mainly funded by the allan and nesta ferguson charitable trust and the william and flora hewlett foundation (wolfenden, 2008). this initiative has produced an extensive database of learning resources available in five different languages, and aims to provide pre-service and in-service teacher training to the institutions involved (connolly, wilson, & wolfenden, 2007; wolfenden, 2008). the growing diversity of oer initiatives, coupled with better understanding of the limitations of open content without open practices, has given rise to an important shift in thinking in the field. an early example of this shift was the open educational quality initiative, an international network to support and promote open educational practices (oep) (opal, 2011a). the project concluded that oeps have the potential to lead to more open pedagogical practices and innovative cultures. in other words, a narrow focus on oers may not be enough for educational institutions to fundamentally embrace and establish effective open pedagogical practices. the open learning network (olnet) is an interesting example of an oep research initiative. olnet is a 3-year research project that brings ―…researchers and educators together in an intelligent social network to share knowledge on the development of open educational resources‖ (olnet, 2011). the aim is to gather evidence and methods about how we can research and understand ways to learn in a more open world. developments in open policies worldwide it is important to highlight that the examples of oer initiatives and projects mentioned above only scratch the surface of what is presently available. some of them reflect more than a decade of institutional and national investments and policies and guidelines developed by the institutions, countries, and funding bodies they originated from. as pointed out previously, some examples of these investments and developments have taken place in the united states, the united kingdom and, to some extent, new zealand. these countries, for instance, already have in place national government frameworks for open access and licensing, enabling access to government resources for re-using through creative commons licences, which have become the standard licences for oers. these governments appear to believe that opening up their resources bossu, c., brown, m., & bull, d. 44 and works for re-use will promote more open and transparent government. by their actions, they also seem to acknowledge the benefits of leveraging taxpayer-funded educational developments for the benefit of a much wider audience (kanwar, kodhandaraman, & umar, 2010). in addition, it is also believed that institutional-level oer and oep initiatives have higher chances of succeeding and expanding in countries where support is provided at the national level (carey, 2011). other national policy developments in the united states and the united kingdom have involved substantial funding to support open-access initiatives in the higher education sector, including community colleges (carey, 2011). these investments are mostly in the form of smalland largescale grants that are awarded to individual institutions upon submission of projects for developing oers, and thus encouraging the establishment of oeps (ehlers, 2011). the united kingdom, in particular, has invested in research that focuses on oep, and that ―constitute(s) the range of practices around the creation, use and management of open educational resources with the intent to improve quality and innovate education‖ (opal, 2011b, p. 4). these investments have resulted in a large number of resources and a growing collection of reports, journal articles, case studies, guidelines and frameworks for oer and oep (jisc, 2011). oer initiatives in australia in australia, the willingness to share educational resources started in the vocational education and training (vet), technical and further education (tafe), and the school sectors more than a decade ago (browne, 2009). one example is the aesharenet licensing system, which is a vet initiative. aesharenet is a search engine that ―connects people who are looking for learning materials with those who own them‖ (aesharenet, 2011). unfortunately, not all resources are free of charge or have open licences. another initiative from the vet sector is lorn, a repository of learning objects and online resources for teacher training available for download, use and re-purpose. lorn is an initiative established by the australian flexible learning framework, but due to budget cuts and (possibly) jurisdictional issues, it was decommissioned on 31st august 2011 (lorn, 2011). more recently, the australian higher education sector has also shown some interest in oers. macquarie university, with the macquarie e-learning centre of excellence (melcoe) in sydney was, for example, singled out for special mention in the 2007 oecd report on worldwide oer initiatives. the authors of the report noted that melcoe specialises in developing open-source software tools and open standards for e-learning (oecd, 2007). although melcoe has had some limited success in this area, macquarie university remains on the margins of the oer movement (suzor, 2006). the university of southern queensland (usq) seems to have a clearer oer strategy in place. the university remains the only australian member of the ocwc, which it joined in 2007 (ccclinic, 2008). at present, the usq ocw site offers sample courses from each of the institutions‘ five faculties, and courses from its tertiary preparation program. usq is currently developing a pilot project, called oer university, to offer several undergraduate courses in conjunction with other oer foundation members, (oeru, 2011). students will be supported through a network of academic volunteers from academic volunteers international, and will be offered formal assessment for a nominal (cost recovery) payment and credit transfer of these studies to a diploma or undergraduate award. also, queensland university of technology has developed australian jurisdiction-specific licences from the generic creative commons licences (fitzgerald, 2009). as mentioned previously, creative commons licences are the standard licences for oers, and developing different categories of licensing is a very important step toward the adoption of oers in australia. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(2) 45 another important player in the open access movement is itunes u, through which several australian universities have released teaching materials. however, most of the materials consist of podcasts that are available only to students and staff of the institution, and the content is subject to licensing agreements with apple computer inc. notably, individual universities (such as victoria university) have opted to release their itunes u podcasts into the public domain. that said, the basic assumption of many of these initiatives is that people will use the resources in their current state rather than reworking them and producing new oers that can, in turn, be shared and given back to the education community (wiley, 2009). this is a key point because, at a deeper level, the oer movement is predicated on the philosophical belief that online materials should be open for repurposing and reuse. open policies developments in australia some initiatives and policy developments at the government level have also taken place in australia. one of the most recent initiatives is the australian government‘s open access and licensing framework (ausgoal), which aims to provide ―support and guidance to government and related sectors to facilitate open access to publicly funded information‖ (ausgoal, 2011, para. 1). as with the initiatives in the united states, the united kingdom, and new zealand, ausgoal is aligned with numerous open government australian initiatives and initiatives worldwide. one could argue that ausgoal might have been introduced as a result of the success of open-access developments in other countries, and as an attempt to catch up with them. another initiative supported by the australian government is the australian national data service, a database that contains research resources from research institutions in australia. the service seeks ―to enable researchers to more easily publish, discover, access and use [and re-use] research data‖ (ands, 2011, para 1). also, in january in 2011 the australian government revised its guide to open source software for australian government agencies, which was first developed in 2005. the revised policy requires that government agencies first consider opensource software options when requesting tenders (gray, 2011). although the above australian government developments seem to be on par with a number of international developments, they focus overwhelmingly on government agencies rather than on educationally based policies. the standout exception was the establishment of the altc, which is a national funding body with a particular focus on developing a culture of sharing effective teaching and learning in higher education. use of creative commons licences is encouraged to publish resources that are developed and funded by altc. one successful example of this type of policy support for open access is the college of fine arts at the university of new south wales. their project, funded by altc in 2009, focused on the development of quality video and text resources to assist educators to teach online. the outcome of this project has produced a substantial range of digital training resources to enhance the quality of online pedagogy—these resources are freely disseminated under a creative commons licence (cofa, 2011). the closure of altc from the end of 2011 means the future of these efforts is uncertain. instead of moving forward to catch up with developments elsewhere, this closure represents a step backwards for innovation in teaching and learning in australian higher education. the management of remaining altc projects such as this one has been transferred to the department of education, employment and workplace relations (altc, 2011). unfortunately, experience so far suggests that the full potential of the use and adoption of oers and oeps are a long way off in australia‘s higher education sector. despite the important initiatives previously discussed, the lack of explicit educationally oriented government policies appear to be limiting and/or slowing down the process of oer adoption. to date there have been few policy levers or enablers to support universities and other tertiary providers from pursuing oer initiatives to better support current students, attract new ones, and compete against other australian and international institutions. the scenario above appears to demonstrate that bossu, c., brown, m., & bull, d. 46 australian higher education is missing an important opportunity to expand oer practices. research conducted by unesco has identified that the higher education sector is the lead stakeholder for the development of oers and, subsequently, oeps (d‘antoni, 2008). study in progress the limited number of oer and oep initiatives, and the lack of policies at institutional and government levels to support the open educational movement in australia, encouraged us, a group of academics and researchers across three institutions, to develop a project proposal to the australian learning and teaching council (altc). recognising the need for such a project for australian higher education institutions, the proposal was successfully funded and the $220,000 project is currently ending its first stage. the remainder of this paper discusses this research project, titled adoption, use and management of open educational resources to enhance teaching and learning in australia, and details various aspects of the project design, methods, and the current progress of the study. methods the project was designed in two stages. we are reaching the end of the first stage, which has involved a comprehensive literature review of the state of oers internationally and nationally, the collection of institutional and national educational policies and frameworks related to oers, and data collection (brown & bossu, 2011). one of the challenges in an area as dynamic as the oer movement was to develop a systematic, transparent, and replicable process for the literature review. it took several attempts and many fruitful discussions in research team meetings to finalise a trustworthy approach to conducting the review of the literature that suited the requirements of this project. a thorough approach to the literature review should allow others to assess the quality of the work done and enable future replication (ridley, 2008). the literature review consists of work that is no more than 10 years old. unless considered to be seminal works, preference was given to work published in the last 5 years. resources include peerreviewed journal articles (open and closed), books, conference papers, government websites, reports, and policies related to institutional copyright, intellectual property, and relevant resources associated with oers. at the time of writing, an annotated bibliography of 100 key references has been compiled, and is already proving to be a valuable resource for the team members to consult, interrogate, and add references to as we progress with the project. the search has focused on the international and national literature relating to a number of key themes identified through a pilot process. in addition, an online survey of australian higher education institutions was undertaken to ascertain the extent of development, use, and adoption of oers. the survey sought answers to a maximum of 33 questions. initial survey questions focused on establishing the extent of the respondents‘ knowledge and experience with oers and the extent of their institutions‘ current involvement in oer projects. later questions explored opinions relating to the benefits of, and barriers to, more widespread adoption of oers and the perceived need for both public and institutional policies to govern their development and management. the survey was followed by a series of interviews with oer stakeholders and practitioners. the interview instrument was based upon a similar framework to that of the survey but provided semi-structured questions for each topic, and probes for the interviewer to more extensively interrogate the responses of the interviewee. to protect the integrity of responses the participants in the survey and interview are under no obligation to identify themselves individually. the human research ethics committee of the university of new england approved both the survey and interview instruments. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(2) 47 data analysis has been an ongoing process. nvivo9, software that assists the management, storage, and analysis of qualitative data, has been used to support the researchers during the analysis phase of this study. digital files of recorded interviews, literature, policies, and the online survey have been stored in nvivo9. mixed methods were adopted as the main approach for data collection and analysis. thematic analysis has also been used to support and confirm themes and concepts identified in the literature, and those that emerged during data collection. thematic analysis has assisted the researchers to identify patterns and reduce and refine the data into themes to facilitate interpretation ―as an inductive inquiry‖ (boyatzis, 1998, p. 5). a preliminary data analysis summary report will be sent to the project‘s reference group to collect feedback and to build stronger rapport and trust. the reference group comprises four international and national experts in the field of oers, and will enable us to confirm data analysis. this process also builds on the validation and trustworthiness of the data, and adopts powerful instruments for community and team collaboration. in stage two of the project, the findings of stage one will provide the basis of a national symposium for gathering more information and collecting feedback across the higher education sector. the symposium is also a key dissemination point for this project. representatives from each australian university and other related government bodies will be encouraged to attend. the participants will provide feedback on the findings of the survey as well as discussing and sharing practices and experiences about oers. one of the project outcomes is to develop a feasibility protocol for conducting a feasibility study in the interested australian higher education institutions to consider how the adoption, management, and use of oers might help to enhance teaching and learning in australia. developing a feasibility protocol will avoid duplication and, we hope, save australian institutions resources and time. other project outcomes are: to expand understanding of the oer trend and effects for australia; to enhance institutional understanding of the issues, barriers, opportunities, and successes of oers; and to inform institutional and government policies and practices for oers within higher education in australia. survey findings and discussion in july 2011 the online survey was sent out to the mailing lists of several professional networks, particularly targeting australian higher education stakeholders, from senior executive managers to support service personnel and educators. to date, there have been 101 valid survey responses. this number is considered acceptable because the australian higher education sector is relatively small and the sample compares favourably with similar european studies research surveys conducted elsewhere around the world. the sample includes participants from 28 of the 39 universities in australia, and four other tertiary institutions also responded to the survey. the high participation rates across the sector meant that all australian states and territories were represented in this study. there is also balanced gender distribution amongst the respondents: 48% male and 51% female. the sample also has a good representation of university stakeholder groups, from senior executives (23 participants) to managers (13), educators (28), curriculum designers (14), professional developers (6), library professionals (4) and copyright officers (2). figure 1 depicts all groups of stakeholders that answered the survey. bossu, c., brown, m., & bull, d. 48 figure 1 stakeholders’ participation most respondents (41%) have been aware of the oer movement for 2 to 5 years, and rated their knowledge of oers as intermediate (51%). these are particularly high levels of awareness and oer knowledge considering that a substantial number of respondents are not aware of oers or do not know (36), or confirmed that oer practices and initiatives are not included in the current strategic plans of their educational institution (31). one possible explanation for this could be that there have been some small and isolated initiatives occurring within individual institutions. it is interesting to note that some respondents from the universities involved in this research named this project as the oer initiative that they were aware of in australia. one feature of this survey is particularly relevant to this paper: when asking participants about the level of intervention from federal policies they believe would be necessary to regulate the adoption of oer in australia, the majority agreed that there is an urgent need for public policies to promote access and availability of oers in the higher-education sector. they also believe that there is a call for specific public policies to regulate oers, and that these policies could encourage the growth, development, and institutional adoption of open educational resources and practices across the sector in australia (figure 2). it was discussed earlier in this paper that even though the efforts of some individual oer and oep initiatives have succeeded at the institutional level, the movement has expanded faster and more effectively in countries where support was provided at the national level (carey, 2011). particularly in australia, this support could come in the form of more flexible policies. for instance, the copyright law of australia declares, ―under australian law, where an employee is the author, the first owner of copyright is the employer‖. this means that all educational materials produced by teaching staff are owned by the institutions they work for (copyright law of australia, 2011, para 1). as in the united kingdom and the united states, the australian government should also support higher educational institutions through grants or financial awards to encourage the development of oer and a culture of open practices. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(2) 49 figure 2 oer policies at government levels survey respondents strongly considered that developing institutional policies is also an important factor in promoting the effective use and adoption of oers. as can be seen in figure 3, most participants reported that institutional policies should promote oer awareness and support issues that relate to intellectual property and quality assurance. for them, it is also important that institutions promote and recognise oer initiatives, and this could also occur through financial initiatives. at institutional levels, participants also suggested that there should be appropriate technological infrastructure and guidelines for the effective creation and use of oers. no respondents indicated that the above issues were either unimportant or very unimportant. figure 3 oer policies at institutional levels bossu, c., brown, m., & bull, d. 50 it is interesting to note that the survey responses seem congruent with the body of literature regarding oers and oeps. it is argued that the lack of incentives and support from institutions, and lack of awareness regarding copyright and intellectual property matters, create institutional challenges for the use and development of oers within mainstream higher education (atkins, brown, & hammond, 2007; oecd, 2007; wiley & gurrell, 2009). addressing these concerns requires institutional policy makers to commit themselves to a long-drawn-out process of consultation and review. such processes are frequently slow and do not always provide the most desirable outcomes. it is not surprising, therefore, that there are not many oer initiatives in australia; in fact, it is rather remarkable that there are actually so many worldwide. decisions regarding quality control, facilitation of web access for students with disabilities, and technical issues related to the choice of metadata format, standards, and software architectures, all add to institutional overheads when launching an oer project (oecd, 2007). survey respondents also identified the lack of institutional policies to address oer developments as a potential barrier to facilitate the growth of the oer movement, amongst other barriers. this was also true in studies undertaken in europe and other parts of the world (oecd, 2007; opal, 2011a). in fact, many have alerted institutional policy makers to the existing institutional barriers to the creation and adoption of oer, and that these barriers could be overcome through appropriate internal regulations and guidelines (atkins, et al., 2007; downes, 2007; kanwar et al., 2010; oecd, 2007; opal, 2011). that said, there is greater recognition in the literature that some of these barriers may be much deeper and require a cultural shift towards more oeps (ehlers, 2011). it is important to acknowledge that many of the respondents are likely to be inherently biased and predisposed towards the use of oers. although the survey was sent to professional bodies concerned with teaching and learning in higher education in australia and, as mentioned above, reached many stakeholders, we believe that the majority of the participants who responded to the survey had some level of understanding of oers. this problem needs to be noted when interpreting other major surveys in this area. having said that, we were surprised to find the extent of diversity in the definition or understanding of oers reported by participants. such diversity suggests that even amongst a sample of pro-oer stakeholders there is a lack of clarity of understanding of oers. this discovery underscores the potential value of this research project to educate and promote further understanding through its outcomes, and to help the sector to play catch-up, where appropriate, with the wider oer movement. conclusion and future directions although australia has seen some recent oer and public policy developments, these developments appear to be isolated and a long way from reaching the mainstream higher education landscape. in addition, public policies have focused on government agencies and research data and outputs. there appears to be lots of catching up to do in terms of educationally based policies at governmental and institutional levels to encourage the adoption of oers and oeps in australia. in fact, this gap has been identified by the first stage of this altc project as one of the barriers to the expansion of these movements. the need to increase and deepen the levels of understanding regarding oers and oeps, and the provision of institutional support for copyright and intellectual property issues, were also recognised by participants as potential challenges for oers and oeps in australia. government and educational institutions need to give much greater consideration to a regulatory framework in which use of oers and oeps can be fostered and encouraged. such a framework would no doubt benefit not only the australian public, but also the global community—both are urgently trying to address a huge and growing demand for higher education. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(2) 51 in the next steps of our project we will concentrate on the final analysis of the survey, interviews, and related policies, and to organise the national symposium, which is scheduled to take place around mid-2012. we anticipate that the outcomes of this research will raise awareness, across the australian higher education sector and beyond, about oer and oep trends and effects in education. it is also hoped that this research will provide resources to inform institutional and governmental policies and practices for oeps in australia, and to enable key stakeholders that make decisions through a deeper understanding and awareness of the barriers and opportunities of oers and, most importantly, oeps—thus catching up with developments already taking place around the world today. references aesharenet. 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(2011b). guidelines for open educational practices in organizations: (vs 2011). essen, germany: open educational quality initiative. ridley, d. (2008). the literature review: a step-by-step guide for students. london: sage. shuller, t. (2006). open university uk: open content initiative. oer site visit report. paris: oecd. suzor, n. (2006). macquarie university: a case study in the use and production of open education resources and open source software. paris: oecd ceri. wikieducator: about. (2011). in wikieducator. retrieved from http://wikieducator.org/wikieducator:about wikieducator: statistics. (2011). in wikieducator. retrieved from http://wikieducator.org/special:statistics wiley, d., & gurrell, s. (2009). a decade of development. open learning: the journal of open, distance and e-learning, 24(1), 11–21. wiley, d. (2009). dark matter, dark reuse, the irrational zeal of a believer. iterating toward openness. retrieved from http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/905 wolfenden, f. (2008). the tessa oer experience: building sustainable models of production and user implementation. journal of interactive media in education, (1). retrieved from http://jime.open.ac.uk/article/2008-3/331 biographical notes carina bossu cbossu3@une.edu.au carina bossu is a research fellow with dehub at the university of new england, australia. her areas of interest and research expertise are distance education, higher education, open educational resources, educational policies and academic staff development. carina has also taught at higher educational, vocational and tafe levels. mark brown m.e.brown@massey.ac.nz mark brown is director, teaching, learning and distance education at massey university, new zealand. he has specific responsibility for policy and strategic direction in the areas of blended and distance education. mark has interest in education across all sectors and supervises postgraduate research from early childhood to higher education. david bull david.bull@usq.edu.au david bull is currently the director of the open access college at the university of southern queensland. his research interests are primarily related to equity and access policy in higher education and preparatory programme curriculum development. he regularly works with a substantial network of colleagues aligned with the widening participation agenda throughout europe. http://wikieducator.org/wikieducator:about http://wikieducator.org/special:statistics http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/905 http://jime.open.ac.uk/article/2008-3/331 file:///c:/users/kate/documents/kate%20@%20work/jnl%20of%20flexible%20&%20distlearning/jofdl-vol15-no02-2011/finals/cbossu3@une.edu.au file:///c:/users/kate/documents/kate%20@%20work/jnl%20of%20flexible%20&%20distlearning/jofdl-vol15-no02-2011/finals/m.e.brown@massey.ac.nz file:///c:/users/kate/documents/kate%20@%20work/jnl%20of%20flexible%20&%20distlearning/jofdl-vol15-no02-2011/finals/david.bull@usq.edu.au bossu, c., brown, m., & bull, d. 54 � this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. bossu, c., brown, m., & bull, d. (2011). playing catch-up: investigating public and institutional policies for oer practices in australia. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 15(2), [41–54]. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ microsoft word 07final_reviews.doc journal of distance learning, vol 11, no 1, 2007 © distance education association of new zealand 1 reviews ken stevens memorial university of newfoundland newfoundland, canada holmes, b., & gardner, j. (2006). e-learning concepts and practice. london: sage publications (pp. xiii, 186). this slim volume contains a considerable amount of information about the fastchanging and ever-expanding field of e-learning. holmes and gardner have assembled a wide-ranging book that has value on two levels. it is an up-to-date overview of e-learning for those who are new to the field with definitions and explanations of what, for many people, will be unfamiliar terms, and it is comprehensive in its coverage so that it provides an overview of the current state of the field. with the globalization of commerce and the expansion of knowledge on the internet, there is an increasing need for workers in the public and private sectors to be familiar with information and communication technologies. it is probably impossible to write a book today that covers all aspects of the fastchanging field of e-learning, but holmes and gardner provide a good starting point. the volume is aptly titled. the authors provide an explanation of current concepts in e-learning as well as about contemporary practice, particularly in educational settings. it is acknowledged the printed page is not an ideal medium through which to consider e-learning, so throughout the book there are references to web sites and suggestions for online activities. e-learning concepts and practice outlines new terms such as communal constructivism and communal yottaspace that are becoming increasingly central to the language of teaching and learning. to use this book effectively, it will be necessary to read it alongside an internetlinked computer, to be able to move from the printed page to cyberspace and back again. as a reference to the terminology of the field, e-learning concepts and practice will be useful. aspects of e-learning such as its relevance for seniors, learners with special needs, and for lifelong learners are all covered in this surprisingly comprehensive survey of the field. there are also considerations of gender and cultural identity issues. terms that occur frequently in the world of e-learning —modelling, scaffolding, fading, blended learning, online simulations—are all explained. however, it is the concept of communal constructivism that deserves particular attention as this is central to e-learning in schools and tertiary educational institutions. the authors outline several underpinning theories including behaviourism, cognitivism, and socio-constructivism together with the contributions of bruner, piaget, and vygotsky, and there is a section on instructional design in the following chapter that covers the relationship between pedagogy and design in elearning. from this, holmes and gardner define communal constructivism as: journal of distance learning, vol 11, no 1, 2007 © distance education association of new zealand 2 … an approach to learning in which students construct their own knowledge as a result of their experiences and interactions with others, and are afforded the opportunity to contribute this knowledge to a communal knowledge base for the benefit of existing and new learners. (p. 85) in communal constructivism, each member of the community learns with and from others as well as contributing resources to the learning community. the emphasis that is given to this concept is most welcome. the key feature of computers and, for that matter, e-learning in classrooms, is the provision of enhanced communication and, with it, the creation of environments within which new understandings can be fostered and developed. holmes and gardner make strong links between technology and pedagogy and, thereby, provide insights for teachers and learners of a new paradigm. they use the analogy of a river and a pipe to explain this: in the traditional learning model students pass through a learning programme like water flowing through a pipe, with the tutors simply determining a goal, giving its direction and applying the pressure to get there. once through such a course, there is no trace of them having been on it. just as a pipe cannot be enriched by water traveling through it, the course remains unaffected by the learning of the students and by the tutors learning from the students. with little or no year-on-year transfer of knowledge between one set of students and the next, there is little prospect of the course itself becoming a dynamic, learning artifact. (p. 86) in a communal, constructivist learning environment, however, students contribute to the development of knowledge in a permanent form. in contributing to an e-learning course, students … [leave] their own imprint on the course, their school or their university, and possibly the discipline—like a river enriching its flood plain each year by adding nutrients and minerals to the soils. the students’ learning processes and outputs are captured and harnessed, the course is dynamic and self-generative and builds on new knowledge rather than simply repeating its original content. (p. 87) this, in a nutshell, is the difference between traditional learning and elearning. the analogy of the river and pipe provides a rationale for considering e-learning in classrooms. traditional learning and e-learning are different and contemplation of the river and pipe analogy provides a good way to begin the process of changing paradigms. the e-learning paradigm, if adopted, will change teaching, change learning, and change the relationship between teaching and learning. as well as changing the relationship between teachers and learners, e-learning challenges the notion of schools. the future of e-learning, the authors believe, is about convergence denoted by the equation e + m = u (or e-learning plus mobile computing = ubiquitous learning). holmes and gardner have made a timely contribution to the field of education with a succinct, well-written overview of the relationship between technology and journal of distance learning, vol 11, no 1, 2007 © distance education association of new zealand 3 pedagogy exemplified in e-learning. the real value of this book, however, lies in providing, through the multiple dimensions of e-learning that are outlined, a basis for a collaborative, constructivist paradigm and a new relationship between teachers, learners, and the organization and delivery of education. paechter, c., edwards, r., harrison, r., & twining, p. (eds.) (2001). learning, space, and identity. london: paul chapman publishing, in association with the open university (pp. vi, 186). the focus of this book is in the title: the central relationship between learning, space, and identity. the editors and contributors draw attention in a variety of contexts—some of them autobiographical—to the physical, mental, and emotional experience of learning in particular spaces and situations. a message that comes through clearly in this volume of essays is that, through the widespread availability of new technologies, we have the possibility of becoming disembodied identities online. the authors remind us that, in spite of the technological changes shaping learning, we are all “fundamentally embodied” and this embodiment is reflected in how we learn. accordingly, it is argued, “we need to approach the use of new technologies both with a sense of excitement and with critique.” this collection of essays is about changes in how people learn with reference to new technologies and the educational opportunities that come with them. in their introduction the editors explain, “learning is no longer regarded as something that happens specifically in educational institutions. we not only learn throughout our lives, but in a wide variety of places and spaces. these changes highlight the previously veiled relationship between learning, space and identity.” the complexities of this relationship are explored in this very diverse set of essays which centre on the “information age” and “explosion of information” available to people with internet access. a central concern guiding the contributors is the effect that information and communication technologies (ict) will have on learning in the twenty-first century. the introduction of new technologies and possibilities of creating virtual presences in virtual spaces is considered in relation to traditional ideas that learning is something that happens in the mind— and that only happens to embodied learners occupying particular spaces. as embodied learners, it is argued, we are moulded and altered by learning experiences that involve both the mind and the body; they affect our view of who we are and who we might become. in virtual space, where we are in many ways disembodied, alternative identities can be developed, which are powerful and empowering, and which in turn will affect what and how we can learn about ourselves and others. these ideas are explored in an opening essay on identity in the context of the shift from the industrial to the knowledge age. the second essay considers theories of learning—symbol processing and situated cognition—and how these relate to knowledge and to learning situations. in learning to take part in particular social practices, it is claimed, journal of distance learning, vol 11, no 1, 2007 © distance education association of new zealand 4 we contribute to the development of the practices. the following chapter provides a personal insight into learning from the perspective of an autistic person, focussing on what it is to be social and to comprehend the realization that other people have thoughts and feelings and minds beside, in this case, the author. this chapter points to the enormous difficulty of learning when it is difficult to understand social situations and the significance of human speech. another level of learning is explored in a subsequent chapter that introduces a culturally different situation in which the process of teaching and learning music is important for imparting cultural knowledge. the importance of ict is explored in several chapters, including one by seymour papert of the massachusetts institute of technology (mit), on changes in space/time relations on learning and identity. papert outlines his personal development and the ways that this brought him to an understanding of the importance of certain ict tools in children’s learning. of interest to many readers will be his observations on the role of computers in classrooms and the ways they can change how children learn. another chapter considers a dimension of school life that has not had a lot of attention: the use of space in primary classrooms. in spite of the widespread introduction of computers to classrooms, the ways space is used in schools has not changed a lot. the need to reconsider the architecture of schools to adapt to new ways of teaching and learning using computers is highlighted as a neglected area of educational reform. one notable chapter addresses claims that online learning can transform education by promoting student-centred communication and collaboration. in an examination of a situation in which sociocultural relationships inhibited the potential for change using ict, it is demonstrated that the use of new technologies, in itself, is not necessarily able to transform ways of learning. this collection of essays examines important relationships between embodied learners and new technologies. it focuses on the physical, mental, and emotional experiences of being a learner in learning spaces that have been made possible through online learning and the advance of the internet. as such, this book will be of interest to students of communication, online learning, and the place of ict in schools. microsoft word sime-themelis.docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2) 15 designing a social exploration mooc: visual literacies— exploring educational practices and technologies julie-ann sime, lancaster university chryssa themelis, lancaster university yiannis arapoglou, wide services asteria marantou, wide services katerina theodoridou, cardet abstract social exploration is the key to spreading ideas through networks (pentland, 2014). when people talk with others outside their immediate group, they can bring fresh ideas into the group—leading to improved outcomes. so, to improve educational practice, we should increase communication in our professional communities and encourage communication amongst professional educators in different disciplines, and across sectors of education and national boundaries. to improve social exploration opportunities for educators, we developed a massive open online course (mooc) so they could explore technologyenhanced learning practices and technologies, and the topic of visual literacies. we investigated how a mooc could be designed to support social exploration, and we examined the contribution of gamification and a live-streamed seminar. the pedagogical design of the mooc was based on networked learning theory. this approach emphasises openness and democratic relationships between teachers and learners, and supports diversity and inclusivity of participants (dohn, 2014). social network analysis of 14 discussion fora was combined with qualitative data analysis of 11 questionnaires on the learner experience. results revealed two distinct patterns of interaction in discussion fora as participants conversed about the learning material and shared ideas about teaching practice. the role of the tutor in promoting social exploration and creating teacher presence was found to be important in discussion fora and in a live webinar. this investigation illustrates how networked learning theory and tutor activity contribute to the creation of a social exploration mooc for professional development and identifies avenues for further research on the design of learning communities. keywords: mooc; social physics; online learning; networked learning; technology-enhanced learning; gamification introduction the covid-19 pandemic has had a dramatic effect on our educational systems, as educators have had to adjust rapidly to move their teaching online. as a consequence, many have increasingly engaged in professional development courses, and have turned to their professional networks for support and ideas (hodges et al., 2020). pentland’s (2014) theory of social exploration explains how ideas are shared in a network and how new ideas are brought into organisations by connecting with others outside the group. this paper is a reflective account of an innovative teaching practice. it examines the pedagogical design of a social exploration mooc based on networked learning theory (dohn, 2014; sime, j.-a., themelis, c., arapoglou, y., marantou, a., theodoridou, k. 16 goodyear et al., 2004). the mooc has a dual focus: delivering new content on visual literacies in online education, and promoting the exchange of practice in a professional-development community. moocs offer great potential value to professional development, and this investigation adds to the limited understanding of their use in this context (milligan & littlejohn, 2014). this study uses a design-based research methodology to combine theory-driven design and empirical educational research to understand how theory works in practice (anderson & shattuck, 2012). because the outcomes are both practical and theoretical, it contributes to research and to the scholarship of teaching and learning (boyer, 1990; fanghanel et al., 2016; hutchings & shulman, 1999) by: • grounding research in discipline-specific and pedagogic knowledge and research, via engagement with the literature • analysing practice through critical reflection on teaching and learning • disseminating the outcomes to the professional community to promote further development. this study is a systematic inquiry into the learning of professional educators, and advances the practice of teaching in moocs. as technologies continue to change, educators need to continually update their professional knowledge and competence in learning technologies and pedagogies to enrich their courses. the novelty of the pedagogical design lies in its: • technology-enhanced learning perspective on visual literacy (how technologies and pedagogies can improve visual communication) • authentic and leading-edge content obtained from a study of how experienced educators use visual technologies in practice (sime & themelis, 2018, 2020) • networked learning theory design that is democratic, diverse, and inclusive (de laat & ryberg, 2018; goodyear et al., 2004) • support for social exploration (pentland, 2008, 2014) that emphasises the importance of allowing educators to talk with each other to gain fresh ideas for their teaching. we investigated how an online learning community could be designed to promote social exploration, and we included gamification and a live-streamed seminar. the mooc, entitled “visual literacies: exploring educational practices and technologies”, aimed to improve the educators’ competence with digital technologies to enhance visual communication in teaching practice and their understanding of visual literacy in online education (mooc, 2018). the mooc was designed in english by european researchers and was delivered over 5 weeks in april–may 2018. it offered free professional development to educators from formal and informal education, and from vocational training. we support the european policy initiative on opening up education in higher education through supporting the development, sharing, and re-use of open educational resources (oers) through four actions: acquisition of digital skills, support for oers, connecting classrooms and deploying content, and mobilising stakeholders to change the role of digital technologies at education institutions (european commission, 2013). as a result, we set out to create resources that could be re-used and modified by educators and to make the course as open as possible. this research contributes to the practice of professional development through moocs (milligan & littlejohn, 2014), and to the debate on how to design learning communities by fostering journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2) 17 learning interactions and experiences (alexander & fink, 2018; heredia et al., 2019; khoo & cowie, 2011). research design a design-based research (dbr) methodology with mixed methods was used to gather data on the participants’ activity in the mooc, and on their perceptions of learning (anderson & shattuck, 2012). design-based research combines theory-driven design of learning environments with empirical investigation of an educational intervention to create an impact on both theory and practice. qualitative data was gathered from 11 questionnaires—including one on prior knowledge and experience—and 10 shorter questionnaires on participants’ learning experience. quantitative data was gathered from participants’ learning activities and a more detailed examination of the community through interactions in discussion fora. the data analysis included descriptive statistics about the participants’ prior experience and their learning activities, including social network analysis of interactions in 14 discussion fora (jan et al., 2019). analysis of questionnaire data included descriptive statistics and thematic analysis of open questions. the mooc was promoted on social media and mailing lists (through professional teacher and learning technology associations) as a professional development course for educators who were interested in visual literacies and educational technologies. as a result, 308 participants registered from over 45 countries (62% women and 38% men). a 5-week mooc was developed to explore educational practices and technologies relating to visual literacies. the e-learning design had a variety of content presentations and activities (infographics, video, animation, wiki, 1-minute questions, discussion fora, weekly quizzes, a game, a live webinar). discussion fora for sharing teaching experiences and discussing new ideas were supported by two tutors and a guest speaker who provided a live webinar in the final week. the mooc included weekly questionnaires about the learning experience and a short (1-minute) question that was designed to be answered quickly. the mooc was implemented in moodle. the mooc’s content, pedagogical design, and technical design are discussed below. mooc design: content to ensure the content of the mooc was up to date, of high quality, and relevant to international teaching practice, a research study was conducted to find out about current teaching practice and learning technologies. there is insufficient room to present these findings here. for further information, see sime and themelis (2018, 2020). briefly, learning materials were derived by combining a literature review with data from semistructured interviews with 21 educators who were experienced in using visual communication technologies and pedagogies. the data was analysed with informed grounded theory to identify common themes, resources, and theories (thornberg, 2012). this approach enabled us to map the field of research and practice at the intersection of visual literacies, technology-enhanced learning, and online education. because the educators came from 10 countries, and from diverse disciplines and educational settings, we had an international, multi-disciplinary perspective. thus, the learning materials were state of the art in terms of teaching and research into visual teaching and technologies. they included newer technologies such as augmented reality, and theories about online identity and presence in virtual worlds. this established a rich and varied basis for enhancing professional educators’ knowledge and understanding. during the mooc’s delivery we asked participants about the quality of the content and its relevance to their professional practice. using participation data and data from the 11 questionnaires, we examined their prior experience and their perceptions of the mooc. a sime, j.-a., themelis, c., arapoglou, y., marantou, a., theodoridou, k. 18 review of the literature on moocs identified three typical criteria for measuring success: dropout rate, completion rate, and retention rate (rieber, 2017; zawacki-richter et al., 2018). mooc design: pedagogy while keeping in mind the theory of social exploration, whereby good ideas are captured during communication in professional networks (pentland 2014), our challenge was to create a pedagogical design that allowed social exploration and promoted peer-to-peer communication, while also introducing content about educational theory, practices, and technologies. the pedagogy of moocs can be described in three categories: xmoocs, cmoocs, and hybrid moocs that integrate both styles (zawacki-richter et al., 2018; zhu et al., 2019). however, there are a number of other pedagogical approaches and numerous variations, such as bmooc (blended mooc) and smooc (small open online courses) (storme et al., 2016). xmoocs adopt an instructivist pedagogy with tightly constrained, predetermined pathways and learning objectives (zawacki-richter et al., 2018). most moocs adopt this expository approach with video lectures and passive student learning (crook & schofield, 2017). however, this design assumes that students all start at the same level and need to progress through each topic in a course. this approach does not accommodate the learning needs of a diverse, and unknown, group of professionals who have varied needs associated with their educational settings, the requirements of their teaching practice, and their unique knowledge and experience. a mooc for professional development needs to respect the existing experience and knowledge of participants and allow them to choose their own learning objectives and topics that are relevant to their practice and interests. in other words, it needs to take a more student-led approach. downes (2008) introduced the term cmooc to describe moocs that involved groups of people learning together in a community in which all teachers and learners are equal. these moocs are built on the learning theory of connectivism, in which learning occurs in networks of people who interact via technology (siemens, 2005). this approach emphasises the importance of distributed learning resources connected in a network that decentralises learning. learning is seen as “the ability to construct and traverse those networks” (downes 2008, p. 2). learners are expected to develop connections with experts and resources, and to draw on these when necessary. however, connectivism assumes that learners are sufficiently motivated to be self-directed, and many learners find that “interactions with technologies and resources in isolation are not sufficient” for learning (de laat & ryberg, 2018, p3). a hybrid approach could combine an online learning community with a taught course that is open so learners can choose their own learning objectives. we applied the principles of networked learning theory because it emphasises the development of an online learning community (goodyear et al., 2004) in which educators can share resources and reflect on their teaching practice while learning about the innovative content on visual literacy (de laat & ryberg, 2018). networked learning was initially defined as: learning in which information and communications technology (ict) is used to promote connections: between one learner and other learners, between learners and tutors; between a learning community and its learning resources. (goodyear et al., p. 1) this definition was later amended by dohn (2014), who added “between the diverse context in which the learners participate” (p. 30). this addition is especially important in a mooc, where participants may be very diverse. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2) 19 the networked learning principles of democracy, diversity, and inclusion (e-quality network, 2002), mean that all participants are treated as equal (tutors are also considered to be learners), diversity is encouraged and seen as a source of knowledge (thereby supporting cross-disciplinary communication), and inclusion means there is support for differences between learners and how they use resources. these principles align with pentland’s (2014) theory of social physics and the value of diversity for stimulating new ideas. mooc design: technology the mooc platform had to facilitate the pedagogical and technical design requirements, that is, it had to handle large numbers of participants, live webinars, videos and text content, and support community development through asynchronous discussion. we also wanted to support the european policy of opening up education and make the learning materials available as oers for educators to re-use (european commission, 2013). moodle was chosen over other major mooc platforms (such as futurelearn or coursera), which have strict rules prohibiting the re-use of content. to support the open-education movement, we needed to use an open-source software (such as moodle), which is distributed freely under the gnu general public license. however, one disadvantage of creating the mooc on an independently hosted moodle platform was that there would be less publicity. to compensate for this, the mooc was listed on mooc aggregator sites such as the mooc list (mooc list, 2020). moodle is a popular learning management system that can be configured to meet the needs of teachers and their learners. more than 500 plugins can be added to modify the platform and introduce features such as gamification, games, and live webinars. gamification is one of the most effective ways to engage and motivate learners (zainuddin et al., 2020). game mechanics, which are common gaming tactics used to motivate students, stimulate their desire to “win” by completing challenges. aparicio et al. (2018) suggest that “a gamified learning environment is a decisive factor in the success of moocs” (p. 12). some of the most popular mechanics for gamification, challenges, badges, and achievements were also used (liyanagunawardena et al., 2017; moodle progress, 2018). the aim was to motivate learners to do more and progress faster by collecting badges for challenges such as completing the weekly activities (e.g., reading, watching videos, taking a quiz; participating in discussion fora or wiki). there were six badges, one for completing each topic in the mooc, and course completion badges and certificates that were achieved by meeting criteria such as participation in discussion fora, reading, and viewing videos. quiz games were also used so participants could track and assess their own progress. multiplechoice questions in weekly quizzes and in a quiz game, millionaire, were marked automatically, so participants could test their own knowledge as often as they wanted. the theory of tele-proximity suggests that using synchronous visual communication technologies (such as live webinars), can have a strong positive effect on feelings of teacher presence (sime & themelis, 2020). tele-proximity is defined as an online embodiment that explains how tutors and students feel connected in synchronous networked communication. in other words, seeing the tutor—so the viewer can understand facial expressions, gestures and body language—is important for communication. pentland (2008), who carried out research on communication in organisations, calls these “honest signals” because they are difficult to fake and can even contradict speech. as a result, these honest signals play an important role in communication. in week 5, a virtual seminar with a guest tutor was live-streamed with google hangouts on air with youtube live so a recording was available on youtube (visual/video project, 2018). the webinar, which was included to investigate its role in developing community and a sense of teacher presence, was accompanied by an asynchronous discussion led by the guest tutor. sime, j.-a., themelis, c., arapoglou, y., marantou, a., theodoridou, k. 20 results and discussion three hundred and eight participants expressed an interest in participating in the mooc, and there were 185 active participants in week 1. although this isn’t a massive number, the course was designed as an open online course that could accommodate large numbers. typical measures of mooc success—such as drop-out, completion, and retention rates—are discussed (rieber, 2017), along with the learners’ perceptions of their experience and social network analysis of their communication patterns (jan et al., 2019). drop-out, completion, and retention rates according to rieber (2017), the average drop-out rate (i.e., difference between those who register and those who access the course) is 78%. in this mooc, the drop from 308 (registered) to 185 (starting the course) was 40%. this was substantially better than expected. completion rates reported in the literature are typically very low: 3–4% (rieber, 2017). in this mooc only 1.6% gained a certificate. this was lower than expected, but participants were informed about completion certificate criteria only 3 days before the end of the course and this may have affected the outcome. the course was not designed with the expectation that all of the participants would complete all of the activities. alario-hoyos et al. (2017) question whether drop-out and completion rates are appropriate measures of success for moocs, in which learners’ motivations are very diverse (barak et al., 2016). retention rates during the course were better than expected with a 23% drop from week 1 to 2 and 10% from week 2 to week 3, compared with reported rates in the literature of 40% and 25% respectively (greene et al., 2015). over the 5 weeks, we had 185, 142, 123, 105, and 66 participants actively engaging in the course, and 144 people viewed the webinar in week 5. this represented a steady decline in active participants to 36% in week 5. however, participation in one element—the virtual seminar—raised participation levels to 78% retention. because some participants chose to participate only in parts of the course that interested them, these figures are not really meaningful in the context of professional development. for example, one participant said that he joined the course to engage in the week 3 topic. unlike linear courses, the aim of the mooc is not to teach the whole content but to develop professionals’ existing knowledge. participants choose their own learning objectives. using retention rates assumes that learners start at the beginning of the course and then stop progressing—this is clearly not the case for the participant who started with week 3. alexander and fink (2018) also created a mooc based on networked learning theory and called for greater inclusivity of learners who might have varied learning objectives and numerous ways of engaging with learning resources. their strategies might not all be visible in the mooc (e.g., using the resources for face-to-face discussion groups or choosing interesting topics). the learners’ experience questionnaire data showed that the participants were professionals who wanted to expand and exchange existing knowledge and practice. at the start of the course, 68 participants (37%) completed a questionnaire on their e-learning experience. this revealed that 97% participants felt they had medium-to-high competence with ict, 100% were comfortable with taking an elearning course, and 90% had undertaken e-learning courses—mainly for professional development and certification. of the participants, 98.53% were comfortable with taking a mooc, and 71% had previously participated in a mooc. regarding visual literacy (the topic of the mooc) 85.29% rated their knowledge as average or above, and 78% said that they used visual literacies in their profession. overall, participants were experienced online learners who journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2) 21 were undertaking the course for professional development and were familiar with the topic of visual literacies. the learning content was viewed very positively, although the lack of practical activities was noted. from an analysis of 10 shorter questionnaires, the content was perceived as being: useful to them as professionals (88.9–100% each week); beneficial to professional development (77.7– 100%); and beneficial to personal development (88.2–100%). open questions enabled participants to suggest changes and to indicate highlights. the week 1 content was seen as providing an interesting and novel perspective on visual literacies. the week 3 content on virtual and augmented reality introduced new horizons of “high interest”, contained “various examples” from different disciplines, and was perceived positively. week 4 was also valued for introducing new perspectives and ideas for teaching. on the other hand, several participants asked for more practical activities for using new technologies and this request was echoed in discussion fora posts. there was insufficient evidence of the role of gamification in learning. although the literature on gamification emphasises motivational benefits (e.g., aparicio et al., 2018), we did not gather sufficient evidence to suggest that the quizzes, six badges, and completion certificate played a role in participants’ motivation or performance. further research is needed to investigate the effect of games and gamification on participants. finally, the webinar, which was live-streamed to youtube, was successful in enhancing participation and making people feel part of a community (visual/video project, 2018). the week 5 webinar with a guest tutor was viewed very positively. it generated comments such as “fantastic” and “very good” and showed that the “community was active”. the webinar attracted 144 viewers (other week 5 activities had 66 participants). this increase suggests that a learning community, which is required for social exploration, had been created. we explore this aspect next. communication patterns in the community when talking about social exploration, pentland (2014) says that symmetrical communication patterns allow good ideas to spread through networks. this means that tutors shouldn’t dominate discussions—the interactions between participants and tutors should be balanced. we used social network analysis to examine the interaction between participants and tutors in the discussion fora (jan et al., 2019). fourteen visual representations of interaction were created in 14 discussions. they showed a wide range of participation patterns. figure 1 two representations of interactions in week 1 and week 5 discussion fora (tutors are blue dots and learners are orange dots) sime, j.-a., themelis, c., arapoglou, y., marantou, a., theodoridou, k. 22 figure 1 illustrates two patterns of interaction between participants during discussions. the blue dots represent tutors, and the orange dots are mooc participants. the size of the dot represents the number of a participant’s posts on the discussion forum, and the lines denote the interactions. the graph on the right shows a tutor-dominated discussion with the webinar guest tutor in week 5. the graph on the left shows a more balanced pattern from a week 1 discussion, which was an exchange of practice experiences between participants with the tutors acting as both facilitators and learners. when we examined the 14 graphs, we could see that the discussions that focused on exchange of practice were more balanced than discussions of content, which were more likely to be dominated by tutors. being aware of this difference and being able to visualise the interactions could be useful when designing future moocs. it provides a means of assessing the interaction patterns and whether or not the intended objective (i.e., to promote discussion amongst participants or to encourage discussions with the tutors) has been achieved. conclusions in keeping with the design-based research methodology, we had two aims: to develop teaching practice, and to advance research. the first aim was met by designing a mooc that allowed educators to explore educational theories, practices, and technologies related to visual literacy. we examined the learners’ perceptions of the content and their experience of learning in the mooc by analysing questionnaire data. the second aim was achieved by researching the design of the learning community by analysing questionnaire data on the learner experience and social network analysis of learner interactions in discussion fora. we looked particularly at how discussion fora, gamification, and live webinars contributed to the creation of a social exploration mooc. the first aim was to support the practice of educators by creating a professional development mooc. the learning materials provided an overview of current practice and included case studies, guidelines, and recommendations for using visual communication methods and techniques. the content of the mooc was obtained by interviewing educators who were experienced in teaching with visual communication technologies (for further details, see sime & themelis, 2018, 2020). feedback from participants showed that the perceived benefit to professional and personal development was very high, and the variety of resources was identified as a highlight of the course. educators appreciated being able to explore new technologies in visual communications and exchange experiences with educators from other disciplines, other countries, and other educational settings. nevertheless, some participants suggested adding further opportunities for practical experience with technologies. although the mooc was not massive, it attracted a large group of experienced educators who were keen to develop their practice and were willing to share their experience and knowledge with others. moodle enabled us to share the learning materials with participants so they could reuse and modify them to suit their local context and their own learners. by delivering the mooc and sharing the contents with educators, we supported the open education movement and the practice of educators. the second aim was to research the design of a learning community. we used networked learning theory’s principles of democracy, diversity, and inclusivity (e-quality network, 2002) to design the mooc. it was democratic because the relationship between tutors and participants was flexible. social network analysis of discussion fora showed that learners could adopt the role of tutor, and vice versa. it was diverse because the content was multi-disciplinary—it contained examples of teaching visually in language learning, medicine, dance and art; in higher education, vocational training, and schools. it was inclusive because it had an open pedagogy (rather than a journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2) 23 tightly constrained linear structure) that allowed participants to set their own learning objectives (e.g., learning one topic only). so although it’s not possible to design a learning community, networked learning theory is appropriate for creating suitable conditions for the development of a community and social exploration in a mooc (alexander & fink, 2018). mooc participants exchanged their experience of teaching practice in discussion fora, thereby engaging in social exploration (pentland, 2014). discussions about teaching practice generated more interactions between participants and were less dominated by the tutor. social network analysis of interactions in the discussion fora identified two patterns of interaction but was insufficient on its own to interpret these patterns and understand the difference between discussions of theory and practice (jan et al., 2019). social network analysis could be a useful tool for refining future mooc design to ensure that social exploration occurs. the roles of gamification and a live-streamed seminar in creating a learning community were explored. there was insufficient evidence of the role of gamification or games. however, the live-streamed seminar greatly increased participation and participants felt that the live event brought the community together. the sense of presence created by the live event appears to be particularly important for learners. this is in keeping with the theory of tele-proximity which suggests that being able to interact synchronously with the tutor is important for communication and feelings of teacher presence (sime & themelis, 2020). this suggests that moocs should include live events. we investigated how to design a social-exploration mooc based on networked learning principles and created a learning community by promoting discussions, encouraging sharing of practice and having an open, democratic, diverse, and inclusive mooc. understanding the role of the tutors in discussion fora and in live events was found to be important for creating the learning community. this design created conditions that were suitable for educators to share practices across institutional, disciplinary, and national boundaries—thereby achieving the dual purpose of supporting the professional development of educators and design-based research (anderson & shattuck, 2012). future directions this study contributes to the debate about using moocs in professional development (milligan & littlejohn, 2014) and to research how to design moocs that support learning communities (alexander & fink, 2018). the outcomes of this investigation could be used to enhance mooc learning design, and to improve teaching practice and professional development. there are several areas for further research. the content of the mooc could be improved by introducing more emphasis on practical aspects including opportunities for participants to gain first-hand experience with technologies, such as virtual reality and avatars, or the use of mobile augmented reality applications. it would be interesting to see if these experiences increased the perceived value of the mooc to participants. the practice of teaching in moocs could be improved by adding learning analytics plug-ins to add predictions about student engagement with learning materials. there is a moodle plug-in based on the community of inquiry model that measures “cognitive depth” (based on cognitive presence) and “social breadth” (based on social presence) (garrison et al., 2000). however, using behaviour to predict learning is problematic, because viewing a document is not the same as understanding it. nonetheless, investigating the value of predicting social breadth in a learning community could be interesting. sime, j.-a., themelis, c., arapoglou, y., marantou, a., theodoridou, k. 24 research on the design of moocs could continue to investigate the role of gamification and live webinars in the learning experience. more research is required to tease out which (if any) mechanisms of gamification are beneficial. the use of live events also merits further investigation (e.g., by increasing the number of guest-speaker webinars to see their effect on the learning community). we could also respond to alexander & fink’s (2018) call for more research into inclusivity in mooc design and investigate how to accommodate the many differences between learners, and the variety of ways they engage in learning practices. finally, we could improve our own practice by working with design experts to make the mooc more visual—by adding more visual images and infographics. sousanis (2015) argues for the value of visual thinking in teaching and scholarly discourse when it can help us to understand multiple perspectives and break free from fixed viewpoints. acknowledgements the visual / video literacies project (http://www.viliproject.eu) was co-funded by erasmus+ programme of the european union, and partners: lancaster university (uk), danube university krems (austria), cardet (cyprus) and wide services (greece). the contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of the authors and in no way reflect the views of the national agency or the european commission. references alario-hoyos, c., estevez-ayres, i., perez-sangustin, m., kloos, c. d., & fernandez-panadero, c. 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(2012). informed grounded theory. scandinavian journal of educational research, 56(3), 243–259. https://doi.org/10.1080/00313831.2011.581686 visual/video project (2018). mooc viliproject: visual identity online. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzw0vbucbwy zainuddin, z., chu, s. k. w., shujahat, m., & perera, c. j. (2020). the impact of gamification on learning and instruction: a systematic review of empirical evidence. educational research review, 30. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2020.100326 journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2) 27 zawacki-richter, o., bozkurt, a., alturki, u., & aldraiweesh, a. (2018). what research says about moocs: an explorative content analysis. international review of research in open and distributed learning, 19(1). https:// doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v19i1.3356 zhu, m., sari, a., & lee, m. m. (2019). a systematic review of research methods and topics of the empirical mooc literature (2014–2016). the internet and higher education, 37, 31–39. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2018.01.002 biographical notes julie-ann sime j.sime@lancaster.ac.uk julie-ann is a lecturer in educational research at lancaster university, uk, where she teaches and supervises research students undertaking an online doctoral programme in technology-enhanced learning. her research areas are online learning, mobile learning, networked learning, visual literacies, digital wellbeing, and inclusion. chryssa themelis c.themelis1@lancaster.ac.uk chryssa is a researcher in technology-enhanced learning at lancaster university, uk. she has 10 years’ experience of researching the use of technologies in education, including the use of visual/video literacies, mobile learning, and augmented reality. yiannis arapoglou yiannis@wideservices.gr yiannis is the ceo of wide services, greece. his company offers integrated solutions in e-learning as a moodle premium certified partner. asteria marantou asteria.marantou@gmail.com asteria is an elearning officer at cepol. she contributes to the implementation and administration of elearning services and new products. she is a certified project manager (pmp) with extensive experience in digital and in-class training. her interests include new technology, gamification, video games and learning, e-learning, and customer experience. katerina theodoridou theodoridou.katerina@gmail.com katerina is the director of r&d and project management at the center for social innovation, cyprus, where she coordinates the organisation’s european-funded projects and coaches the project managers that undertake the research and development phases of the projects. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. sime, j. -a., themelis, c., arapoglou, y., marantou, a., & theodoridou, k. (2020). designing a social exploration mooc: visual literacies—exploring educational practices and technologies. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 24(2), [15–27.]. microsoft word jdl08_higginsword.doc journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 1 staff and student views of autonline (blackboard) after three years andrew higgins, janneke krieg auckland university of technology auckland, new zealand introduction this paper reports on the findings of two studies conducted by the auckland university of technology (aut) institutional research unit (iru), in conjunction with the school of education, into staff and student satisfaction with e-learning provision through the autonline (blackboardtm) learning management system. background in 2002 aut acquired a learning management system intended for use by the whole university. at that time, aut operated at least two learning management systems (lms) in separate parts of the institution. senior staff at aut chose to adopt a single lms for three general reasons: first, to enable students to gain access to the world of electronically developed and formatted documents; second, to demonstrate that aut could exhibit national leadership in flexible learning; and third, to make an electronic contribution of learning materials to the global university alliance (gua), of which aut was then a member. more recently, the joint information systems committee (jisc) of the united kingdom has reported a number of tangible benefits arising from e-learning. jisc reviewed 37 case studies and finds: the most fundamental point to come out of all of the case studies is that the appropriate use of technology is leading to significant improvements in learning and teaching across the sector and this is translating into improved satisfaction, retention, and achievement. e-learning is facilitating the expansion of the sector without necessitating corresponding increases in the footprint of the physical estate and it is allowing broadly the same numbers of staff to educate a larger and more diverse student body. the kind of high quality, diverse, accessible, expanding higher education system desired by government and funders is no longer possible without e-learning. (jisc, 2008, p. 33) according to shephard (2001, p. 161): today’s technology should enable students to incorporate a range of memory-intensive media into their assignments and research reports and this process may be highly beneficial to learning and assessment. widespread use of this technology, however, is likely to depend on solutions to difficult copyright restrictions, adequate journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 2 training of students and staff as well as access to suitable hardware. similarly, lee (2001, p. 153) writes, “findings indicated that faculty motivation and commitment toward distance teaching were strong in general. however, faculty motivation and commitment were higher in the institutions with well-provided instructional support.” along with the jisc report, these two studies show that it is expected that improvement in retention, achievement, and satisfaction are likely to result from the use of e-learning strategies. australasian context smith, ling, and hill (2006) examined six australian universities using multiple modes of delivery to students, including e-learning, distance education, multimedia, and face-to-face teaching. smith et al. found that the institutions had an overwhelming ongoing commitment to face-to-face teaching: while face-to-face teaching may be supplemented by other resources, especially an increasing use of on-line materials, the core teaching methods remain quite traditional. universities emphasised the fact that this mode of delivery is expected by students and is economical to use. (p. 76) it might be thought that aut, as a multi-campus institution, is committed to face-to-face teaching as its predominant mode, which was the case in 2002. nevertheless, aut’s documents indicate that meeting learner needs is important and that flexible delivery methods help meet those needs. in addition, aut believes that using more e-learning strategies will provide opportunities for staff to use more innovative teaching approaches, when they are aligned with appropriate teaching methods in which learners play a more active role in their learning. aut also believes that its student body has become more diverse, attracting more maori, pasifika, and asian students than it has in the past. the increased diversity of the student population is in accordance with the findings of smith et al. (2006). the universities in the australasian study acknowledged the importance of students gaining generic information technology skills for employment purposes. the use of multiple modes of delivery appeared to enhance those skills. the universities also recognised the importance of staff development in changing from traditional face-to-face teaching toward multiple methods of teaching and delivery. the transition appeared to be smoother in universities already engaged in distance education. with regard to staff acceptance of flexible learning, smith et al. (2006) believe there is no real evidence that senior managers set out to address the concerns held by staff, especially of workload, in a systematic way. the pro vice chancellor for online service at one university stated: there’s people at all different levels. if you go to the faculty of business and law, you find most of the staff are at an advanced level because they have been doing it for so long. . . . in the faculty of arts, you find lots of people doing it but also you would find this is the faculty with most resistance in it as well. but my general view is that most of the staff have embarked on it and want to use it. (p. 78) journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 3 aut’s place in regional e-learning development a study by marshall (2006) examines the extent to which aut has matured, in a systems sense, as an e-learning institution. marshall’s comparative study reveals that aut has developed an e-learning system somewhat in advance of other new zealand universities. the marshall study places aut advantageously in the new zealand context for its maturity in e-learning systems, noting however that more work needs to be done to enhance both pedagogical uses of the technology and means to communicate success to others. despite this, aut’s dominant mode of teaching remains face-to-face, mainly because that is what the staff members know how to do and because it is what students aged 19 to 25 years expect. older students typically are less able to attend campus-based teaching sessions for various personal, professional, and geographic reasons and are more likely to study from home. in this respect, aut is very similar to other universities in the australasian region, except those well versed in distance education, where home study is common. however, as the aut survey demonstrates, online learning is gaining ground quickly among staff and students as a significant adjunct to face-to-face teaching. the australasian report states that the institutions studied “made some progress toward achieving the outcomes originally expected from the development of multiple modes of delivery and have begun to make other related changes in teaching and administrative practice as a consequence of this experience” (smith et al., 2006, p. 79). aut finds itself in a very similar position. recent work by the jisc, as noted above, indicates that e-learning provides significant benefits to tertiary institutions, although they have to make substantial changes to the ways teaching and learning are conducted. more specifically, the blending of strategies using digital technologies is the more acceptable route for largely on-campus teaching institutions. additionally, the introduction of a learning and content management system impacts on several other institutional digital processes, such as the student management system, library systems, and institutional record keeping and document storage systems. institutions engaging in e-learning might be aware that more than teaching and learning will change because a learning and content management system is introduced. as more staff adopt digital teaching strategies, student demand for them rises much more quickly than might initially be anticipated, producing additional workload for staff development units to upskill staff in e-learning activity. uptake of autonline since its initial implementation in early 2003, the use of autonline has grown to the point where it is an essential piece of how aut does its business. with blackboard as the foundation learning management system, usage has grown from about 30 courses by the end of 2003 to more than 500 courses for the first semester of 2006, and about 650 courses for the second semester of 2006. while the extent to which autonline is used varies greatly from course to course, reports show that approximately 8,000 users (staff and students) were active across a normal semester for 2006. for both course and user numbers, this represents between 40 and 50 percent of total aut business. by 2008 an analysis journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 4 of autonline use indicated that 70 percent of all academic staff used the learning management system. it is expected that by 2009 all academic papers will have an autonline presence. the studies aut’s institutional research unit conducted two studies in 2006 to establish the extent of both staff and student satisfaction with the use of the lms, in this case blackboard. this survey addressed, in part, the question of access to educational resources and systems from staff and student perspectives. there were 216 staff responses to the survey or 54 percent of those 400 staff surveyed. aut’s institutional research unit identified approximately 8,000 students using autonline regularly and surveyed a random sample of 1,500 students. a total of 499 (33 percent) of the selected students responded to the survey. staff and students received questionnaires containing 80 or so questions, some of which were factual identification items. most were likert scale questions (using a scale from one to seven), and each questionnaire contained several options for open-ended text responses. some of the responses are copied below. as with all similar studies, there were limitations attached to the survey sample. the results of the staff survey are indicative of the sample used (i.e., known users of autonline) and therefore contained few extreme views. had the sample included staff who, for a variety of reasons, did not or would not use the platform, the results may have had a different emphasis. although the response rate was good (54 percent), this represents only 216 members of the staff who use autonline, which is a moderate proportion of the total academic staff of more than 900 members who also had opportunity to participate. the student study included students who used autonline for a given time or who used it at least more than the chosen frequency. the views of non-users or those who used it infrequently are not represented. aut staff survey the following figures show the overall satisfaction findings from the two surveys undertaken at aut in 2006. figure 1 staff survey (mean responses) overall satisfaction with autonline likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 7 = strongly agree) ease of use 5.41 uploading confidence 5.63 alterations confidence 5.63 it training available 5.07 individual it competence 4.97 time efficiency 5.12 autonline as teaching and learning tool 5.40 technological performance 5.32 expansion beneficial 5.42 journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 5 the staff at aut university reported they found all the items to be satisfactory or better, and no items fell into the unsatisfactory range of less than four on the scale (see figure 1). this survey established that autonline has been successfully implemented and operated at aut university. more than 200 staff responded to a comprehensive survey of their attitudes toward the use of this system. staff used the system to place course announcements online, put lecture notes online, engage in asynchronous discussions online, as well as communicate with students through email. staff used the system less for assignment work and least of all for multi-media purposes. eighty percent of the respondent staff found autonline easy to use, with it easy to upload materials and to make alterations when necessary. it is significant that the staff respondents did not believe they were as competent as they would have liked to be in their information technology skills. on average more than 70 percent of the respondents believed that autonline facilitated student learning. sixty-six percent believed it helped students learn how to use technologies. seventy-two percent believed the system made it easier for them to teach their courses. seventy-three percent of staff reported using autonline was not tedious and 67 percent thought the system was easy to use. twenty percent experienced some difficulty with server problems and 31 percent believed autonline enhanced interaction with students. (note, it is not a corollary that the remaining staff found autonline hindered interaction with students.) eighty-one percent believed their learning materials were suitable for online teaching. staff using autonline responded to questions about their vision of the future of the system. eighty-four percent believed autonline improved the flexibility of on-campus teaching. sixtyeight percent reported autonline helped the university keep up with modern learning and teaching technologies. surprisingly, for a non-distance tertiary institution, 64 percent of respondent staff thought autonline would enhance distance learning. access to learning materials for international students received 48 percent support. thirty-eight percent believed autonline could be used to enhance workplace learning. respondents reported concerns about staff workload and limited staff technology skills, and these, along with concerns about the quality of student learning, might be impediments to the further expansion of autonline. seventy-two percent of staff respondents believed expanding autonline would be beneficial to teaching at aut university. at the conclusion of the survey, respondents were asked for any further comments. this section consisted of two open-ended questions. many responses were in regard to technical capabilities and obstacles of blackboard. the other major theme that came through was comment regarding training and support. some of the responses include: • we need to keep on learning so we can keep improving our online components. • time to attend course. prefer one-onone help/tuition. • staff could be better supported with more extensive documentation, in addition to training opportunities. • training course and available documentation tend to focus only on the basic tasks. journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 6 • when i need to know how to do something, i usually need it now and accessing help is a barrier. the final question of the survey asked the respondents to provide further comments relating to their experience as a staff user of autonline. the following responses demonstrate concerns and rewards of use of autonline: • the forum is what i have used most. student-centred learning should be enabled by this—but the students don’t get it yet. • once semester is underway i do not have time to do courses or upskill. • working independently (as online requires) does not suit every student and requires self-motivation. • encourages students to be proactive and self-responsible. • the biggest issue restricting the development of online resources in my area is the lack of time—staff have to develop material. the university needs to acknowledge that staff require time away from other responsibilities to develop skills/ knowledge in using online resources and then time to develop the actual teaching material that will go online. • the support of the fla is what got me going—it allowed me to hit the ground running. without that i would still be putting off the introduction of autonline. • autonline reduces face-to-face interaction, but it increases probably 50-fold the general interaction with students. i get many more e-mails and phone calls than i ever do in the classroom setting. i have the privilege to come to know my students online in a very real and human way. in the classroom i am performing; online with one-to-one e-mails i am reflecting and communicating at another level. figure 2 student survey (mean responses) overall satisfaction with autonline likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 7 = strongly agree) ease of use 5.48 your usage experience 5.42 your it skills 5.61 training available 4.61 time efficiency 5.04 assisting learning needs 5.44 technical performance 5.33 more courses online 5.08 aut student survey as with the staff survey, all items received positive responses above the 4.0 cutoff (see figure 2), demonstrating a high general level of satisfaction with flexible learning. overall, students were very satisfied with autonline. the highest satisfaction rating of 5.61 was given to students’ satisfaction that their current it skills were meeting the requirements of autonline. students also were very satisfied with the ease of use of journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 7 autonline (mean of 5.48). the response for using autonline as a tool assisting their learning needs was positive (5.44), as was their experience using autonline (5.42). students were least satisfied with the training that they had received for autonline; however, with a mean of 4.61 this is still an adequate result. the final section of the questionnaire invited students to add any extra comments relating to autonline through two free-text response questions. 1. are there any aspects of autonline that have disadvantaged your learning? • if you get stuck or confused, you can’t talk immediately to someone about that issue. you have to e-mail or discuss and wait for a reply. • lecturers speak less because they think everything is on autonline. • sometimes the teachers can be a bit unreasonable. some teachers want assignments done online, but not every student is computer literate. • there needs to be a specific area which pops up and tells you that you have such-and-such to do for online work with a link. • perhaps if the course did not use slides as much; some computers do not have powerpoint installed. • not knowing how to use it well enough. 2. further comments about using autonline. • it would be better if other subjects used autonline as well, but i think autonline should only be resources, not the main method of learning. • i’m an on-campus student, spend a lot of time travelling to school and hanging around the campus to wait for lectures. increasing online learning would be more efficient time-wise. • having resources more available to students and having the option to communicate with other classmates and lecturers made learning less stressful. • i live one hour away from campus, so to travel in for a two-hour class can be expensive and time-consuming. great job! • i feel it’s a good way to get students more involved within aut and it gives students the opportunity to use those resources that would be helpful for our learning, e.g., lecturer notes, discussion boards of important questions, and answers that allow a whole interaction with the lecturer. • overall autonline is good, especially when used in combination with face-to-face classes. however, downloading lecture notes and readings is time-consuming and printing them out is costly (paper and ink). it is easier to study from printed notes and easier to add extra notes during class. conclusions on autonline staff uptake of autonline since its comprehensive introduction in 2003 has been both substantial in numbers and significant for teaching strategies. strengths have emerged in users’ confidence and the stability of the learning management system. there is considerable support among staff for an expansion of autonline. weaknesses include a perceived inadequacy of staff training for information technologies in general. additionally, there is anecdotal evidence that issues of benefit and disadvantage in terms of staff workload warrant further exploration, because staff reported they saw workload as the main factor limiting uptake of autonline. teaching changes include more flexibility in the time and place of access to journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 8 learning, time savings in the use of the gradebook, and online marking. links to the library’s e-reserve system are making high-quality resources available to students electronically. a teaching forum entitled “if i put my lecture notes online, will the students come to lectures?” demonstrated that the issue of pedagogical strategy is now more openly discussed than before. student views about the use of autonline are very positive overall. strengths include ease of use, enhanced it skills, and assistance with learning needs. students believe that autonline should be used in more courses. weaknesses include a perceived lack of training. anecdotal evidence suggests that different groups of students use the learning management system in different ways. students in some categories report that lack of bandwidth at home (or the ability to pay for home computers and connectivity) is a restricting factor for home-based access, while others acquire more connectivity and rely on autonline at home as well as on campus. more widespread and affordable access to greater bandwidth before 2010 will see a growth among students in more home use of the learning management system. additionally, students reported that a lack of desire to use autonline could be a limiting factor in its further uptake. students also reported that improved autonline use would be enhanced by increased guidance from teachers in its use, and that such guidance would have more impact than increased bandwidth. for students, access to learning information outside of lecture times helps achieve learning outcomes, and learning is accessible to those who cannot always attend on-campus sessions because of work or family commitments. a number of specific recommendations arise from this study. the first recommendation builds on the general acceptance and satisfaction among both staff and students. it is for the university to encourage more use of the learning management system, because it is helping aut achieve its goals. the second recommendation seeks to enhance existing information technology training practices. the rapid introduction of new or updated software now requires an online, just-in-time training programme based on the latest information. one of the main purposes of using digital teaching strategies is to enhance student learning. in some ways using the technologies leads to changed pedagogy. exploiting and using these changed understandings of teaching and learning is proving to be both challenging and exhilarating for staff and students alike. a recommendation found in marshall’s (2006) report and in the 2006 audit of aut’s learning and teaching activities (conducted by the new zealand academic audit unit) proposes that aut find efficient and effective ways of informing and engaging staff about practices emerging among their colleagues. in general, it appears staff development seminar-based strategies, although effective for the small numbers attending and favoured by half of the respondent staff, do not reach the bulk of academic staff. last, insofar as staff are concerned, the changing character of their work brought about by the technologies requires re-evaluation of teaching. it would be disconcerting to find that e-learning simply adds to the current workload rather than transforming it. journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 9 these issues are being addressed in 2007 and 2008 in two ways. first, the university is conducting research into a comparison of face-to-face and online staff development strategies to compare learning retention and outcomes. not surprisingly, preliminary results show that staff having the greatest familiarity with information and communications technologies enjoy using them. second, funds have been allocated for the acquisition of suitable online staff training in the use of generic it software, such as word processing, powerpoint, and spreadsheeting. recommendations from the study that affect students concern the decision to continue using the blackboard learning management system. • all university papers will have an online presence in 2009. pressure exists from some parts of the university to adopt more than one lms. the survey recommends that it would be in the interests of staff and students to have one common system for login, authentication, look and feel, and ease of training. although the products adore and moodle are used in localised limited ways, there is no identified need to change lmss for financial, pedagogical, or efficiency reasons. • second, to help students best use the e-learning environment, an improved training programme for information technology in general and not just for the lms needs to be created with guidance from teachers. such a programme would enhance the existing one. • third, the diversity of aut’s student population, which includes maori, pasifika, asian, and european students, should account for the already known social, cultural, financial, and other variations among and between these groups. • fourth, although most aut students have computers and all students have access to campus-based computer laboratories, there is an identified need to encourage students to have up-to-date machines capable of handling new software releases for which the university has licenses. assistance for students to acquire personal computers, preferably laptops, is being negotiated with vendors and leasing companies. the university is providing scholarships with laptops for students in some graduate programmes from 2008. • last, although it is out of aut’s direct control, pressure should be placed on the national network providers to ensure more bandwidth is made available in aut’s student catchment and accommodation areas. implications for the future of e-learning at aut the outcomes from the autonline reports have implications for aut’s staff, students, and systems. the power of the blackboard learning management system to give students access to digitised resources, both of their own creation and from elsewhere, is changing the nature of learning, allowing it to become more lifelong and accessible in character. in particular, aut will be mandating an autonline presence for all of its papers in 2009. the use of a content management system allows for the automated uploading of significant information about each paper and the courses offered, so that students can see the intended outcomes, assessment schedules, and other related materials. staff members are already using the content management system to upload journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 10 course content. recent developments in e-portfolio software have the potential to change the relationships between students, staff, and their learning careers. the capacity of e-learning systems to change how staff approach their teaching requires a new evaluation of staff development strategies. new pedagogies and enhanced communication between students and staff, as well as within those groups, indicate that staff members learn extensively from one another directly and with less mediation through formal staff development sessions. on the other hand, staff training to achieve the most from emerging software should be delivered “on the job” and “just in time,” in accordance with practice common in industry or businesses commensurate with aut’s size and complexity. changes emerging at the university system level as a result of e-learning are more complex. staff performance and promotion systems will be changed through the use of e-portfolios. library systems will be better able to store, monitor, and protect the use of digital resources, both as university assets and to ensure compliance with legal requirements by using various forms of content management systems. the information technologies underpinning aut’s administrative systems need to be as modern as possible and very robust to ensure that e-learning systems function well. finally, research into the ongoing impact of these challenges should monitor institutional health for the benefit of all those involved in the life of aut as it is changed by e-learning strategies. references joint information systems committee (2008). tangible benefits of e-learning: does investment yield interest? retrieved march 6, 2008, from http://www.jisc.ac.uk/ publications/ bptangiblebenefitsv1.aspx lee, j. (2001). instructional support for distance education and faculty motivation, commitment, and satisfaction. british journal of educational technology, 32(2), 153–160. marshall, s. (2006). new zealand tertiary institution e-learning capability: informing and guiding e-learning architectural change and development. wellington, new zealand: ministry of education. new zealand academic audit unit (2006). auckland university of technology audit report, cycle 3. wellington, new zealand: new zealand academic audit unit. shephard, k. a. (2001). submission of student assignments on compact discs: exploring the use of audio, images, and video in assessment and learning in higher education. british journal of educational technology, 32(1), 161–170. smith, a., ling, p., & hill, d. (2006). the adoption of multiple modes of delivery in universities. journal of university teaching and learning practice, 3(2), 67–81. andrew higgins is the director of e-learning at aut university. he has published various articles discussing distance and e-learning. janneke krieg is a research and data analyst in the institutional research unit at aut university. journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 11 the journal of distance learning made its first appearance in 1995. it was launched at the annual deanz conference, which was held in auckland, and was the result of a great deal of discussion and planning. the membership of the association felt that the time was right to develop a journal as a sign of the increasing professionalism of the distance education community in new zealand, and that a vehicle was needed in which to publish articles and o t h e r material a b o u t distance and o p e n learning. i a m pleased t o say that the journal is still alive and well and it is one of a small number of refereed journals in the world that focus on distance and open learning. this issue contains a range of articles. in the first one, bill grote looks at quality assurance in tertiary education in australia, the uk, the u s a and new zealand and presents an institutional perspective by examining some of the quality assurance processes in place at the open polytechnic of new zealand. he a s k s w h e t h e r it is time to d e v e l o p an international quality assurance system for tertiary education. two articles follow which report on research carried out on distance learning programmes in new zealand. cynthia white reports on s o m e research that examined how adult distance learning students of spanish accessed and evaluated different textual forms in their course. then rachel mccahon reports on research that she conducted with library studies students about the forms of support that they found helpful with their studies. she argues that one of the challenges for large scale distance and open learning providers is to find support strategies that maximise students' chances for course completion. editorial next, in a report from otago university, andrew higgins describes some of the flexible learning strategies that were integrated into five of the university's courses, and student reactions to these strategies. finally, there are two book reviews to tempt you into a library or bookstore. this is the last issue of the journal that i will edit. claire mclachlan-smith is taking over the role of editor and she will bring a fresh perspective and new energy to the task. i wish her well hnd encourage all readers of the journal to consider w r i t i n g material for possible publication. the journal is one of the ways that we keep our association healthy and vital. i would like to thank the deanz executive for their support and encouragement during my time as chair of the editorial board and editor. i would also like to thank all of those people who submitted articles or who acted as referees. the peer review process can be very time-consuming and sometimes quite challenging. thank you for rising to that challenge and helping to keep our journal going. andrea mcilroy editor journal of distance learning, vol5, no 1, 2000 ©distance education association ofnew zealand 3 scanned document leu, d. l jr., & leu, d. d. (2000). teaching with the internet: lessons from the classroom (3rd ed.). norwood, ma: christopher-gordon publishers (pp. xv, 384). nz$95.00jus$38.95 (paperback). there can be few teachers today who are not aware of the internet, although many may still wonder how it can be used in their classrooms to enhance teaching and learning. donald and deborah leu wrote this book with internet beginners in mind. this book is designed to help teachers and learners feel comfortable in the "new learning environment"; to ntinimize the time it takes to find useful learning tools for students and to show how the internet can be used in classrooms to support learning. it contains many practical, interesting and common-sense suggestions for getting a class started with the internet. donald and deborah leu begin with an explanation of the internet and e-mail and how communication can be enhanced not just between teachers and students, but between students themselves. their book, which is extensively illustrated with web pages, comes with a cd and is laid out in a way that will provide teachers with ready access to sites they can consider for the enhancement of lessons in their classrooms. there is an extensive section on the use of the internet to support language arts and literature, another chapter on sodal studies, followed by chapters on the h1ternet and sdentific thinking and one on "thinking mathematically." each of these chapters contains a section called "lessons from book reviews the oassroom" in which the authors provide readers with an analysis of preceding case studies of classroom internet applications. each chapter provides teachers and students with instructional resources on the internet in these and related areas as well as practical suggestions for classroom internet projects. of particular interest to many classroom teachers considering using the internet to enhance their teaching will be the authors' details on "central sites" in language arts, mathematics, sdence and sodal studies. these sites provide teachers with a solid basis from which to consider the use of the internet in their classrooms for different subject areas. i found the chapter on "effective instructional strategies" for using the internet to be particularly good value. i noted a suggestion from this chapter that when a teacher is still trying to "figure out" somethin~ his or her classroom problem could be posted on the internet with an invitation for others to respond. this seems to me to be an excellent way of making use of this global collaborative technology for teaching and learning. the emphasis on sharing and collaborating that is likely to arise from classroom use of the internet may lead to consideration of different instructional strategies. this is a book that is likely to have value in almost any classroom. there is a chapter devoted to "spedal ideas for younger children" and one on "using the internet to h1crease multicultural understanding." one of the most useful parts of this book to me though is journal of distance learning, vol 6, no 1, 2001 © distance education association of n ew zealand 49 the section on how to integrate the internet into a classroom, including the development of class homepages. however, the authors point out that "when the internet is used without direction and guidance, students will often be diverted from thoughtful integration and analysis of information and engage instead in random, unconnected surfing experiences" . the internet can expand the horizons of learners, provide new pathways and introduce young people, and teachers, to new areas of knowledge. the integration of the internet into a classroom has to be planned and used judiciously to be of maximum value for learning. ultimately, the internet is likely to break down the insularity of the traditional classroom and encourage new relationships between teachers and learners within and between schools. in this process, not only will new teaching and learning relationships be fostered, but telelearning will become integral to classroom life. ken stevens memorial university of newfoundland newfoundland, canada perraton, h. d. (2000). open and distance learning in the developing world. routledge studies in distance education. london: routledge (pp. x, 228). nz$61.00. the scale of problems faced by distance educators and educational planners in the developing world are of a magnitude not known in developed countries. while distance educators in many parts of the developed world are working with expanding ranges of hardware and software and discovering ever more uses for the internet in teaching, learning and the networking of schools and universities, it is sobering to realize that these are very much first-world educational phenomena. there is a growing technological gap between have and have-not societies in what perraton refers to as the north and the south. levin and lockheed (1993) almost a decade ago observed that there were considerable differences in distance education in developed and developing societies: schools in developing countries often lack the most basic resources needed for education such as qualified teachers, facilities and textbooks. double and triple shifts of a few hours are the norm in some regions; the number of days in the school year has been reduced; and teachers' salaries have declined so much that fully qualified teachers are often a luxury and teacher turnover and attendance are problematic. at a time when open and distance learning are becoming mainstreamed in both schools and universities in developed societies though on-line teleteaching and telelearning, mass computing and a steadily increasing range of software, it is timely to consider the role of distance learning in the developing world. although information and communication technologies are able to link teachers and learners in a range of ways, permitting both synchronous and asynchronous learning, these are not options for most people in the developing world. at a time when we are becoming used to the idea that technologies can link schools with other schools and link universities with one another to form new partnerships, bates and escamilla journal of distance learning, vol 6, no 1, 2001 © distance education association of new zealand 50 de los santos (1997) point out, these developments reflect the north-south export trade, reflecting the gap between technological development (and its distance education applications) in developed and developing countries . through technological enhancement, the teaching and learning capadty of distance education institutions in developed countries can be extended to overshadow distance learning institutions in developing sodeties. perraton observes that: .. . as rich-country universities have gained expertise and legitimacy in distance education, so they have sought to extend their influence through consultancy, sales and enrolments. (p. 153) as research director of the hlternational foundation for open learning and someone who has worked in international education for thirty years, perraton is well placed to comment on the provision of education in the developing world and to provide readers with a global view of distance education. this book provides an overview of how many developing countries have used distance education as a response to what the author calls "the critical educational problems of numbers, resources and quality." he notes (p. 145) that: it is possible to develop a whole course in a variety of media, make this available through the internet and use the same technologlj for contact between student and tutor and among students. computer links, in principle, make it possible for students in any location to be treated as a single grouponce any language barriers are overcome. t71e most highly developed countries are from the north .... constraints on this type of enrolment are no longer a matter of geography but of access to the internet and the ability to pay the enrolment fees and the costs of communication. there are beginning to be examples of this in the south, though more often within a framework of north-south cooperation than of indigenous southern development, or, indeed, south-south cooperation. one of the most spectacular developments in distance education in developing countries in the last quarter century has been the rise of open universities. a chapter is devoted to these institutions, with statistics that provide insights into the scale of distance learning in developing sodeties. another chapter explains "non-formal education" as "the light that never shone." this book will be of interest to students of comparative education, the economics of education and to those interested in the problems of education in developing countries. for people in developed countries who are now looking to new approaches in telelearning and teleteaching using an expanding range of hardware and software and, of course, the internet, this book is a timely reminder that a lot of the world is not able to consider teaching and learning this way, at this time. the global analysis of distance education in the developing world presented by perra ton will probably not be familiar to most readers in developed countries. for me, this book provided an explanation of the roles of many distance education institutions throughout the world whose names were familiar but whose functions were not fully appredated. however, the jou rnal of distance lea rning, vol 6, no 1, 2001 © distance education association of new zealand 51 lasting value of this book for me has been the awareness it has provided of the gap between distance education in developed and developing countries. references bates, a. w., & escamilla de los santos, j. g. (1997) . crossing boundaries: making global distance education a reality. journal of distance education, 12, 1-2. levin, h. m., & lockheed, m. e. (eds.) . (1993). effective schools in developing countries. london: falmer . ken stevens memorial university afnewfoundland newfoundland, canada journal of distance learning, vol 6, no 1, 2001 © distance educa tion association of new zealand 52 microsoft word forbes.docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1) 27 student expectations of peers in academic asynchronous online discussion dianne forbes, university of waikato abstract in open, flexible, and distance learning, asynchronous online discussion persists as a popular means of interaction and collaboration. the research literature abounds with consideration of instructor roles and expectations of teachers and tools. student-to-student interaction is widely acknowledged as a salient benefit of asynchronous online discussion, with implications for collaborative learning and problem-solving, as well as student satisfaction and course commitment. but what do students expect of their peers when communicating online for learning purposes? this question has seldom been considered, despite common reliance on peer-to-peer learning interactions. this small-scale case study incorporates an online focus group and semi-structured interviews with second-year undergraduate students studying primary teaching in aotearoa new zealand. the students in this study expect responsive, free-flowing contributions by peers, culminating in discussion that is active and interactive. given the imperative to value student experience and to involve students in active learning, it is timely to share peer expectations so that students are accountable to their class community and are better prepared for collaborative learning through asynchronous online discussion. keywords: asynchronous online discussion; student expectations; interaction; peer learning; social presence the continuing relevance of asynchronous online discussion (aod) the online discussion forum is a mainstay of open, flexible, and distance learning. it has long been used in a range of disciplines and endures as a foundation of university courses. interactions with peers are a crucial form of learner support, and are a critical component of collaborative learning, fundamental to extending students’ theoretical, conceptual, practical, and innovative thinking. positive social interdependence is the foundation of group learning, with implications for individual accountability and personal responsibility (johnson & johnson, 2009). such student-to-student interactions are frequently linked to increased course connection, enjoyment, and satisfaction, with implications for retention (ghadirian et al., 2018; peacock et al., 2020). over many years, asynchronous online discussion has been variously referred to as web-based conferencing (angeli et al., 2003), electronic discussion (ed) (ferdig & roehler, 2003), threaded discussion or conversation (welser et al., 2007), discussion boards (dbs) (al tawil, 2019), online discussion forums (odfs) (tan, 2017), or simply ods (ghadirian et al., 2018). these discussions occur in an internet-enabled environment, typically a learning management system (lms), without the need for discussion participants to be present in the same physical location or available at the same time. the “asynchronous” character of the discussion means forbes, d. 28 that it occurs over time, with participants “posting” messages to a discussion over a period of hours or days. communication occurs intermittently, at any time, and at irregular intervals. asynchronicity is beneficial because it is a low-bandwidth solution that allows participants to have flexible access. although synchronous communication opportunities are technically more accessible now than in the past, the need for every participant to be available at the same time can prove challenging for students with demanding schedules and a range of commitments beyond study, and for international students working in different time zones. even when an online course incorporates synchronous aspects (e.g., meetings), there are still good reasons for retaining aod. there is a consensus in the literature that asynchronous online discussion affords four key advantages. 1. inclusivity: all participants can contribute. 2. flexibility: class time is extended. 3. textual communication: the writing process is valued. 4. deep learning: reflection and depth are promoted. in inclusive terms, aod enables participants to contribute concurrently without fear of interruption; there are often higher levels of peer discourse because every participant can contribute to the discussion. when flexibility is valued, aod affords convenience and accessibility, because learners choose the time and place to contribute. when students are timepoor, often juggling paid work, family commitments, and striving for work/life balance, flexibility means study “fits into their lives” (oliphant & branch-mueller, 2018, p. 202). in part, it is the textual communication of aod that enhances structure and depth. reading and writing afford meta-linguistic and analytic advantages, enabling learners to share thoughts and ideas informally, but also to review them. writing is useful as both process and product of rigorous critical thinking, argumentation, and reflection (garrison & anderson, 2003; hew et al., 2010). writing communicates style, tone, and effort (which are akin to nonverbal cues), and these influence how people learn together (al tawil, 2019). finally, in relation to deep learning, both the asynchronicity of time and the written communication format can enhance critical and creative thinking. by affording time to think, there is potential for informed, considered, structured responses, and for flexible thinking (fauske & wade, 2003; ferdig & roehler, 2003; hew et al., 2010). ideally, participants question their own assumptions and perspectives and challenge those put forward by other participants. the use of aod as a forum for dialogic peer formative feedback involves active and constructive sharing of alternative perspectives as part of collaborative learning (gikandi & morrow, 2016; oliphant & branch-mueller, 2018). students can construct deeper meaning through thoughtful and personal contributions to online discussion (johnson, 2016). the four aspects (inclusivity, flexibility, textual communication, and deep learning) are affordances of aod. they have the potential to support equality, student choice, and the ability to revisit and synthesise persistent text—and they lead to thinking, reflection, and conceptual understanding. however, as haythornthwaite and andrews (2011) remind us, affordances are what the media allow or make possible. affordances such as the advantages listed above are opportunities and potential benefits, but they might not always be realised in practice. thus, there can be gaps between the potential and actual use of aod for learning and, despite many years of use, the gaps persist. in particular, aod falls short of its considerable potential for quality learning if student expectations are not met. there are times when discussions are flat and journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1) 29 uninspiring, and when participants seem to be merely going through the motions, posting to meet course or instructor requirements rather than attaining deeper levels of learning and interaction. bishop (2002) offers a telling critique of online discussion: although asynchronous discussion is supposed to be a benefit of online learning, i found it tedious. delays of hours or even days between postings killed their spark. few people contradicted each other and even fewer made jokes. unable to see each other’s body language, and perhaps concerned about surveillance, students chose their words too carefully. (bishop, p. 234) in a similar vein, thomas’ (2002) critique of online discussion considers aod to be incoherent. for thomas (2002), this student’s quote captures the essence of aod: in [face-to-face] tutorials the discussion is much more alive and direct. my ideas can be changed, influenced and appreciated in a more integrated environment. the online discussion forum felt too much like monologue vs. monologue. it needs to be a discussion. (thomas, p. 261) it is apparent that bishop’s (2002) and thomas’s (2002) students have experienced aod as lacking in energy and largely devoid of interpersonal or intellectual connection, probably culminating in a frustrating and unsatisfactory experience. the missing ingredients in their experience can be theorised in terms of garrison et al.’s (2000) seminal community of inquiry (coi) model. conceived at the start of the online course era, the coi framework comprises three interrelated presences: social presence, which refers to the projection of self and personality as people interact online; cognitive presence, which refers to the ability to construct meaning through online communication; and teaching presence, which supports the social and cognitive via design and facilitation. bishop’s (2002) experience of online learning implies a lack of social presence because there was little spontaneity or natural interaction, while thomas’ (2002) critique also suggests that the online discussion was less lively. the absence of cognitive presence is indicated by the effect on construction of meaning in both cases, in that bishop’s remark about contradictions and careful word choices implies a lack of challenge, argumentation, or sharing of diverse perspectives. as thomas concludes, ideas were not changed, influenced, or appreciated to the extent the student expected. by implication, there was a need to improve design and facilitation (teaching presence) to support the social and cognitive elements. this is not to suggest, however, that the teacher must come up with all the answers about how to improve the quality of online discussion. rather, to inform design and facilitation, it is sensible to consult students and to ask: what do they expect of each other as participants in aod? because learning collaboratively involves students’ active involvement in peer interactions, it is important to ascertain what students want from their collaborators. student perspectives and the student experience are increasingly the focus of practitioner research in open, flexible, and distance learning. it is timely to recognise and attend to the value of student perceptions, and the relevance of doing so has been celebrated in the literature—including, for example, comparisons of student perceptions between online and face-to-face courses (smothers et al., 2020; spencer & temple, 2021), and how students feel connected through online social presence (peacock et al., 2020). some studies have looked at what students expect of teaching staff or how they perceive the affordances of the technologies (fiock et al., 2021; spencer & temple, 2021), most recently during remote teaching and learning induced by covid-19 (means & neisler, 2021). however, online communities don’t comprise just teachers and technology—they rely on the contributions of fellow learners (fiock et al., 2021; garrison et al., 2000; oliphant & branch-mueller, 2018; peacock et al., 2020). this point has received some recent recognition in research about learner presence, an “emergent construct involving thoughts and actions initiated by students” (honig & forbes, d. 30 salmon, 2021, p. 100). with complex links to the coi framework, learner presence involves regulation and metacognition at individual and shared levels, with implications for what students need from their peers. if class interaction is a precursor to professional learning networks and lifelong communities of learning, the expectations and contributions of peers become crucial. to this end, in the context of an online teacher-education degree programme, the current study asks: what do students expect of peers in aod? how can surfacing these peer expectations inform pedagogy? research context and design the university of waikato bachelor of teaching, mixed media presentation (mmp), was among the first of its kind in aotearoa new zealand. established in 1997, this initial teacher-education degree course was designed for primary pre-service teachers. it blends on-campus block time, primary school placements and online study. the online study component incorporates aod as an interactive tutorial opportunity for students, alongside supportive synchronous opportunities. typically, in a range of subjects in the degree, learning through aod involves a series of forums, throughout the semester, for students and lecturers to discuss literature and practice that is related to class topics. topics vary by discipline and curriculum area as would be expected in an initial teacher-education degree, which is inherently interdisciplinary. the context for this study is mmp, in which student teachers in the second year of their 3-year degree were invited to join an online focus group to discuss their perspectives and experience of online discussion. twelve students volunteered to join the online focus group, opting into a moodle forum to discuss their ideas about effective learning and teaching through aod, based on their experience as online students. the focus group continued for 18 weeks, during which time seven of the student teachers volunteered for a series of three semi-structured interviews. the findings reported here were part of a larger study involving both staff and students. in this paper, the focus is on the student participants and their expectations of peers in aod, with insights drawn from the online focus group and the semi-structured interviews. the methods employed aimed to co-construct meaning between participants by supporting a social dynamic, via focus groups, interviews, and co-analysis with participants, culminating in microethnographic case studies. case studies such as those reported here can be regarded as “microethnography”, because the focus is on small units of an organisation and on very specific organisational activity (bogdan & biklen, 2007, p. 66). case studies allow us to illuminate a particular situation in order to get a close understanding of it (yin, 2006) and, in particular, to understand participants’ perceptions of events and their “lived experiences of, thoughts about, and feelings for a situation” (cohen et al., 2000, pp. 182–3). collective case studies that incorporate multiple cases, serve to strengthen findings due to the potential for cross-case analysis (johnson & christensen, 2008; stake, 2005; yin, 2006). cases replicate each other, producing confirmatory and contrasting illustrations, enabling a fuller picture of localised experience. in this way, case studies are useful if there is a need to discover important features, develop understanding, and conceptualise for further study (punch, 2009). the in-depth work involved in an ethnographic case-study design entails a small sample size. in this study, convenience or opportunity sampling involved recruiting student volunteers, and a degree of balance was achieved through negative case sampling by involving students who claimed to dislike aod. the project received institutional ethical approval and adhered to standard principles of informed consent, confidentiality, and avoidance of harm. pseudonyms are used in reported student data. the students’ online focus group was separate from their regular moodle classes (to distinguish the research involvement from coursework) and from the staff members involved in teaching the students (teaching staff did not have access to the online focus group). students quickly joined in journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1) 31 and spread the word to their peers, encouraging others to make contact and request access. overall, the student online focus group remained active for 18 weeks and had 30–40 posts each week. it functioned in part as an opportunity to recruit volunteers (n = 7) for individual interviews to explore experiences of aod in more depth. data generation therefore also involved individual semi-structured interviews with seven casestudy students, to gather, clarify, and probe interviewee’s ideas. such open-ended interviews, employing semi-structured or interview guide protocols, are useful for enabling participants to express their own perspectives on specific situations. in keeping with the intent of the research, this style of interviewing “is a very good way of accessing people’s perceptions, meanings, definitions of situations and constructions of reality” (punch, 2009, p. 144). the method supports co-constructing research knowledge as researchers and interviewees interact, while individual students tell their stories (oliphant & branch-mueller, 2018). the intentions of the three interviews with seven students were as follows. interview one: to explore initial views about aod and the participant’s personal experience of aod. interview two: to co-analyse the nominated asynchronous online discussion/s that were occurring, delving into participants’ thinking about the aod and their intentions for their postings. interview three: to complete co-analysis of the nominated aod by reviewing the forum when it had ended; to consider the key messages emailed to participants based on their first two interviews, and to invite correction and expansion on these points; and to revisit the general aspects of the first interview to consider, in more depth, participants’ views and reflections on aod and their personal experience. all participants were provided with the information above and the three sets of questions at the outset of the data-generation phase, and were re-sent the questions as a reminder shortly before each interview. the seven students participated in a series of three 45-minute interviews, totalling 21 student interviews. after the first interview, students checked the transcript in raw form, noting modifications, additions, and clarifications. after the second interview with each participant, preliminary analysis involved summarising the participants’ key messages. each participant received a list of key messages in bullet form, along with the raw transcript of their second interview, with a request that they consider the messages with a view to discussing, correcting, and expanding them at the third interview. this led to some useful input, as students used the bullet-pointed statements as a stimulus to probe meanings, provoking extension of thinking and explanation, correction or disagreement, in order to go deeper and arrive at a clearer encapsulation of the participants’ views or thinking. students were later emailed the transcript of their third interview and invited to make final comments. an inductive approach to analysis meant themes emerged progressively and were tentatively defined and tested against the data, then adjusted and retested until the meanings stabilised, in a similar way to the constant comparative method drawn from grounded theory (glaser & strauss, 1967). this method of analysis served to document participants’ perspectives and experiences on their own terms, striving to reflect the meanings intended by the participants. findings data were analysed with respect to what students expect of their peers in aod. several themes emerged, each of which are discussed in turn. they comprise relevant participation, responsiveness to peers, succinct posts, and free-flowing communication. forbes, d. 32 relevant participation students said they expected their peers to join the discussion promptly and to post regularly. they expected peers to be experienced at managing their time in online discussion by their second year of study and were surprised by those who had to resort to double posts due to time management issues. what irks me is people who post but don’t discuss. i know we have busy lives. but it irks me when fellow students haven’t been in discussion all week, haven’t bothered to read what has been discussed (i know they haven’t when they repeat what has already been said without acknowledging this). or they then post three posts in a row!! that frustrates me! (nina) students suggested that it could be challenging to have a flowing discussion when group members did not appear online until late in the week, disrupting continuity. students expected their peers to ensure examples and anecdotes or illustrations were relevant to the discussion topic and the discussants. when considering the relevance of your postings, it is a good idea to be aware of the discussion group you are in and adjust your discussion accordingly. try to be aware of where others are at. (sarah) while appreciating personal experience as a useful entry point worthy of exploring and sharing, students said they found fixation on personal experience to be limiting. every time we’ve gotten onto a discussion [it] has focused around how bad they were at maths when they were at school and . . . that seems to pervade the discussion . . . so i get on there and try and politely change the tone of the discussion and say more or less you know you’re not in primary anymore and i know those things can have some effect but trying to get them to see the positive side of those things instead of the negatives . . . continually going on about your own experiences all the time, it’s not enough. (sarah) on the other hand, students wanted to talk about their lives and experiences and to relate their parental experience to discussions where possible. however, they expected peers to look beyond their own children as a sole point of reference. a wider, more diverse view of children in the school system was valued. tarryn, for example, illustrated this point clearly. one thing that’s a huge turn-off to me is when people start talking about their personal experience in relation to their children and only their children. that’s important but they need to bring it into the school system as well, they need to talk about their base school experiences and back up with their readings so it’s sort of interweaving it . . . it is good when the discussion question, literature, classroom practice and personal experience (e.g., as parents) all link together, enabling students to engage in “interweaving” multiple sources of learning. (tarryn) the students unanimously appreciated opportunities to link theoretical concepts with classroom teaching incidents. discussions that incorporated talk about learning in the classroom were considered superior to those perceived as more literary, without a practical element. when students related instances where discussions linked directly to classroom learning, they used words such as “fantastic” and “exciting”. thus, “relevance” means the comments were of interest to students, closely linked to the topic of discussion, and timely. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1) 33 responsiveness to peers a related expectation was that peers would acknowledge others and respond to them in discussion. students indicated that they expected others to read what had been posted rather than repeat or ignore points made by earlier contributors. several students mentioned face-to-face etiquette regarding the impoliteness of ignoring others by repeating points already made online. [i consider it] . . . rude because you know that would be like if i was face to face with you and you’ve come and said something to me and i’ve just walked away and started talking to somebody else. (sarah) i felt like i’d made a valid point but it was completely ignored and it’s just like well if we were in a group discussion once again, face to face, it would be like they all just turned their backs on me and carried on talking. (nina) same as in a classroom, someone’s asked a question and then johnny puts his hand up and says the same thing. (tia) the students reported a tendency to post more often in discussion when peers responded to posts and questions. they suggested that they would rather have their ideas actively challenged than ignored. i have noticed in a few discussions this semester that when someone has a different opinion from the rest of the group that person’s ideas are ignored and no one responds to their comment. i know in one particular paper we are encouraged to disagree with the lecturers or others in the group but when someone disagrees and is ignored for doing so i feel like that voice is not heard. to even agree to disagree is better than ignoring what that person has to say. (nina) similarly, students emphasised that acknowledgement should move beyond bland agreement. the stock standard phrase “oh yes i agree with so and so” could be overused, with one student describing this behaviour as “nauseating”, “puppet-like”, and a hindrance to discussion (tarryn). students appreciated their names being used as part of peer-to-peer responsiveness. focus-group members said: names are important. it gives the discussion that human face when we wish we had one to look at!! (tarryn) the importance of a name cannot be overstated. naming the person online is equivalent to “looking” at that person in class. (mei) all of the students voiced an expectation of their peers connecting via aod. they said that discussion provided a vital connection with their peers. they had difficulty envisaging their course without online discussion components. notions of connection and community were mentioned by all students: being able to connect with other people is pretty important to online learning i would have thought. (don) the plus of discussion is it keeps me connected to others—this is a lifeline. (dana) the correspondence between relevant and responsive contributions is evident; a responsive contribution will probably be timely and relevant to another group member. forbes, d. 34 succinct posts students referred to the need to keep comments short to avoid dominating discussion and characterised this as “leaving space” for other participants. i hate having to trawl through really long discussions. (jacqui) i won’t read them if they’re too big. (don) five of the seven students interviewed specifically expressed a dislike of lengthy postings. they agreed that when posts were too long, they typically skimmed rather than reading thoroughly. contributions without paragraph breaks were similarly skipped over. lengthy posts that attempted to address every point in one hit did not leave space for others to enter the discussion. free-flowing communication a fourth student expectation related to the style of language used in online discussion. they said it helped them to write as they would talk, putting things in their own words. they felt that discussion was better when people wrote honestly and sincerely (“being true to who you are”), rather than wallowing in academic jargon. it was like we were actually talking to each other, that’s when you know it’s a good discussion . . . when it’s free-flowing and you’ve got debate and it makes me look at things from a different perspective when someone’s brought something up, something i wouldn’t have considered . . . and i’m enjoying it and you’re posting because you’re really engaged in what you’re actually talking about online. (nina) i think discussion should be more of a free-flowing thing rather than an academic writing exercise. (don) the students expressed expectations regarding how peers used literature in aod, and were critical of the practice of copying and pasting material directly from set readings into the discussion. i see a lot of quoting, retelling, and reproducing rather than critical thinking in discussions, but i feel this is more because the onus in those particular discussions is on showing that literature has been read rather than making real connections to it through group discussion. (don) students characterised this practice as false, pointless, irritating, and confusing. if everyone’s just in there quoting the readings . . . i’m not learning anything because i’ve already done the readings. i’m just reading them all again . . . i mean, what is so interesting about going into a discussion and re-reading readings? (dana) the students did not question the value of reading academic literature, and regarded it as fundamental to their learning. they appreciated that readings could help them understand what they might not be seeing in schools, represent expert opinion, and enlarge their experiences vicariously. discussion: two key expectations the student findings coalesce around four features of discussion in the hope that it is relevant, responsive, succinct, and free flowing. taking this analysis one step further, it is helpful to further distil two key student expectations of peers in aod. that is, students expect their peers’ contributions to be responsive and free flowing. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1) 35 in summary, responsive contributions are relevant to the topic, and are timed to ensure they are relevant to the pace of discussion. as well as being responsive to the discussion, responses to individuals are important, and acknowledgement of peers is an important way to convey respectful listening. contributions or posts that fall short of being responsive tend to be prepared in isolation and are disconnected from the flow of discussion, either disregarding or repeating what has already been raised. free-flowing contributions are succinct, appropriate in tone, and couched in plain language. they use literature effectively as a stimulus or support. these contributions avoid the pitfalls of being too long to read, laden with jargon, and/or full of verbatim quotations. there is support in the research literature for some of these findings in relation to peer facilitation of discussion (ghadirian et al., 2018; gikandi & morrow, 2016; hew & cheung, 2012). these studies emphasise the impact of acknowledgement and feedback from peers. as in my study, participants in hew & cheung (2012) advocated refraining from citing or quoting sources too often in online discussion. discussion behaviour relating to pacing or timing of responses (chronemics), and length, style, and choice of words have also been theorised by al tawil (2019) in terms of electronic nonverbal communication (envc), with implications for students’ engagement in asynchronous online learning. fundamentally, the contributions expected and valued by students in my study illustrate social and cognitive presence and positive interdependence in that the participants expected relational communication and support, in addition to relevant connections that would serve to prompt the construction of meaning (garrison et al., 2000; johnson & johnson, 2009). there are important synergies with the findings of recent canadian and british studies exploring the experience of online learners in asynchronous courses. for example, in canada, oliphant & branch-mueller (2018) report that peers were the most positive aspect for over half of their student respondents; that discussion groups helped to create a sense of community; and “the diverse lived experience of other members of the cohort made significant contributions to learning and discovery” (oliphant & branch-mueller, 2018, p. 199). similarly, in a british study, peacock et al. (2020) discovered the pivotal role of online discussion for generating a sense of belonging via feedback and sharing of contrasting views, as well as providing support and encouragement, to the extent that students who missed discussion felt less connected and were perceived as being less connected by their peers. importantly, peacock et al. (2020) note that “the substantial influence of peers was surprising” (p. 29), as “[t]he role of the community and peers in developing a sense of belonging was a key feature for our participants” (p. 30). valuing personal prior knowledge as a point of entry is a basic tenet of constructivist learning, and attention to students’ personal stories is in keeping with respect for students’ voices (brookfield & preskill, 2005). to learn, however, it is necessary to move beyond one’s initial starting point. learning entails enlargement of experience, and higher-order or critical thinking involves thinking beyond the limitations of one’s own personal experience to achieve greater awareness of multiple perspectives and viewpoints. reviewing the purposes of aod in a learning context serves as a reminder that care must be taken that discussion is not limited to swapping anecdotes (angeli et al, 2003; brookfield & preskill, 2005). nevertheless, it is useful for students to articulate and share their personal experience, and when this occurs in a group discussion, the range of personal experience begins to enlarge the perspectives to be considered (oliphant & branch-mueller, 2018; peacock et al., 2020). in the process, sharing promotes empathy, rapport, social presence, and positive interdependence, laying foundations for deeper learning through discussion. as well as personal experience, teacher-education discussions involve sharing classroom and professional experience, enabling students to theorise practice within the field of study. opportunities for situated learning and apprenticeship and enculturation into the profession are forbes, d. 36 promoted, and the range of perspectives is again extended, because students and teachers have a range of professional experience to draw upon. again, however, the caution regarding uncritical use of experience holds. just as students can become “stuck in the here and now” of personal experience, so can practical knowledge that is grounded in a local setting become a fixation in the absence of theoretical understanding or awareness of broader contexts. although the students in this study offered a range of advice, they placed a great deal of emphasis on three simple behaviours. 1. active participation participants in the study recognised that the community simply cannot be sustained without active involvement from a core group of people. students characterised this in terms of “courtesy” (nina), and simply as an “expectation” (tia). these findings challenge the work of a small number of studies defending students’ rights to read a discussion without contributing actively (e.g., gulati, 2008; seddon et al., 2011). another section of literature reinforces the sense of mutual obligation that holds community together due to generalised reciprocity—where students respond to others because others will, in turn, respond (e.g., hew et al., 2010). making time for active participation in online discussion is a challenge, and time management is an area for teachers to address when advising students (oliphant & branch-mueller, 2018). 2. direct address using people’s names when responding is a direct social acknowledgement that communicates social presence by personalising the interaction and signalling active listening. the importance of personal acknowledgement as part of the relational character of communication is reinforced by lehman and conceicao (2010), among others. inclusion can be enhanced by acknowledging several peers in a single message, weaving and synthesising, and concluding a message with an invitation to the wider group to respond. 3. brevity a succinct response is less dominant in the conversational space of the forum, allowing room for other interpretations of the topic, and inviting other responses in turn. the literature occasionally mentions brevity as part of netiquette (e.g., lehman & conciecao, 2010), and wegerif (2019) provides useful insight into the reluctance of participants to follow lengthy messages (a long and carefully prepared posting invites a similarly crafted and considered response, which can discourage respondents who may feel intimidated and/or short of time. more recently, al tawil (2019) has drawn attention to the significance of length, format, and layout of posts in aod, suggesting these factors affect students’ motivation, level of engagement, and overall perception of the online learning experience. implications the students in this research explained that they sought exemplars and guidance from experienced online learners. the students needed to know what good discussion looks like. sharing exemplary responses or vignettes from previous classes can help to clarify expectations related to tone and content, and students can analyse samples to focus attention on how they want their own discussions to be (brookfield & preskill, 2005; fauske & wade, 2003). this is also an opportunity to surface and deal with students’ own past experiences of discussion, including discussion experiences that might have been less than satisfactory. along with consideration of effective discussion, students can also identify ineffective discussion behaviours so they can actively discourage them. in the current study, students in the online focus group offered a rich set of recommendations for “newbies” based on their own experience and their expectations of peers (summarised in table 1). students also told of modelling or leading discussion for peers journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1) 37 who were new to online classes. in light of the credibility of students’ advice, brookfield and preskill’s use of letters from previous students is compelling. each cohort of students can be invited to produce “letters from online successors”, where students write “exit” letters at the end of their online class, making suggestions for how the next cohort of students might best contribute online (brookfield & preskill, 2005, p. 244). staff and students can then work together to negotiate and modify expectations together over time (fauske & wade, 2003). table 1 summary of student expectations and advice responsive discussion what it is what it is not relevant to the topic timely acknowledges other responses prepared in isolation disconnected, tangential repetitive free-flowing discussion what it is what it is not succinct appropriate in tone plain language clear paraphrases literature as a support or stimulus too long to read full of jargon full of verbatim quotations advice and guidance do avoid discuss the topic at hand, check the relevance of your contribution absence from discussion, or posting once and then disappearing connect with the topic and thread of the discussion. follow and extend the thread, or introduce a new direction. in either case, alter the title or subject of your contribution accordingly introducing a new discussion topic without signalling the new direction read earlier contributions to avoid repeating them crafting a full response without reading what has already been discussed acknowledge ideas of others before building on them with fresh points repeating points made earlier without acknowledgement or advancing the reasoning keep posts short (150 words) writing a long message, or consecutive posts write clearly, as though you are speaking in a class using complex terminology without adequate explanation relate your own experiences as relevant, but treat these as a starting point and partial perspective. be prepared to be challenged and to change your point of view taking offence when others express a view that differs from your own connect insights from readings by paraphrasing the key ideas and applying your own thinking to them quoting at length from texts forbes, d. 38 in summary, students’ expectations of their peers in asynchronous online discussion were that peers participate in a relevant and responsive manner and that they make human connections, leaving space for others by being succinct, communicating in a clear and free-flowing manner, and using literature effectively. these findings have subsequently been shared with other cohorts as a set of “initial discussion guidelines” for critique and renegotiation by participants in online classes. student feedback indicates that students appreciate the guidelines. they find them helpful and reasonable, while also valuing the opportunity to propose modifications to the initial set of guidelines in order to evaluate, adjust, and enhance discussion protocols over time. while the sample size in this study was (of necessity) small, the findings raise questions for application to wider contexts characterised by aod and interaction between students. further investigation could explore the perspectives, experiences, and expectations of students in diverse contexts, inviting students to negotiate mutually agreeable guidelines for peers in online discussion. it is possible that students in degrees unrelated to education and teaching may have quite different insights and expectations of their peers. application to synchronous discussion and social media would also extend the exploration of student expectations. ultimately, this study reveals a little of students’ expectations of their peers when communicating online in initial teacher education. highlighting these participant perspectives generates possibilities for negotiation, change, and improvement. that is, by making the perspectives, experiences and expectations visible, we render them revisible (halse & honey, 2010), inviting critical consideration of how to interact effectively within aod in wider contexts. understanding student expectations is a crucial part of understanding and informing present and future practice. references al tawil, r. 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(2006). case study methods. in j. l. green, g. camilli, & p. b. elmore (eds.), handbook of complementary methods in education research (111–122). lawrence erlbaum. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1) 41 biographical notes dianne forbes dianne.forbes@waikato.ac.nz dr dianne forbes (edd) is a former primary school teacher, and is now a senior lecturer in teacher education and digital learning at the university of waikato. she has more than 2 decades of experience as an online teacher. dianne has a long-standing interest in asynchronous online discussion and in innovative online pedagogies, including student-led podcasts, video, social media, and flipped/blended learning. her research interests focus on human, social, and relational dimensions of learning through digital technologies, including ethics and professionalism. a consistent focus of her work is the perspectives and experience of students and teachers as participants in digital learning. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. forbes, d. (2022). student expectations of peers in academic asynchronous online discussion. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1), [27–41.]. microsoft word chitanana format.docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 75 parents’ experience with remote learning during covid-19 lockdown in zimbabwe lockias chitanana, midlands state university, zimbawe abstract the closure of primary schools during the covid-19 pandemic led to a rapid shift to remote learning, placing more responsibility for learning on parents and guardians. this study sought to explore parents’ experience while engaging in their children’s remote learning during that period. the study is particularly timely in light of a dramatic growth in remote learning due to the continued disruption of face-to-face learning in schools. a study of parents’ experience may yield useful data and identify trends to inform the development of programmes and policies targeting parental needs and support in this emerging form of learning. a descriptive qualitative design was used to conduct this study so that relevant responses could be sought to get insights into parents’ experience during the covid-19 pandemic. questionnaires and online interviews were used to collect data from a purposive sample of 25 parents, whose selection was based on their involvement in their children’s home learning and access to internet connectivity in the home. the results revealed that parents found the sudden closure of schools extremely disturbing, and they were concerned about their children’s routines. parents highlighted that they had difficulties with balancing responsibilities, adjusting to remote learning, children’s lack of motivation to learn, poor accessibility of learning material, lack of capacity to assist multiple children, and finding appropriate space for learning. the results of the study have important implications for policy, and generated strong recommendations for teachers, school authorities, and policymakers. keywords: remote learning; experience; pandemic; parents introduction the covid-19 crisis has caused an unprecedented global disruption of the socioeconomic order. the whole world is adjusting to the reality of the pandemic by finding alternatives to the disruption caused so far. covid-19 has upended the way of life worldwide, resulting in school closures from 24 march 2020, working remotely, and physically distancing as part of wider efforts to curb the spread of the virus. parents, children, and teachers around the world felt the unprecedented and extraordinary ripple effect of the novel coronavirus as schools remained closed and lockdown measures were ordered to cope with the global pandemic. to reduce disruption in learning, many countries have come up with strategies for remote learning, including the internet, television, radio, and many other options that are available to schools (wang et al., 2020). (by “remote learning” we mean learning that occurs when the learner and the instructor are separated physically—they cannot meet in a traditional classroom setting.) it has been generally observed that, since the end of march 2020, most schools moved to online platforms to provide education during the pandemic (cullinane & montacute, 2020). when schools in zimbabwe closed on 24 march 2020, the ministry of primary and secondary education (mops) introduced alternative learning approaches to ensure the continuity of chitanana, l. 76 education for all children. these included using radioand television-programmed lessons, and online lessons on platforms such as zoom, google meet, and whatsapp. many schools in urban areas have adopted the online learning model as a way to institute remote learning. however, there are concerns that online learning may be a sub-optimal substitute for face-to-face instruction, given the absence of universal access to ict infrastructure and lack of adequate preparation among teachers and learners for the unique demands posed by online teaching and learning (oecd, 2020). teachers are resourceful. they use a range of internet tools and social media such as whatsapp groups, zoom meetings, and other e-learning tools to create models of learning platforms. although online learning certainly does not replace face-to-face attendance for lessons, it certainly can help learners with their schooling during remote learning (sebata, 2020). however, without proper planning, there is risk further widening the attainment gaps between the rich and the poor (cullinane & montacute, 2020). many learners with poor backgrounds have not been able to benefit from this alternative mode of learning due to (among other factors) lack of connectivity and equipment. even for those who can connect, learning is compromised due to lack of preparedness on the part of both teachers and learners. in most developing nations, rural schools lack the necessary infrastructure to create an environment that can foster online learning (sebata, 2020). this situation is further complicated by parents’ lack of readiness and capacity to help their children learn remotely. however, the changes made to students’ learning by the covid-19 pandemic made parental involvement particularly crucial. the covid-19 crisis resulted in schools closing around the world, leaving parents and guardians to educate their children at home. many parents were forced to squeeze the additional responsibility of homeschooling their children between their own tight work schedules. becoming surrogate teachers, was an additional burden to “working from home”. the problem the closure of schools due to the covid-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented challenges for everyone involved, from the students, to their teachers, and their parents (cullinane & montacute, 2020). the crisis has pushed many schools to harness the opportunities offered by online learning to continue learning while students are at home. although a few schools are making the best of what online learning offers, many parents find it difficult to provide highspeed internet facilities. moreover, many parents in low-income groups also have to deal with erratic power supply and antiquated electronic devices, which are often a hindrance to seamless access to the internet. parents are confronted with difficult choices about many facets of their lives, work, and children’s education. furthermore, the economic impact of the crisis increases the likelihood of parenting stress, and abuse and violence against children (cluver et al., 2020). the broader context negatively affects effective parental involvement in children’s learning in the home across all socioeconomic groups. this study therefore sought to reveal parents’ experience from march 2020 to may 2022, when they engaged in their children’s remote learning. the study focused on parents of primary-school aged children. the study is particularly timely in light of the dramatic growth in remote learning due to the continued disruption of face-to-face learning in primary schools. research questions the following questions guided the study. 1. what are parents’ views of remote learning during the covid-19 pandemic-induced lockdown? journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 77 2. what teaching-related activities do parents engage in while helping children with their studies? 3. how are parents coping with their children’s remote learning during the covid-19 pandemic-induced lockdown? literature the literature review involved peer-reviewed and grey literature to capture the dynamics of remote learning during a pandemic such as covid-19. educational interventions during pandemics during communicable disease outbreaks such as pandemic influenza, social-distancing interventions that increase the space between people and decrease the frequency of contact can play an important role in an emergency response (earn et al., 2012; qualls et al., 2017). school closures are a possible means of ensuring social distancing in the pandemic influenza response plans of many countries (public health england, 2014; wilson et al., 2020) and have been implemented widely in response to past pandemics (cheatley et al., 2020; cowling et al., 2020). to date, research on school practices to promote social distancing in primary and secondary schools has focused on prolonged school closure, with little attention paid to the identification and feasibility of other more sustainable interventions (uscher-pines et al., 2018). the whole world is adjusting to the reality of the covid-19 pandemic by finding alternatives to the disruption. home-schooling has been practised to continue learning. essentially, homeschooling involves commitment by a parent or guardian to oversee their children’s educational development (shaw, n.d.). for many families, home-schooling involves children learning from the resources available in their community and through interaction with family members. the role played by parents in remote learning parents are central to education and it is widely accepted that they provide major input into a child’s learning (björklund & salvanes, 2011). parents are the child’s first teachers—from the moment the child is born until they mature as adults. the traditional role of parents involves teaching, guiding, and raising children to become strong members of their communities. in this regard, the role of parents in educating their children is that of shaping their personality. according to termize et al. (2021) the early education received by children is a crucial responsibility that all parents must fulfil. furthermore, parental involvement in the child’s education improves their educational achievements from early childhood (epstein et al., 2018; henderson & mapp, 2002). henderson and mapp further argue that parental support results in children staying longer in school, and encourages positive development. it is argued that children’s achievement in school improves when parents are empowered to “play four key roles in their children’s learning: teachers, supporters, advocates and decision-makers” (henderson & mapp, 2002, p. 8). however, as children begin formal learning in school, parents allow the school to take responsibility for their children’s learning in the formal education system. parents then take on a supportive role in ensuring that children have the necessary provision and support to access education (benjamin, 1993; ceka & murati, 2016; emerson et al., 2012). henderson and berla (1994) argue that parents can support their children’s education by creating a home environment that encourages learning, setting high but realistic expectations for their children’s achievement and future careers. however, during times of crisis such as the covid-19 pandemic, the role of parents in supporting their children in remote learning environments becomes even more important (cullinane & montacute, 2020). due to the covid-19 pandemic and subsequent school closures, it became apparent that parents had to assume the full-time role of supervising their chitanana, l. 78 children and supporting their learning (kong, 2020). one significant challenge is that parents are expected to provide an appropriate learning space, because online learning requires a comfortable and conducive space that will help children to focus on their learning. furthermore, this could prevent children from being disturbed by any noise around them (amirudin et al., 2021). in addition, parents should provide children with appropriate technology tools to use during online classes. the role of the school traditionally, schools are the major player in imparting education to learners, while the family focuses on children’s wellbeing (saxena & saxena, 2020). the parents’ role is seen as a supplement to the school’s input. studies carried out before covid-19 argue that the preparedness of parents to support their children’s education depends on the support they get from the school. for example, epstein et al. (2018) contend that parental involvement in their children’s education is effective when it is given in the context of a partnership between teachers and parents. đurišić and bunijevac (2017) also indicate that school, family, and community links are very important components in children’ education. however, many parents trust the school and teachers for the education of their children. schools are set for learning, with material resources, computers and internet access, other information resources, and suitable physical learning spaces. schools being closed during the pandemic didn’t mean that their role ended. over the years, schools have established routines and practices that provide learners with stability and certainty, which is especially important for vulnerable students (bailey, 2002). during pandemics such as covid-19, the school can prepare for the continuity of education, including working on online and remote learning options (saxena & saxena, 2020). however, the sudden shift to remote learning left teachers overwhelmed by the task of redesigning content and providing learners with feedback on their work (garbe et al., 2020). furthermore, most teachers lacked the skills to support remote online learning, because that was a new teaching approach for most of them. the study by garbe shows that providing support to the student through virtual meetings with individuals and groups, and using questioning techniques, appeared to be a daunting task for many teachers. the role of technology in remote learning difficult times such as the pandemic prompt an increase in the use of tools and resources to mitigate the challenges of the learning process (anastasiades et al., 2010). ash and davis (2009) note that during pandemics such as a flu crisis, distance learning can be supported by technologies such as the internet, phone, radio, tv, phone messaging, or email communication. during the same time, bbc provided online schooling activities in the united kingdom to complement school resources (anastasiades et al., 2010). to allow learning to continue during the 2014 ebola outbreak, remote learning was conducted through broadcasting, particularly through educational radio programmes that were aired in guinea, liberia, and sierra leone (united nations development programme, 2015). during covid-19 in greece, the interactive videoconferencing (ivc) system design was proposed and implemented at elementary school levels (basilaia & kvavadze, 2020) while in china and vietnam, television broadcast was used (hoang et al., 2022). in addition to these traditional technologies, several internet-based tools and learning platforms have been developed to address the continuity of the learning process during the covid-19 pandemic. although online learning could be considered new in primary schools, it can be considered for enhancing traditional schools and remote learning during pandemics (basilaia, et al., 2020; basilaia & kvavadze, 2020). online classes can help learners overcome the disruption in their learning as a result of pandemics and other catastrophes (rzymski & nowicki, 2020). journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 79 however, debate in the literature shows that it is not yet clear how online proposals could be used in primary schools in the context of the covid-19 crisis. although there are many online tools and resources, the most effective solutions, and the best way to implement them, are not widely known. the studies that can be used as examples of how to use remote online learning during a pandemic mostly concentrate on small cases, not the magnitude of a global crisis as is happening with the covid-19 pandemic of 2020. there is a large gap in knowledge of what constitutes an optimal solution in areas where access to the internet, digital devices, and skills are limited or non-existent. it is not clear what could be best practice for different age groups in their online educational development from home in such emergencies. furthermore, an area that is not being talked about adequately is the best way to support students with learning difficulties and special needs. methodology research design the current study aims to explore the experience of parents regarding the management of remote learning during the peak of covid-19. a descriptive qualitative design was used to administer this study so that relevant responses could be sought to get insight into parents’ experience at that time. qualitative research studies allow researchers to explore the phenomenon from an individual’s personal experience in a range of situations and circumstances. sample data was collected from a sample of parents with one child who attended a traditional physical school learning environment before schools closed, just after the onset of the pandemic in march 2020. this purposive sampling was the most suitable choice for the selection of the participants, especially during the period when there were restrictions on people’s movements and gatherings. a sample of 25 parents from the midlands city of zimbabwe was selected to participate in the study. their selection was based on their involvement in their children’s home learning, and internet connectivity in their home. participants were recruited primarily via whatsapp, for participation from 1 april 2020. data collection instruments data was collected using multiple data collection instruments—including an online questionnaire, interviews, and whatsapp group discussions. the questionnaire included a mixture of closedand a few open-ended questions that were designed to reveal parents’ experience and opinions about covid-19 and home learning. to maximise the number of respondents in such complicated times, the questionnaire was designed to be answerable in 5–8 minutes. the whatsapp discussions centred on parents’ experience in dealing with their children while learning remotely during the covid-19 school closures. data collection procedure during the period of school closure and the national quarantine that related to the covid-19 pandemic, it was impossible to use personal contact to collect data. therefore, the questionnaire was distributed via social networks. a whatsapp group targeting parents with primary-school children was created for data collection. the interviews were conducted online between 1 and 9 april 2020. the questionnaires were administered online using google forms. data analysis data analysis involved thematic coding, which identified passages of text linked by a common theme (gibbs, 2007). descriptive coding in an open coding cycle was followed by the second chitanana, l. 80 cycle of pattern coding to analyse parental responses regarding their greatest experiences during the covid-19 school closure. this coding process allows the categorisation of codes, ultimately enabling thematic analysis of ideas. the process started with reading responses several times to decrease possible researcher bias. this deep immersion process helped with familiarisation of the content and identification of themes in the data. limitations of the study this study was conceptualised as a rapid response to the covid-19 pandemic. one notable limitation of the study is that the sample is skewed towards internet-enabled parents, which was inevitable given the restrictions of covid-19 protocols. it is recognised that using online data collection methods excluded some groups of parents that could have led to richer and more diverse perspectives on the experience, and more insights into the impact of covid-19 on parental involvement in their children’s education. furthermore, most of the data gathered was self-reported by the parents, rather than by direct observation or externally verifiable evidence. however, the data was triangulated by employing data collection methods that included a questionnaire, interviews, and whatsapp focus-group discussions. this range of methods offered a way to verify parents’ accounts, which were found to be honest and trustworthy representations of their experience. results this section presents and subsequently discusses the results. descriptive questions are provided, and then the parents’ experience is analysed by using thematic analysis under the three guiding research questions. what are parents’ views on remote learning during the covid-19 pandemicinduced lockdown? the aim here was to find out whether parents viewed the learning that took place during the covid-19-induced lockdown as useful. the results reveal that parents found the sudden closure of the schools extremely disturbing, and they were concerned about their children’s routines. although some parents expressed that they felt children were more responsive to their health and hygiene practices, and that they followed hygiene routines voluntarily, they strongly maintained that a scheduled learning routine was still a major gap in times of covid-19. many parents felt that children were deprived of access to schools, friends, exams, and sport due to the countrywide school closures and lockdown. they felt that because schools have a formal and structured daily routine, they are best placed to help children understand the importance of time, scheduling, and doing assignments in a given timeframe. parents pointed out that the major challenge for their children was the abrupt transition from face-to-face learning to online learning, which most of them were not used to. many parents lamented the lack of seriousness and discipline in their children while they prepared for schoolwork. they noted that it was difficult for children to seriously engage in learning activities and it was difficult for them to maintain discipline and order when children were learning remotely. for many of them, the seriousness that the physical presence of a teacher can instil in children was not possible. the following statements highlight some parents’ experience with their children’s online learning. online learning is a problem especially since it found us unprepared, i am not sure if i am doing the right thing. (parent 2) journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 81 my wife and i are civil servants so other family members mostly help in our children’s learning activities at home. except at night, we check the study materials and assignments that must be completed by the children. (parent 5) learning has moved online on an unprecedented scale, with a lot of trial and error and uncertainty for everyone. no serious learning is taking place. (parent 8) it was evident that it was not only parents who were unprepared for this new and unusual way of learning; children and teachers were also not ready to embrace it. this ultimately means that children’s learning was compromised, and parents were rightly concerned. many parents were worried that the complete development of their children would be deeply affected as a result of online learning being instituted. they noted that loss of interaction with peers in school activities such as sports and clubs (and other co-curricular activities in the normal school environment) has had a negative influence on the development of children’s social and emotional skills. learning is not only about the subjects that are put on the timetable, children learn a lot by being with others, talking, socialising and interacting with their peers. they learn how to work and learn with others. they develop their social skills. we cannot do this at home as parents. (parent 12) parents also highlighted that face-to-face interaction plays a key role in children’s social development. they mentioned, for example, that playing games together, celebrating at parties, and eating and praying together during the assembly are important activities that teach children to live in harmony with others. what teaching-related activities do parents engage in while helping children with their studies? parents reported activities that they were doing to assist with their children’s learning during the lockdown. a few indicated that they helped their children to complete assignments less frequently, with some indicating that they did not help in any way. most of those who indicated that they helped their children appeared to spend most of their time checking the quality of completed assignments, monitoring children’s attention during live online classes, and ensuring that deadlines were met. other reasons cited were that parents were too busy most of the time or could not afford the cost of supporting their child’s learning. a few indicated that they supported task completion by explaining task instructions, and sometimes they found themselves teaching new topics. parents who indicated that they were not supporting their children reported that they did not know how to assist them because they were not teachers. the most common activity was online classes conducted by teachers at scheduled times. applications such as teams, zoom, and google classroom were useful, and many children were listening and taking notes for a couple of hours during weekdays. some important announcements and other forms of interaction were maintained through social media platforms of facebook and whatsapp. off-screen work was also given to children. one of the parents commented: the teacher sends some reading material, assignments which i download for my child and due dates are given to ensure children work to meet the dates. often, i receive messages from the school to inform me about what to expect and what to do. (parent 10) there is evidence that some schools had put in place adequate measures to ensure that children’s learning was not compromised and that children could experience some part of their usual routine even when at home, with the help of their parents. sending electronic material and daily reminders, and involving parents in the process, was judged an effective way to maintain the flow of learning among children. parents also mention that teachers kept reinforcing the chitanana, l. 82 importance of playing games and staying physically active while children were restricted to home. how did parents cope with their children’s remote learning during the covid-19 pandemicinduced lockdown? when asked about their biggest struggles while teaching their children during the lockdown, parents indicated that they generally felt overwhelmed. they highlighted several distinct struggles, which were grouped into six themes and are presented below. balancing responsibilities for many parents, home online learning presented a struggle to balance responsibilities. the challenge to balance their employment demands and learner needs was the single most commonly reported struggle. the comments below elaborate on the emotions that parents had because of the struggle to balance employment and learning. having to decide between work and helping/spending time with my children . . . lots of guilt. (parent 7) my husband and i are both essential workers and struggle to provide the attention/interaction my children need along with our work. (parent 16) working in the hospital setting and maintaining a household while trying to maintain normalcy. it’s not an easy balance on a normal day, let alone when facing a health crisis like covid-19. (parent 18) many parents admitted that the balancing act was very difficult although they saw the need to help their children learn. i don’t want to get upset with the situation for not doing anything, but i’m struggling with the work. (parent 10) i think we’re all just afraid that we’re not doing enough. but i know that it’s helping our children learn. (parent 16) the situation was challenging, especially when parents were working from home with their own schedules to follow. adjusting to remote learning the shift to remote learning had a significant impact on both learners and their parents because they were using this method of learning for the first time. parents pointed out that the major change for their children was the abrupt transition from physical face-to-face classes to online classes, which most children were not used to. one parent mentioned that: learning online at home is a big challenge for my daughter and i. she is failing to adjust. rarely does she do more than an hour or so of formal learning each day. parents were concerned that their children were taking a long time to adapt to the new learning environment as independent learners. lack of positive learner motivation many parents mentioned repeatedly that they had difficulties motivating their children to study. this was attributed to children’s uncertainty about going back to school, because of the continual extension of the lockdown period. this uncertainty left children dejected and demoralised to learn at home. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 83 one parent said: he is difficult to motivate, and i fear if i let him lead our direction of study we will not get far. (parent 2) children feel overwhelmed by this new way of learning and some find it difficult to motivate themselves to plan and organise their time. (parent 2) many children treated the lockdown period as a vacation from school; hence they wanted nothing to do with a normal school routine. instead, they wanted to spend time playing and watching television. therefore, parents noted that asking their children to do any school-related tasks strained relationships. as one parent remarked: children are not very serious. they waste time sleeping and they have developed a habit of waking up late. they don’t have access to many (physical) games at home, they only play games on the phone or computer. (parent 12) parents noted that they had challenges with maintaining a positive relationship with their children because the children felt their parents were putting them under too much pressure. as a result, there was conflict, with parents expecting their children to learn while the children were not ready to learn at home. that was a potential threat to children’s educational, social, and physical development. accessibility of learning material parents indicated that learning materials were difficult to access for several reasons. internet connectivity was erratic, and most parents did not have devices to access it. the mobile devices that they were using had limited capacity to access all the reading material. as a result, parents preferred alternative forms of learning material in addition to online learning resources. they indicated overwhelmingly that they preferred hard-copy material because they did not have reliable data or consistent access to laptops for their children. very few preferred internet-based learning material. others referred to the cost and unreliable access to the internet, and had limited access to devices. parents were concerned about the challenges that remote learning brought for them and their children. online learning requires computers and the internet to be available exactly when they are needed. the potential for clashing timetables was more challenging when there was more than one school-going child in a family. lessons are conducted at specific timings according to the timetable, so i have to be available with the internet at any cost. this is difficult when you have 2 children or more at home attending the same school and having lessons at the same time. parents also noted that during online lessons (e.g., on zoom), poor internet connectivity prevented children from asking questions. finding appropriate space for learning most parents were from poor households with deplorable living conditions, with family members living in overcrowded spaces. these parents mentioned inadequate space for learning as a critical issue in homes that were already stretched by overcrowding. as one parent highlighted: children struggle to find space for study. there are no quiet places to work. chitanana, l. 84 almost all parents noted: children share bedrooms with their siblings who are not going to school. so, this makes it difficult for them to get a place where they can concentrate on their work. one parent also noted that: some don’t have stable homes and are sleeping on sofas with many people in the house; can’t get to sleep until adults leave the sitting room. in some cases, parents noted: several siblings do not get on with each other so no opportunity to sit and learn together. even children from rich families faced deprivation or inadequacy of learning spaces, and the effects of noise or crime, due to the quality of the dwelling or the neighbourhood. children cannot work on their own many parents reported that children could not learn alone. they reported that getting children to settle and do their work was very difficult. some parents highlighted that: children at home do not want to learn if not forced, also the material and tasks given by the teachers are difficult for the child to understand, they find it difficult to understand the material provided by teachers. (parent 1) the children do not want to learn at home. the problem is that children listen to their teachers more than us, the parent. (parent 8) . . . if not supervised they spend all their time playing games. we are stressed and frustrated seeing that children do not want to learn. (parent 19) lack of knowledge about the content many parents pointed out that they had limited knowledge about the newly introduced learning areas in the recently introduced primary school curriculum. the statements below are examples of what parents said. i am concerned that i am depriving my child of learning because of my little knowledge about the new subjects that they are learning these days. (parent 11) the maths is taught differently, and i’m just at a loss. (parent 3) some parents felt that they could not replace teachers due to lack of expertise as bearers of content and pedagogy. i have never liked teaching. i’m not sure if i have what it takes to help my children with their online learning, with these computers. (parent 13) the only challenge is that the methods i use are obviously not as good as those used by their teachers at school. (parent 14) many parents acknowledged that they were not as effective as teachers would be in terms of the teaching methods that they used to help their children. they noted that teachers use better methods, and that they would provide more feedback on work. however, parents were not expected to be teachers, or to replicate the classroom environment at home. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 85 what support do parents get from the school? because the school closure was unexpected, parents needed support from their schools. they were asked to indicate the support they got. a few parents indicated that there was some form of support system to help them make their way through the task. they also mentioned that they were grateful for how accommodating most of the teachers were. however, some parents highlighted that they would have liked the teachers to have a more direct presence during homeschooling. for instance, they pointed out that they expected teachers to conduct online lessons more often, talk directly to the children, assign tasks to them, and explain instructions rather than just send the tasks and assignments electronically. this suggests that there were circumstances where teachers would assign tasks and expect parents to explain instructions and check the quality of task completion. discussion the study’s findings show that parents are worried about the negative effects of the covid-19 pandemic on their children’s education. the study notes that parents found the sudden closure of schools extremely disturbing and they were concerned about their children’s education. although learning has always occurred in the home with parents as the children’s first teachers, their support for children who are learning at home has dramatically increased in significance during covid-19. the shift to remote learning during the crisis has changed the balance of the provision of learning at home. parents were faced with uncertainty about the future of their children as they struggled to manage competing job responsibilities and the school’s expectations about their education. although schools were doing their best to provide learning material and activities, many children experienced learning loss because they were using learning strategies that depended on the internet. teachers were putting substantial effort into creating online learning material and sending it to learners by email and social networking channels. this effort helped to alleviate parents’ concerns about their children’s educational engagement. however, parents were concerned that many learners find it difficult to recover from the loss of education, and it may result in them dropping out of the school system. the study’s findings show that having their children learn at home is very challenging for most parents, and most were struggling to cope. lack of support for children’s online learning at home was largely due to parents’ limited time and ability. parents were busy hustling to earn an income to cover the cost of meeting the family’s needs during the lockdown, so they did not have enough time to help their children. their level of education also affected their ability to be involved in academic activities. greenlee and reid (2020) note that parents with high levels of education were more often involved in structured learning activities such as worksheets, online school resources, and other educational resources during pandemics. it is clear that learning at home is quite different from learning in a face-to-face environment at school. it calls for some reorientation of what we think about learning in general and how we approach the process with our children. the findings show that some physical space in which to learn—and additional learning resources such as a computer, printer, and internet or data access—are needed to facilitate children’s learning at home. however, the study shows that many homes lack these resources. some aspects of the curriculum also required access to laboratories, specialised rooms, or other resources that cannot be replicated at home. the study’s findings show parents’ role in children’s learning has changed, especially during the home-based learning session. most of the teaching functions that were traditionally the teacher’s responsibility to support learning (such as instruction, questioning, assessment, and feedback) are now facilitated by parents. although the literature suggests that the time that parents spend with their children on educational activities is an important determinant of childhood development (attanasio et al., 2020; bono et al., 2016; fiorini & keane, 2014), parents cannot replicate the roles played by teachers. parents cannot provide the infrastructural resources available in chitanana, l. 86 schools. schools should be careful not to add another item to parents’ already long list of responsibilities and other things that they should be doing. the major concerns include the variability in preconditions for remote learning, the capacity of parents to support their children’s learning, and the limited support by teachers. furthermore, unforeseen circumstances such as power and network outages resulted in children missing online lessons. in such instances, the responsibility of teachers was transferred to parents, who assumed the role of reviewing their children's schoolwork. the disruption to education caused by covid-19 has exacerbated existing learning gaps and inequalities among primary-school learners. children from low-income families were hit harder because they had far less access to the internet and/or the hardware required to access online instruction. these learners were already disadvantaged academically compared with their more privileged peers, and the situation was worsened by the pandemic. the unesco (2020) advocacy paper states that students who did not benefit from remote learning could become disinterested and face a higher risk of dropping out of school. on the positive side, the covid-19 pandemic has shown that the world of education is full of inspiring innovations, and they are ready to be disseminated every day to reach their target audience—parents, students, and teachers. the most innovative solutions often come from a strong need to overcome a problem, and constraints can fuel the motivation to think of creative solutions. new areas of interest have emerged for many teachers and researchers. for example, learners now have the autonomy and agency to take control of their learning, to explore new ideas and experiences like never before. the creative use of technology, especially through mobile phone communication with parents, is an example of strategies that have emerged amid the pandemic and which, if sustained, could complement and strengthen children’s learning in public schools. this crisis should therefore be seen as an opportunity to rethink the curriculum, and the teaching and learning process, to achieve the required competencies and skills development in learners. conclusions and recommendations remote learning at home has emerged as a substitute for face-to-face learning at school during the covid-19 lockdown period. in the process, parents’ involvement has played a significant role in mitigating some of the limitations of remote learning. however, parents whose time is constrained by work commitments and the burden created by the pandemic—combined with the responsibility of remote learning—require coordinated support from the school. schools should focus on adjusting to new learning environments and strengthen engagement with parents to improve information and guidance on effective practices for supporting their children’s learning. the school must provide carefully curated remote learning material and activities that include physical and psychosocial components other than the academic goals. the government should promote the installation of ict infrastructure and affordable internet connectivity to meet the demand for online teaching in times of emergency. references amirudin, m. r. b., shahrir, a. b. b. a., hasan, d. h., bin, r. f. a. a., ambotud, a. b., ariff, n. a. n. b., hashim n. n. a. b., mohamad, n. a. b., raffar, i. n. a. b. z. 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(2018). school practices to promote social distancing in k–12 schools: review of influenza pandemic policies and practices. bmc public health, 18(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-018-5302-3 wang, g., zhang, y., zhao, j., zhang, j., & jiang, f. (2020). mitigate the effects of home confinement on children during the covid-19 outbreak. the lancet, 395(10228), 945–947. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(20)30547-x wilson, n., barnard, l. t., kvalsvig, a., & baker, m. (2020). potential health impacts from the covid-19 pandemic for new zealand if eradication fails: report to the nz ministry of health. https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/publications/report_for_moh__covid-19_pandemic_nz_final.pdf biographical notes lockias chitanana chitananal@staff.msu.ac.zw dr lockias chitanana is the acting deputy director of the quality assurance teaching and professional development unit at midlands state university in zimbabwe. he has been chairperson of the department of educational technology for 13 years. he is an experienced teacher educator in the area of information communication technology integration and instructional technology. he has taught educational chitanana, l. 90 technology for 20 years at university and teacher training college levels. his research interests are in e-learning, instructional design, and the future of education. he has researched and published articles and book chapters in internationally accredited journals. he holds a phd in technology education from the university of kwazulu natal in south africa. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. chitanana, l. (2022). parents’ experience with remote learning during covid-19 lockdown in zimbabwe. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2), [75–90.]. microsoft word 07final_haigh.doc journal of distance learning, vol 11, no 1, 2007 © distance education association of new zealand 1 replacing the nods and smiles: raising questions about philosophy and pedagogy in a predominantly web-based master’s module mavis haigh, margaret turnbull faculty of education, university of auckland auckland, new zealand introduction this paper identifies and discusses the benefits and drawbacks experienced by students and lecturers in a web-based/study guide master of education (med) module. the module had been offered face-to-face for three successive years and evaluative comments from the master’s students indicated they had found the content and structure well suited to their professional needs. likewise, they appeared to have appreciated the pedagogical style of the lecturers—the two authors of this paper. however, in response to demand for greater equity of access, we redeveloped the module for what the med programme termed flexible learning. for this flexible learning mode we provided students with three books of readings, an administrative guide, a study guide with structured activities, and opportunity for some face-to-face interaction, webct threaded discussion, a bulletin board, private e-mail, and voice mail. there was a requirement for participation in the webct discussion and structured activities, three mandatory written assignments, and one face-to-face seminar presentation. through these means we hoped to facilitate dialogue among our students and create a community of practice (wenger, 1998). the med has a professional focus and students enrolled in our paper included early childhood, primary, secondary, and tertiary teachers. in this paper we explore the wide range of responses to our questions about students’ perceptions of the philosophy that underpinned our pedagogical approach, the structure and content of the course, the effectiveness of the communication systems, and the it service/support for the course. from these responses, we have asked ourselves some questions about how we might revise our principles and alter our pedagogy in order to better support our inability to engage in the nods and smiles that accompanied our face-toface approach. pragmatic, philosophical, and theoretical perspectives we had an institutional deadline to meet in developing and presenting our module for webct. in this regard, we made an assumption that the theories of journal of distance learning, vol 11, no 1, 2007 © distance education association of new zealand 2 learning and teaching that informed our philosophy of practice and underpinned our pedagogy in our face-to-face module would transfer to our webct module. in our face-to-face master’s module, we positioned all learning as underpinned by critical constructivist (richardson, 1997) and social constructivist (oosterheert & vermunt, 2003) epistemologies. our pedagogical approach also was based on principles of adult learning and teaching (boud, 1993; brookfield, 1986). these principles were the creation of an effective learning environment, selfdirection in learning, self-assessment in learning, and the acknowledgement of prior experience and learning. we wanted to create a welcoming and effective learning environment that would provide support and challenge to the cognitive, emotional, and sociocultural dimensions of the learningteaching process (dunlap & grabinger, 1996). this is not to deny the potential for intrinsic political, philosophical, and psychological tensions that occur within educational contexts (tennant, 1991). within the learning environment we attempted to make provision for critically reflective practice (smyth, 1989), equitable and inclusive practice (ellsworth, 1992), deep learning strategies (biggs, 1999), and the development of a community of practice (price & chen, 2003; rogers, 2000; wenger, 1998). given that this course was shifting from a face-to-face to a web-based delivery, it was important also to consider theories pertaining to distance and online learning. one such theory is transactional distance theory (tdt), which was first articulated by michael moore in 1972 (moore, 1997). in presenting his theory of transactional distance, moore explained that transaction refers to the interplay between the environment, individuals, and patterns of behaviour. in relation to distance learning, there is a physical separation between the teacher and learner that creates a “psychological and communications space to be crossed” (moore, p. 22). this space is known as transactional distance. degrees of transactional distance are dependent on three variables, which moore terms dialogue, structure, and learner autonomy. moore (1997) viewed dialogue in online communication as a positive inter action that is “purposeful, constructive and valued by each party” (p. 23). when dialogue is immediate, that is synchronous, the transactional distance is less than if the dialogue is not immediate or is asynchronous (mcinnerney & roberts, 2004). in any face-to-face dialogue, the social presence of individuals is established through the immediacy of dialogue as well as nonverbal elements. in asynchronous online dialogue, social presence is the ability of learners to project themselves socially and emotionally, through text, as real people in a learning community (garrison, anderson, & archer, 2000). social presence is crucial to the formation of a learning community (garrison & anderson, 2003; rovai, 2002). the establishment of a learning community facilitates dialogue among learners and lessens the feelings of isolation (cereijo, young, & wilhelm, 2001; curry, 2000) that many online learners experience. wenger (1998) claimed that practice serves to bring coherence in a community, and it is through their practice that members form relationships with each other and with their tasks. wenger asserted that in journal of distance learning, vol 11, no 1, 2007 © distance education association of new zealand 3 order for practice to generate coherence within a community, the characteristics of mutual engagement, shared repertoire, and joint enterprise must be present. the practice of our master’s students was based in education; they were all engaged in a master of education degree and had specifically enrolled in our course. we assumed therefore that there was a background of mutual engagement, shared repertoire, and joint enterprise (rogers, 2000; wenger, 1998), and we anticipated that inherent to the structure of our course was the notion of a community of practice. in the introduction to this paper, we outlined what we perceive the structure of our module to be. however, the structure of a web-based module is also determined by the nature of the communications media employed, the philosophy and personalities of teachers, the personalities of the learners, and the constraints imposed by educational institutions (moore, 1997). an important element within the structure is provision for teacher-learner dialogue. when a course is highly structured and teacherlearner dialogue is nonexistent, the transactional distance between learners and teachers is high. conversely, in those courses where there is much dialogue and little predetermined structure, the transactional distance is low. referring to an apparent relationship between dialogue, structure, and learner autonomy, moore argued that the greater the transactional distance between teacher and learner, the more autonomy the learner would need to exercise. from moore’s perspective, learner autonomy is “the extent to which in the teaching/learning relationship it is the learner rather than the teacher who determines the goals, the learning experiences, and the evaluative decisions of the learning programme” (moore, 1997, pp. 26, 27). nevertheless, he acknowledged that not all learners have the capacity to be fully autonomous. moore found that students with advanced competence in learner autonomy appeared to be comfortable with less dialogic programmes and little structure, whereas those students who were more dependent learners preferred programmes with more immediate dialogue. research design this was an exploratory piece of interpretivist and largely qualitative research (sarantakos, 1993). research in this tradition was chosen because it “is useful for developing an accurate picture of the research object” (sarantakos, p. 7). at the conclusion of the flexible master’s module and after formal assessment processes were finished, we invited all 14 of the master’s students enrolled in the module to engage in an exploratory study to help us gain insight into the effectiveness of our philosophy of online learning and teaching and the pedagogy of the module. we wanted to understand features of the module’s structure and delivery that the students considered had supported and/or hindered their progress. ten of the 14 students agreed to participate. these ten participants were invited to complete a questionnaire based around statements representing our perceptions of how the module was presented. the participants indicated their perceptions of the learning environment of the module on a four-point likert scale of definitely yes (dy, representing strong agreement), probably yes (py), probably no (pn), and definitely no (dn, journal of distance learning, vol 11, no 1, 2007 © distance education association of new zealand 4 representing strong disagreement). where the participants made no response this was coded as nr. there was opportunity for qualitative comment as well. the questions were geared to elicit the participants’ responses regarding the overall learning environment, the social constructivist approach, adult pedagogical principles, and technical aspects. following their completion of the questionnaire the participants were asked to indicate, separately in order to preserve anonymity, if they wished to participate in a focus group discussion (fern, 2001) of the emerging themes. five did so. one participant, who lived a considerable distance from the institution, agreed to be interviewed individually by telephone. questions for the semi-structured focus group interview were developed following analysis of the questionnaire responses (see table 1). the discussion was taped with permission from the participants and transcribed by the researchers. once transcription had been verified, the data were further analysed for emerging themes. finally the researchers looked “selectively for cases that illustrate themes and [made] comparisons and contrasts” (neuman, 2001, p. 243). following analysis the developing report was returned to the participants for further verification. findings from the questionnaire there were wide-ranging responses across the likert scale for all questions, indicating diverse views of how the course was experienced (see table 1). table 1 responses to questionnaire section focus question focus dy py pn dn nr learning environment 1. did learning environment meet expectations? 4 1 4 1 0 social constructivist approach 2(i). was learning sufficiently scaffolded? 2 5 2 1 0 2(ii). was there sufficient encouragement for online participation? 4 1 0 4 1 2(iii). was assignment feedback useful? 3 4 2 0 1 adult pedagogical principles 3(i). were there sufficient opportunities for self-direction in learning? 6 3 0 1 0 3(ii). were there sufficient opportunities for collaborative practice? 3 3 2 2 0 3(iii). were there sufficient opportunities for selfassessment? 3 2 3 1 1 technical aspects 4(i). would you prefer this to be a totally online course? 2 0 3 5 0 4(ii). could technical support be improved? 2 3 3 1 1 journal of distance learning, vol 11, no 1, 2007 © distance education association of new zealand 5 with respect to the learning environment, comments ranged from, “the study books and readings were fantastic” to “i did not achieve what i felt i could do as i didn’t feel comfortable in asking for help as i did not know the lecturers well enough.” one participant, who indicated a dn response to the learning environment question, said, “i had expected this to be an online course. i had very high expectations as i had done one online course before. this one had hardly any comments from lecturers, only students, which disappointed me immensely.” the second group of questions related to our teaching and learning approach which was underpinned by a social constructivist epistemology. the range of responses included, “i received adequate scaffolding when i asked for it—but sometimes i didn’t know what to ask for,” and “i would have liked more communication from the lecturers. i had to initiate any communication and only did so if really stuck.” with regard to encouragement for online participation, comments ranged from a desire for a greater face-to-face interaction: i learn and achieve better in face-toface situations where i can build rapport with my lecturer. the experience was too overwhelming and stressful trying to keep up with the responses needed online. a faceto-face session would have enabled me to more fully understand … to a pragmatic response, “[online participation] was not part of assessment. i did not find enough time and rather concentrated on assessments.” the majority of the participants found the lecturers’ feedback on assignments useful for the preparation of following assignments: “it [feedback] was excellent—pertinent and challenging.” however some would have liked more contact with the lecturers so that “more direction/support before assignments were [due]” could have been given. the module had been developed with adult pedagogical principles in mind and we were interested in the participants’ responses to this aspect of the course. the majority agreed with the statement that there were sufficient opportunities for self-direction in learning to occur: “i liked the fact that we had options to choose from.” one participant, however, felt that more guidance was required so that she/he would know they were on the “right path.” the participants found the opportunity for collaborative practice very useful both online and during personal meetings. however, the concept of collaborative practice was challenged by two of the participants who wondered if collaborative practice and self direction are compatible, and whether working together to develop a seminar presentation truly represented collaborative practice. when asked about notions of selfassessment, half of the participants agreed with the statement that there were sufficient opportunities to apply the notion of self-assessment in learning. one participant noted, “the scaffolding of the self-reflective exercises was really good.” however, some appeared uncertain as to how much self-assessment had been required of them. journal of distance learning, vol 11, no 1, 2007 © distance education association of new zealand 6 there were opposing views in the responses to a question asking if the course should become totally online. most were happy to leave the course as it is currently structured and indicated that the course’s face-to-face and online components had been well balanced. in contrast, one participant did not enjoy the online requirements of the course and would have preferred it to have been totally face-to-face. he/she commented: i did not enjoy the online course at all. this is unusual as i thought at the start that it would offer me flexibility. in fact it did the complete opposite. for someone who loves ict and is its biggest promoter, i found this form of learning, with no real personal interaction, really awful. another asserted that if the course is to become completely online, then, “the communication needs to be improved. nothing beats a supportive smile and a reassuring word.” in contrast, nearly half of the participants found the technical support and the lecturers’ online interaction was “fine.” findings from the interviews initial analysis of the questionnaire responses indicated that the aspects requiring further exploration could be gathered into four themes. these themes were the underpinning philosophies, structure and content of the module, communication systems, and provision of it service/support. in reporting on the interview findings, we use pseudonyms to protect the participants’ anonymity. underpinning philosophies although the participants had not consciously viewed themselves as adult learners, they experienced the thrust of the adult learning principles inherent in the module. lily valued the opportunity for self-direction in learning and appreciated the enrichment that occurs when working collaboratively to coconstruct knowledge and understanding: well i hadn’t picked up about it being specifically adult learning, but i definitely felt right from the beginning that the responsibility for learning was on my shoulders. … but i also felt that there was a really strong flow of co-constructivism in that we had to do a seminar with another person … it converted me to co-constructivism—the wondrous effect of that extra perspective that gave me ideas that i would never have thought of before. lily also appreciated being treated as an adult learner: i really appreciated you treating me as an adult learner. it has taught me something about how i should treat my adult learners—it was a sort of hidden message really. val liked having her professional experience acknowledged and being treated as an adult. she also found the initial focus on herself as a learner was a useful means of reflexivity: i’ve found that this was one of those courses that actually treated you like an adult and a professional. … i found really useful the activities that made me think, ‘what kind of learner am i? how do i do my method of study?’ i’ve gone back to it now because i’m actually thinking about how do i really learn—so in that sense it was quite reflective. journal of distance learning, vol 11, no 1, 2007 © distance education association of new zealand 7 tara also valued the initial focus on herself as an adult learner and appeared to appreciate the feeling of mutual engagement and joint enterprise (wenger, 1998): i felt it quite nice to see how different people from different areas were coming together and sharing their experiences. too often you just sort of study with people of your own kind, being a secondary teacher or a primary teacher or whatever. john enjoyed the independence that the module offered him; he could work in his chosen time frame and at his own pace. as a secondary teacher he had been wondering about the initial focus on adult learning in the module: in fact i even noted down at one point i wasn’t entirely sure why we were looking at the adult learning material—was it for the purpose of us as adult learners? or was it expecting us to be working with adults ourselves? and actually it’s probably both. jan was adamant about her preference for working on her own, but at the same time she expected more lecturer feedback: i’m very happy working on my own … but i think that i would have liked more feedback from the lecturers. i didn’t feel like i got really any—other than the written feedback on assignments—which was excellent. structure and content the theme of module content was introduced to the interviewees. however, the interviewees quickly moved to a discussion of the structure of the module rather than its content. for some the structure created a learning environment that was conducive to their learning style: john: i loved the structure. i thought it was fantastic. i just loved it. in the end we came right into quite a narrow focus. we had to choose a topic and then we did the follow up with the research on that same topic. val: what i found really useful was the map of the course right at the start. the beginning activities slowly got us into doing what was to be done. but it was very progressive for people who were new to online learning, people who were new to actually assessing their own abilities. … this course actually got me thinking about myself without worrying about someone looking at it [written reflections]. we felt safe that you were not going to look at what we were writing [referring to a section of the study guide that did not need to be posted for public perusal]. participants indicated that they valued the study guide and books of readings. jan said, “i think that those folders will be something that i will refer to over and over again. they were excellent. i really admired the way you presented those. they were fantastic.” val added, “they were a gift to us actually.” lily affirmed, “it was really helpful to have the study guide. you asked some very pertinent questions on some of the readings and i found that tremendously helpful.” however, tara found that the structure of the module did not meet her expectations and hindered her learning: journal of distance learning, vol 11, no 1, 2007 © distance education association of new zealand 8 i’ve decided one of my big problems was the structure and the time structure of the course. i found it very hard to deal with my way of life and to have all the discussions. the discussions were in the first half and then in the second half we were doing our assignments and that did not suit me at all. i felt i was struggling because i had to do a lot of work in a short time. i would have preferred to have it drawn out more and work on the assignment alongside. another aspect of the structure of the module that generated concern was the requirement for contribution to the group discussion via webct. in this regard, jan missed the stimulation of face-to face interaction: a lot of my learning comes with discussing ideas. i found on the net that it didn’t work for me. it did not trigger me and i didn’t feel at all involved in the discussions. i tried hard initially but it was like the people that were discussing weren’t on the same planet as me. that’s probably an exaggeration in the sense that we weren’t thinking along the same wave lengths … to me that whole discussion thing was a non event for me. … that took away from my learning. lily found that keeping track of the discussion was daunting for her and on occasions she resorted to personal e-mail as a preferred means of communication: i found it really hard to have interchange of ideas. i would reply to someone and my reply would appear one-third at the top of the discussion—but i’d replied about a fortnight later and … i found that very confusing. … when i really wanted to talk to someone i sent them a personal e-mail. tara also struggled with the requirement to engage in discussion: i found the discussions hard. but i mean i was trying to catch up on discussion sort of between nine and ten-thirty at night time after i put my baby to bed and before he woke up for his next feed and that doesn’t help either. but i got my husband to print off lots of them [discussions] and it’s really hard to put it back together. john on the other hand seemed to delight in the webct discussions: it was difficult sometimes to follow the plot of one discussion. but i really loved it. i found it really interesting and looked forward to hopping on to the web and seeing what was there next. i really liked it. … i found it really quite exciting and invigorating in a funny sort of way. a further structural issue was the time-consuming nature of the module for some of the participants. the interviewees all agreed that they would have “easily done between 250 to 300 hours’ work” on the module. jan, like tara, found participating in the discussions arduous: it was hugely time consuming, hugely. far more time consuming than coming in, i’m convinced. i’m a teacher at school without a computer in my classroom. so i would have to go home at night and journal of distance learning, vol 11, no 1, 2007 © distance education association of new zealand 9 do it, or in the weekend. … i would remember spending an hour and a half on a sunday morning précising something. i mean even that, you know, was time consuming. others managed their time differently. they thought about the time they might have spent on a face-to-face module and decided the flexible mode of delivery offered different options for use of time. communication systems the third theme arising from analysis of the interviews was linked to communication. it appeared that face to-face interaction was an important element in the theme of communication for a number of the participants. jan disclosed, “i’m very conscious of the fact that i’m an extrovert and extroverts like communication. you know introverts quite like sitting and reading.” val commented, “once i had met everyone face-to-face it was just different after that. i found that i just wanted to contact people.” tara not only missed the face-toface element but also considered that she had insufficient online communication from the module lecturers: i just didn’t have much in the way of contact with you two. i felt if it had been every wednesday night at the institution i’m sure we would have had lots more communication with you than we actually did. so in that sense the online part wasn’t utilised as well as i would have needed it. all of those interviewed would have liked more guidance on how to construct literature reviews and carry out case studies, and on what we were “looking for” in each assignment. for example, lily said, “i would have found it helpful to have been given sub-headings for my case study. i found the web really helpful for literature review—just the addresses of sites would be helpful.” val explained, “when you use terms like case study those are terms you wouldn’t know if you hadn’t done any research before you started your master’s course.” it service and support some members had difficulty in accessing the web site initially, but their calls for help were quickly addressed. the threaded discussion presented difficulties for most members. lily suggested that the reason for confusion was “because quite a lot of people didn’t understand that you have to reply to someone to continue the conversation.” through the focus group discussion, it was found that some members did not receive all of the communications that had been addressed to them, including private e-mails. the group considered that a tutorial prior to the commencement of the module would have been helpful for those who were unfamiliar with online work. discussion as indicated by the participants’ responses, student reaction to this module was very individual and appeared to arise from previous learning experiences. although we wished to create a welcoming and effective learning environment that provided support and challenge, the students’ level of response to this approach appeared to be impacted by their personal and professional dispositions and circumstances. some of these master’s students operated well within the structure of the module; others found the transactional distance too great and wished for considerably more lecturer social presence than had been organised. some appreciated having learner autonomy in respect to time journal of distance learning, vol 11, no 1, 2007 © distance education association of new zealand 10 of engagement and direction of study; others seemed to need a more structured learning environment with greater lecturer dialogue. some previously independent learners came to value the learning that occurs within a community of practice and became converts to a co-constructivist aligned pedagogy; others were confused by the in-built constructivist structure of the module and did not recognise the scaffolded interaction structured into the study guide. it also appeared that, for many of the students, the first time experience of web-based learning hindered their capacity to engage in the community of practice inherent in the structure of this module. for a few, the opportunity to engage in online dialogue, and to interact with the ideas of others, was enthusiastically embraced and found to be invigorating. the majority of the students appreciated being treated as professional people who were capable of self-directed learner autonomy (moore, 1997). many of the students specifically mentioned how much they enjoyed the feeling of independence (boud, 1993) that this flexible-learning module offered them. yet, it was evident that the majority of our students would have liked more social presence (moore, 1997) from us as module lecturers. technology offers opportunities for immediate response to questions and comments from participants, but in many instances this immediacy may not be possible due to lecturers’ other work commitments (clinedinst, 2004). clearly, we did not meet all of our students’ expectations with regard to the frequency of our asynchronous dialogue. a number of our students mentioned their preference for face-to-face interaction. they perceived that such interaction provides opportunities for the immediate dialogue that can lessen learner isolation (cereijo, young, & wilhelm, 2001; curry, 2000). apparently, for these students, our online learning approach lacked the community and social interaction that develops in a faceto-face class (sinclair, 2003). it seemed that in a few cases learner isolation had not been sufficiently quickly recognised and that this tardiness had weakened the development of our community of practice (wenger, 1998). the expressed wish for a closer contact with the lecturers challenged both our philosophical and pedagogical notions relating to adults as autonomous learners that underpinned the development of this module. we suggest that a high degree of transactional distance has the potential to impact upon cognitive processes relating to the co-construction of knowledge. the students in the study, all teachers, indicated they understood the principles of the co-constructivism embedded in the structure of the module (richardson, 1997). however, the findings from the study indicated that not all were able to act within this framework. the vigorous and intellectually challenging debate required for a truly critical constructivist informed pedagogy to be enacted was not fully developed or sustained. reasons for this are complex and may include greater transactional distance arising from patterns of asynchronous dialogue (mcinnerney & roberts, 2004; moore, 1997). another in-built aspect of the module structure was the notion of selfassessment. we had hoped that, through opportunity for reflection and problem solving, the students would increase journal of distance learning, vol 11, no 1, 2007 © distance education association of new zealand 11 their ability to assess their own work and identify means of developing their knowledge and expressing their ideas (rovai, 2002). it seemed that for some students the idea of self-assessment simply meant checking to see if they were up-to-date with discussion postings and assignments. on the other hand, the high standard of work presented by some of the students indicated that they had benefited from the reflective and problem-solving activities inherent in the module structure and had increased their capacity for self-assessment. we accepted that individual response to a module may vary dramatically due to differences between participants in motivation, personal characteristics, participation, and personal effectiveness (price & chen, 2003). this variability in response to a module is no different for a web-based module than for a face-to-face mode of delivery. implications for practice on the one hand we had some feelings of success on hearing val’s summation on the flexibility that this module had offered. she said: if you look at the course in context it gave us flexible learning. there was face-to-face, we met as a whole class and there were presentations, we could collaborate on assignments, we had the option of going online for discussion, and the option of contacting each other individually as well. there were lots of modes to work with. on the other hand, when we reflected on lily’s comment, “nothing beats a supportive smile and a reassuring word,” we realised that we needed to find a means of replacing the nods and smiles of a face-to-face interaction in order to create a more effective dialogue with our online students. we were prompted to ask some questions about how we, as lecturers for the module, might deliver high-quality programmes with positive learning outcomes for students studying at a distance from our institution. such questions include: • how can we quickly establish social presence through facilitating an understanding of all participants as “actual” social and emotional beings? • what is the best way to lessen the impact of transactional distance on less autonomous learners in a learning context using asynchronous communication? • within the structure of the module, do we need to emphasise the three in-built modes of dialogue—with lecturer, with each other, and with the study guide? • what level of learner autonomy might be assumed/expected for online master’s modules? • what is the best way to quickly gauge learner autonomy in order to meet individual differences of the students and the requirements of a master’s module? • how can we affirm or guide in small, ephemeral ways students’ contributions to an asynchronous co-construction of knowledge without influencing the process too strongly? • what is the best way to recognize symptoms of isolation and lessen the emotional impact that this has on learning? • how can we as lecturers replace the nods and smiles common in a face-toface lecturing environment? could we perhaps add “emoticons” (salmon, 2000) to our postings? journal of distance learning, vol 11, no 1, 2007 © distance education association of new zealand 12 conclusion in this study we examined the effectiveness of the delivery of a web-based module from the perspectives of ten master’s students. the module had been taught face-to face for a number of years and we, as lecturers, had had the opportunity to refine our face-to-face practice based on reflection and ongoing feedback from student participants. the findings from this, our first-time web-based delivery, showed that while some students appreciated the content and delivery of the module, others would have liked more social presence from us to guide and support their learning. a small-scale case study such as this has its limitations due to the fact that it was restricted to the perspectives of ten participants in one master of education module. however, a strength of this study is its richness of data. we have made no attempt to generalize these findings and leave the significancemaking to the reader. it should also be emphasised that this was our first venture into web-based presentation of the module. both lecturers and students were new to this mode of learning and teaching. unfamiliarity with online learning may have limited the participants’ responses to our complex research questions, as they had no previous experience of this module upon which to base their perceptions. since reflecting on the students’ responses to the questions we asked, and in gaining greater insight into the research literature on distance learning, we have taken steps to refine our webbased pedagogical practice. we offer the findings on our beginning experiences as encouragement to others to ensure that principles of distance learning, derived from a comprehensive study of the distance learning literature, are soundly incorporated into their philosophy of teaching prior to presenting any webbased course. references biggs, j. (1999). teaching for quality learning at university. buckingham, uk: srhe and open university press. boud, d. (1993). experience as the base for learning. higher education research and development, 12(1), 33–44. brookfield, s. (1986). understanding and facilitating adult learning. milton keynes, uk: open university press. cereijo, m., young, j., & wilhelm, r. (2001). factors facilitating student participation in asynchronous web-based courses. journal of computing in teacher education, 18(1), 32–39. clinedinst, m. (2004). serving the nation: opportunities and challenges in the use of information technology at minority-serving colleges and universities. report of the institute for higher education policy, usa. retrieved may 25, 2004, from http://www.ihep.com curry, d. (2000). collaborative, connected and experiential learning: reflections of an online learner. retrieved october 4, 2006, from http://www.mtsu.edu/~itconf/ proceed01/2.html dunlap, j., & grabinger, r. (1996). rich environments for active learning in the higher education classroom. in b. wilson, (ed.), constructivist learning environments: case studies in instructional design (pp. 65– 82). englewood cliffs, nj: educational technology publications. ellsworth, e. (1992). why doesn’t that feel empowering? working through the repressive myths of critical pedagogy. in c. luke & j. gore, (eds.), feminisms and critical pedagogy (pp. 90–119). new york: routledge. fern, e. (2001). advanced focus group research. london: sage publications. garrison, d., & anderson, t. (2003). e-learning in the 21st century. london: routledgefalmer. journal of distance learning, vol 11, no 1, 2007 © distance education association of new zealand 13 garrison, d., anderson, t., & archer, w. (2000). critical inquiry in a text-based environment: computer conferencing in higher education. the internet and higher education, 2(2–3), 1–19. mcinnerney, j., & roberts, t. (2004). online learning: social interaction and the creation of a sense of community. educational technology and society, 7(3), 73–81. moore, m. (1997). theory of transactional distance. in d. keegan, (ed.), theoretical principles of distance education (pp. 22–38). london: routledge. neuman, w. (2001). social research methods: qualitative and quantitative approaches. boston: allyn and bacon. oosterheert, i., & vermunt, j. (2003). knowledge construction in learning to teach: the role of dynamic sources. teachers and teaching: theory and practice, 9(2), 157–173. price, m., & chen, h. (2003). promises and challenges: exploring a collaborative telementoring programme in a preservice teacher education programme. mentoring and tutoring, 11(1), 105–117. richardson, v. (ed.). (1997). constructivist teacher education. london: falmer press. rogers. j. (2000). communities of practice: a framework for fostering coherence in virtual learning communities. educational technology and society, 3(3), 384–392. retrieved may 18, 2004, from http://ifets.ieee.org/periodical/ vol_3_2000/e)!.html rovai, a. (2002). building sense of community at a distance. international review of research in open and distance learning, 3(1). retrieved october 3, 2006, from http://www.irrodl.org/content/ v3.1/rovai.html salmon, g. (2000). e-moderating: the key to teaching and learning online. london: kogan page. sarantakos, s. (1993). social research. melbourne: macmillan education. sinclair, c. (2003). mentoring online about mentoring: possibilities and practice. mentoring and tutoring, 11(1), 79–93. smyth, j. (1989). developing and sustaining critical reflection in teacher education. journal of teacher education, 40(2), 2–9. tennant, m. (1991). establishing an “adult” teaching-learning relationship. journal of adult and community education, 31(1), 4–9. wenger, e. (1998). communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. cambridge: cambridge university press. mavis haigh is head of postgraduate programmes in the faculty of education at the university of auckland, where she lectures in teachers’ professional learning and supervises masters’ and doctoral research students. she lectured in science education, professional inquiry, and research methods at the former auckland college of education, where she was head of centre for practicum. she has taught extensively in new zealand secondary schools. margaret turnbull was until recently a principal lecturer in the faculty of education at the university of auckland. for the last five years she worked in the area of postgraduate studies and was involved in the redevelopment of two existing master’s papers into webct mode. she retired from academic work in december 2006. microsoft word atkinson format.docx atkinson, s. p. 18 definitions of the terms open, distance, and flexible in the context of formal and non-formal learning simon paul atkinson, sijen education abstract this opinion piece seeks to define and contextualise educational terms that are used, and appear to be misused, in contemporary academic literature and practice. it aims to explore the concept that these three words, open, flexible, and distance, fall into the categories of policy, mode of learning, and models of delivery. in the context in which the global educational community across all sectors adapts to new forms of learning, it is essential that practitioners agree on the terminology. words have definitions, but they also have technical meanings and daily, commonplace, uses that sometimes defy those dictionary definitions. words sometimes become symbolic, they are adopted by a specific community to cover a range of “sins”, and this use serves to normalise or induct new users into that community. the ability to twist and bend definitions to suit a specific context, to appeal to policy makers or funders, relies on some malleability, some ambiguity, of definitions. in the context of boyer’s definition of the integration of research (boyer, 1997), the purpose of this piece is to enable colleagues to decide how to best define and deploy existing, and validate new terminology. keywords: definitions; open; flexible; distance; blended; hybrid; hyflex introduction it is not unusual to read a piece of published academic work and be left with the sense that the terminology used in the article or chapter did not match your own internalised definitions. words have definitions, but context can alter their meaning. in exploring these three terms: open, distance, and flexible (all included in the title of this journal and in many institutional mission statements), i hope to challenge some of the reader’s assumptions. a noticeable restriction on this review is that it is informed by literature written only in english. each term is dealt with separately and then they are brought together in the discussion section where i will attempt to summarise the distinction between educational policy frameworks, modes of learning, and models of delivery. the first aim is to establish that policies, (governmental and institutional) define access to learning, and that formal enrolment practices serve to define the degree of openness. the second aim is to establish that there are only two modes of learning—in-person (or face-to-face) learning, and distance learning. these two modes can be combined through different approaches to curriculum design to create models of delivery, which is the third aim. the currently popular flavours of blended, hybrid, and hyflex learning—each with varying degrees of flexibility—are then also contextualised. the term open open learning has come to be understood in the context of equity, collaboration, agency, democratisation, social justice, transparency, and removing barriers (zawacki-richter et al., journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 19 2020). a more positive, narrower, definition concerns ensuring minimal barriers to entry. in this use of the term, open is used to refer to the ability of any student to enrol in a programme or course regardless of their prior educational experience or other factors, be they language ability, age, gender, or social or cultural context (blessinger & bliss, 2016). in truly open learning there are no prerequisites, qualifications, or experiences that need to be demonstrated at enrolment. governments’ educational policies around openness usually refer to the relative absence of barriers to access to education. fewer pre-qualifications, and less need for financial means, denote an educational system that is more open than closed. in educational terms, closed ordinarily means more selective. in formal educational settings a selective system may involve entrance exams, or certainly some grade-point average type model, that determines the relative chance of success for any given student. selective institutions may also impose other conditions of access such as religious adherence or geographical residency criteria. these selective institutions are clearly not open. in practical terms, the formal institution that offers the learning will always impose some contextual limitations on learners. there may be a number of curriculum expectations, or they may be required to work in a professional environment. there may be sociocultural expectations that could include an assumption of technology access, basic digital literacy, and other forms of literacy. open learning, in its “pure” form, rarely exists—indeed, those who lay claim to openness may, in fact, be reinforcing inequalities of access (gourlay, 2015). the term open has morphed into being synonymous with the notion of flexibility. this is understandable, given that more flexible models of delivery are also designed to lower the barrier to access. in the era of the internet, open learning has been conflated with everything from creative commons licensing to shared content repositories (jemni et al., 2016; peters & britez, 2008). the most obvious example of the subjugation of the term open is in the form of massive online open courses (moocs), and in open educational resources (oers). most moocs are free of charge at the point of enrolment and require fees only for certification or assessment. the degree of openness is rather debateable given that these programmes are invariably 100% online, presenting a number of technological barriers. they also often provide very limited individual mentoring for students, relying on existing educational prerequisites for students to be able to succeed (although these prerequisites are not stated). as a result, the retention and completion rates for moocs are low compared to higher education programmes, with noticeable variations across global regions and socio-economic contexts (bonk et al., 2015; shah et al., 2022). formal educational providers, be they privately or publicly funded, are usually accountable to regional or national quality assurance agencies. as such, they have retention and completion targets that mitigate a truly open access policy. although some providers appear to provide open access, the processes of enrolment, advice to applicants, and evidence requirements serve to filter out those individuals with a lower probability of success in their studies. in the formal education sector, where academic credits are acquired, there is no true open learning. this is because the potential for high failure rates would risk the integrity of the institution despite the social justice agenda that many are loyal to (strauss, 2020). similarly, easily accessible courseware that requires no evidence of attainment of prior standards (e.g., linkedin and similar platforms), reportedly have completion rates lower than those that have some form of selection policy. accurate data is difficult to ascertain, with estimates varying from 10–75% completion claimed by different providers. linkedin certainly has relatively low barriers for entry—providing they have a device that plays videos with audio and a robust (and preferably unlimited) internet connection, learners can embark on a wide range of professional development courses. as badges become more recognised as genuine marks of attainment, this form of learning recognition is likely to grow (roy & clark, 2019). other forms of non-formal atkinson, s. p. 20 learning recognise achievements (through point systems, awarding stars or “credits”), which are all designed to incentivise and motivate the learner to continue in their studies, are more acceptable to generations that are more familiar with game-play (mcdaniel & fanfarelli, 2016). language-learning mobile apps such as duolingo are a good example of this. the requirement for learners to have access to technology, and the ability to use it effectively, is clearly a tangible barrier to this form of open learning. where formal institutions have something to learn from these non-formal providers is in the extensive use of initial and ongoing diagnostics that, when well-designed, serve to maintain learner motivation (shortt et al., 2021). the initial meaning of open learning has changed in the last 3 decades. after the second world war it was used to describe the intention to make education accessible to those who had been denied opportunities, irrespective of their socio-economic status, in terms primarily relating to policies of enrolment and prerequisites. since the mid 1980s it has been used to define digital access. open educational resources (oer) and all its permutations is one context in which the use of the term open is clearly understood. open educational resources, and its associated movement, argues for the free and accessible dissemination of educational content and support mechanisms on the basis of need and suitability for purpose (conole & brown, 2018). since david wiley’s development of open content licenses in 1998 (opencontent.org), which has spawned a movement in the form of creative commons licensing, and any number of open content repositories, there has also been attention paid to their associated teaching practices. the concept of open educational practices (oep) has emerged, based on shifting teaching practices in the use of oer (ehlers & conole, 2010). this movement has grown alongside a range of projects promoting forms of pedagogical patterning, models, and tools designed to reuse successful approaches to teaching (littlejohn, 2003). all of these tools, techniques, resources, and approaches were fuelled by the birth of the world wide web in 1988 in its commonly understood form, and the first widely used web browser mosaic (netscape) in 1993. the promise of unfettered access to the wealth of information sources, openly available to anyone with technological access (and, by implication, the foundational skills to navigate their way through it), represented a new use of the term open. the term distance there are just two modes of learning: distance and in person. these opposites represent the student’s experience. if the student is distant, they are physically separated from their educators and their fellow students; if they are not, then they are in person. in-person learning requires the student to be physically present, to be able to shake the hand of their educator in a real sense. this in-person learning is necessarily in real time. on a scale of virtuality, it ranks as not virtual at all (atkinson & burden, 2007). if we agree that life is not a simulation, then we all experience real-world encounters every day. sometimes these in-person learning experiences are referred to as campus-based or classroom learning. distance is a mode of learning which stands in counterpoint to the notion of in-person learning. distance is the absence of physical proximity to the educator and fellow students. historically this also meant no real-time, or synchronous, learning opportunities were possible. that is no longer the case, given the near ubiquitous access to modern communication technologies in high-income countries. distance learning has mirrored technological progress from paper, to printing, through to digital communication. one can argue that education has always had in-person and distance modes in the form of homework, but the distinction here is that an individual cannot be learning at a distance and in inperson mode at the same time. given the long history of distance education, this should be easiest of our three terms to define, but it still causes confusion. take the statement drawn from the website of techsmith, a digital journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 21 software provider, “distance learning is a way of educating students online” (simon, 2020). it would be more accurate to say that “educating students online is one possible means of providing distance learning”. other attempts to socialise the concept include statements such as “distance learning is the kind of education that is conducted beyond physical space and time and is aided by technology.” (simonson & seepersaud, 2019). however, distance learning is a mode of learning not narrowly defined by its tools or techniques. distance is often treated as a synonym for correspondence, remote, and online learning. these are organisational forms of distance learning but should not be treated as synonyms—they are means of technical support for delivery. distance education has gone through four generations of development. the first generation of distance education in the english-speaking world is frequently attributed to the use of correspondence via mail service in england in the 1840s. these were sir isaac pitman’s phonographic, or shorthand, courses. historical evidence is uncertain because the academic citations are rather cyclical. there is more evidence for the development of in-person courses that followed (moore & kearsley, 2005). there is stronger evidence for formal learning with an early correspondence school established in the united states of america at boston, massachusetts, in 1873 in the form of the society to encourage studies at home, and in the united kingdom at wolsey hall, oxford in 1894. the second generation of distance learning arrived with more real-time communication technologies. courses were designed to support learners who were, to some extent, remote from in-person, real-time provision (e.g., for the soldier at the front, the sailor at sea, the lighthouse keeper, the oil-rig worker, and the remote farmer). learners who had been serviced through effective reading materials and tutorial notes were now supported with occasional tutorials, by radio in the 1920s, and television after the late 1930s. again, the first use of any of these technologies is hard to prove. suffice to say that the nature of learning dissemination was unidirectional—teaching was usually broadcast. exceptions to this are exemplified by the school of the air movement in australia in the 1950s. the school initially used shortwave radio to allow children on remote farmsteads to interact with teaching staff. telephone tutorial support also grew from the 1960s to the 1990s as home telephones became ubiquitous in developed economies (lopes et al., 2011). because technologies overlap, the origins of the third generation of distance learning are vague. this generation is characterised by rich media. in addition to increasingly sophisticated printed materials, students might have received long-playing vinyl records, possibly even 8mm film, and then audio tapes and video cassettes. richer media then found its way onto cd and dvd. these relatively static media required more personal computer power for both teachers and learners. this generation saw something of an obsession with computer mediated communication (cmc) or asynchronous discussion boards (dempsey, 2021). these had much deeper roots in early bulletin board technology and usenet groups, particularly in the professional scientific community. fuelled by the prevailing educational theoretical leaning towards social constructivism, the ability to learn with and from fellow students became the basis for much programme design. a fourth generation of distance learning is characterised by increasingly interactive technologies. as mentioned earlier, two-way teaching at a distance had already occurred with the school of the air movement, but the power of the internet, audio, and video streaming—and then desktop video conferencing technology—brings us to where we are today. the origin of the educational webinar is also hard to pin down, because it evolved from tele-learning in the corporate sphere, often then migrating into business schools. atkinson, s. p. 22 many students in high-income economies expect that their learning materials and associated support can be accessed on any device connected to the web, without the need for external media-playing devices. this development of learning approaches, in tandem with technological developments means that, in much of the contemporary world, distance education has become synonymous with online learning. however, in parts of the world where world wide web access remains a challenge, it is best perceived as technology-enabled learning, often making use of mobile phone devices mixed with printed materials. in either case, distance and online are not synonyms. the media, be it paper based or fully immersive virtual reality, are merely the means of technical support for delivery. distance is one of two modes of learning. the term flexible flexible learning describes models of delivery. not all models of delivery are necessarily flexible. for example, medical schools may adopt problem-based learning (pbl) as a curriculum design choice, with little or no flexibility. as a term, flexible has been co-opted by online and distance providers to imply (sometimes to promise) that freedom from timetabled in-person teaching sessions represents flexibility. to some extent that is undeniable, but that is where the flexibility experienced by the learner often ends. formal learning inevitably has a structured curriculum and established criteria for fixed assessments. conventional use of the term flexibility conflates several idealised practices that include time flexibility, location flexibility, assessment flexibility, and duration flexibility. it is not possible for most students to define their own pace of learning because institutional enrolment and assessment processes are simply not designed to accommodate that. a student who chooses to study in the evenings after their family commitments are completed, or during their lunchtimes, or during their commute, can leverage some degree of time flexibility. this is more easily afforded in a virtual learning context than in in-person learning. it follows that, for many, the notion of flexibility requires a course to be, at least to some extent, online. some institutions advertise in-person flexibility by holding sessions at different hours and days of the week and weekends, and allowing students to choose. location flexibility is a feature of some providers who deliver in-person learning in different venues to allow students a degree of choice. as digital learning platforms become the primary means of delivering learning content and experiences, these virtual locations represent a degree of rigidity. the more sophisticated platforms do allow learners some control—the appearance of their content, colours, and fonts can be easily changed through stylesheets, which is increasingly necessary under accessibility legislation. the best of these learning environments also adapts easily between desktop, tablet, and smartphone interfaces. however, i am not aware of any educational provider that allows learners to choose their platform independently of the learning design. during the height of the covod-19 pandemic many institutions ran simultaneous in-person and distance provision. this hybrid model is one form of location flexibility. assessment flexibility, the ability to submit an assessment when the student is ready, and to define the nature of their evidence, would doubtless represent true flexibility from the learner’s persecutive. many non-formal programmes (e.g., learning to drive) allow learners to say when they are ready to be tested. formal education is more rigid and is set by annual or semesterised timetables. good assessment design should ideally give the student flexibility to decide how to best present their evidence. indeed, the advantages of inviting students to either define the questions or tasks used to assess their ability to demonstrate outcomes, or to use evidence from their personal social and cultural context, is well documented (andrade, 2019). many institutions do not afford these possibilities to their students because their organisational structures (be it journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 23 their submission and marking systems, or the assessment literacy of their markers) make this problematic and potentially expensive. learners would undoubtedly benefit from assessment flexibility but it remains a second-order priority for providers. the final dimension of flexibility i will deal with here is duration flexibility. the ability for a student to decide that they want to study intensively over 3 weeks to complete a 150-hour programme, while another student on the same course chooses to study an hour and a half a week and take 2 years to complete, defies institutional norms. that would, however, represent true duration flexibility. guided by national or regional quality assurance agencies, formal educational providers impose time limits on the credit accumulation process. credits earned one year as part of a defined programme might expire if other elements of the programme are not completed within a set number of years. more enlightened institutions are pushing the boundaries of this issue by being imaginative in their recognition of prior accredited learning and prior experiential learning. flexibility is not a mode of learning. flexibility encompasses a range of models of delivery, and of learning design approaches. it is a series of questions about the nature of a curriculum design and the institutional approach to timetabling, real-estate, registry, and assessment practices. in formal and non-formal education spaces flexibility is rarely perceived by learners and providers in the same way (kariippanon et al., 2020; valtonen et al., 2021). providers tend to see flexibility as relating to their established curriculum. the ability to choose the order of courses within a programme is often touted as flexibility. the ability to enable learners to temporarily suspend a course of study and regain the established path at a later point represents flexibility. learners generally welcome these options but they do not represent true flexibility. for the learner, flexibility would mean being able to study just one course, or four at the same time, if they choose. to be able to spend weeks in full-time study then drop back to a few hours a week or none for a couple of months and pick up full time later. the flexibility to submit an audio recording of their assessment, provide a visual narrative or a written essay, to be able to choose the question. the existence of a curriculum in formal education virtually guarantees a lack of flexibility. given that relative flexibility is essentially the product of the course, programme, or curricula design, we may also explore other popular terms in a new light. there is a wealth of academic literature and community commentary, in the form of institutional websites, that define the terms blended, hybrid, and hyflex. i propose to touch on these briefly. as i do so, i would encourage you to think about how their definitions are affected by the four forms of flexibility outlined above: time flexibility, location flexibility, assessment flexibility, and duration flexibility. atkinson, s. p. 24 table 1 definitions of blended, hybrid, and hyflex models of delivery models of delivery flexible variants blended hybrid hyflex time flexibility some choice of when distance mode occurs no choice choices based on availability of resource location flexibility pre-defined location choice of location choice of location assessment flexibility determined by institutional policies duration flexibility determined by institutional policies definition blended learning is a curriculum design approach that predetermines that the learner undertakes some elements in person and others at a distance. hybrid learning allows learners to choose whether to engage in person or at a distance in real-time learning activities. to be successful, this requires additional teaching competencies. hyflex learning is a curriculum design approach that enables choice of both location and time to suit individual approaches to learning. this may require the design of learning activities for different contexts. the terms hybrid and hyflex are sometimes used as synonyms but they differ from “mainstream” blended approaches. blended learning, which relates to curricula and teaching practice, determines where a learner studies and what they are doing in each space— the learner has no choice. hybrid and hyflex approaches attempt to give some agency to the learner as to the nature of their learning experience. both aim to empower the student to choose which learning should be studied face to face and which should be studied online. the distinction is that hybrid happens in real time, with cohorts either physically present or logged in at a distance, sharing the same learning experience. this hybrid nature often means programmes spawn new hybrid “spaces” in which there is seamless integration between real-world in-person and virtual learning experiences. these require the development of fresh competencies as a teacher, managing inclass and distance students simultaneously. hyflex is more ambitious in seeking to provide opportunities for the learner to decide how, what, and where they study. this means that designers of courses that aspire to be hyflex are required to model the same learning experiences in multiple forms or alternative spaces (bennett et al., 2020; goodyear, 2020) very much in line with the principle of universal design for learning (bracken & novak, 2019). blended, hybrid, and hyflex claim to be flexible learning delivery models—they all use combinations of the two modes of learning within a policy framework of relative openness, but all exist within institutional limits, and they are not synonyms. discussion in academic publications and on institutional websites the terms open, flexible, and distance are widely used, often without clarification or definition. there is an assumption perhaps that commonplace understanding of these words transfers easily to educational contexts and therefore they do not require further elaboration. they are often grouped in the acronyms ofdl or odfl, although often the o in such usage has become online rather than open. those who are immersed in academic literature treat these terms as malleable, adaptable to context, and it is often easier to just associate all three as somehow related. clearly there are courses offered that are, indeed, open, distance, and flexible, but they are not inextricably linked. a course may be open (having no entry requirements), but it might require face-to-face learning and be completely inflexible. the opposite is also true. a course might have high barriers of entry in the form of journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 25 prerequisites, but give students enormous freedom to choose where and when to learn, possibly even to decide how long to study for and when to submit their own evidence to meet assessment requirements. each of these terms, open, distance, and flexible, occupy a different section of any lexicon. they are not synonyms that can be interchanged at will. as illustrated in table 2, open is used in opposition to selective, within an educational policy framework relating primarily to access to education. distance is used in opposition to in person to define the modes of learning that any student experiences at any given time. finally, flexibility serves in opposition to inflexible (or rigid) in defining the nature of any curricula design. in this piece i am proposing that governmental and institutional policies define access to learning, and that formal enrolment practices inform the degree of openness. that there are only two modes of learning (in person and distance). and that these two modes can be used together through the nature of curriculum design in different models of delivery, among which are the currently popular flavours of blended, hybrid, and hyflex, each with varying degrees of flexibility. below is a summary of the terms with their definitions, set in the context of formal and nonformal learning. table 2 definitions of open, distance, and flexible learning term open distance flexible policy or practice policy practice practice education policy and philosophy mode of learning (binary) models of delivery theme access spatial/location learning experience intention lowering barriers to access enabling access enabling student choice antonyms closed (selective) near (in proximity, in person, in the flesh) inflexible (rigid, fixed) determinants government/institutions institutions/course designers faculty/course designers/students definition open learning is a form of formal or non-formal learning provision in which the barriers to access have been lowered by virtue of structural policy decisions made at a governmental or institutional level. distance learning is one of two modes of learning. the learner is physically separated from their student cohort and instructors. flexible learning defines models of delivery and associated learning designs that aim to provide optimal learning experience and enable the student to have degrees of choice. conclusion words have definitions. these definitions change in their vernacular use as the external environment changes (barton & tusting, 2005). the social and cultural environment also affects how terms are used. open education was initially used to describe a social and political aspiration about democratising education, lowering the barriers to access to formal qualifications, and improving access. now it is used to describe the aspiration of institutions to align themselves atkinson, s. p. 26 to a clearly defined social justice agenda. distance is a mode of learning, distinguishable from its opposite of in-person learning. flexible learning describes delivery models that include any number of curriculum structures that take advantage of the two modes of learning. flexible learning requires curriculum design that is designed to meet student needs and expectations in terms of time and location, but also institutional flexibility for assessment and duration of study. as a term, flexible learning can be further subdivided into learning design approaches to flexibility, blended, hybrid, and hyflex models among others. open, distance, and flexible are attractive terms for policy makers, partly because they appear malleable. are we open for business, or are we open for any student from any social–cultural context, regardless of their prior educational achievement? are we entirely distance or is there some expectation of in-person learning? and if we are distance, are we entirely asynchronous or will there be synchronous learning? which technology, shortwave radio, telephone, or videoconferencing will we use? how flexible is flexible? and who is it flexible for—the student, faculty, or the institution? do we think our programme is blended, hybrid, or hyflex? failing to define the terms—open, distance, and flexible—risks undervaluing them, and i believe we should, as a learning community, be willing to define our terms at the outset of any engagement. this is important for newer members of our professional discourse. assumptions that are based on the vernacular use of words, outside a learning context, may lead to contradiction and miscommunication. all for the want of a definition. references andrade, h. l. 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(2022). learnercentric mooc model: a pedagogical design model towards active learner participation and higher completion rates. educational technology research and development, 70(1), 263–288. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-022-10081-4 shortt, m., tilak, s., kuznetcova, i., martens, b., & akinkuolie, b. (2021). gamification in mobile-assisted language learning: a systematic review of duolingo literature from public release of 2012 to early 2020. computer assisted language learning, 1–38. https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2021.1933540 simon, j. (2020, may 12). distance learning: the complete guide. techsmith. https://www.techsmith.com/blog/distance-learning/ atkinson, s. p. 28 simonson, m. r., & seepersaud, d. j. (2019). distance education: definition and glossary of terms (4th ed.). information age. strauss, p. (2020). not quite university people? academics teaching on foundation studies programmes in new zealand universities. higher education research and development, 39(5), 1013–1025. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2019.1699030 valtonen, t., leppänen, u., hyypiä, m., kokko, a., manninen, j., vartiainen, h., sointu, e., & hirsto, l. (2021). learning environments preferred by university students: a shift toward informal and flexible learning environments. learning environments research, 24(3), 371– 388. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10984-020-09339-6 zawacki-richter, o., conrad, d., bozkurt, a., aydin, c. h., bedenlier, s., jung, i., stöter, j., veletsianos, g., blaschke, l. m., bond, m., broens, a., bruhn, e., dolch, c., kalz, m., kondakci, y., marin, v., mayrberger, k., müskens, w., naidu, s., . . . xiao, j. (2020). elements of open education: an invitation to future research. the international review of research in open and distributed learning, 21(3). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v21i3.4659 biographical notes simon paul atkinson spa@sijen.com simon is a higher education strategist with over 25 years’ experience as an academic developer, educational technologist, teacher, and researcher. he has held senior roles in both the united kingdom and aotearoa new zealand and has lectured and presented in over 15 countries, as well as online to global audiences. he is a principal fellow of the higher education academy and joint editor of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. atkinson, s. p. (2022). definitions of the terms open, distance, and flexible in the context of formal and non-formal learning. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2), [18–28.]. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 1 post-pandemic trends: readership and research after covid-19 alison fields, infosolutions simon paul atkinson, sijen.com abstract post-pandemic trends can be seen in journals in two ways: readership and research. this editorial looks at both, beginning with a report on the readership statistics of the journal over the past 12 months, followed by identification of readership preference, with a list of the most frequently accessed items in the journal in 2022. a steadily higher journal readership has continued after the sudden growth in demand for information in open, flexible, and distance learning during the pandemic. this is followed with a list of papers in this fulsome issue, showing movement away from experiences in the sudden and enforced shift to online and distance learning, to the emerging era of changing perspectives and broader reflections. keywords: distance learning; online learning; educational theory; distance communication; distance student experience; teaching presence a look at our annual readership “pausing to take stock of progress on a journey can achieve many things, including identifying how far you’ve come, which way you’ve come, and which way you want to go” (fields & hartnett, 2019, p. 1). that’s what we said three and a half years ago, in the editorial of 23(1) which was published in the first half of 2019. that editorial included a statement of impact for the journal of open, flexible and distance learning (jofdl), identifying the journal’s impact in terms of reach, use, and contribution to global academic research and publishing. the world has changed hugely in the intervening time, with the full force of the covid-19 pandemic felt across the globe. the world of flexible, online, and distance learning has changed irrevocably. remote teaching in all its forms quickly became a necessity during lockdowns, and recent technological advancements have radically increased the range of options available for delivery and interaction for both teachers and learners. so once again we pause—but this time, instead of providing a statement of impact, we report on the growth and use of this journal in the past year. the reach and readership of the journal has increased since the onset of covid-19. issue 24(1), “jofdl special issue: best of online teaching and learning: covid-19”, was released in april 2020, during the world’s most extensive lockdown. the issue comprised a short editorial stating the extent of disruption to teaching and learning worldwide, and offered open access to the ten most pertinent articles on online teaching and learning in a single issue. it was our gift to the world in need of quality information on online, distance, and flexible learning, packaged for easy consumption and delivered speedily with fully open access. the issue has had a record number of views, with the editorial being the third most viewed item from the journal since viewing and readership records began in 2016. it has been our pleasure to provide any assistance we can to the online teaching and learning community and, during the pandemic, to the education fields, a., atkinson, s. p. 2 world at large. being small, light, and agile means the journal can provide open and free access to all quickly and to a maximum audience. articles published in the journal are available directly through the website at https://www.jofdl.nz/, and can also be accessed and encountered through several other avenues including google scholar, eric, informit, ebsco essentials, doaj, and learntechlib. this scattering of access avenues means that our content will be encountered by more readers in more places, which increases both the readership and reach of the journal. but it also means we can’t collect data showing the full extent of access to our journal articles because we can’t collect accurate statistics from every avenue. figure 1 shows the readership statistics from 2022 for the jofdl website. the extent of direct access to the journal website provides a useful picture of the size of the audience and the reach of the journal’s contributors. these statistics indicate wider access levels, patterns, and trends. figure 1 total articles accessed by month in 2022 the data points in this graph show the monthly totals of access to jofdl articles via its website in 2022. the minimum monthly number of articles accessed was 608 in july and the maximum was 1811 in december. the total number of articles accessed in 2022 through the jofdl website was 14,120. the monthly average was 1177 articles. a similar pattern of readership of article abstracts was also recorded, ranging from a low of 609 abstracts accessed in july to highs of 2370 in october and 2405 in december. there were 235 articles accessed from the journal’s current and past issues via the website in 2022. of these, the top-viewed articles are listed below, with titles showing strong representation of recent developments and experiences in online learning and post-pandemic trends in global education. these show that both current and past articles remain relevant. https://www.jofdl.nz/ journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 3 table 2 most frequently accessed articles in 2022 most-read jofdl articles 2022 (17 of 235 articles) abstract views article views total cameron et al., (2022) the impacts of the covid-19 pandemic on higher education students in new zealand 594 346 940 bonk, (2016) keynote: what is the state of e-learning? reflections on 30 ways learning is changing 287 328 615 campbell et al., (2004) reviews 53 489 542 forbes, (2022) student expectations of peers in academic asynchronous online discussion 385 115 500 fields & hartnett, (2020) online teaching and learning: covid-19 special issue 277 138 415 ehlers, (2011) extending the territory: from open educational resources to open educational practices 278 137 415 hartnett & fields, (2019) digital inclusion in new zealand 253 147 400 karaka-clarke et al., (2022) kōrero mai: kaiako experiences of synchronous online teaching and learning in new zealand 174 191 365 hartline et al., (2022) through their eyes: student perspectives 170 155 325 thach & lai, (2021) lecturer attitudes and behavioural intentions to use learning management systems in vietnam 162 163 325 nkomo & daniel, (2021) providing students with flexible and adaptive learning opportunities using lecture recordings 183 137 320 hartnett & fields, (2021) improving remote teaching and online learning 164 154 318 atkinson & fields, (2022) connecting past and future educational practice: a post-covid-19 present 163 150 313 brown et al., (2021) learning management system adoption by academics: a perspective following the forced lockdown of nz universities due to covid-19 in 2020 156 146 302 hartnett & fields, (2021) time for change: the journal is in good shape 117 157 274 adebisi & olatunji, (2022) sociodemographics and psychosocial experiences of distance learners in nigeria: a comparison of single-mode and dual-mode universities 178 80 258 shearer, (2021) why do our theories matter? 142 113 255 the most frequently accessed item in jofdl in 2022 was “the impacts of the covid-19 pandemic on higher education students in new zealand” by michael p. cameron, barbara fogarty-perry, and gemma piercy. this is a current topic, looking at post-pandemic education in new zealand. cameron et al. was released in july 2022 so has had a remarkably high readership in the few months it has been available. according to google scholar, this article has been cited in 10 publications so far—a very high number given its recent publication. the second most frequently accessed item in jofdl in 2022 is “keynote: what is the state of e-learning? reflections on 30 ways learning is changing” by curtis j. bonk. this article is derived from bonk’s keynote speech at the 2016 deanz/flanz conference. it looks at the https://www.jofdl.nz/index.php/jofdl/article/view/515 https://www.jofdl.nz/index.php/jofdl/article/view/300 https://www.jofdl.nz/index.php/jofdl/article/view/133 https://www.jofdl.nz/index.php/jofdl/article/view/505 https://www.jofdl.nz/index.php/jofdl/article/view/399 https://www.jofdl.nz/index.php/jofdl/article/view/64 https://www.jofdl.nz/index.php/jofdl/article/view/391 https://www.jofdl.nz/index.php/jofdl/article/view/491/327 https://www.jofdl.nz/index.php/jofdl/article/view/495 https://www.jofdl.nz/index.php/jofdl/article/view/465 https://www.jofdl.nz/index.php/jofdl/article/view/437 https://www.jofdl.nz/index.php/jofdl/article/view/489 https://www.jofdl.nz/index.php/jofdl/article/view/523 https://www.jofdl.nz/index.php/jofdl/article/view/477 https://www.jofdl.nz/index.php/jofdl/article/view/509 https://www.jofdl.nz/index.php/jofdl/article/view/513 https://www.jofdl.nz/index.php/jofdl/article/view/481 fields, a., atkinson, s. p. 4 state of e-learning and discusses the “vast resource abundance and extensive opportunities for learner empowerment” (bonk, 2016, p. 6). readership records in jofdl have been collected since 2016, and bonk (2016) has been the most frequently accessed item for 2016–2022, with 2828 abstract views and 2975 full article views. it has been cited in eight other publications. the statistics in this editorial are indicative, not absolute, but do clearly represent the annual readership of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning, the topics most relevant to our audience, and the reach of the journal in the e-learning field. papers in this issue this bumper issue contains an invited article and seven contributed articles. as the international educational community emerges from the huge and sudden changes required by the covid-19 pandemic, there is now some time and space for broader reflection. a unifying theme emerges— that of shifting perspectives on theory, impact, and practice around odfl approaches. this issue examines a selection of these changing perspectives. dron’s problematising of the concept of distance is counterbalanced with atkinson’s attempt to simplify the use of terminology. communication approaches are in evidence with koh and hulbert’s exploration of electronic nonverbal communication, followed by miano’s examination of the development of soft skills online. parental challenges also feature in two very different contexts: shahbazi examines the burden placed on parents in supporting virtual english language learning at kindergarten, and chitanana examines broader societal and cultural pressures faced by parents who are supporting their children. technological challenges remain an issue for many, with watt and andreadis examining the value of bring your own device (byod). finally, kenah and nash advocate for consistent and high-quality support instruments to maintain motivation across a student population. in an invited contribution, professor jon dron sets out to problematise and then resolve contemporary interpretations of the notion of “distance” in education. taking what appears to be an unconventional stance, he begins with an argument that teaching is fundamentally a technological process. he argues that an array of technology tools and engagements make up the complicated and intricate process of learning. further, he suggests that contemporary technologies are a blend of tools, artifacts, and their use. the social nature of technology mediation, the co-creation, and the collective intelligence that results, means we are all—in practice—teachers. dron argues that there is not one distance between learner and teacher in any act of deliberate learning—but many, including physical, temporal, structural, agency, social, emotional, cognitive, cultural, pedagogical, and technological distances. he finishes his piece with some broad suggestions as to how we can better comprehend these multiple distances and ultimately reduce them. atkinson’s opinion piece (not written as a response to jon dron) argues for a much narrower definitional framework. in it he attempts to define and contextualise educational terms he believes are often misused in both contemporary academic literature and practice. he argues that the three words: “open”, “flexible”, and “distance”, fall into the categories of policy, mode of learning, and models of delivery, and should never be used as synonyms. as the international academic world increasingly adapts to new forms of education, atkinson argues it is essential for educators to have a shared understanding of professional language. appropriation by specialist technical applications and vernacular use doesn’t mean professionals don’t need to establish consistent definitions. words have a tendency to become symbolic representations—they are embraced by certain groups for a variety of purposes and act as markers for inclusion or exclusion in a community’s culture. this introduces what atkinson regards as unhelpful ambiguity. atkinson’s piece seeks to enable readers to decide how to best define and deploy existing terminology. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 5 koh and hulbert explore the challenge faced by many teachers as they struggle to communicate and connect with students due to the covid-19 response, which resulted in the forced transition to online learning for many. research undertaken at open polytechnic of new zealand with undergraduate business studies students sought to explore the differences between traditional nonverbal communication in a face-to-face environment, and of online nonverbal communication. because digital literacy underpins the whole online learning experience, and because nonverbal communication (nvc) cues such as body language and paralanguage are not visible in asynchronous text-based online learning, this paper presents the relationship (if any) between electronic nonverbal communication (envc) and teaching/social presences and digital literacy. the study also seeks to explore the relationship between these communication forms and student motivation and engagement. the results, analysed using a pearson’s correlation analysis, found that there is a correlation between envc, teaching/social presence and digital literacy in asynchronous online discussions. koh and hulbert also suggest that envc is related to teaching/social presence, but not to digital literacy more broadly. miano’s study, based on undergraduate business students in the philippines, explores students’ perceptions of soft skills integration while undertaking emergency remote learning (erl) during the covid-19 pandemic. an original questionnaire design distributed online collected responses from forty-three students, who perceived that soft skills had been moderately integrated during erl. interestingly, there appears to be no significant difference in students’ perception of the integration of soft skills based on learning modalities. shahbazi shares insights derived from a case study from ontario, canada, exploring english language learner (ell) parents’ experiences as they supported their children’s english language development in an online kindergarten programme. through in-depth semi-structured interviews, the researcher collected data that was analysed through a thematic lens to gain insight into the lived experience of participants in this online learning. analysis showed an increase in emotional stressors for parents of ells due to this new mode of teaching. it also highlighted changes in communication between parents and teachers. the research concluded that schools and boards should offer families with multilingual learners ongoing workshops so they can gain the knowledge necessary to confidently support their kids both in person and digitally. shahbazi also recommends greater investment in translation services. chitanana reports on a descriptive qualitative study in zimbabwe designed to uncover parents’ experiences while their primary school children were learning remotely. the study used questionnaires and online interviews to gather data from 25 parents deemed to be invested in their children’s home learning and with internet connectivity at home. the study aimed to obtain useful data and identify trends that could help further develop programmes and policies to support parental needs in future virtual schooling. chitanana identified that parents were both overwhelmed and distressed with the abrupt nature of school closure and the disruption to their children’s daily routines. parents grappled with a range of challenges including balancing responsibilities in both work and home life, transitioning to remote learning, sustaining a child’s motivation to learn without face-to-face support from teachers, inadequate access to educational resources online, and insufficient capacity for helping multiple kids at once as well as finding an appropriate environment for them to study in. chitanana identifies policy implications and makes recommendations aimed at teachers, district authorities, and policymakers. watts and andreadis have conducted a statistical survey over 3 years to explore how the initialyear students of an international secondary school in the netherlands promoting byod use perceived the effects of using their own ipads on learning. the students’ insights demonstrate comprehension of the advantages and obstacles related to using their ipads in school and at home. additionally, they cite several benefits associated with having on-the-spot access to numerous educational opportunities through the internet. despite the potential for overuse of fields, a., atkinson, s. p. 6 ipads (such as for gaming and social media) a balanced approach has been taken to minimise these risks. although initially meant to avoid any academic detriment during the implementation of byod scheme, results have not only avoided harm but actually led to overall improvement in student performance. kenah and nash round out this issue of the journal with their research and experience of inspiring learners to reach their educational goals, in the belief that this is pivotal for the success of distance educators worldwide. from 2010 to 2022, the researchers have been delivering aim newsletters based on motivational learning theory to first-year economics students at open polytechnic of new zealand, to support them along their learner journey. aim is an acronym for academic content, information for the course, and motivation—three critical elements that are required to meet the challenges of effective online course facilitation. keller’s instructional materials motivation survey (imms) is used to analyse the learner’s viewpoint of the aim newsletter. results demonstrate that learners regard aim as attention-grabbing and relevant, connecting theory with real-world examples while relating to the learner’s own experiences. this builds their confidence in course content and yields, overall, a satisfactory learning experience. this research advocates for the effectiveness and efficiency of their aim as a tool for supporting and motivating learners throughout their studies. references bonk, c. (2016). keynote: what is the state of e-learning? reflections on 30 ways learning is changing. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 20(2), 6–20. fields, a., & hartnett, m. (2019). taking stock of our journal’s journey: a statement of impact. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 23(1), 1–4. biographical notes alison fields alison@infosolutions.co.nz alison is an information scientist and director of research at infosolutions. she conducts research in health information, and contracts in the education sector. she is a fellow of the library and information association of new zealand aotearoa (lianza) and has a doctorate in education. her research areas encompass elearning, online learner support, health information, library services, and continuing professional development. alison is an executive member of flanz and joint editor of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. simon paul atkinson spa@sijen.com simon is a higher education strategist with over 25 years’ experience as an academic developer, educational technologist, teacher, and researcher. he has held senior leadership roles in both the united kingdom and aotearoa new zealand and has lectured and presented in over 15 countries, as well as online to global audiences. he has a doctorate in museum studies (adult education) and is a principal fellow of the higher education academy. he is also joint editor of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. fields, a., & atkinson, s. p. (2022). post-pandemic trends: readership and research after covid-19. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2), [1–6.]. mailto:alison@infosolutions.co.nz mailto:spa@sijen.com http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ microsoft word 13 deanz 2012 wilson 040412.doc wilson, a. d. 156 categorising e-learning amy wilson, massey university abstract categorising e-learning is almost as problematic as defining the term. in an attempt to quantify/qualify the level of e-learning use in the tertiary sector in new zealand, the ministry of education (moe) established a classification system for courses in the tertiary sector. the value of this tool was disputed, and a new system was proposed but later withdrawn. following a period of sector discussion and consultation, the moe has now abandoned the classification system. with institutions no longer being required to report the number of courses using e-learning tools, the question arises as to whether there is a need to classify e-learning, and what purpose that might serve. the responses to interviews conducted as part of doctoral study regarding the moe classification system prompted the author to embark on an exploratory study to determine if there is still a need to classify e-learning. the purpose of this study is twofold: first, to consider the moe’s system to gain a better understanding of how e-learning was classified; and second, to recommend a replacement for this system that might be more practical in terms of institutional analysis and planning. the study proposes four options for those institutions that recognise the importance of continued data collection to inform choices regarding professional development, resourcing, and strategic direction. the classification options are discussed in terms of clarity of classification and ease of data collection. keywords: professional learning and development; e-learning; personalised learning; virtual learning; online communities of practice; professional change; online communities introduction in the last decade, the new zealand government has implemented a number of strategies to boost the capability of e-learning use in the tertiary sector. advisory groups were created and two major funds established to address research and new project implementation in e-learning. the ministry of education (moe) introduced a classification system to help tertiary institutions categorise e-learning use. after the system was introduced, concern was expressed that it did not provide adequate detail to identify the appropriate level of e-learning use. added to this concern was the fact that e-learning has changed over the last few years. in response, the moe proposed changes to the classification in 2010. these proposals were subsequently deferred for further discussion, and the classification system was dropped. this outcome may place institutions in a quandary as to whether to continue collect e-learning classification data for their courses. what purpose might it serve? further, if institutions continue journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 157 to collect the information, what format should it take and how could it best be analysed for planning and strategic direction? this exploratory study proposes to address these issues in order to continue debate regarding an e-learning classification system, particularly at institution level. the study also provides recommendations for improved processes to ensure that e-learning managers continue to have input into the data collected to measure e-learning use in their institutions. context/background e-learning studies in new zealand have examined e-learning at a national level. many of these studies have been cross-sector, and they have recognised that there is a range of e-learning capability within all of the institutions across the sector. following two major government incentives (ministry of education, 2007a; ministry of education, 2007b), many institutions in new zealand have introduced more e-learning into their delivery choices. most have implemented a learning management system—computer software that enables students to access resources and activities through the internet or computer networks (mitchell, clayton, gower, & barr, 2005). following the implementation of the system, teaching staff were encouraged to upload resources for their students. some embraced it, while others were quite fearful of the changes that e-learning might bring (mitchell et al., 2005). within this atmosphere, the moe attempted to measure the use of e-learning by introducing a classification system in 2003 (ministry of education, 2008). the effectiveness of this system in capturing accurate data has been disputed. it was found to be somewhat problematic because there was a great deal of overlap between the levels in the classification. based on feedback from e-learning professionals in the tertiary sector, the moe proposed that the classification system be replaced by a model used by the organisation for economic co-operation and development (oecd) (minstry of education, 2010a). although the perception was that the oecd model had some merit, concern was still expressed by e-learning managers and individuals (ministry of education, 2010b). subsequent to this discussion, the moe decided to drop the e-learning classification system and discontinue the data-collection process. in any process of reform, it is important to consider national and institutional drivers, so that any new system produces data to support decision makers at both levels. additionally, it is helpful to briefly define the terminology to be used in the report, particularly in the context of the literature. terminology: distance, flexible and blended learning although e-learning as a concept has existed for a number of years, there are still many interpretations of the term. therefore, it is important to define e-learning in order to place it in the context of the new zealand tertiary sector and this study. it is also important to get a sense of the historical perspective, in terms of how e-learning fits in with traditional methods of delivering education. a number of studies have defined and described e-learning, online learning, flexible learning, and distance learning (nichols, 2008; e-learning advisory group, 2002). there is a considerable amount of overlap for each of the terms, and many outside of the e-learning arena do not recognise the terms or the differences. even those within the e-learning area may have different interpretations (bates, 2008; marshall, 2005; mitchell et al., 2005; seaman, 2003). e-learning is most often defined as any technology-enabled learning. this includes students using software in a computer lab, on a cd-rom and over the internet. initially, the terminology included distance learning, distributed learning, or correspondencecourse delivery. in its broadest sense, distance learning can incorporate a number of different modes or types of learning. e-learning terminology now includes hybrid or blended courses, wilson, a. d. 158 where face-to-face class time is reduced and replaced by online activities (nichols, 2008). this type of learning describes delivery modes that fall anywhere along a continuum of classroombased teaching to fully online learning (bullen & janes, 2006, as cited in nichols, 2008). the most appropriate mix is determined by the learner profile and learning objectives for each course (marshall, 2005). categories of e-learning use in an effort to measure courses that used alternative types of delivery, the moe scale or classification was introduced in 2003, with the same classification types in place from 2004 (ministry of education, 2008). the classification was called the “internet based learning indicator” and the description was: “the field is used to indicate whether teaching and learning in each course is currently available in part or as a whole via the internet” (ministry of education, 2008, p. 93). additionally, the classification manual provides the following basis for capturing the data: “the field is used by the ministry for tertiary sector reporting and policy purposes. for example, is internet-based learning helping to increase participation, comparison of outcomes for students learning online to those learning on campus” (ministry of education, 2008, p. 93). it was the responsibility of institutions to report the level of e-learning use to the moe once a year as part of their single data return reporting (ministry of education, 2008). the categories of the classification are: 1. no access is where no part of the paper or course is accessible online. 2. web-supported is where a paper or course provides students access to limited online materials and resources. access is optional, as online participation is likely to be a minor component of study. 3. web-enhanced is where a paper or course expects students to access online materials and resources. access is expected, as online participation is likely to make a major contribution to study. 4. web-based is where a paper or course requires students to access the accompanying online materials and resources. access is required, as online participation is required. (ministry of education, 2008, p. 93) when using any type of scale or rubric to describe e-learning, there is the danger of overlap, but in looking at the essential meaning of each of these levels, it is possible to gain some clarity as to what the levels constitute. the issue of which level of interaction should define e-learning is also important. further analysis may be used to break these levels down in terms of administration, communication, and real engagement. courses that sit within the first level of the moe classification indicate that there is no access to digital technology, so there is little interaction. courses within the web-supported category use the internet to provide administration tools to students, perhaps in the form of email announcements and links to course material such as a virtual file repository. although this level provides access, it does not indicate that there is a great deal of engagement with the materials or other students through the learning management system. it can therefore be assumed that communication follows a ‘transmission’ as opposed to an ‘engagement’ approach (hegarty, et al., 2005; taylor & dunne, 2011). providing resources on a learning management system does support good teaching in the sense that it contributes to an organised coherent class environment and may allow lecturers time to get on with other less administrative tasks in their teaching—for example, planning quality learning activities. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 159 however, it does not necessarily enhance or extend learning, in either a classroom-based or online environment. the term web-supported may refer more to ‘encouraging’ students to use online resources such as quizzes or optional discussion forums. the moe classification does not discuss classroombased activities, so it may be assumed that class time is not reduced. it is of interest that in the proposed changes to the moe classification, the moe specifically refers to “classroom-based teaching” (ministry of education, 2010a), whereas the original moe classification did not make that distinction. the final level of the moe classification could refer to anything from blended to fully online learning, where access to the web (or course area) is mandatory. what was the single data return code used for, and was it effective? the moe has stated that the collection of the data is for “sector reporting and policy making” (ministry of education, 2008, p. 93). however, there have been only a few sector-wide publications that used extensive single data return. the first was the evaluation of the impact of the e-learning collaborative development funds (ham & wenmoth, 2007), and the second was on e-learning provision in the sector (guiney, 2011). both reports did provide e-learning provision rates in the tertiary sector, with the guiney report including student demographics, qualification level, and institutional information. however, it did not comment a great deal on the quality of the e-learning resources or environment. the guiney (2011) report also acknowledged that it was difficult to “establish clear boundaries between the web-supported and web-enhanced categories” (p. 6). this sentiment was echoed by 13 e-learning managers from institutes of technology and polytechnics (itps) who were interviewed as part of a doctoral study. the interviews included a question about the single data return internet field. throughout the interview process it became clear that, because the elearning managers were not the individuals who reported internet use to the moe, it was often problematic for them to report the categories. although the e-learning managers had received an email copy of the questions beforehand, they often had to contact those individuals who were responsible for the student administration system. the resulting data was often emailed to the researcher at a later date. some data was quantitative—occasionally this would be the number of courses, but more often it was the percentage of courses in each category. other e-learning managers provided a general overview of their perception of the number or percentage of courses in the different categories. in some cases, the difficulties highlighted by the e-learning managers related to issues of how to differentiate the levels. for example, one e-learning manager indicated that the perception of the difference between web-supported and web-enhanced was difficult to gauge, because lecturers don’t contact the e-learning team as “they don’t see a significant change from what they used to be doing”. there is some ambiguity in terms of what is meant by the terminology. for example, one e-learning manager queried whether providing a resource online meant that the students are ‘expected’ or ‘required’ to access it online.  still other respondents indicated difficulty in determining what was meant by e-learning. for example, some institutions use video-conferencing links between campuses. the managers were uncertain whether or not video-conferencing was considered e-learning. others wondered if class-based e-learning activities should be considered as part of the percentage of courses in the web-supported category. other criticism arose when the moe invited individuals to comment on proposed changes to the classification system (ministry of education, 2010b). wilson, a. d. 160 what are the benefits and what are the options? in addition to criticism of the classification system, there were also some recommendations for how such a system might assist managers at an institution level. in their response to the government request, new zealand member institutions of the australasian council on open, distance and e-learning indicated in their response that the categories may be used by institutions to inform students about the course requirements and digital expectations (response citation). it could also be used by institutions in designing a programme and providing a basis for instructional design work, professional development, and e-learning support that might be required for staff teaching on the programme (australasian council on open, distance and elearning, as cited in ministry of education, 2010). the use of frameworks to establish and maintain high-quality online courses is well documented (gaytan, 2009; park, 2011; swan, garrison, & richardson, 2009). in a study of mobile learning, park (2011) recommended using a framework of mobile learning activities to inform instructional designers to “design and implement mobile learning more effectively” (p. 95). the framework was based on a ‘mobility hierarchy’, which described the level of interaction in a similar way to the categories of the moe classification. it also included a framework of technological affordances, including group and individual ways of working (p. 82). so what might the options be for institutions that wish to continue recording data about their courses in establishing a framework that will inform their academic development and quality assurance? four options that might be considered are listed below. option 1: continue to use the internet-based learning indicator categories one of the criticisms of the proposed changes to the internet field is that “the value of this indicator in an increasingly e-learning environment does not justify the work involved in loading the data” (ministry of education, 2010b, p. 12). introducing a new system may simply compound the situation. institutions that currently find value in the classification could continue to maintain data on their courses. option 2: slight modifications to the classification system reinterpreting the system might solve some problems. a banded approach could be used, replacing the four current levels with the following categories: figure 1 a banded approach to the moe system journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 161 how does this compare with the moe classification? it is very similar, but may remove some of the ambiguity. the first level in the moe system and the first band in this system are identical— there is no use of digital technologies. the next band in this system indicates that students and teaching staff use technology to complete administrative tasks—sharing course descriptors, timetables, and assignment submission. unlike the moe system there is no reference to access, as there is an increasing expectation that students will need to use technology to complete these tasks. the third band relates more to the use of e-learning in teaching. does using the technology enhance or reinforce learning? learning design is inherent when using technology to enhance learning. how will the digital technology support the students in their learning? what tools might be used? if a course sits within the third band, we would expect teaching staff to either have skills to use the technology, or that they would gain these skills through professional development. the final band is similar to the moe system—it assumes access because the course is either completely online or relies heavily on the use of digital technologies. if the problem with the retired system is that it is difficult to distinguish between the middle two categories, the banded approach would differentiate the categories based on judgements of whether digital technology is being used as a tool or for the pedagogical process. would this system aid in planning for professional development and project management? one example to consider might be a lecturer who is taking over a course that provides for online assignment submission. in the short term, the lecturer only needs to learn particular technical skills in order to support their students. this would sit within the second band. a hands-on skills session may be the best approach (wilson, in press). however, if the lecturer wants to provide meaningful feedback through digital technology, further professional development might be suggested. this type of feedback practice would fit within the third band. one example from the itp sector shows how this system might work. one institution has created a scale to categorise e-learning. it includes categories that are driven from an e-learning management perspective, where templates and project management structures are provided (nelson-marlborough institute of technology, n. d.) the three levels are: fully online course; blended course (described as some online, some face-to-face); and e-filing cabinet to supplment a face-to-face course. the type of course could be recorded in the same style format as the original classification. courses that do not have an area on the learning management system would be considered to fall within the ‘no access’ category. option 3: taxonomy taxonomy could be used as a form of classification system for e-learning (rudak & sidlor, 2010). each category could be described in terms of the e-learning practice, and could include the types of technology, tools, or activities that are provided through digital technology. this would allow for greater granularity, but it may be too prescriptive to allow all institutions to report their data accurately. wilson, a. d. 162 figure 2 taxonomy of e-learning option 4: rubrics to categorise e-learning the last option for consideration is a rubric. rubrics, peer evaluations, and other tools are often used to evaluate the quality of online course design (roblyer & weincke, 2003). additionally, these evaluation tools can be used to assist managers in making decisions for setting professional development criteria (palloff & pratt, 2011; wood & friedel, 2009). the example rubric shown in figure 3 classifies e-learning use in terms of strands, and provides behaviours for three levels of e-learning. figure 3 e-learning classification rubric each of these options would need to be considered in light of institutional needs. further consultation with e-learning professionals and government advisory groups would need to occur to establish priorities for a new classification system. when and how could the data be collected? recording data for the single data return has been typically manual, with either the e-learning or academic records department entering data regarding the e-learning category of the courses. online development projects, course audits, moderations, and reviews provide managers with journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 163 opportunities to determine how e-learning is being used in courses (stubbs, martin, & endlar, 2006). learner analytics might be a more effective way of capturing the data. learner analytics is described as: “interpretation of a wide range of data produced by and gathered on behalf of students in order to assess academic progress, predict future performance, and spot potential issues” (johnson, smith, willis, levine, & haywood, 2011, p. 42). it combines data sets, statistical analysis, and modelling (campbell, deblois, & oblinger, 2007). many systems are used as an early-intervention system to alert teaching staff to identify at-risk students (arnold, 2010; campbell, deblois, & oblinger, 2007). more recent studies have described the use of learner analytics in terms of online course quality (oliver & whelan, 2011) and student collaboration (reich, murnane, & willett, 2012). adaption of the analytics model may result in using it to help managers to assess online course quality and identify areas of need for staff development. with any analytical software there is a concern that the process is ‘measuring’ learner access and statistical information. however, it might be possible to determine the interactivity of a course by comparing the number of discussion forums, interactive web pages, and quizzes, as opposed to more static resources such as powerpoints and documents. from an economic perspective, it would be useful if groups of institutions could work together on designing these analytics or using already existing software. conclusions there were two purposes to this study. the first was to consider the moe’s system to gain a better understanding of how e-learning was classified, and the second was to recommend a replacement system that might be more practical in terms of institutional and sector analysis and planning. in determining whether a new classification system should be implemented, perhaps the issue is not a question of measuring the web components or online components of a course. instead, it may be a wider issue of how the technology might be used in all of the categories of courses. defining a role for the type of technology use may mean that a more banded approach would be more effective. the study also discussed learner analytics as a method for effective data collection. the difficulty in this method will be determining valid measures of interactivity in order to categorise the courses. as an exploratory foray into the debate of e-learning classification, this study probably raises as many questions as it provides answers. no doubt the next few years will witness robust discussion regarding not only how e-learning can be measured, but also whether it should be. one thing is certain—this discussion will not be limited to new zealand. references arnold, k. e. (2010). signals: applying academic analytics. educause quarterly, 33(1). bates, a. w. (2008, september). e-learning and vocational education and training. paper presented at the e-learning in industry symposium. hamilton, new zealand. campbell, j. p., deblois, p. b., & oblinger, d. g. (2007, july/august). academic analytics: a new tool for a new era. educause review, 41–57. e-learning advisory group. (2002). highways and pathways: the report of the e-learning advisory group. wellington, new zealand: author. wilson, a. d. 164 gaytan, j. (2009). analyzing online education through the lens of institutional theory and practice: the need for research-based and -validated frameworks for planning, designing, delivering, and assessing online instruction. the delta pi epsilon journal, li(2), 62–75. guiney, p. (2011). e-learning provision and participation: trends, patterns and highlights. wellington. : ministry of education. ham, v., & wenmoth, d. (2007). evaluation of the e-learning collaborative development fund. wellington, new zealand: tertiary education commission. hegarty, b., penman, m., brown, c., coburn, d., gower, b., kelly, o., . . . suddaby, g. (2005). approaches and implications of elearning adoption in relation to academic staff efficacy and working practice. palmerston north, new zealand: universal college of learning. johnson, l., smith, r., willis, h., levine, a., & haywood, k. (2011). the horizon report. austin, tx: new media consortium. marshall, s. (2005). nz e-learning capability determination: determination of new zealand tertiary institution e-learning capability: an application of an e-learning maturity model report on the e-learning maturity model evaluation of the new zealand tertiary sector. wellington, new zealand: victoria university of wellington. ministry of education. (2007a). (e)learning collaborative development fund (ecdf). wellington, new zealand: author. ministry of education. (2007b). tertiary (e)learning research fund (telrf). wellington, new zealand: author. ministry of education. (2008). 2009 single data return: a manual for tertiary education organisations and student management system developers: specifications of the ministry of education and tertiary education commission data requirements for the single data return for the 2009 academic year. retrieved from http://cms.steo.govt.nz/nr/rdonlyres/8f4d8ae303b6-4fa1-b3f4-d7472ff35752/0/sdrmanual2009v111.pdf ministry of education. (2010a). introduction and summary: proposed changes to the 2011 single data return feedback process. retrieved from http://cms.steo.govt.nz/nr/rdonlyres/beb572ab-c1f8-4409-bec1246be3b6150d/0/introandsummaryofproposedchanges2011sdrv1_2.pdf ministry of education. (2010b). response to sector feedback on the proposed changes to 2011 sdr changes. wellington, new zealand: author. mitchell, d., clayton, j., gower, b., & barr, h. (2005). e-learning: an annotated bibliography. hamilton, new zealand: waikato institute of technology. nelson-marlborough institute of technology. (n. d.). nmit – course: tutors’ guide to nmit online. nelson, new zealand: author. nichols, m. (2008). e-primer series: e-learning in context. wellington, new zealand: ako aotearoa. palloff, r. m., & pratt, k. (2011). the excellent online instructor: strategies for professional development. san franciso, ca: jossey bass. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 165 park, y. (2011). a pedagogical framework for mobile learning: categorizing educational applications of mobile technologies into four types. the international review of research in open and distance learning, 12(2), 78–102. reich, j., murnane, r., & willett, j. (2012). the state of wiki usage in u. s. k-12 schools: leveraging web 2.0 data warehouses to assess quality and equity in online learning environments. educational researcher, 41(1), 7–15. doi: 10.3102/0013189x11427083 roblyer, m. d., & weincke, w. r. (2003). design and use of a rubric to assess and encourage interactive qualities in online courses. the american journal of distance education, 17(2), 77–98. rudak, l., & sidlor, d. (2010). taxonomy of e-courses. in m. iskander, v. kapila, v. a. vikram, m. iskander, v. kapila, & m. karim (eds.), technological developments in education and automation (pp. 275–280). new york, ny: springer. seaman, j. (2003). the sloan survey of online learning. sloan c view, 4(2), 5. stubbs, m., martin, i., & endlar, l. (2006). the structuration of blended learning: putting holistic design principles into practice. british journal of educational technology, 37(2), 163–175. swan, k., garrison, d. r., & richardson, j. c. (2009). a constructivist approach to online learning: the community of inquiry framework. in c. r. payne (ed.), information technology and constructivism in higher education: progressive learning frameworks. hershey, pa: information science reference. doi: 10.4018/978-1-60566-654-9 taylor, c. a., & dunne, m. (2011). virtualization and new geographies of knowledge in higher education: possibilities for the transformation of knowledge, pedagogic relations and learner identities. british journal of educational technology, 32(4), 623–641. wilson, a. d. (in press). effective professional development for e-learning: what do the managers think? british journal of educational technology. wood, d., & friedel, m. (2009). peer review of online learning and teaching: harnessing collective intelligence to address emerging challenges. australasian journal of educational technology, 25(1), 60–79. biographical notes amy wilson a.d.wilson@massey.ac.nz dr amy wilson is senior e-tutor for the graduate diploma in education (e-learning) at massey university. dr wilson has spent the last 8 years developing both online and web-supported courses and has enjoyed the opportunity to work with a number of teaching staff. her interests are in professional development and instructional design. � this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. wilson, a. d. (2012). categorising e-learning. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 16(1), [pp. 156–165]. microsoft word 07final_intro.doc journal of distance learning, vol 11, no 1, 2007 © distance education association of new zealand 1 introduction bill anderson, mary simpson massey university palmerston north, new zealand distance education has always had change as a central facet of its existence. in the past it has brought change to the lives of students who found they could access education while being remote from institutions of formal learning. it has brought change to the educative routines of many teachers who have found the process of course design has caused them to re-examine long-held beliefs and practices. institutions, too, have found that involvement in distance education provides opportunities to reconsider matters such as student support, and other pedagogic, technical, and organisational practices necessary to cater for the needs of distance (in time or space) students. at a national level, policy makers are struggling to understand the complexity of the phenomenon, as learning at a distance is increasingly part of the experience of all students, on or off campus. articles in this issue reflect and discuss some of these changes. bill rosenberg, the author of the first article, originally presented his ideas at the 2006 deanz conference and set the scene for a stimulating discussion. his premise is that e-learning has yet to take off in the new zealand tertiary sector and that further staff professional development is a key to assisting that takeoff. the emphasis on professional development is one that has struck a chord within the ministry of education. two of the three projects in round three of the tertiary e-learning research fund (telrf) focus on “articulation of a baseline for professional capability, and models to assist in achieving this baseline capability in teos” (ministry of education, 2007). but what do we currently know about the extent of uptake of e-learning in the tertiary system in new zealand? the ministry of education collects data about the mode of internet study of extramural and internal students at the tertiary level. the data collected show both the number and the equivalent fulltime (eft) count of students engaged in the following forms of internet based study: no access: where no part of the paper or course is accessible online. web-supported: where a paper or course provides students with access to limited online materials and resources. web-enhanced: where a paper or course expects students to access online materials and resources. web-based: where a paper or course requires students to access the accompanying online materials and resources. we have some concern about these categories, arguing elsewhere against the journal of distance learning, vol 11, no 1, 2007 © distance education association of new zealand 2 current three web categories and for a set of three that would: amalgamate websupported and web-enhanced as the first category; leave web-based as the second category; and include a new category that is “fully online.” however, the data we have relate to the ministry categories. we report here 2005 efts-based data for the tertiary sector for enrolments in all formal courses above certificate level, of a week or longer duration. what do they tell us? just over 48 percent of all efts are in “no access” courses. only 2.6 percent of all efts are in “web-based” courses. in other words, students representing only 2.6 percent of the tertiary study efts are required to access the web for their courses. of the total of just over 178,000 efts in formal, diploma-level and above courses longer than a week, extramural enrolments contributed over 13,600 efts. the percentage of extramural efts in “no access” courses was 61.5; the percentage in “web-based” courses was 7.4. using rosenberg’s metaphor, we might ask, “do these figures constitute taxiing, takeoff, or flight?” at a system level these figures give us some idea of the impact of policy decisions and strategy implementation. it is right to expect to see evidence of e-learning development given the investment in the projects of the e-learning collaborative development fund and the tertiary e-learning research fund. whether the basis of this evidence is comparison with previous years or comparison with overseas experience, the figures we present are interesting but, from another perspective, not sufficient. there is another aspect that interests us as well. metaphors are useful in helping to convey an image, but single metaphor discussions have their limitations. when it comes to answering the question we pose above, we want to avoid the thought, associated with a flight metaphor, that “what goes up, must … .” instead we want to think in terms of the question, “what is the right mix of technologies for the context in which the teaching and learning is occurring?” what mix of web content and interaction, print content and interaction, m-content and interaction, etc., is most advantageous for learning? what is right in the study of business communication may not be right for the study of chemistry. what is right for first-year tertiary students may not be right for those completing a postgraduate qualification. this question also makes us aware that what is right for today may not be right in five years’ time. in asking this question we probe into the data, cutting beneath the overview that the broad statistics provide, cutting to decisions about e-learning implementation for particular groups of students studying in particular fields at the level of institutions and, possibly, individual teachers or teams of teachers. to some extent we can see the decisions about e-learning implementation when we look at the different levels of engagement with e-learning that are indicated within the broad categories of the new zealand standard classification of education. fewer than 30 percent of all efts in the natural and physical sciences (total efts just over 18,000) are in “no access” courses in comparison with over 70 percent in the creative arts (total efts just over 16,000). lowest and highest percentages for “web-based” courses are given by the 0.1 percent of all efts in the category of engineering journal of distance learning, vol 11, no 1, 2007 © distance education association of new zealand 3 and related technologies (total efts nearly 8,800) and the 9.9 percent in the category of education (total efts over 16,800). yet education has the fourthhighest “no access” figure, at 64.6 percent. the pattern of engagement with e-learning is not clear-cut. we have two quite distinct yet related questions here. in a broad sense, at the system level it is important to know that the investment in e-learning is worthwhile; that strategies for e-learning are driving change; that implementation is occurring and having an impact on the learning of students. at an institutional level there is a need to understand engagement with e-learning and the reasons for that engagement. the tactics of institutions and their staff are played out within the strategic environment of national policy. an appreciation of both strategies and tactics will be important to our understanding of how to gain the greatest benefit from e-learning. gaining the greatest benefit from e-learning also means recognising how e-learning supports learning, teaching, and the activities that surround those core educational actions. because e-learning supports the creation of collaborative, interactive, media-rich, personalised learning environments, it has a valuable role. but as educators we must understand the place of e-learning resources, practices, and processes alongside those associated with the use of other technologies and make choices about what works best in educational terms. our remaining two articles both report on changes at different levels. the second article comes from uganda, via a new zealand connection. it reports on the outcome of a distance education training programme designed to address the knowledge and skill needs of staff required to deliver distance teacher training programmes throughout the country. while the technological context is very different from that faced by new zealand educators, the message is the same. teaching at a distance requires a particular set of knowledge and skills. some aspects of that set are specific to particular technologies, but in large measure they are not. the national e-learning guidelines (see http://elg. massey.ac.nz/) demonstrate this fact. our final article comes from mavis haigh and margaret turnbull, who are writing about their first experience teaching a course involving some element of online engagement. they report on feedback from their students, the impact that feedback has had, and the ways they have questioned their initial approach to teaching online. they look at how they come to question their pedagogical approach without losing sight of the principles driving their teaching. overall, we have returned to bill rosenberg’s argument. professional development is central to the task of enlarging the pool of people who are capable distance educators. bringing about changes in professional practice is key to enhancing learning for our students. references ministry of education (2007). tertiary (e)learning research fund. retrieved may 7, 2007, from http://cms.steo.govt.nz/ elearning/projects/tertiary+elearning+ research+fund.htm journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 1 using online assessment to replace invigilated assessment in times of natural disaster: are some online assessment conditions better than others? steve agnew, university of canterbury stephen hickson, university of canterbury abstract as a result of the canterbury earthquake on 4 september 2010, and associated aftershocks on 22 february 2011 and 13 june 2011, final examinations in the two first-year economics papers at canterbury university were cancelled at short notice in semester 1, 2011. the final examination weightings were spread over the remaining assessments to obtain a final grade for students. this paper attempts to establish how different online assessment conditions affected final grade distributions when online assessments were substituted for an invigilated final examination. pearson correlation coefficients and spearman rank-order correlation coefficients were used to show that there was a greater correlation between online quizzes and invigilated assessments when those quizzes were only available for a restricted period of time compared with the whole semester. we found that online quizzes were more closely correlated with invigilated assessments when the first attempt at a quiz was recorded, as opposed to the higher of two attempts. we also found that using the first attempt leads to less grade disruption when compared with a ‘normal’ semester that includes a final examination. finally, the actual effect on student grades when online quizzes are substituted for a final examination is discussed. keywords: principles of economics; online assessment; student grades; disruption to assessment; earthquake; online assessment. introduction on 4 september 2010 an earthquake measuring 7.1 on the richter scale struck canterbury. as a result, the region was subjected to thousands of aftershocks, the most significant of which struck on 22 february 2011 and 13 june 2011, both measuring 6.3 on the richter scale. the september earthquake and february aftershock each resulted in closures of 2 weeks for the university of canterbury campus. the june aftershock struck just prior to the semester 1 examination period, and resulted in the cancellation of final examinations for many papers at short notice. the cancellation of final examinations at short notice raises questions about how best to calculate final grades. this paper will focus on assessment of the first-year economics papers (introduction to macroeconomics [econ 105] and introduction to microeconomics [econ 104]) at the university of canterbury, and how well they allocate appropriate grades to students in an earthquake-affected semester. specifically, this paper will examine the effect of different conditions under which students take online multiple-choice quizzes, such as limiting the time they are available for students to complete, or limiting the number of attempts a student has at a particular quiz. the first part of this agnew, s., & hickson, s. 2 paper will examine the effect of limiting the availability of online quizzes on the correlation between those quizzes and invigilated assessments, such as term tests and final examinations. the second part of this paper will examine the effect of using the quiz “first attempt” rather than the “higher of two attempts” on correlations with invigilated assessments, and the impact on grade allocations. the correlations and grade distributions should provide an insight into how substitutable online quizzes and invigilated assessments are. in simple terms, the paper addresses this question: can we gain some insight into the conditions under which online assessments provide the most robust grade allocations, compared with an uninterrupted semester, when a final exam or similar is cancelled? literature review there is a body of literature that focuses on the shift of teaching delivery to an online environment in the event of a crisis. hickson and agnew (2011), benton (2009), meyer and wilson (2011), ecampus news (2009), omar, liu, and koong (2008), foster and young (2005), danielson (2009), and schweber (2008) all discuss courses moving to an online format in response to hurricanes, war, or viral outbreaks. however, there is a gap in the literature when it comes to the study of the effect of moving to online assessment in a semester disrupted at short notice by a natural disaster. specifically, there is no examination of the effect on grade distributions of moving to online assessment. in the general literature on online delivery methods, there is some discussion on the strengths and weaknesses of the online assessment of material. graff (2003) stated, “there are many potential advantages of online assessment to learners. for example, tests are available on demand and at any time. furthermore, computerised assessment systems give immediate feedback to the user; therefore users learn by taking the test”. (p. 22). robles and braathen (2002) find that “many different online components and assessment criteria and tools are needed to accurately and thoroughly assess student learning” (p. 47). they conclude by stating that “assessment should be ongoing and carried out through each chapter throughout the semester, to allow students to determine their own learning outcomes through self-testing” (p. 47). this is less costly to carry out in an online environment compared with running periodic physical tests. running periodic online tests also provides a greater level of control for the instructor, and a greater incentive for student completion than leaving students to be responsible for their own independent self-testing. gaytan and mcewen (2007) found that the frequency of assessment and the immediacy and meaningfulness of feedback were important. this concurs with earlier research from corcoran, dershimer, and tichenor (2004), and stiggins and chappuis (2005), who stated that monitoring student learning and enhancing teaching were two main purposes of assessment. gaytan and mcewen (2007) state that several researchers, such as bartlett, reynolds, and alexander (2000), and farmer (2005), have found that an online environment assessment fosters a student-centered learning environment and allows for more accurate measurement of learning. gaytan and mcewen also reference russell, elton, swinglehurst and greenhalgh (2006), who stress the importance of continuous assessment, as it allows instructors to monitor and be familiar with students’ understanding. perrin and mayhew (2000) raised some concerns about the validity of online testing based on the ability of students to cheat, giving the example of students printing online tests and sharing them. robles and braathen (2002) explain that this undesirable behaviour can be mitigated by restricting the number of times the student can sit an online quiz, how long they have to complete the quiz, and hiding the questions once the quiz has been submitted. they suggest distinguishing between online quizzes that are summative assessment items, and having formative online assessment items that have fewer restrictions on access and can be used as learning tools rather than assessment tools. olt (2002) researched strategies for minimising academic dishonesty in online assessment. she cited a survey of american high school students that reported that 80% admitted cheating on an exam (bushweller, 1999). kleiner and lord (1999), using the same survey data, found that 50% of the students did not believe cheating was necessarily wrong. they also found that 95% of those who said they cheated had never been caught. heberling (2002) suggested that it may actually be easier to detect cheating online. however, olt (2002) does suggest some disadvantages to online assessment. these include “an journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 3 instructor’s inability to control a student’s unauthorized use of resources in completing an assessment” (p. 3). she does go on to suggest using open-book assessment as a possible solution. another disadvantage olt identified is students collaborating with each other on an assessment. one possible solution she suggests is to have a question pool from which questions are randomly selected, so that the chances of two students receiving the same assessment are minimal. collusion can also be reduced by having restrictions on assessment availability, and setting time limits. rowe (2004) suggests it is often easier to cheat online, and asks the question, “when a student scores well for an online assessment, does that mean they know the material?” (p. 1). he cites bork (2001) when stating that it is less cost-effective for students to cheat when assessment is continuous. if the concerns raised in the literature on student cheating in online assessments are legitimate, we must question the reliability of student grades because a greater weighting is applied to online assessments. hickson and agnew (2011) certainly found a greater level of grade disruption from a non-earthquake-affected semester when a greater weighting was placed on online quizzes, despite computer packages for online assessments becoming more sophisticated to limit the possibility of cheating. the contribution this paper aims to make is not to debate the relative merits of online assessment. rather, the paper aims to establish the ability of online assessment to deliver a grade distribution consistent with a ‘normal’ semester, in the event of the cancellation of a final exam at short notice. assessments, data and methods during the earthquake-interrupted semesters at the university of canterbury, online assessments proved to be invaluable. they could be completed by students without the need to come onto campus (although those with no internet access at home could still use the computer labs on campus), and removed the need to use markers (who were themselves disrupted by the earthquake) to meet for moderation meetings, mark assignments and so on. from 2005 to 2010 assessment in both econ 104 and econ 105 consisted of an invigilated 3-hour final examination (60%), 1 an invigilated 90-minute term test (20%), a take-home assignment (10%), and online quizzes (10%). each online quiz consisted of 10 multiple-choice questions, drawn randomly from a test bank of hundreds of questions provided by the publisher of the textbook. there were 10 quizzes in total, each worth 1%, with the highest mark from an unlimited number of attempts being mark that counts. the questions were delivered with the quiz tool on moodle. the term test and final exam included both multiple-choice and constructed response-type questions. in econ 105 in 2011, 10% was also introduced for some online tutorial work, with the weighting on the final examination being reduced from 60% to 50%. the effect of the earthquake disruption in semester 1, 2011, was the cancellation of the final examination and take-home assignment, with the weighting redistributed across other assessments. a crucial change was made to the online quizzes in econ 105 for semester 2, 2009, onwards. from 2005 to 2009 semester 1, the quizzes were all available for the duration of the semester and could be completed multiple times. the highest mark was the counting mark for each quiz. the quiz availability was changed from semester 2, 2009, when each of the 10 quizzes was open only for a short window around the time the topic was being covered, rather than for the whole semester. with the cancellation of assessments in semester 1, 2011, a greater weighting was placed on the online quizzes when final grades were calculated. we are able to use this break in the online quiz conditions to examine how correlations between online quizzes and invigilated assessments are affected. there are 2440 observations for the pre-2009 semester 2 period and 618 for 2009 semester 2 onwards. assessment in econ 104 also changed in 2011. in that year, semester 2 assessment in econ 104 consisted of an invigilated 3-hour final examination (55%), an invigilated 90-minute term test (25%), 1 before 2007 the term test was worth 35 percent and the final exam was worth 45 percent. agnew, s., & hickson, s. 4 an online progress test (5%), online multiple-choice quizzes provided by the publisher (5%) and weekly online tutorial quizzes tailored to the course (10%). the 10 weekly online tutorial quizzes consisted of 15 multiple-choice questions drawn from a test bank of questions used in previous term tests and examinations. each quiz was worth 1%, and was open for an average of 1 week. students were allowed two attempts at each of the tutorial quizzes, with their highest score recorded. for the purpose of this paper, the tutorial quizzes were also re-marked, taking the students’ first attempt rather than the highest mark of their two attempts. to establish the impact on the level of correlation between the invigilated term test and final examination, and the tutorial quizzes under the two marking scenarios, both the pearson correlation coefficient and the spearman rank-order correlation coefficient were calculated. hypothetical final grades for semester 2 econ 104 2011 were also calculated under each tutorial quiz-marking scenario. in the scenario, the final examination is cancelled and the weighting it carries is redistributed across the term test and tutorial quizzes. the sample size for these correlations was 320. results in the four semesters since the econ 105 quizzes went to limited windows of availability (semester 2, 2009; semesters 1 and 2, 2010; and semester 2, 2011), the pearson correlation coefficients for the online multiple-choice quizzes and final exam have been at the top, or exceeding the top, of the range of pearson correlation coefficients for the period when the quizzes did not have limited windows of availability (semester 1, 2005, to semester 1, 2009). the pearson correlation coefficients for the online multiple-choice quizzes and term test for the five semesters since the econ 105 quizzes went to limited windows of availability (semester 2, 2009; semesters 1 and 2, 2010; and semesters 1 and 2, 2011), have all exceeded the pearson correlation coefficients for the period when the quizzes did not have limited windows of availability (semester 1, 2005, to semester 1, 2009). the spearman rank-order correlation coefficients for the online quizzes and both the exam and the term test for the period semester 2, 2009, to semester 2, 2011, have all exceeded the spearman rank-order correlation coefficients for the period semester 1, 2005, to semester 2, 2009, when the quizzes did not have limited windows of availability. this is shown in table 1 below (for full results see appendix a). all coefficients are significant at the 1% level of significance. table 1 range of correlation coefficients for assessment items (semester 1, 2005, to semester 1, 2009) pearson correlation coefficients term test exam 2005-s1 to 2009-s1 econ 105 mc quiz 0.27–0.47 0.48–0.66 2009 s2 econ 105 mc quiz 0.55 0.65 2010 s1 econ 105 mc quiz 0.55 0.66 2010 s2 econ 105 mc quiz 0.49 0.67 2011 s1 econ 105 mc quiz 0.57 n/a 2011 s2 econ 105 mc quiz 0.66 0.77 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 5 spearman rank-order correlation coefficients term test exam 2005-s1 to 2009-s1 econ 105 mc quiz 0.24–0.41 0.35–0.50 2009 s2 econ 105 mc quiz 0.51 0.52 2010 s1 econ 105 mc quiz 0.55 0.61 2010 s2 econ 105 mc quiz 0.45 0.55 2011 s1 econ 105 mc quiz 0.46 n/a 2011 s2 econ 105 mc quiz 0.63 0.74 table 2 shows that for the period semester 2, 2009, to semester 2, 2011 (excluding semester 1, 2011, when an examination was not held), both the pearson correlation coefficients and the spearman rankorder coefficients for the term test and the examination have shown no discernible change between the semesters with unlimited windows of availability for the quizzes, and the semesters of limited windows of availability. this suggests that the standard of invigilated assessment is staying relatively constant, as it is unlikely both would change by the same amount. we can therefore be confident that the improved correlation coefficients for the multiple-choice quizzes is due to their becoming more closely correlated to the invigilated assessments, rather than the invigilated assessments becoming more closely correlated to the multiple-choice quizzes. note that the both the pearson correlation coefficients and the spearman rank-order coefficients are higher for the term test and the examination, compared with the quizzes and the term test, and the quizzes and the examination. this is an intuitively obvious result, given that the invigilated term test and exam are more closely correlated to each other than to the non-invigilated multiple-choice quizzes. table 2 range of correlation coefficients for assessment items (semester 2, 2009, to semester 2, 2011) pearson correlation coefficients exam 2005-s1 to 2009-s1 econ 105 term test 0.73–0.81 2009 s2 econ 105 term test 0.79 2010 s1 econ 105 term test 0.80 2010 s2 econ 105 term test 0.69 2011 s1 econ 105 term test n/a 2011 s2 econ 105 term test 0.83 spearman rank-order correlation coefficients exam 2005-s1 to 2009-s1 econ 105 term test 0.76–0.83 2009 s2 econ 105 term test 0.80 2010 s1 econ 105 term test 0.82 2010 s2 econ 105 term test 0.73 2011 s1 econ 105 term test n/a 2011 s2 econ 105 term test 0.84 agnew, s., & hickson, s. 6 these results suggest that in the event of assessment disruption the quizzes that have limited windows of availability are more closely correlated to, and thus potentially better predictors of, both the term test and the examination, and therefore produce more robust grades. to examine the impact of different online assessment conditions on student grades, econ 104 data from semester 2, 2011, is used. as mentioned in the methods section, students had two attempts at the online tutorial quizzes, with their highest mark recorded. their responses were then re-marked using their first attempt only. table 3 below shows the pearson correlation coefficients and spearman rankorder correlation coefficients for the online tutorial quizzes correlated against the term test and exam, for both the highest scoring attempt and the first attempt. table 3 econ 104 (microeconomics) (semester 2, 2011) online tutorial quiz—first attempt recorded tutorial quiz term test final exam pearson correlation coefficients tutorial quiz 1.00 0.65 0.68 term test 0.62 1.00 0.83 final exam 0.65 0.85 1.00 spearman rank-order correlation coefficients online tutorial quiz—highest mark of two attempts recorded tutorial quiz term test final exam pearson correlation coefficients tutorial quiz 1.00 0.63 0.64 term test 0.59 1.00 0.83 final exam 0.60 0.85 1.00 spearman rank-order correlation coefficients in econ 104 semester 2, 2011, the pearson correlation coefficients for the online tutorial quizzes compared with both the term test and examination were slightly higher when the first of two attempts was recorded as the student’s quiz mark, compared with when the highest mark of their two attempts were recorded. the spearman rank-order correlation coefficients also found a higher correlation on the first attempt. table 4 shows the impact on student grades of using the highest scoring attempt compared with the first attempt. the shaded cells represent the number of students who received the same grade as they would have in an uninterrupted semester that included a final exam. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 7 table 4 number of students—using raw scores, highest tutorial quiz mark weighting (term test 80%) alternative grade a+ a ab+ b bc+ c cd e t r u e g r a d e a+ 39 1 a 16 5 3 a– 9 11 7 1 b+ 11 7 3 1 b 1 1 8 7 9 3 b 2 5 2 8 3 3 c+ 1 2 4 5 8 6 1 1 c 2 2 3 7 10 2 1 c– 1 3 8 2 6 2 d 3 3 1 5 2 4 e 2 1 2 2 9 4 39 table 5 shows the grade distribution if the final exam had been cancelled at short notice and the 55% weighting from the final exam was placed onto the term test. the calculation of the students’ grades under both scenarios includes 10% on the online tutorial quizzes, using the higher of two attempts as the student mark. of the 320 students in the course, 70.3% received a grade within +/– 1 gpa 2 number of their grade including a final exam, and 88.4% received a grade within +/– 2 gpa numbers. these percentages reflect the high correlation between the term test and the examination, both of which were invigilated. appendix b shows the grade distribution if the exam hadn’t run, and the 55% weighting was put on to the online tutorial quizzes rather than the term test, using the students’ highest scoring of two attempts. using this approach, only 47.2% of students received a grade within +/– 1 gpa number of their grade if a final exam was included, with 65.3% receiving a grade within +/– 2 gpa numbers. 2 grade point average (gpa) is awarded as follows: a+ = 9, a = 8 and so on down to e = 1. agnew, s., & hickson, s. 8 table 5 number of students—using raw scores, first tutorial quiz mark weighting (term test 80%) alternative grade a+ a ab+ b bc+ c cd e t r u e g r a d e a+ 32 1 a 17 6 3 a– 9 9 4 1 b+ 2 11 5 8 1 b 1 6 7 5 2 b– 2 3 6 9 4 3 1 c+ 2 2 3 7 5 6 1 c 3 3 6 9 5 2 1 1 c– 21 5 6 6 2 d 4 1 4 5 3 3 e 1 2 3 2 7 10 40 table 5 shows the grade distribution if the exam hadn’t run and the 55% weighting was put onto the term test, with 10% weighting still on the online tutorial quizzes, using the students’ first attempt at the tutorial quizzes as their mark. this approach yielded similar results to those in table 4, with 68.8% of students receiving a grade within +/– 1 gpa number of their grade if a final exam were included, and 88.4% receiving a grade within +/– 2 gpa numbers. appendix b shows the grade distribution if the exam hadn’t run, and the 55% weighting was put onto the online tutorial quizzes rather than the term test, using the students’ first of two attempts. using this approach, 63.4% of students receive a grade within +/– 1 gpa number of their grade if a final exam was included, with 79.1% receiving a grade within +/– 2 gpa numbers. this is an improvement on when the higher of two attempts was used, where the corresponding percentages were 47.2% and 65.3% respectively. table 6 shows that in the absence of a final exam, as more weighting is put on to online tutorial quizzes, there is more grade disruption when the highest scoring of two tutorial quiz attempts is used relative to when the first of two tutorial quiz attempts is used. this confirms the earlier results in table 3, which showed that online tutorial quiz marks are more closely correlated to both the term test and final exam, when the first of two attempts is used rather than the highest scoring of two attempts. table 6 summarises the level of grade inflation under each of the different assessment scenarios. table 6 number of students who received a grade higher, lower, or the same as their grade when an examination runs highest scoring attempt tutorial quiz mark higher same lower 80% term test 52.5% 40.3% 7.2% tutorial quizzes 65% 62.5% 29.7% 7.8% first attempt tutorial quiz mark 80% term test 55.9% 37.2% 6.9% tutorial quizzes 65% 39.1% 35.3% 25.6% journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 9 all approaches result in grade inflation, which reflects the fact that the mean for the final exam in econ 104 semester 2, 2011, was lower than all of the other assessments. it is clear from the table that using the first of two attempts on the online tutorial quizzes results in less grade inflation than using the highest scoring of two attempts, as more weighting is put onto the online tutorial quizzes. conclusions the data from econ 105 suggests that online quizzes will provide a greater correlation to invigilated assessments if they are available for a shorter time period of around a week rather than a whole semester. the result will be less grade disruption if weightings are increased on online quizzes in the event of a cancelled examination or term test. in econ 104, online quizzes that record a student’s first attempt rather than their highest scoring of two attempts also show a closer correlation to invigilated assessments, and result in less grade disruption when weightings on online quizzes are increased. had the entire examination weighting of 55% been placed onto the online quizzes using the highest scoring of two attempts, only 47% of students would have received a grade within plus or minus one gpa point of the grade they would receive with a final examination. this compares with a corresponding figure of 63% for the first attempt when the quizzes are marked using the first attempt. the percentages of students that get the same grade as they would have in a normal semester with all assessment completed are 29.7% and 37.2% respectively. it is important to note that this isn’t just a case of students getting higher than usual grades if online quizzes are substituted for invigilated assessments. the spearman coefficient measures the rank order of students under different assessment regimes. in econ 104 semester 2, 2011, the final examination was harder than the other assessments, so grades were inflated when the alternative assessments were used as substitutes for the final examination. this may not be the case in every semester, however. in econ 104, the term test often has a lower mean than the final examination. online quizzes that were marked using the first attempt yielded a better correlation to invigilated assessments, and therefore less grade disruption, when compared with a normal semester of assessment. interestingly, if the weighting from a cancelled final exam had been put solely onto the online quizzes, 25.6% of students would have received a lower grade than in a normal semester, compared with only 7.8% if the highest scoring of two quiz attempts had been recorded. using the first attempt results in less disruption to grades, and maintains the rank ordering of students more effectively, but any grade disruption that does exist is more likely to result in a lower grade for some students compared with using the highest scoring of two attempts. we cannot state the reasons for the differing correlations when the window of availability or the number of attempts is varied. however, as mentioned in the introduction, robles and braathen (2002), olt (2002), and bork (2001) suggest that the undesirable behaviour of cheating can be mitigated by restricting the number of times the student can sit an online quiz, and how long they have to complete the quiz. the results presented in this paper raise questions about how more traditional methods of assessment such as invigilated examinations could be replaced by the use of online assessment. we believe that this is an area worthy of future study. however, the goal of this paper is not to suggest that one type of assessment is ‘better’ than another. it does find that online assessments are more substitutable for invigilated assessments in the event of invigilated assessments having to be cancelled at short notice, if certain restrictions are placed on them such as period of availability and number of attempts. this should inform the decision making of course instructors when assessment is being designed for a course, especially if there is an increased risk of some future disruption to assessment items at short notice. agnew, s., & hickson, s. 10 references bartlett, j., reynolds, k., & alexander, m. 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(2002). online assessment techniques. the delta pi epsilon journal, xliv(1), 39–49. rowe, n. (2004). cheating in online student assessment: beyond plagiarism. online journal of distance learning administration, vii(ii). retrieved from http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/summer72/rowe72.html russell, j., elton, l., swinglehurst,d., & greenhalgh, t. (2006). using the online environment in assessment for learning: a case-study of a web-based course in primary care. assessment and evaluation in higher education, 31(4), 465–478. schweber, c. (2008). determined to learn: accessing education despite life threatening disasters. journal of asynchronous learning networks, 12(1), 37–43. stiggins, r., & j. chappuis. (2005). using student-involved classroom assessment to close achievement gaps. theory into practice, 44(1), 11–18. biographical notes steve agnew steve.agnew@canterbury.ac.nz steve agnew is a senior teaching fellow in the department of economics and finance, college of business and economics at the university of canterbury, new zealand. steve has research interests in economics education and financial literacy at secondary school and tertiary level. stephen hickson stephen.hickson@canterbury.ac.nz stephen hickson is a senior teaching fellow in the department of economics and finance, college of business and economics at the university of canterbury, new zealand. stephen has research interests in economics education as well as law and economics. he teaches economics to undergraduates and mba level students. � this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. agnew, s., & hickson, s. (2012). using online assessment to replace invigilated assessment in times of natural disaster: are some online assessment conditions better than others? journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 16(1), [pp. 1–13]. http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/winter34/mayhew34.html http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/summer72/rowe72.html mailto:steve.agnew@canterbury.ac.nz mailto:stephen.hickson@canterbury.ac.nz http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ agnew, s., & hickson, s. 12 appendix a: spearman rank-order correlation coefficients table a1(a) econ 105 (macroeconomics) semester 1, 2005, to semester 1, 2009 online mc term test final exam pearson correlation coefficients online mc 1.00 0.27–0.47 0.48–0.66 term test 0.24–0.41 1.00 0.73–0.81 final exam 0.35–0.50 0.76–0.83 1.00 spearman rank-order correlation coefficients table a1(b) econ 105 (macroeconomics) semester 2, 2009, and semester 1, 2010 online mc term test final exam pearson correlation coefficients online mc 1.00 0.55–0.55 0.65–0.66 term test 0.51–0.55 1.00 0.79–0.80 final exam 0.52–0.61 0.80–0.82 1.00 spearman rank-order correlation coefficients table a1(c) econ 105 (macroeconomics) semester 2, 2010 online mc term test final exam pearson correlation coefficients online mc 1.00 0.48 0.67 term test 0.45 1.00 0.69 final exam 0.55 0.73 1.00 spearman rank-order correlation coefficients table a1(d) econ 105 (macroeconomics) semester 1, 2011 online mc term test final exam pearson correlation coefficients online mc 1.00 0.57 n/a term test 0.46 1.00 n/a spearman rank-order correlation coefficients table a1(e) econ 105 (macroeconomics) semester 2, 2011 online mc term test final exam pearson correlation coefficients online mc 1.00 0.66 0.77 term test 0.63 1.00 0.83 final exam 0.74 0.84 1.00 spearman rank-order correlation coefficients journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 13 appendix b: grade distribution if exam hadn’t run table a2(a) weighting (tutorial quizzes [highest scoring attempt] 65%) alternative grade a+ a ab+ b bc+ c cd e t r u e g r a d e a+ 39 1 a 21 3 a17 5 3 1 2 b+ 5 4 5 4 2 2 b 6 7 8 5 1 1 1 b4 5 2 5 1 4 1 1 c+ 5 5 9 1 2 2 1 1 1 1 c 2 5 2 4 4 2 1 1 1 5 c1 3 2 1 3 3 1 5 3 d 3 1 2 1 4 2 3 1 1 e 2 1 2 2 4 2 8 5 33 table a2(b) weighting (tutorial quizzes [first attempt] 65%) alternative grade a+ a ab+ b bc+ c cd e t r u e g r a d e a+ 24 7 2 a 12 5 6 2 1 a4 4 6 5 3 1 b+ 3 6 4 4 7 3 b 2 4 5 6 2 2 b 2 2 5 10 3 4 1 1 c+ 1 5 7 5 4 1 2 1 c 1 2 5 3 5 2 3 1 8 c 1 1 1 3 1 2 3 4 5 d 2 3 1 2 2 2 2 6 e 1 2 2 1 5 8 46 scanned document research note secondary school student responses to learning the japanese language at a distance in new zealand the japanese language has an important place in the new zealand secondary school curriculum for many students and an important source of instruction in this subject is the new zealand correspondence school. students in secondary schools throughout new zealand are able to obtain instruction in the japanese language through the correspondence school if their own school is unable to provide them with a teacher in this subject. a recent study by a native speaker of japanese based on interviews with selected students (n=14) of this language in four wellington secondary schools who were studying the language from the new zealand correspondence school (otsuka, 1996) found a range of positive as well as n egative issues affecting learners. positive outcomes of learning students reported that they had few distractions when learning japanese from the new zealand correspondence school during the school day. many noted that learning japanese through the correspondence school provided them with some flexibility, if required, as to when and where they could learn this subject although study time for japanese was scheduled by each of their schools as part of their daily timetables. the experience of learning from the setsuo otsuka and ken stevens department of education victoria university of wellington correspondence school provides students with an introduction to learning at a distance and, accordingly, to flexible and independent learning. it was noted by the students during interviews that flexible and independent learning was valuable experience in preparing for tertiary education at a later date. students reported that their tutor from the correspondence school was particularly attentive and provided them with detailed comments on their work. there was widespread agreement that a close relationship between individual learners in schools in wellington region and the teacher of japanese at the correspondence school had developed, although this was very much a relationship at a distance. it was widely assumed by students that because the teacher at the correspondence school did not have any classroom teaching he or she was able to devote a considerable amount of time to distance students in various schools . many students believed that there was more . 'objectivity' in the teaching of an academic subject at a distance because the correspondence school teacher did not know them 'face to face'. the teacher-student relationship was therefore based on the quality of student's completed assignment work in the japanese language. many of the students who were studying the japanese language at a joumal a/distance leam ing. vol 3. n o i. 1997 (c) distance edu ca ti o n associati on of new zeal an d 29 distance therefore believed that they were taught by a very 'professional' person who was able to provide objective attention to their progress with the language. there was widespread acknowledgement by the wellington students that as well as being able to learn japanese to some extent at their own pace, the requirement to submit assignments to the correspondence school at regular intervals was a constant motivation. negative aspects of learning the japanese language at a distance the students reported a number of negative aspects in learning the japanese language at a distance while attending a secondary school each day. many noted that it is particularly difficult to understand the spoken japanese language without actually seeing the speaker's facial expression or body language. much time was reported to be spent listening to the japanese language on audiotapes and this produced another problem the speed with which the language on tape was usually spoken by native speakers. a further problem in learning the japanese language at a distance that was noted by students was the lack of peer interaction. students learning the japanese language in their various schools were handed the lessons from the new zealand correspondence school by one of their regular teachers (of another subject) and placed in a room in which to work on the assignments. because students proceeded at their own pace with each lesson and therefore largely worked independently of one another, a distinct lack of peer interaction ensued. this led to many secondary school students who were learning the japanese language from the correspondence school under supervised conditions developing feelings of isolation and a longing for peer contact and support. some students reported feeling lonely as well as isolated and wished that they had a teacher at hand in their own school to whom they could direct questions as they arose with assignments. most students reported experiencing some difficulty with japanese and pointed out its complexity and difference from the english language in pronunciation, word order, lack of definite and indefinite articles, lack of plurals, a different verb system, the use of characters and in many other ways. some students noted during interviews that there were many possible answers to a particular question in the tex tbook that was used which led to considerable confusion and frustration. many of the students who were interviewed believed that they did not have enough opportunity to speak the japanese language to feel as though they were gaining mastery of it. recommendations from secondary school students learning the japanese language at a distance first, students should, if possible, ha ve frequent face to face contact with their teacher when learning a subject, particularly a foreign language, at a distance. some of the students who participated in this study had never actually spoken with their tutor at the correspondence school even though all students lived in the wellington area. almost all students said that they needed a lot of assistance to do well in this subject which was generally acknowledged to be difficult. to offset the widespread feeling of discouragement reported by many students in this study, regular telephone conversations with their correspondence school teacher of language were recommended. this would in future ensure that confusion with points of grammar which arise from time to time are not able to prevent students making progress with the subject. second, many written explanations of japanese grammar were found to be difficult to understand. it is recommended that the visual aspect of written materials be further developed with the inclusion of more drawings and pictures. this would make the textual material more attractive and perhaps assist in motivating students. journal of distance learning. vol 3. no 1. 1997 (cl disrance educarion associarion of new zealand 30 third, a major problem facing new zealand students of the japanese language is adjusting their ears to the speed of the language as it is spoken . students recommend the development of japanese language tapes that could be listened to at various speeds to assist students learn how to pronounce words and expressions. telelearning and the japanese language there are a number of ways in which languages are now taught including the use of audiographic technologies and the use of videos . the new zealand correspondence school in 1996 (after this study was complet2d) is experiencing with interactive television and this has the potential to provide new ways of teaching and learning foreign languages at a distance. many of the issues raised by distance students of the japanese language in this study may be addressed by this new interactive technology. the correspondence school has recently ins talled an upgraded telephone system and students now have more opportunities to contact their teacher to discuss problems as they arise. increased use of the telephone to link students of japanese from various locations with their teacher is in future likely to reduce feelings of isolation. this will also encourage the japanese language to be spoken for at least part of a teacher-pupil exchange. telephone contact between teacher and distance students on a regular basis can in future be expected to have positive outcomes for both teaching and learning. policy implications the teaching of the japanese language to secondary school students in new zealand present particular difficulties when delivered by tradition al correspondence methods. however, students in a range of wellington secondary schools reported a variety of advantages as well as problems in learning this way. many of the problems that were encountered in studying this language at a distance are likely to be alleviated through the introduction of an interactive television programme. this may give distance students and their teacher the feeling that they are actually participating in a class when learning japanese in future. the feelings of isolation and loneliness that some students reported in this study can be expected to be overcome through the application of new technology to provide more direct and immediate communication between teacher and learner. reference otsuka, s 1996: japan ese language learning in distance education , faculty of ed ucation, victoria university of wellington. (unpublished research paper). j oumalof distance learning, vol 3, no i , 1997 (c) distance educa ti on assoc iati on of new zealand 31 welcome to the second edition of the journal of di s t a n c e lear n ing. there was widespread acclaim when the first edition was published last year, and the same thoughtful and considered approach from editor terry hearn and the editorial board will see this edition further establish the journal as a significant contributor to worldwide academic debate in open and ::listance learning. the growing number of international subscribers reflects this trend already. the growth of the journal corresponds with a time of reflection and change within deanz itself. once, membership was virtually restricted to the b i g three massey university, the c o r res p o n d e n c e school and the open polytechnic. now there is a diverse membership which moves beyond tertiary educational institutions to embr ace industry tr aining o r g a n i s a t i o n s , schools, governm ent organisations and private firms. the deanz membership directory, to be published later this year, will offer an insight into a growingly diverse membership. as the deanz executive deals with the issue of growing diversity, reflected in the number of editorial employment changes of executive members since the time of the last election, the need for finding new ways of working is being constantly reinforced. the theme for next year's deanz conference is already clearly emerging, though not yet defined the words from which the theme will be d r a w n are c o n ver g e n c e , networking, partnerships, working together. the fact that a joint conference or ganising committee is being drawn from both the open polytechnic and the correspondence school merely reflects the r e a l i t ies of the new environment in which we workgoing it alone is only one option, and not always the most effective! meeting the needs of a membership, spread nationwide, is a challenge. if you feel you belong to a group with particular needs in open learning, please feel free to contact me at the open polytechnic of new zealand with your suggestions. the address is glenise dreaver, president, deanz, the open polytechnic of new zealand, private bag 31.914, lower hutt. e mail: dregle@topnz.ac.nz glenise dreaver president, distance education association of new zealand. journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 2 �, pratt, k. 12 supporting distance learners: making practice more effective keryn pratt, university of otago college of education abstract this paper reports on a qualitative evaluation of the postgraduate courses offered by distance in one university department. the types and amount of support provided to students was evaluated and compared with simpson’s (2008a) proactive motivational support model (pams). while students were largely satisfied with the support they received during their studies, their perceptions of the levels and effectiveness of that support varied. they also perceived a variation in the levels of support between individual courses. a number of areas where support could be improved were identified, including those that met the characteristics of the pams model. keywords: distance learning; support; motivation; pams; expectations introduction the numbers of students involved in distance courses at the tertiary level is relatively small in new zealand, but distance education is an important feature of our education system (guiney, 2014). as is the case worldwide, distance education offers opportunities to people who would not otherwise be able to participate in tertiary education due to their location, or because of work or family responsibilities (guiney, 2014; newberry & deluca, 2014). distance learning is perceived to impose additional demands on the learner (lai, 2002). these demands have been categorised in a number of ways. for example, lai (2002) referred to cognitive and social demands, while sherry (2000) divided the areas into learner, organisational, and technological factors. kazmer (2000) separated the demands further, identifying seven areas associated with this form of study: planning, technology, workload, social issues, the integration of life and study, administrative adaptation, and effort and rewards. despite these varying categorisations, recognition of a range of reasons why distance students might not succeed is common to all models. it is also notable that, in comparison with on-campus students, distance students tend to be older and are more likely to be studying part time, often due to family or work responsibilities (allen & seaman, 2014; guiney, 2014). these responsibilities can exacerbate the difficulties associated with studying by distance. this is especially true for those who are new to online learning, and therefore have to negotiate not only the content, but also the entire learning experience (mcquaid, 2010; reisetter, lapointe, & korcuska, 2007). a key aspect of alleviating and overcoming the difficulties faced by distance students is the provision of appropriate and effective support (boyle, kwon, ross, & simpson, 2010; guiney, journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(1) 13 2014; heyman, 2010; mills, 2003; park & choi, 2009). support needs to cover all aspects of students’ experiences (heyman, 2010), and be provided when students need it (newberry & deluca, 2014). simpson (2002; 2013) divided the types of support students required into two categories: academic support (the knowledge relating to the specific course and general academic skills) and non-academic support (affective and organisational). these two types of support are summarised in table 1. table 1 types of support required by students (adapted from simpson, 2002, pp. 6–7) type of support areas of support academic defining explaining assessing chasing progress developing skills exploring enriching non-academic advising assessing (in non-academic areas) advocating agitating acting administering in a contrasting approach to considering non-academic support, moisey and hughes (2008) classified such support in terms of when it was needed. for example, before the course, learners need support to help prepare for and make decisions about their course, and during their course they need support with academic, administrative, and technical issues. simpson (2008b) recognised a need for theories that explore and explain the role of student support in distance learning, and developed his proactive motivational support (pams) theoretical model based on motivation. it includes the strengths approach theory from positive psychology (e.g., boniwell, 2005, and dweck’s 1999 self theory; both cited in simpson, 2008b). applying these theories with what is known about effective motivation, simpson (2008b) described the pams stance as being proactive and motivational. it would be: 1. individual (focus on individual student needs rather than a top-down one-size-fits-all approach) 2. interactive (allow learners to interact with their support rather than a take-it-or-leave-it approach) 3. motivational (be informed by, and use, both self theory and the strengths approach (p. 168). contacting individual students allows support to be individualised, and making contact by phone or email allows for interaction during which staff can identify and help the student understand their strengths. during this contact, staff should remind students that, with effort, they can succeed at the course. staff can also get to know students as individuals, identifying aspects of pratt, k. 14 their personalities and habits that can be strengths in distance learning (see simpson, 2008a, for an example of how to apply pams with new students). from the strengths approach came a focus on the strengths students brought to their study, rather than their weaknesses. applying this approach to distance learning involves distance teaching staff finding out about the personal lives of their students to identify their strengths (boniwell, 2003, as cited in simpson, 2008b). for example, a student who is juggling work and family life may have strengths at managing multiple tasks and needs, and in managing time. helping them to realise this, and then applying it to their study, can be motivational. dweck’s self theory (1999, as cited in simpson 2008b) proposed that people view their intelligence as fixed or as having the potential to be enhanced through effort. simpson (2008b) believed students and staff involved in distance learning need to be convinced of the latter approach, so students can be encouraged to persevere to succeed and overcome barriers. when applying this theory, staff need to praise effort over achievement. recognising the complexity of support systems, simpson (2002) identified twenty-one questions that he recommended institutions providing distance education use to review student support. he clustered these questions in four groups: support activities; materials; support staffing; and supporting students in practice. one final additional question asked students whether they always had the support they needed when they needed it, and how this could be improved. this research aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the current support strategies implemented in programmes offered by one university department using the pams model. context the university department in which the study was based has offered distance courses in education, largely at the postgraduate level, since 1994, and online courses since 1997. at the time the research was conducted, seven postgraduate qualifications could be completed wholly online. most of the students taking these courses are mature students who are working full time and studying part time. in most cases they are teachers who are undertaking the courses to upgrade their qualifications and/or enhance their understanding of a variety of educational issues. the online programmes were delivered through the moodle learning management system, with support provided by individual lecturers through their course website, and by the university’s central support services. students were sent the book, distance learning information and support at the start of that year’s courses. they were directed to a variety of internal resources, and to external resources on topics such as referencing and searching. at the start of each course they received a course pack comprising a hard-copy version of the coursebook and a cd containing electronic copies of the coursebook, the assignment coverpage, a video of an endnote tutorial, and readings that could be distributed without breaching copyright. this research project aimed, firstly, to determine students’ perceptions of the current levels and kinds of support; secondly, to consider the degree to which we were effectively providing all areas of support previously identified; and thirdly, whether the characteristics of pams were being met. it was part of a continuing research programme aimed at enhancing the distance programmes (e.g., lai, 2002; lai & pratt, 2004; lai & pratt, 2006; pratt, 2009). data reported here is from the qualitative phase of a larger mixed-methods study. method ethics approval was sought and granted from the university. at the start of semester 1, all students taking semester 1 and full-year courses were invited to participate in an interview journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(1) 15 exploring student support. eight students agreed to take part in an interview at this time. this was repeated in semester 2 and included those students who were enrolled in semester 2 and full-year courses who had not previously been invited to participate. two more students participated in interviews at this time. a total of ten students were therefore involved in the project: eight in group one, and two in group two. because the researcher was involved in the delivery of the distance education programme, an independent research assistant conducted the interviews. students were interviewed by phone or skype, depending on their preference. interviews took 20–30 minutes, and were audio recorded. the interviews were semi-structured and based on simpson’s (2002) questions. the questions covered three of simpson’s four topics. additional questions were also used for the larger study (see appendix a). to protect the anonymity of those who participated, the research assistant replaced names of staff, students, and courses with codes, and removed other identifying information before passing the transcripts to the researcher. the recording failed in one interview; however, the interviewer took notes, which she passed on in lieu of the transcript. transcripts were analysed thematically using both inductive and deductive codes. a priori themes were identified from the literature and used in conjunction with codes developed from the data. findings simpson’s (2002) themes are used to present the findings. support activities the questions in this category focused on how and when communication between students and staff occurred, and whether support was proactive or reactive. in general, students reported that most of their communication occurred through email or discussion on moodle, although other options were available. only to, to email, to . . . clarify things, so that’s all really. (student c) email works very effectively for me. i . . . can’t really think what else. i mean quite often on an email if it’s something that they can’t clarify by email, they’ll give you a phone number and you can give them a call. (student d) two students indicated they had also been to see at least one of their lecturers to clarify issues, but one indicated that even if it were physically possible, he would not have done it. i’ve gone and talked to lecturer l twice, and i think we’ve emailed a couple of times. (student a) the only real communication i had was on moodle and one or two emails. i don’t even think, that [meeting the lecturers in person] felt like an option . . . i wouldn’t have felt that i could have just rocked up to the university. (student h) one student commented on the difference meeting their lecturers in person had made to their experience. this is my fourth year, and this year i’m full time and . . . the first year i didn’t contact the lecturers except through the moodle stuff, and so kind got the bare minimum. and you know, maybe that was more up to me than them, i’m not sure. . . since then, i’ve made a point . . . of actually going up and meeting my lecturers and that’s face to face. and that’s really changed my interactions. (student f) pratt, k. 16 another felt meeting lecturers was of such value that we should consider making it a compulsory part of the course. . . . i’ve met up with three of them . . . probably personalities, more than anything i think it’s good, yes. it’s worthwhile doing, if it can happen . . . i think a close to compulsory [face-toface meeting] would be really good, i mean people can’t always make it, but . . . it would be excellent to have one. and i mean you’d want a meet and greet, not just a short, quick one but . . . like an hour and a half, two hours, afternoon tea, something like that . . . it’s up to us out-of-towners to travel and, if it was on i would have gone down. (student a) another student agreed, noting that in a previous class they had talked about the possibility of having face-to-face interaction, but identified issues with it. we talked about face-to-face interaction, and face-to-face communities and then online communities. and, we all sorta came up with the idea . . . that it would be a good idea to have a boot camp sorta thing. where you meet for two or three days and actually meet each other, and have a quick chat and get a bit of face-to-face talk going, and then, then go away and get into the online stuff so that you’ve got that initial connection . . . it’s a great thought, but i don’t know whether it’s practical really, to do that. i mean you do distance learning because, you’re distance, you’re normally away from the place, where you can’t get to the university to go lectures, don’t you? (student e) others agreed that meeting the lecturer and their classmates was a good idea in principle, but identified problems with it. i think it’s always a good idea, but the downside becomes if . . . someone like me is doing the [course], and i can’t get to the day, then you actually, i mean i teach [a course] online so . . . if you can’t get all your participants together, it’s not worth doing it. because they then establish a left-out feeling. (student h) well, from my experience, it would have been completely impractical for me because i was in another country . . . it’s a nice idea, but it strikes me as impractical for quite a few of the students. (student g) students were also asked about their lecturers’ responsiveness. in general students reported that emails were answered quickly: “within six hours” (student d), “within a couple of days, same day sometimes” (student e). responsiveness in other areas was more mixed. it depends on the lecturer. i’ve had one [course] this year where it’s been slow and a bit difficult cos the lecturer’s been away. so the response time [has] been slower and getting stuff . . . online . . . hasn’t been as prompt as i’d like it to be. (student f) one of my [courses], they were very good at getting the grades up, so i could follow grades over the course of the year, whereas another couple of my [courses] . . . didn’t keep up to date so effectively with that, so it would be interesting to be able to see that and to make sure that was kept up to date. (student g) students had similar perspectives on whether support was provided proactively, reactively, or both. they’re very proactive, they anticipate problems and they get them sorted before they happen . . . it was good, you just knew exactly where you stood. . . lecturer g, she’s just amazing, she emails on a monday, she outlines her expectations for the week, and then always has the opportunity to contact her if needed. so, it’s just been really proactive communication, ‘is there anything i can do?’, ‘do you need me?’, ‘how can i help?’ it’s just been really good. (student d) journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(1) 17 essentially it’s reactive cos i start it. i contact them and say ‘hey, this’ and . . . when you get there they are really welcoming and when you ask them stuff they are really helpful, but it’s . . . cos i’m a distance learner you kinda don’t know how often to ask or you’re a bit nervous about it. (student f) i think to start off with, to make sure everybody’s up and running, it’s proactive, and then it’s just, like i s’pose it should be, it’s up to the individual, if they want to find out more information . . . i’m the one that goes searching for it . . . if i’m struggling with something or i need something clarified, i have no problem in you know, ringing round or emailing round to find the person that can help me. (student b) in line with the varied perceptions of whether support was proactive or reactive, different students reported needing help at the beginning, the middle, or two-thirds of the way through the course. students who were new to studying online, or who were coming back to study after some time away, felt that they needed support at the beginning of the course. probably, before and at the beginning. i mean i hadn’t studied for some years so just the whole process of getting myself enrolled and then getting back into a daily routine of studying and doing essays and that kind of thing. (student g) for me probably at the start, because i needed to understand what the expectations were, when they were expected by and what level they were to be expected at. and i definitely received that at the start. now it’s just a matter of doing the stuff really. (student d) other students needed support further through the course. maybe they could do a bit of a check-up, around i don’t know, maybe in april or something, would probably help, if the lecturers just wanted to, take the time just to send out an email would be a good idea . . . and then again, the equivalent the second semester. (student a) for me, personally it’s the middle. it’s kinda like you get halfway through and you’re ‘ah, god, what have i done?’, ‘why the hell have i done this?’, and it’s just that motivation. (student b) probably between the middle and the end . . . i think it was just, you know that two-thirds and you were like . . . typical stress. (student h) one student commented that they needed help in choosing the appropriate courses. someone who runs the department . . . should contact you and say ‘hey, where are you heading with this, what are your plans? have you this or this?’ like i said maybe i should have got off my bum and done that myself. but it’s kind [of], you know, that real catch, who should do it. but i think it would be nice if the uni . . . sent you a message and said ‘hey, do you want to catch up about this?’, and then at least you have the option to turn it down. (student f) materials the second area of questioning asked about the materials that were provided to students. we asked about the coursebook, the resources in moodle, and resources provided by the wider university. students were generally happy with the coursebooks, although one confessed they had not really read it (student a) and another preferred the online version to the hard-copy version, commenting that the coursebook was “too wordy” (student b). most, however, felt the coursebook included the appropriate material. pratt, k. 18 the handbooks at the start of the year are very clear, good guidelines about expectations . . . they were clear and they were concise and they completely told me . . . (a) what the course involved, (b) what i needed to and how to do it and when it was all due. (student d) one student noted that while the coursebook was good, more information was needed during the course itself. you need to know not just what they are, but how . . . to get there and more importantly what to do when things go astray. cos you’ve got so many things . . . in your life and with your distance, you know it’s not like you can regularly turn up once a week and go ‘ah, actually i’m two weeks behind’. (student j) students also felt the moodle website was easy to use. despite this, very few reported having used the links to resources that were available on moodle, although one student reported “the resources they put up are fabulous” (student d). this pattern of not using resources continued when students were asked about their use of the support provided by the wider university. one student used the information technology services service desk for help with endnote, and four students reported using the remote library services, but the others said they had not needed them. one student explained that this may have been, in part, because “i didn’t actually know what they were” (student h). the students who did use the remote library service reported it was excellent, and that the librarians were excellent, “really prompt and terribly efficient” (student f) and “incredibly helpful” (student d). students identified three key areas where they felt additional support would have been useful. three wanted more information on referencing and avoiding plagiarism, and access to a plagiarism checking tool. two students referred to themselves as “older students” and wanted more technical support, while one wanted help in using the library databases more effectively. appropriately, given that much of the information students wanted was already available, one noted that rather than emailing the lecturer for information: if we actually knew a wee bit about the services . . . [we] could go direct to the thing that [we] needed. (student h) supporting students in practice supporting students in practice covers the support for and experience of students from their initial enrolment to the end of their study. students generally found enrolling in a university programme to be complex. if it was their first year, they had to apply for the programme, register with the university, and then go through a course approval process. returning students also sometimes had difficulty, particularly as each stage had a deadline and late fees applied if the deadlines were missed. most students commented on not really knowing the people in their class, and needing an understanding of the personalities of those commenting in order to put comments in context. they suggested either meeting face to face or at least having some synchronous contact to aid with this. you can’t replace human interaction, you know. whereas over the internet, even when you’re, emailing in the group sessions and things like that, it’s isolated, you know . . . you always find that you need a bit more, i think, we’re at distance, you always feel a bit more isolated when you are in need of more information or clarification, it’s that kind, it’s more intense kind of confusion. (student j) you build up that trust, because . . . some of the things that you want to say online, because you don’t have that background knowledge of a person, you can interpret it so differently. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(1) 19 but just by having that, like a real time contact, sometimes just helps to break down those barriers and stuff like that . . . to be kinda online for an hour together and have kinda like a discussion like that, you know build up the class, . . . the kinda the whanau feeling really when you’re in a programme of learning. (student h) a number of students also commented on the effect the lecturer and their participation had on their experience of studying. the [courses] i’ve enjoyed more, have been when the lecturers have participated regularly. i’ve got one lecturer this year who sets up the questions at the start of the fortnight, comments at the middle and then sums up at the end . . . it’s probably extremely helpful but they’re a bit far apart. the lecturers who have been a bit more engaged online, and participated a bit more often . . . i’ve probably got a bit more out of. (student f) the other awkward thing is when you’ve got a lecturer away and then [they come] back half way through a semester or something . . . and it changes the whole flow of the pattern. you’re used to working with one lecturer, and then a second one arrives back from holiday and starts going off on different tangents. it doesn’t help in the least. (student a) it was just that . . . kinda that willingness to help us succeed and to . . . see us in every day contexts. and also . . . he made sure that he commented on everyone’s posts as well. so you didn’t feel . . . i’m doing all this work and everyone else is, but you’re just . . . choosing one or two. even if it was just ‘well, done. what do others think?’ that at least, let me know that he was looking at it. (student b) there was similar variation in students’ experiences of assessment. some students found the assessments and criteria to be appropriate, while others wanted more detail. one student reported that not all coursebooks included marking criteria for the assignments, and they were not satisfied with this. the marking criteria is quite broad, but [so are] the assignment types. so yes, the marking criteria meets the assessment objectives and it’s definitely linked to learning outcomes. but i think it’s the nature of the study and because [it is] very personalised, i can relate everything back to nursing education which is what i work in, and they’ve had to create a course that meets such a vast range of education across the sectors. . . . [b]y default their assignments and marking criteria have to be quite broad to encompass that, and i think they’ve done that really well. (student d) students had similar experiences in terms of the speed of return of assessments. one student commented it had improved since the previous year when they had to submit a third assessment before the first two were returned. mostly, though, students reported both the timeliness and quality of feedback as being “really good” (student e) or “really awesome” (student h). one student commented that it was: not too bad really, i mean they’ve got a heap, if they’re going to do a good job . . . i wouldn’t expect them to rush, rush through it. (student a) overall support the last of simpson’s (2002) questions was an overarching one. encouragingly, most students had positive things to say about their overall experience, noting it was “good overall”, “excellent”, “brilliant”, “quite successful”, and they had “really enjoyed it”. one student described the overall experience as being: outstanding. excellent tutors, excellent contact, like they’re always available . . . just phenomenal, it’s been excellent. the handbooks at the start of the year are very clear, good pratt, k. 20 guidelines about expectations and constant contact, if i’ve got any questions, it’s just been great. (student d) one student noted that “you get what you give” (student f), while another said that as an adult student, they did not expect “a huge amount of support”. another student went on to explain that this was a hard issue to comment on, as: if i think about it all the information is there pretty much . . . the reality is, if you miss some information and you’re not actually using the technology properly, you don’t think that you’re getting that support, but it actually is there. (student e) in thinking about their courses and how they were supported, most students also commented on their experience as a distance student. in general, they reported finding it “demanding” and challenging”, both due to their learning preferences and having to balance the multiple demands of work, home, and study. students also varied in their expectations of the courses and each other, and this affected both their experience and their perceptions of support. a number of students reported on their expectations of themselves and their classmates as postgraduate distance students. at times difficulties arose when their expectations differed from those of their lecturers, but in general most students reported that they needed to be fairly independent as learners. i believe at postgraduate level you’ve got to be taking a lot of self-responsibility for things and, and i believe you set up right at the start to know that and undertake that. (student d) when you’re doing distance learning obviously we’ve got to be responsible at our end to keep regular contact with what’s happening on the forum, and, you know, lecturer h’s putting stuff up there and we can see there’s a new post that we haven’t read, and we need to read them. (student e) discussion the results clearly show that students’ experiences were individual; they appeared to vary in terms of their own needs and expectations, and those of their lecturer(s). students differed in their perceptions of whether support was proactive or reactive, when they needed help, and the degree to which they believed their lecturers were responsive. despite the differing perceptions, and the areas in which they felt improvements could be made, students were generally very positive about the course and the support provided. one student acknowledged that while they wanted more help, it was available if they chose to access it. based on the findings, three key issues appeared to be common. firstly, overall, students did not seem to feel that they were part of a community. students’ sense of community was not the focus of this project, but given previous research indicating that distance students who feel part of a community of learners tend to be more satisfied and learn more effectively (e.g., see garrison & akyol, 2013; moore, 2014; sadera, robertson, song, & midon, 2009) it is certainly an issue that needs further exploration. the fact that one student did not feel he could visit the lecturers was also a concern; although these are distance courses, students are encouraged to meet with lecturers if they are in the area. the second issue that arose for a number of students was that many were either not aware of the resources that were available for them, or how they could use them to enhance their experience. in general, though, it appeared that resources were provided to cover a wide range of needs and experiences, and that students could pick and choose what was appropriate for them. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(1) 21 thirdly, it appeared that staff and students had differing expectations about being a postgraduate student and a distance student, and what was involved in completing a distance course. for example, in some cases lecturers would work with individual students to provide them with the support they needed to be successful, within the parameters of the course requirements, while others did not. as one student noted, it was particularly difficult when lecturers, and hence expectations, changed within one course. ensuring that staff and students had similar expectations would reduce the opportunities for misunderstanding. it was clear, though, that students had preferences for the kinds and amounts of support provided, so it would seem likely that they would prefer to have at least some staff provide those levels of support rather than having consistent but lower levels of support. while recognising the need for staff to run their course as they wish, it would seem appropriate for a department to have an agreed set of standards. these standards should be implemented throughout all courses, and staff and students should be aware of them before a course starts. it was not clear where staff’s varying expectations regarding the level and kind of support that they should provide to students arose; they may have been a function of staff beliefs about intelligence, as described in self theory. alternatively, these expectations may have varied as a function of johnston and simpson’s (2006, as cited in simpson, 2013) characterisation of staff types. these types are:  the darwinista, who believes students’ lack of success is due to some fault of their own, such as not working hard enough, or not having the necessary intelligence  the fatalista, who believes students do not succeed due to factors external to the course  the retentioneer, who believes students do not succeed because they were not supported proactively. if staff are either of the first two types, they might believe that they cannot do anything that will make a difference to students’ performance, and so providing additional support would not be effective. a further possibility is that staff have expectations that, as postgraduate students and adults, students will identify and provide for their own support needs. exactly why there are variations in terms of provided support is not clear. however, it is clear that the levels of support, and variations in these, can have a negative effect on students’ distance learning experiences. while the questions asked in the interview did not specifically ask whether the support provided aligned with pams characteristics, it was expected that these characteristics would be apparent through students’ responses. in general, though, this was not the case, with only one student mentioning motivation specifically. perhaps students did not consider motivation to be the role of the department, or perhaps they did not think to mention it when asked more generally about support. detailed exploration of students’ comments showed that, while the support provided met some of the characteristics of pams, it did not meet them all. the first characteristic of pams is that it focuses on the needs of individual students. in general, the support available appeared to be generic, available to all students, rather than based on consideration of individual students’ needs. further investigation would be needed to determine the extent to which staff drew individual students’ attention to support that was particularly relevant for them, or whether they individualised the support they provided. it may be that the support students are reporting as being available for all students was, in fact, available only for them, in recognition of an individual need; but individual students did not know this. the second characteristic of pams is that it be interactive. in most cases it appeared that the support provided in these courses was not interactive, but was simply provided for students to pratt, k. 22 use or ignore. similarly, while some students mentioned meeting or talking with their lecturers, such suggestions appeared to occur at the student’s behest; so, while it may be have been interactive, it was not proactive. however, there did appear to be some exceptions, with mention made of regular emails to students — these may have provided an interactive opportunity. the content of the email, however, would need to be analysed to determine the extent to which it encouraged interactivity, rather than simply being an information-dispersing mechanism. the final characteristic of pams is that it be motivational, in line with the strengths approach and self theory. as such, support needed to:  focus on students’ strengths  acknowledge what they, as individuals, brought to their study  identify students’ view of intelligence, and encourage them to recognise that they can do better by working harder  focus on praising effort over achievement. again, these issues were not addressed directly in the questions but it would appear that, in general, much more work could be done in this area. without initial individual and interactive contact with the student, it is difficult to see how individual strengths could be acknowledged as helping with their study. having said this, one student did note that in contrast to her experience in the previous year, her “previous different point of view and my different experiences have been celebrated, and encouraged” (student b), suggesting that the lecturer in the course had identified the strengths she brought based on her experience, and encouraged her and her peers to recognise them. similarly, there appeared to be room for improvement in terms of the remaining characteristics of pams. no students mentioned receiving information about differing views of intelligence, or encouragement to focus on working harder over a focus on intelligence. in general, too, no students mentioned their efforts being praised, and one student noted that in assignment feedback there was “more on the wrong than what you do right”, which is contrary to the pams model. limitations before drawing conclusions based on the findings of this research, it is important to acknowledge its limitations. this is a small-scale study, conducted with a small number of students from one university department. as such, it is not clear to what extent the findings were peculiar to this group of students. in addition, the questions asked were based on the identified areas in which support was needed, rather than relating specifically to pams. this reduces the certainty regarding the degree to which the support provided to these students is in line with the pams approach. future research needs to address these issues (including looking at the content of the support being provided) to identify the extent to which the provided support addresses the key pams characteristics. research also needs to be conducted with the staff involved in distance learning to determine their understanding and expectations regarding both the needs of distance students, and best practice when providing support. conclusion despite the limitations of the research, a clear finding of this study is the value of implementing a set of expectations for staff and students, based on research. expectations would cover a wide range of issues, including:  the importance of creating a sense of community  ensuring that students feel welcome to contact staff journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(1) 23  clearly identifying the support (physical resources and support from the lecturer) that is available  ensuring staff understand the importance of proactive motivational support as described in the pams model, including the characteristics and how these should be applied. overall, then, it appears that while students in these programmes were largely satisfied with the support they received, there are many areas in which it could be improved, and attention to the pams characteristics is particularly recommended. however, pams alone is not sufficient: other forms of support are also valued, both in terms of timing and focus. additionally, when developing support strategies and materials it is best to include all staff who are involved in teaching and supporting students to ensure they understand the theory behind the support being provided. as a result, students are more likely to have a consistent and more positive experience across all courses. as one student explained: going by this year’s experience, i love it. i just thought it was brilliant and i know that was down to the course coordinator, the lecturer, and the way he handled it and the way he delivered the course. 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(2010). overcoming student retention issues in higher education online programs. online journal of distance learning administration, 13(4). kazmer, m. (2000). coping in a distance environment. retrieved from http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue5_9/kazmer/index.html lai, k-w. (2002). web-based learning: some success factors for tertiary students. in proceedings of the 6th global chinese conference on computers in education, volume 1 (pp. 664–670). beijing: beijing normal university. lai, k-w., & pratt, k. (2004). online learners: who are they? in l. cantoni & c. mcloughlin (eds.), proceedings of the world conference on educational multimedia, hypermedia and telecommunication (pp. 5142–5147). norfolk, va: association for the advancement of computing in education. lai, k-w., & pratt, k. (2006). online teaching: teaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence. paper presented at spotlight on teaching at otago: sharing innovation, best practice and research. dunedin, new zealand. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2012.11.005 http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue5_9/kazmer/index.html pratt, k. 24 mcquaid, j. w. (2010). using cognitive load to evaluate participation and design of an asynchronous course. american journal of distance education, 24(4), 177–194. doi: 10.1080/08923647.2010.519949 mills, r. (2003). the centrality of learner support in open and distance learning. in a. tait & r. mills (eds.), rethinking learner support in distance education: change and continuity in an international context (pp. 102–113). london, england: routledgefalmer. moisey, s. d., & hughes, j. a. (2008). supporting the online learner. in t. anderson (ed.), the theory and practice of online learning (2nd ed., pp. 419–439). athabasca, canada: au press. moore, r. l. (2014). importance of developing community in distance education courses. techtrends, 58(2), 20–24. newberry, r., & deluca, c. (2014). building a foundation for success through student services for online learners. journal of asynchronous learning networks, 17(4), 25–40. park, j. h., & choi, h. j. (2009). factors influencing adult learners’ decision to drop out or persist in online learning. educational technology & society, 12(4), 207–217. pratt, k. (2009). the fence at the top of the cliff: a proactive approach to student support. distance education symposium, dunedin, new zealand: university of otago. reisetter, m., lapointe, l., & korcuska, j. (2007). the impact of altered realties: implications of online delivery for learners’ interactions, expectations, and learning skills. international journal on e-learning, 6(1), 55–80. sadera, w. a., robertson, j., song, l., & midon, m. n. (2009). the role of community in online learning success. merlot journal of online learning and teaching, 5(2), 277–284. sherry, l. (2000). the nature and purpose of online discourse: a brief synthesis of current research as related to the web project. international journal of educational telecommunications, 6(1), 19–51. simpson, o. (2002). supporting students in online, open and distance learning (2nd ed.). london, england: kogan page. simpson, o. (2008a). guide to proactive motivational student support (pams). retrieved from http://www.mrsite.co.uk/usersitesv31/94669.mrsite.com/wwwroot/userimages/proacti ve%20motivational%20support%20guide%20non%20ou.pdf simpson, o. (2008b). motivating learners in open and distance learning: do we need a new theory of learner support? open learning, 23(3), 159–170. simpson, o. (2013). student retention in distance education: are we failing our students? open learning: the journal of open, distance and e-learning, 28(2), 105–119. doi: 10.1080/02680513.2013.847363 http://www.mrsite.co.uk/usersitesv31/94669.mrsite.com/wwwroot/userimages/proactive%20motivational%20support%20guide%20non%20ou.pdf http://www.mrsite.co.uk/usersitesv31/94669.mrsite.com/wwwroot/userimages/proactive%20motivational%20support%20guide%20non%20ou.pdf journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 19(1) 25 biographical information keryn pratt keryn.pratt@otago.ac.nz keryn is a senior lecturer and the postgraduate and distance coordinator (education studies) at the university of otago college of education, new zealand. she teaches mostly online, in the areas of ict in education and quantitative research methods. her research interests include all aspects of ict in education, but she has a particular interest in distance learning at both tertiary and compulsory schooling levels. appendix a: student interview schedule overall, how have you found studying by distance through the college of education? what support have you had, and how did you find it? how would you rate the level and kind of support you have received? what improvements could be made? what communication types (e.g., email, phone, in person, skype, im etc) have you used to contact people from the college? did they work? were there any issues? are there other types you would like to use? have you had accurate and fast responses to any queries? have you felt that there is proactive support? can you explain this? what kind of support, for what, how effective was it? how could this be improved? when did you feel you need support, and what kind? pre-enrolment/starting courses/finishing courses how do your needs change throughout the course? out of all the support services available to you, were there any that you thought were unnecessary? what other support services do you feel are required? what did you think of the support materials? did you read the coursebook? pratt, k. (2015). supporting distance learners: making practice more effective. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(1), [12–26]. mailto:keryn.pratt@otago.ac.nz pratt, k. 26 did you follow up any of the sources of support identified in it? how much did you explore the moodle site? did you explore the links/information in this to support activities? have you used any of the university support providers (e.g., student learning development/centre; student computing services/its; distance/remote librarian)? how was that experience? what else could we be doing to help ensure your study is successful? any other comments? this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ scanned document flexible learning for a large undergraduate history paper: implementation and outcomes roberto rabel research and international division, university of otago dunedin, new zealand andrew higgins higher education development centre, university of otago dunedin, new zealand theoretical considerations teaching history for using distance education until recent years, historians have usually given more attention to course content than teaching methodologies when reflecting on pedagogical issues . in part, this focus has been based on an assumption that success in inspiring students is directly related to the skills and knowledge of individual lecturers as historical researchers rather than to their ability to devise course structures and employ teaching methods which can accommodate diverse student learning styles. as a consequence, stearns (1993, tited in blackey, 1993) has argued that, "the challenge of matching history's research achievements with appropriate teaching strategies has not yet been met in the contemporary educational context" (p. 18). by the 1990s, however, many teachers of history had begrn1 to rethink these traditional assumptions. for example, reber (cited in blackey, 1993) has noted, that "as historians have become more concemed with improving their teaching, they have sought to refine their approaches or to develop new methods for helping students understand the past" (p. 123). similarly, booth and hyland (1996) have detected "a growing awareness" among history teachers "that their traditional methods are not working as well as previously, and that the experience of an increasingly diverse student body is emphasising the need to rethink conventional wisdoms about teaching" (p.5). their response to this challenge was to advocate an "active learning" approach "which emphasises that learning is fundamentally an active process and that it is best promoted when learners are directly engaged through their own interests, entl1usiasms and talents rather than expected merely to receive information" (p . 8). in support of this position, they have argued that "increasing students' sense of control over what they do, providing them with opportunities to exercise independence and developing the necessary skills with which to do this can make them more journal of distance learning, vol 6, no 1, 2001 © dis tance education association of ne w zealand 36 effective learners. this might involve a wide spectrum of approaches, from allowing students greater choice over essay titles to more truly student-centred activities such as student run seminars or self-assessment and peer assessment" (p. 9) . in this context, the history teacher becomes less of a privileged purveyor of historical knowledge and more a facilitator who guides students through the extensive content typical of history courses and who seeks to encourage them to grapple directly with various kinds of historical source materials for themselves. booth's and hyland's position about having a more student-centred approach to learning in an active way thus leads to considerations of open, distance and flexible learning as possible approaches to teaching history. wade has broadly defined flexible learning as "an approach to university education which provides students with an opportunity to take greater responsibility for their learning and to be engaged in learning activities and opportunities that meet their own individual needs" (wade, hodgkinson, smith, & arfield, 1994, p. 12). wade regards open learning as a "term used to describe courses flexibly designed to meet individual requirements." when examining the united kingdom's open university processes for developing history teaching through distance education, marwick (booth & hyland, 1996, pp. 181-90) lists the essentials of a structured distance teaching course for tertiary level history. in his view, the course must be: a. thoroughly thought through in advance, with issues, controversies, differing approaches and the exact roles of the individual contributors fully explicated. b. there must be a set of aims, concerning the course as a whole, and usually, (though this is not always essential), several sets of objectives, relating to individual sections, or units of the course. c. all the materials required by students, apart from the basic course units (textbooks, documents, articles, map books, videos, etc.) must be clearly specified at the outset, and fully integrated with the teaching units. d. the teaching material throughout must be structured upon a series of self-assessment exercises which provide a genuine learning progression for the particular topic immediately under study. e. there must be an assessment policy totally integrated with the aims, objectives and content of the course. f. there must be some form of personal backup, if only in the form of correspondence tuition, (marking and commenting on student assignments) and it is vital that this backup be carefully monitored by those responsible for the course and its aims. it was within prindples such as those identified by marwick that the university of otago sought to redesign the history 102 course. the framework for integration of flexible learning at otago initially, the approach to integrate flexible learning strategies into workplace practices at the university of otago drew its impetus from the university senior management. tius approach sought to generate support for, examples of, and interest in flexible learning that would diffuse ideas for journal of distance learning, vol 6, no i , 2001 © distance education association of new zealand 37 innovation into the whole of campus teaching and learning. the four assistant vice-chancellors (humanities, health sciences, commerce and sciences) nominated one paper each which they considered suitable for conversion to a flexible learning approach. they chose papers based on student numbers and whether they had (or might have) potential difficulties in their current delivery. funding came from the vicechancellor and from divisional budgets. of the four papers selected, three were large class first year courses and one was a second year class that caused difficulties for students. staff from the flexible learning section began the process of conversion by working as part of the project teams for the selected papers to establish learning objectives for each course in accordance with the university's teaching and learning plan (1996b). this required the academic staff to rethink their courses in terms of the knowledge, skills, and attitudes; understanding; ethical and social implications of their studies; and life-long learning skills their students should achieve. having set these objectives, the project teams proceeded to design and develop teaching strategies to suit these needs. this included the creation of written materials, lecture strategies, computer-based instruction, small group activities and assessment strategies. flexible teaching and learning strategies were chosen in accordance with the availability of time and resources as well as their suitability to the chosen objectives. history 102 history 102, "the twentieth-century world", was a first-semester paper taught by four academic staff in the history department. previously, the staff members taught discrete sections of the course relating to their respective areas of interest (united states and international history, asian history, russian history, and european history). the ,~ourse consisted of three lectures per week and one small-group tutorial per fortnight. approximately 150 to 180 students enrolled in this course each year. the resources available to students outside lectures were limited to a computer-assisted learning programme (one staff member had placed his lecture notes on a hypercard stack), very occasional lecture handouts, the textbook and some tutorial readings held at the reserve desk of the central library. the course relied heavily on a traditional lecture format, partly supplemented by tutorials. student evaluations of the course over the preceding five years had been consistently, if moderately, positive but had invariably included comments questioning the overall coherence of the course. the academic teaching staff shared this concern and realised that student performance in the course, while often excellent with respect to specific topics, did not reflect a wider understanding of the links between those topics and of the more general forces which had shaped twentieth-century history on a global level. following discussions with flexible learning staff from hedc, the history course co-ordinator decided to adopt a more flexible approach to teaching this paper. he planned to use more diverse teaching methods and to create opportunities for self-directed student learning by providing more resources outside lectures. as well as seeking to create greater flexibility for students in making their way through the course material, the co-ordinator hoped to give tlle course a higher degree of jo urnal of distance learning, vol 6, n o i , 2001 © dis tan ce education association of n e w zealand 38 thematic coherence. it was clear that substantial redevelopment of the course was required in order to achieve these aims. the first step in the process involved active collaboration between staff in the flexible learning section and the co-ordinator to establish a more explicit set of learning objectives for this paper expressed in terms of the university teaching and learning plan (1996b). based on the learning outcomes in the plan, the redevelopment of the course to incorporate a flexible learning approach involved the lecturers not only rethinking their teaching methods and the overall course structure, but also each lecture itself. they decided to adopt a more consciously team-based teaching approach by combining their areas of interest within each lecture, wherever possible, to give the students a more coherent, interrelated introduction to world history. as well as aiming to generate greater interaction between the teaching staff, they hoped to use teaching techniques which would generate more active student participation in the course. to this end, the team agreed that the course format should be redesigned to have only two lectures a week, to have weekly tutorials and to use the third lecture time selectively for showing videotaped documentaries to interested students. a range of new course materials directly accessible to students complemented lectures and tutorials. these activities complied with marwick's (bootl1 & hyland, 1996) principle a, namely that the course needed to be thoroughly thought through, and that the roles of the individual contributors needed to be fully explicated. the development of a coursebook satisfied marwick's principle b. the group met with other academic staff and the head of department to outline the planning to date. the head of the flexible learning section agreed to provide a project plan for the development of this paper with estimates of cost. as a result of these discussions, the team created the following resources: • • • • • • • • a comprehensive, interactive coursebook, including the readings on which lectures were to be based; an internet website, which would serve as an electronic "noticeboard" for the course and which included copies of all overhead transparencies used in lectures; an email discussion list to enable students to raise questions and to pursue ideas raised in the course with other students outside formal class time; further computer-assisted learning (cal) programmes; lecture activities; edited videotapes for use in lectures and accessible through the audiovisual study centre for use by students in their own time; interactive tutorial exercises; suitable assessment strategies, which involved raising the internal assessment component of the course from 30% to 60%. this work ensured that marwick's principles c and d had been accommodated in that the learning materials were clearly specified and that the assessment complied with the university of otago's formal assessment policy, thus satisfying marwick's principle e. initial work on this project commenced in august 1997 with academic staff preparing written notes and illustrations for the coursebook. individual staff jou rnal of distance learn ing, vol 6, no 1, 2001 © distance education association of new zealand 39 members provided appropriate written materials for their portions of the course and conducted regular weekly meetings to ensure that all team members understood each unit of work being developed by the others. in itself, this process succeeded in building a higher level of intellectual coherence between the different parts of the course. even more importantly, the outcome of the process the coursebook became the centre-piece of the new flexible learning strategy, insofar as it offered tlle possibility for the lecturers to devote less time in lectures to conveying information and more time to discussing with the class the broader historical significance of that information. having the coursebook also meant students could more easily work through much of the most important parts of the course content in their own time and at their own pace. the hedc instructional designer worked with the teaching team to ensure clarity of content and consistency of format as the coursebook was being prepared. the instructional designer also used a desktop publishing programme to produce the final, agreed text, thereby helping create an interactive, studentcentred coursebook which was of a high professional standard in appearance as well as in content. the course co-ordinator identified and edited sequences from videotaped documentaries that were to be integrated into lectures to illustrate the historical detail in many of the runt themes as the writing progressed. working with a history department research assistant, he also prepared a script and selected sequences to be edited into a twentyminute videotape and used to introduce the major themes of the course in the first lecture. educational teclmology support services (etss) staff recorded the script, assembled the visual sequences into the required order and prepared the final videotape. other etss staff assisted in the creation of a suitable web page for the course from which students could· access administrative information, electronic handouts, and hypercard stacks. etss staff with particular expertise in computer-assisted learning (cal) provided advice about how to apply cal techniques to teach students footnoting and bibliographical skills in two of the tutorial sessions . working with the assistance of these various specialists, the history 102 team completed the project in february 1998, well in advance of the time when the students needed the materials . personal backup to students arose through tutorials and by having academic staff available to the students as required, thus accounting for marwick's principle f. evaluating the project recognising that the approach taken to teaching history 102 would differ from the lecture/tutorial format typically used in humanities courses in the university, staff at hedc developed a questionnaire to be administered before the course began and again after its completion. the questions sought information on students' expectations about learning outcomes and teaching strategies to be used and the post-course questions sought to explore if the expectations had been met or changed. specifically, questions sought information on expectations of enjoyment, stimulation, increased knowledge, development of specialised skills, communication skills, exploring topics in depth, understanding wider implications of the themes, developing computer skills, general research skills and help in passing the final examination. the journal of distance learning, vol 6, no 1, 2001 © distance education association of new zeal and 40 questions also sought information about students' views on teaching strategies. these included: lectures, tutorials, coursebooks, textbooks, class discussions, videos, informal discussions, websites, email, computer-assisted learning programmes; studying in their own time; assignment sheets; worksheets; reading; regular assessment; and group learning. method there are many types of tests available to gather information about attitudes towards educational events. this project used a likert scale. the questionnaire asked individual students to respond to a series of statements, using a rating scale, ranging from strongly agree (5), agree (4), undecided (3), disagree (2), to strongly disagree (1). the method is valid and typically used in universities where academic staff issue questionnaires to students to gauge attitudes towards the particular academic's approach to teaching (gay, 1987). responses are often analysed by staff development units . in this particular study, the data is reliable since all students participating in the classes were surveyed, so sampling errors did not arise. eighty students completed a likert scale questionnaire responding to each of the headings in the list. by multiplying the number of respondents by each score they selected, adding the responses and dividing that result by the number of respondents, it is possible to arrive at a mean score for responses to each teaching strategy. this method was applied both before and after the programme. the mean score arose from the statistical calculations where the means for the pre and post test results were compared with each other using a chi squared test. in this study, the pre test result might be regarded as the expected result and the post teaching score as the observed result, testing the question, "has there been a significant change in student attitudes to various elements of the paper during its teaching?" (gay, 1987). the university provided a research assistant to monitor the progress of the projects and to measure student learning outcomes. the research aimed to establish students' views of the programme they were about to undertake. this formed the basis of the study. the research assistant asked the same questions of students after the programme to identify where their attitudes had changed and why. this approach allowed a statistical analysis to be conducted on the significance, if any, of attitudinal change to either the whole or to various parts of the programme . it also allowed for the identification of attitudes towards specific teaching strategies that had been built into the programmes. the research assistant devised a questionnaire to ascertain how students thought they would benefit from the programme after academic and flexible learning staff explained it to them. students completed an exit questionnaire after completing the programme and the two outcomes were compared to see what changes occurred. in addition, the researcher sought staff opinions on changes in student performance compared to those taking similar courses in previous years. results an analysis of these results, based on the null hypothesis that the flexible learning strategies would have no effect on whether student expectations were met, shows that the null hypothesis is journ al of distance learning, vol 6, no 1, 2001 © distance edu cation association of new zealand 41 disproved and that this approach to teaching history 102 has made a difference. when looking at the results of teaching strategies more closely to see which particular strategies made a difference, the following information arises. twice as many students completed the questionnaire at the end of the course than did at the start. students reported the paper to be as enjoyable as they expected it to be. it stimulated their interest in world history and it increased their knowledge of the subject area. students reported a major increase (+24%) in their spedalised knowledge of world history. it also significantly increased their skills in communicating understanding of the subject (+26%) . students also reported substantial gains in understanding of the wider implications of world history above their expectations . they also reported gains of knowledge and skills in computing above expectations. on the other hand, the paper did not make a significant change in their general research, study and communications skills although they did report help above expectations in preparing for the final examination. in so far as teaching strategies are concerned, the students reported almost no variation in their expectation of lectures and found the tutorials more difficult than expected. similarly they found the study groups to be more difficult, but they appeared to enjoy private study and reading. internet use remained a low priority but regular assessment and feedback received positive responses. these data show no significant difference between the pre and post test groups for the traditional teaching patterns. in the new strategies categories, students responded well to the coursebook (2.25), rating it either highly effective (83 %) or effective (69%). in contrast, they responded badly to the textbook (which was not a new element of the course), with "only 33% rating it effective or highly effective. the videotaped documentaries were effective. the course did improve students' skills in using computers . discussion one important finding is that the students' responses to the range of teaching strategies did not quite live up to their expectations displayed at the start of the course. this outcome may be due to the fact that most of the class were first-year students not accustomed to university work. another factor which must be taken into consideration is that, although most of those who completed the initial survey also completed the final one, the second one was completed in class time. this meant that the number of returned end-of-course surveys was more than double that of the pre-course surveys. the possibility arises, therefore, that the first group included a higher number of 1/ enthusiastic" students who were willing to make the effort to complete and return the initial survey in their own time. such students may well have had higher expectations of the course. the extent to which those expectations were met is impossible to determine without being able to identify those who completed both surveys. in future, tlns problem could be eliminated by including a question on end-of-course surveys asking if the respondent completed the initial survey concerning pre-course expectations. from the point of view of the acadennc staff, the course was a mixed success. they have no doubt that they were more successful than in previous years journal of distance learning, vol 6, no 1, 2001 © distance education association of new zealand 42 in imparting a greater coherence to the diverse subject matter covered in this twentieth-century world history course. the team teaching also worked well on occasions but some members of the team were less comfortable with this approach than others and they also differed in the enthusiasm with which they attempted to encourage greater student interaction in lecture sessions. in general, as borne out by the responses to the student questionnaires, the teaching team found that the students responded well to the coursebook and to the videotapes but did not like the textbook which appears to have been too demanding. moreover, they also noticed that whenever additional materials were provided, only a few students showed real interest in using those materials if they were not directly related to summative assessment tasks. thus, for instance, only a handful of students took advantage of the e-mail discussion list. nevertheless, the overall pass rate for the course did rise slightly from the previous year (from 78 % to 80%). conclusion students responded that the coursebook, which allowed them to access material, and the videotapes were the most effective teaching tools introduced into history 102 as part of the flexible learning package. it is noteworthy that both students and teachers are familiar with the coursebook/videotape technology, but that some within both groups displayed less comfort with the emerging electronic technologies. it is also possible to recognise that the quality of the tutorials varied because they were taken by different tutors, some of whom were academic staff and some of whom were postgraduate students. from the point of view of both staff and students, not all their expectations were met concerning the possible gains to be derived from flexible learning methods. certain positive outcomes, however, were definitely achieved. the coursebook was a real success and, though requiring slight modification each year, will continue to be used in history 102. it has also served as a model for other courses and a modified version of the coursebook is now being used in a political studies course taught within the division of humanities. the use of videotaped documentaries was also successful and these will continue to be used to illustrate various themes in twentieth century world history. although the use of electronic technology did not seem as popular amongst students, it needs to be remembered that this was a campus-based course where the students were attending lectures and tutorials as well as having ready access to a suffident range of non-electronic materials to enable them to fulfil virtually all course requirements without needing to use electronic technology. what has become possible, however, by introducing a flexible learning approach to history 102 is that this course is now effectively ready to be taught by distance should that be considered desirable. it has also offered valuable lessons for the teachillg staff involved, who now realise how challenging it can be to devise innovative ways of encouraging students to assume greater responsibility for their own learning. the concerns about teaching history in universities raised by reber and by stearns in blackey (1993) have been partly addressed by the developments using distance teaching and learning strategies at the university of otago inasmuch as the strategies have been journal of distance learning, vol 6, no 1, 2001 © distance education association of new zealand 43 rethought and the concepts of john dewey's active learning strategies have replaced the passive receptive model so typical of the lecture format. the learning and teaching strategies have their origins in the prindples and methods espoused, by marwick in the area of teaching history using distance learning approaches. surveys of students demonstrate that distance teaching and learning strategies used in the on-campus mode are successful. references blackey, r. (ed.). (1993). history anew: innovations in the teaching of history today. long beach, ca: the university press, california state university. booth, a, & hyland, p. (eds.). (1996). history in higher education. oxford: blackwell. gay, l. r. (1987). educational research: competencies for analysis and application. columbus, oh: merrill. higgins, a h. (1998a). winds of change and paradigm shifts: correspondence, distance and open learning. journal of distance learning, 4(1), 23-29. higgins, a h. (1998b). policy and practice for introducing flexible learning at the institutional level. proceedings of the distance education association of new zealand, 140-153. husbands, c. (1996). what is history teaching? buckingham, u.k.: open university press. race, p. (1995) . the open learning handbook (2nd ed.). london: kogan page. rowntree, d. (1992). exploring open and distance learning. london: kogan page. university of otago. (1996a, october 7). flexible learning section. in strategic outline. university of otago. (1996b). teaching and learning plan. university of otago. (1996-1998). grants schedule. university of otago. (1998). flexible learning section. in strategic plan. wade, w., hodgkinson, k., smith, a, & arfield, j. (1994). flexible learning in higher education. london: kogan page. roberto rabel is academic director, international development, and a member of the distance learning reference group at the university of otago. his interest in flexible learning developed while teaching american and world history there from 1986 to 2001 and while serving as associate dean of undergraduate studies in otago's division of humanities from 1999 to 2001. telephone: +643 4795295. email: rrabel@nimrodel.otago.ac.nz. andrew higgins is senior lecturer in flexible learning at the higher education development centre, university of otago. his previous appointments include education queensland, the university of queensland and the university of western australia. email: andrew. higgins@stonebaw.otago.ac. nz. journal of distance learning, vol 6, no i , 2001 © distance education association of new zealand 44 scanned document making a "net" for the net nola campbell russell yates clive mcgee school of education, university of w aikato hamilton, new zealand introduction traditionally new zealand pre-service teacher education was provided by up to seven teachers' colleges, which provided preservice programmes mainly for school leavers. recent changes to accreditation processes and approval of tertiary programmes have resulted in about 32 private and public providers offering teacher education. there have also been changes in the way pre-service teacher education is made available to students. whereas it was previously expected that students would study in face to face classes, students are now able to engage in teacher education in more flexible and open ways . the university of waikato is one provider of open and flexible leaming and teaching opportunities. this paper examines the way in which the use of new technology has enabled this innovative approach to teacher education over the past four years. information and communication technology has been coupled with block face to face teaching in a programme that is available to students who live in remote areas and who are unable to attend regular classes on the campus. the paper also examines the way in which the students are supported, in particular the support mechanisms provided by the university and the ways in which students developed support mechanisms of their own. background in 1997 the university of waikato began teaching the mixed media programme (mmp) of primary teacher education designed for students who live in more remote areas of the region served by the university. this was in response to a continuing shortage of teachers for a significant number of schools, in mainly rural areas. thus, the approach has been to recruit and select students, who, when qualified, would probably live and work in their home districts. it was expected that this would provide teachers with a strong commitment to their own communities, an assumption based on previous experience of teaching other students in some of these districts in the early 1990s, many of whom have continued to teach in their home area. formerly, most teacher education programmes relied on fa ce to face contact between university staff and student teachers on a regular basis. the demands on staff in terms of travel and time made this an unattractive and expensive option for a new programme in distant locations, espedally in the light of reduced govemment funding. the decision was made to use information technology to reduce the need to travel. journal of distance learning, vol 6, no 1, 2001 © distance education association of n ew zealand 18 computer communication would be the main means of interaction. in the initial stages telephone conferences were used, but their use diminished, mainly because of the high cost. personal computers, fax machines, telephones and the internet have been the main means of interaction. email is used for contact on an individual basis and for the submission of some assignments. "topclass", a web-based interface developed in ireland, provides access to coursework, discussion forums and library databases. this "low" technology approach to a teacher education programme has resulted in successful interaction to date and meets the needs of students in remote districts where poorer quality telephone line transmission limits the use of more sophisticated online technology. the programme that was developed is a "mixed media" approach, an uncommon model amongst a number of other open and flexible learning programmes. rumble (1997, p . 107) refers to the range of communication technologies used by teachers and students to interact with each other. from that list, the programme offered by the university of waikato makes use of: • face to face interaction during on-campus periods; • hldividual telephone contact; • audio-conferences with small • • groups; asynchronous computer interaction and collaboration; and electronic mail . to participate in the mixed media programme students are required to attend three "block courses" on-campus each year; work approximately one day each week in a local primary school and use information technology to interact with course material, staff and colleagues. this programme has shown many indicators of success so far. the initial group of 54 students began in february 1997. fifty-two successfully completed the first year of the programme and 48 completed the programme in 1999. the profile of this student group is: • all except one are women in the range 25-45; • most have family responsibilities such as child rearing, which mean they cannot leave their home areas; • seven have had previous experience of tertiary study with three being university graduates; • most have limited study experience including secondary schooling; and • many of the students are active in their local school and wider communities. many students have achieved high grades and 48 have graduated from the programme, a very high retention rate. they have readily adapted to using new technologies. the reason for their success appears to be a combination of factors including: • a relatively high level of motivation within the group selected for the programme; • student support from their colleagues and those teaching in the programme; • the ability to manage time effectively and efficiently; and • the ability to overcome barriers to the confident utilisation of technologies. student support in any programme that involves an approach journal of distance learning, vol 6, no 1,2001 © distance education association of new zealand 19 that new students have not experienced there is a threat of failure and student dissatisfaction (carrier & schofield, 1991; sewart, 1993). the utilisation of information and communication technology was new to most students. so the programme was developed in a way which considered the resources available to the students and used a range of approaches, aspects considered essential by dillon, gunawardena and parker (1992). built into these approaches was support of various kinds. the approaches and support strategies were: • • • • • • • • • on campus block courses; appropriate choice of courses; information technology support; development of online coursework and the virtual classroom; library support and coaching; administrative support; staff support; local study groups; support from base schools. on campus block courses the initial form of contact is through the provision of on campus block courses. although there is a significant finandal commitment required in travelling to and being accommodated on campus, the face-to-face contact has been able to ensure that each group of students had the opportunity to begin the course in a positive way. each time the students come to the campus they are able to renew contact with teaching staff and fellow students. this appears to provide a sound basis for the online interaction that occurs later in the course. most of the mixed media student teachers respond well to the on campus courses although some initially feel great apprehension. in addition the time away from families does place some pressure on students as they wrestle with issues of childcare and just being away from home, some for the first time . a second aspect that was largely unplanned, is the way in which the marae has "'become central to the success of many student teachers. they describe this as a "second home". for many of the student teachers it was their first point of contact with the university and throughout their course of study they return again and again to this safe haven where friendship and support from their fellow student teachers is always at hand. appropriate choice of courses the inclusion of appropriate papers was a significant support approach. when the mixed media programme commenced an initial decision was made to ensure that most students were enrolled in two courses designed to help student teachers bridge into university study and to use information technology. most of the student teachers came to the teacher education programme with a limited school background and a long period away from study. so a paper which helped them to develop their writing skills was included. the majority of student teachers found this a challenging course but believe that it was important for their approach to further study, a view that corresponds with that of staff responsible for the programme. a second course that was required of all student teachers was one that focussed on their use of the computer and the way in whicl1 it could be used in classrooms. agall1 most student teachers found this course benefidal, although the continuing need for the course for all students could be challenged because more student teachers are commencing study with greater computer literacy. journal of distance learning, vol 6, no i , 2001 © distance educa tion associa tion of new zealand 20 information technology support vvhen the prograrrune conunenced the level of technology competency and confidence in the student cohort was low. many student teachers had no prior contact with technology and some had no idea where to begin. their only computer access was from their local base schools and prior to the on campus block course they had received no training or familiarisation. very quickly they recognised the challenge al1ead of them and responded by supporting each other as they began to become confident and competent using the hardware and software. they readily accepted the support of their colleagues and from introductory classes about using the online media provided by the university. this support was provided only in the first year and student teachers were subsequently expected to have at least a working knowledge of their own computer on entry to the prograrrune. a cd-rom was produced which was supplied to each student teacher when they entered the prograrrune. initial reaction to this suggested that it was an effective tool for them to experience an online learning environment before they start and without incurring any costs. student teachers in the mixed media progranune are required to become familiar with and utilise a range of information and communication technologies (lct). as using a computer is fundamental to participation in the programme, a 100 level optional ict paper was strongly reconunended. this action has ensured that students rapidly develop a sense of confidence and competence while using a range of technologies as part of the coursework in an authentic and meaningful context. resources to support the online students have been well received by both staff and students who utilised them to become familiar with the online environment in the privacy of their own workspace. a wide range of media in paper, audio, video and cd-rom formats have helped student teachers explore and experience the online learning environment before they begin to work online. staff who are familiar with the content of the support resources can refer students to particular parts when technical difficulties arise. this has left the staff time to focus on the content of their course and not on the technology which class members are utilising. development of online coursework and the virtual classroom one of the critical factors in the success of the mmp, an online teacher education progranune, has been the emphasis on teaching and learning, not on the technologies. avoidance of employing instructional designers has meant control and responsibility for online teaching are placed in the hands of academic staff. this has been critical to the feelings of satisfaction and success enjoyed by both the teaching staff and students. this "low tech" teacher-driven approach at the university of waikato is fundamental to destroying the myth that online learning and the mixed media prograrrune is a computing activity. structuring the coursework and teaching interaction so that they are motivating and exciting has enabled staff to concentrate on what they are teaching, not the tools they are using to facilitate this process. students who are excited about the community they become part of online are able to see past the basic skill requirements and focus on authentic learning experiences that relate to the course(s). journal of distance learning, vol 6, n o 1, 2001 © dis tance educa tion association of n ew zealan? 21 the teaching staff plan and develop their new online classroom environments, which are flexible and collaborative communities. staff work with more experienced colleagues who understand first hand the challenges and anxieties of teaching online. this collegial security and safety "net" for staff has encouraged a strong focus on new avenues for research and enhanced the practice of teaching online. the online environments utilised by the school of education have undergone rapid development in the past four years. the option to stay with an asynchronous mode of teaching to enable students to work at any time of the day or night has been maintained. the need for bigger and better hardware often utilised by new interactive software, particularly the synchronous online technologies, has been avoided so that students with basic hardware systems will not suddenly find themselves unable to continue with their existing equipment. the interactive software utilised in the online teaching activity not only makes class discussion and sharing possible, it can also provide students with an avenue for requests for help and for sharing strategies for success when working online . by carefully considering how the online virtual classroom is set up, each staff member can build 'in some self-supporting structures which provide a safety "net" for students who are unsure about what to do. library support and coaching one of the early obstacles that had to be overcome was the way in which library materials would be made available. in an institution where the focus had been on traditional face to face delivery of courses there was some consternation about providing library materials to students who were invisible and who did not come and make their own selections of materials. as is the case with the initiation of most open and flexible learning programmes, it took the work of an enthusiast to devise and implement an approach that would work. with strong support from the leaders in the library, a staff member was appointed as the contact person for students, and she meets with them when they are on-campus. this person has been the reference point for all students as they access their library materials. requests are made via email and materials are sent and returned using "snail mail". students have complimented the service provided by the library person as a significant factor in supporting their leaming. library staff are now working online in some classes as information coaches and see themselves in a very new and exdting role. aspects of information literacy are integrated into many of the courses and the coaches are able to partidpate in the online class environment by partidpating in discussion and responding to questions about how to formulate information inquiries . administrative support early in the implementation of this programme, it became apparent that there was a need to provide administrative support to assist the coordination of the mixed media programme . tasks of the administrator have varied from dealing with programme issues to providing strong pastoral support. the mixed media administrator has become pivotal in the coordination of the various aspects of the programme. she is available when needed by both students and teaching journal of distance learning, vol 6, no 1, 2001 © distance education association of new zealand 22 staff. the need for pastoral support is constant and involves the areas of "births, deaths and marriages" and all that comes in between. the wisdom of the administration of the institution in ensuring that the funding of this position was possible cannot be under estimated and the appointment has been a significant feature in the success of the programme for both teaching staff and students. however, the skill of the administrator has meant that students have almost become too dependent on her. the intention was to provide support from a central point and that has been achieved, but at the cost of student support being very time consuming for the administrator. while that support is very important and will continue there remains the question of achieving a balance between support and dependence. to achieve the balance student teachers will need to be "trained" about expectations that are reasonable. staff support the students in the mixed media programme have frequently commented on the speed and nature of responses from many of the university teaching staff. the contacts made when meeting staff and fellow students on a face to face basis made it easier for mutual-support to occur. students have responded positively to the ready responses provided by the teaching staff through email and the telephone. an example of their views is: we appreciate the approachable manner of all the tutors. they let you ring them when there are problems, etc. i am right into the new technologlj of email etc, but i still like to hear a voice and connect sound with a face. so, i ring all my tutors when i have problems so i can still have that human contact. this support has been invaluable to me. the majority of teaching staff describe how they enjoy their online teaching and a number have shared how they believe they know their online students better than many on-campus students. local study groups when the programme was established it was dedded not to formally organise study groups in local areas. the reason for this was to get students to establish their own groups, which might result in stronger commitment to a group. it was felt that the students needed to be comfortable with the other students that they worked with and not be pressured into groups where they were incompatible with each other. that decision has proven to be sound and many students have gained benefit from the support of their fellow students. the establishment of "study groups" by the student teachers themselves has been important. a majority of student teachers meet with other student teachers who live close to each other or who are within a local calling telephone area. in many cases they did not know each other prior to joining the programme but have become close friends as student teachers in the programme. they have worked closely together and the student teachers who had previous university experience often were good role models. the impact of role models seemed to be important. the student teachers commented that without each other they may not have remained in the programme, a matter typified by this comment: we have a very supportive study group structure. we help each other and share problems and ways to journal of distance learn ing, vol 6, no 1, 2001 © distance education a ssociation of n ew zealand 23 tackle different papers. we share resources and readily help each other. without this study group, i do not think that i would have been able to cope. while there were these benefits from local study groups, some of the staff involved in teaching in the programme became aware that a side effect was created through high expectations within study groups. these expectations were created by the influence of high achieving student teachers and the student teachers' own expectations of themselves, often due to the pressure to succeed. once they had some success in study such as a good grade, they were eager to repeat it or even improve. the result was sometimes increased pressure on family life perhaps because of the increasing time spent on study. ironically, a major support was also a very real pressure for many students. support from base schools one of the elements required by the mixed media programme is for students to work in a "base schoof' on one day each week to complete specified tasks related to many of their courses. the choice of base school is influenced mainly by where the students live and in most cases there is an existing relationship between a student teacher and a base school. frequently, students are based in schools where the principal and staff are strong supporters of the mixed media programme. many of the schools saw themselves as partners in the teacher education of members of their own community. the schools were well aware of the advantage of having teachers who would possibly teach there once they graduated. the school-university partnership created in this way has generally been beneficial to both parties, with schools regularly interacting with students on a much wider basis than just enabling them' to complete their required tasks. friendships, which were in place prior to the commencement of the student teacher's programme, have become even stronger and others, which initially may have been tentative, have been enhanced. the schools see their support as an important investment for both the student teachers and themselves. the two-way process also facilitates some professional development for teachers and principals as well as collegial support, advice and guidance for the student. the nature of support provided in this way has been significant to the extent that some schools have become so involved that they appear "protective" in their support of the mixed media student teachers. this may be just as much a disadvantage as it is a benefit, even though it is well intentioned. conclusions the mixed media programme available from the university of waikato has used new information and communication technology to enhance teacher education. it has been successful when measured by a number of criteria: academic results, retention rate and student teacher satisfaction, and (more recently) employment of graduates . the current success of this programme, which has elements of traditional approaches combined with open and flexible learning has been markedly influenced by the support structures which have been implemented and which continue to evolve. the lessons we have learned from this programme have been varied. they include the need to establish key support journal of distance learning, vol 6, no i , 2001 © dis tance education association of new zealand 24 structures that support the use of information technology and relate to pastoral care. we have found that our use of a single administrative support person has been a key element in ensuring that students remain in the programme. we have also found that local study groups estabhshed by the students themselves are more enduring than any arrangements which might be imposed. the way in which local schools are involved in a partnership arrangement has provided a setting with benefits to student teachers, who are able to develop their teaching skills, and teachers, who get professional development from course materials shared with student teachers. as would be expected there is a variation in the amount of support that particular student teachers need, ranging from some who are initially, at least over dependent to those who are already seasoned independent learners. it will be necessary to maintain the support structures already estabhshed and to continue to monitor the needs of students as they participate in this mixed media programme through a comprehensive research programme. as the mixed media programme has progressed the use of information technology has become increasingly invisible. the emphasis on people as teachers and learners has become the focus of a supportive community and institution. as the programme has developed over its first three years, efforts have been made to identify student teacher and teaching staff needs. the development of a support network, as discussed in this paper, has assisted teaching staff to focus on the teachinglearning process using within-reach technology. there is evidence that the forms of support we have outlined have enhanced the student teachers' success, but there is a need for on-going investigation of what is required. references carrier, g., & schofield, m. (1991). student support and computer mediated communication in distance education. canadian journal of educational communication, 20(1),45-54. dillon, c. 1., gunawardena, c. n., & parker, r. (1992). learner support in distance education: an evaluation of a statewide telecommunications system. international journal of instructional media, 19(4). rumble, g. (1997). the costs and economics of open and distance learning. london: kogan page. sewart, d. (1993). student support systems in distance education. open learning, 8(3),3-12. nola campbell is senior lecturer in information and communication technolo~j at the school of education, universihj of waikato. as coordinator of online development, campbell has played a pioneering role in helping academic staff move from the traditional mode of teaching on-campus to an exciting online teaching and learning communihj email: ngc@waikato.ac.nz. russell yates is senior lecturer in professional studies and coordinator of the primary . mixed media teacher education programme at the university of waikato. he teaches online and oncampus students and led the team that developed the mixed media programme. he is interested in classroom management and education in rural schools. email: ryates@waikato.ac.nz. clive mcgee is professor of education and director of the waikato institute for research in learning and curriculum, university ofwaikato. he is widely published in curriculum theory and application, teacher education, and classroom interaction. email: mcgee@waikato.ac.nz. journal of distance learning, vol 6, no 1, 2001 © distance education association of new zealand 25 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(2) 1 extending the territory: from open educational resources to open educational practices ulf-daniel ehlers, baden-wurttemberg corporative state university abstract this article examines the findings of the recent opal report beyond oer: shifting focus from resources to practices. in doing so, it defines current understanding of open educational resources and open educational practices, and highlights the shift from open content to open practice. the article includes a framework for supporting open educational practices. the conclusions emphasise that open access is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the opening of education, and foreshadows ongoing moves toward changes in educational architectures that promote increased uptake of open educational resources and wider application of open education. keywords: oer, open educational resources, open educational practices, open education introduction the open educational quality initiative report, beyond oer: shifting focus from resources to practices, came to the conclusion that open educational resources (oer) in higher education institutions are, in principle, available but are not frequently used (opal, 2011). the study reveals that individuals are faced with five main barriers when they want to use oer: lack of institutional support; lack of technological tools for sharing and adapting resources; lack of users‘ skills and time; lack of quality or fitness of the resources; and personal issues such as lack of trust and time (ibid). when considering oer the old question seems to gain new relevance: ‗if we build it, will they come?‘ (astd & masie center, 2001). four of these five issues relate to a lack of supporting components (i.e., organisational support; a lack of a sharing culture within organisations; lack of skills, quality, trust or time, and skills for adaption). only one element relates to the availability of technical tools for sharing and adapting resources. none of the barriers relates to accessibility and availability. while the study‘s sample might be subject to self-selection and probably attracted more respondents from oer users, the results reveal an interesting array of barriers which are not, so far, addressed in research. greater efforts will have to be made in future to understand the personal, organisational, and environmental factors that hinder or enable creation, sharing, use, and reuse of oer. this recent study is in line with a more general debate which has manifested in recent literature, suggesting that there is a gap between the concept of ―giving knowledge for free‖ (oecd, 2007) and the actual use of free and open resources for teaching and learning. a review of the last 6 years of oer research reveals that the challenges associated with oer no longer lie in the availability or accessibility of resources but go beyond this to the area of use (for quality ehlers, u.-d. 2 assurance and oer see windle, wharrad, mccormick, laverty, & taylor, 2010; philip, lefoe, o‘reilly, & parrish, 2008; for skill demand for oer usage see beggan 2009; conole & weller 2008; for teaching culture and oer see beggan, 2009; for lack of transparency culture see mcgill, currier, duncan, & douglas, 2008; for conflicting agenda between research and teaching excellence related to oer usage see browne, holding, howell, & rodway-dyer, 2010; for shift from supply to demand side with oer see browne et al., 2010; beggan, 2009; mcgill, beetham, falconer, & littlejohn, 2010; for learning design as pedagogical underpinning of oer see kahle, 2008; boyle & cook 2004). the current situation can thus be summarised as follows: although oer are high on the agenda of social and inclusion policies, and are supported by many stakeholders in the educational sphere, their use in higher education has not yet reached a critical threshold. (there is a separate but connected debate as to whether this holds true for developing countries. however, apart from infrastructure challenges—which are a necessary condition and not to be neglected—the issue of oer use faces the same challenges in those countries and could be facilitated by creating a culture of openness within institutions through a complementary focus on educational practices as well as resources.) low use is because past (and largely also current) focus in oer is on building more access to digital content. there is too little consideration of whether access alone will support educational practices and promote quality and innovation in teaching and learning. we consider that oer are moving from a first phase, in which the emphasis was on opening up access and availability, to a second phase in which the focus will be on improving learning quality through oer. we therefore suggest extending the focus of attention on open education beyond resource access to innovative open educational practices (oep). figure 1 shift from oer to oep to facilitate the shift from oer to oep, it is important to outline all of the factors that influence the creation, use, sharing, and reuse of oer for learners, educational professionals, and organisational leaders in one common framework. such a framework would have to show a pathway for stakeholders towards innovative, open education in which oer improve the quality of learning experiences. in this paper we focus on this aim and describe the basic research steps taken to establish the ‗oep-scape‘ model. first, we give more background on the shift from oer to oep. then we present a framework for defining open educational practices. finally, we suggest a list of dimensions which are essential for supporting the development of open educational practices in higher education. open educational practices the oer movement has been successful in promoting the idea that knowledge is a public good—this has expanded the aspirations of organisations and individuals to publish oer. however, as yet, the potential of oer to transform practice has not been realised. there is a need for innovative forms of support for the creation and evaluation of oer, as well as an evolving phase 1: open it! phase 2: improve quality journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(2) 3 empirical evidence base about the effectiveness of oer. although no definite statistics are available, there has been a rapid expansion in the number of oer projects, the number of people involved, and the number of resources available. in january 2007, the oecd identified over 3000 open courseware courses available from over 300 universities worldwide. in repositories such as merlot, connexions, openlearn, and others, there are hundreds of thousands of pieces of content or materials representing thousands of freely available learning hours (oecd, 2007). although the dominant language so far is english, translation of resources, combined with a growing number of non-english oer projects, cater for greater language diversity and increased global use. the first phase: open educational resources the first phase, that of building oer, has been characterised by start-up funding from both public and private (foundation) funding schemes (stacey, 2010). many well-known oer initiatives such as mit‘s opencourseware (ocw), stanford‘s itunes, and rice university‘s connexions, are now coming into their sustainability phase. until now, oer development and use has been a pioneering process. roger‘s technology adoption lifecycle would suggest that oer have come through the innovation phase, are striving for adoption, and aspire to cross into early majority (rogers, 1983). in his recent analysis of oer initiatives worldwide, stacey (2010) shows that the focus of current well-known oer initiatives is largely on creation and publication of oer. use and reuse—especially with the aim of improving learning and innovating educational scenarios—are still somewhat under-represented. recognition of the importance of the investment and effort that goes into promoting the use and uptake of oer is evident in the prominence given to oer developments in a report on cyberlearning commissioned by the national science foundation in 2008 (nsf, 2008). one of the five higher-level recommendations in the conclusion of the report is to ―adopt programs and policies to promote open educational resources‖ (ibid, p. 35). open provision of course materials has become a more extended movement, with many universities adopting the approach. however, these diverse oer projects have not been researched to establish the best way to move from existing provision to better structures for open education. we therefore define the first phase of oer development and diffusion as focusing on access and availability of oer. this is also reflected in the various available definitions from unesco (2002), keller and mossink (2008), and mcandrew and santos (2009), who all argue that oer are largely digital assets put together into a logical structure by a course developer who has attached an open licence to them (hylén, 2006). we can deduce that, up to now, the main focus has been on building access to oer, building infrastructure, tools, and repositories. we can therefore conclude that the initial phase of oer, which has focused attention on the creation of and open access to oer, is transitioning to the second phase. the second phase: open educational practices phase 2 is currently emerging in the debate, literature, and policy discourse. this phase is about using oer to improve learning experiences and innovate educational scenarios. the next phase in oer development will see a shift from a focus on resources to a focus on oep. these comprise a combination of open resources use and open learning architectures that could transform learning into 21st century learning environments in which universities, adult learners, and citizens are provided with opportunities to shape their lifelong learning pathways in an autonomous and self-guided way. phase 2:  builds on oer and moves on to the development of concepts of how oer can be used, reused, shared, and adapted ehlers, u.-d. 4  goes beyond access into open learning architectures, and seeks ways to use oer to transform learning  focuses on learning by constructing knowledge assets, sharing them with others, and receiving feedback and reviews  follows the notion of improving quality through external validation because sharing resources is in the foreground  is about changing the traditional educational paradigm of many unknowledgeable students and a few knowledgeable teachers to a paradigm in which knowledge is co-created and facilitated through mutual interaction and reflection  strives to understand that oer has to contribute to institutions‘ value chain. defining open educational practices in this section we will show how the move from oep can be understood and conceptualised. oep are defined as practices which support the (re)use and production of oer through institutional policies, promote innovative pedagogical models, and respect and empower learners as co-producers on their lifelong learning path. they address the whole oer governance community: policy makers, managers/administrators of organisations, educational professionals, and learners. the matrix in figure 2 captures this link between resources and practices. it suggests different degrees of openness in the usage and creation of open educational resources. the span ranges from ―no usage‖ to ―oer (re-) usage and creation‖. in these three stages the scale covers different realities within organisations and/or individual learning behavior. this dimension of openness in resource usage and creation is set in relation to a dimension of pedagogical practice. the dimension of pedagogical practice is subdivided into three degrees of openness that represent different stages of openness in teaching and learning frameworks. while there is currently no agreement on classification of ‗openness‘ of pedagogical models, research suggests different aspects of openness and freedom in teaching and learning frameworks. the approach that we adopted to classify pedagogical models/learning activities regarding their openness largely follows baumgartner‘s (2007) approach: teacher–tutor–coach. however, other alternative approaches to classifying learning activities that have come to similar conclusions have been taken into account. these include paavola, lipponen, and hakkarainen (2004), who suggest learning metaphors along a continuum from acquisition to participation and on to knowledge creation; laurillard (1993); and a comprehensive analysis of mayes and de freitas (2004) for jisc. following this analysis, pedagogical levels of ‗freedom‘ or ‗openness‘ have been conceptualised as follows:  low degrees of openness exist if objectives and methods of learning and/or teaching are rooted in closed, one-way, transmissive, and reproductive approaches to teaching and learning. in these contexts, there is an underlying belief that teachers know what learners have to learn and mainly focus on knowledge transfer.  medium represents a stage in which objectives are still pre-determined and given, but methods of teaching and learning are represented as open pedagogical models. they encourage dialogue-oriented forms of learning or problem-based learning (pbl) that focus on developing ‗know how‘.  high degrees of freedom and openness in pedagogical models are represented if objectives of learning and methods (e.g., learning pathways) are highly determined and governed by learners. questions or problems relating to which learning is happening are determined by self-regulated learners. teachers facilitate through open and experienceoriented methods which accommodate different learning pathways, either through scaffolding and tutorial interactions (zpd vygotskian-inspired approaches) or contingency tutoring (strategies of reinforcement, domain or temporal contingency [wood & wood, 1999]). journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(2) 5 figure 2 matrix 1 constitutive elements of oep (ehlers, 2011) oep are defined as practices within the trajectory, which is limited by both dimensions: openness in resource usage and creation versus openness in pedagogical models. both dimensions can help individuals and organisations to self-assess and position their respective context. using the matrix, we can analyse three examples: 1. autonomous learning without oer: a high degree of pedagogical openness (projectbased learning etc.) and a low degree of oer usage and creation would result in interactive, autonomous learning contexts without extensive use of open educational resources. 2. lectures with oer: using oer (e.g., a slide set) to give a lecture to students in a directive knowledge transfer 3. open learning architectures: a high degree of openness in pedagogical models in combination with a high degree of oer use and creation result in a high degree of oep in which oers are used in open learning architectures (e.g., creation of learnergenerated content in exploratory, autonomous learning scenarios). these are defined as oep and constitute the range of practices involved in the creation, use, and management of open educational resources with the aim of improving quality and fostering innovation in education. having a database or repository of open educational resources is not open educational practice. the pure usage of these open educational resources in a traditional closed and top-down, instructive, exam-focused learning environment is not open educational practice. however, if oer are used to create resources which are more learner-centred than the ones that existed before; if learners are involved into the creation of content which is taken seriously by the teachers/facilitators; if teachers are moving away from content centred teaching to ‗human resource‘ based teaching; if learning processes are seen as productive processes and learning outcomes are seen as artefacts which are worth sharing and debating, improving and reusing, then oer might improve the learning process—and then we can talk about open educational practices. the degree of implementation or diffusion of oep within the context of learning can vary (figure 3). in some organisations only one or a few educators are using open educational practices, whereas the overall institution is actually not characterised by openness. also, the learning context of learners can be characterised as allowing a high degree of freedom to practice open education, or only a rather low degree. the diffusion of open educational practices can therefore vary considerably, and this has an effect on how open practices can be implemented. ehlers, u.-d. 6 oep essentially represent collaborative practice in which resources are shared by making them openly available, and pedagogical practices are employed which rely on social interaction, knowledge creation, peer-learning, and shared learning practices. once an individual or an organisation has understood the constitutive elements and principles of oep which were addressed in the first matrix (figure 2), they can move on and analyse the diffusion of oeps within their specific context using the second matrix (figure 3). we believe that educational practices are never entirely closed or open and that, within educational organisations, patterns and configurations of educational practices exist which, taken together, constitute a diverse landscape. this has to do with the diverse beliefs and attitudes towards oer and towards open pedagogies. figure 3 matrix 2 — diffusion of open educational practices (ehlers, 2011) to categorise, assess, and position the existing landscape of oep within a given context (e.g., a learner or a teacher in their context) we can map them against two dimensions: the freedom of an individual to practice open education, and the involvement of others, which is expressed in different degrees of shared practices and collaboration. both dimensions limit the trajectory of diffusion of oep for any given context. matrix 2 in figure 3 shows a combination of the different dimensions. the dimension constituting the individual freedom to practice open education, is divided into the three stages: 1. low means that, within a given learning/teaching context, no open educational practices are encouraged. 2. medium means that, within a given learning/teaching context, islands of open educational practices exist, but are not a shared and common reality. 3. high means that, within a given learning/teaching context, open educational practices are embedded in the reality of all learning and teaching activities. the matrices can be used by individuals (learners as well as educational professionals) or organisations to position their practices and analyse their individual oep constitution (matrix 1) and its diffusion (matrix 2). within organisations it is important to note that oep, like organisational culture, constitutes a status which may be more or less represented.  organisations will be able to use the first matrix to analyse which elements of oep they already have put in place and which elements of oep could be developed further. they can use the second matrix to analyse their own oep landscape, and to understand the extent of oep diffusion within an organisation as a whole, or of individual units or members.  individuals (learners, professionals) likewise can use matrix 1 to better understand oep and to self-assess and position themselves to the extent that oep constitutes part of their own learning/ teaching abilities. they can use the second matrix to analyse the oep journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(2) 7 landscape in which they operate, which can be represented in the degrees of freedom to practice open education and the extent to which it is embedded in an open social sharing and collaborative environment.  policy makers will find that both matrices will promote their understanding of oep. these matrices will help them to analyse how favourable their policies are to support oep and to inform their decisions. a framework for supporting open educational practices the above considerations emphasise that current oer initiatives need to extend the understanding of oer—with the concepts of quality and innovation—into the concept of oep, where oer are used in innovative educational scenarios to raise quality. research and experiences show that the uptake of oer demands a culture of sharing, valuing innovative and social-network-based forms of learning, and encouraging novel pedagogical models (opal, 2011). existing approaches for fostering the use of oer have made achievements by focusing on building access to resources (e.g., merlot, mit ocw, stanford itunes, openlearn of ouuk, rice university, opentrain unesco, oer wiki unesco, etc.) and licence models (e.g., creativecommons.org). a lack of trust, limited sharing in institutional cultures, and low acceptance of oer by educators hinder oer use and access. to develop a sustainable pathway for organisations, and for educational professionals and/or learners to grow into their role as open educational practitioners, a model for open educational practice has been developed. resulting from more than 65 international case studies (http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloudscape/view/2085), we have deduced and described the following dimensions. for each dimension a guiding question and a set of maturity indicators has been developed to facilitate a shift from open resources usage to open educational practices (table 1). table 1 the oep model (version for organisations) 1 positioning your organisation in the oep trajectory 1. to what extent are you using oer? 2. do you have a process for creating oer? 3. to what extent are you repurposing oer? 4. to what extent are you sharing oer and oep? 5. to what extent are you working with open learning architectures? creating a vision of openness and a strategy for oep in an organisation 1. do you have a vision for oep? 2. do you have strategies and policies for oep? 3. do you have a business model in place? 4. are you involved in any partnership? 5. what is the perceived relevance of oep? implementing and promoting oep to transform learning 1. do you have an intellectual property rights and copyright framework for oer? 2. do you have incentives and a motivational framework? 3. is your oep work aligned with practice? 4. are your staff committed to oep and do they have the right mindset and attitudes? 5. do you have tools to support sharing and exchanging about open educational practices? 6. do you have quality mechanisms in place? 7. what level of knowledge and skills do teachers have? 8. what level of digital literacy do participants have? 9. do you have mechanisms in place to support teachers to develop oep? 1 there are currently four models developed and available for four target groups: organisational leaders, policy makers, professionals, and students. all can be downloaded at www.oer-quality.org http://creativecommons.org/ http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloudscape/view/2085 http://www.oer-quality.org/ ehlers, u.-d. 8 these dimensions can be used for the analysis and facilitation of open educational practices on the different target group levels. all dimensions are mapped in a maturity model with indicators to help individuals, educational professionals, organisational leaders, and policy makers to address important issues within their contexts to move open educational practise to the next maturity level. conclusion open educational resources projects can potentially expand access to learning for everyone, but most of all for non-traditional groups of students—and thus widen participation in higher education. they can be an efficient way of promoting lifelong learning, for both individuals and governments, and can bridge the gap between informal and formal learning. in this paper we have illustrated that the current movement of oer is on the verge of shifting focus from making resources available to establishing oep to promote openness of learning architectures and transforming learning scenarios. the shift is characterised by a change of activities, an effective concept for incentives to innovate learning in (and of) organisations, demand for changed business models, and public funding schemes. it is now clear: ―giving knowledge for free‖ (oecd, 2007) will have to be accompanied by changed learning models to encourage the uptake of open educational practices. we suggest a pathway to oep that brings together the concept of open learning architectures and oer. both elements can be gradually introduced to teaching and learning. in a second conceptual approach we have modelled a tool to measure the diffusion of oep in a given learning context. this is conceptualised as a combination of individual commitment to oep and—on the other axis—the collective commitment to oep. finally, through research and analysis of more than 65 case studies, we were able to deduce a number of dimensions to model oep in educational contexts. for each dimension we developed a maturity indicator to allow organisations, educational professionals, and learners to assess their own learning context and position themselves on the maturity scale of oep. references astd and masie center. 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(1983). diffusion of innovations. new york: free press. http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/5/47/37351085.pdf http://www.surffoundation.nl/sitecollectiondocuments/report_surfcc_reuse%20of%20material_eng_def.doc http://www.surffoundation.nl/sitecollectiondocuments/report_surfcc_reuse%20of%20material_eng_def.doc http://oro.open.ac.uk/17513 http://ie-repository.jisc.ac.uk/265/1/goodintentionspublic.pdf http://www.caledonianacademy.net/spaces/oer/index.php?n=main.pilotprogrammesynthesisandevaluationreport http://www.caledonianacademy.net/spaces/oer/index.php?n=main.pilotprogrammesynthesisandevaluationreport http://www.elearning.ac.uk/resources/modelsdeskreview/ http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2008/nsf08204/nsf08204.pdf http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/35/7/38654317.pdf http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/melbourne08/procs/index.htm ehlers, u.-d. 10 stacey, p. (2010). foundation funded oer vs. tax payer funded oer—a tale of two mandates. universitat oberta de catalunya, open ed conference 2010 proceedings. retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10609/5241 unesco. (2002). forum on the impact of open courseware for higher education in developing countries. retrieved april 21, 2010 from http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.phpurl_id=5303&url_do=do_topic&url_section=201.html windle, r. j., wharrad, h., mccormick, d., laverty, h., taylor, m. (2010). sharing and reuse in oer: experiences gained from open reusable learning objects in health. journal of interactive media in education. retrieved from http://jime.open.ac.uk/2010/04 wood, h., & wood. (1999). help seeking, learning and contingent tutoring. computers & education 33, 153–169. biographical notes ulf-daniel ehlers ehlers@dhbw.de dr. ulf-daniel ehlers is an internationally recognised researcher and innovator in the area of e-learning. he has extensive experience in helping individuals to achieve superior learning performances and has run lighthouse initiatives in the field of e-learning and knowledge management as well as ebusiness, including knowledge-technology consulting for small and medium-sized enterprises. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. ehlers, u.-d. (2011). extending the territory: from open educational resources to open educational practices. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 15(2), [1–10]. http://hdl.handle.net/10609/5241 http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-url_id=5303&url_do=do_topic&url_section=201.html http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-url_id=5303&url_do=do_topic&url_section=201.html http://jime.open.ac.uk/2010/04 mailto:ehlers@dhbw.de http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ winds of change and paradigm shifts: correspondence, distance and open learning introduction hardly a month goes by without someone writing an article in the international media, such as the times higher education supplement or campus review, about information technology and open learning or how the character of tertiary teaching is changing. articles are usually written under the headings of distance, flexible or open learning. for example, taylor, lopez and quadrelli (1996) recognise the great uncertainty surrounding the use of terms in this debate. daniel (1996), discusses the essentials of distance education from the perspective of the open university of the united kingdom. he refers to the pauline letters of the new testament as an early form of correspondence education. the idea of correspondence education as a basis for a new way of thinking about education also forms the basis for postle and higgins's (1992,1994) work in this area. the school/university developing an understanding of the debate about flexible and open learning is important in the context of change in education generally and particularly in higher education because it is a matter of paradigms. the classic paradigm of service delivery in education requires that a number of students of similar ages or interests be brought together in one place under the pedagogical supervision of a knowledgable person, the teacher. this school, campus and classroom model remains strong and ubiquitous today. at its heart is a belief that learning occurs almost exclusively under andrew higgins higher education development centre university of otago these conditions. there are hundreds of thousands of schools and universities around the world relying on this paradigm. the underlying assumptions are: .. • students have similar needs and should progress in learning at similar rates; • teachers control the pace of learning through a developmental curriculum; • buildings, books and other resources are most efficiently located at the place where the teachers work. when administrators faced the prospect of creating school systems in countries "colonised" by western nations (north america, australia, canada, new zealand, for example) they adopted the only paradigm available to them. governments allocated funds for school buildings, trained and hired teachers and made laws to ensure young children attended school. in this way, they thought education could proceed in an orderly, cost efficient and effective manner. for example, the education acts of 1870 (queensland) and 1877 (new zealand) introduced "free, secular and compulsory" education. this paradigm did not account for the remote and the isolated students who existed in insufficient numbers to gather together to form even a small school. nor could teachers be hired economically to work in these small and remote places. randall macdonnell, an inspectofuf schools, wrote in the report to the journal of distance leaming, vol4, no 1, 1998 ©distance education association of new zealand 23 board of general education queensland, 1869: there are cases where the settlers are too few, too far apart or too recently established in their new homes to be able to comply with the regulation in regard to average attendance (at school) or the contribution to the cost of the school building. in such places the people sometimes contrive, by their united labour, to erect a rough structure ... and if they succeed in obtaining the services of a person moderately competent an instructor, the board may recognise the school provisionally, and grant a small stipend to the teacher, "till the time comes when the residents are in a position to contribute the quota of funding a permanent vested school (p. 8). teaching in the school was therefore synchronous in time, dependent on place and governed in pace by the teacher. similar circumstances existed in the remote parts of new zealand. correspondence the education systems designed for students even more remote than these followed a different model. daniel (1996) alluded to correspondence as a mode of instruction in the early christian church. the london corresponding society provided a model closer in time to colonial administrators. founded in the 1790's, the society used the early mail system to spread knowledge about philosophical models emerging from the writings of tom paine. however, despite the existence of the correspondence alternative, colonial administrators in australia and new zealand attempted to construct a system of itinerant teachers to visit the remote families. (see higgins (1981), for a history of the change from itinerant teaching to modern technologies.) the itinerant system failed for a number of reasons, not least of which was its inefficiency. the teachers took too long to travel the great distances between remote stations. consequently, students saw teachers only once or twice a year. the queensland government sought other models for delivering education. a.h. barlow, the queensland minister for public instruction (queensland pa.rliamentary papers, 1922) described a newly established correspondence system thus: so that educational assistance may reach parents whose children are situated at a distance from permanent country schools and away from the tracks followed by itinerant teachers, typed copies of instructions, directions, explanations and illustrations, forming a series of lessons upon the most important subjects included in the primary school curriculum, are posted each week from the primary correspondence school in brisbane ... the work of each class is divided into weekly portions so as to cover a half year 's work in twenty (20) lessons. typed copies of weekly lessons carefully graded are transmitted with accompanying directions, some intended for the guidance of parents. written lessons when finished are returned to the school for correction, comments and further advice. the marked lessons are then returned to the home from which they have been received. thus, there are three sets of work in circulation at one time one on the way to the pupil, one at home in the process of study and one returning for corrections ... the work is so well systematised and explanations so explicit, that except in the case of totally illiterate adult coadjudicators the pupil's progress may be assured. the correspondence system might be described as a print based asynchronous education model. it is the base from which open and flexible learning began. students study in their own time, in their own place and generally, within curriculum constraints, journal of distance learning, vol4, no 1, 1998 ©distan ce education association of new zealan d 24 at their own pace. similarly in new zealand, the correspondence school commenced operation in 1922 serving children in isolated areas (dakin, 1973). distance education the corres­ pondence model prevailed as a non­ traditional delivery modes in australia and new zealand despite two significant technological innovations in communications. these were the introduction of broadcast radio and television. radio broadcasters did not involve themselves directly in the education of children or adults. instead this medium provided programmes of an educative nature and also added a measure of cultural cohesion to the nation. likewise, television broadcasts did not engage directly in teaching until the late 1980s. in 1964, schools of the air commenced work at royal flying doctor service bases (rfds) in queensland. teachers employed by the department of education taught classes of similar aged children who took correspondence lessons via high frequency (hf) radio. the transceivers operated from the rfds bases and used similar frequencies. radio lessons did not usually relate directly to the correspondence lessons because children did not progress at the same rate, or necessarily, at the same time. instead, the hf radio medium functioned as a place where students could hear each other in lessons and where teachers could assess student progress. notably, the schools of the air operated in major towns to which parents travelled more frequently than they did to distant brisbane, the site of the correspondence school. closer location encouraged building relationships between the students and teachers in schools of the air. the central location of the correspondence school of new zealand in wellington paralleled the brisbane location. in queensland, students of the corres­ pondence school tended to be children of the owners and managers of the large remote stations and properties. few aboriginal children attended the correspondence school. the children of rural workers mostly attended small primary schools in towns where they lived. young and inexperienced teachers staffed these schools but there was little or no cross-over between the correspondence materials and the schools, even though both used the s.ame curriculum. the corresp ondence model underwent further change with the establishment of the secondary correspondence school. this institution catered for a more diverse range of students than the primary correspondence school (wallace, 1989) and included: • distance (remote) students (including many adult students taking secondary subjects); • ov�seas students; • travelling families; • students in hospitals under medical supervision; • approved students (often people in prisons); • students whose parents had permission to teach (or have them taught) at home. by the 1970 s, the new zealand corres­ pondence school had adopted a similar delivery pattern (tate, 1994). it catered for primary aged students and both full and part­ time secondary aged students who attended small rural high schools. it also used radio broadcasts, and the telephone as well as the mail system for communications (dakin, 1973). w hile the queensland primary school correspondence model remained very much unchanged in its approach to service delivery from the 1920s until the advent of the hf radio, the secondary corresponde nc� system substantially expanded the student base on which it operated. two and a half thousand adults made up more than half the enrolment by 1988. combined enrolments of the primary and secondary correspondence schools exceeded 5000 students by the late 1980s. the hf radio lessons were synchronous for journal of distance learning, vol4, no 1, 1998 ©distance education association of new zealan d 25 students. otherwise, the flexibility of time, place and pace continued to operate and students succeeded in learning outside the standard paradigm for educational delivery. an industrial model characterised the production of largely print based learning materials aimed at both primary and secondary correspondence students. technology, except for the hf system, played little part in service delivery. the secondary correspondence school demonstrated that a more flexible method succeeded for a wide and diverse audience. this fundamentally changed the correspondence model into a distance learning model and paved the way for the open learning model of educational service delivery in the large school sector. open/flexible learning there were several trials being conducted on educational delivery in queensland in the mid to late 1980s. a satellite-based system demonstrated that with the establishment of a television studio and a full time production staff, it was possible to conduct synchronous, live interactive teaching over long distances with remote rural students, just as in a classroom. the cost of the trial, including the building of a studio was high, in the millions of dollars. the greatest concern lay with the very high and unsustainable communications costs for the small number of families involved. this trial proved that communications technology could be used to simulate a classroom teaching situation. whether or not this was an effective teaching model was another question. the queensland education department's technology support unit began a small trial of emerging email technologies in 1987, using the rural secondary school support scheme as its teaching base (wallace, 1989). the trial showed email could be used only for text, whereas most students needed to send drawing and diagrams as well as text. the trial's outcome led instead to the use of facsimile machines and telephones for interactive teaching on a large scale across 14 schools and almost 200 students. this system worked because students, while working under supervision at schools, could proceed at their own pace using print materials, and were also able to discuss issues with teachers and other students on the telephone and use the fax to transmit essays. teachers used the telephone to cla.rify misunderstandings and the fax to give instant feedback to students on their work. apart from quick feedback between teacher and student, one significant educational benefit arising from this way of teaching involved negotiating the "papers". normal correspondence school practice assumed the papers (printed instructional materials) were inviolable. teachers and students progressed through the learning materials in the order presented. neeither party contested the content because it had been drawn from the approved syllabus. when teachers and students spoke directly to one another about the "papers", both parties recognised that changes could be made to the content and approach without risking the students' learning. teaching and learning became more personalised. the next major change in the distance model arose when the education department examined the primary correspondence school "papers" and discovered that many of them had not been seriously revised since the mid1960s. this review originated from the report of the ministerial advisory committee on distance education (1986). the revision involved establishing teams of teachers to write and renew learning materials for primary aged children. the model for revision grew out of the commercial publishing approach adopted by the teachers rewriting the secondary correspondence materials. each learning package consisted of: " print materials " audio tapes "' video tapes " activity books " assignment books " a range of commercial resources. journal of distance learning, vol4, no 1, 1998 ©distan ce education association of new zealan d 26 all these were supplemented by activity days and mini camps. each package had to be capable of delivery to the newly established schools of distance education, located in rural towns in remote areas. previously, the "papers" were delivered to the families of students at home. the idea behind the change arose from a restructure of the schools of the air. a contemporaneous review of the schools of the air concluded that teaching work with children on air bore little relationship to content and sequence of the "papers". the resultant restructure created the schools of distance education in regions and made teachers in those schools responsible for direct teaching of children in the catchment area for the school. the primary correspondence school retained responsibility only for children in the south-east comer of the state but the secondary correspondence school retained its wider role because of its more specialised teaching. the education department recognised the high cost of redeveloping the learning packages for correspondence students. these packages became available to teachers in small schools throughout the state on request to assist them with teaching multi grade classrooms. this decision was made to justify the high front end development costs. simultaneously, the learning materials prepared for secondary school students became available to any state or non-state school that needed materials to teach a subject. as a result, the distance education model now extended to any school in the state. for a review of these developments see chick in distance education materials and thei r use, a queensland govemment report of november 1996. however, this action was not universally acclaimed and drew complaints from some parents of isolated students who believed that "papers" should only be for isolated students. these developments demonstrated that any subject can be taught in any school either asynchronously or synchronously using face to face teaching, hf radio, telephones, email, fax machines, the print and mail system or any combination of the above. students attend schools and can study subjects whether or not they are part of the school's curriculum. students also study away from school at any age level from preschool to senior secondary and progress at a rate suited to themselves, but within curriculum or assessment guidelines. by combining the correspondence method of teaching with the strategies of distance education and applying both to the whole school population (about 450,000 students), the education department, perhaps inadvertently, created the elements of an open or flexible learning approach to teaching and learning for its students. implications the standard paradigm of educational service delivery still stands. those who believe that it is the only successful way of teaching and learning must answer the challenge presented to them by the flexible model. the queensland experience and the teaching and learning activities of institutions like the open university in the united kingdom, massey university in n ew zealand and the indira gandhi university in india, show that students also learn successfully when they are not sitting in one place in front of a teacher at an institution at the same time. while some might argue against this method of teaching, they overlook the origins of this approach, correspondence education, where students have learned successfully for over one hundred years in remote parts of australia and new zealand, sometimes with little parental help. thomas kuhn (1970 ) in the s tructure of scientific revolutions points out that there are paradigms within which discourse can occur and that paradigms have status prior to shared rules a nd assumptions. he wr ites of journal o f distance learning, vol 4 , n o 1 , 1998 © distan ce education association o f new zealan d 27 fundamental novelties of fact and theory. produced inadvertently by a game played under one set of rules, their assimilation requires the elaboration of another set . . . discovery commences with the awareness of an anomaly i. e. with the recognition that nature has somehow violated the paradigm induced expectations that govern normal science. it then continues with a more or less extended exploration of the area of anomaly and it closes only when the paradigm theory has been adjusted so that the anomalous has become the expected. (pp. 52-3). so it is with teaching and learning. while some might argue that "good" education supposedly only occurs when people of similar ages and interests (students) are brought together in one place (a school or campus) for the purposes of instruction by a knowledgable adult (a teacher), students have continued to learn successfully in the absence of others, away frorri. a school and without direct contact with a teacher as models of distance education and open learning have shown. open or flexible learning is a direct challenge to the paradigm of education as service delivery in the facetoface mode where teaching and learning takes place. if learning materials and teaching strategies can be produced, as they now are, and delivered to students of almost any age wherever they might be located, either singly or in groups and without a teacher present and achieve good learning outcomes, then the dominant paradigm is gflpable of being challenged. is this paradigm shift a theoretical construct or are there sufficient instances involving large table 1. distance teaching mega universities name china tv university (1) centre national d'enseignement a distance (1) indira gandhi national university (2) universitas terbuka(2) payame noor university (3) korea national open university (2) university of south africa (2) universidad nacional de education a distancia (2) sukothai thammathirat open university (2) anadolu university (2) united kingdom open university (2) total notes (1) 1994 figures (2) 1995 figures (3) 1996 figures (source: daniel, 1996). students in degree programs 530,000 184,614 242,000 353,000 117,000 210,578 130,000 110,000 216,800 577,804 157,450 2,829,246 journal of distance learning, vol4, no 1, 1998 ©distan ce education association of new zealan d 28 annual intake 77,000 184,614 91,000 110,000 34,950 100,000 60,000 31,000 103,130 106,785 50,000 948,479 enough numbers of students to indicate the shift is real and possible? daniel (1996) lists a number of mega universities where distance teaching is the !primary activity. see table 1. it would appear that, although enrolments of almost three million students in tertiary distance education with an annual enrolment uptake of almost one million is not large in terms of all students enrolled in schools around the world, there are enough to suggest that distance and open or flexible learning are realistic alternatives to the standard learning paradigm in the tertiary and schooling sectors. flexible learning, through various delivery methods, has the potential to allow learning to occur more effectively by: • increasing opportunities for larger numbers of students to have access to and participate in education; • providing learners with a greater number of choices of programmes and teaching methods; • removing barriers to learning; • improving the effectiveness and productivity of learning. being a student centred approach, this method of learning gives students the flexibility to largely choose what, when, where and how they want to learn. it uses a range of delivery methods (selfpaced, resource based, technology enhanced) and delivery venues (campus, school, workplace, home) which can be combined in different way s to meet the needs of learners. this represents the possibility of a significant paradigm shift. it will be interesting to see how education providers at all levels and in many countries meet the challenge of incorporating open and flexible learning into their educational services and how this will change the standard paradigm of education. references chick, j. (1996). distance education materials and t heir use. queensland government. brisbane. dakin, j.c. (1973). education in new zealand. auckland: leonard fullerton. danie l, j.s. (1996). mega-unive r s ities and knowledge media. london: kogan page. postle, g. and higgins, a.h. (1994). open learning, curriculum development and the open access support centre in queensland. in open schooling: sel e c t e d experiences. commonwealth of learning. vancouver. higgins, a.h. (1981). distance education; from horseback to satellite. in proceedings of the australia and new zealand history of education society. brisbane. higgins, a.h. & p ostle, g. (1992). from distance e d u c ation to open learning in queensland. in c. boylan (ed) rural education: in pt,rsuit of excellence. spera. university of new england. armidale. kuhn, t.s. (1970). t he st ructure of scientific revolutions.chicago: university of chicago press. tate, 0. (1994). the new zealand correspondence school: the invisible school. open schooling. selected experiences. vancouver: commonwealth of learning. taylor, p. j, lopez, & l. quadrelli, c. (1996). flexibility, technology and academics' practices: tantalising tales and muddy maps. deet ya. canberra. wallace, lb. (1989). rural secondary schools support scheme. secondary correspondence school. queensland government. brisbane. andrew higgins is head of the flexible learning section in the higher education development centre at the university of otago. ]ottrnal of distance leaming, vol4, no 1, 1998 ©distan ce education association of new zealand 29 recent impacts of copyright law upon distance education sue french department of accountancy and business law massey university at p almerston north this paper scrutinises certain p r actical requirements o f contemporary distance education courses and attempts to reconcile the same with the provisions of the copyright act 1994 (the act). an earlier paper contains an analysis of the overt shortcomings of the act from the perspective of the distance educator and also provides useful background material for readers who are unfamiliar with copyright law (french, 1997). the aim of this paper is to consider the less immediately obvious impacts of the act upon distance education, as well as more recent developments in general. separate divisions of the paper cover such diverse issues as the influence of the act upon, respectively, the creation of a traditional written study guide, the multi-copying of excerpts of literary works, the use of hypertext links in web teaching courses, and the importation of foreign educational materials. moral rights and the crea t i o n of a distanc e education study guide part iv of the act provides for the protection of the moral rights of the creators of copyright literary, dramatic, musical, or artistic works, and the directors of copyright films. moral rights are rights which exist in addition to the traditional copyright in an original work. they were introduced into new zealand law in 1995 in order to comply fully with international copyright agreements, in particular the berne convention. unlike copyright, which is fundamentally an economic right and is commonly assigned to the publisher of a work, moral rights are personal to the creator of a work and cannot be assigned to anyone else. the act contains four types of moral rights, two of which are particularly relevant to lecturers and teachers creating study guides. they are: • the right to be identified as author or director (ss 94 97); • the right to object to derogatory treatment of a work (ss 98 101); it will be important both for promotion prospects within employment and also for obtaining further employment that an original creator is, first, able to establish his or her authorship of study guides created in former positions, and secondly, that the original creator can be confident that his or her study guides have not been subjected to derogatory treatment. in order to be enforceable, the right to be identified as the author or director must first be positively asserted by the creator of a copyright work. such an assertion must be in writing. for practical purposes, the ideal method of asserting moral rights is within a statement printed near to the traditional copyright notice. examples of such assertions may be readily observed within literary works published in the united kingdom since the coming into force of the copyright, designs and patents act 1988 (the legislation which introduced the concept of moral rights to united kingdom law). section 21 of the act provides that, subject to journal of distance learning, vol 4, no 1, 1998 © distance education association of new zealand any agreement to the contrary, an employer will be the first owner of any copyright in a work made by an employee in the course of his or her employment. thus, unless stated to be otherwise by an educational institution's own intellectual property policy statement, an educational institution will be the first owner of the copyright in a study guide created by a member of its staff (although there are certain arguments against the automatic vesting of ownership of academic works in a creator's employer, see monotti, 1994). however, provided that the creator has asserted their moral right to be identified (see s 97(6)(a)), the moral right to be identified in relation to the study guide remains with its creator. because teaching materials are inextricably linked with professional reputation, career advancement, and status, the creator of a study guide should consider it essential to assert their moral right of identification, regardless of whether or not the copyright in the study guide may have automatically vested in the employer by virtue of s 21 of the act. the practical effect of an assertion of ownership of moral rights in a study guide is that the employer educational institution would be thereby prevented from re-using a particular study guide without identifying the original creator of that study guide. this becomes particularly important when, for example, the creator leaves an educational institution and their teaching course is taken over by a new employee. however a significant exception to the right to be identified is contained in s 97(6). section 97(6) provides that where copyright in a w o r k vested first in the creator's employer under s 21 (discussed supra), then the right to be identified does not apply to any act done by or with the licence of the copyright owner if the author or director cannot readily be identified, or, if more than two persons were involved in the creation of the work, it is impracticable to identify their respective contributions to the work, and the authors have not previously been identified in or on published copies of the work. this provision may operate to prevent the protection of the right to be identified attaching to study guides which have been produced by a team of writers. the right to obje�t to derogatory treatment of a copyright work is also known as the "right of integrity". this right is conferred automatically upon the author or director of a copyright literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work, or film, and does not have to be asserted. "treatment" is defined in s 98(1) as " . . . any addition to, deletion from, alteration to, or adaptation of the work. .. ". the treatment of a work is" derogatory" if "whether by distortion or mutilation of the work or otherwise, the treatment is prejudicial to the honour or reputation ohhe author or director". the practical effect for teaching staff of the right to integrity is to prevent an educational institution undertaking the unauthorised modification or repackaging of study materials which is prejudicial to the reputation of the author. without such protection, it is possible that the original creator could find their material " . . distorted to the point where they believe it is prejudicial to their professional reputation" (wells, 1994 p.24). for example, the use by an educational institution of materials prepared for one particular group of students may not, in the creator's opinion, be appropriate for a different ethnic group of students. the creator's right of integrity defends his or her right to prevent any such unauthorised use as being prejudicial to his or her professional reputation. unfortunately, however, the usefulness of the foregoing provision is diluted by an exception which is contained in s 100. section 100 (8),(9) provides that where copyright in a work vested first in the creator's employer under s 21 (discussed supra), then the right of integrity of the author is not infringed by any act done by the employer in relation to a work, provided that " . . . a clear and reasonably prominent indication is given . . . ", with the identification ofthe author, that the work has journal of distance learning, vol 4, no 1, 1998 © distance education association of new zealand been subjected to treatment to which the author has not consented. the right of an author to object to derogatory treatment of their teaching materials therefore hinges on the crucial question of whether the teacher as author, or alternatively the educational institution as employer, owns the copyright in the teaching materials (see monotti, 1994). litera r y compilation s for distance students the creation of compilations of literary extracts for students has become a widely accepted and increasingly popular means of supplementing a study guide in most subject areas. the process is not confined to distance teaching but, arguably, it is an essential part of teaching for distance students, while remaining merely a desirable adjunct to internal teaching. the reason for this assertion is that internal students have ready access to the educational institution's library and the act confers upon them the ability to make their own copies of literary works as recommended by their lecturer or teacher, for the purpose of research or private study. such copying is called 'fair dealing' (s 43). the production of literary compilations for internal students is, therefore, purely for reasons of convenience and to avoid pressure on library facilities. however the distance student is generally unable to attend the library in person and is accordingly unable to make use of the fair dealing concession (french, 1997). section 44 of the act allows multiple copying for educational purposes of literary, dramatic, or musical works of no more than the greater of 3% or 3 pages of a work if 3 pages would in fact comprise the entire work, then the act allows the copying of no more than 5 0% of the entire work. furthermore there are stringent and impracticable conditions attached to such copying (s 44(6)). therefore, in order to produce literary compilations of any real pedagogical benefit to students, either permission must be sought from the individual copyright owners, or (as is already the situation with the universities and many other educational institutions), a reprographic licensing arrangement must be entered into with a body which is representative of all copyright owners and which has reciprocal arr angements with overseas copyright licensing bodies. an instructive comparison may be made between the educational copying provisions of the copyright, designs and patents act 1988 (the uk act), the copyright act 1978 (the us act) and the act. it is unfortunate that the fair dealing provision and the multiple copying provision of the act draw upon both the uk act and the us act and would seem to have absorbed the most disadvantageous features of both, at least so far as new zealand's distance education institutions are concerned. the fair dealing provision of the uk act (s 29), allows the making of a single copy of a work and permits that copying to be carried out by a person acting on behalf of the student. to a certain extent this alleviates the difficulties of the distance student in the uk. however, the section contains a proviso that the quantity of copying by an agent must be restricted to no more than "a reasonable proportion" of a published edition (ss 29 (3)(a), 38). furthermore, the provision (s 29(3)(b)) that such copying is not fair dealing if " ... the person doing the copying knows or has reason to believe that it w i l l result in copies of substantially the same material being provided to more than one person at substantially the same time and for substantially the same purpose", would seem to mitigate against the fair dealing provision being utilised as a substitute for supplying a ready-made literary compilation on the scale which would be necessary for a class of distance students. in contrast to the tendency towards protecting the interest of the copyright owners over the interests of the copyright users which is demonstrated in both the united kingdom and new zealand legislatures, the united states congress has always been concerned to uphold what it considers to be "the true ]oumal of distance learning, vol4, no 1, 1998 © distance education association of new zealand pu,rpose of copyright law". that is the societal interest of stimulating the production of original works for the benefit of the whole nation (copyright !clause, united states constitution). "the essence of copyright is the promotion of learning not the enrichment of publishers" (twentieth century music corp. v. aiken, 1975). thus, unlike s 43 of the act, s 107 of the us act provides specifically that fair use includes reproduction for purposes such as" ... teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use) ... ". however, in stating four determinative factors to be considered when deciding if any particular use of a copyright work is fair dealing, s 107 of the us act is actually very similar to s 43 of the act. the four factors contained in s 107 are as follows: 1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; 2. the nature of the copyrighted work; 3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and 4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. (cf s 43 (3) of the act). a body of caselaw has evolved in the united states concerning the question of what is or is not fair use, a recent decision being that of the united states court of appeals in princeton university press v michigan document service, (1996). although the decision is not binding upon the new zealand court, the similarity between the respective fair use provisions contained in the two acts invites judicial respect for the united states court and in particular for the learned judges' discussions concerning the "fair use v copyright licensing" dilemma. the matter under consideration by the court in princeton university press v michigan document service was whether the multiple copying of "substantial segments" of copyrighted works by a commercial copyshop (michigan), (albeit acting on the instructions of teaching staff at the university of michigan), and the preparation o f compilations for sale onward to university students, at a price which was lower than that which the teaching staff would have been able to produce the same compilations, could be fair use under s 107 of the us act. if such copying was fp.ir use then it was of n o significance either that michigan d i d not obtain permission from the copyright owners to make such compilations, nor that michigan did not pay any licensing fee or royalties to the appropriate copyright licensing bodies. although a majority of the court held that michigan's copying of the copyright materials was commercial exploitation and did not constitute fair use, five of the learned judges voiced dissenting opinions. it was common ground that i{ the teaching staff had produced the compilations within the university and sold them to the students at cost price, this would have amounted to fair use under s 107, despite the fact that the cost of the compilations so produced would have been greater than the cost of those produced by michigan. circuit judge merritt delivered one of the dissenting opinions. observing that the teaching staff had each testified that, had it not been possible to copy the various extracts, they would have omitted the works altogether instead of requiring the students to purchase the entire works, and emphasising his belief that the copying by michigan came squarely within the s 107 provision, his honour stated: it is also wrong to measure the amount of economic harm to the publishers by loss of a presumed licence fee a criterion that assumes that the publishers have the right to collect such fees in all cases where the user copies any portion of published works. because copyright law is effectively international in scope by virtue of various international treaties and conventions, the fair use provision contained in the us act will permit educational institutions in the united states to make multiple copies of new zealand copyrighted works for classroom use. ]ourrzal of distance learrzirzg, vol4, no 1 , 1998 © distance education association o f new zealand 6 i i conversely, in new zealand, as stated previously, the act will not permit multiple copying of works to be fair dealingunder any circumstances. h is difficult to rationalise a situation of such inequity. indeed, it is apparent that the impetus of the act, which is to effectively compel the distance teaching establishments to enter into expensive licensing arrangements for the production of literary compilations may not be well­ founded. a more considered approach to the true purpose of copyright law and the historical basis of fair dealing might have provided new zealand's distance education bodies with a more equitable law. the use of hypertext links in web teaching as a teaching medium for distance students the world wide web (the web) appears to offer many advantages over a traditional paper based course. the web is often likened to "an information superhighway". the benefits to students of utilising such a source of information are incalculable. in order to make full use of the almost unlimited educational potential offered by the web as a teaching resource, references to different areas of the web may be made within study material offered on a particular web page. such references are known as hypertext links. an individual hypertext link acts as a reference, enabling the user to access another location within the same web site or, perhaps, to a particular area within another site on the web altogether. although this process is commonplace to regular users of the web, and although " ... the legality of linking has not yet been addressed by any court, it has been at the centre of legal and policy debates around the world ... " (stangret, 1997 p.202). in particular, for educational institutions the issue turns upon whether the inclusion of hypertext links to other web sites within academic or teaching-text web sites on the internet, is permissible as being the equivalent of, say, a footnoted reference to another text within traditional published texts, or alternatively, it has been argued that any such hypertext link, by effectively allowing the incorporation of another author's original work within the first work, thereby constitutes an infringement of copyright. the recent interim decision in the shetland times ltd\\ wills and another (1977) raises a further significant issue for educational institutions (french, 1998). this is the question of copyright in a hypertext reference itself, either as a literary work or as a cable programme. the facts of shetland were that the pursuer reproduced certain news items from its own published newspaper, the shetland times, on its web site. access to any particular news item was gained by clicking on the appropriate headline on the home page of the web site. the headlines thus comprised the hypertext links to individual pages of the web site. the defender was the managing director of a news reporting service, zetland news limited, (the second defender). zetland also provided a news reporting service from its own web site. on the home page of its web site, zetland included a number of headlines from the pursuer's home page. these headlines performed the function of hypertext links to the individual news items appearing on the pursuer's web site. users of zetland's web site were invited to click on the headlines and thereby obtain direct access to the news items appearing on the pursuer's web site. however, because the pursuer's home page was not accessed by zetland's users the pursuer's home page would lose much of its attraction for potential advertisers and would thereby sustain a loss of advertising revenue. the pursuer brought an action claiming that its headlines constituted a cable programme and that their inclusion by zetland in a cable programme service constituted primary infringement of copyright under s 20 of the uk act. in the alternative, the pursuer claimed that its headlines were literary works and that in storing the headlines by electronic means zetland was infringing copyright by "copying" as provided in s 17 of the uk act. it should be noted that the relevant sections and definitions contained in the uk act are journal of distance learning, vol 4, no 1, 1998 © distance education association of new zealand 7 very similar or identical to the equivalent sections contained in the act. it is evident that many academic web sites would satisfy the shetland test of cabl¢ programme service, the primary function of an academic web site being, in general, to send information. this part of a web site could be said to comprise ... "a severable part of the cable programme service. " furthermore, the question now arises as to whether any hypertext link is capable of being an "original literary work" within the meaning accepted by copyright legislation so as to thereby be afforded protection. if the particular hypertext link consists of a headline or a title then lord hamilton affirmed that it could indeed be such. if the hypertext link consists (as is more usual) of a coded "address" or sequence of information, then the position is more tenuous. the court in d. p.anderson & co ltd v the lieber code company ([1917] 2 kb 469) found that a code which was made-up for the purpose of telegraphy was an original literary work and capable of protection. however the requirements of "sufficient skill, labour and judgment in its creation" (see independent television publications ltd v time out limited [1984] fsr 64), might prevent the more commonplace hypertext link from being considered to be worthy of copyright protection as an original literary work. because it raises several issues of importance to internet users, a full hearing of the shetland times case would have been welcomed. however, the parties settled before the date set down for the full hearing. in the absence, to date, of any clear court ruling on the legality of linking, creators of web teaching courses must be advised to adopt a cautious approach. the question of possible copyright infringement when downloading material from certain web sites is also pertinent (see harrison and frankel, 1996). current advice to would-be web teachers must be, therefore, to obtain prior permission from the creators of other web pages with which links are to be set up within a teaching course. the importation of foreign educ ation al materials the use of a reasonable proportion of foreign educational materials is inevitable in most new zealand teaching courses, both in internal and distance mode. indeed, a failure to utilise such materials within a country of such a small population might be considered academically unsound and parochial. with this premise in mind the implications for the educational institutions of the parallel importing ban contained in the act (ss 12, 35), will be considered. the rationale for imposing a ban on parallel importing is 1!o afford to the copyright owners an additional right of exploitation of their works. the existence of a ban on parallel importing within a country provides an economic incentive for a foreign copyright owner to license an official distributor of the copyright work within that country. however the overall effect of a parallel importing ban is to create a monopoly and it can therefore be seen as anti-competitive and detracting from a free market economy. the australian time-life decision (interstate parcel express co proprietary limited v time­ life international (nederlands) b. v. and another, 1977), illustrates the practical effect of a ban on parallel importing. in time-life an independent importer who obtained certain books from a wholesaler in the us and placed them on the australian market at approximately half the price of the same books as sold by the official distributor, was held to be in breach of the ban on parallel importing contained in the copyright act 1968 (cth). so far as new zealand educational institutions are concerned, the major impact of the parallel importing ban is apparent in the requirement of many educational courses for foreign textbooks, videos, sound recordings, and music scores. the existence of the present all­ inclusive parallel importing ban condones the journal of distance learning, vol4, no 1, 1998 © distance education association of new zealand 8 setting of unnecessarily high prices for imported educational resource materials (due to lack of competition), and fails to provide a practicable remedy in situations where: (a) the official distributor is inefficient and fails to order materials in sufficient quantities in time for a particular educational course, or (b) no official distributor has been appointed (remington arms company inc and sportsways distributors ltd v reloaders supplies ltd and r d dent, 1996). while there may indeed be valid arguments to justify the ban on parallel importing in the case of the commercial equivalents of these items, (for example investment by an official distributor in advertising, marketing, and back-up services), it is difficult to see any real justification for such a ban on the parallel importation of purely educational materials. arguments for removing the ban on parallel importing of educational resources include the following points: .. the education of a country's citizens is a "public good" and one of the dual aims of copyright legislation. • the official distributors of resource materials are often extremely inefficient ­ it can take some months to obtain certain music scores for instance. .. the official distributors of written educational materials are generally publishers, acting as agents for foreign publishers. unlike the book sellers, many of which are multi-national organizations, the publishers in new zealand tend to be relatively small-scale businesses with neither the marketing expertise and back­ up, nor any real incentive to keep prices down for the consumer. • educational resource materials are already widely advertised, both on the internet and through foreign advertising material posted as a matter of course to most universities. there is therefore no requirement for new zealand marketing. " educational resource material does not generally require a back-up or support service. it is understood that the new zealand institute for economic research is presently undertaking an investigation into the economic implications of the parallel importing ban. it is to be hoped that the serious implications for the educational institution"! will be perceived. it is further hoped that consideration be given to recommending the passing of amending legislation to create an exception to the parallel importing ban i n the case of educational institutions, such as already exists in the equivalent australian legislation (see the copyright act 1968 (cth)). since the date of writing this paper, the parallel importation provisions of the copyright act 1994 have been repealed. conclu sion although this paper is necessarily restricted to only a small selection of copyright issues which currently affect distance education in new zealand, it should be noted that there are many others. for example, the educational exceptions in the act applicable to performance rights, copyright in broadcasting, including in a cable programme, have yet to be considered, as has the question of copyright issues as they affect distance education courses which have been created in new zealand for sale to a foreign educational establishment. it is apparent that copyright issues will continue to be contentious and worthy of research for some time to come. references french, s. (1997). copyright and distance education in new zea l and: an u n e asy partnership. australia and new zealand journal of law and education 2 (n 69 88. french, s. (1998). the internet and intellectual property. new zealand law journal, pp. 41-42. harrison, c. and fr ankel, s. (1996). the internet: can intellectual property laws cope? new zealand intellectual property journal, 1 (3), p.60. monottt a. (1994). ownership of copyright in traditional literary works within universities 22 flr 22. princeton university press v michigan document services (1996). fed app. 0357p (6th cir.) journal of distance learning. vol4, no 1, 1998 © distance education association of new zealand interstate parcel express co proprietary limited v time­ life international (nederlands) b. v. and another (1977). 138 clr 534. remington a r m s con,1pany inc and sportsways distributors ltd v reloaders supplies ltd and r d dent (1996, unreported , 20 december). high court, auckland registry, cp 384/95. stangret, l. a. (1997). the legalities of linking on the world wide web. communications law, 2 (6), 202 215. the shetland times ltd v wills and another (1997). emlr 277. twentieth century music corp. v. aiken (1975). 422 u.s. 151, 156 wells , j. (1994, july). university staff and moral rights. copyright reporter 12 (1), 22-26. sue french is lecturer, department of accountancy and business law, massey university, private bag 11 222, palmerston north. email: s.f.french @massey.ac.nz journal of distance learning, vol 4, no 1, 1998 © distance education association of new zealand 10 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 127 i learnt a whole lot more than churning out an essay: using online tools to support critical collaborative inquiry in a blended learning environment elaine khoo, university of waikato e. marcia johnson, university of waikato anne zahra, university of waikato abstract this paper reports on a qualitative case study of a teacher and her students in a postgraduate tourism course in new zealand in which a learning management system, discussion forums, and wikis were used to facilitate student engagement and deeper learning of course content. although the teacher was experienced in face-to-face teaching contexts, she was a novice in the design and delivery of online learning. however, she believed that technology could foster deeper and more meaningful critical collaborative inquiry among course participants and was keen to explore how this could be facilitated. evaluative data were gathered from teacher interviews, student focus groups, and an online student survey. findings indicate that the use of different online tools was effective for engaging students and helped them develop critical insights into key course concepts. however, careful planning and reflection on different pedagogical approaches were needed so that student learning could be supported in meaningful and relevant ways. implications for supporting educators and students in blended, online learning in tourism education are offered. keywords: online learning; e-learning; blended learning; tourism education; inquiry learning; tertiary; wiki background the increasing use of online tools and social networking software such as blogs, wikis, and chats in tertiary education offers both educators and students opportunities for communication, collaboration, and active participation in learning and teaching (mcloughlin & lee, 2011). current developments in online tools and social software provide new ways for students to construct, represent, develop, and report on what they know and understand within their learning environments (dron, 2007). drawing on a rich range of resources in multimodal formats, students can manage their learning and express their deeply personalised understanding of concepts—using flexible and multiple formats—so that traditional concepts of space and time within the classroom have changed (conole, 2010). use of online tools and social networking software represents a pedagogical shift from a position where the teacher is the sole source of knowledge to one where understanding and authorship are collaboratively co-constructed by teacher–student or student–peer interactions (de freitas & khoo, e., johnson, e. m., zahra, a. 128 conole, 2010). new information and media literacies can be developed, creating “a set of cultural competencies and social skills that young people need in a new media landscape” (jenkins, clinton, purushotma, robison, & weigel, 2006, p. 4). in fact, numerous authors have argued persuasively that ubiquitous access to digital technologies has shaped a new ‘net’ generation of digital natives (oblinger, 2003; prensky, 2001; tapscott, 1999), with the corresponding assumption that access to digital tools has, on its own, facilitated the development of new learning skill sets (tapscott, 2009). thus educators often assume that students already possess the necessary computing skills and conceptual frameworks to become creators, rather than consumers, of information when they enter tertiary education (rosen & nelson, 2008). however, recent research indicates that many such assumptions about students’ digital proficiencies are unfounded, and that digital inequalities and marginalisation persist in relation to students’ access to, and use of, information and knowledge (bennett, maton, & kervin, 2008; kennedy, judd, churchward, gray, & krause, 2008). international studies have indicated that students cannot be viewed as a homogenous, computer-literate group (jones, ramanau, cross, & healing, 2010; thinyane, 2010; valtonen, dillon, hacklin, & väisänen, 2010). instead, there are signs that although the digital generation may be technologically competent, many still lack basic academic literacy skills needed for successful learning (kvavik, 2005). use of social networking software for recreational or entertainment purposes does not necessarily prepare students for academic study (aslanidou & menexes, 2008). learners are frequently unaware of how to apply technology effectively to enhance their learning (valtonen et al., 2011), or are unprepared or uninterested in learning online (valtonen, kukkonen, dillon, & väisänen, 2009). similarly for educators, the transformative potential of technology in tertiary teaching is not without its challenges. selwyn (2007) cautions against “simply importing informal web 2.0 applications into classrooms on the presumption of transforming formal education” (p. 7). there exists a critical need to examine how educators are preparing and equipping their learners with the necessary skills to function within technology-enhanced learning environments. there is an equally important need to research the nuances of teaching contexts within which students and teachers interact (johnson, cowie, & khoo, 2011; kumpulainen et al., 2009). the research project this paper reports on a qualitative case study of a tertiary teacher and her students in a new zealand postgraduate tourism course in which moodle, a learning management system (lms), and social software applications such as wikis and forums were used to enhance student engagement and facilitate deeper conceptual learning. recently, the tourism department underwent quality assurance accreditation with the united nations world tourism organisation (unwto) and, although overall feedback was positive, unwto remarked that there were few online teaching initiatives in the programme. as a result, there has been increasing pressure on staff to make better and more innovative use of web 2.0 teaching tools. the case study is part of a larger 2-year (2009–2010) teaching and learning research initiative project that investigated e-learning practices across a variety of disciplines at one university (johnson et al., 2011). the general research question that guided all of the cases was: “how are different lecturers/groups exploiting the potential of information and communication technologies/e-learning to support tertiary-level student learning?” as the specific aim of the case was to evaluate the extent to which online tools were useful for facilitating teaching and learning processes, the pedagogical implications of our findings are discussed in this paper rather than students’ academic achievement. the project received official human research ethics committee approval from the university of waikato and all participants volunteered. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 129 as in many disciplines, current research in tourism education recognises the significant role that the world wide web can play in collaborative knowledge formation (bailey & morais, 2005; schott & sutherland, 2009; sigala, 2002). in a web 2.0 environment, the teaching and learning of tourism content knowledge can be viewed as a process, an activity, and the development of a collaborative, student-centred learning environment (liburd & hjalager, 2010). liburd, hjalager, and christensen (2011) also found that teachers had to make fundamental pedagogical changes within a web 2.0 environment, and needed to function as role models and coaches for their students’ learning activities. in benckendorff’s (2009) exploratory study of tourism students’ attitudes towards collaborative assessment within a wiki environment, he found that the tool was easy to learn and use, and required scant ongoing support from academic staff. the teaching context tourism development and the environment is a postgraduate course offered by the department of tourism and hospitality management at the university of waikato. the course provides students with an overview of different issues such as sustainable management, planning, and the development of tourism as an industry. it is offered concurrently in both face-to-face (oncampus) and online (distance) modes. the case-study teacher was experienced in face-to-face settings, but was a novice in an online teaching environment. she had been recommended as a potential participant in the overall project based on her work with wikis in the 2009 offering of the course. the teacher believed that social networking software (such as forums, chats, or wikis) could encourage meaningful, critical, collaborative inquiry among course participants, and she had trialled the approach. it is worth noting that the students were predominantly international, and had differing levels of english language proficiency and academic and digital literacy skills when they enrolled in the course. in 2009 the teacher implemented a variety of online tools to support teaching and assessment practices in order to ascertain the extent to which the new teaching approach could enhance student engagement and promote deeper learning. feedback from the students and the teacher’s own reflections were then integrated into the course for 2010—the course was not redeveloped, but it was refined to acknowledge this feedback. there were no distance students in 2010, but there were both distance and face-to-face student groups in the 2009 version of the course. the course had been designed so that any group, whether studying in a face-to-face mode or fully online, could collaborate and interact as a unified cohort. findings from both years have been synthesised and insights are reported in this paper. online social software tools and course design there were two weekly reading and writing assignments during the course, both of which were coordinated through moodle. students were assigned weekly readings (academic research papers) and took turns to summarise, critique, and develop a question for others to answer. their writing was then posted in a moodle discussion forum. the second assignment required students to co-create definitions of key terms and post these to a moodle glossary. both assignments thus provided students with structures for reading academic research texts, and then writing, sharing, and collaboratively discussing their understanding to scaffold each other’s learning. both assignments were graded. as the course was offered concurrently in online and face-to-face modes, the teacher wanted to explore the use of the wiki tool within google sites to create a collaborative role-play project which could develop cohesion across the two groups. the project had four focuses, each representing aspects of a potential real-life $35 million tourism development project. khoo, e., johnson, e. m., zahra, a. 130 they were: 1. community consultation 2. māori consultation and involvement 3. marketing 4. sustainability issues. the teacher provided students with background information to the development and arranged for a class field trip to the potential site. each student group selected one of the four focuses, developed a wiki, and presented their insights to classmates and a representative from the (real) project’s key stakeholders. it was expected that the academic reading and writing skills students had developed in the summarisation and glossary exercises could be adapted to the new wiki project. use of the wiki was a departure from traditional forms of written assessment (essays) and presentations, as it required students to relate theory to practice, and then summarise, organise, and present information in meaningful ways. in addition, students could enrich their work with visual and audio resources or links to interesting websites. a moodle forum was also used to facilitate group discussion about the role-play projects, and moodle chat was available for students to coordinate their group work. see table 1 for a summary of the tools and the teaching goals supported. table 1 a summary of the online tools adopted in support of varying teaching goals in the course online tools used specific features of the online tools used purpose class structure moodle discussion forum for journal summaries for group discussions with the teacher and between students student pair work student group work whole class glossary for peer critique of key terminologies student pair work chat for coordination of group work student group work (3–4 students) wikis (google sites) to facilitate a collaborative case-based student project student group work (3–4 students) figure 1 is a screenshot of the organisational structure of the wiki project. it illustrates the four collaborative student groups and how each of them needed to build their project and link their contributions to the main wiki site. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 131 figure 1 the wiki used to facilitate a collaborative case-study role-play project the teacher received moodle support from the department’s technical team and curriculum design support (particularly for the wiki project) from university-level e-learning staff. research design a qualitative, interpretive methodology framed the collection and analysis of the data, which were gathered from teacher interviews, a weekly teacher reflective journal, student focus-group discussions, and an online survey about students’ e-learning attitudes, experience, and practices. consistent with qualitative research, a constant comparison approach to data analysis was adopted to identify emergent themes (lincoln & guba, 1985) from the interview and focus-group data. the 10 participants in this study represent a convenience sample of a teacher and her students in one university-level context. altogether, nine students responded to the online survey, and all students attended the focus-group discussion held towards the end of the course. although the findings cannot be generalised to a wider population, the text-based data are sufficiently detailed to inform similar tertiary teaching contexts, especially in tourism. findings also provide nuanced insights into digital equity issues and practices. findings a key finding from the online survey was that students’ attitudes toward the use of new technologies for learning were evenly divided between very positive and neutral or ambivalent (44 percent each) (see figure 2). khoo, e., johnson, e. m., zahra, a. 132 figure 2 student views toward adopting new technologies for learning purposes (n = 9 participants) student insights from the focus groups shed some light on their ambivalence, which appears to be based on a lack of experience in using technology for formal learning. although students were familiar with social networking tools such as blogs or chat, they had used them exclusively for personal or recreational uses. no one had used such tools within a formal academic learning environment, as described in the following representative student quote: [i had] initial difficulties with the technology, although i have been in chats (such as yahoo! chats, for example), but not all online forums are the same. yahoo! is different from moodle [for learning purposes]. international students are not exposed to online learning and discussions, so the technology is difficult to use initially. the teacher highlighted that international students taking the course faced challenges not only because of their diverse backgrounds, but also because they lacked the digital skills for academic work. she reports: international students have a far higher uptake, need to cope with a lot more things [in the course].they need to cope with the academic side (journal summaries, researching databases, all of them need to learn to use apa referencing)—new skills they have not experienced before—besides moving away from traditional forms of learning. and then there’s e-learning. even though students make use of social networking, so they are quite computer literate with email and social networking, some have never had to do word processing, as their previous universities in their countries did not expect them to submit typed assignments. several other key themes emerged from the qualitative interview data. both the teacher and students felt that using moodle and wikis had afforded them increased opportunities for collaboration in terms of learning outcomes, and had increased the authenticity of learning tasks, which had relevance for future employment. the new and challenging approaches to learning journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 133 and thinking, the use of formative feedback, and access to a shared repository of student work had all been positive features of the technology-enhanced teaching environment. collaboration: thinking, writing, and sharing work students liked being able to read each other’s writing and become familiar with a range of ideas: i liked moodle, as i can see everyone’s work. i can know what everyone is thinking, compared to traditional coursework, where you can’t. i like to see others’ opinions—[those] who may have more advanced opinions so i can learn and study more from them. another student appreciated learning from the exemplars available: i enjoyed using the moodle online discussion forum. the advantage is that as you are doing your work of posting, you get to read others’ work as well . . . [in doing so] you expand your knowledge, and you get to read others’ work and get a better idea for your next assignment. you get to read the person who got an a grade to see how he or she goes about formulating his/her work. you get to know the appropriate format, referencing, writing style, content, and can develop your own learning. further, using social software had created a living record (repository) of their academic work: the data and postings are permanently there [online]. we can access our peers’ postings, revisit them (all the topics posted in the summaries), and use them for our essay. we can take examples from different postings, including references, otherwise it would be too time consuming for us to search for and read through whole journal articles on our own. we can use our peers’ summaries in our own essay. this saves time in doing research and compiling our own assignment. enhanced learning processes and assessment students considered that learning was more interesting in the course, but the new software tools required new ways of learning and thinking. as a result, they believed they gained deeper insights into course content and acquired valuable technical skills: at the end of the course, the entire experience of posting online weekly in moodle, the glossary of terms, journal summaries, answering questions, searching for journals, then attending lecturers to share my experiences were good . . . also google sites—creating my own website was a good experience, which i’d never done before. i’ve learnt about the course content and website creation skills. i’d like [the lecturer] to include more electronic assignments, as these can support international students picking up another technical skill. another student stated: this [using wikis] made the learning process more interesting and fun, rather than normal essay-type submission, which is so boring. using technology promoted the learning. it made the study more interesting, although it was a new learning experience for most of us. in addition, through using the discussion forum and chat features in moodle, the teacher was able to provide much more immediate and formative feedback on student work: by using moodle and e-learning tools we could generate good discussions and encourage students to take ownership. otherwise, i’d be far away and only get to mark their essay at the end [of the course]. students also appreciated the immediate feedback on assignments and discussion postings: khoo, e., johnson, e. m., zahra, a. 134 her comments and feedback are quite immediate, so there was no need to wait until the end of class to hear from her. it worked out well for us to have the lecturer’s constant and immediate feedback. it was very good. another student stated: i liked the [online] discussions and chat. i always chat with [the teacher] and my classmates, asking questions instead of emailing. i can get the responses immediately. we would text each other beforehand for group projects to inform each other we are online to chat, to get around the difficulty of finding a suitable time to go online. authentic learning experiences students believed that the diverse learning opportunities afforded by moodle tasks and the wikis had authentic (real-world) application and relevance to their future careers: i also liked the fact the course didn’t merely required me to read journals, write up and submit a hard copy essay as in a traditional course. . . . in the course we got to go on a field trip, do the research, and create the website [wiki]. i feel it’s related to the present. [i get to] communicate with actual people in the field and then share with my classmates. [its] really world related. the teacher agreed that the learning experience was more authentic, as it enhanced student collaboration and interaction in the class: [it was a] fantastic way of learning, makes the learning real in an authentic learning project . . . [i have] observed how more engaged the students are this time round, how they come together as a group, how the tool has facilitated group work, how the group has interacted with another. it’s all brilliant! however, collaborative tasks and use of online and social networking tools had posed some challenges. these were particularly focused on time management, students’ expectations for technical support, development and provision of guidelines for group work and assessment, students’ concerns about privacy and plagiarism issues, and the need for adequate hands-on technical training and support for the teacher. challenges and constraints of the teaching approach 1. structure, documentation, and expectations students commented on the need for explicit guidance for online interactions and group work: we had to read through all the postings. it was a time constraint . . . we need more clear rules/ guidelines on how to interact in the forum instead of just post and answer. [also] students usually don’t read one another’s work after their assignment is submitted, so need to think of ways to encourage students to use this resource more. this concern was exacerbated when group members failed to post their contributions in a timely manner, or did not complete the work at all: it was frustrating when we can’t organise everyone’s time in the group. for example, to give a critique i’d have to wait for others’ to post [their journal summary first]. my own posting is delayed when i have to wait for others’ feedback. we lose marks if we post our replies late. the teacher acknowledged the need for more guidance with students’ online interactions and commented on their limited use of the online resources that were offered: journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 135 i found the students are focused on their own task for that week and not engaging before the class and reading the other students’ postings. i would like them to stop and think how to be more engaged in the weekly tasks. they are engaging with the subject matter, but not engaging with the breadth. but they might be overwhelmed by the breadth as well. this is a pedagogical issue rather than a tools issue. students also mentioned that a lack of guidelines for assessment of online work, especially the use of wikis, was problematic: [there was] no proper marking criteria on assessing the google sites project. [we] should have some guidelines to define [our] area of research. [it] would be helpful also if [the intended] audience is defined clearly as well. so [we] would like more guidelines to define our area more clearly. others expressed concern that the assessment would be affected by their (lack of) technical skills rather than their understanding of course content, although this was not the case: students who are good at using the technology can get better grades when they might not be good with the content, but the students who are good at content and not skilful technological-wise are penalised and get lower grades. 2. privacy and plagiarism in online learning some students were concerned about their privacy, specifically who had access to their online postings, but they also expressed concern that copying and pasting text (plagiarism) was a frequent problem in online environments: i liked the public versus private options in moodle discussions, but am concerned with who can read the discussions. i am uncertain how private my discussions with [the teacher] were, unsure who can read it even in the private portfolio. my concern is that my peers can take my writing/ information posted in moodle (example from the glossary) for their own assignment and then we’ll get charged with plagiarism. what about our intellectual property—for instance our juniors taking our ideas posted online and incorporating them in their own work? 3. lack of technical skills and support/lack of incentives and rewards a key challenge in the case study related to the need for students’ to be technically upskilled and supported. despite the teacher including additional technical support in the 2010 course, students still perceived that support to be inadequate: [it is best if we are given 5–7 days of training (a proper hands-on technical workshop built into the course in the middle of the course) on how to use technology . . . this is so we are not rushed into using the technology as well as trying to cover course content. as it was, the technical support person came and talked about what to do, but we forget after that, as there was no hands-on practice. the teacher admitted her own dependence on external technical support: i still have an element of insecurity, and tended to rely on [technical support] to support learning in google sites, an invaluable role in an e-learning environment. i prefer to use my time to focus on improving pedagogy rather than on learning the technicalities of how a tool works. finally, the teacher invested considerable time and personal effort to develop understanding and competence of online learning tools in her teaching practice. in spite of that, she noted that staff promotion practices at the university neither encouraged nor rewarded novice teacher experimentation with new learning pedagogies and software tools: khoo, e., johnson, e. m., zahra, a. 136 can you expect lecturers who don’t have much knowledge or confidence with e-learning to teach with technology? it’s a big risk when, more and more, promotions are based on teaching evaluations. can we expect staff to take risks when they are not very confident? you need to be confident to take risks. in our university environment, we need a more supportive and transparent culture to encourage new lecturers to take risks. discussion and implications the specific aim of this case study was to evaluate the extent to which online tools were useful for facilitating teaching and learning processes. the findings indicate that the use of such tools was effective for engaging students in new, interesting, and collaborative ways, and helped them to develop deeper understanding of course concepts while acquiring relevant technical skills for future employment. in addition, more timely formative feedback and increased communication between the teacher and students, and among students, facilitated a social culture of participation in which “new practices of information capture, storage and forwarding” (haythornthwaite & andrews, 2011, p. 85) were created. however, the new approach was not without its challenges, which included pedagogical design, training and resourcing, and professional development issues. questions of how best to facilitate teachers’ use of online tools in an integrated and transparent manner, to develop students’ understanding of and willingness to use the tools, and to provide timely, appropriate, and affordable support emerged from this research. it was clear that no course participants, neither teacher nor students, were “digital natives” (bennett et al., 2008; kennedy et al., 2008). students indicated that before the course they had had varied experiences, familiarity, and comfort levels with respect to the use of digital technologies, and almost all of them were familiar with some form of social networking software. thus teachers can leverage students’ familiarity with informal uses of such tools into formal learning contexts (chen & bryer, 2012; valtonen et al., 2010), but doing so requires careful thought and planning. for example, consideration of sound pedagogical approaches to support students’ diverse learning needs, and provision of explicit guidelines that address privacy and plagiarism issues, will be needed. expectations of how work will be structured to support collaboration need to be stated clearly. curriculum and assessment activities need to provide students with multiple opportunities (and time) to master the tools and new online teaching tasks, so as to assist student learning. this finding is consistent with that found by benckendorff (2009) in relation to group work and assessment, and cole’s (2009) findings on the importance of course design. training and resourcing are also important when technology is introduced into a learning environment. although there were many positive outcomes identified in this study, students struggled initially to master the software. when they encountered problems, they wanted to communicate with a real person. in tertiary teaching environments, constrained as they are by resourcing limitations, such levels of staffing support might not be possible. however, ‘up-front’ training in how to use digital technologies and make explicit their benefits for learning can facilitate student willingness to engage with them in more meaningful ways (escobar-rodriguez & monge-lozano, 2011; kirkwood & price, 2005). finally, liburd and hjalager (2010) state that, “at the moment web 2.0 based learning environments are launched by somewhat anarchistic and risk willing subcultures in the university” (p. 19). yet, in many institutions, including the one at which this research was conducted, the staff promotion exercise fails to adequately encourage or reward teacher innovation and experimentation in online teaching (butler, 2006; minocha, schroeder, & schneider, 2010). however, if online teaching is to improve, opportunities for staff development through institutional systems of incentives and rewards are essential (kreber, 2007; patel, 2010). journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 137 noteworthy from this case study was that the research process facilitated ongoing teacher reflection and incremental changes to improve the course. the teacher was able to refine her teaching philosophy and pedagogical approach. through her ongoing reflective research notes, the teacher was able to ascertain personal changes as she moved from initial struggles with technology to a concern with pedagogy and student learning: all of [a] sudden the penny has dropped for me in terms of the role of pedagogy when using elearning tools. my focus is not on the tool but on the pedagogy and learning now. from regular reflections on my practice and being involved in a learning research process, i am now thinking more about pedagogy and learning. i have moved from a sole focus in the sphere of the tools to consider: what do i want to achieve in their learning? am i doing too much? do i need to give students a glossary every week? it is finding a balance between teacher and student contribution in class. the tools have given me the breadth, but i need to balance this with the depth in students’ learning. this case study provides a basis for further research related to the use of online tools and social software in formal academic learning contexts. it also illustrates the need for tertiary teachers and institutions to consider how best to support student learning in the digital age, as unexamined assumptions about students’ academic and digital skill competencies are just that—assumptions. along with the myth of technological potential, such assumptions can mask the necessary changes that must occur within tertiary institutions, including the need to develop and support new pedagogical approaches, appropriate and adequate staff development, and promotion opportunities. acknowledgements the authors gratefully acknowledge funding support from the teaching and learning research initiative, new zealand council for educational research, wellington, new zealand. references aslanidou, s., & menexes, g. 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(2010). are digital natives a world-wide phenomenon? an investigation into south african first year students’ use and experience with technology. computers and education, 55(1), 406–414. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2010.02.005 valtonen, t., dillon, p., hacklin, s., & väisänen, p. (2010). net generation at social software: challenging assumptions, clarifying relationships and raising implications for learning. international journal of educational research, 49(6), 210–219. doi:10.1016/j.ijer.2011.03.001 valtonen, t., kukkonen, j., dillon, p., & väisänen, p. (2009). finnish high school students’ readiness to adopt online learning: questioning the assumptions. computers and education, 53(3), 742–748. valtonen, t., pontinen, s., kukkonen, j., dillon, p., väisänen, p., & hacklin, s. (2011). confronting the technological pedagogical knowledge of finnish net generation student teachers. technology, pedagogy and education, 20(1), 1–16. biographical notes elaine khoo ekhoo@waikato.ac.nz dr elaine khoo is research fellow at the wilf malcolm institute of educational research (wmier) in the faculty of education, university of waikato. her research interests lie in pedagogical strategies in technology-based and technology-supported learning environments at classroom and tertiary levels. e. marcia johnson marcia@waikato.ac.nz dr marcia johnson is senior lecturer and director of student learning in the faculty of education, university of waikato. her research interest is e-learning as it relates to the investigation of electronic literacy skills and requirements for students at tertiary level. anne zahra a.zahra@waikato.ac.nz dr anne zahra is senior lecturer in the department of tourism and hospitality management, waikato management school, university of waikato. her research interests include tourism and hospitality education, tourism policy, destination management, and volunteer tourism. � this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. khoo, e., johnson, e. m., & zahra, a. (2012). i learnt a whole lot more than churning out an essay: using online tools to support critical collaborative inquiry in a blended learning environment. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 16(1), [pp. 127–140]. mailto:ekhoo@waikato.ac.nz mailto:marcia@waikato.ac.nz mailto:a.zahra@waikato.ac.nz http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 141 e-learning and higher education: understanding and supporting organisational change in new zealand stephen marshall, victoria university of wellington abstract over an 18-month period four new zealand educational institutions—a university, a private tertiary enterprise, a wānanga, and an institute of technology/polytechnic—have engaged in a process of change influenced by technology. their e-learning capability was benchmarked using the e-learning maturity model, and this information was used to stimulate change activities. the resulting case studies, discussed in this paper, illustrate the issues that face tertiary organisations and leaders engaging with the opportunities and challenges of elearning. five factors have been identified as significant influences on the ability of organisations to change in response to technology in the current political and educational landscape of the new zealand tertiary sector. keywords: e-learning; organisational change; benchmarking introduction the new zealand government has identified the need for tertiary institutions to make effective use of technology if they are to maintain their relevance over the coming decades (ministry of economic development, 2008). technology is seen as both driving the need for skills development and supporting skills development for the new zealand economy (treasury, 2008). the government’s recognition of the potential offered by technology to tertiary education is in line with the many positive outcomes (including the ease with which information can be accessed and the ability to engage with learners and scholars using a wide range of online tools) that have been identified in the literature (katz, 2008; kennedy et al., 2009; educause, 2010; jisc, 2009) and is consistent with the position taken by other governments, including those of the united states (usde, 2009) and australia (bradley, noonan, nugent, & scales, 2008). despite this sense of potential there have been many failures. the inability of the united kingdom’s open university to translate its initial success beyond the united kingdom (bacsich, 2005; meyer, 2006), and the failure of the uk e-university project (house of commons education and skills committee, 2005), suggest that changing the nature of provision is a complex and high-risk endeavour. one reason for the lack of change in the educational systems experienced by students may be simply that there is relatively little evidence of technology in itself resulting in improved educational outcomes for students (general accounting office, 2003; means, toyama, murphy, bakia, & jones 2009; zemsky & massy 2004; bacsich, 2005; house of commons education and skills committee, 2005), as distinguished from the impact of changing course designs (for example, lovett, meyer, & thille, 2008). this absence of evidence marshall, s. 142 means that it can be hard to justify the expense and disruption of change to sceptical and overworked organisation leaders, colleagues and other stakeholders, particularly when other aspects of tertiary education are subject to specific, if flawed, measures and consequences. given this experience, it is reasonable to ask whether tertiary education institutions should contemplate changes in their educational activities beyond ongoing modernisation of the supporting infrastructure. the stability of the current models of education and the lack of change resulting from technology may simply be a reflection of their utility and inherent robustness. the oft-quoted statement by clark kerr then becomes an acknowledgement of value, rather than a problem to be addressed: about 85 institutions in the western world established by 1520 still exist in recognizable forms, with similar functions and with unbroken histories, including the catholic church, the parliaments of the isle of man, of iceland, and of great britain, several swiss cantons, and . . . 70 universities. (kerr, 1987, p. 184) in fact, there has been a significant change in tertiary education in new zealand, as well as internationally. once the preserve of a small minority, degree education has grown to become a mainstream activity, with just under 13 percent of the adult population engaged in study annually (ministry of education, n.d.). new zealand degrees can be obtained from universities, institutes of technology or polytechnics (itps), indigenous wānanga, and private tertiary establishments (ptes). internationally, there are many countries seeking solutions to the problem of educating a population without the resources or opportunities of traditional university education (daniel, kanwar, & uvalic-trumbic, 2009). these pressures are driving change for financial reasons and using methods that focus on cost, inevitably increasing the scrutiny and political activity that surrounds accountability for public funds. this is not limited to the public sector, with for-profit providers made to comply with legislative and regulatory controls aimed at ensuring public funds are rigorously accounted for (tierney & hentschke, 2007). higher education increasingly shows many of the characteristics of failed organisations noted by seddon (2008), particularly the focus on performance targets and managerial systems, with much of the change from technology simply being used to mechanise existing procedures or tasks. this type of change is described as a ‘sustaining’ innovation by christensen, anthony, and roth (2004). sustaining innovations improve aspects of a business, service, or product by extending existing characteristics in desirable ways. the key to understanding this form of innovation is that it doesn’t question any presumptions about how the organisation functions, and may even reinforce traditional models. christensen et al. (2004, p. 99) also identify higher education as an industry in which there is significant potential for innovation that disrupts and transforms, rather than sustains. in addition to the larger issues of the motivation for change and the culture that enables or inhibits it, in reality most organisations are sufficiently complex that change cannot be seen as a single entity or event. inevitably, multiple changes occur simultaneously. as a result, there are a multitude of change models in the literature that characterise change by scale, pace, and impetus (by, 2005; demers, 2007; seel, 2007). many institutions have supported early-adopter (rogers, 2003) initiatives through project funds. however, leadership, systems, and a supportive climate for change are essential if this investment is to be translated into change on a greater scale (southwell, gannaway, orrell, chalmers, & abraham, 2005). the complexity of the issues facing educational institutions intending to make effective use of technology for learning and teaching is illustrated by the range of issues identified in the taking the lead: strategic management for e-learning project (higgins & prebble, 2008), and in bates and sangrà (2011), which examines the experience of 11 european and north american public universities. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 143 the taking the lead: strategic management for e-learning project developed a “set of resources and tools that will assist institutional leaders to plan and manage their use of e-learning more strategically” (higgins & prebble, 2008, p. 3), and identified a number of key issues or themes:  institutional strategy, planning, and policies  market positioning and identification for e-learning  organisational structures  resourcing  collaborative relationships with other institutions  staff development, instructional design, and course development  teaching and learning models and alignment with e-learning  student support  ensuring the reliability and validity of e-learning assessment and moderation  technological infrastructure. bates and sangrà (2011) identified the following areas as important components of the response to the challenge posed by technology:  institutional planning and strategy  leadership  operational planning at the programme level  organisational structures  quality management and evaluation  financial management  organisational culture  the role of government. unsurprisingly, while the language used is different, there is a very strong degree of overlap in the issues and areas identified. these analyses illustrate the range of organisational activities and systems that need to be understood and monitored as change occurs, because these are not independent entities. change in any one of these areas is likely to generate a range of changes throughout the others. despite the potential for change, the complexity of addressing all of these factors suggests that many educational organisations may currently be unable to make purposeful changes to their activities (marshall, 2010b) without external pressure being applied by governments and regulatory agencies. birnbaum’s (1988) cybernetic model of educational change recognised this complexity in the observation (p. 205) that a step change is easy for leaders only when their institution is either:  in a state of acknowledged crisis  small  conspicuously out of date, or  led by an autocrat. short of precipitating a crisis or adopting a style of management inconsistent with the values of most educational institutions, there is thus an inevitable need for change strategies that can operate simultaneously and synergistically at multiple levels (moore, 2006; russell, 2009; southwell et al., 2005). marshall, s. 144 methodology the e-learning maturity model (emm) (marshall, 2010a) provides a quality improvement framework by which institutions can assess and compare their capability to sustainably develop, deploy, and support e-learning. the emm has been adopted internationally as a means for both institutions and sector agencies to explore institutional and sector e-learning capability. it has been developed, refined, and validated through a series of projects conducted in new zealand (marshall, 2006b), australia (marshall, mitchell, & beames, 2009; marshall, 2009), the united kingdom (sero consulting, 2007; bacsich, 2008; university of london, 2008), and the united states (marshall, udas, & may, 2008). one of the major objectives of this project was to examine whether the emm analysis supported organisations in making changes to their systems in line with the theoretical models of organisational change embedded within it. there are a number of benchmarking frameworks and quality assurance models in the literature (bacsich, 2008). however, the emm is distinctive in its focus on organisational change rather than measuring operational activities. the emm capability assessments were done with the emm version 2.3 practices and processes outlined in marshall (2006a). interviews with staff in a range of roles were also conducted. further evidence was gathered online and in response to detailed questions following an initial analysis. this evidence base was used to make assessments of individual practice and process capabilities. a draft copy of the assessment report was provided and used to solicit final updates. this report was then presented to staff at a workshop held at the institution, where priorities for improvement were identified and change projects initially scoped. at the conclusion of the project an additional set of interviews was held with staff to inform the final assessments and gather evidence of how the change projects had been undertaken and how they had influenced the institution. full human ethics approval to conduct this research was obtained from the victoria university of wellington human ethics committee (approvals #17271/2010 and #73/2004). journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 145 figure 1 project emm assessments: changes from 2010 to 2011 outlined in red marshall, s. 146 results seven institutions commenced the project: four universities, a pte, a wānanga, and an itp. three of the universities were unable to complete the project due to internal issues resulting from restructuring, and the wānanga’s involvement was substantially delayed (as outlined below), and consequently the final assessment has yet to be conducted. the final data set thus consisted of a university (university nz-c), an itp (itp-z), a pte (pte-a), and a wānanga (wānanga-a), with seven emm assessments conducted over 2 years (figure 1). university nz-c university nz-c is a medium-sized new zealand university with a traditional focus on face-toface education and an emphasis on research and postgraduate education. a commercial learning management system is used to provide a standard set of online services for all courses but, beyond this, technology is used in courses primarily for presentation purposes and for access to library services. there is very little use of social networking, and most students report spending less than 1 hour a week online for their courses. the 2010 assessment for university nz-c in figure 1 shows capability concentrated primarily in the delivery dimension, with some strength in the areas relating to student support and the technical infrastructure. this pattern is similar to that seen in a number of institutions that have treated e-learning purely as a technological challenge. the following areas were identified as priorities for action by university nz-c following the assessment:  recognition of the strategic impact of technology on learning and teaching  stronger alignment of course activities and assessment with course learning objectives and technology affordances  professional development in course design for all teaching staff, with support and resources developed to encourage innovation and effective use of new technologies  an increased emphasis on feedback as a pedagogical tool. despite these priorities, very little changed during the period, as shown in the 2011 assessment in figure 1. university nz-c established a working party to examine the role played by technology, and the role it could play in the operations of the university. the working party included participants from across the university. it was tasked with developing a strategic plan for technology use that would support the main university strategic plans. this group developed an extensive report for the university management that reviewed in detail the wider context for technology use by universities and how technology was currently being used within the university, and outlined a range of possible strategic options for the senior management. this response is consistent with that seen in a number of other universities. many institutions have made an investment in a technological infrastructure without any substantive changes to the model of learning and teaching, or the experience of staff and students (marshall, 2010b). the problem facing all universities is that the model of funding now in place in new zealand means that the government caps revenue and student numbers. consequently, change must drive improvements in the quality and efficiency of operations, rather than support growth in access by larger numbers of students. itp-z itp-z is a mid-sized itp, based in an urban setting, with a clear intention that technology should play a significant role in its learning and teaching activities. the institutional strategy has stated for several years that technology should drive new opportunities for students and for the journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 147 institution in the future. itp-z has provided a standard learning management system facility, and a range of electronic resources through its library, but has only recently started exploring other technologies for use by students and teachers. uniquely, itp-z has been applying the emm over the last 7 years and consequently has four assessments showing change over an extended period of time (figure 2). the assessments in figure 2 show an overall strengthening of capability over the period 2005–2010, although some aspects have weakened between 2008 and 2010. figure 2 itp-z emm assessments: changed capability from 2010 to 2011 outlined in red on last carpet marshall, s. 148 the major issue identified in itp-z’s 2010 assessment was the absence of a structured set of operational activities that aimed to realise the strategic goal of the institution for technology use. this lack, which included the need for greater development of staff skills and the use of technology to change the experience of students, was identified in planning documents, but had not been reflected in actual activities at that time. two projects were identified from the emm assessment at the workshop held at the end of 2010 with respect to the need for change projects to be achievable in the context of the institution at that time: 1. development of a professional development qualifications for staff focused on e-learning 2. development of library resources for students supporting digital literacy. in addition to the emm assessment, itp-z undertook a strategic review of their teaching. this was led by an external consultant who had a strong relationship with the institution. these two reviews, combined with a survey of staff confidence in the use of existing technologies, led to senior managers realising that existing operational actions were not generating the outcomes envisioned in the strategic plan. in response, two more projects were initiated to develop itp-zspecific models of e-learning, and to help staff develop their capabilities with the range of technologies available. the combination of an explicit acknowledgement of staff needs, combined with a genuine opportunity to generate new ideas for how they might teach, has resulted in a very positive improvement in the institutional culture. the managers responsible for much of the activity over the last year set goals and provided resources, including new staff, but then stepped back and let much of the detail be determined by the teaching staff. the most recent emm assessment in figure 2 shows substantial capability improvements throughout the process set. this case illustrates the length of time and resilience needed for an institution to make substantial changes in learning and teaching. it provides an example of how an institution’s leaders can recover from unsuccessful strategies, engage with and re-energise their staff, and generate a new sense of collegial involvement in the future of the institution. pte-a pte-a provides vocational training to approximately 1500 students engaged in full-time and part-time study. the students are predominantly mature and are based throughout new zealand, usually in either part-time or full-time employment in the industry. distance delivery was originally undertaken using paper materials in a traditional correspondence model; however, an online option was introduced in 2009. unusually, pte-a has developed its own online learning system, although this is heavily based on commercial software. this system provides a standard set of content delivery functions combined with discussion facilities that are heavily used in all online courses. the capability assessment for pte-a in 2010 shown in figure 1 demonstrated that the institution was already very capable in its engagement with e-learning. the assessed capability was stronger than that assessed for any other new zealand institution at that time, and was comparable to the largest international tertiary providers. notably, pte-a had a strong capability in the optimisation dimension, reflecting an ability to drive systemic change that is not evident in many institutions. the emm assessment results and analysis were shared with a group of pte-a staff and managers at a workshop, and a process of issue prioritisation and project planning was facilitated. four projects were identified as a result of that workshop: journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 149 1. a formal risk analysis and examination of the technology infrastructure 2. collection of feedback information from staff and students on their experience using technology 3. a re-examination of the pedagogical model being used in courses to triangulate the learning objectives, learning activities, and assessment 4. a re-examination of the ways in which technology is integrated into online courses, and an expansion of the types of technology being used. two events helped give the initial emm assessment additional relevance. the first was the introduction of requirements that students demonstrate information and communications mastery in order to get registered. the second was the christchurch earthquakes of december 2010 and february 2011. the earthquakes demonstrated the practical benefits of having a well-designed set of information technology (it) systems supporting learning and teaching. systems were already sited and managed in a way that meant that physical disruption to the servers was a minor issue and no data was lost. consequently, pte-a has undertaken the change projects and already achieved a substantial improvement in capability for 2011, as shown in figure 1. wananga-a wānanga a has been established for approximately 30 years. it undertakes teaching and research based on āhuatanga māori, in accordance with tikanga māori informed and embodied by mātauranga māori. wānanga a offers qualifications at a range of levels throughout new zealand, primarily by face-to-face instruction. the wānanga has invested in a learning management system and has a limited set of electronic resources available for students through its library. beyond this, little technology is used for teaching. wānanga a’s weak 2010 assessment in figure 1 reflected the reality that they had only relatively recently committed to the use of technology by establishing their learning management system and associated support unit. an issue identified early in the assessment process was that, despite the intention for all staff to be enabled and able to use technology, there was still a heavy dependence on a single middle manager’s leadership. the e-learning director was responsible for developing the substance of the e-learning strategies and vision, and was clearly trusted by the senior managers to lead the wānanga’s thinking and planning in the e-learning space. unfortunately, the e-learning director was killed in an accident early in the project, and this dominated the organisation’s activities over the remainder of the project. staff in the e-learning support unit and it group rapidly took responsibility for a range of operational tasks to ensure the continuity of the learning and teaching done by the wānanga using technology. meetings and a workshop were held with these staff to review the emm assessment and to identify priorities for the next 1–2 years. four projects were identified and assigned to particular staff to own and facilitate: 1. more formal management of the e-learning infrastructure 2. defining how technology changes the nature of learning and teaching within the wānanga philosophy 3. improvements in communication to students regarding the benefits of technology 4. re-engagement by the wānanga leadership with the existing technology strategies and plans. this case illustrates the significant risks all institutions face when they depend on a single person to lead and enable the use of technology. it provides an example relevant to the situation of many small institutions that depend on a single innovative leader during the early phases of a shift to elearning and are consequently unaware of the range of roles that the person undertakes and the marshall, s. 150 ‘invisible’ organisational activities they perform. the key lesson in this case is the need to plan early for the implications of success, and ensure that resilience, robustness, and redundancy apply equally to staff as they do to technology infrastructures. discussion the four institutions can be seen as falling on a continuum, with wānanga a moving from an adhoc and early adopter-led approach to create an infrastructure for e-learning; university nz-c having established a solid infrastructure but not yet defining goals for the effective use of it; itp-z, having tried one approach, moving to empower its staff as part of changing its models for learning and teaching; and pte-a experiencing a dramatic change in its use of technology as its new model sweeps away the old. allowing time for change to occur is an important factor. all of the institutions have invested in technology for a number of years, providing staff with systems with which they are able to become familiar, if not expert, in their pedagogical application. itp-z has had the same strategic objective for technology for the last 6 years while a series of operational plans and approaches have been tried. pte-a operated multiple models of delivery simultaneously for several years while developing a robust and complete model relevant to their students and disciplines. in both of these cases there is evidence that this commitment has finally started to generate a sustainable change to learning and teaching. in contrast, wānanga a is still at a very early phase of exploration, while university nz-c has paused in many respects. the pte-a case also illustrates the other extreme of time. the e-learning model and systems they have developed have gone from being one option of three modes supported 18 months ago, to being essentially the only mode of delivery now. the lesson here is that institutions contemplating change of this type need to be aware that success, as well as failure, is risky. leaders need to be sure they can manage the rapid pace of successful change. leadership of different types is also evident in the cases as a significant factor influencing change. the experience of wānanga a is a salutary reminder that, while individual staff can take very influential leadership positions, organisations need to ensure that leadership is shared, and collective responsibility is taken for significant changes. the smallest institution, pte-a, has benefited in part from their size, because direct leadership from the top is a practical proposition. pte-a also had a strong management team at the start of the project and an awareness of the need for shared responsibility for key activities, and this has been maintained through staff restructuring as the implications of change have become apparent. the model of leadership in university nz-c is strongly influenced by the collegial and devolved nature of a university management culture. university management has to consult and involve staff in the process of identifying the reasons for, and purposes and methods of, change. this is inevitably slower, but balancing that pace are the substantial resources available to a university when committing to change. itp-z has seen a strongly positive response from staff as a result of its shift to a collegial approach, with staff actively involved in creating new models and being actively supported with professional development. the shift from a centrally driven, commercial model to one where the staff are able to be involved in the process of identifying and setting priorities for change has been very well received, and has seen a re-engagement with the opportunities technology provides. interestingly, despite the change in method, itp-z has maintained clarity in its strategic goals for technology in learning and teaching. as well as drawing on a stable strategic plan, staff in journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 151 management roles can articulate clear operational outcomes that the strategy is intended to achieve. pte-a has also benefited from following a stable strategic plan over the last few years, again with explicit operational benefits and support from the management team. wānanga a has a clear strategy and a role for technology to play in supporting specific operational objectives, but has not yet seen that strategy realised. in particular, it is still cast in technological terms, describing goals for infrastructure and the use of specific technologies, but not yet in terms of the quality or nature of learning and teaching it will enable. university nz-c remains unclear in its strategic objectives for technology. bates and sangrà (2011) have observed that universities’ intentions for technology can often be described as cautious and limited to the classroom, and this certainly seems true here as well. the pbrf, applied as an external requirement, has been very influential on the priorities affecting staff work and management. only very recently has this been balanced, to a very limited extent, by the creation of performance indicators for learning and teaching. the tertiary education commission performance indicators may have had a positive influence on institutional management throughout the sector, but they are measures of activity at a very high level of abstraction, and fail to motivate any change in pedagogy, including technology. the government caps on student numbers also act as a negative incentive to the adoption of technology. one of the clearest benefits of e-learning is the ability to increase the scale of education. however, the government has prevented institutional growth. institutions are now forced to consider how they can increase their internal efficiency to manage inevitable cost increases. adopting technology that increases costs, even for transitional periods, is increasingly hard to justify, particularly if it requires a degree of risk, as innovation inevitably does. the pte-a and wānanga a cases illustrate the need to manage change and the unexpected events that can influence organisations. pte-a benefited unexpectedly from an unanticipated change in the professional accreditation standards applied to practitioners in their field. this imposed a standard of technical literacy and competence on graduates that was very helpful in encouraging students to transition to e-learning from traditional distance and face-to-face pedagogies. pte-a had also already been responding to the first assessment’s recommendations regarding risk assessment and business continuity when the 2010 and 2011 christchurch earthquakes illustrated the requirement for robust it systems. a combination of good management and a little luck saw no disruption to their systems, and subsequently both staff and students based in christchurch were able to continue courses even as the institution’s facilities remained closed in the ‘red zone’. wānanga a had a far less positive experience, with the death of the person who had been leading their use of technology. many institutions using a strategy of incremental change from an initiative started by an early adopter are in exactly the same position and risk a similar disruption to their plans, if only as a result of staff leaving unexpectedly. conclusion these four quite different cases illustrate that, while technology might be increasingly standardised and ubiquitous, the ways in which it can change educational experiences are as varied as the needs of students and the types of institutions that support them. functionally, there is very little difference in the technological infrastructure available at all four of these institutions, or indeed in the infrastructure provided at virtually every provider assessed by the emm to date. historically, institutional leaders have recognised the necessity for investment in a technological infrastructure to support education. the analysis presented in this report suggests that as well as finding the resources to maintain that investment, leaders need to consider a set of key factors marshall, s. 152 when considering how their institution can change and respond to the opportunities offered by technology:  time: allowing sufficient time for experience and systems to develop to the point that they can support change, but also being able to sustain the rapid pace of change flowing from success.  leadership: maintaining the strength and clarity of leadership, while also allowing for models of shared leadership and engagement consistent with collegiality and participatory innovation.  strategic and operational outcomes: identifying clear operational benefits from the use of technology and associated changes, and having a robust strategy to support their achievement and the confidence to maintain that strategy despite external and internal challenges.  external coercion: recognising and managing the threats and opportunities arising from the actions of external actors in the sector, particularly by government agencies.  chance: being able to manage the random events that affect organisations with effective risk-management strategies and organisational agility that can respond in a timely and positive manner to unexpected situations. interestingly, while there are definitely overlaps with the factors identified by others, particularly with regard to strategy and leadership (higgins & prebble, 2008; bates & sangrà, 2011), time and chance seem to have been more significant here than is perhaps generally acknowledged. the other factors identified in the studies cited above are also reflected in the processes and practices of the emm, and certainly form the foundation for change. the emm embodies theories of organisational maturity, cybernetic change, and systems thinking. the information presented in the analyses is intended to stimulate change responses that are systemic, strategic, and undertaken with an awareness of the distributed consequences throughout the organisation. the emm assessments have been actively used in all four of these institutions to stimulate an organisational response, with pte-a and itp-z both demonstrating significant improvements in their organisational maturity resulting from a systemic approach to change. all four cases have also clearly demonstrated the need for a ‘whole of organisation’ response to ensure that change is able to occur despite a wide variety of events, both predictable and unpredictable. acknowledgements this research was undertaken with the support and funding of ako aotearoa, and builds on work funded by the new zealand ministry of education tertiary e-learning research fund and the australasian council on open, distance and e-learning. the support of these organisations is gratefully acknowledged. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 153 references bacsich, p. 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(2007). baseline study of e-activity in scotland’s colleges: report to the scottish funding council. retrieved from http://www.sfc.ac.uk/web/files/learningfiles/sero_e_activity_study.pdf southwell, d., gannaway, d., orrell, j., chalmers, d., & abraham, c. (2005). strategies for effective dissemination of project outcomes. canberra, australia: commonwealth of australia. treasury (2008). working smarter: driving productivity growth through skills. wellington, new zealand: author. tierney, w. g., & hentschke, g. c. (2007). new players, different game: understanding the rise of for-profit colleges and universities, baltimore, md: johns hopkins university press. university of london. (2008). benchmarking elearning at the university of london: report from the steering group. london, england: author. retrieved from http://www.londoninternational.ac.uk/quality/comte_zone/sys_tech_sub/stsc2/documents/stsc2 _3.pdf zemsky, r., & massey, w. f. (2004). thwarted innovation: what happened to e-learning and why. philadelphia, pa: the learning alliance at the university of pennsylvania. retrieved from http://www.irhe.upenn.edu/docs/jun2004/thwartedinnovation.pdf biographical notes dr stephen marshall stephen.marshall@vuw.ac.nz dr stephen marshall is a senior lecturer in the centre for academic development (cad), victoria university of wellington, new zealand. he researches in the areas of organisational change in higher education, e-learning benchmarking, and the development of policy and strategy that encourage the effective use of technology. � this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. marshall, s. (2012). e-learning and higher education: understanding and supporting organisational change in new zealand. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 16(1), [pp. 141–155]. http://www.sfc.ac.uk/web/files/learningfiles/sero_e_activity_study.pdf http://www.londoninternational.ac.uk/quality/comte_zone/sys_tech_sub/stsc2/documents/stsc2_3.pdf http://www.londoninternational.ac.uk/quality/comte_zone/sys_tech_sub/stsc2/documents/stsc2_3.pdf http://www.irhe.upenn.edu/docs/jun2004/thwartedinnovation.pdf mailto:stephen.marshall@vuw.ac.nz http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ microsoft word 05 deanz 2012 owen 270312.docx owen, h. 42 reinventing professional learning and development: ensuring relevance and building resilience hazel owen, ethos consultancy nz abstract innovation may best be considered as reinvention rather than invention. this observation is supported by a gradually accelerating change in how professional learning and development (pld) for education practitioners and leaders is being offered, designed, facilitated, and evaluated. the reinvention of pld includes shifts towards contextualised, personalised, selfpaced learning that build resilience because they are underpinned by the development of a professional social identity within an online community of practice—shifts that arguably challenge notions of what actually comprises pld provision. however, what might such reinvented pld ‘look like’? and what are the implications for professional practice and student learning in terms of building resilience, ensuring relevance, and driving reform? this paper provides an insight into the features of, and findings from, the virtual professional learning and development (vpld) programme initiated by the new zealand ministry of education in 2010. the providers have worked mainly with primary and secondary school leaders and teachers, although one tertiary teacher has participated. the vpld has been designed to exploit a range of affordances that in turn provide flexibility of choice, time, and approach for participants, enabling them to build and shape their knowledge and skills, all within the framework of mentoring and an online community of practice (cop). this paper illustrates some of the dynamics and possible results of the vpld programme by presenting two vignettes (in part drawn from the associated research study), along with other illustrative data. the vignettes and following discussion clearly indicate the value of the vpld model by demonstrating changes in the practitioners’ roles which have resulted in, for example, increases in the development of students’ metacognitive skills. there is also anecdotal evidence of improvements in student achievement of learning outcomes. keywords: professional learning and development; e-learning; personalised learning; virtual learning; online communities of practice; professional change; online communities introduction professional development for education practitioners, in the new zealand context as well as elsewhere, is gradually being reshaped to reflect that learning is a social phenomenon (ham & davey, 2008). shifts toward more relevant, contextualised, personalised, self-paced learning, which builds resilience because it is underpinned by the development of an online professional social identity, are arguably challenging notions of what actually comprises professional learning journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 43 and development (pld). reform is therefore not a simple process—it requires a wider understanding of what pld should be and what it should provide (stoll, 2004). the virtual professional learning and development (vpld) initiative was instigated in october 2009 by the new zealand ministry of education, which also funded the project. the vpld model and approach was piloted and evaluated in 2010 with 10 teachers from the tertiary, secondary, and primary sectors. the findings from the pilot indicated that, when professional learning was situated within the practitioner’s context, and with complementary, easily accessible opportunities for sharing practice within an online community of practice (cop), participants demonstrated high levels of engagement, as well as changes in their own teaching practice. the vpld programme was subsequently rolled out in 2011 with a total of 20 teachers and principals (including eight participants who continued from 2010). participants for both 2010 and 2011 were from a variety of new zealand locations, a range of disciplines, and diverse backgrounds, ethnicities, and cultures. this paper presents some of the findings from the research conducted alongside the pilot and the roll-out. literature review/theoretical framework while there has been great progress in the fields of neuroscience and educational psychology, it is still not known how human minds create, store, retrieve, and apply knowledge. it is hypothesised, however, that the context in which knowledge development occurs affects how, or if, it is applied in other situations and settings (see, e.g., lave, 1997). for example, carraher, carraher, and schliemann (1985) found that a trader could perform complex calculations while trading on the street, but was not able to perform the same calculations in a formal education setting. it can therefore be postulated that an education practitioner’s professional knowledge cannot be separated from their domains and contexts (cranefield, yoong, & huff, 2011), beliefs about learning and teaching (cranefield, yoong, & huff, 2011), interpretive frameworks (richardson & placier, 2001), and routines and practices (handal, 2004). a practitioner’s work context will include history, customs, rituals, and narratives that help define their education community and learning experiences (shea, pickett, & pelz, 2004). contextualised pld that recognises the sociocultural considerations of learning has been reported to also have a positive effect on student learning outcomes, partly because there is a direct connection between principles of effective teaching practices, recognition of relevance, and consequent adaptation of those practices to local circumstances (timperley, 2008). when pld is situated, educators are more likely to apply strategies to address known issues concerning student learning in their specific learning community (timperley et al, 2007), while also actively engaging in the exploration, development, and application of conceptual frameworks that encourage consideration of their students in a new light (timperley, wilson, barrar, & fung, 2007). stoll (2004) suggests that pld might take the form of participation in professional learning communities and learning networks, which in turn can help practitioners build resilience in the face of adversity (patterson, collins, & abbott, 2004). enabling practitioners to build relationships and deepen identity within a community can help them remain positive, flexible, focused on what they care about, able to take on leadership roles, and able to “maintain high expectations for success for students, teachers and parents” (patterson, collins, & abbott, 2004, p. 3). frequently referred to in formal education contexts, the cop—a theory developed in the latter half of the 1980s and in the 1990s by lave and wenger, and since extended (by, e.g., hildreth, kimble, & wright, 2000)—encompasses the notion of ‘situated learning’, whereby practitioners construct meanings collectively in a community (wenger, 1998). when cops are an owen, h. 44 integral part of pld they can provide formal and informal learning opportunities, as well as a space for practitioners to participate in conversations about learning and teaching, and share practices (brown & duguid, 2000). online cops build on the definition and practices of those developed face to face, although they are necessarily distinguished by the fact that communication and collaboration is through computer-mediated communication (cmc). there is a wide range of definitions for online cops, but most include notions of a group of people who, in a common space on the internet, engage in public discussions, interactions, and information exchanges (tilley, bruce, hallam, & hills, 2006). lai, pratt, anderson, and stiger (2006) define the unique characteristics of an online cop as: (a) top-down in design; (b) taking longer to develop; (c) comprising members who usually do not know each other before they join; (d) having leaders who are recruited rather than emerging from the community; and (e) requiring some form of technological support to help ensure its survival. ashe and bibi (2011) suggest that these online spaces have the potential to create complementary contexts for learning, whereby a member of an online cop can build capability through “focused, purposeful, and immediately useful conversations, resources and support” (flagg & ayling, 2011, p. 387)—all factors that can build toward reform. key considerations for the design of pld that are likely to have an effect on an education practitioner’s philosophies, beliefs, identity, and role include pld that is:  integrated with what an educator is already doing, and builds on existing roles and daily routines (stoll et al., 2005)  open for educators to choose their focus, outcomes, and modes of working (owen, 2011)  focused on iterative cycles of reflection and evaluation  contextualised and applied  flexible enough to enable customisation for an educator’s own context, and for participants to select interactions and resources that suit cultural preferences (jisc, 2009)  provided in frequent short bursts over an extended duration (3 years or more) (shea, pickett, & li, 2005)  supportive, with shared leadership (goodyear, 2005)  built within a cop/mentor relationship that has a foundation of trust, compatible interpretative frameworks, shared practice, collaboration, experiences, skills, values, and vision—framed in ways that challenge assumptions and create formative cognitive dissonance (festinger, 1957)  inclusive, but looks beyond each individual’s context for further sources of professional learning (wenger, 1998). description of the vpld programme the vpld programme, informed in part by the factors identified earlier, has no formal ‘content’—the programme offers a customisable pld experience in which there are multiple ways to participate. the programme runs over 3 years—in the first 2 years education practitioners and leaders work on projects that interest them, driven by their own investigation and based on the needs of their students and school community. in the third year, participants focus on transitioning into a mentor role, where they choose and work with a fellow practitioner but can also choose to continue work on their original project. the pld itself is subsumed within the participant’s function of being part of their own school’s/institution’s community and context (see figure 1), rather than being the central focus, as can happen with more traditional approaches to pld. the elements identified within the figure are covered in the discussion that follows. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 45 figure 1 components of the vpld programme, which meets diverse requirements and interests of participants (adapted from wenger, white & smith, 2009)1 the vpld programme has three main online spaces: (1) the online cop (ning); (2) a ‘sandpit’ area and access to self-paced resources (moodle); and (3) adobe connect (a web-conferencing tool that enables interactive synchronous communication). the vpld online cop is an active space, with over a hundred members. it offers a safe environment in which practitioners can discuss and challenge theories, views about pedagogy, and practice—an aspect that appears to be enhanced by the participants’ eclectic combination of disciplines and sectors. social structures (including agreements about interactions, processes, norms, and rules) are negotiated on an ongoing basis. a variety of community building strategies are employed, such as sending out a monthly e-newsletter that highlights conversations and contributions in the online cop, as well as showcasing the work of community members and celebrating successes. there are also allcommunity web-conferencing sessions to mark, for example, the end of the year—during which participants may reflect on their experiences—or have a specific pedagogical and/or skills focus. each participant is partnered with a mentor whom they meet online, with adobe connect or skype, once a month for between 45 and 90 minutes. mentoring strategies are customised to suit the needs of both the mentee and the mentor, and during monthly meetings a variety of subjects are discussed, including pedagogy, what the participant has been working on with their students in terms of changes to their teaching practice, and how their students have reacted. the 1 the picture at the centre of figure 1 is a paua shell that was given as a gift by one of the participants during the third face-to-face hui, on the background of a kete. the paua shell conveys lifelong effort, adding layer upon layer in the process of learning, each part showing a different hue and blend. the kete represents a container of knowledge and wisdom, as well as, via the woven strands, notions of unity and togetherness—that is, a community working together. owen, h. 46 participant also identifies areas in which they need support, and plans ‘next steps’ and interim goals. currently three mentors are employed as paid facilitators within the vpld project. an integrated model of virtual professional development that relies on learning and working collaboratively is likely to be enhanced by a face-to-face meeting where possible (owen, 2011). in part this provides an opportunity to establish working relationships (milligan, 1999), and is especially useful as an aid to social cohesion, especially if educators are unfamiliar with participating in an online community and/or with cmc (owen, 2011). as part of the vpld 2010 trial there were two face-to-face meetings whereas, in 2011, due to growing numbers and limited funding, there was only one. methodology since its inception, the vpld programme has been underpinned by a research focus which serves an iterative feed-forward function as well as providing outcomes and comparative longitudinal evaluation data. data has been collected from all areas of the vpld online cop, from project documents, recorded discussions, and notes from mentor meetings, and from webinar sessions, as well as from three online surveys per year in 2010 and 2011 (conducted in january, june, and november/december). the study focused on evaluating the design of the vpld. the main questions underpinning this study included:  how does working with a mentor affect participants’ opinions about their own efficacy and teaching practice?  what are the observed effects on participants over the course of the vpld programme?  what are participants’ opinions about the effects of shifts in their teaching practice on their students’ achievement and engagement? results: stories of change complementary to, and drawing data from, the overarching research study, four stories of change have been developed. the aim was to enable close inspection of possible embedding of new professional knowledge, practice, and beliefs, as well as an exploration of how the participants constructed their knowledge and made sense of their learning. the stories of change are not exhaustive —they represent the trends that have been observed across the vpld programme. due to space limitations, only two of these stories of change are summarised below. the examples have been chosen to illustrate primary and secondary sectors in different locations in new zealand and across disciplines. as far as possible, the practitioners’ own words are used, but names and identifying features have been changed to preserve anonymity. story of change: melanie background/description: melanie is the assistant principal of a secondary school in new zealand, where she also teaches horticulture. over 60 percent of the students are of māori extraction. while participating in the vpld programme, which she joined in may 2011, melanie was also completing a qualification in information technology for teachers. focus: one main issue for education providers in new zealand is that there is “a group of students, many of whom are māori, pasifika or who have special education needs, who are not succeeding and for whom the system is not delivering” (ministry of education, 2010, p. 24). this story of change involves melanie’s level 1 horticulture class, and her focus on improving “māori engagement so that it leads to improved māori achievement in my classes” (goal-setting document), as well as moving forward in her leadership role. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 47 what happened? (process and results): melanie began by working with her mentor to identify her needs and to set goals for 2011. one consideration she identified was: it is unknown if it [information technology] will increase engagement but inquiry learning certainly will (goal-setting document). she formulated a plan and then quickly started to implement it, participating in ‘just-in-time’ pld, as well as formal pld sessions targeted to help with, for example, māori achieving as māori, and posting reflections within the online community. at the face-to-face hui in june, melanie facilitated a session for the participants on enquiry learning based on the sauce model developed by trevor bond. during the session she described some of her reasons for, and experiences of, using this approach with students. she also indicated that she wanted to further develop culturally responsive learning experiences, and felt that e-learning might offer a complementary aspect to the sauce model that would help to achieve this aim. melanie was particularly interested in providing flexible structures and opportunities that would focus on the learners, motivate them, be designed for inclusivity and, ultimately, create a sense of belonging. she also recognised that the needs of her students (including academic, personal, social, and whānau needs) were driving the desire to trial alternative approaches (video recording). in july, melanie observed: i have learnt so much—feel the pressure of time to try things out . . . [prioritise] the time you spend on pld as to whether it is meeting your goals . . . done a lot of . . . [prioritising], [and made a] lot of progress with kids (mentor conversation). melanie reported that: i am having a real blast with . . . my students at school . . . i have groups working on preparing documents collaboratively from which they can study for their exams . . . it is a great way for them to see something that they have made, and be able to use it for revision . . . the students were instantly engaged [original emphasis] with the fact that there was a chat facility, even one with their teacher looking in on it . . . (reflective post). this is how i did it. first i made a sauce inquiry sheet that they worked on by themselves. once they had spent a couple of periods on that i introduced them to google [sic] docs and asked them to answer the same questions in the same format but all make sure that their ideas were . . . there . . . those students who hadn’t done much originally or didn’t know what to do were instantly buoyed by the idea that they could contribute even on a small scale (reflective post). one student chatted to me that she didn’t know what to do and i asked her for the definition, she put it in chat quite happily and when i replied, that’s a really good definition, she posted it onto the group document. it really gave her the confidence to help out and her knowledge has grown so much now (reflective post). by august, melanie was extending her practice from using individual tasks and tools to starting to fully integrate the ict-enhanced enquiry learning approach into the curriculum. her students continued to be engaged, and she received positive feedback: i was trying to think of a fun way to start a new unit of work on plant husbandry for my ncea level 1 class and not having much luck on thinking of anything innovative. i decided to stick with the . . . sauce model and started out trying to find youtubes [sic] . . . i came across one that was peppered with mistakes. i . . . decided to make that one the video . . . the ‘setting of the scene’ was to ask the students to identify as many mistakes as they could. well, students love to see others make mistakes. they then had to chose [sic], in pairs, one aspect of plant processes and make a two minute youtube ready to upload. instant engagement, instant acquiring of knowledge required, using their knowledge [to owen, h. 48 create] . . . their scripts for the youtubes (not wanting to make mistakes like the original) and they are now ready to upload their videos (reflective post). instructions are all delivered through our moodle so if students are away, or want to work at home, they can (follow-up comment to original post). student feedback was mainly positive, and melanie reports that: one of my students yesterday quietly told me he was so pleased i had introduced him to igoogle, said it really helped him organise his life with the calendar and gmail (blog post). melanie followed up with the comment that: i find that in horticulture the new internal achievement standards at level 1 are quite suited to inquiry learning . . . i am giving the students a lot more choice about what they study . . . it gives them a better understanding (blog post). september saw melanie working through the final stages of reflection and evaluation. she indicated that the results to date have helped convince another teacher at her school to start working with a blended learning approach—something that was termed the ‘ripple effect’ by the vpld community. by october melanie was working across several communities within the wider education community, sharing her own practice and experiences, as well as collaborating with, and learning from, others: been amazing to hear from other teachers—e.g. at hort pd day . . . melanie sharing resources & planning to skype between two classes (mentor notes). she reported that a blended enquiry learning approach: seems to have a positive result on . . . senior exam results . . . 7/8 passed—usually only 50% pass rate (mentor notes). the students were also invited to provide feedback about their own experiences through an evaluative survey in which: most scored highly for enjoyment (5), one scored very good (4) & another scored good (3)— range 1–5; kids have enjoyed it . . . students are constructing their own understandings and so know their stuff, rather than regurgitate someone else’s information (mentor notes). melanie’s final reflections, posted in november, revealed a shift in her own professional identity and practice, as well as the influence she was having across her own context and beyond: the best thing i did all year was join the vpld group . . . the ripple effect from that one decision has been amazing! i have tried all sorts of interesting and varied things in the class during the year . . . i am still constantly amazed when i see and hear that teachers around the country have not moved into a more student centred approach . . . (reflective post). it hasn't always been perfect, but i have shared my trials with staff and many of them have taken ideas onboard and tried out stuff they haven’t used before” (reflective post). story of change: mike background/description: mike, who joined the vpld programme in january 2010, is a deputy principal. he also teaches reading, writing, mathematics, and physical education to students in journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 49 years 6, 7, and 8 at a primary school. this specific story of change draws on mike’s learning journey over 2 years. focus: education providers in new zealand have a strong focus on helping to build robust student literacy skills in primary schools that “ensure students are more engaged with school, and succeed across the entire curriculum throughout their schooling and tertiary education” (ministry of education, 2010, p. 14). this story of change maps mike’s maturation of strategies to help his students build their literacy skills. what happened? (process and results): when mike started the programme in 2010 he was trialling an enquiry learning approach with students, as well as using blended learning. mike is trying to get parents and the community involved . . . mike’s students work on a variety of projects and tasks, and . . . when they create something exceptional it is celebrated by being included in the class blog (blog post). however, mike initially needed support to develop his critical self-reflection skills, and he sometimes seemed to be distracted by the tools rather than working out why some of his students were not engaging. through interaction with the online cop members and working with a mentor, mike started to really reflect on and deconstruct his own role and those of his students. he explained: i find it really good to sit down and to actually just talk about [pedagogy and practice] . . . and as . . . [we] are talking it kind of prompts me to think of things (mentor meeting transcript). by october 2010 mike’s mentor noted that he started to refine: what he is doing in reading groups . . . it was great to . . . discuss other strategies such as introducing skills incrementally rather than trying to cover all the skills for each aspect of the units to enable . . . students . . . to cover things more thoroughly (mentor notes). mike’s mentor also indicated that he was: going to be thinking a lot more about what he is going to be doing . . . and how his change in views will impact what he wants to do/plan for next year. had a great discussion of technology for the sake of technology versus student engagement and motivation, meeting a range of learning preferences (mentor notes). two of the main goals that mike identified for 2011 were: [to develop] a collaborative working environment for students. students become selfmanaging and independent in their learning (goal-setting document). during march he and his mentor were discussing: student expectations . . . as well as his expectations as a teacher especially around the independence of his students (mentor notes). in june, mike had something of an epiphany. he said he now realised it was not: so much about gaining new gizmos to try out or to find things to use in the classroom, but to engage with other teachers who are willing to change their [practice] to make them better teachers—and in turn improve engagement and achievement of their students (face-to-face hui). owen, h. 50 and in july, mike commented: the revelation for me is that it has me thinking about how i actually use google docs, which is more as a data gathering tool or work book . . . i [want to] use it for more of the collaborative work that it is probably designed to do (reflective post). mike also started to look at ways to collaborate with other teachers. you need to have a common curricula link and someone to work with that you know well . . . good opportunity to develop new working relationships with others (mentor notes). in august 2011 mike was: thinking about whether the common teaching [practices] that we employ are the best for [individualised] teaching. i am thinking of employing a technique where i might teach a broad concept to a larger group of students . . . the difference here being that there is movement away from having reading groups where the students know which one is the “smart” group and the “dumb” group . . . students will still be getting their mileage from the reading topics and it gives time to pull students out and work more one-on-one rather than filling the day with reading group after reading group . . . also using you tube and videos . . . to further engage students. this would be followed up by research activities, thick and thin questions, blooms [sic] etc. thinking about inquiry—starting with a much bigger picture that will allow students to hone into a wider range of individual/group inquiry (reflective post). in september 2011 mike trialled his idea for: mixed ability reading groups with half of the class doing current events. other more able kids doing a novel study. some direct instruction . . . track what they are doing & see who is having difficulties to pull out for more teaching. this has been hard as a lot of time is taken up in instructional phase (reflective post). through reflection and experience, mike returned to revisit the blogs he had used with students in 2010, and in october 2011 he talked about: moving away from wow (work of the week) to more documentation of the students’ learning in general. instead of picking one thing they are most proud of, write about a range of things—like a learning map, not restricted to once a week. use as a resource to revisit— share as a class, randomly pick 2 or 3 to analyse together—group reflection. blogs are their eportfolios (mentor notes). student feedback was positive and in october mike reported that: the kids really get into it, always something to share & asking lots of questions, always go over the scheduled time (mentor notes). mike concluded that he felt that his shifts in role and practice had provided his students with: the opportunity to take ownership of their learning. they are [focused] and attentive (blog post). synthesis an analysis of these two vignettes suggests that the individuals who participated in the vpld developed a sense of self-efficacy that motivated them to trial alternative approaches, and to initiate iterative cycles of trial, error, and improvement. the two participants’ belief that they could attain a certain set of goals was reinforced when they shared their experiences within the journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 51 intellectual construct of the vpld community (which included their mentor), and where their endeavours and trials with different strategies were recognised, acknowledged, questioned, and developed. the process of sharing also resulted in gains in knowledge and skills (initially an integrative process where different types of knowledge intersected). however, with further trialling, and development of their identity as practitioners and contributing members of the vpld community (mayo & macalister, 2004), the process proved transformative, resulting in new synthesised forms of knowledge (graham, 2011). community and practice were found to be of equal importance in reshaping professional identity and knowledge, but for different reasons. the community provided the forum to ask for advice, as well as for robust, healthy conversations about theory and practice (hung & chen, 2001), alongside offers of resources and knowledge/practical assistance. the situated practice (which included reflection and personal enquiry) provided opportunities for the participants to talk with colleagues, seek feedback from students, and tweak their approaches. the resulting reshaping of roles appears to have had an effect on student engagement as well as motivation, especially where the artefacts produced were accessed and critiqued by their peers and community. discussion the three key themes of resilience, relevance, and reform provide a useful lens through which to further explore the implications of offering pld that was shaped with the vpld model. resilience participation in the vpld offers members of the online community opportunities to collaborate and, in the process, build relationships and deepen their identity, helping them to deal with uncertainty and cope with change. the strengthening of identity and the feeling of socially mediated, shared understandings and experiences can help to reduce the sense of isolation, and strengthen resilience in the face of change. it might also be argued that the vpld programme not only increases people’s ability to cope with change, but also helps participants develop strategies to celebrate and embrace change. in a safe, supportive environment participants have enthusiastically trialled and evaluated new approaches: we have had time to try our ideas, to make our mistakes and to reflect upon our success. an overall atmosphere of confidence has given some much-needed direction (survey response, 2010). when events were not as successful as they might have hoped, a shared online reflective blog post often elicited responses of empathy, suggestions of how frustrating problems might be handled, and offers of help. working with a mentor was also identified as a key aspect of developing resilience. relevance as described earlier in the paper, the vpld model uses approaches to pld that exploit the affordances of the virtual nature of the programme. as such, the participant does not have to be physically present at scheduled sessions. the practitioner can tailor their participation to their ongoing work commitments, and the fact that professional development is couched within their own context means that it is more likely to be relevant to their daily concerns (willis, 2000). the results, as illustrated by the two stories of change, indicate two key factors. the first is that, by being immersed in an experience that models aspects such as valuing existing world views and skills, and making it okay to ‘make mistakes’ in a safe environment, participants were often encouraged to use such approaches with their own learners. owen, h. 52 the second is that students have behaved positively; for example: i see my students bouncing into the classroom, and where before they might be packed up and ready to go 10 minutes before the end of a lesson, now it's often tricky to get them to stop working!! (end-of-year reflection, 2011). theories of learning, teaching, and pedagogy were constantly revisited and discussed by participants. this led to the design of pedagogically informed blended programmes of learning that align with standards and curriculum requirements: the progressive resolution of how to develop the middle-school math program to support the standards . . . at ncea level, with corollary aims of enhancing the relevance of math to students’ lives (survey response, 2010). it enabled high levels of differentiation: introduced moodle [sic] into my classroom as an additional way for extending able students (end-of-year reflection, 2011) it also enabled authentic learning opportunities, and raised awareness of the practical application of skills. sessions, activities, and programmes were designed to be culturally responsive and take into consideration aspects such as accessibility (physical, technological, and geographical), while also being relevant to the wider community. students became empowered co-constructors of outcomes and facilitators of sessions, as well as more confident, engaged learners who were: empowered . . . to learn on their own terms (survey response, 2011). education practitioners also reported improvements in the achievement of learning outcomes, and in the assimilation/application of key competencies. reform it is important to recognise the contributions made by “non-official brokers and opinion leaders” (cranefield et al., 2011, p. 16) who were situated on the boundaries of the community. these brokers and opinion leaders, while not working directly with a vpld mentor, were still active in the online cop and played important roles in the community’s cohesion. they also challenged participants to reach beyond their comfort zones. the combination of challenge and support is a fundamental precursor of moves toward reform. one participant commented that he saw this: as the way of the future and the most accessible, available professional learning for these current times (survey response). another tendency that has been designed into the vpld model, and that builds on the underpinning principles of reform, is the fostering of mentoring roles. participants have been encouraged to mentor colleagues where the inclination and need exists. as a result, the vpld team has noted ‘the ripple effect’, with participants working with between 100 and 200 colleagues each, in either a formal or informal pld capacity. bandura (1963) asserted that most learning is shaped by our experiences and we are likely to imitate, and in part replicate, what we have participated in—in the words of the oft-used cliché, ‘we teach as we have been taught’. the implication of this for vpld participants working with colleagues—given the immersion into a learning experience that recognises each individual’s political, social, economic, and personal drivers, while also embracing them in a community of practice—is that participants are likely to replicate these experiences, at least in part. this tendency may, in turn, have a significant effect on leadership and practice, and maybe on policy and the shape of education (including teacher education) in future years. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 53 conclusion this paper has illustrated some of the dynamics and possible results of participating in the vpld programme by presenting two vignettes and further illustrative data. when framed within the considerations of building resilience, ensuring relevance, and driving reform, it can be seen that the design of the vpld programme provides scaffolded opportunities for learners (teachers and leaders) to develop their own capability (knowledge and practice), and to participate socially with other supportive education professionals while also (re)developing their identity as a member of the professional community (lave & wenger, 1991). in turn, the practitioners’ learning and development in professional identity results in, for example, increases in the development of students’ metacognitive skills, as well as anecdotal evidence of improvements in student achievement of learning outcomes. while the design of the vpld programme is unlikely to change the world, it is already building the resilience, confidence, and professional identity of those who participate. as such, this arguably fosters the enhanced potential of these educators to contribute to future reforms that will ensure education and pld are reinvented to further serve the needs of learners and communities. references ashe, d., & bibi, s. 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(2000). adult learning and the professional development of teachers (unpublished paper prepared for the education review office). wellington, new zealand: victoria university. biographical notes hazel owen info@ethosconsultancynz.com hazel owen is an education consultant with interests in all aspects of ict-enhanced learning and teaching, especially when underpinned by communities of practice and pedagogical strategies that scaffold and empower learners, while also fostering learner-led, culturally responsive, contextualised approaches. � this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. owen, h. (2012). reinventing professional learning and development: ensuring relevance and building resilience. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 16(1), [pp. 42-55]. microsoft word jdl08_lingamword.doc journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 1 reaching the unreached primary teachers: distance teacher education at the university of the south pacific govinda ishwar lingam school of education, university of the south pacific suva, fiji greg burnett college of education, university of otago dunedin, new zealand background the university of the south pacific (usp) is a regional tertiary education provider serving a very large, diverse geographic and cultural area. it consists of 12 member countries which span much of the pacific region (cook islands, fiji, kiribati, marshall islands, nauru, niue, samoa, solomon islands, tokelau, tonga, tuvalu, and vanuatu). the university, through its faculties and schools based largely in suva, fiji, delivers many, but not all, of its programmes both to an on-campus cohort of students and through a variety of distance and flexible delivery modes to a cohort of students via smaller campuses in its member countries. many students living outside the pacific region’s main urban centres, including teachers seeking to upgrade their qualifications, find study in remote locations challenging, as they lack the basic infrastructure such as electricity and the range of communications technologies taken for granted elsewhere. if a programme of study is not offered via distance mode, students need to compete for scarce financial support and relocate to fiji to study. until the start of the 2007 academic year, relocation was the only option for those wishing to complete usp’s bachelor of education (primary) degree. the bachelor of education (primary) degree emerged out of curriculum discussions in usp’s department of education and psychology (since 2005, the school of education) during the mid-1990s. this initiative was in response to requests from regional ministries of education to upgrade the qualifications of primary teachers and also was based on the department’s own conviction that good teachers are needed at all levels of education. also, by the early 2000s, there was a growing body of research indicating a need for greater quality of teachers serving in the pacific island countries (see thaman, 2003; hindson, 1995; stewart, 1975). the programme was introduced for the first time in 1999 at the main suva campus, as a two-year in-service programme for experienced primary teachers in the region. these desires for greater quality of teachers parallel calls globally (see, for journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 2 example, unesco, 2007). the particular logics of quality discourse in education have led to an increased pressure on teachers to solve society’s social and educational problems. the unesco discourse of quality suggests that appropriate teacher preparation and teaching practices, rather than broad government social welfare policy, will help children learn regardless of the sometimes marginalised contexts they inhabit. this shift in thinking is not without its critics (see smyth, 2001). however, in pacific schooling it is difficult to deny that factors such as political, economic, and social instability (campbell, 2006; moore, 2004; lal & pretes, 2001), teacher migration (voightgraft, 2003), and a lack of in-service training opportunities (pacific islands forum secretariat, 2001, p. 7) have contributed to a critical shortage of qualified teachers in many pacific island states. in addition, overall primary school enrolment growth (see unesco, 2007, p. 44, for growth from 1991 to 2005) and an increasing commitment to universal primary education in line with the millennium development goals (united nations, 2008) and pacific plan (pacific islands forum secretariat, 2005, p. 28) have put added pressure on teacher training provision in the pacific region. even when the on-campus programme was introduced, the plan was to make all the courses in the programme available through the distance mode to enable more primary teachers throughout the region to benefit. however, the time needed to develop distance courses far exceeded the capacity of the department. in late 2002 discussions with ausaid officials led to the development of a proposal and funding for the bed primary externalisation project. the three-year project began in 2003 with the signing of a memorandum of understanding and the granting of funds for the project by the australian government. the project provided for: academic staffing support for relief lecturing, instructional design, and course writing; resourcing of regional teachers’ colleges with computers and other reference materials; professional development of staff in teachers’ colleges; and the establishment of a regional teacher education network. the project’s basic aim can be summed up in its vision statement (costa, 2004, p. 3): a primary teacher education programme that is accessible by all qualified primary teachers in the region and one that offers opportunities for these teachers to improve their professional knowledge and skills. in the pacific region, pre-service primary teacher preparation mostly has been carried out in the region’s nine teachers’ colleges: kiribati teachers’ college; fulton college (fiji); vanuatu institute of teacher education; cook islands teachers’ training college; tonga institute of education; corpus christi teachers’ college (fiji); lautoka teachers’ college (fiji); solomon islands college of higher education; college of the marshall islands. most of these institutions offer a two-year programme only and award their graduates with a certificate. however, in recent times, some institutions have upgraded their programmes to diploma level or have extended the programme by a further year. for example, lautoka teachers’ college recently upgraded its certificate to a diploma in primary teaching (lingam, 2003), with the first cohort graduating in 2006. the short duration of many pre-service programmes has had journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 3 an impact on the quality of teachers supplied to schools (hallack, 1990, p. 178). also, after teachers have completed their initial professional preparation, very little in-service training is available. many primary teachers in the pacific region have no post-secondary qualifications at all. for example, chandra (2000) points out that in fiji an alarming 42 percent of teachers have only a form five or lower level of education. most teachers enrolling in the usp programme are cross-credited all bed first-year courses on the basis of their original teacher training certificate. in the case of those who have completed a diploma, additional cross credits are awarded. all teachers are admitted into year two of the degree programme. the courses largely follow primary curriculum areas, with a particular emphasis on language and literacy teaching. other courses involve curriculum and professional issues, pedagogy, and a teaching practicum. since the inception of the programme through august 2005, almost 200 teachers had completed the degree. of those teachers, 86 percent were teachers working in the fijian education system and of these all were residing in the greater suva metropolitan area (burnett & lingam, 2007, p. 310). over the years debates over usp’s status as a regional institution or a fijian institution have been long running (see crocombe, 2001, p. 247ff). a desire to better serve the region, including rural fiji, was further justification for externalizing the degree programme. the initiative to deliver the programme via distance learning mode is an effective way of addressing the twin issues of increased quality and accessibility in pacific in-service education delivery. added to this was usp’s vision to employ a range of modes for course delivery in the region, because of increasing competition from other providers (burnett, 2004; usp planning and development office, 2002). going the distance for primary teachers to ensure collaborative processes in project decision-making and direction, three groups were established for overseeing the work: the advisory group, the project coordinating committee, and the operating group. the advisory group included the principals from the region’s teachers’ colleges and the project support staff who were specifically appointed to the project. the project coordinating committee was comprised of aid donor officials from ausaid, usp school of education lecturers, and usp senior administrative staff. the operating group included lecturers from the school of education and instructional designers and editors from usp’s distance and flexible learning support centre (dflsc). the latter group was responsible for closely monitoring the progress of the project. the operating group prepared the schedule of activities for the conversion of the courses in the programme to distance and flexible learning (dfl) mode. this group worked closely with the course writers. before course writing began on any of the bed primary course materials, a workshop was held for the course writers with konai thaman, a leading pacific educator and currently the unesco chair in teacher education and culture. the workshop focused on identifying the perceived unique needs of pacific learners (see thaman, 2002, 2003; taufe’ulungaki, 2002, 2003). this helped to ensure that materials were relevant and regionally contextualised. journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 4 a work plan was then prepared to ensure the progress of each task. the actual work on the project began in january 2004. in relation to the first task, a retreat was organized to brief all involved in the project, especially those directly involved with course writing. two points the writers were to consider while writing were thinking about student needs and about course-writing processes. the former included aspects such as a student’s level of english, a potentially very heterogeneous student enrolment, and the issues of studying part-time. the second involved in most cases a timely restructure and update of course content that had not been changed for several years. the major task of course writing involved individual course coordinators, who had been teaching their respective courses to primary teachers since the degree’s inception in 1999, and two primary teaching specialists, who also had educational research experience. a locally adapted version of the commonwealth of learning’s style guide for course writing (1999) was used as the basis for all courses within the programme. with instructional designer input, the teaching text created was accompanied by: contextualized graphics (showing local regional school settings); opportunities for learner reflection and activities with feedback; individual unit concept maps and unit overviews; study planners and a logical scope and sequence of action research concepts, skills, and understandings. photographs of pacific people (current bed students) were used as in-text student mentors to offer friendly guiding direction and comments on topics to help students identify with the content of the material. the project also sought to utilise primary teacher training expertise from the regional teachers’ colleges and the incountry experience of the directors of usp centres and ministries of education from each pacific island country. consultation meetings were organized with these key people in the region both on-campus in suva and via teleconference to provide input into the project as well as for the project team to brief them on developments. the principals, directors, and ministry officials also were able to identify suitable staff for further professional development, as the project did allocate some funds for development of college staff and to assist in the on-delivery of the degree once externalisation had been completed. with regards to the professional development of the regional teachers’ college staff, two curriculum workshops and a summer school were organized. in addition, some staff from these colleges were sponsored for their own postgraduate study at usp. the purpose of this was to appoint these staff as local in-country tutors. this regional networking with the teachers’ colleges was considered essential for the delivery of the courses in the programme. the directors of usp centres were also closely associated with the project in terms of liaison with their respective ministries of education and their nearby teachers’ college. project challenges a range of issues and challenges presented themselves to the writing teams in working toward the final outcomes, including: student access; the use of certain technologies in programme delivery; forming partnerships between usp as the programme provider and journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 5 the region’s teachers’ colleges; and programme articulation. some of the challenges were addressed in the final outcomes (see below), whereas others continue to impact on the quality of the degree’s delivery across the region. ongoing debate, research, and critical reflection at the university, school of education, regional teachers’ college, and ministry of education levels are needed to overcome these challenges. student access despite externalisation, teacher access to the bed (primary) degree programme remains problematic from at least two perspectives. there has been a high demand among the region’s primary school teachers for the programme since its inception and, predictably, demand has only increased since externalisation was completed. however, it is only some of the fijian teachers who are able to self-fund their study. all others rely on winning limited sponsorship support from their own or third-party governments to meet the programme fees set by usp. fijian teachers also have a greater range of sponsorship options open to them, due largely to fiji’s relatively more buoyant economy. obtaining sponsorship support in other pacific countries hinges entirely upon the national planning goals of these countries, their much more limited financial resources, and variance in educational aid policy with donor countries. the key issue here is the balancing of budgetary concerns with desires for a more qualified professional teaching workforce. it is thought that paying the salary increase for teachers’ increasing qualifications would not be possible for some regional governments. thus wide pacific teacher access to the programme, despite lower costs because of externalisation, remains limited. additionally, where a teacher’s location is in a remote, rural part the pacific, programme access becomes difficult. usp prides itself on the use of information and communications technologies (ict) to deliver its programmes into all 12 member nations. however, ictfacilitated programme delivery in many cases stops short at each urban centre. there are profound challenges for usp around issues of equity associated with rurality and remoteness. surprisingly, despite the university’s increasing use of ict in its course delivery, “no comprehensive study of access and barriers to technology has been carried out for the usp distance student population” (gold, swann, & yee chief, 2002, p. 55). of course, these challenges are not new (see mathewson, 1994, 2000; gold, swann, & yee chief, 2002), nor are they confined to the pacific region. a number of studies have shown that where high reliance on ict for educational programme delivery exists, there is the risk of exacerbating pre-existing inequalities based on class and location (see barraket & scott, 2001; mcinnerney, mcnamee, & roberts, 2003). as taylor (1999) notes, the “unbridgeable gap between the technology haves and have nots” is “highly consistent with the existing gap between the financial haves and have nots.” heavy reliance on ict also exacerbates the gap between the spatial haves and have nots. the pacific region is characterised by rapid and, in some cases, unchecked urban growth. many commentators believe that within several decades more pacific people will be living in or near urban centres than in rural areas (storey, 2005, p. 3). journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 6 research is needed to determine whether ict use that is confined to urban usp study centres might be another contributor to urban expansion. prior to externalisation, many bed primary students relocated to suva from rural parts of fiji in order to enrol in the degree programme (burnett & lingam, 2007). one possible way of overcoming the problems of equity due to distance is the appointment of an increased number of tutors to each usp centre in the region. these tutors are intended to be local teachers’ college personnel who can draw on their experiences as teacher educators with intimate knowledge of the unique characteristics of their county context to serve as a bridge between the usp programme and the rural teachers undertaking the programme. these tutors should have a degree of mobility in their country, as well as access to the ict needed. at this stage there has not been any tutor employment above normal employment levels at any of usp’s in-country campuses. in addition, not all countries have a teachers’ college. it remains to be worked out how tutors shall be appointed in countries such as nauru, tuvalu, niue, and tokelau. information and communication technology the university of the south pacific makes ict use in course delivery a priority and positions itself at the forefront of technology utilization in teaching and learning (see usp, 2003). it appears that quality teaching and learning are more likely to be achieved by the uptake of technology and its use to overcome barriers of distance. however, the costs associated with ict uptake and the basic infrastructure required to make it viable mean its distribution across the region is very uneven. for example, in vanuatu there are 0.1 personal computers (pcs) per 100 inhabitants compared to 5 pcs per 100 inhabitants in fiji and 50 pcs per 100 inhabitants in the united states (gold, swann, & yee chief, 2002). work needs to be done within the region to find ict that is less cost prohibitive and infrastructure reliant. one current usp interest is in the solomon islands’ people first network project, which involves programme delivery to remote students via solar-powered two-way radio mediated e-mail (leeming, 2003). the usp externalisation team worked amid tensions around ict expectations and old tech or no tech approaches to course delivery. a conscious decision was made to use print-based materials as the only equitable way of delivering programmes such as the bed into remote areas. some stakeholders suggest a multiple approach should be taken, where teachers that reside in relative proximity to usp centres that house the required hardware could utilise the range of icts available. however, equity issues remain unresolved. the print delivered degree obtained mainly by remote students would not necessarily be the same as the ict-facilitated degree obtained by the region’s urban students. some consideration is being given to the idea of having separate course offerings. students would select either the dfl mode or an on-campus/ict-mediated mode. the intent would be to make the same resources available for both courses. however, this approach does not address the additional resources that would be available for on-campus or ictmediated courses through usp centres, teachers’ colleges, and the suva campus. a different set of challenges also relates to dfl delivery of a programme such as journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 7 a teacher training course without using face-to-face contact. there are questions around fundamental issues of human contact between student and lecturer in completing a teacher training course that by necessity involves relationship development. this concern applies to all courses in the programme, but especially to those in areas such as physical education, arts, and language. these are particularly challenging courses to deliver via dfl and might require face-to-face contact either through summer schools, residential schools, or extended periods of time with the course tutors. usp/teachers’ college partnerships at present usp has taken the lead in constructing the new programme and delivering it through the region’s nine teachers’ colleges. however, the colleges have built up a considerable body of knowledge around teacher training programmes over the years they have been operating. in each case the teachers’ colleges have been delivering teacher training programmes for a much longer period than the university. it is here that the partnership aspect of the project is crucial. meetings of college principals with usp personnel proved invaluable to the project writers in appreciating the body of professional knowledge that exists in each teachers’ college. because of the region’s diversity—politically, socially, culturally, and economically— the work of teachers in each country varies tremendously. the partnership between usp and the teachers’ colleges is unique, in that the two parties could well be seen in some contexts as competitors. for example, in australia, tertiary institutions have been pitted against each other in terms of their research and course offerings in order to survive (marginson, 2000). this is not the case within the pacific region, but in the future a similar scenario could develop. at this stage usp’s bed is an in-service programme, one that most countries in the region do not offer, thus the partners are not direct competitors. however, things could change. at present fulton college in fiji offers a bed programme at the pre-service level. lautoka teachers’ college and other colleges are considering moving to a bed programme at some time in the future. fulton college and the catholic sponsored corpus christi in suva also serve a particular system of schools, those run by the seventh day adventist and catholic churches respectively in the region. there is the possibility that conflicts over values may prevent close collaboration in future teacher training. additionally, the marshall islands’ college is bound by agreements with u.s. central government directives about forming partnerships with institutions outside of the united states. the externalisation process has moved very sensitively given these tensions. the partnerships between usp and the region’s teachers’ colleges are important for keeping educational services within the region. many teachers’ colleges have been enticed into free-trade type relationships with new zealand and australian universities to upgrade staff qualifications, receive consultancies of various kinds, and gain material assistance. these relationships have traditionally been hard to resist when they come with large budgets and big promises of development, resources, and travel. these relationships also bring the potential for a diminishing of cultural autonomy and ownership of programmes. the pacific’s more critical educators question who really benefits journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 8 from such relationships (see sanga, chu, hall, & crowl, 2005; sanga & taufe’ulungaki, 2005). as mentioned earlier, institutions in australia’s tertiary sector battle to survive in a climate of ever-diminishing resources and enforced marketisation. consultancy contracts in the pacific won by australian universities help keep those universities economically buoyant in tough times (luteru & teasdale, 1993; baba, 1987). forging closer ties between usp and the teachers’ colleges, as the externalisation project has done, redirects spending to the region, as well as utilising local expertise and the often-desired local epistemologies that from a postcolonial perspective have never been fully recognised (taufe’ulungaki, 2002, 2003; thaman, 2002, 2003; teaero, 2002). course articulation as mentioned previously, teachers with a qualification in teaching from their home country’s institution and three years’ teaching experience are able to enrol in the upgrade programme. they study part time and complete the programme in a three-year period. they are given one year’s advanced standing toward the bed degree. however, there has been a need for flexibility around the advanced standing, given the diversity of training experiences students bring to the upgrade. the region’s nine teachers’ colleges all differ in their own pre-service programmes, and these programmes also have differed over time. the face-to-face course offered within fiji has attracted students who did their initial training more than 20 years ago. these students, in particular, bring to the degree a set of formal learning experiences that differ from those which a student brings who graduated from their teachers’ college only three years before. a compulsory academic english course goes some way to off-setting problems for teachers who are not familiar with the literacies required for university study. conclusion the initiative taken by usp to convert the bachelor of education (primary) to distance mode is timely, because the pacific region needs better-qualified primary teachers who will in turn contribute positively toward improving the quality of education at the primary level. the course materials utilise insider understandings of how adult pacific students learn. we feel that the wider externalisation team, mentioned earlier, knows pacific teachers better, including their particular needs and the unique challenges they face. many of these challenges centre around the region’s neo-colonial/globalising influences and the sometimes oppositional need to preserve and promote culturally sensitive pacific knowledges, ways of teaching, and learning. in addition, we would emphasise here the project’s transformative potential. teachers undertaking the programme in greater numbers will result in teacherinitiated change in their own practices and systems, either at the level of classroom teaching or in wider spheres of influence at the whole school, community, and national levels. teachers are empowered to see themselves as agents of change, particularly in areas they perceive as important and relevant. this point is particularly pertinent in the pacific region, where alternative teacher professional development opportunities are scarce and the status of teaching as a profession is not high. journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 9 references baba, t. (1987). academic buccaneering australian style: the role of australian academics in the south seas. directions, 9(1), 3–11. barraket, j., & scott, g. (2001). virtual equality? equity and the use of information technology in higher education. australian academic research libraries, 32(3). retrieved april 20, 2008, from http://alia.org.au/publishing/aarl/32.3/ full.text/barraket.scott.html burnett, g. (2004). book review of internationalising higher education: critical explorations of pedagogy and policy, by p. ninnes & m. hellstén. canadian and international education, 33(2), 103–106. burnett, g., & lingam, g. i. (2007). reflective teachers and teacher educators in the pacific region: conversations with us not about us. international review of education, 53, 303–321. campbell, i. (2006). rock of ages: tension underlying stability in tonga. in d. rumley, v. forbes, & c. griffen (eds.), australia’s arc of instability: the political and cultural dynamics of regional security (pp. 273–288). london: springer. chandra, r. c. (2000). towards greater professionalization of teaching: the challenge for fiji. fiji teachers journal, 70, 10-15. commonwealth of learning (1999). style guide: increasing access to secondary school level education through the production of quality learning materials. vancouver, bc: commonwealth of learning. costa, v. (2004). report to the programme coordinating committee: primary bachelor of education externalisation project. suva, fiji: department of education and psychology, school of humanities. crocombe, r. (2001). the south pacific. suva, fiji: institute of pacific studies. gold, m., swann, j., & yee chief, i. 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(2000). rethinking academic work in the global era. journal of higher education policy and management, 22(1), 23–35. matthewson, c. (1994). the usp divided world. pacific curriculum network, 3(1), 3–4. matthewson, c. (2000). the south pacific: journeys of navigation in distance education. in r. guy, t. kosage, & r. hayakawa (eds.), distance education in the south pacific: nets and voyages (pp. 43– 97). suva, fiji: institute of pacific studies, the university of the south pacific. mcinnerney, j., mcnamee, l., & roberts, t. (2003). usability, accessibility, and equity: understanding the anomalies in online learning. paper presented at the ausweb conference. retrieved april 17, 2008, from http://ausweb.scu.edu.au/aw03/papers/ roberts/ moore, c. 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(2005). international aid impacts on pacific education. wellington, new zealand: he parekereke, institute for research and development in maori and pacific education, victoria university, and suva, fiji: institute of education, university of the south pacific. smyth, j. (2001). critical politics of teachers’ work: an australian perspective. new york: peter lang. stewart, i. d. (1975). education in the south pacific: the issues. asia-pacific journal of teacher education, 3(3), 46–56. storey, d. (2005). urban governance in pacific island countries: advancing an overdue agenda. state society and governance in melanesia discussion paper, 2005–2007. canberra, australia: research school of pacific and asian studies, australian national university. taufe’ulungaki, a. m. (2002). pacific education at the crossroads: are there alternatives? in f. pene, a. m. taufe’ ulungaki, & c. benson (eds.), tree of opportunity: re-thinking pacific education. suva, fiji: institute of education, university of the south pacific. taufe’ulungaki, a. m. (2003). vernacular languages and classroom interactions in the pacific. in k. thaman (ed.), educational ideas from oceania. suva, fiji: institute of education/unesco chair of teacher education and culture, university of the south pacific. taylor, p. (1999). it skills and schooling: rethinking assumptions about access. paper presented at australian association for research in education conference, melbourne. retrieved april 12, 2008, from http://www.aare.edu.au/99pap/ tay99146.htm teaero, t. (2002). old challenges, “new” responses to educational issues in kiribati. in f. pene, a. m. taufe’ulungaki, & c. benson (eds.), tree of opportunity: re-thinking pacific education. suva, fiji: institute of education, university of the south pacific. thaman, k. (2002). towards cultural democracy in pacific education: an imperative for the twenty-first century. in f. pene, a. m. taufe’ulungaki, & c. benson (eds.), tree of opportunity: re-thinking pacific education. suva, fiji: institute of education, university of the south pacific. thaman, k. (ed.). (2003). educational ideas from oceania: selected readings. suva, fiji: institute of education and unesco chair in education. unesco (2007). education for all by 2015: will we make it? education for all monitoring project, 2008. oxford, england: oxford university press. united nations (2008). millennium development goals, achieve universal primary education. retrieved april 20, 2008, from http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/ index.html usp planning and development office (2002). bachelor of education (primary) programme: a proposal for the australian agency of international development. suva, fiji: university of the south pacific. usp (2003). a regional university of excellence: weaving past and present for the future, a vision to the year 2020. report of the usp review sub-committee of council to guide the future of the university of the south pacific. suva, fiji: university of the south pacific. voight-graft, c. (2003). fijian teachers on the move: causes, implications, and policies. asia pacific viewpoint, 44(2), 163–175. journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 11 govinda ishwar lingam is a lecturer and division head of primary education at the university of the south pacific. he taught at various secondary schools in fiji before becoming a senior lecturer and head of the school of education at the government-owned primary teachers’ college, lautoka teachers’ college in fiji. his professional and research interests are in teacher education and rural education, especially multi-grade teaching and educational management and leadership. greg burnett is a lecturer in education at the university of otago. the research this article reports on was conducted with the coauthor while burnett was teaching and course writing at the university of the south pacific in suva, fiji. he has taught at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels in a number of pacific island countries. his research interests include pacific education systems, teacher voice, cultural critique, and critical theory. journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 12 the use of multiple textual forms in distance learning introd u ction d i s t a n c e l e a r n i n g courses generally comprise a range o f textual materials such as a set text, audio materials, a printed study guide and on-line material. this approach reflects a shift in distance education from an almost exclusive focus on print materials, to a position where text-based instruction is supplemented by other sources for learning. the trend is towards using multiple sources for learning, which provide the learner with the possibility of selecting and accessing material in a textual form which accords with their learning preferences. thus, course developers may incorporate a range of d e l i v e r y media i n t o d i s t a n c e l e a r n i n g packages which include varying forms o f text, audiotapes, videotapes and computer-based materials. much research in distance education centres on the nature of instructional materials, the process of course development and support devices within texts. for example, rowntree (1994) focuses on evaluating and customising materials, henry (1994) argues for a project­ b a s e d a ppr oach in d i s t a n c e l e a r n i n g , lockwood (1994) highlights the importance of tutorial-in-print, reflective action guides and dialogue in self-instructional texts, and valcke, martens, poelmans and daal (1993) have carried out a number of studies to investigate the role played by embedded support devices in text. in an article critiquing options for course design, lawless (1994) argues that there has been a shift in the treatment of subject matter in distance courses from what he calls the basic model to the 'developed' learning course model. in the basic model, students move in a linear fashion from one teaching text cynthia white massey university to the next, and the material is in the form of a printed guide bound in one or more volumes. such courses, lawless points out, suit students who study on commuter trains, but as a model have limited use since a range of elements and media are considered desirable, and often necessary, to teach most subjects. the wide­ ranging or 'developed' model for a distance learning course is one in which a range of media is included to complement the teaching texts or units, which may still remain the main teaching element. media used may include t e l e v i s i o n , a u d i o c a s s e t t e s , c o m p u t e r s , textbooks a n d specially prepared readers. the growth in multimedia learning has been quite central to developments in distance learning; the term 'multimedia' originated from the field of distance education and was used to describe the delivery of courses via text, television, radio, telephone and so on. in a discussion of multimedia, bates (1993) notes that in distance education the four most important media are text, audio, television and computing. more than one technology can be used to carry each medium, so, the audio medium can be carried by audiocassettes, radio and telephone, for example. more recently, the term 'multimedia' has come to refer to material used at workstations and delivered through cd-rom, or hard disk, which contain text in both print and audio­ v i s u a l f o r m s . m a y e r (1997) a r g u e s t h a t multimedia learning occurs when students receive information presented in more than one mode, and learners construct and co­ ordinate multiple representations of material. where student perceptions of delivery media journal of distance learning, vol5, no 1, 2000 © distance education association of new zealand 18 have been investigated in distance education, they have tended to be in studies which have isolated a single delivery medium, 'and have elicited student ;'views of the effectiveness of l e a r n i n g in t h a t c o n t ext. f o r e x a m p l e , d a u g h e r t y a n d f u n k e ( 1 9 9 8) e x a m i n e d student perceptions o f web-based instruction, and reported increased motivation, and access to current, global content as key advantages. what is also needed, to complement such studies, is to examine student perceptions of the role and attributes of a range of media w h i c h , n o w, t y p i c a l ly, c o m p r i s e t h e 'developed' learning course model i n distance education, referred to earlier by lawless. the focus of this research is the use of multiple learning sources, which also involve multiple media. a number of questions prompted the investigation, including: are these modes simply alternative delivery devices, or do they each offer particular features to the learner in terms of ways of accessing and processing content and develop i n g skills? what d o students perceive as the functions of t h e different learning sources (e.g. print, audio and video materials)? what learning paths do students negotiate through the different components of a course? the study reported here provides a framework through which to analyse the textual forms students are exposed to in a course. the textual forms which individually and in combination are the focus of the research, include those as part of the course package, and those which are chosen and accessed by the learner. the interest is in student perspectives of the different texts they access and combine to form learning paths in the course. text, intertextuality, textual f orms it is important to define key terms for this study: firstly the notion of text. a text is often thought of as written discourse in print form. however, what constitutes a text has come to be seen as any unit, linguistic or non-linguistic, which performs the function of i n f o r m a t i o n or m e a n i n g t r ansfer for an individual. this notion of text, consistent with the approach of kristeva (reported in moi, 1986), bloome and egan-robertson and others, emphasises that it is the point at which individuals engage with and access such units that they become texts; in other words, it is individuals who create text. furthermore, what is a text for some may not be a text for others, and ,the relationship between texts is not a given but something constructed by an individual. this latter point relates to the idea of intertextuality, namely that individuals make links between texts, transfer meaning from one textual form to another, and create intertexts. one way in which to think of texts is in terms of the textual forms they take: oral, written and visual. this is a fairly rudimentary distinction, but useful for a study of students who are using multiple texts to develop oral and written �kills in a language. it is consistent w i t h t h e s e n s o r y modality aspect of multimedia highlighted by mayer (1997) who draws a distinction between 'multi' referring to the delivery media (thus text in a book vs. text in a computer), to the presentation mode (for example a drawing vs. a statement) and to the sensory modality (thus print vs. spoken word). this tripartite model could serve as the b a s i s f o r a f i n e g r ained analysis of the components in a section of a multimedia course and the contribution of micro-aspects of text to learning; though such an approach will not be pursued in this study. however, mayer's category of sensory modality is useful as a means of identifying features of the different textual forms in a course, and can be applied here. the study this study focuses on the functions and uses of different textual forms available to learners in a naturalistic setting of a distance foreign language course at the tertiary level. the main textual forms of the course comprise five phy sically distinct entities (see table 1): videotape, audiotape, textbook, workbook (all purchased from the publisher) and study guide (developed by the course tutor for the distance learner). it was considered important to gain an understanding of how the tutor and students journal of distance learning, vol5, no 1, 2000 © distance education association of new zealand 19 textual form ' workbook � textbook [[l audio cassette i ��,00,�( i video v � � study guide 0 table 1: textual forms conceptualised the sources and referred to them. discussions revealed that the terms for textual forms appearing in table 1 were used by students and could thus be adopted in the study. distance students in an introductory spanish course were invited to take part in a two-stage investigation of what was broadly called 'te x t s f o r l e a r n i n g spanish ' . ethical procedures were followed, in approaches to students, the gaining of informed consent, and t h e m a i n t e n a n c e of a n o n y m i t y and confidentiality. it was emphasised to students that participation in the study was voluntary, and did not form part of the assessment of the course. the researcher and research assistant were not involved in teaching the course. thirty-one students participated in stage one of the study, reported here, and 27 students participated in stage two. the instrument chosen to gather data was a self-report postal questionnaire, consisting of ranking items, open-ended questions and sensory modality print print audio visual/ audio print semi-structured questions. the questionnaire format was chosen largely because it is a feasible means of gaining responses from a range of students distant from the university. it was administered to students during week three of a 12 w e e k semester. the use o f multiple textual forms was investigated from a variety of p e r s p e c t i v e s w h i c h c a n b e classified as: a. primary vs. secondary sources b. preferences for initial input c. intertextual links d. time allocation e. source evaluation a second questionnaire, referred to earlier, was administered during week 10 of the semester, and included questions relating to affective aspects of the use of multiple sources. the remainder of the article presents findings and discussion related to the five areas outlined above. primary vs. s e cond ary sources as the first stage of finding out which textual forms students considered to be journal of distance learning, vol 5, no 1, 2000 © distance education association of new zealand 20 principal sources for learning, and which were considered to be supplementary or auxiliary sources, students were asked to reflect on the use they made of different texts to develop their knowledge of spanish. they then categorised the sources as pr i m a r y o r secondary in t e r m s of their exper ience: primary sources were defined as key sources for learning, while secondary sources were those used less frequently, or consulted occasionally. thus the focus was on which texts learners viewed as central sources for learning, and which were judged to be more peripheral. analysis of student responses revealed that proportionately more texts were classified as primary sources (97 instances) than secondary sources (59 instances). there was remarkable consistency between students in their evaluations of the study guide, videotape and textbook as key texts, and the dictionary (optional) as a secondary text. evaluations of the workbook and audiotape were the most variable: students were divided over which of these they considered to be a primary source, and which a secondary source (see table 2). the patterns of responses indicate t h a t primary sources are the study guide, videotape and textbook and then either the workbook or the audiotape. the secondary sources were typically the dictionary, either the workbook or the audiotape, and, in a few cases, either the textbook or the videotape. the study guide was the one source which almost no students regarded as a secondary source. the results suggest that the material compiled by the course co-ordinator as a study guide was consistently judged to be central to the c o u r s e , m o r e so than any of the other commercially published sources. this may be consistent w i t h p r i o r findings t h a t c o m p o n e n t s o f the cou r s e relating to assessment are, for many students, judged to be 'the course'. further discussion relating to this point will be taken up later in the article. it was also evident that several students did use other sources for learning beyond the course materials, but that such sources were mostly judged to be secondary. nine students used the following as secondary sources, outside the course materials: language cds, a computer-based course, a vocabulary text, music tapes, the internet, conversation classes, family members, and another introductory published course. four students mentioned using spanish speakers, a spanish grammar and spa.ush verb tables as primary sources which they located for themselves. i ni tial i np u t: stud e nt preferences when students are learning in an environment of multiple textual forms, they have a number of options as to the preferred textual form for initial input. in this course, consisting of 13 units, students can provide initial input for themselves through print (study guide, textbook, workbook), audio (audio cassette) or visual/ oral forms (videotape). thus, a number of learner­ controlled options exist. it was expected, at the outset of the study, that students would develop a preferred mode for orienting themselves to a new unit. students were asked about how they provided input for themselves as they embarked on a new unit. specifically, they were asked which of the textual forms they preferred to use: videotape, audiotape, textbook, workbook, study guide. in addition table 2. response frequencies for primary and secondary sources study guide videotape textbook workbook audiotape dictionary primary 24 22 20 14 12 5 secondary 1 5 6 __].1 16 20 journal of distance learning, vol5, no 1, 2000 © distance education association of new zealand 21 they were asked to elaborate on how they made use of that text, to provide themselves with the initial input: in other words, the function of the initial input derived from the source. thus the focus was on the preliminary stage at which the student is turning to the new material for the first time. responses of students revealed two distinct preferences: the video (16 students) and study guide (15 students) were identified as the main initial textual forms (see figure 1). among the r e m aining six students, three chose the textbook, two the audiotape and one the workbook. thus students had access to verbal and visual modes, and approximately half chose a visual orientation, through the video. those who chose to orient themselves to the new material verbally, accessed the unit using print-based sources, mostly through the study guide, and in a few cases through the textbook and the workbook. the choice of aural input (the audio tape) appeared to be motivated by pragmatic concerns: the two students who chose this mode stated that it was the only form of input they could use while driving to and from work. figure 1: preferred textual forms for initial input the visual and verbal orientations to the new material appeared to function in different w a y s . t h e students w h o chose a visual orientation through the video emphasised that they gained a sense of context, which they referred to as 'the background', 'the layout of the unit', 'a broad impression of what we are about to learn'. two secondary functions of the video were also mentioned. for some students the video enabled them to enter a 'spanish' mental framework, as in: i watch the whole lesson on videotape w i t h o u t refer r i n g to any of the workbooks or other books and i talk along with the video. this puts me in 'spanish' mode, so to speak, gets me warmed up, so to speak, and gives an overall context to what we are about to learn. it was also reported that the video was helpful with pronunciation and the learning of phrases: with the video i get an idea of the layout of the lesson, familiarise myself with pronunciation, and learn some phrases. it's an accessible way to take in the beginning of the lesson and what comes after. the accessibility of the video, referred to above, was a recurrent theme. the print-based sources, most notably the study guide, were used for more specific elements: vocabulary, grammar, and a sense of the amount of work required. thus students chose either print sources or visual sources to gain initial access to a new stage of learning. both 'visualisers' and 'verbalisers' used their preferred mode to, in their words, 'gain an overview', 'familiarise myself with the unit'. however, the way they did this with the visual and verbal modes was different: the video served to orient students primarily in terms of context and general background, while print-based sources were used to gain a sense of the new learning required in terms of elements of the language, particularly vocabulary and grammar. intertextual links one further aspect of this study was to determine whether students tend to use sources in isolation during a study session, or whether they combine them and establish intertextual links. in other words, do students work with a single source or multiple sources at any one time? the following question was put to students: journal of distance learning, vol 5, no 1, 2000 © distance education association of new zealand 22 in a single study session, do you use any of the following in conjunction with each other? videotape/ au&iotape/ textbook/ workbook/ study guide/ other if so, which ones? a total of 12 combinations of sources were reported by students: the most frequent of these were the videotape or audiotape in conjunction w i t h the textbook, and the workbook or textbook in conjunction with the study guide (see figure 2). this was consistent with earlier findings in which the text book and study guide were judged to be primary sources. what is evident also is that while the videotape was classified as a primary source, it was used as a stand-alone source only for initial input, and was used subsequently with the textbook. the textbook and study guide can be considered to be 'anchor texts' supplemented by other sources. interestingly when the textbook is the anchor text, visual and aural sources (the videotape and/ or the audio c a s s e t t e ) are t h e most frequent supplementary texts. when the study guide is the anchor text, other print-based sources are preferred as supplementary texts, namely the textbook and/ or the workbook. figure 2: intertextual links: the anchor texts and supplementary sources only one student in the sample stated that she allocated a single source to each study session; howev er, w h e n she elaborated on her sequencing of work, it was evident that she did combine t e x t s , but co nsciously foregrounded one textual form in each session. 'i tend to cover one source per session ... ! might spend a whole hour on the study guide. i might spend a whole hour with the textbook and the audiotape. i usually work a lot with the study guide, then i also refer to the workbook.' time one of the recurrent themes in studies of distance ,students is the time constraints they face, which, in turn, may impact on the time available for study and the way in which they can make use of the available sources. as part of understanding the ways in which diverse textual forms are used in the course, students were asked to i n d i c a t e as a percentage the relative proportion of time they spent working with the videotape, audiotape, textbook, workbook, study guide and other sources. sourcjis maximum minimum average time time time study guide 70% 30% 38% text book 35% 20% 22% video 30% 15% 17% workbook 25% 15% 16% audio 15% 5% 6% other 8% 0% 1% figure 3: time allocation to different sources results revealed a similar pattern across students, with the audiotape and dictionary and 'other sources' each used less than ten percent of the time. this is congruent with findings related to primary and secondary sources, with secondary sources judged consistently in terms of relative importance and time allocation. the study guide, textbook and videotape were the most frequently used sources, with the workbook occupying middle ground between frequently u s e d and infrequently used sources. there was a wide range of response in relation to the proportion of time spent on the study guide: this ranged from 30 percent up to 70 percent. for other sources the band of variation was between 10 percent and. ' 15 percent. journal of distance learning, vo!s, no 1, 2000 © distance education association of new zealand 23 why is it that the study guide attracts diverse student time allocations? one explanation arises from an earlier finding, namely that some students perceive the study guide, written by the course tutor, as 'the course', and allocate time accordingly. a related point is that the study guide was perceived as playing a key role in developing understanding of the language, of the forms encountered in other sources, and enabled the student to draw together other parts of the course: the study guide is informative and has everything that i need to know . . .i like the study guide approach to explaining . . . the study guide is really important for learning the written language with lots of repetition. it is possible that students varied widely in the amount of explanation and knowledge about the language they needed, and also in the explicit focus on vocabulary and structures provided by the study guide, which differed from the other, more contextualised, 'language in use' sources. this last point is important: students varied in their views of what learning spanish meant for them, whether it was gaining control of the spoken forms of the language, through the video, t e x t b o o k , a u d i o t a p e , or w h e t h e r t h e y wished t o foreground the written form and knowledge about the language, which is provided mostly by the study guide. which sources work best? as a final question students were asked to appraise the sources, in terms of those which they found worked best for them in learning spanish. analysis of student respo n s e s revealed three main findings. firstly, while students had readily classified and rated sources in earlier questions, there was an expressed reluctance to isolate and evaluate sources in terms of their overall quality and effectiveness. however, where 'best' sources were identified they tended to be the study guide, video and the textbook. secondly, responses of students foregrounded the importance of multiple sources for language learning, because of their complementary nature: all sources work best for me because essentially they combine to help me study spanish in writing, pronunciation and s t r u c t u r a l areas . . . the sources complement one another. and at a more affective level, the 'relief ' provided b y multiple sources is highly valued: i like the study guide approach to explaining, but the visual relief from the printed word is welcome, in the form of the video, audiotape. there was only one exception to the positive appraisal of multiple sources: i find it annoying that the material is spread over a wide variety of material as it takes a long time to find things. thirdly, students appeared to recognise the link between, multiple sources, and diverse learning styles of individuals, as in: i think the multi-media approach (for distance education students) ought to satisfy all learning styles. the videotape and p r i n t e d w o r d s u p p o r t and reinforce each other. students also recognised the possibilities offered by multiple sources for developing new ways of working with the language: i tend to be a textbook sort of person, so u s i n g v i d e o t a p e has been a wonderful extension for me. discussion and conclusion the findings from this study highlight the kinds of decisions distance learners make in a lear ning e n v i r o n m e n t c h a r a c t e r i s e d b y multiple sources: they make decisions about the primacy of particular textual forms and the time they apportion to them, how they will use the different texts, the texts which suit their preference for initial input and the way they will combine sources. multiple textual forms permit learners to access and process the language in several ways according to their needs and preferences. we have a picture of students actively selecting and co-ordinating different t e x t u a l f o r m s and multiple representations o f language in order t o develop a working control of the language. the ways in which they did this were at once journal of distance learning, vol5, no 1, 2000 © distance education association of new zealand 24 similar and disparate; at the macro level, a number of clear trends emerged (e.g. visual vs. verbal orientation for initial input), but more detailed mvestigation of how texts were processed revealed great variability. students also identified the complementary nature of the sources; they could see where they all'fit in' to the learning paths they established. while students did identify some sources as more useful than others, they saw each one as making a contribution to the learning process, and each as reinforcing the other. it was also clear that sources are used in conjunction with each other. two key combinations were used: when the anchor text was the textbook, visual and aural material were the supplementary sources. w hen the study guide was the anchor text, other print-based sources were the preferred supplementary texts .. one student talked about 'layering her knowledge' through t h e multiple sources; t h i s provides an i n t e r esting image of students accessing sources at different points, thus creating text which accrues over time, creating a fuller picture. it was also clear that the different sources fulfilled different needs, both in terms of personal learning styles and task types; as one student stated, 'the sources complement one another, and you need all to satisfy your demands and questions'. r e s u l t s also suggest t h a t students are comfortable with negotiating a learning path through the materials and the complex role of o r c h e s t r a t o r of multiple textual f o r m s . students reported that each source required a different type of interaction and a different level of engagement, with the most marked contrast being between the visual forms and the print forms. the diverse demands of the texts were seen as providing variety, and different challenges, and as enhancing motivation and interest. the study points to the advantages of adding m u l t i p l e s o u r c e s for learning to the traditionally strong emphasis in distance e d u c a t i o n o n a print-based mode of instruction. the different textual forms can be seen as offering students more representations of the language in different sensory modalities. w h i l e this study did n o t explore t h e relatio nship between m u l t i p l e s e n s o r y modalities and memory, there is ample evidence in previous work t h a t , when compared with students who have only print or auditory �exts in learning language,learners supplied with video materials understand and remember more (rubin, 1990; hanley, herron and co le, 1995; s e c u l e s , herron a n d tomasello, 1992). there w e r e anecdotal references in the verbal reports of students to the facilitating effect of multiple sources on learning: a more fine-grained study of how students use multiple s o u r c e s to l e a r n language forms i s a promising avenue for further research. on the theoretical side, this study lends support for mayer 's generative theory of multimedia learning (mayer, 1997; mayer, steinhoff, bower and mars, 1995) which posits that when learners are presented with material in different modes, they engage in three major processes: selecting, organising and integrating. analysis of the reports of students revealed that they were actively engaged in managing numerous decisions about how to select and organise language forms, and how to integrate that learning with material in other sources. the study points to the fact that distance learning through multiple textual forms is a highly complex endeavour, requiring the learner to continually create texts for him/ herself by establishing connections between multiple sources, and integrating multiple representations of l a n g u a g e f o r m s . a n understanding of h o w distance learners perceive and respond to the multiple sources which typically comprise a distance education course, is important for course designers, tutors and other professionals in the field of open and distance learning. further research should focus on establishing theoretical frameworks as a basis for research into the use of multiple textual forms. a comparative study of the use of multiple textual forms by course developers-; during the course design stage, journal of distance learning, vol5, no 1, 2000 © distance education association of new zealand 25 and subsequently by distance students who provide us with a deeper understanding of areas of convergence and divergence between the planned and actual use of c o u r s e components. finally, this research highlights the role of students, not as a consumers of a packaged course, but as course developers, creating texts and intertexts for themselves, as they engage with and transfer meaning from one textual form to another. references bates, t. (1993). theory and practice in the use of technology in distance education. in keegan, d. (ed.), theoretical principles of distance education. london: routledge. bloome, d. and egan-robertson, a. (1993). the social construction of intertextuality in classroom reading and writing lessons, reading research quarterly, 28, 4, 305-333. dau g h e r t y , m. a n d f unke, b. l. (1998). university faculty and student perceptions of web-based instruction. journal of distance education, 13, 1, 21-39. hanley, j. e. b., herron, c. a., and cole, s. p. (1995). using video as an advance organizer to a written passage in the fles classroom. modern language journal, 79, 1, 57-66. henry, j. (1994). teaching through projects. london: kogan page. laurillard, d. (1993). rethinking university teaching, a framework for the effective use of educational technology. london: routledge. lawless, c. (1994). course design: order and presentation. in lockwood, f. (ed.), materials production in open and distance learning. london: paul chapman publishing. l o c k w o od, f. (1994). encouraging a c t i v e learning: models appropriate for self-instruction. in lockwood, f. (ed.), materials production in open and distance learning. london: paul chapman publishing. may er, r. e. (1997). multimedia learning: are we a s k i n g t h e right qu estio ns? e d u c a t i o n a l psychologist,32,1, 1-19. may er, r. e., steinhoff, k., bower, g. and mars, r. (1995). a generative theory of textbook design: using annotated illustrations to foster meaningful learning of science text. educational technology research and development, 43, 1, 31-44. mol, t. (1986). t he kristeva reader. oxford: basil blackwell. rowntree, d. (1994). existing material: how to f i n d it, e v a l u a t e it a n d c u s t o m i z e i t . i n lockwood, f. (ed.). materials production i n open and distance learning. london: paul chapman publishing. rubin, j. (1990). improving foreign language listening comprehension. in alatis, j. e. (ed.). l inguistics, lang u a g e teaching and lan guage acquisition: the interdependence of theory, practice and research. washington, d.c.: georgetown university press. secules, t., herron, c. and tomasello, m. (1992). the effect of video context on foreign language learning. modern language journal, 76, 480-490. v alcke, m. m. a., martens, r. l., poelmans, p. h. a. g. and daal, m. m. (1993). the actual use of embedded support devices in self-study materials by students in a distance education setting. distance education, 14, 1, 55-84. dr cynthia white is a senior lecturer in the school of language studies, turitea campus, m assey university, private bag 11222, palmerston north, new zealand. email: c.j.white@massey.ac.nz journal of distance learning, vol5, no 1, 2000 © distance education .association of new zealand 26 daniel, j.s. (1996). mega-universities and knowledge media technology strategies for higher education. london: kogan page: pp. 212. john daniel defines a mega-university as "a distance teacillng institution with over 100,000 active students in degree-level courses." eleven mega-universities are identified in various parts of the world on the basis of three criteria: distance teaching, higher education and size. the open university in the united kingdom, of which daniel is vice-chancellor, is thus identified as a mega-university, as is the university of south africa (unisa), indira gandhi national open university in india and the universitas terbuka in indonesia. the purpose of studying mega-universities is not only to consider the role of university education in the national life of the countries in which they are located, many of which are developing societies, but, also because the achievements of the mega­ universities pose a challenge t o conventional academic practice because they show that a different approach to teaching can be more successful than lecturing. daniel begins with an overview of the global "challenges and opportunities" facing conventional universities at the present time. most of the challenges are familiar to all who teach in universities and other tertiary education institutions: increasing demand for higher education, increasing operating costs, the demands of life-long learning and the accompanying increase in part-time students, and increasing demands for "quality, coherence and consistency" in courses. as campuses grow, they often become increasingly impersonal places for students. book reviews the essence of pigher education, however, according to john daniel, is "connecting people into learning communities." to this end he notes, "new technologies, notably the internet and the world wide web, may provide superior ways of creating academic communities." this book lays out a vision of a technological future for universities. first, education will be "unbounded by existing campuses because it will be available anywhere, anytime." in this vision, the .9-ifference between distance education and on-campus education will blur because students will use the same devices, particularly computer conferencing, wherever they are. curriculum and the " delivery mode" will put academic content in "real world contexts" such as the home and the workplace and learning, working, family and social life will converge. courses will become more affordable for students because opportunities will be easier to access and technology will create a market for higher education that will give students much greater choice. the themes of life-long learning and increasingly personalized education are key features of the vision john daniel has for universities and the role that "knowledge media" a term coined by eisenstadt (1995) to refer to the convergence of computing, telecommunications and cognitive sciences to higher education will play in them. all this is challenging for conventional universities used to having lecturers and professors deliver lectures to students who attend classes on-campus at scheduled times. while knowledge media are fundamental to the mega-universities and to other insitutions that teach courses at a distance, they are not necessarily mainstream in institutions that are not providing off-campus instruction. this journal of distance learning, vol 4, no 1, 1998 © distance education association of new zealand 34 book is a useful introduction to modern technologies and their role in university "renewal" for teachers as ,, well as administrators ih universities considering new ways of teaching and providing learning opportunities. john daniel is well known and highly respected in the world of distance education. as a former vice-president of both athabasca and concordia universities, and president of laurentian university, all in canada, before taking up his present position in a british mega-university, john daniel is possibly uniquely qualified to comment on the changes he sees ahead for higher education. for these reasons his name will attract many distance educators to this book. however, mega­ universities and knowledge media has a lot to offer all university teachers and administrators who face the global challenges of providing higher education to more people with fewer resources. daniel makes a powerful case for doing things differently in universities, whether or not they are 'mega' institutions and even if they do not at present provide any courses at a distance. i found the small section on pedagogies particularly interesting. a key point in daniel's discussion of pedagogy is that "the knowledge media may bring the correspondence and remote-classroom traditions of distance education together." daniel believes that today distance education no longer has a distinct and common pedagogy. the pedagogy of synchronous and remote classroom teaching resembles the pedagogy of classroom teaching more than it resembles the pedagogy of asynchronous correspondence teaching. this is a challenging book for distance educators, educational technologists and for all university teachers and adiriinistrators. i found john daniel's vision of higher education compelling and insightful. it is compelling for the vision it offers of how technology is changing the nature of universities and the ways in which they will, in future, function. it provides readers with many insights into the complex challenges presented to universities by increasing demands for higher education coupled with declining government expenditure. reference eisenstadt, m. (1995, multi-media section, 7 april,) overt strategy for global learning times higher educational supplement, pp. vi-vii. " ken stevens memorial university of newfoundland hobbs, v. m & christi anson , j. s . (1997). virtual classroomseducational opportunity through two-way interactive television. lancaster pennsylvannia & basel, switzerland: technomic publishing co. pp. 297. this american book will have particular interest to rural educators and educational administrators who have the financial means to consider this expensive but impressive technology. two-way interactive television, or l-tv, is the linkage of three to ten school districts over fibre optic, coaxial cable or dedicated copper telephone lines, which enables participating schools to share teachers and electronically combine students. the authors' claim is that the major advantage of 1tv over other distance education learning methods is the ability of students andjeachers to simultaneously see and hear one another, enabling spontaneous interaction. according to hobbs and christianson, 1-tv preserves the dynamics of the traditional classroom and allows students to interact with one another from a range of sites. for rural schools i-tv has particular appeal journal of distance learning, vol4, no 1, 1998 © distance education association of new zealand 35 and enables geographically isolated learners to access teachers from diverse places. many rural schools cannot offer advanced courses because of small enrolments and many find it difficult to retain teachers. by collaborating and developing an i-tv network small rural schools can expand curriculum offerings at a cost, according to hobbs and christianson, roughly equivalent to that of hiring one beginning teacher. this claim is made in the context of education in the united states but is worth considering in other places, including new zealand. there are obvious benefits in this technology for rural students hoping to gain entry to tertiary education institutions. there are even more obvious advantages for geographically isolated communities that have found it difficult to provide educational and vocational opportunities for young people equivalent to those provided by larger, usually urban, schools. virtual classrooms is a comprehensive analysis of two-way interactive television in schools. in spite of the technical subject the authors have written a book that is largely jargon-free and easy to follow. guest essays and 'sidebars' enliven the text and provide examples of i-tv in various applications, particularly in rural areas. hobbs and christianson introduce the reader to a range of distance education options including desktop video-conferencing, audiographic technologies, satellite based instruction and teaching by correspondence. within this broad distance education context, l-tv's advantages are considered and a nine­ step programme for establishing a school­ based i-tv network is outlined. chapters are devoted to the organization and administration of an i-tv network and to evaluating its effectiveness. the technological "style" of an i-tv classroom is considered in relation to the teacher 's willingness t o experiment and "take risks" with various technologies: unlike watching television, i-tv can and should be a demanding and engaging process in which students are participants in their own learning. this is a comprehensive treatment of an emerging dime11sion of distance education. the authors include chapters on teaching and learning in virtual classrooms using 1tv and on "issues in human and social capital. " readers are even introduced to a method of conducting an i-tv cost-benefit analysis. virtual classes are becoming more accepted in new zealand, north america, in the nordic countries and elsewhere in the developed world. the introduction of two-way interactive television is not an initiative that can be introd�jced without considerable study and planning. virtual classrooms is a comprehensive treatment of a complex area of educational technology, management, teaching and policy that is written and illustrated in a way that lay people can follow. where there are, inevitably, technical terms in the text, explanations are provided in an extensive glossary. this is an interesting study in itself. for educational administrators, particularly those with teachers and students in rural schools, hobbs and christianson provide a new dimension to the management of isolation. ken stevens memorial university of newfoundland forsyth, i. (1996). teaching and learning materials on the internet. london: kogan page. pp.181, £18. 99 i wasn't there when the phoenicians developed the alphabet. nor was i present at the unveiling of the printing press. i have only read about the advent of the wireless and the subsequent rise of radio. television was already an all-too-common medium to my parents' generation. yet, in spite of my ignorance about how the introductions of these earth-changing media were received at their respective moments in history, i find it joumal of distance leaming, vol4, no 1, 1998 © distance education association of new zealand 36 difficult to imagine any of them being surrounded by the sort of hype with which the internet has been accompanied.\ from the most respected wall street tycoon to the strangest of crackpots, we've all jumped on the internet bandwagon. from the very young to the very old, we've all thrown ourselves into cyberspace. no small wonder then that educators have bought in as well, investing time and money in the pursuit of what may possibly be the first sweeping alteration in traditional pedagogy since aristotle sat down with plato. no small wonder either, that we see the rise of the "how to" book; the much sought after manual that will show us the way to join the ranks of the progressive, the innovative, and the visionaries. ian forsyth has given us just such a manual in his timely teaching and learning materials on the internet. if not a "how to" book, he has at least given us a guidebook on the considerations involved in develop ing internet courses. in some 180 pages he covers such topics as preparing material for the internet, why use the internet, general considerations, getting started, instructional design, forms, specific considerations, cost considerations, developing areas, and glossary of internet terms. it intends to carefully avoid specific technical considerations, understanding that the ever­ changing nature of the internet technology would render a technical manual archaic the moment it was printed. he focuses rather on the pedagogy, instructional design, and administrative considerations of internet course delivery. in these areas he does well. his discussion of what courses may be appropriate to internet delivery will be invaluable to faculties seeking to take advantage of the new medium. his cautions against creating nothing more than "electronic page turning" will expand the understanding of those educators who do not appreciate the potential of the internet as a new medium. his analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the internet as a medium for course delivery explores an often ignored issue by course developers while his outlines of cost considerations will be of immense interest to educational institutions. and his glossary of internet terms will be appreciated by the new�omer. the weakness of the book, however, is not in the specific topics covered, but rather in the ambiguity of the intended audience. institutions interested in cost analysis will not be interested in instructional design. subject matter experts will not be interested in cost analysis. those advanced enough to be interested in his chapter on the development of forms will find his glossary simplistic, and those interested in launching their first internet �ourse will find his book intimidating. he neglected to mention the development of course template packages such as webct, first class, and web course in a box. in fact, it may well be that the developers of these course templates will be the ones who benefit the most from mr forsyth's book. they will appreciate his examinations on the presentation of material in the web environment. in the end i suspect it will be the design specialists and programmers who will determine the most appropriate presentation of courses on the internet, and not the individual subject instructors. as a course developer i found portions of teaching and learning materials on the internet useful. i will even keep it handy for reference. however, i will probably never again read the sections on administrative considerations, completely ignore the glossary, and smile next year at his future considerations. i recommend mr forsyth's book with some reservations. i recommend it to administrators considering the advantages of internet instruction, to faculties considering which courses are appropriate to internet delivery, and to course designers considering the effectiveness of internet presentation. yet to each i caution that they will find portions of absolutely no interest. · . journal of distance learning, vol 4, no 1, 1998 © distance education association of new zealand 37 nevertheless, with so very little written as yet on instructional design of internet courses, mr forsyth has made a brave start. i'm pleased to see the advent of this type of book and eagerly anticipate many more to come. lyndon williams, musgravetown high, newfoundland collis, b. (1996). tele-learning in a digital world t he future of distance learning. london: international thompson computer press. pp. 651. nz$79.00 questions likely to be asked by distance educators are "what is tele-learning?" and "how is tele-leaming different from distance education?" most universities that teach at a distance have traditionally done so through centralized, highly co-ordinated structures. learning materials have been paper-based and considerable use has been made of postal services. increasingly, distance educators have used telecommunications technologies to supplement printed materials and often radio and television have been very effective in this respect. tel e -learning is a new field of education that is likely to hold considerable interest for distance educators. betty collis defines tele-leaming as "making connections among persons and resources through communication technologies for learning related purposes." a key difference between distance education and tele-learning is the ways in which telecommunications technologies are used. the internet is central to tele-learning and this opens up teaching and learning issues that many of us are struggling with. the concept of the 'information age' becomes very real as students access information from an increasingly diverse range of places through their personal computers. computers linked to the internet enable many teachers to develop tele-learning, making distance teaching and learning available to those who have access to appropriate technologies. w hile new technologies are changing the nature of teaching at a distance, it is the pedagogical considerations that are of particular significance at the present time. many people realize the potential of the computers on their desk for teaching in new ways but few have considered the pedagogy of tele-learning. many teachers are unsure why they should consider the world wide web as part of their classrooms. betty collis offers some insights into the pedagogical dimensions of the technologically changing educational environment and sets out three dimensions of tele-learning. it is multi-faceted, it is a multi­ player phenomenon and it involves many pedagogical considerations. for any teacher wondering what the much publicized digital world of education is all about, this book would be a good place to start. this is the most comprehensive book i have seen on tele-learning. it examines many aspects of the subject in both breadth and depth and gives particular attention to the place of the world wide web in the provision of education. collis takes a thematic approach to the subject including tele-learning in primary and secondary school classrooms and its place in post-secondary education instruction. there is coverage of management and, of course, technology issues involved in the incorporation of tele-learning in an educational institution. the particular value of this book, apart from its comprehensive coverage, is its practical approach to tele-learning. collis takes the reader through a range of technologies required for "being connected" in one's classroom and introduces teachers to new ways of disseminating and exchanging information. of particular interest to many teachers will be the section on "adding tele­ learning to face-to-face courses." collis outlines ways in which the teacher can make course resources more accessible to students, present lessons in new ways, improve communication between teacher and student and organize discussion between students. there is also a useful section for teachers on ways of extending the range of learning activities in a classroom journal of distance learning, vol 4, no 1, 1998 © distance education association of new zealand 38 using new technologies. readers of tele-learning in a digital world can, if they wish to, purchase web extra in addition to this text. this provides an online supplement to the book with a hy perlinked overview of it as well as a framework for discussions about tele-learning with the author. tele-learning in a digital world is a major contribution to a new area of education. it is a text that professional distance educators should seriously consider adding to their libraries. as a guide to the complexities of incorporating web-based teaching and learning into classes, whether at school or tertiary level, this book, at present, is the definitive work on the subject. ken stevens memorial university of newfoundland melton, r. f. (1997). objectives, competences & learning outcomes: developing instructional materials in open and distance learning. london: kogan page. nz$49.57. objectives, competences & learning outcomes: developing instructional materials in open and distance learning is a further addition to the growing open and distance learning series of "just in time" references associated with the rebirth of educational technology. the author, reginald melton, is a senior lecturer in the institute of educational technology at the open university, where he has been advising on the design and development of instructional materials and related sy stems for 25 y ears. this series of books are all edited by fred lockwood and are published in association with the open university 's institute of educational technology. if y ou have ever been involved in the development and design of instructional materials, no matter what the intended mode of delivery, i am sure y ou have struggled at some point in the process. w hether it be developing and/ or assessing the objectives, deter mining how to measure learning outcomes, deciding o n an appropriate approach to development, selecting the materials and media, working within a team environment, or deciding on an evaluation model, this book certainly covers these issues and also provides practical advice and relevant examples. as melton discusses in the introduction, the prime purpose of this book is in fact to highlight key issues that need to be taken into account in adopting a behaviourist approach to teaching and testing. melton has divided the book into two separate, but complete sections. the first section is a very comprehensive look at the behaviourist approach that is re-emerging in teaching·and training today. the background of the behaviourist approach is examined as are the traditional tools of instructional design, i.e., objectives, competences and learning outcomes. the second section of the book examines how students might be helped to achieve these standards through the design and development of instructional materials intended to encourage students to become actively involved in a behaviourist approach to learning, particularly through projects and related activities. in the first part of the book, melton takes a look at the nature of objectives, competences, and learning outcomes, and the inter­ relationships between them. he claims, "the intent is not only to highlight their strengths and weaknesses, but also way s in which they might be strengthened" (p. 2). according to melton, " ... with the behaviourist approach to the setting and realization of standards re­ emerging so strongly, it is important that those adopting such an approach are aware of the lessons that have been learnt from the past" (p. 2). melton argues that as " ... behaviourist approaches re-emerge, it is all too easy for new ter minology to hide the fact that the approaches adopted still build on the same basic behaviourist principles." melton looks first at objectives, and reviews journal of distance learning, vol 4, no 1, 1998 © distance education association of new zealand 39 the background from which behavioural and domain-referenced objectives emerged. this is followed by a discussion of how one might set about identifying such objectives for education and training purposes which makes it clear that human judgement has an important role to play. identification and definition of standards in terms of competences, and the idea of learning outcomes is then addressed. melton examines the nature of the assessment process, and looks at performance criteria, range indicators, and evidence required including forms of evidence accepted. again, the implications of human judgement are also discussed with respect to the identification and assessment of competences with emphasis on context. melton also examines how to set about identifying learning outcomes, and highlights key roles that learning outcomes have to play in developing education and training. the final chapter of this section covers the natural links between competences and learning outcomes, and melton then ventures into a description of ways and approaches in which the development of a broad range of competences and skills can contribute to the development of knowledge and understanding. in part two of the book, melton provides a comprehensive overview of the behaviourist approach to the design and development of instructional mater ials. the emphasis throughout is clearly on helping students achieve specified objectives. he makes note that " . . . the strategies described are valid regardless of whether the objectives to be achieved are behavioural or domain­ referenced objectives, competences or learning outcomes" . and, in a later chapter, he goes even further and describes how to transform existing quality instructional materials, to meet the requirements of the behaviourist approach. also, throughout the second part of this book, he is able to neatly thread the idea of related assessment for instructional materials, as well as recommendations for ways in which final products might best be presented. the first chapter of this section logically plunges right into the process of designing instructional materials. melton addresses everything from)dentifying the needs of the target group, clarifying the aims and objectives of the instruction, developing the content and a framework for the process, and he is able to integrate every detail right up to the actual production. furthermore, he also devotes an entire chapter to the very effective team approach to instructional design. as he puts it, " . . . there is much to be gained from individuals working together in course teams. " however, he does add that this approach " . . . subjects individuals to new constraints and new demands . . . " . then, as the finale, i was glad to see that melton saw fit to include an entire chapter on the process of evaluation. he stresses that evaluation has to be an integral part of the course development process, and briefly looks at some basic philosophies and strategies just enough to get the reader thinking of the importance of evaluation for whatever instructional materials are being designed. all in all, i consider objectives, competences & learning outcomes: developing instructional materials in open and distance learning an excellent book. i have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone designing instructional materials. i believe that melton has done a great job of outlining the behaviourist approach to instructional design with newer terminology woven throughout. whether you are a beginner or a pioneer, i am sure that a book such as this can provide the information needed to get focused and started on a project with minimal time delays and frustrations. in addition, with melton's emphasis on learner needs and outcomes, i am certain referring to this book can ensure a better end-product. brian d. kerr memorial university of newfoundland journal of distance learning, vol 4, no l, 1998 © distance education association of new zealand 40 scanned document a quality picture: perspectives on a distance learning programme this paper reports part of a study which examines the construct of quality in massey university's extramural, undergraduate, business studies programme utilising the perceptions of three groups of stakeholders students, teaching staff and senior managers. the quest for quality has had a pervasive effect on business activity in the 1980s and 1990s. boards of directors and managers believe that it gives them a competitive advantage, consumers demand it and employees want it. there is a widely held belief that' quality does it all. it saves. it sells. it satisfies' (brown, gummesson, edvardson, & gustavsson, 1991, xiii). quality control measures have long existed for tangible goods. definitions of quality centre on the ability of a product to fulfill its purpose (juran's 'fitness for use') and to meet predefined specifications (crosby's 'conformance to specifications') . however, in services, quality is more difficult to define and measure. although most services incorporate the use of tangible goods, the service itself is basically intangible. 'services are timebound and experiential, even though they may have lasting consequences' (lovelock, 1992, 6). moreover, service is usually dependent on the interaction of at least two individuals the customer and the service provider, and it is often a lengthy process to which the consumer may make a considerable contribution, an 'input' often impossible to predetermine or define. gummesson calls this key concept 'interactive production' in which quality andrea mcilroy department of management systems massey university p almerston north contributions come from the concerted efforts of both the customer and the service provider (gummesson, in brown et ai, 1991,4). this is true of all services, even those such as education and health which have traditionally not defined the users of their services as customers. publically funded institutions, including local bodies, health and education, have not escaped the demand for quality. in new zealand this has largely been in response to deregulation, increased competition, reduced funding, the drive for efficiency and a greater requirement for accountability from both the government and the public. the result has been massive changes in the structure and culture of many public institutions. in the tertiary education sector deregulation has allowed many new entrants into a market which was previously exclusive to the universities the teaching and granting of degrees. while the universities have not been at the vanguard of embracing quality management, many worldwide have now established their own quality monitoring bodies . in new zealand this is the new zealand universities academic audit unit. there has also been a substantial reduction in the level of government subsidy that students receive to support their tertiary study. so as the range of providers and programmes expands and as students are expected to contribute a greater proportion of their own fees, they increasingly view themselves as customers with consumer rights and use journal of distance lea ming, vol 3, no i , 1997 (c) distan ce educa ti on assoc iati on of new zealand 12 quality as an important determinant of choice. quality measures in higher education have traditionally focused very much on outputs and objective performance indicators. in distance education quality assessment has centred on outputs such as good presentation of course materials, integrated use of media, and performance indicators such as retention and pass rates. until recently little attention was paid to what quality means to the consumers of the service, be they students or prospective employers. while tertiary education providers may have an increasing awareness of stakeholders and the 'customer' in education, there i.:; still a reluctance to take cognisance of their expressed needs and perceptions when deciding and designing quality standards. however, in a market which is becoming ever more competitive, it is crucial that providers understand what quality means to the consumers of the 'product' (distance education being a mix of both goods, such as study guides and computer software, and services) that they offer. other important stakeholders in the quality of urtiversity distance education courses include the academic staff who design and teach the programmes, the 'experts', and the senior management of the institution who have the overall responsibility for planning and resource allocation. an important advantage of the stakeholder model is tha t in taking account of a multiplicity of needs and perceptions, a complex construct such as quality can be illuminated. our understanding of it is enhanced and this highlights ways that it can be measured and programmes improved. the recognition of the importance of stakeholders and a clear focus on defining and meeting customer needs are central to many models of quality management used in business. a number of these models, including total quality management (tqm), have now been applied to tertiary and distance education (see for example coate,1990; lewis and smith, 1994; mcilroy and walker, 1993, 1996). there are also some studies of quality in higher education which have included student and staff perceptions (for example harvey, burrows and green, 1992). the study the aims of the study were to: • identify the major dimensions of quality as perceived by students, teaching staff and senior managers • examine any gaps in perceptions among the three groups • reach conclusions il.bout how to improve quality in the extramural, undergraduate, business studies programme in order to do this and to increase the validity and reliability of the study, triangulation of methods and data was used. focus groups were conducted with groups of students and staff, individual interviews were conducted with senior managers and a questionnaire was sent to a large sample of students and staff. from the qualitative data gathered in the focus groups and interviews, seven dimensions of quality were distilled. these became the phenomenological scales upon which the questionnaire was designed and are: scale a: scale b: scale c: scale d: scale e: scale f: scale g: course structure and content face-to-face contact assessment communication institutional and environmental influences standards and evaluation programme integrity the notion of service quality having multiple dimensions is well documented (see, for example, sasser, olsen & wyckoff, 1978; garvin, 1988; gronroos, 1990). one of the most widely applied multi-dimensional models of service quality is that proposed by parasuraman, zeithaml and berry (1985, 1990). however, previous research on quality in tertiary and distance education (for example bell and shieff, 1990; athiyaman and o'donnell, 1994) found that parasuraman et j ozlma/ of distance learning, vol 3, n o i , 1997 (cl distance educati on associati on of new zealand 13 ai's generic servqual instrument was not specifically suited for assessing service quality in higher education. the questionnaire developed from the seven phenomenological scales contained 114 items all of which were quantitative. it was administered in the between semester break in 1996, after students had completed their semester 1 examinations. a random sample of students from the extramural, undergraduate, business studies roll (n=584) and the total population of teaching staff in the business studies faculty (n=145) were surveyed which resulted in a response rate of 54 percent for students and 47percent for staff. results and discussion basic statistical analysis of the data indicated that there were a number of differences between staff and student responses. it had been postulated during the focus group stage that there would also be differences between the perceptions of 'low experience' students, defined as those who had passed five or fewer extramural papers, and 'high experience' students, defined as those who had passed ten item or more extramural papers. the next stage of analysis was therefore to examine the level of statistical difference between the responses of the three groups on all questions. the mannwhitney u test was used for this purpose and was applied to the following four groups: • staff and the total sample of students • .staff and low experience students • staff and high experience students • low and high experience students the greatest number of significant differences were between staff and the total number of students. surprisingly, there were very few significant differences between high and low experience students, and only two that were highly significant (p<.ollevel). as would be expected, the pattern of results, including significant differences, for staff and low experience students and staff and high experience students reflected the pattern for staff and all students. because of the large number of results, the discussion that follows will focus on two 12 aims, objectives and learning outcomes for all courses should be clearly stated 22 course materials should be easy to use 36 all course texts should be available for the start of the course 39 all course materials should be clearly and simply written and jargon kept to a minimum 50 the information in course materials should be accurate and error free 53 a range of readings that complement the set text should be included with the course 54 the quality of courses is compromised if the quantity of readings is excessive 72 course materials should be presented in such a way that they are durable and robust 87 course materials should be up-to-date/ current 94 lecturers should anticipate areas of learning where students commonly have difficulty and try to find ways to overcome them table 1: high agreement, no significant differences staff and all students, scale a: course structure and content journal of distance learning, vol 3, n o 1. 1997 (c) dis[ance educa[i on assoc ia[i on of new zealand 14 scales: course structure and content and face-toface contact. items showing significant differences are grouped into those where the results were congruent i.e. both groups either agreed or disagreed, and those where the results were incongruent that is, one group agreed and the other disagreed. scale a: course structure and content there were 22 items on this scale which related to how courses were structured and organised and to issues of content. some items looked at support/ administrative issues such as the extramural library service; others asked about issues of course structure such as format and organisation of the material; and others asked about issues relating to content such as relevance, and currency of material. there were 10 items where there was high agreement between staff and students and there were no significant differences, see table 1. these items relate to the structure, accuracy, currency and usability of course materials, the item availability of texts and the quantity of additional readings. they also represent what could be described as aspects of 'good practice' in distance education courses and the results confirm that both students and staff concur with them. it is important that the institution ensures that they are built into the design of its courses. this is particularly so in a market that is becoming increasingly competitive with new providers entering the field from both new zealand and overseas. as recent research by wood (1996) found, customer expectations are also continuing to rise and identifying b est practice and transferring it throughout the organisation is a useful and effective strategy for improving service quality. there were 12 items where there were significant differences between students and staff opinion, see table 2. items showing congruence three items, 60,63 and 97, refer to the need level of sig 4 8· the extramural library service is excellent .029* .000** .023* .000** .025* .000** .000** 18 28 60 63 64 68 74 84 92 97 should be standard format for all courses course content should reflect learning outcomes courses should develop critical thinking abilities course materials should consistently refer to the text relative importance of all course reading should be indicated university courses should be knowledge based rather than skills based no justification for purchase of multiple texts for a course courses should be practical and relevant to the business world texts should be written about or highly relevant to nz courses should be based on contemporary international literature and knowledge a weekly time table should be included in all courses to guide students .. significant at th e p <. ol leve l * significant a t the p <.os leve l .000** .000** .002** .028* .000** table 2: significant differences staff and all students, scale a: course structure and content jollmal o!distdnc( leaming. vol 3. no 1. 1997 (el di5[ance edu ca tion association of new zealand 15 for learning to be structured. this includes clear guidance from the course controller about what should be read and when. on all three items the level of student agreement was stronger than for staff. item 60 was also the only item on this scale where there was a significant difference (p <. 05 level) b e tween low and high experience students, low experience students agreeing with the item more strongly than their more experienced contemporaries. this could indicate that they prefer even more direction and structure in their learning. there was also extremely high agreement from both the staff and all student groups that course content should reflect learning outcomes, a further indication of the need for structure in the learning process. for this item staff agreed more strongly than students. many courses already incorporate these design features and for those that do not, it would be a relatively easy matter for these features to be included. however, the need for structure does not encompass standardising course formats. neither staff nor students felt that there should be a standard format for all courses (item 8) with staff disagreement being stronger. the strength of staff opinion may reflect the idiosyncratic approach to course design that is part of massey university's culture. this it seems is more desirable than a template approach which, it could be argued, makes course design much easier. many of the open uni versities , including the uk open university, use a standard format for their courses. while it may make courses more acce s sible for users, it also has a very important 'branding' function . in a market which is becoming more and more competitive, such a consideration may become quite an important issue. although both staff and students agreed that there was no justification for the purchase of multiple texts (item 68), student opinion was much stronger, resulting in a highly significant difference between the two groups (p <.ol). this outcome is not unexpected, given that students have to 'foot the bill' for their texts and they are generally concerned about the rising costs of study. it may also be related to student concerns about excessive workload. both staff and student groups agreed that the extramural library service is excellent but the level of agreement was stronger from students (item 4). however, it should also be noted that 21 students (7percent) and 6 staff (9percent) commented on their questionnaires that they either had never used the extramural library service or lacked the know ledge necessary to respond to the question. but it is obviously a service which is highly valued by those who do use it. while all staff and a high proportion of students agreed that courses should develop students' critical thinking abilities, staff felt more strongly about this than students did . this same difference of opinion was reflected in the responses to item 74 where students agreed more strongly than staff that courses should be practical and relevant to the business world . items 84 and 92 relate to the content of course texts. students felt more strongly than staff that course texts should be written about or highly relevant to new zealand. this suggests that students want texts that reflect and can be applied to their working environments . staff responses may reflect the common difficulty of finding suitable texts about new zealand and the desire to place new zealand within the wider international context with which they often strongly identify, a notion supported by their strong agreement with item 92. items showing incongruence there was only one item on this scale that showed significant differences and incongruence between the two groups. item 64 stated that university courses should be knowledge based rather than skills based. slightly more than half of staff, 58percent, agreed with this statement. however, quite a high proportion of students, 65p e r cent, disagreed with the statement. while students j ournal of d ista nce learning, vol 3, no 1, 1997 (c) distan ce educati on assoc iati on of new zeal an d 16 are indicating fairly clearly that they prefer courses that are based on skills development, it is interesting that staff, traditionally fairly 'academic' in their orientation to learning, are rather equivocal in the ir responses. this may reflect the applied nature of business studies and it could well b e that staff in a more traditional faculty, such as humanities, would respond differently. however, it does suggest that staff and students may well have different expectations about the purpose of courses offered by the faculty of business studies and that such a gap may n eed to b e addressed through appropriate marketing. as a means of cross validating and summarising the concepts in the questionnaire, an item (118) was included at the end which asked participants to rate 12 dimensions of quality in business studies extramural courses according to their importance . there were four that related to this scale. for 'course design' and 'course content' both student and staff respondents agreed that these were extremely important. however, on 'relevance to the work situation' there was a highly significant differenc~ (p <.ol) with students seeing this as more important than staff. the same difference was found with 'intellectual challenge' but this time staff saw this as more important than students. these results confirm the findings on scale a. this scale, course structu re and con ten t, ha s highlighted three things: 1. there was a high level of agreement item between students and staff about a number of course attributes that could be said to represen t good practice. these include physica l, s tructural and content aspects of course materials. 2. it is clear that students value a high level of structure and guidance in their learning and appreciate techniques such as keying texts to the study guide that will facilitate the learning process. 3. students felt more strongly than staff that courses should be practical, relevant to the business world and based on texts that are about or highly relevant to new zealand . they also felt that courses should be skills based rather than knowledge based reflecting the fact that many of them are doing work-related study. staff on the other hand, placed a high e r value on the intellectual challenge of courses than students did. scale b: face-to-face contact at massey university, most courses taught in the distance mode, offer some opportunity for face-to-face contact between students and the course tutor. this is either at the palmerston north campus (campus course) or at a regional venue (regional course) when course numbers warrant it. depending on cours'e requirements, attendance may be voluntary, strongly recommended or compulsory. this scale,face-to-face contact, had 10 items relating to the value of campus and regional courses . although there were only three items where the differences between the two groups were significant, the results from the other 7 items also produced some interesting information. level of sig 23 face-to-face contact with lecturer enhances overall quality of course .037* 43 weekend regional courses are of more value than on campus courses 108 the costs of attending an on campus course far outweigh the benefits •• significa nt a t th e p <.ol level • significant a t the p <.os level .000** .000** table 3: significant differences staff and all students, scale b, face-to-face contact jollrllal of distance learning. vol 3. no 1. 1997 (e) distance educa,ion assoeia,ion of new zealand 17 there were no items on this scale where there were significant differences between high and low experience students. items showing congruence both students and staff supported the contention that face-to-face contact with the lecturer enhances the overall quality of a course (item 23) but staff agreement was stronger. however, item 108 stated that the costs of attending a campus course far outweigh the benefits and produced significantly different results for students and staff at the p<.ollevel. 86 percent of staff but a much lower 58 percent of students disagreed with the statement. while staff may base their responses on pedagogical concerns, student opinion may be mediated by other factors such as the considerable costs of accessing face-toface contact as well as the perceived value to them. this is supported by comments made by 11 students on their questionnaires to elucidate their response, for example "depends on the lecturer"; "the personal cost of losing work to attend these courses is prohibitive"; "includes time off work"; "sometimes yes, sometimes no". items showing incongruence item 43, weekend regional courses are of more value than campus courses, produced a result that was both incongruent and highly significant. 60 percent of students agreed with this statement while 64 percent of staff disagreed . the cost factor again probably influenced student opinions . this is supported by a number of comments added by students to questionnaires for example "less cost for the south island";" only because of accessibility"; "easier to attend" . it is interesting to compare the results of this item, which looks at value to students, with item 26 which stated that students prefer to attend regional courses than campus courses. students both value regional courses more and prefer them. on the other hand, staff attribute considerably less value to regional courses but agree that students prefer them. this probably reflects staffs' own preference for campus courses which do not involve them in travelling away from home and teaching in strange venues . item 26 (above), did not yield significantly different results but nevertheless they were interesting. for example, in response to the statement that mixing with students at campus courses is more valuable than meeting lecturers, 61 percent students disagreed but 51 percent staff agreed. this finding suggests that the value that students place on networking with fellow students is not as important as staff think it is. both students and staff disagreed that campus courses were of more value at 300 level than 100 and 200 level suggesting that both student and staff groups also value campus courses at the 100 and 200 level. a higher percentage of staff (71 percent) than students (59 percent) agreed with the statement that often it is only at the campus course that the course is put in perspective which is another indication that staff value campus courses more highly than students. there was high agreement from students and staff that a variety of teaching techniques add value to the learning experience at campus and regional courses and that being able to use the library and access additional resources was an important aspect of campus courses. finally, the results to the statement that there is no necessity for compulsory campus courses were equivocal for both students and staff. 55 percent students and 50 percent staff agreed. in response to items on this scale, there were a number of comments made by students on their questionnaires indicating that they had never attended either a regional or a campus course. they therefore felt unqualified to respond. there could be a significant number of students who seldom or never attend a campus or regional course during their time as an extramural student. furthermore, with over 40 percent of students indicating that the costs of attending a campus course do outweigh the benefits this could well be an issue that the university has to seriously reconsider particularly in the light of ever journa l of distance learning. vol 3. no 1. 199 7 (c) distance educa ti o n associati on of new zealand 18 increasing and accessible technology options. it is interesting to note that anecdotal evidence suggests that attendance at both regional and campus courses is declining. as would be expected from the results on this scale, on the 'face-to-face' dimension in summary item 118, there was a highly significant difference (p<.ol). staff rated this dimension as very much more important than students did. summary the results of the survey have identified areas of congruence and incongruence in student and staff perceptions of quality on the' two scales: course content and structure and face-to face contact. many of the items where agreement and congruence were high represent aspects of good practice and are already incorporated into many courses. however, the perceived need for structure on the part of students is an area where the faculty may need to put more effort. in order to improve student perceptions of quality, areas of incongruence or the 'gaps' in perception need to be addressed. there are a number of areas where this could be done without compromising the integrity or overall standards of courses. the 'necessity' for faceto-face contact may well be a case in point. this year, massey university's college of education is offering new zealand's first fully external education degree . there is no faceto-face component but there is extensive use of email. student response to this so far has been extremely positive. the other scales representing dimensions of quality sampled in this survey have also produced interesting results and highlight areas where the faculty could direct effort in order to continuously improve the quality of its extramural programme. references athiyamans, a. & o ' donnell, b. 1994: exploring graduates perceptions of quality in higher education, journal of in stitutional resea rch in australasia, 3, 1, 1-7. bell, d.r. & shieff, d.s. 1990: managing service quality for improved competitive performance, new zealand journal of business, 12,1-12. brown, sw., gummesson, e., edvardsson, b. & gustavsson, b. (eds) 1991: service quality multidisciplinary and multinational perspectives. lexington books, lexington. coate, l. e. 1990: tqm at oregon state university. journal for quality and participation, 90-10l. garvin, d.a. 1988: managing quality. the free press, new york. gronroos, c. 1990: service managem en t and marketing. lexington books, lexington. harvey, l., burrows, a., & green, d. 1992: criteria of quality . the qhe project. the university of central england in birmingham, birmington. lewis, r.g. & smith, d.h. 1994: total quality in higher education. st lucie press, delray beach. lovelock, c. h . 1992: managing services marketing, operations and human resources. (2nd ed). prentice hall international, englewood cliffs . mcilroy, a. & walker, r.j. 1993: total quality management: some implications for distance education. distance education, 14, i, 40-54. mcilroy, a. & walker, r.j . 1996: total quality management: policy imp lications for distance education. in evans. t. & nation, d. (eds) . opening education policy and practices from open and distance education. routledge, london. p arasuraman, a., zeithaml, v.a., & berry, l. l. 1985: a conceptual model of service quality and its implications for future research. journal of marketing, 49, 41-50. sasser, w.e. jr., olsen, p.r., & wyckoff, d.d. 1978: management of service operations: text and cases . allyn and bacon, boston. wood, d. 1996: service with soul: trends in service quality strategies. mrl research group, wellington. zeithaml, va., parasuraman, a. & berry, l.l. 1990: delivering quality service. the free press, new york. andrea mcilroy is senior lecturer, department of management systems, massey university, private bag 11 222, palmerston north. journal of distance learning, vol 3, no i , 1997 (c) distance education association of new zealand 19 report: some outcomes of flexible learning at the university of otago 1996-98 what is flexible learning? in 1998, the university of otago adopted a definition of flexible learning that focused on learning outcomes rather than on teaching inputs: flexible learning at otago university is an approach to education that allows for the adoption of a range of learning strategies in a variety of learning environments to cater for differences in learning styles, learning interests and needs, and for variations in learning opportunities. (university of otago, flexible learning strategic plan, 1998.) this definition is reflected in the university's teaching and learning plan (1996), and the strategic directions to 2000 document. both of these recognise the importance of adopting teaching strategies that are student centred and which allow for greater student flexibility in learning through variations in the time, place and pace of study. the flexible learning approach is incorporated into a number of initiatives taken across the university between 1996 and 1998, some of which are described in this report. flexible learning is not to be confused with flexible delivery. the latter is a process for producing and delivering customised learning packages designed to maximise learners' access to measurable learning outcomes. it is distinguished from flexible learning because it deals only with the delivery of learning, not its philosophical construction. andrew higgins university of otago what is the difference between open learning and flexible learning? rumble writes of open learning: "it is an imprecise phrase describing any form of educational provision in which the restrictions p l a c e d on students a r e minimised and in which decisions about learning eire taken by learners themselves" (rumble, 1997, p. 4). of flexible learning he says: " [it] is sometimes used more or less synonymously with open learning and also has no precise definition" (rumble, 1997: p. 4). he compares distance education with open learning and proposes that: "reflection suggests distance education is a method of education whereas open learning espouses a philosophy of education" (rumble, 1997, p. 5). he notes that distance education is contrasted with those other f o r m s of education i n classrooms, lecture halls, laboratories o r study groups that are based on contiguity between student and teacher. these methods reflect the paradigmatic nature of the school and its classrooms in p e o p l e s ' experience of education. race discusses o p e n l e a r ning, distance learning and flexible learning. he describes the circumstances in which they might occur: "open learning can certainly be done at a distance"; and "open learning can happen in a crowded lecture room" (race, 1995, p.22). he claims that open learning in its broadest sense and distance learning, as a sub-set of open learning, involve giving learners a degree of choice and control. in other words they introduce elements of flexibility into the learning process. journal of distance learning, vol5, no 1, 2000 ©distance education association of new zealand 39 wade broadly defines flexible learning as "an approach to university education which provides students with an opportunity to take greater responsibility for their learning and to be engaged in learning activities and opportunities that meet their own individual needs" (wade et al, 1994, p.12). wade regards open learning as a "term used to describe courses flexibly designed to meet individual requirements". she quotes lewis and spencer: "it is often applied to provision which tries to remove barriers that prevent attendance at more traditional courses, but it also suggests a philosophy'' (wade et al, 1994, p.12). rowntree, after reviewing a number of alternative definitions of open and distance learning, concludes that open learning is two different things: • a philosophy a set of beliefs about teaching and learning, and • a methoda set of techniques for teaching and learning (rowntree, 1992, p. 13). he writes: "much of the confusion arises because people don't always realise that philosophy can be practised without using the method. and, more commonly, the method can be applied without the philosophy " (rowntree, 1992, p.13). the arguments for efficiency and effectiveness in education can lead to more open and flexible educational provision. they are, however, dependent on the perspectives of educational providers who constitute only part of the equation. boot and hodgson claim: a general feature of discussions in open l e ar ning at p r esent is that it is predominantly seen from the perspective of the provider as though openness were solely a characteristic of formal provision. . . they seem to concentrate on the "open" part and leave the "learning" p a r t in the background, together with assumptions or beliefs about what it is and how it takes place" (hodgson, 1987, p.s). they go on to make the point that "we are aware of some tendency to talk of open learning as though it were a recent innovation in educational thinking. one only has to look at the work of john dewey and his followers to see this is not true ... for them, the nature of learning was ce:q.tral" (hodgson, 1987, p. 6). o t a g o univer s i t y ' s approach to and implementation of some flexible learning programmes will now be described. integrating flexible learning at otago university initially, the a p p r o a c h to i n t e g r a t e flexible learning strategies into workplace practices at the university of otago commenced through the university's senior management. this sought to generate "upport for, examples of, and interest in flexible learning that would diffuse ideas for innovation throughout the whole teaching and learning environment of the u n i v e r sity. t h e f o u r assistant vice­ chancellors (humanities, health sciences, commerce and sciences) nominated one p a p e r each they t h o u g h t suitable for conversion to a flexible learning approach. they chose papers based on student numbers a n d on whether they had or might have difficulties in their current delivery. funding came from the vice-chancellor and from divisional budgets. of the papers discussed here, four were large class first year courses and one was a second year course that caused difficulties for students. following these nominations, staff employed in the flexible learning section of the higher e d ucation development centre (hedc) contacted the relevant heads of departments and academic staff to begin the conversion of their papers to more flexible delivery. the academic staff members involved received documents outlining the main characteristics of flexible learning, and ideas for the processes involved in developing papers in this mode. these documents explained the various roles the supporting staff would have, and stressed the need for eff�ctive project management. the he.ad of the fle x i b l e l e a r n i n g section journal o f distance learning, vol5, no i , 2000 ©distance education association of new zealand 40 developed project teams for each paper, consisting of the coordinator, other academics involved, a project manager, an educational advisor, and late� other staff members who would be involved in the production of materials (flexible learning section, internal document, 7 october 1996). staff from the flexible learning section began the process of conversion by working with the project teams to establish learning objectives for each course in accordance with the university's teaching and learning plan (1996). this required the academic staff to rethink their courses in t e r m s of the knowledge, skills, attitudes, understanding, ethical and social implications of the subject, and the life-long learning skills their students could achieve. having set these objectives, the project team proceeded to design and develop teaching strategies to suit these needs. this included the creation of written materials, lecture strategies, computer-based instruction, small group activities, a n d assessment strategies. teaching and learning strategies were also chosen based on the availability of time and resources as well as their suitability to the chosen objectives. research question the develop­ ment of any new teaching or learning strategy attracts the inevitable question, "has it made a difference?" while sounding innocuous, the question is very complex because of the range of individual differences among students and because of the variety of teaching strategies that may be used. establishing a 'control' and 'experimental' group in such circumstances would be ethically a n d e d u cationally questionable. therefore a more appropriate question to ask in these circumstances is: "have student attitudes towards the teaching of this course changed over time?" in order to answer this question, a survey was designed which asked a range of questions to which students responded using a five point likert scale (5 = strongly agree, 4 = agree, 3 = undecided, 2 =disagree, 1 =strongly disagree). all students participating in papers where flexible learning approaches were adopted, were given the questionnaire to complete both before they undertook the course and after they completed the course using flexible learning strategies. the same questions were asked each time. thus a preand posttest m e t h o d was u s e d a n d the scores w e r e subjected to � chi square analysis t o test for significant differences. this enabled the research question to be answered. a research assistant monitored the progress of the projects, including measuring student learning o u t c o m e s , a n d was responsible f o r administering t h e tests. in addition staff opinion was sought about changes in student performance compared to previous years in the same course. the resul4l from the five papers that were part of this initiative will now be discussed. history 102 history 102, the twentieth­ century world, was a first semester paper taught by four academic staff in the history department. previously, each staff member taught one section of the course covering his or her area of interest (united states history, asian history, russian history, and european history). the course consisted of three lectures and one small group tutorial each week. approximately 120 students enrolled in this course each year. the resources available to students were several computer-assisted learning programmes (one staff member had placed his lecture notes on a hypercard stack), lecture handouts, and the textbook. staff in the flexible learning section worked with the coordinator to help establish a set of learning objectives for this paper expressed in terms of the university teaching and learning plan (1996). based on the learning outcomes in the plan, redeveloping the course in a flexible learning approach involved the lecturers redesigning not only the course structure, but also each lecture. the team decided to combine their areas of interest within each lecture to give the students a more coherent, integrated introduction to world history. the'course was redesigned to include journal of distance learning, vol5, no 1, 2000 ©distance education association of new zealand 41 two lectures, and one tutorial a week. they reserved the third lecture time for showing videos to interested students. i the resources created by the team for this course were: • a comprehensive, interactive coursebook • an internet website • an email discussion list • further computer-assisted learning (cal) programmes • lecture activities • videos for use in lecture and student's own time • interactive tutorial exercises • suitable assessment strategies. initial work on this project commenced in august 1997 with academic staff preparing written n otes for the coursebook. this necessitated not only the staff writing this material, but holding weekly meetings to e n s u r e t h a t e a c h member had a good understanding of each unit of work being developed by the others. the hedc (higher education development centre) instructional designer worked with staff to ensure clarity of content and consistency of format. the instructional designer also desktop published the f i n a l a n d agreed text to create an interactive, student-centred coursebook. as t h e w r i t i n g progressed, t h e course coordinator identified video sequences that would illustrate the historical detail in the unit themes. the educational technology support services (etss) staff acquired rights to use the video sequences and assembled these in the same order as the units. other etss staff crea te d a suitable web page from which students c o u l d access a d m i n i s t r a tive information, electronic handouts, and the hypercard stacks. staff completed the project in february 1998 well in advance of the time the students needed the materials. results fro m the s tudent survey questions sought information on student expectations of enjoyment, stimulation, increased know ledge, development of specialised skills, communication skills, exploration of topics in depth, understanding wider implications of the themes, developing computer skills, general research skills and help in passing the final examination. the questions also, sought information about students' views on the teaching strategies used. in addition to the resources listed above, tutorials, textbooks, class discussions, informal discussions, com pu ter-assis ted learning p r o g r a mmes; s tudy ing i n the student's o w n time, assignment sheets, worksheets, reading, regular assessment, and group learning were included. the data showed no significant differences between preand post-test groups for the traditional teaching methods. in the new categories for the flexible learning strategies, students responded well to the coursebooks, 83% rating them either highly effective or effective. in fact students responded that the coursebook, which allowed them to access materials easily, and the videos, were the most effective teaching tools introduced into history 102 as part of the flexible learning package. they responded negatively to the textbook, with only 33% rating it effective or highly effective. however, the course did improve students' skills in using computers. one important finding was that students' responses to the range of teaching strategies did not quite live up to their expectations displayed at the start of the course. this may be due to the fact that these were first year students not accustomed to university work. it is noteworthy that those students and teache r s who were familiar with the course book/ video technology, did not display comfort w i t h the emerging electronic technologies. an analysis of these results, based on the null hypothesis that the flexible learning strategies would have no effect on whether student expectations were met, shows that the null hypothesis is disproved and that this approach to teaching hisf'ory 102 had made a difference. journal of distance learning, vol5, no 1, 2000 ©distance education association ofnew zealand 42 . surveying 111 the department of surveying in the division of sciences sought assistance from the flexible learning section to devise a cour\5ebook for students and to redesign the learning objectives and teaching strategies of surveying 111. staff in flexible learning prepared pre-course and post-course questionnaires. similar to those of history 102, they s o u g h t g e n e r a l information on expecta t i o n s , outcomes, a n d preferred teaching strategy. this paper was well suited to flexible development because it needed updating and because surveyors identified a large number of surveying technicians working in the profession who would benefit by access to such a paper, even if not in degree structured study. on this basis, the flexible learning staff developed a project plan, made linkages to the university teaching and learning plan and helped redevelop a curriculum scope and sequence chart to cover all the required topic areas. results of student survey an analysis of data about student expectations demonstrates that the null hypothesis proved to be false. however, while the strategies did make a difference, there were issues arising from the data. it would appear that the course substantially increased students' interest in surveying. while it did not enhance students' computing skills as was expected, it did develop t h e i r s k i l l s i n g r o u p work, an important e l e m e n t i n the professional development of surveyors. a closer analysis of the teaching strategies used in surveying 111 showed that students expected tutorials and practicals to be of greatest benefit. after the course they reported that practicals and assignments helped them the most. important among the teaching strategies in surveying was the implementation of a coursebook. the department of surveying has made its own further evaluations of the programme and concluded that it can be taught in part off site and supplemented with summer school studies for surveying technicians. engli s h 121: the chaucer module an area of concern at t h e university over a number o f years had been english literature and writing skills of first year students. english 121 is the introductory paper for students doing english literature. it c o m m en<o:e s with an introduction t o chaucer's canterbury tales which had been of some concern because of its difficulty. after discussions with the head of department and staff of the flexible learning section and the educational technology support services it was decided to work on the chaucer module to improve its accessi bility and its presentation. a cd-rom would be produced for this purpose. the c d -�om incor porated text, music, reading and pictures. difficult sections of the text were linked to a glossary of terms. in this way, students could read the text, h e a r someone reading it, see the relevant pictures and link to the glossary that explained both meaning and pronunciation. flexible learning and academic staff devised the learning package and etss staff developed the cal package. students could access the cd-rom from a n y of the u n i v e r s ity's comp u t e r l a boratories. howeve r, it could not b e borrowed from the library. results of student survey at the conclusion of studying this unit, students were surveyed about the effectiveness of the cd­ rom programme. of the 174 respondents, while all had attended the lectures, only 64 (37%) had used the cd-rom. among those who used the cd-rom, 39% found it most useful for exploring meaning and translation of words, and 36% found that hearing the words was most beneficial. sixty percent of the students believed that the cd-rom could have explored the characterisation and text in more depth or would have liked to see mastery testing built into the p rogramme. some students found the disc difficult to access in the computer laboratories and this proved to be because of lack of experience with the systems. · . journal of distance learning, vo15, no i, 2000 ©distance education association of new zealand 43 although only one third of the students in the english 121 class used the cd-rom, they reported satisfaction with it. those rep0rting dissatisfaction did so on the basis of technical aspects such as access or because they felt that the programme did not go far enough for them. the chaucer project demonstrated clearly that with f i r s t year humanities students at otago, there is a significant gap between those who are computer literate and those who are not. only one third of students appeared to be familiar with operating computers at the basic level required for operating a cd-rom. however, an alternative explanation may be that because there was no formal assessment attached to the cd-rom component of the course, students chose not to use it. as a r e sul t of t h e work done in this programme, the english staff have decided to c o n v e r t other elements of the c h aucer programme into a cd-rom format. biochemistry 111 the university of o t a g o made a critical decision about admission to its prestigious health sciences programmes in 1 9 9 6 . previously, the university accepted students with passes in b i ochemistry from any new zealand university. biochemistry was not offered in the first y ear previously nor were students expected to take it at other institutions in order to be admitted to the health professional schools (medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, physiotherapy). students could be accepted to professional health schools after completing their entire first year elsewhere, but in 1998 this changed so that any student wanting to do a professional health degree at otago must have completed the first year at otago, hence f i r st y ear biochemistry became quite specialised. anticipated enrolment exceeded 1400, causing major problems for staffing, timetabling and for teaching strategies. the actual enrolment exceeded 950. the laboratory system needed a major overhaul to cope with these numbers. because the medical school, for example, had its own limitations on entry at the second year level, there would be a large number of students who had done well in biochemistry with an intention to do medicine, but who could not gain entry. the university expected these students tp redirect into sciences or to the other health sciences, so the first year papers had to be well taught in order to retain these students in the university. for this course, it was decided that the project team needed to i n c l u d e a l a b o r a t o r y coordinator, course book developer and a web page designer w h o would be employed during 1997 to help prepare the laboratory manuals, course book and website. a similar arrangement had existed in the department of zoology i\1. the previous two years and its success gave confidence to this project. once the lear n i n g o b j e ctives, t e a c h i n g strategies and assessment strategies had been agreed, funds were allocated to redesign and re-equip the teaching laboratories. people were hired to design, collate and produce the coursebook; to design the laboratory sessions and the laboratory book; and to design a website for student access. the flexible learning section provided templates for the laboratory and coursebooks and provided assistance in instructional design for the laboratory sessions. this department h a d its own evaluation instruments so did not use those available from the hedc. however, the format of the survey was similar to others used by the he dc. res ults fro m the student survey in general, the students found that the course had been valuable, that it required a considerable amount of work, and that it was quite difficult. for teaching, the students found that the lectures were effective, and that the laboratory supervisors and demonstrators were very effective. of the course materials, students said they were very useful but that the tex tbook 'was o n l y just u s e f u l . the journal o f distance learning, vol 5 , no 1 , 2000 © distance education association of new zealand 44 laboratory manual was considered to be very good. the problem lay with the website. only 16% of students tried to use the site and cal programmes. an exploration of this problem revealed t h a t the design req u i r e m e n t s exceeded computer capacity and that this led to frequent 'cr a s h i n g' . n a t u r ally this dissuaded students from using it. technical experts from information technology services later adjusted the programme to run on its designated servers. apart from this, the bloc 111 course was well received by students in all its aspects. in particular, the success of the lecture booklets, the laboratory manual and the laboratory sessions, into which flexible learning had a major input, demonstrates that flexible teaching strategies and practices are accepted and valued by students. ma rketing 233 lecturers in the department of marketing had been teaching a paper, divided into parts, about pricing and distribution theory and practice. students reported the subject to be difficult. the academic staff decided to seek the flexible learning section's support to make the paper both more flexible and to make it problem based. impetus was provided in late 1996 by a visit from professor hans kaspar, who was an expert in problem-based lear ning in marketing, from the university of limberg at maastricht. the flexible learning section provided assistance with designing the course objectives, assessment system and with i d e n t i f y i n g , c l a r i f y i n g and setting the problems. the staff involved also devoted considerable time to discussing and selecting appropriate teaching strategies for the small group work problem based learning inevitably involves. res ults fro m the s t udent survey an analysis of student results at the end of the year shows a strong positive skew. the academics teaching the course and tutors involved in taking the problem based l e a r n i n g sessions r e p o r t e d t h a t despite students' difficulties they produced better work than any previous cohorts. the students found this paper difficult, as had their predecessors. they expected to hear lectures and read. instead, they had to work in groups and to be responsible for their own progress. the students found the change from passive to active learning difficult to make. however, the results of the summative tests indicate that the problem based learning method produces good learning outcomes in this course. student numbers rose in this course in 1999. conclusion everett m. rogers in the diffusion of innovations (1995) quotes niccolo machiavelli in the prince: there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new order of things . . . whenever his enemies have the ability to attack the innovator they do so with the passion of partisans, while the others defend him sluggishly, so that the innovator and his party alike are vulnerable. the approach to introducing flexible learning adopted at the university of otago was a high risk strategy. choosing to convert high profile first year papers to flexible learning demanded that all the projects succeed. the staff in the flexible learning unit mitigated the potential risks by adopting project management strategies requiring careful planning at the outset. the planning also involved ensuring that the participants had sufficient support at all times from senior managers and heads of departments. an alternative strategy and safer approach might have been to deal only with a few subjects involving a small number of students in the final years of study. this method would have minimised the risk, but it would have had little impact on the rest of the university community. however, the costs of introducing the change may well have been the same. it became an important part of the decision journal of distance learning, vol5, no 1, 2000 ©distance education association ofnew zealand 45 more accepted by industry. the principles of quality assurance (qa), used here as a global term rather than one to describe another specific theory, were subsequently adopted by service industries with great success. the victory of the quality move ment in technologically advanced western countries was dramatic, effective and complete. in 1994, morrison, with regard to british industry, wrote: "now we are in the 1990s it is good to be able to record that the downward slide in quality appears to have halted and there are encouraging signs of industry beginning to respond to all the efforts that have been made to recover lost ground" (morrison, 1994, p. 41). quality is now expected, is built into processes and barely needs to be mentioned in the new, much more competitive and critical, global consumer culture of the late 90s. one concept from this period that has stayed in the public view is adoption of, and accreditation with, the iso 9000 family of international standards. these standards assure potential clients of a manufacturing or service industry that the organization will do what it says it will do, and that there are mechanisms in place to detect and correct non­ conformance. the tertiary education sector was slow to take up the new quality message and this resulted in the call for greater accountability and transparency from funding and regulatory agencies. the following arguments were put forth (with some justification) in support of the status quo by tertiary institutions: • quality is already assured through networks of peer review and the performance of graduates in the public and private sectors. • higher education requires much professional judgment that cannot be constrained by or contained within regulations. the best quality assurance is highly qualified, competent staff who put their research work out for peer review through regular publication in learned journals. ., even if quality control measures were imposed, they could not b e enforced because of issues related to academic freedom, tenure of position and autonomy of the institution. " h o w can one c o m b i n e adherence to standarde) with excellence? institutions of higher learning are in the pursuit of excellence in teaching and research. • f o c u s i n g on f i t n e s s f o r-purpose or c o n f o r m i n g to req u i r e m e nts could diminish the mission of the institution to be the critic and conscience of society. " the ultimate aim of adopting qa (or tqm) in a service industry is to satisfy and/ or delight the client. many students spend 3 years or more in tertiary study driven by necessity, to attain a desired position possilaly against their strong preference if they had a choice. compared to students who are intrinsically motivated and who enjoy learning, the former might at times feel antagonism and little satisfaction with their study. how can the qa approach deal with this potentially large, negative group of dissatisfied clients, although later in life these same students might come to value and appreciate the experience? it w a s (and i s ) s u g g e s t e d t h a t a key performance indicator for universities is the number of research papers published by staff. individual output is also recognised for promotion purposes; thus, vast numbers of papers in increasing numbers of journals have been and are being published. such a system, where professors with a pool of eager and t a l e n t e d p o s t g r a d u a t e s t u dents are particularly blessed, has caused growing d i s s a t i s f a ction w i t h the q u a l i t y of this indicator. commentators in the us have been particularly blunt. morrison (1996) writes: "the vast majority of what passes for research publication in the majority of universities in a m e r i c a is mediocre, e x p e nsive a n d unnecessary; i t i s dispiriting and i t depresses the whole scholarly enterprise". finn and manno (1996) state: "among 833,000 faculty members [in us institutions] it's a fair guess that no more than 50,000 will ever produce journal of distance learning, vol 5, no i, 2000 © distance education association of new zealand 7 rogers, e.m. (1995). diffusion of innovations w' · ed.). new york: t he free press. rumble, g. (1997). the costs and econom�s of open and distance learnirzg. london: kogan page. unnersity of otago (1996). flexible learning section. strategic outline, 7 october. unnersity of otago (1998). flexible learning section. strategic plan. unive r s i t y of otago (1996-98). grants schedule. university of otago (1996). teaching and learning plan. wade, w., hodgkinson, k., smith, a. and arfield, j. (1994). flexible learning in higher education. london: kogan page. dr andrew higgins is senior lecturer, flexible learning, higher education development centre, university of otago, po box 56, dunedin, new zea l a n d . email: a n d rew.higgins@stonebow. otago.ac.nz journal of distance learning, vol5, no 1, 2000 ©distance education association of new zealand 47 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 17 supporting adults to address their literacy needs using e-learning jo fletcher, college of education, university of canterbury karen nicholas, college of education, university of canterbury niki davis, college of education, university of canterbury abstract many adults need help with literacy learning. this is extremely challenging for the tertiary education sector and workplace-situated learning organisations. e-learning may be an effective and efficient way to improve the delivery of teaching of basic skills to learners. our research study included five embedded case studies within one tertiary institution, and a series of stakeholder interviews with representatives across new zealand. the study found that e-learning opens up greater interaction between adults‘ study, work, home, and community environments, simply because the learning environment can be extended into those places. keywords: adult learners; e-learning; education; literacy, language, numeracy (lln) introduction the 2006 adult literacy and life skills (all) survey (satherley, lawes, & sok, 2008) showed that new zealand, in common with the australia, canada, and the united states, has approximately 15 percent of adults with very low literacy levels and approximately 50 percent who are missing some of the skills they need to successfully accomplish the literacy tasks common in today‘s society and economy. this lack of literacy skills can adversely affect adults‘ chances of being employed, earning a good income, and helping their children to succeed in education (earle, 2009; statistics canada, 2008). in new zealand, the tertiary education strategy 2010–2015 (ministry of education, 2010) strongly advocates improving low levels of literacy for adult learners. however, motivating adults who have not succeeded in acquiring appropriate skills in reading and writing proves challenging because many of these adults have experienced ―points of discouragement‖ (byrne, 2007) that have led to failure in their literacy learning. this has led to alienation from learning and lack of confidence in their ability to read and write, which can cause anxiety and lead to defeatist strategies. breaking through this barrier requires a complex range of strategies. we suggest, in this paper, that using e-learning technologies can help many of these adults to find courage and motivate them to become ‗second chance‘ learners. for many adults, the opportunity to undertake study that is associated with elearning can provide the opportunity to overcome their ‗shame‘ of repeated underachievement in literacy, because they can refer to their classes or study as computer or ict learning (davis, fletcher, & absalom, 2010). furthermore, e-learning allows literacy learning to occur in unique and motivating ways that were not part of the schooling that these adults experienced. fletcher, j., nicholas, k., & davis. n. 18 the large number of adults who need help with literacy learning (earle, 2009) is extremely challenging for the tertiary education sector and workplace-situated learning organisations in many countries. e-learning may be an effective and efficient addition to the present menu of options that countries may consider in today‘s multi-literate society (yelland, 2010). only a few tertiary education organisations or workplaces in new zealand have fully developed e-learning programmes for adults. previous research (benseman & sutton, 1999; benseman, sutton, & lander, 2005) emphasised that these challenges can be met and that adults do acquire literacy when well-prepared tutors use deliberate teaching strategies. e-learning offers a way to structure and support learning (mellar et al., 2007). tasks can be made relevant to everyday life and within workplaces, where the need to have sound information literacy and numeracy skills is becoming more and more important. the variety of new literacies available in workplaces and in everyday life needs to be recognised and used to address the interfaces that can occur between literacy learning and technology (lankshear & knobel, 2003). this need to align teaching and learning to current contexts was highlighted in the study by linehan and sheridan (2009) who, after examining 433 courses in workplace learning situated in seven higher education colleges in ireland, contended that an attitudinal and cultural shift is needed to overcome the over-reliance on traditional classroom-based programmes. another important factor to consider is how to encourage and motivate adult literacy learners because many adults with literacy needs are working and not able to attend courses. many such adults do not recognise their own need for this support or feel too ashamed to seek help (fletcher & williams, 2008). e-learning, particularly when blended with face-to-face support, has the potential to offer these people more flexible and independent learning opportunities. learners can learn in ways that fit their individual learning needs and life circumstances. our research on how e-learning can support literacy learning for adult students was part of a wider study for the new zealand ministry of education. over 2 years, the study involved five major activities: an extensive international literature review; online seminars involving international experts; over 30 stakeholder interviews; case studies; and a synthesis of the research (davis, fletcher & absalom, 2010; davis, fletcher, everatt, et al., 2010). before presenting our findings in this article, we provide a brief overview of our understanding of the terms ‗e-learning‘ and ‗adult literacy‘ in the 21st century. our definition of e-learning e-learning is a term with many definitions and so is defined here as learning that is facilitated by using computer-related technologies. stand-alone computers and all they offer, such as internet access, are probably the most prominent of these technologies, but e-learning also encompasses hand-held data storage and transmittal devices including mobile phones. distance and autonomous self-study is of particular interest. tertiary e-learning programmes often blend the use of computer-related technologies so that learning can take place both with and without the tutor‘s presence. blended application of computer-related technologies can be designed to fit in with learners‘ workplaceand homebased experiences and activities. for example, distance learning in new zealand workplaces commonly requires learners to study workbooks and complete exercises, and that approach is supplemented with periodic visits by tutors. however, this mode of workplace learning can be usefully extended through e-learning. directed use of web-based resources at home with support of immediate and extended family is just one example. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 19 adult literacy in the 21st century winch et al. (2007) define literacy as making and sharing meaning by constructing and interpreting text in oral, written, graphic, or electronic forms. this includes all facets of literacy in today‘s society, such as social literacy, critical literacy, and technological literacy. all aspects of e-learning and computer-related skills are part of literacy in the 21st century. thus, literacy development is embedded in the context of our everyday lives (wing jan, 2009). many researchers (see, for example, appleby & bathmaker, 2006; pannucci & walmsley, 2007; prins, 2007), contend that being literate and being able to read are substantial foundation blocks for capable and independent citizenship. this is especially so, given that in today‘s world more occupations demand such skills (reardon, 2010). ruddell and unrau (2004a) argued that literacy learning should be conceptualised as a meaning– construction and meaning–negotiation process and thus viewed it from a socio-cognitive perspective. they claimed that students‘ prior life experiences form their beliefs and knowledge. they suggested that the tutor‘s/teacher‘s instructional beliefs and philosophy (which include their sociocultural beliefs, values, and motivation to engage students) influence their instructional decision-making processes. additionally, students bring their own experiences and cultural knowledge to their literacy learning. professional development reardon (2010) argues that, as technological change is occurring at an unprecedented rate in the workplace, a key to developing and encouraging the learning culture is to bring another level of assistance to the concept of learning organisations. as technological innovations are continuously being incorporated into day-to-day work activities, effective professional development programmes can affect the learning culture within an organisation. these programmes may occur over relatively long periods of time, have all staff contributing to and partaking in developing plans for improvement, have large investments of time and capital, and present sound theoretical understandings of the topic under consideration (drago-severson & pinto, 2006; fisher & frey, 2007; rand reading study group, 2002; timperley, wilson, barrar, & fung, 2007). furthermore, gavelek and bresnahan (2009) contend that sustained professional development needs to be facilitated by instructional leaders who allow teachers/tutors to negotiate meaning and develop collaborative communities of effective literacy practice. when shaping these opportunities for transformative learning by using people‘s experiences, scaratti, gorli, and ripamonti et al. (2009) identify the need for staff to be counselled, mentored and tutored in situated contexts. they suggest learning should be viewed as situated relationships and interpretations where people are reoriented to sustainable relational ecologies. the aim of this paper is to examine ways in which tertiary educators and/or workplace learning organisations can support adult learners who need to develop basic skills in literacy. we provide evidence to support our view that motivation and engagement in literacy learning can be improved. this is particularly the case when considering a socio-cognitive perspective (ruddell, 2004; ruddell & unrau, 2004a; 2004b). when e-learning is embedded in literacy learning, the context relates to the students‘ backgrounds and workplace needs, and the wider family structures support them, these students are more likely to succeed. methodology our research study included five embedded case studies in one tertiary institution and a series of stakeholder interviews with representatives across new zealand. this approach provided opportunities for the research team to explore the current status, plans, benefits, and barriers fletcher, j., nicholas, k., & davis. n. 20 related to e-learning for literacy in organisations or business, including tertiary providers, workbased tutors and employers. case study findings for the case study in a new zealand polytechnic are presented first. case-study methodology was adapted from the success case method (brinkerhoff, 2005). this entails focusing on a case selected to illustrate successful features of practice. an urban polytechnic was becoming increasingly known for its innovative endeavours in the provision of quality education. the criteria that we used to select the polytechnic for our overarching case study and the embedded case studies, included as many aspects of good practice as possible that we identified in the literature available at the time the research was proposed. we accordingly looked for an institution with programmes and courses that had a range of the following attributes:  includes e-learning that has been in place for at least 2 years and has documented evidence of outcomes  targets students from groups of people who are either in work or about to begin work  has staff with relevant qualifications and expertise in adult education, elementary education, community education, and/or educational administration  offers teaching based on sound principles of adult learning  connects its curriculum to students‘ needs and interests  provides (to some extent) content in collaboration with a range of relevant agencies such as schools, employment agencies, and educational groups  has explicit and clearly structured modes of teaching literacy and/or numeracy and provides individualised tuition  uses individual learning plans  has high expectations of students  provides students with formal credit and accreditation for their study. we conducted interviews with staff and undertook observations in all areas of the selected polytechnic where e-learning or mixed-media learning was being used in foundation programmes at the time of our investigation. we selected only areas of the polytechnic with programmes or initiatives directed at new zealand adults with literacy, language and numeracy (lln) needs. six areas were identified and all were selected for further investigation: 1. the esol centre in the library (including a 1-day class) 2. trades faculty (including two trades classes) 3. food and hospitality faculty (including one programme for apprentices) 4. māori and pasifika faculty 5. adult literacy (including one evening class) 6. applied sciences and health faculty (including one pre-health course). ethical procedures were followed according to the ethical policies of our university and the selected polytechnic. we formally interviewed 34 people including 10 leaders, some of whom were also managers and tutors; six tutors (two literacy, two esol, two numeracy/trades); and 18 students (seven adult literacy, four esol literacy, four maths, three trades). the students represented a range of backgrounds, skills, and needs, including esol, low literacy, behavioural and physical disabilities, various ethnicities, ages (late teens to 50s), and subject areas (from trades to professional). journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 21 staff interviews the staff interviews were conducted by one or more of the three researchers. face-to-face staff interviews occurred in a variety of situations, including interviewees‘ offices, classrooms, a café, and labs. on a small number of occasions, other people were present, or the interview was conducted by phone. potential questions covered several areas, including (but not restricted to) the nature of good practice in e-learning, work-based learning, success factors for e-learning, impacts on learners, motivation of learners, barriers to learning, and the value of a free, online site for developing skills. interviews were semi-structured, allowing for flexibility to follow new leads or ideas raised by the interviewees. all staff interviews were transcribed. each interviewee received a copy of their transcript for checking and amendment. student interviews and observation the student interviews, which were also semi-structured, were conducted by one of the two researchers or the research assistant. we interviewed students either by phone (after they had told their tutors that they agreed to participate in the study) or face to face in their labs or classrooms. most student interviews were done on a one-to-one basis. however, we conducted two group interviews in the adult literacy class and one in the english speakers of other languages (esol) centre. the questions sought students‘ reasons for wanting to improve their skills. the questions also focused on employment aspirations, current or past use of e-learning, and whether or not the student would use a free, public online lln site. all student interviews were transcribed, but it was not possible to have students check their transcripts because of their literacy limitations. in most cases, we considered that it would be unreasonable to ask these students to read and amend their transcripts. we also completed studies of classes engaged in learning. we observed the members of three classes as they worked to develop their literacy or numeracy skills. each observation was made by one of the two researchers and the research assistant. to protect student identities we did not take photographs during class sessions but made some line drawing sketches at these times. we also took some photographs of classroom layout and resources. during each observation, we wrote field notes and asked for and received handouts and copies of teaching materials. we also had access to the polytechnic‘s online e-learning environments, including observation of courses in its learning management system (lms), moodle. the case study is presented in davis, fletcher & absalom, 2010). stakeholder interviews we conducted interviews with stakeholders representing all sectors involved in adult literacy learning, including a wide range of employers, tertiary providers, and policy makers in new zealand. emails and/or phone calls were made to 117 individuals, some within the same organisations. the purpose and nature of the research was outlined and they were asked whether tuition used e-learning, distance learning, or mixed media. thirty-four stakeholders went ahead with interviews, either with one of the researchers or with the research assistant. occasionally more than one person in the organisation was interviewed at the same time—these are treated as one stakeholder interview. most interviews were by telephone at a pre-arranged time that suited the interviewee, with the remainder face to face. the face-to-face interviews occurred when the researcher visited locations outside the research team‘s home base and were often on the stakeholder‘s premises. this served to contextualise comments and occasionally gave an opportunity to observe products or processes. fletcher, j., nicholas, k., & davis. n. 22 analysis of data the analysis was undertaken in several stages. first an international literature review was used to identify themes from the literature relating to raising literacy skills of adult learners by using elearning (davis, fletcher, everatt, et al., 2010). these themes were defined, as precisely as possible, in coding categories (fraenkel & wallen, 2006). a research assistant then took this list of categories/themes to analyse and segment the data in the transcripts against these categories (watling & james, 2007). davis, one of the researchers, then conducted a second order of analysis of the interview transcripts using axial coding (neuman, 2003) to look for concepts and themes that linked with one another and/or formed clusters. this provided us with a denser web of support for emerging key ideas in the qualitative data. findings: illustrations and challenges the overarching message of this article and our research is that e-learning can motivate adult learners who have previously been unsuccessful in their literacy learning. e-learning is relevant to and useful for most adults with literacy learning needs, as long as the learning programme is carefully designed to fit each individual‘s needs and lifestyle, their proficiency with computerrelated technologies, and their reading literacy. e-learning can also help provide the time and intense practice needed to develop their literacy. another important finding is that realising the potential of e-learning depends on ongoing professional development for tutors and others who support learners, including organisations where programmes and resources are developed, such as colleges and private training providers. access to training in the workplace, at home, and in the community requires development of infrastructure and support from employers, family, and friends. proficiency with relevant computer-related technologies is a central feature of 21st-century literacy skills. it includes the ability to selectively access and use resources on the web (mellar et al., 2007). given the prominent place that information and communication technologies (ict) now have in most businesses, there is an increasing need for employees to have broad-based problem-solving skills, including those associated with computer-related technologies. consider for example, employees and citizens who are expected to find and use information on the web, such as completing forms to submit them for review as part of seeking a job or living accommodation. another rapidly developing expectation of adults in the 21st century is the ability to access training via e-learning. because e-learning programmes can transcend the barriers of geographic location and time, they can be customised to meet the work and community-based learning needs of students who are unable to readily access traditional face-to-face learning provision (unesco, 2006). it is not surprising, then, that employers are increasingly using e-learning to update the skills of their workforce, and that most tertiary providers now enhance their programmes with e-learning. these developments underscore the need for adults to have digital technology skills as part of their 21st-century literacy (smith, 2009). in addition, computer-related technologies provide a relevant learning context for adults who want to improve their literacy, and help alleviate some of their anxiety about literacy learning. adults who lack literacy are often embarrassed by these needs, and take care to conceal them with excuses such as not having their reading glasses at hand (thomas, 2010). tertiary-level students report that their fear of attending and completing a literacy course would lessen if they knew the course offered a positive and non-threatening learning environment (fletcher & williams, 2008; nash & kallenbach, 2009). if these adults can also tell others they are studying a computer course rather than enhancing their literacy, their embarrassment is alleviated. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 23 simmons (2002), for example, found that literacy programmes which included development of computer skills had increased enrolments. adults with literacy needs are attracted to learning activities that involve computer-related technologies because these tend to have immediate relevance to their lives at work and beyond (davis, fletcher, everatt, et al., 2010). for example, a workplace tutor we spoke to supported three adults to improve their literacy by engaging them in a project on waste in their department. the word-processed report that the three employees submitted to their manager included relevant photographs. they had used their tutor‘s digital camera to photograph areas and techniques that contributed to waste in their respective workplaces. the opportunity to take photographs not only helped the employees produce a useful report but also supported the development of their literacy skills and their ability to use computer-related technologies. many adults do not have access to computers at work, and some have had little exposure to computers in general. this situation is especially true for older adults and adults who have been out of the workforce for some time. tutors we interviewed told us that such adults sometimes fear they will damage the computer or make it crash. but although fearful, these adults generally appreciate the need to develop computer-related skills. these tutors are consequently providing these adults with intensive support that enables them to become comfortable with computers before they undertake literacy learning via e-learning. motivating literacy learning using e-learning to provide a context in which to situate further discussion of motivation, we now provide a brief synthesis of research according to the four main aspects of language teaching: 1. writing: the obvious tool here is the word-processing facility of computers. this facility includes useful language tools such as dictionaries, thesauri, and spelling and grammar checkers. having learners incorporate photographs in their texts also supports literacy development, particularly if text and illustrations are drawn from the learner‘s own life experiences. using drag and drop to answer online test questions and then receiving immediate feedback increases learners‘ engagement with the activity and allows them to assess their own progress and needs. grammar software is best suited to more advanced second-language students. drill-and-practice software and computer games can be successful, but only when carefully targeted to address individual needs. however, when enjoyed and successfully completed, high-interest computer games can motivate learners to try more relevant games. 2. reading: a variety of glossing formats can be used to improve a learner‘s understanding of the meaning of words and phrases. a gloss can take the form of a pop-up box containing a text and/or relevant pictures and/or audio. vocabulary learning can be enhanced by analysing multimedia and specific resources on the web. embedded audio files are valuable not only for aiding reading skills but also for opening up computer access to learners who are still developing their keyboard skills, or who have not yet developed sufficient english-writing skills. numeracy activities can also be aided via audio provision. 3. speaking: e-learning tools can help learners to develop oral presentation skills. for example, learners wanting to improve their pronunciation can use audio analysis software to compare themselves with native speakers. voice recognition software may be used to turn speech into text as long as the words are clearly articulated. however, in our experience, voice-recognition systems generally recognise less than a quarter of english spoken by non-native speakers of the language. it is therefore important to test this tool before using it in learning activities. carefully structured use of online chat and fletcher, j., nicholas, k., & davis. n. 24 discussions through email and online discussion forums, as described earlier, are also relevant here. 4. listening: digital voice recordings are widely used by language tutors. the web contains many relevant resources, including radio and television broadcasts with commentaries (see information regarding the web as a medium above). some computer games, such as word shark, include an option that allows the user to replay the audio component (davis, fletcher, everatt, et al., 2010). however, the motivational value of these strategies depends on their fit with the adult in terms of literacy and study skills. those few adult learners who endeavour to develop their literacy, and who learn online without tutor support, tend to be well organised and to have good access to the necessary technology. they also tend to need relatively little assistance when developing their literacy skills, because they have lost these skills through lack of use rather than never having developed them. some adult learners who learn online have access to informal tutors, including family and workplace colleagues. in contrast, adults with beginning literacy levels need intensive face-to-face support (davis, fletcher, everatt, et al., 2010; lopez, litster, vorhous, & salter, 2007). for these learners in particular, a learning approach that fits their respective lifestyles can enhance motivation to persist (lopez et al., 2007). e-learning is particularly accommodating of learners who cannot easily access face-to-face tuition, such as those in rural communities (nash & kallenbach, 2009; unesco, 2006). family can offer the adult learner important motivational support that might include tutoring. activities related to everyday life challenges and family can also support elearning because they provide strong motivational contexts. an example is grandparents who are able to read to their grandchildren and offer these youngsters support as they develop their literacy. mellar et al. (2007) allude to this type of motivation in their description of a promising e-learning course in the united kingdom that focuses, as a means of developing adults‘ literacy, on helping these adults to support their children‘s learning. in new zealand, benseman and sutton (2007) found that family literacy partnerships bring clear benefits for the adult learners and for the children in their families. outreach and open-access centres are effective in increasing motivation by improving access to education and training, particularly for adults who have been traditionally underserved. appleby and bathmaker (2006) and pannucci and walmsley (2007) note these benefits and point out that they often extend beyond the individual. learning with the support of the church is common in the pasifika community. one of our stakeholders described a project in which members of a samoan community had access to computers in a church hall so they could build their literacy skills in a non-threatening environment. our polytechnic case study has many illustrations of the motivational effect of e-learning through the creation and ready availability of a wide range of e-learning resources. for example, several tutors of trades perceived reduced motivation of adults who had poor literacy due to their inability to make notes and use industry terminology at an early stage. they overcame such ―points of discouragement‖ (byrne, 2007 ) through ongoing use of ict to create materials (including numerous images) for these adults with low-level literacy. among the many innovations we observed were presentation slides including pictures of processes and techniques, and test questions complete with drag-and-drop answers (accessed through the polytechnic‘s online lms), and an innovative computer simulation of the complicated task of laying out a building site. the simulation readily motivated young male learners, who were highly engaged by its game-like interface. this provision increased student retention, indicating it had overcome some of byrne‘s ‗points of discouragement‘. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 25 mobile learning refers to learning activities made possible by using lightweight hand-held devices, including mobile phones and portable audio and video players and recorders. mobile learning is a relatively new form of educational provision. it has the potential to extend learning into homes and workplaces, but it can be challenging because the learning takes place outside locations traditionally used for study. successful mobile learning accordingly involves careful negotiation among designers, instructors, adult learners, and collaborating employers. this collaboration can ensure that expectations relating to literacy development remain realistic and ensure good fit with workplace routines and safety. manufacturers are increasingly using mobile devices on the factory floor to guide and monitor processes. pictures, audio, and/or text instructions can be used for tasks in the workplace or at home, thus providing adult learners with opportunities to develop skills through practice. adults with disabilities that limit their ability to learn can use mobile devices to increase their feelings of control and independence (smith, 2009). our polytechnic case study of a programme for modern apprentices describes young apprentices, who are internet savvy and proficient with their mobile phones, successfully gathering evidence in the workplace to fulfil the assessment component of their vocational programme (davis, fletcher & absalom, 2010). using the mobile phone camera temporarily reduced the demand on their writing skills. in addition, the tutor texted multiple-choice questions relating to course content to the apprentices‘ mobile phones, prompting greater engagement with the theoretical aspects of their programme. this was consolidated with on-campus work on their eportfolio of evidence organised by industry standards. innovative practice from our case study illustrates how digital technology can be used to motivate students to undertake formative assessment in workplaces. reservations there is no doubt that introducing and integrating e-learning into adult education and training is a complex process. many factors have to come together to ensure that e-learning programmes are successful for adults with literacy needs. we consider that the success or otherwise of programmes that use e-learning to support adults wanting to develop their literacy can best be predicted by considering these ecologies from within an evolutionary framework (davis, 2008; davis & fletcher, 2010). davis describes ecologies of people in and around the classroom who all contribute to the success of learning. the e-learning that takes place is supported by four tiers: bureaucratic entities, such as the ministry of education; commercial interests, including telecommunication companies; professionals in tutor-training organisations and professional societies; and political agents at all levels of society, from the local community to the international stage. amidst this framework, teachers are the key players: they are the essential individuals who keep the edifice functioning. e-learning also brings the benefit of opening up greater interaction between adults‘ study, work, home, and community environments, simply because the learning environment can be extended into those places. these extensions of the locations where learning takes place stretch out the opportunities and time that adults have available to develop their literacy. the time needed to develop such skills can take hundreds of hours, yet this factor is often underestimated. mobile learning that encompasses computer-related technologies continues to expand the options, but this facility also increases the complexity of e-learning development within and across organisations within the e-learning ecology. fletcher, j., nicholas, k., & davis. n. 26 conclusions the often intensive and challenging nature of developing adults‘ literacy explains the need for organisational development and commensurate professional development for staff. resource development is also vital. e-learning can also be used to support these developments at both local and national levels, while web-based technologies provide educators with opportunities to share ideas and resources through partnerships and learning communities, and across geographic boundaries. this is what is needed for e-learning to be most effective for adults with literacy needs in new zealand and globally. e-learning can be used to motivate, recruit, and retain adults with literacy deficits. we expect to see both e-learning and literacy support co-evolve within an increasing range of ecologies where adults have access to e-learning. key to this evolution will be professional development for tutors, an increase in resources, and support that fits the diversity of adults with literacy needs. acknowledgement we would like to thank emeritus professor bridget somekh for her support with the final work on this paper. references appleby, y., & bathmaker, a. 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[literature review.] final report to the quality improvement agency. retrieved from http://excellence.qia.org.uk/165471 ministry of education, (2010). the tertiary education strategy 2010–2015. wellington: new zealand ministry of education. mellar, h., kambouri, m., logan, k., betts, s., nance, b., & moriarty, v. (2007). effective teaching and learning: using ict. retrieved from http://www.nrdc.org.uk/publications_details.asp?id=87#. nash, a., & kallenbach, s. (2009). making it worth the stay: findings from the new england adult learner persistence project. boston, ma: new england literacy resource center. neuman, l. w. (2003). social research methods: qualitative and quantitative approaches (5th ed.). boston: pearson. pannucci, l., & walmsley, s. (2007). supporting learning-disabled adults in literacy. journal of adolescent and adult literacy, 50(7), 540–546. prins, e. (2007). ‗aqui no somos unidos‘ ‗we‘re not united here‘: adult literacy and the obstacles to solidarity in postwar el salvador. international journal of qualitative studies in education, 20(4), 401–431. http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/tertiary_education/42260 http://excellence.qia.org.uk/165471 http://www.nrdc.org.uk/publications_details.asp?id=87 fletcher, j., nicholas, k., & davis. n. 28 rand reading study group. (2002). reading for understanding: toward a research and development program in reading comprehension. santa monica, ca: rand education. reardon, r. (2010). the impact of learning culture on worker response to new technology. journal of workplace learning, 22(4), 201–211. ruddell, r. (2004). researching the influential literacy teacher: characteristics, beliefs, strategies, and new research directions. in r. ruddell & n. unrau (eds.), theoretical models and processes of reading (5th ed., pp. 979–997). newark, de: international reading association. ruddell, r., & unrau, n. (2004a). reading as a meaning–construction process: the reader, the text, and the teacher. in r. ruddell & n. unrau (eds.), theoretical models and processes of reading (5th ed., pp. 1462–1521). newark, de: international reading association. ruddell, r., & unrau, n. (2004b). theoretical models and processes of reading (5th ed.). newark: international reading association. satherley, p., lawes, e. & sok, s. (2008). the adult literacy and life skills (all) survey: overview and international comparison. wellington: ministry of education. scaratti, g., gorli, m., & ripamonti, s. (2009). the power of professionally situated practice analysis in redesigning organisations: a psychosociological approach. journal of workplace learning, 21(7), 538–554. smith, c. (2009). industry integration of e-learning: guidelines for supporting learners using elearning in workplaces. retrieved from http://industry.flexiblelearning.net.au/2009/ guidelines_supporting_elearners_in_workplaces.pdf statistics canada. (2008). educational portrait of canada, 2006 census: substantial chages to census questions on education. retrieved from http://www12.statcan.ca/censusrecensement/2006/as-sa/97-560/p3-eng.cfm thomas, g. (2010). what works at work? a learning links approach to adult numeracy provision. paper presented at research seminar, finding what works, making it work: from research to practice in adult literacy, language and numeracy, wellington. timperley, h., wilson, a., barrar, h., & fung, i. (2007). teacher professional learning and development. wellington: ministry of education. unesco. (2006). using ict to develop literacy. retrieved from http://www.unescobkk.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ict/ebooks/literacy/using_ict_to_develop_literacy.pdf watling, r., & james, v. (2007). the analysis of qualitative data. research methods in educational leadership and management (2nd ed., pp. 350–366). london: sage. winch, g., johnston, r., march, p., ljungdahl, l., & holliday, m. (2007). literacy: reading, writing and children’s literature (3rd ed.). new york: oxford university press. wing jan, l. (2009). write ways: modelling writing forms (3rd ed.). new york: oxford university press. yelland, n. (2010). multiliteracies and learning in a new age. motivating learners in today’s world (pp. 133–148). wellington: new zealand council for educational research. http://industry.flexiblelearning.net.au/2009/guidelines_supporting_elearners_in_workplaces.pdf http://industry.flexiblelearning.net.au/2009/guidelines_supporting_elearners_in_workplaces.pdf http://www12.statcan.ca/census-recensement/2006/as-sa/97-560/p3-eng.cfm http://www12.statcan.ca/census-recensement/2006/as-sa/97-560/p3-eng.cfm http://www.unescobkk.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ict/e-books/literacy/using_ict_to_develop_literacy.pdf http://www.unescobkk.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ict/e-books/literacy/using_ict_to_develop_literacy.pdf journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 29 biographical notes jo fletcher jo.fletcher@canterbury.ac.nz jo fletcher is a senior lecturer in literacy education in the college of education, university of canterbury. her research interests are in the field of literacy learning for children, families and adults. she has publications in the areas of adult literacy, diverse learners, and reading achievement. karen nicholas karen.nicholas@canterbury.ac.nz karen nicholas is a senior lecturer in numeracy education in the college of education, university of canterbury. she has a strong interest in teaching, mentoring, and supporting adult learners both at the basic skills and undergraduate levels. her research interests are in the field of workplace learning in improving literacy and numeracy. niki davis niki.davis@canterbury.ac.nz professor niki davis is professor of e-learning at the college of education, university of canterbury. she is recognised internationally as a leading expert in information and communication technologies in teacher education. since her arrival in new zealand in 2008 her research has included leading research in elearning and how it can support adults in both literacy and numeracy. � this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 new zealand license. fletcher, j., nicholas, k., & davis, n. (2010). supporting adults to address their literacy needs using e-learning. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 15(1), 17–29. mailto:jo.fletcher@canterbury.ac.nz mailto:karen.nicholas@canterbury.ac.nz mailto:niki.davis@canterbury.ac.nz http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/nz/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/nz/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/nz/ microsoft word jdl08_duplessisword.doc journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 1 ready, steady, study: implications of online learning for early childhood teacher education karin du plessis, lisa walker, christopher naughton new zealand tertiary college auckland, new zealand introduction as the early childhood sector moves toward the new zealand government’s 2012 requirement (pathways to the future: nga huarahi arataki) for all early childhood teachers to hold a minimum of a diploma in teaching (ministry of education, 2002), the character of early childhood teacher education is changing also. there has been a rapid growth in new zealand from six colleges of education being the sole providers of teacher education in the 1990s to twenty providers today (kane, 2005). kane also notes that in new zealand the majority of early childhood courses are classroombased, and they are taught by private training establishments and institutes of technology/polytechnics. to meet the needs of the sector (i.e., to hold at minimum a diploma qualification), early childhood teacher education providers are investing in new ways of delivering their programmes. at the forefront of alternative methods of course delivery are courses delivered via online technologies. in a sector known for its innovation and rapid growth (kane, 2005), early childhood teacher education has shown that learning in an online environment has become an increasingly popular alternative to traditional face-toface modes of study. this review considers online learning and preparation for learning in an online environment in the early childhood field. although the literature reviewed employs a range of terms to describe delivery options facilitated via various modern technologies, there is commonality in the intent to deliver effective student learning opportunities through an online mode. in this review, the term online learning will be used as an umbrella term for such learning. online vs. traditional modes of learning distance learning has been identified as an educational mode of delivery that can be used to increase the availability of professional qualifications for early childhood student-teachers (education commission of the states, 2002). for some new zealand early childhood education providers, distance learning has been a prelude to online learning. technological advances in the last decade (nichols & mclachlan, 2006) have enabled these education providers to introduce online learning as an alternative to traditional ways of learning. distance learning methods, including online learning, have proved their worth. for example, in 2005 more than 85 percent of students chose distance learning as their mode of journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 2 study at new zealand tertiary college (donohue, fox, & torrence, 2007). a recent literature review indicates, “few researchers have directly compared an online course with its traditional course counterpart” (sunal, sunal, odell, & sundberg, 2003, p. 3). however, in some studies where comparisons were made (davies & mendenhall, 1998; jewett, 1998; wegner, holloway, & kroder, 1997), no differences were found in the grades of students who attended traditional classroom-based courses and the grades of students who utilised online learning components. several researchers have studied learning styles in relation to online courses; they have found that, similar to classroombased education, a range of learning styles (auditory, visual, kinesthetic) can be accommodated by online education (el mansour & mupinga, 2007; shih, ingebritsen, pleasants, flickinger, & brown, 1998). however, like any mode of study, distance education presents a unique set of challenges, such as isolation from lecturers (nichols & mclachlan, 2006). while online learning is not for everyone, young (2002) found that the traditional teaching/learning approach also is not ideal for all students. it therefore seems that the academic community should be focused on how to combine the best learning opportunities for all students, rather than arguing the strengths of classroom-based education versus online education. e-learning guidelines the increase in the number of online programmes for early childhood teacher education (e.g., nichols & mclachlan, 2006) has prompted providers to ask “’how best to teach online’ not ‘if’ they should provide an online option” (fox & donohue, 2006, p. 31). to aid developers of online learning courses and to ensure the quality of online courses, new zealand e-learning guidelines have been developed. these guidelines also provide a basis for evaluating e-learning materials and resources (milne & suddaby, 2005). through the use of this evaluative tool, there is the potential for online learning to be seen as a viable alternative to classroom-based learning. the following quotation highlights the potential impact of guideline use on providing quality early childhood teacher education courses: the emerging online learning environment offers early childhood educators new ways to teach and learn. i’m convinced by my experiences that we can advance the quality and effectiveness of teaching and learning online by connecting elearning standards and guidelines to learning standards, leading to better teachers and improved outcomes for children in our care and their families— the goals of effective early childhood teacher education and professional development in any mode of delivery. (donohue, fox, & torrence, 2007, p. 37) advantages of online learning for early childhood teacher education in new zealand one the major advantages of online learning to the new zealand early childhood sector is the flexibility it offers student teachers. student teachers are not restricted to attending an institution located in the main population areas. distance learning modes (such as online learning) can remove the geographical barriers that may prevent students from journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 3 accessing early childhood teacher education. hosie, schibeci, and backhaus (2005) note, “as the fastest growing form of information exchange within our society the internet allows multimedia technologies to be available to anyone— virtually anywhere” (p. 540). students can complete their studies at a time and location that is suitable to them. not being bound by class schedules has been noted as one of the advantages of online learning in recent research (el mansour & mupinga, 2007; hosie, schibeci, & backhaus, 2005). walker and du plessis (2007) found this benefit also applied to early childhood student teachers. they reported on a pilot project conducted at new zealand tertiary college which focussed on webenhanced technologies that provided online study guides and asynchronous discussion forums. student teachers in the pilot project indicated that one of the advantages of web-enhanced learning was that they could participate in a course at any time and place. asynchronous online courses, or those that do not require students to all be present or connected at the same time, are seen as highly relevant for early childhood teacher education. the benefit of asynchronous learning to the early childhood sector in new zealand is that student teachers can work in the centres gaining valuable teaching experience, while studying. in a study of 96 graduate-level students, perez cereijo (2006) found that full-time workers prefer asynchronous online courses because they have multiple time-sensitive issues that affect their schedules, including work hours, family commitments, and distance from tertiary institutions. again, this preference was found in the walker and du plessis study (2007), indicating that student teachers prefer the flexibility that web-enhanced learning allows. field-based early childhood education is identified as an area for future research in kane’s review (2005) of initial teacher education in new zealand. nichols and mclachlan (2006) also identify the danger of apprentice-like practicums as opposed to student teachers implementing knowledge gained in their coursework. although there may be some drawbacks to online learning, its greater flexibility allows students to potentially practice and grow their teaching skills in real-life situations. online learning as a means of training early childhood teachers the absence of a visible facilitator and classmates has led some students to believe that online learning is an isolating experience. donohue (as cited in walker & du plessis, 2007, p. 15) notes that students who prefer face-to-face teaching see distance learning as “high tech/no touch, and are sceptical about its value as an educational and social experience.” owing to the type of work, it is generally assumed that early childhood teachers will seek to study in a social environment where social interaction and relationshipbuilding can occur. however, the assumption that effective learning occurs because of the face-to-face relationships in classroom-based courses is disputed. levine (2005) suggests that face-to-face teaching will not create better learning experiences “unless they—the lecturers— work to facilitate relationships” (p. 19). creating effective relationships as a prelude to learning thus may be based upon the instructor’s skill level and the student’s willingness to engage in the interaction, rather than on participants’ physical proximity. when reflecting on a journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 4 comparison of teaching online and teaching in a classroom, donohue notes, “i found that i know my online students better, even though i have never met them in person, than the students in my classes, because i have so many more one-to-one interactions” (donohue, fox, & labonte, 2004, p. 79). more comparative studies of students’ experiences of online and classroombased learning will add depth to our understanding of the social aspects of learning online. social learning is not simply the domain of the teacher-to-learner relationship. an important aspect of social learning occurs between students themselves, often termed learner-learner or peer learning experiences. online courses are different from other modes of distance learning, in that students can develop and participate in a community of learners who exchange information and ideas to enhance their learning and professional development (fox & donohue, 2006). therefore, it can be argued that online learning does have the ability to facilitate social learning experiences for student teachers, albeit in a different way to that of classroombased courses. the recent increase in the number of early childhood student teachers choosing to study via distance learning modes (donohue, fox, & torrence, 2007) indicates that the idea of social isolation does not seem to be a deciding factor for early childhood student teachers in new zealand. since there are obvious social learning benefits to online learning (in contrast with printbased distance learning), and given that online learning affords the same type of flexibility for students as print-based distance learning, this might imply that online learning has or will become the mode of choice for future students. information technology skills and orientation given the extent of resources available to early childhood teachers on the web, teachers need to be able to access and interact with web-based information. as in other professions, skills in technologically aided learning and information and communications technology (ict) are essential to early childhood education student-teachers joining the workforce (kaynama & keesling, 2000). hunt (cited in lai, 2001) conducted a survey of 80 students and found, “many beginning teachers had very few personal or pedagogical skills in the area of ict and many student teachers had little experience of using it in their field practice” (p. 12). often described as “technology phobia,” this reluctance exhibited in some teachers may be more of a barrier in a student teacher choosing to undertake courses online than any other factor previously discussed. this perceived barrier to early childhood student teachers enrolling in online studies raises awareness that students will need sufficient preparation to ready them for online study. it has been identified that students need technical competence to succeed in an online learning environment (el mansour & mupinga, 2007). according to wu, tsay, chen, and wu (2006), the technology acceptance model is useful when attempting to explain computer behaviour. wu et al. (2006) note that this model builds on ajzen and fishbein’s (1997) theory of reasoned action, which implies that “beliefs could influence attitudes, which lead to intentions to use and finally to actual usage behaviors” (p. 288). walker and du plessis (2007) found that, prior to commencing their web-enhanced studies, students reported they were willing to learn new tech journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 5 nology skills. on completion of the online orientation course, students recognised an increase in their technical skills. in addition, students continued to recognise the importance of the orientation course in preparing them for web-enhanced learning at the completion of their studies (walker & du plessis, 2007). student teachers require effective orientation to the online environment not only to enhance the quality of their learning experience, but also to support their technology skills. online learning courses have the ability to improve student teachers’ ict skills while they are engaged in initial teacher training. often this is a by-product of online learning of which the students themselves may not be aware. mcvay lynch (2001) found that students who had completed an online orientation course not only had a positive attitude, but demonstrated a significant increase (89 percent) in their technology skills. students’ technical skills also have been linked to the manner in which they engage with technology and the online learning environment. previous research on preparatory courses that were centred around enhancing technology skills found that students accessed the course material with less anxiety and frustration, leading to overall course satisfaction (pillay, irving, & tones, 2007; erlich, erlich-philip, & gal-ezer, 2005). drennan, kennedy, and pisarki (2005) conducted a study of 256 first-year australian marketing students who had completed a flexible learning course with web-based components. the researchers found that positive perceptions of technology and a self-directed learning mode in particular contributed to student satisfaction with the course. in addition, they found that a positive attitude toward innovation also meant that students viewed the new technology more positively. considering the technology acceptance model (wu et al., 2006), students’ positive attitudes toward technology also led to improved use of the new technology presented in the web-enhanced mode during their studies. mcvay lynch (2001) found that students who did not receive effective orientation in the skills necessary to participate in online learning showed high course drop-out rates, more problems with technology, and social isolation. these results have the flow-on effect of student failure to enrol for further online learning experiences. according to donohue, fox, and torrence (2007), students “are very worried about their lack of technology experience and skills, and they fear that learning online will be a lonely, isolated experience” (p. 35). it is the authors’ experience that students who are successfully orientated to online learning do not share these concerns. the new zealand e-learning guidelines also recognise the importance of effective orientation for students, and signify that giving students guidance on skills necessary for successful engagement in the e-learning environment is an indicator of best practice in online learning (milne & suddaby, 2005). effective student orientation allows online course designers to follow best practice, which encourages students toward self-direction while recognising differences in confidence and motivation. conclusion in keeping with the new zealand government’s mandated requirements that all early childhood teachers hold teaching qualifications by 2012, there is a greater need for providing educational opportunities to student teachers. many of these student teachers are choosing journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 6 to study via distance learning, and more recently opportunities to study via online learning have become available. these online learning courses potentially allow the same type of flexibility as traditional distance learning modes; however, instead of studying in isolation, students can benefit from social learning opportunities (e.g., discussion forums) in a community of learners. these social experiences enhance student learning opportunities, and greater social interaction lies closer to the professional environment in the early childhood sector, which includes sharing ideas with work colleagues. the new zealand tertiary education sector has developed e-learning guidelines for the development of online courses, and all tertiary providers are encouraged to utilize these guidelines to develop the most effective courses. one of the guidelines includes the importance of effective orientation to online learning. effective orientation of students to learn in an online environment means they can engage more successfully with the learning content. orientation has the added benefit of increasing students’ technology skills. positive technology experiences in turn make it more likely that students will be willing to engage in future technology-rich experiences in an increasingly technology-oriented society. references ajzen, i., & fishbein, m. (1977). attitudebehavior relations: a theoretical analysis and review of empirical research. psychological bulletin, 84, 888–918. davies, r., & mendenhall, r. (1998). evaluation comparison of online and classroom instruction for hepe 129: fitness and lifestyle management course. salt lake city, ut: brigham young university. (eric document reproduction service no. ed427752) donohue, c., fox, s., & labonte, m. (2004). elearning: what students can teach us. exchange, (july), 79–83. donohue, c., fox, s., & torrence, d. (2007). early childhood educators as elearners: engaging approaches to teaching and learning online. young children, (july), 34–40. drennan, j., kennedy, j., & pisarki, a. (2005). factors affecting student attitudes towards flexible online learning in management education. the journal of education research, 98(6), 331–338. education commission of the states (2002). technology and early childhood professional development: a policy discussion, los angeles, california. denver, co: education commission of the states. el mansour, b., & mupinga, d. m. (2007). students’ positive and negative experiences in hybrid and online classes. college student journal, 41(1), 242–248. erlich, z., erlich-philip, i., & gal-ezer, j. (2005). skills required for participating in cmc courses: an empirical study. computers and education, 44, 477–487. fox, s., & donohue, c. (2006). trends and promising practices in early childhood teacher education online: the view from new zealand. he kupu, 1(1), 29–34. retrieved september 24, 2007, from http://www.nztertiarycollege.ac.nz/ hekupu/ hosie, p., schibeci, r., & backhaus, a. (2005). a framework and checklists for evaluating online learning in higher education. assessment and evaluation in higher education, 30(5), 539–553. jewett, f. (1998). course restructuring and the instructional development initiative at virginia polytechnic institute and state university: a benefit cost study. blacksburg: virginia polytechnic institute and state university. (eric document reproduction service no. ed423802) kane, r. (2005). initial teacher education: policy and practice. wellington, new zealand: ministry of education. journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 7 kaynama, s. a., & keesling, g. (2000). development of a web-based internet marketing course. journal of marketing education, 22(2), 84–89. lai, k. w. (2001). professional development: too little, too generic? in k. w. lai (ed.), e-learning: teaching and professional development with the internet (pp. 7–21). dunedin, new zealand: university of otago press. levine, s. j. (2005). creating a foundation for learning relationships. in s. j. levine (ed.), making distance education work: understanding learning and learners at a distance (pp. 17–25). michigan: learner associates.net. mcvay lynch, m. (2001). effective student preparation for online learning. retrieved september 24, 2007, from http:// technologysource.org/article/effective_ student_preparation_for_online_learning/ milne, j., & suddaby, g. (2005). elearning guidelines: final report for the new zealand elearning quality standards, framework guidelines project. retrieved september 26, 2007, from http://elg.massey.ac.nz/ elg-final-report.pdf ministry of education (2002). pathways to the future: nga huarahi arataki. wellington, new zealand: learning media. nichols, m., & mclachlan, c. (2006). e-learning and early childhood teacher education: what does the future hold? he kupu, 1(1), 17–28. perez cereijo, m. v. (2006). attitude as a predictor of success in online training. international journal of e-learning, 5(4), 623–640. pillay, h., irving, k., & tones, m. (2007). validation of the diagnostic tool for assessing tertiary students’ readiness for online learning. higher education research and development, 26(2), 217–234. shih, c. c., ingebritsen, t., pleasants, j., flickinger, k., & brown, g. (1998). learning strategies and other factors influencing achievement via web courses. ames: iowa state university. (eric document reproduction service no. ed422876) sunal, d. w., sunal, c. s., odell, m. r., & sundberg, c. a. (2003). researchsupported best practices for developing online learning. the journal of interactive online learning, 2(1), 1–32. walker, l., & du plessis, k. (2007). preparing early childhood student teachers for distance learning: student perceptions. he kupu, 1(3), 7–21. wegner, s., holloway, k., & kroder, a. (1997). utilizing a problem-based approach on the world wide web. springfield: southwest missouri state university. (eric document reproduction service no. ed414262) wu, j., tsay, r. j., chen, c. c., & wu, y. (2006). an integrative model to predict the continuous use of electronic learning systems: hints for teaching. international journal on e-learning, 5(2), 287–303. young, j. r. (2002). “hybrid” teaching seeks to end the divide between traditional and online instructions. chronicle of higher education, 48(28), 33. karin du plessis is a senior lecturer in early childhood education at new zealand tertiary college. she has a strong research interest in all areas of e-learning, including transferring academic teaching skills to the online environment and student experiences of e-learning. currently she is involved with conducting the second phase of a pilot project around web-enhanced learning. lisa walker was an e-lecturer at new zealand tertiary college and was instrumental in conducting research around the web-enhanced learning platform. she has since moved on to pursue other interests. christopher naughton is a lecturer and researcher in online distance learning at new zealand tertiary college. he previously worked in secondary and primary music education at the university of auckland and was a lecturer in primary education at the university of exeter. journal of distance learning, vol 12, no 1, 2008 © distance education association of new zealand 8 microsoft word jdl06maintext1word.doc journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 42 research report global picture, local lessons: e-learning policy and accessibility fiona murray school of curriculum and pedagogy, massey university palmerston north, new zealand introduction an integrated pan-sector e-learning strategy is being developed by the new zealand government through the ministry of education. an integral part of that strategy will be the development of a tertiary e-learning framework that focuses on enhancing accessibility, increasing relevance, and ensuring high-quality learning outcomes within the tertiary sector. in order to inform this strategy, the ministry of education is currently administering the second round of the tertiary e-learning research fund (telrf). the research fund was established to support and encourage rigorous research into tertiary e-learning in the new zealand context. the ministry of education is funding e-learning research which will establish both the current context and future impact of e-learning in the tertiary sector. to gain a thorough understanding of e-learning in the tertiary sector there is a need to look to other nations. throughout the world, countries are at various stages of e-learning policy formation and implementation. learning from the policy directions and processes of other countries will enhance the new zealand experience. the ministry of education is interested in what other countries have done with regard to government policy and accessibility to e-learning, the policies that have been put in place, the outcomes that followed, and the lessons that can be learned from their experiences. they are also interested in government-funded infrastructure provided to support accessibility to learning in small and remote communities. this focus on policy and accessibility forms an integral part of the telrf project being undertaken by a research team at massey university. the project the telrf project, global picture, local lessons: e-learning policy and accessibility, considers the e-learning policy experiences of a number of countries. these experiences are being used to identify consistent themes and tensions that run through the policy implementation process and to relate identifiable outcomes to policy measures. this research provides an opportunity to advance knowledge of e-learning in the tertiary sector. an appreciation of policy initiatives in other contexts and the outcomes of those policies can lead to understanding of good practice journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 43 and provide a framework for the development of strategic vision at institutional and national levels. the area of policy requires examination of existing national/federal and state/ provincial policy in the area of e-learning, determination of the outcomes of the policy implementation, and consideration of subsequent and proposed amendments and the reasons for those. the area of accessibility involves determining the nature of government-funded infrastructural arrangements for e-learning, with a particular focus on the specific barriers and enablers faced by small and remote communities. the focus in both areas of the project includes australia, canada, and the united kingdom; it also considers the experiences of some european union states, federal and state policy in the united states, and the more developed asian nations. the project looks towards national and state systems that have similarity to the new zealand context, although the project team realise that experiences from different contexts can provide insights that might otherwise be overlooked. process and progress the project had three distinct phases. the first phase involved the development and validation of a data extraction template for the policy aspect of the project. this was to ensure consistent retrieval of descriptive and contextual information across the research team. this template was then used to undertake documentary analysis of policy documents in the next phase. this second phase involved a weband literature-based search for a range of national and supra-national policy and strategy documents, background and discussion papers, and evaluation reports relevant to e-learning in the tertiary education sector. for each policy document, one member of the research team analysed it using the prescribed template, a second team member conducted a peer review of that analysis, and where necessary a moderator was used to resolve disagreement. on the basis of the analysis of documents, a brief report was written for each of seven areas. those areas are australia, canada, united kingdom, united states, japan and south korea, the scandinavian countries of europe, and the european union. the reports were then submitted to external consultants—internationally regarded e-learning researchers and practitioners—from each area, for review and validation. the analysis focused strongly on two strands of the three identified by jupp and norris (1993). these strands focus respectively on: first, the overt and explicit aspects of documents, allowing the identification of themes or even specified phrases or words as a useful way of highlighting inclusions and omissions; and, second, the policy context through examination of a range of documents apart from the policy itself to include features that may not be explicit in the policy documents themselves. analysis of policy outcomes will arise from the synthesis of extant official reports and statistical data and from published academic reports and evaluative studies. the final phase of the research involved the development of a section of the report on accessibility to e-learning in small and remote communities. analysis of official documents again played an important role in this aspect of the project. journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 44 however, that phase of the research also sought the experiences of at most three such communities to be written up as case studies to illustrate the outcomes of such government funding and to support the document analysis. the findings of the phase-two documentary analysis were reported in the first milestone report to the ministry of education in december last year. highlights to date from the first and second phases of the research a number of themes developed across the countries in the study. it appears there is a dichotomy in how e-learning is perceived and planned for across the nations. in some countries, policy focuses solely on e-learning, while other countries are trying to embed e-learning in overarching tertiary sector policies or pan-sector learning policies. an example of this is canada, where there has been a failed pan-canadian e-learning strategy, saskatchewan has developed and implemented a technology enhanced learning (tel) action plan, and ontario and new brunswick have returned to a focus on core features of education placing e-learning alongside other methods of learning. there is a change in emphasis noted from “supply side” policy to “demand side.” previously governments were involved in developing policies that made e-learning accessible through the provision of infrastructure and support services. this was no guarantee that e-learning would be used by institutions. we are now seeing a move towards development of policies that are focused increasingly on learners rather than solely on infrastructure. for example, the united kingdom’s e-strategy for learning, harnessing technology, attempts to personalize education for learners through the use of digital and interactive technologies. the strategic objectives of the policy make these transformations evident. in british columbia, the rollout of broadband with the net work bc project has been accompanied by the focus on increasing student enrolment in online courses through bccampus. the rapid pace of technological change was another theme that reoccurred across the countries in the study. this rapid change requires continual updating of policy, with some countries in the research even developing new policies on an annual basis. this rapid change also sees policies needing to be aligned and realigned with broader teaching and learning policy aims. the separate area reviews have also shown that tensions between various levels of governance can exist as institutions, nations, and supranational organisations each attempt to pursue their own agendas for e-learning. at a most basic level most countries lacked consistent terminology used across the documents reviewed, and there was often a lack of an agreed-upon definition for the terms that were used. work on phases two and three of this project, global picture, local lessons: e-learning policy and accessibility, continues until the middle of 2006. references jupp, v., & norris, c. (1993). traditions in documentary analysis. in m. hammersley (ed.), social research: philosophy, politics, and practice. london: sage. fiona murray teaches in the teacher education programmes offered by massey university journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 45 college of education. prior to working in teacher education she was a primary teacher, a specialist ict teacher, and an ict consultant to schools. murray now teaches in the area of educational technologies at the pre-service level. her current research interests centre around teachers’ work and how teachers perceive and use new technologies. she is part of the research team undertaking the telrf study on e-learning policy and accessibility. microsoft word kenah-nash format.docx journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 107 teaching, engaging, and motivating learners online through weekly, tailored, and relevant communication: academic content, information for the course, and motivation (aim) andy kenah, open polytechnic of new zealand catherine nash, open polytechnic of new zealand abstract engaging and motivating learners to successfully complete their studies are crucial elements for the success of distance educators around the world. the researchers’ aim newsletter, which is formatted in accordance with motivational learning theory, has been delivered to first-year learners in economics at open polytechnic of new zealand from 2010 to 2022. aim is an acronym for academic content, information for the course, and motivation— three critical elements that are required to meet the challenges of effective online course facilitation. this paper uses keller’s imms to evaluate the learner’s perspective of the aim newsletter. results show that learners consider aim newsletter attracts the learner’s attention and provides relevant links between theory and current world examples, linking the learner’s own experiences, increasing their confidence in the course, and providing overall satisfaction with the learning experience. in essence, aim newsletter provides an effective and efficient method of delivering and motivating learners throughout their studies. keywords: online learning; motivation; motivational emails; arcs; engage; e-learning; economics; iqualify; nudge; online communication introduction this article is a critical reflection on the use of aim newsletter from the learner’s perspective. aim is an acronym for academic content, information for the course, and motivation. the object of aim (nash, 2014) is to keep learners engaged in the course and reduce transactional distance—the physiological distance between learner and teacher (moore, 1980). the newsletter is designed, formatted, and published to attract the learner’s attention, provide relevant, current, and timely information, build learner confidence in their studies, and provide satisfaction in their learning. aim newsletter is published as one a4 page pdf and is posted at the beginning of each week of the trimester via the learning management system, iqualify. it is available to all learners enrolled in the undergraduate course, “the economic environment”, at open polytechnic of new zealand. this paper builds on nash’s 2014 critical reflection on the use of aim newsletters in accordance with motivational learning theories and concepts. nash’s original article outlined the environment that led to the creation of aim newsletter and the engagement challenges. it identified that aim newsletter sits very comfortably within the research on motivational theory and motivational design and that “student motivation is a major ingredient in keeping students engaged” (bonk & khoo, 2014; devito, 2012; guyan, 2013; hartnett et al., 2011; hogle, 2017; kenah, a., nash, c. 108 keller, 2008; moore, 1980; muilenburg & berg, 2005; salmon, 2004; simpson, 2008a, 2008b, 2012; stravredes, 2011). john keller’s 1983 instructional materials motivation survey (imms) was used to evaluate learners’ motivational perceptions of aim newsletter. imms was designed to measure the motivational characteristics of keller’s 1983 instructional model of motivation, also known as the arcs model. keller’s arcs model promotes and sustains learner motivation throughout their study. arcs is an acronym derived from the strategies used to ensure continued learner motivation: attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction. the arcs model has been well developed and was validated more than 30 years ago, so it is not surprising that the model has been used in widely different contexts (e.g., face-to-face classes as well as online environments) by researchers from many countries (li & keller, 2018). online teaching environment “the economic environment” (“the course”) is a first-year undergraduate compulsory business paper offered by open polytechnic of new zealand in all trimesters. the course is delivered and accessed online via the learning management system (lms), iqualify—the platform used for open polytechnic courses. interactions with the course leader are via asynchronous posting on talk channels. learners are subscribed to announcements posted by the authors. most learners are located in new zealand and are studying for a bachelor of business. during this investigation, approximately 75% were female and 90% were 25 years and older. fifteen percent were māori, 11% were pasifika, and 74% were non-māori or non-pasifika. the course is assessed through six multiple-choice quizzes and two summative assessments. online teaching challenges nash (2014) identified the challenges of teaching in an online environment that brought about the development of aim newsletter. these challenges included increased demand for relevance and currency of the course, and increased workloads due to lower staff numbers and higher learner:lecturer ratio. there has been a growing demand from learners and stakeholders for links between the theory taught in economics and current real-world relevance and applications in the economy. this was highlighted during the covid-19 pandemic when there was an increased interest in how covid affected the economy; this has continued during the post-covid period with a particular focus on the official cash rate, interest rates, and inflation. there was also an increase in economic commentary and online economic resources (video clips, articles, tweets, and blogs). aim newsletter connects to these rich resources via hyperlinks to engage and enlighten the learner every week. in a face-to-face synchronous learning environment, the course leader can easily select the latest news, video clips, or films to discuss economic theory and the current economy in the lecture or class—identifying how political or social decisions impact the economy and whether they are based on sound economic theory. however, the researchers consider that, in an online environment that uses asynchronous forms of communication, there are additional challenges and processes to ensure the online learning material (guide) is up to date, relevant, and topical. the two main challenges involved in updating online course material are time and staff availability. it takes time to write, develop, and upload new learning resources and readings for an online course. depending on the size of the change, staff levels (the availability of both academic staff and production staff) and the urgency of the change, the process can take between several days and many months (sometimes after the trimester has been completed). by the time journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 109 the update has been actioned, learners may have moved onto another topic, or the addition may have been superseded by new data and commentary and be no longer relevant or interesting for the learner. aim newsletter provides relevant updates, clarification, and support material for the learners, either weekly or as required. the aim newsletter the word aim from aim newsletter is an acronym in which “a” stands for “academic content”, “i” stands for “information for the course” and “m” stands for “motivation”. aim newsletter is a key component in the online delivery of the course. a = academic content aim newsletter uses a mix of media to provide relevant academic content linking weekly topics and theory to current economic issues. it uses blogs, news articles, opinion pieces, youtube clips, and government statistics and commentary from both new zealand and overseas. hyperlinks may also provide clarity on specific topics and/or extend learners’ knowledge. i = information for the course to ensure that all learners, particularly those new to online learning and the iqualify learning platform, have equal access to open polytechnic and course requirements, aim newsletter highlights and provides a variety of important links. nash (2014) saw course information as key to ensuring that learners do not waste valuable learning time on administrative searches and emails that might ultimately demotivate them during their studies. examples of material in information for the course include key dates, hyperlinks to the application form for an extension and special consideration, information on when assessments would be returned, and how to access feedback. in addition, study tasks for the week ahead are highlighted along with key economic terminology, to keep learners on track to succeed in their studies. m = motivation motivational material is the last element in aim newsletter. motivational content includes personal experience, connecting events, famous quotes about struggles and success in a variety of fields, and previous learners’ experience with motivation. as recognised by nash (2014), creating aim newsletter takes approximately 2–3 hours per week, depending on the “size and detail of learner discussions on the previous topic, the availability of relevant media content, and other work commitments” (p. 51). nash also noted that aim newsletters have resulted in “a reduction of 70% in administrative questions from learners asking same or similar questions, and thus less time is spent on composing and responding to administrative emails; and this must apply to both author and learner”, thus reducing workload. aim newsletter proactively opens a dialogue with the learner at the beginning of the trimester and provides connection points to continue the conversations each week. information for the course is included via appropriate hyperlinks to ensure all learners are informed and have access to relevant and timely information in one place, whether they be new or returning learners to open polytechnic or the iqualify platform. aim newsletter is sent via the announcement channel of iqualify as a one-page pdf (see appendix a). iqualify does not offer sufficient formatting options for it to be posted directly in the lms. aim newsletter is presented in boxes and columns with bolded headings, directly followed by information, allowing the reader to skim and then read areas of interest in detail” (p. 48). the tone is informal to connect with the learner. comic sans font is used throughout aim newsletter, with key words highlighted to provide better readability for learners on the dyslexia scale. this is consistent with advice from the british dyslexia association (2022). kenah, a., nash, c. 110 aim newsletter is posted at the beginning of the week to set the scene of what is going to be covered in the following week, and it ties into the study plan set out at the beginning of the trimester. aim newsletter is a flexible, re-useable product; the previous trimester forms the basis for future offerings and the template has been adapted successfully for other courses within open polytechnic. aim’s newsletter design and application is based on motivational learning theory and draws on concepts from keller’s arcs model (keller, 2010). thaler and sunstein (2009) suggested that encouraging behaviour through nudging is one of the most effective ways to bring about change. aim newsletter itself is not a nudge; however, the layout, content, hyperlinks, and information in the newsletter are nudges, and are designed to increase engagement and motivation in the course. keller’s arcs model john keller, an american educational psychologist stated: . . . we can say that in order to have motivated learners, their curiosity must be aroused and sustained; the instruction must be perceived to be relevant to personal values or instrumental to accomplishing desired goals, they must have personal conviction that they will be able to succeed; and the consequences of the learning experience must be consistent with the personal incentives of the learner. (2008, p. 178) keller (1983) argued that existing approaches and models, such as the behaviourist and cognitive approaches to instructional design, relied too heavily on external stimuli. he believed that more attention needed to focus on what motivates learners. in response, keller developed his 1983 instructional model of motivation, also known as the arcs model. arcs is designed to promote and sustain the motivation of learners throughout their course (keller, 2010). fig. 1 shows the strategies of arcs that ensure continued learner motivation. figure 1 keller’s 1983 arcs model note: figure created by the authors as an interpretation of keller’s textual model (keller, 2010). attention stimulate learner’s interest and attention early on, with something new, surprising, and exciting. relevance bridging gaps between course content and real life; link to learner’s own past, present, and future experience. confidence encourage learners to take small steps and provide timely feedback on their progress. satisfaction praise learners throughout the course on their newly acquired knowledge and skills. learner motivation journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 111 keller based his arcs motivational model of instructional design on a combination of theories, including but not limited to: bandura’s self-efficacy (1977), berlyne’s curiosity and arousal (1965), maslow’s needs hierarchy (1954), mccelland’s achievement motivation (1976), rotter’s locus of control (1975), and seligman’s learned helplessness (1975) to substantiate motivating factors for learners (shellnut, 1998, p. 4). malik (2014) and kurt (2021) noted the arcs model is also based on tolman’s and lewin’s expectancy–value theory (1964), which presumes that people are motivated to learn if there is value in the knowledge presented and if there is an optimistic expectation for success. instructional designers, teachers, and facilitators can use arcs to develop engaging learning material, activities, and resources that motivate learners (hogle, 2017). the arcs model, although initially designed for a classroom environment, has also been successfully adapted for the online and distance learning environment. attention the first element of the arcs model of motivation is attention. this refers to the learner’s interest. before any learning can take place online or in the classroom, the instructional designer must gain the learner’s interest and attention (kurt 2021). presenting new and exciting things sustains meaningful learning throughout the course. for example, the learner’s attention can be obtained by surprise, doubt, or disbelief. learners’ curiosity can be stimulated by the need to solve challenging problems. aim newsletter employs a variety of methods that aim to grab learners’ interest, excitement, and attention. for example, visual aids, including pictures and diagrams are included, key written material is presented in boxes, and the font is comic sans to increase readability. relevance the second element of the arcs model of motivation is relevance. this element links learners’ knowledge and experiences to the course material. for something to be of interest and sustain the attention of the learner it must be relevant. daily news articles, analogies or stories can be used to create relevance. these linked examples provide learners with a sense of connection to the course material that keeps them motivated. learners also realise that they are expanding on their own knowledge base, creating relevance. current and relevant economic podcasts, blogs, youtube clips, and articles are included in aim newsletter under the heading “what is in the news?” interesting but not compulsory news items enable course material to stay current and relevant to learners. this is a key requirement for all courses. confidence the third element of the arcs model of motivation is confidence. this element encourages learners to take small steps and provides learners with timely constructive feedback on progress. constructive feedback is essential for encouraging learners to proceed with confidence (pappas, 2015). constructive feedback also reinforces positive behaviour and skills. learners will grow in confidence and motivation with each success. each week, aim newsletter details where learners should have progressed in the course. key dates, such as due dates for assessments, extensions, special consideration, and quizzes are highlighted. what will be covered in the week ahead is signposted. headline stories, such as the achievements of famous people and past learners are used as inspiration for current learners to make choices and maintain momentum in their studies, and to nudge them towards the desired behaviour of engaging and finding connections between their learning materials and their daily kenah, a., nash, c. 112 lives. identifying appropriate support via hyperlinks also provides learners with confidence should outside constraints negatively affect their studies. satisfaction the last element of keller’s arcs model of motivation is satisfaction. learners should be proud of, and satisfied with, their achievements throughout the course. this element is about encouraging and supporting the learner’s fundamental enjoyment of education and praising their understanding and application of their newly acquired knowledge and skills for real life. this can be achieved, for example, through engagement in real problem-solving activities that add value to the learning process. being successful in achieving the first three motivational goals (attention, relevance, and confidence) results in people being motivated to learn. to have a continuing desire to learn, people must be satisfied with the process or results of their learning experience (keller, 2010, as cited in loorbach, 2015). this is also supported by keller and suzuki (2004)—the first three conditions are necessary to establish the motivation to learn, and the fourth, satisfaction, is necessary for learners to have positive feelings about their learning experience. aim newsletter encourages and supports learners on their journey. keller (2010, p. 190) listed approaches for continued learner motivation (e.g., how learners can continue to pursue their interest in the topic). throughout the trimester, recommendations are made via aim newsletter as to a variety of resources for further reference and investigation (including websites, blogs, podcasts, and movies). the great philosopher and educationalist john dewey (1933, p. 78) posits: “we do not learn from experience. we learn from reflection on experience”. aim also encourages learners to reflect on their studies throughout the course and evaluate the what, how, and why questions, thus enabling them to learn from their current studies and apply this knowledge in their future endeavours. keller’s imms in 1983 keller designed his instructional materials motivation survey (imms), which measures the motivational characteristics of each element of the arcs model. it can be used with printbased self-directed learning, computer-based courses, or online courses that are primarily selfdirected (keller 2010, p. 277), such as the online aim newsletter. the survey consists of 36 statement questions (12 relating to attention, 9 to relevance, 9 to confidence, and 6 to satisfaction). the primary reasons for the disproportionate number of statement questions in attention and satisfaction are that the satisfaction element of the arcs model does not have as many points of connection to the instructional material as the others (keller 2010, p. 282). ten of the 36 questions are reverse-based statement questions. reverse-based statement questions ensure more detailed measurement of attitude or opinion. they keep respondents from answering carelessly and help to correct for agreement bias. response scale keller (2010, p. 282) employed a five-point psychometric response scale. the scale measures the level of agreement with each motivational statement question: (1) not true; (2) slightly true; (3) moderately true; (4) mostly true; and (5) very true. the response rate scale ranges from 1 to 5. individual arcs element scores or a total score can be used to measure learner motivation. the minimum total score for the survey is 36 and the maximum total score is 175 with a mid-point of 105. note, the minimums, maximums, and midpoints for each arcs element vary because they do not all have the same number of questions. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 113 an alternative scoring method is the average score. this converts totals into a score ranging from 1 to 5. this method is useful when comparing the scores of the unequal number of statement questions across the arcs elements. as shown in table 1, the average score for each arcs element can then be assessed for its motivational level from a low level to a high level of learner motivation (hung & hew, 2016). note that answers to reverse-based questions are inverted before they are added to the total (that is, 5=1, 4=2, 3=3, 2=4, and 1=5). table 1 range of motivational level motivational level scores high level 4.00–5.00 upper medium level 3.50–3.99 medium level 3.00–3.49 low level < 3.00 application of keller’s imms: aim newsletter the researchers used keller’s imms to assess learners’ motivational perception of the aim newsletter. keller (2010, p. 277) allows for adaptation to his imms to fit specific situations. researchers can change default words but not the substance of the questions. the substance of each question is based on specific attributes of motivation. for example, default phrases such as “this course” or “this lesson” have been changed to “this aim newsletter” to fit the specifics of this research. as shown in appendix b, aim newsletter imms questions adapted 34 of keller’s original 36 arcs questions (12 relating to attention, 9 to relevance, 8 to confidence, and 5 to satisfaction) with two questions (one for confidence and one for satisfaction) not assessed because they relate specifically to assessment feedback that is not covered by aim newsletters. an open-ended question for learners to make further comments was added. the open-ended question was “do you have any other comments?” survey monkey was used to survey 201 past learners in the course. the survey was conducted over three trimesters of 2020–2021 and took place in week 12 of each trimester. the survey was opened for 2 weeks for learners to reply. automatic reminders after days 5 and 10 were sent to learners who had not replied to the survey. “thank you” emails were sent to learners who had replied. a total of 29 learners responded to the survey, a 14.5% response rate. although the response rate was lower than expected (it ran in a period when covid-19 was unfortunately at its most formidable), it is still considered to be statistically acceptable. the default survey monkey five-point psychometric response scale was used. the layout of the questions (strongly disagree; disagree; neither agree nor disagree; agree; and strongly agree) was approved by both the research and ethics committees of open polytechnic. this was a different order to the original imms which had strongly agree followed by agree; neither agree nor disagree; disagree; and strongly disagree. at least one learner found this format unhelpful and stated this in the open-ended comments: i feel the options should start from strongly agree to strongly disagree. as there are chances for some learners not paying attention to words and start assuming options from best to worst. however, open-ended comments did match feedback to 34 of keller’s questions. the average score was employed to measure learner motivation of aim newsletter for each arcs element. kenah, a., nash, c. 114 learners’ participation was confidential and anonymous so results could not be tied to individual learner records. this was a requirement to gain ethics committee approval as members were concerned that information could be connected to individual māori and pasifika learners and could contravene ethical standards or practices. aim survey results scale reliability a scale reliability test was conducted to assess the internal consistency of the aim survey; that is, how closely related the 34 survey questions were as a group. cronbach alpha, developed by lee cronbach in 1951, measures the internal consistency of a test or scale; it is expressed as a number between 0 and 1 (tavakol & dennick, 2011). a cronbach alpha value of 0.7 or higher indicates an acceptable internal consistency of results. an analysis of variance (anova) test was conducted in excel to calculate cronbach alpha (huang & hew, 2016). the overall reliability of all the scales (34 arcs questions) measured by cronbach alpha was 0.93 (n=28 on 34 items). this indicates very high reliability of the imms results, especially given two questions (one confidence and one satisfaction) were not assessed, and one student did not answer all the questions. figure 2 aim newsletter imms results: overall motivational scores journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 115 the far-right column in fig. 2 shows the overall learner motivational scores for each trimester surveyed, with scores ranging from 3.66 to 3.94. the overall arcs motivational scores of all learners who responded were calculated to be 3.74. quantitative results: attention figure 2 shows that motivational scores across the trimesters for attention ranged from a high of 3.88 to a low of 3.67. the average score for all learners who responded was 3.73. this very good score indicates aim newsletters do capture learners’ attention, helping to sustain learner motivation and engagement throughout the course. as seen in appendix b, the highest attention score was question 11 with 3.89: the quality of the writing (layout and font) of the aim newsletters helped to hold my attention. other questions that scored high were questions 8 and 20, with 3.82 and 3.86 respectively: these aim newsletters are eye-catching. the aim newsletters had things that stimulated my curiosity. the high scores indicate how critical aim newsletter is in grabbing learners’ interest, excitement, and attention early on and sustaining it throughout the course for meaningful learning to take place. the lowest attention score was for question 22 with 3.36: the amount of repetition in aim newsletters caused me to get bored sometimes. the nature of the aim newsletter does lead to some repetition, especially when highlighting key dates, such as due dates for assessments, extensions, and withdrawal. qualitative feedback: attention the open-ended comments from learners suggest the importance of grabbing the attention of learners and connecting with learners regularly. as a distance student, the most important thing communicated in newsletters was that the lecturer cared for me & my study. the greatest motivator for any student is when you genuinely care & are able to communicate this. a weekly newsletter is essential in this respect. i enjoyed reading the newsletters. it made me aware how far behind i was with my readings . . .” one learner noted that the “newsletter could be improved” and another saw aim “was useful in correcting the . . . course”. quantitative results: relevance figure 2 shows motivational scores across the trimesters for relevance ranged from a high of 4.02 to a low of 3.62. the average score for all learners who responded was 3.76. this was a very good result, supporting weekly aim newsletters as being relevant to learners’ motivation. as shown in appendix b, question 31 scored highest with 4.11: the content of aim newsletters will be useful to me. kenah, a., nash, c. 116 another question that scored high was question 16 with 3.93: the content of aim newsletters was relevant to my interests. the lowest relevance score was for question 18 with 3.43. there are explanations or examples of how people use the knowledge in aim newsletters. the scores highlight the importance of establishing relevant learning content and connections. for example, analogies and stories from the daily news help to create learner connections. they establish content that connects new information with existing experience. they also help learners to expand their knowledge base, keeping them motivated. question 18 does highlight the potential for more examples and greater explanations, especially for more complex economic theories and concepts as the course progresses. qualitative feedback: relevance the importance of ensuring the content was relevant was also included in the learners’ comments: the content was broken down into separate bite-sized boxes. the content itself was great, always relevant. the newsletter helped remind me . . . that my studies were relevant to the world today. learners also appreciated the topical and highly relevant hyperlinks that connected economic theory with current events: i really like the hyperlinks to current events and further information. this topic was very relevant to study at the current time with the effects that covid-19 is having on the economic climate. it was good to see the tutor’s use of linking the subject to current events. . . . also has some good hyperlink reads . . . the reads were also very interesting it would be good if the cm’s were as sound as the aim newsletters! the content was broken into bite sized boxes. the content itself was great, always relevant. however, some learners considered there were too many hyperlinks: the number of hyperlinks should be limited so that i do not have too much pressure to read all contents including the links. . . . too much information with a small and sometimes mixed fonts in one page. subsequently, the section entitled “what is in the news?” was updated to read “what is in the news? interesting but not compulsory news items”. learners’ feedback resulted in hyperlinks being limited to a maximum of five news items. quantitative results: confidence figure 2 shows that motivational scores across the trimesters for confidence ranged from a high of 4.16 to a low 3.69. the average score for all learners was 3.83 (the highest score for all the arcs elements). as shown in appendix b, fourth column, question 1 scored the highest of all 34 questions with 4.28. when i first looked at an aim newsletter, i had the impression that it would be easy for me to read. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 117 the second highest question of the survey was question 4 with 4.10: after reading the aim newsletter, i felt confident that i knew what i was supposed to learn for the week. scores like these highlight the importance of delivering aim newsletters weekly. they do help sustain motivation and engagement throughout the course, and they instil learners with confidence that they can apply new skills and knowledge. aim newsletter establishes clear goals in addition to providing guidance and feedback to learners. the lowest confidence score was for question 7 with 3.50: many of the aim newsletters had so much information that it was hard to pick out and remember the important points. this relates to attention question 22 about the amount of repetition in aim newsletters. highlighting key information, such as due dates for assessments, extensions, and withdrawal, can result in a proliferation of similar information from week to week. qualitative feedback: confidence open-ended comments suggest that learners gained confidence by reading aim newsletters. it’s good to have the newsletter to make sure i’m on track and any additional info to help me along. the single page was also great. i don’t know that i would read more than one page most days. quantitative results: satisfaction figure 2 shows that motivational scores across the trimesters for satisfaction ranged from a high of 3.71 to a low of 3.44. the average score for all learners who responded was 3.59 (the lowest score for all the arcs elements). as shown in appendix b, question 34 scored the highest points with 3.86: it was a pleasure to read such a well-designed aim newsletter. the second-highest question of the survey was question 21 with 3.78: i really enjoyed reading the aim newsletters. these responses highlight the importance of well-designed aim newsletters. nurturing fundamental enjoyment of learning helps sustain learners’ motivation and engagement throughout the course. the lowest satisfaction score was question 14 with 3.25: i enjoyed reading the aim newsletters so much that i would like to know more about economics. this response needs context—“the economic environment” is a stand-alone compulsory paper in the bachelor of business. most bachelor of business learners major in either management or accounting, there is no economics major. this is most likely to affect learners’ desire to continue studies in economics. kenah, a., nash, c. 118 qualitative feedback: satisfaction general comments by learners showed overall satisfaction with the aim newsletter. the posting of a weekly aim newsletter created a positive learning experience that helped to keep learners engaged and motivated throughout the course. when i saw my first aim newsletter, i was underwhelmed. it did not feel professional to me. it looked like it had been put together in the late 1990’s and comic sans-style fonts are usually used for children. however, as the weeks progressed, i really came to love the simplicity of the design. the fact that it seemed prepared by a real person (not a flashy digital design/marketing team) made me feel more connected to the course. it’s difficult to feel that you’re doing your study by yourself with distance learning, even if you know you aren’t. this newsletter helped remind me weekly that i was not alone, that there was a game plan, that my studies were relevant to the world today and that there was a real human on the other side of the screen. the newsletters were handy, though i often read two or three at once . . . overall though it was nice to have well written informative content. i didn’t manage to stay on top of reading them each week like i would have liked due to various other things happening but i really valued them being available. i enjoyed looking at the aim newsletters every week. love the aim newsletters. please don’t stop making this. conclusion engaging and keeping learners motivated in online studies are vital for all educators. aim newsletter was designed to reduce the transactional distance in online learning and to motivate learners to engage and stay committed in an online economics course. the authors consider the benefits accrued from producing weekly aim newsletters (including personal satisfaction and the reduction in the time required to reply to administration questions from learners) are greater than the cost of production. analysis and feedback from learners have established aim newsletter as a successful tool in delivery of the online course. the quantitative scores calculated and presented in fig. 2 validate its use to help learners stay motivated and engaged throughout the course. qualitative feedback from the open-ended questions underscores the need to provide proactive, regular, and relevant online communication with learners. in the delivery of online education, aim newsletter is an excellent case study of motivational design theory in practice. overall, our learners consider aim newsletter has attracted their attention, provided relevant links between theory and current world examples, linked their own experiences, increased their confidence in the course, and provided overall satisfaction of their learning experience. references bonk, c. j., & khoo, e. (2014). adding some tec-variety: 100+ activities for motivating and retaining learners online. open world books. british dyslexia association. (2022). dyslexia friendly style guide. https://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/advice/employers/creating-a-dyslexia-friendlyworkplace/dyslexia-friendly-style-guide journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 119 devito, j. a. (2012). human communication: the basic course (12th ed.). allyn & bacon. dewey, j. (1933). how we think: a restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the educative process. henry regnery. guyan, m. (2013, october). improving motivation in elearning. elearn magazine. http://elearnmag.acm.org/featured.cfm?aid=2527388 hartnett, m., st. george, a., & dron, j. (2011). examining motivation in online distance learning environments: complex, multifaceted and situation-dependent. international review of research in open and distributed learning, 12(6), 20–38. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v12i6.1030 hogle, p. (2017, november 20). arcs model aids in designing for motivation. learning solutions. http://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/2523/arcs-model-aids-in-designingfor-motivation huang, b., & foon hew, k. (2016). measuring learners’ motivation level in massive open online courses. international journal of information and education technology, 6(10), 759–764. inkelaar, i., & simpson, o. (2015). challenging the “distance education deficit” through “motivational emails”. open learning: the journal of open, distance and e-learning, 30(2), 152–163. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680513.2015.1055718 keller, j. (2000). how to integrate learner motivation planning into lesson planning: the arcs model approach. https://app.nova.edu/toolbox/instructionalproducts/itde8005/weeklys/2000keller-arcslessonplanning.pdf   keller, j. (2008). first principles of motivation to learn and e3-learning. distance education, 29(2), 175–185. https://doi.org/10.1080/01587910802154970  keller, j. (2010). motivational design for learning and performance: the arcs model approach. springer. keller, j. m., & suzuki, k. (2004). learner motivation and e-learning design: a multinationally validated process. journal of educational media, 29(3), 229–239.  kurt, s. (2021, january 30). model of motivation: arcs instructional design. education library. https://educationlibrary.org/model-of-motivation-arcs-instructional-design/   li, k., & keller, j. (2018). use of the arcs model in education: a literature review. computers and education, 122, 54–62. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2018.03.019 loorbach, n., peters, o., karreman, j. & steehouder, m. (2015). validation of the instructional materials motivation survey (imms) in a self‐directed instructional setting aimed at working with technology. british journal of educational technology, 46(1), 204–218.  https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.12138 malik, s. (2014). effectiveness of arcs model of motivational design to overcome noncompletion rate of students in distance education. turkish online journal of distance education, 15(2), 194–200. moore, m. g. (1980). theory of transactional distance. http://www.c3l.unioldenburg.de/cde/support/readings/moore93.pdf kenah, a., nash, c. 120 muilenburg, l.y., & berge, z. l. (2005). student barriers to online learning: a factor analytic study. distance education, 26(1), 29–48. https://doi.org/10.1080/01587910500081269 nash, c. (2014). take aim and keep your students engaged. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 18(2), 45–57. open polytechnic of new zealand. (2020). 2020 annual programme evaluation report: bachelor of business. pappas, c. (2015, may 20). instructional design models and theories: keller’s arcs model of motivation. elearning industry. https://elearningindustry.com/arcs-model-of-motivation salmon, g. (2004). e-moderating: the key to online teaching and learning (2nd ed.). routledgefalmer. shellnut, b. (1998, october 15). john keller: a motivating influence in the field of instructional systems design. simpson, o. (2008a). guide to proactive motivational student support (pams). https://ormondsimpson.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/proactive-motivationalsupport-guide-non-ou.pdf simpson, o. (2008b). motivating learners in open and distance learning: do we need a new theory of learner support? open learning: the journal of open, distance and e-learning, 23(3),159–170. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680510802419979 simpson, o. (2012). supporting students in online, open and distance learning (3rd ed.). routledge. stavredes, t. (2011). effective online teaching: foundations and strategies for student success (2nd ed.). jossey-bass. tavakol m., & dennick r. (2011). making sense of cronbach’s alpha. international journal of medical education, 27(2), 53–55. https://doi.org/10.5116/ijme.4dfb.8dfd thaler, r. h., & sunstein c. r. (2009). nudge: improving decisions about health, wealth and happiness. penguin books. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 121 appendix a: aim newsletter—week 15 kenah, a., nash, c. 122 appendix b: aim newsletter survey questions adapted from keller’s instructional materials motivation survey (imms), (keller, 2010). attention (12 questions) a+ q2. there was something interesting at the beginning of the aim newsletter that got my attention. a+ q8. these aim newsletters are eye-catching. a+ q11. the quality of the writing (layout and font) of the aim newsletters helped to hold my attention. a q12. the aim newsletters were so abstract that it was hard to keep my attention on it. a q15. the aim newsletters format looked dry and unappealing. a+ q17. the way the information of the aim newsletters was arranged (for example, style, font, format, and pictures in boxes) helped keep my attention. a+ q20. the aim newsletters had things that stimulated my curiosity. a q22. the amount of repetition in aim newsletters caused me to get bored sometimes. a+ q24. i learned some things that were surprising or unexpected. a+ q26. the variety of reading passages, exercises, and illustrations, within the aim newsletters helped keep my attention. a q27. the style of aim newsletters is boring. a q29. there are so many words per each aim newsletter that it was irritating. relevance (9 questions) r+ q6. it is clear to me how the content of the aim newsletters related to things i already know. r+ q9. there were stories, pictures, or examples that showed me how the aim newsletters could be important to some people. r+ q10. it was important to me to read the whole of the aim newsletter. r+ q16. the content of aim newsletters was relevant to my interests. r+ q18. there are explanations or examples of how people use the knowledge in aim newsletters. r+ q23. the content and style of writing of the aim newsletters convey the impression that its content is worth knowing. r q25. the aim newsletters were not relevant to my needs because i already knew most of it. r+ q28. i could relate the content of the aim newsletters to things i have seen, done, or thought about in my own life. r+ q31. the content of aim newsletters will be useful to me. confidence (8 questions) c+ q1. when i first looked at an aim newsletter, i had the impression that it would be easy for me to read. c q3. the aim newsletter material was more difficult to understand than i would like for it to be. c+ q4. after reading the aim newsletter, i felt confident that i knew what i was supposed to learn for the week. c q7. many of the aim newsletters had so much information that it was hard to pick out and remember the important points. c+ q13. as i read the aim newsletters, i was confident that i could learn the content. c q19. the tasks (for example, clicking hyperlinks and following suggested readings) in the aim newsletters were too difficult. c q32. i could not really understand quite a bit of the material in aim newsletters. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2) 123 c+ q33. the good organisation of the aim newsletters content helped me be confident that i would read this material. satisfaction (5 questions) s+ q5. completing the tasks (for example, clicking hyperlinks and following suggested readings) gave me a satisfying feeling of accomplishment. s+ q14. i enjoyed reading the aim newsletters so much that i would like to know more about economics. s+ q21. i really enjoyed reading the aim newsletters. s+ q30. it felt good to successfully read through the aim newsletters. s+ q34. it was a pleasure to read such a well-designed aim newsletter. key: + and indicate positive or negative statement questions. biographical notes andy kenah andy.kenah@openpolytechnic.ac.nz andy kenah is a senior academic staff member at open polytechnic of new zealand. he holds a master of business studies from massey university and is a fellow of the financial services institute of australasia. andy has been involved in distance education for over 20 years as a facilitator and programme leader, online learner, and researcher. his research interests include online teaching and training, learner motivation, and support. catherine nash nascat@xtra.co.nz catherine nash has been a senior academic staff member, business management, open polytechnic of new zealand. she holds a bachelor of arts from victoria university and is a member of the new zealand association of economists. catherine has been involved in distance education for over 20 years as facilitator of economics and business courses, online learner, and researcher. her research interests include enhancing learner engagement and motivation in an e-learning environment. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. kenah, a., & nash, c. (2022). teaching, engaging, and motivating learners online through weekly, tailored, and relevant communication: academic content, information for the course, and motivation (aim). journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(2), [107–123.]. palmer, s. 70 understanding the context of distance students: differences in onand off-campus engagement with an online learning environment stuart palmer, deakin university abstract while a growing number of higher education institutions are providing online modes of study for both onand off-campus students, do the differences in demography, technology experiences and reasons for study between onand off-campus students mean that they interact differently with online learning environments (oles)? australia’s deakin university is a major provider of distance and online education that provides a case study of a higher education institution with a mature and large-scale ole implementation providing support to both onand off-campus students. deakin studies online (dso) is deakin university’s ole. based on a representative sample of 1322 responses to the 2011 dso evaluation survey, this paper presents a large-scale, up-to-date and fine-grained investigation of the impact of mode of study on the student experience of using an ole. it was found that the primary place of access to dso for both groups was home; mobile access to dso seems likely to be of growing importance to both groups; and there was no statistically significant difference in the mean satisfaction ratings between onand off-campus students for virtually all dso functions. off-campus students gave significantly higher mean ratings of importance (though not satisfaction) to a range of dso functions that could be viewed as ‘value adders’, enhancing their overall learning experience. for more than half of the dso functions surveyed, on-campus students reported statistically significant higher mean frequency of access than off-campus students. the finding that elements of the institutional ole are not universally perceived and used the same way by all student groups challenges the value of standard, ‘one-size-fits-all’ institutional policies and templates relating to the use of oles. keywords: online learning; distance education; online learning environment introduction distance education, in many places and forms, and for many purposes, continues to thrive. this is in part due to a complex relationship with a range of online educational technologies that offer new affordances to, and challenges for, educators (calvert, 2005; larreamendy-joerns & leinhardt, 2006; saba, 2005). online learning environments (oles) are perhaps currently the most widely used and most expensive educational technology tool (salinas, 2008; west, waddoups, & graham, 2007). like many other learning technology trends before them, they have been adopted by higher education institutions almost automatically and often uncritically (reynolds, treharne, & tripp, 2003). much of the research into online learning seems to assume journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 71 no influence from the demographic characteristics of system users (woods, baker, & hopper, 2004). while a growing number of higher education institutions are providing online modes of study for both onand off-campus students, there are very real differences in demography, technology experiences, and reasons for study between onand off-campus students. research into engagement with oles indicates differences in the way that onand off-campus students interact with them (xie, lin, & zhang, 2001). the need to explore these differences at a high level of granularity of ole functionality has been highlighted, lest the details of any differences are lost/‘washed out’ by too high a level of aggregation (martz & shepherd, 2007). in australia, deakin university is a major provider of distance and online education. in recent times the university has implemented institution-wide online teaching and learning systems to provide opportunities to bring together all students in the one learning community. deakin university is a case study of a higher education institution with a mature and large-scale ole implementation providing support to both onand off-campus students who are, in many cases, enrolled in the same units of study and studying the same learning materials at the same time. previous smaller-scale investigations at deakin university identified differences in the perceptions and use of elements of the ole between onand off-campus students (palmer, 2001). however, a significant period of time has passed since those previous investigations. in addition, there is very limited reporting of comparative investigations between onand offcampus student use of the same ole (xie et al., 2001). this paper presents a large-scale, up-todate and fine-grained investigation of the impact of mode of study on the student experience of using an ole, highlights differences relating to mode of study, and identifies implications of these differences for those with policy and operational responsibilities for institutional oles. methodology deakin studies online (dso) is the internal brand for deakin university’s ole. it includes a commercial learning management system (lms) as the core infrastructure, as well as a range of supporting technologies, including synchronous communications, lecture recording and streaming, and plagiarism detection. during 2011, all coursework students at deakin university, except immediately commencing students, were invited to complete the dso evaluation survey. this population group was selected because only coursework students use dso regularly in their studies (research students do not generally use dso). because the survey was conducted early in the year, immediately commencing students would have very limited experience using dso— hence their exclusion from the survey. a total of 22,760 students were invited to complete the survey, including 6509 students enrolled in off-campus mode and 16,251 students enrolled in oncampus mode. the dso evaluation survey sought responses from students relating to:  demographic and background information  place and mode of access to dso  perception of importance of, satisfaction with, and frequency of use of, a range of dso functions  a number of overall dso satisfaction measures  open-ended written comments about dso. the 2011 dso evaluation survey is a refinement of previous institutional dso evaluation instruments used at deakin university (palmer & holt, 2010), and derives a measure of face validity from its repeated use and review since 2004, including successive reviews by the deakin university human research ethics committee (duhrec). the survey does not attempt to measure any particular theorised constructs in the respondent sample, hence its reliability relates to the accuracy with which the responses of the sample match those of the overall target population. details about the demographic match between the respondent sample and the palmer, s. 72 population are provided in the following discussion, and measures of rating data variation and/or confidence intervals are provided where appropriate. the current version of the dso evaluation survey used here is included as the appendix to this paper. as required by duhrec procedures, the survey was anonymous and voluntary. in all of the following quantitative analyses a statistical significance level of p < 0.01 has been adopted. this significance level indicates that the observed result is likely to occur by chance only once for every hundred similar respondent samples, which strongly suggests that any observed difference in mean ratings is a real difference. results and discussion response rate and demographic information as noted above, the reliability of the survey data depends on the accuracy with which the responses of the sample match those of the overall target population. in turn, this depends on the survey response rate, and the demographic match between the overall population and the respondent sample. an online system was used to administer the survey. it saved all progressive responses entered, resulting in differential response rates for different sections of the survey. the effective response rate for those completing the entire survey was 5.81%, although higher response rates were obtained for prior sections of the survey. a range of demographic information was available for the overall deakin university student population as well as being collected as part of the survey, including gender, enrolled faculty, enrolled campus and duration of current enrolment. this data permitted a comparison between the respondent sample and the overall student population on these demographic dimensions, as presented in table 1. table 1 response and demographic information for 2011 dso evaluation survey population sample number of respondents 22,760 1322 gender female 59.5% 67.8% male 40.5% 32.2% faculty arts and education 30.4% 30.1% business and law 36.9% 28.6% health 19.8% 22.9% science and technology 12.9% 16.9% other 1.5% campus geelong – waurn ponds 12.1% 14.1% geelong – waterfront 5.8% 7.5% melbourne – burwood 50.3% 43.5% warrnambool 3.2% 3.5% off-campus 28.6% 31.4% mean enrolment duration 2.24 years 2.42 years journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 73 the survey was administered in the first teaching period of the year, and it was not possible to include newly commencing students in the population sample. however, an attempt was made to quantify the possible impact of this slightly different population group on student perceptions of online aspects of their study. deakin university conducts an evaluation of teaching for every offer of the majority of units of study. this evaluation asks students to indicate their level of agreement (on a scale of 1–5) with a range of statements, including item 9: “the online teaching and resources in this unit enhanced my learning experience”. commencing students are most likely to be found enrolled in first-level units of study offered in the first teaching period of the year. using data from the deakin university student evaluation of teaching database for an entire annual period (mid-2009 to mid-2010), the mean rating for item 9 for first-level units offered in the first teaching period was compared with the mean rating from all other units of study. the mean ratings were identical to the fourth significant figure (first level = 3.7657; other = 3.7656) and, following confirmation of homogeneity of variance, an analysis of variance (anova) test indicated no significant difference between the mean ratings from both classes of units (f1427 = 3x10 -6 ; p > 0.998). of particular interest for this investigation are the proportions of off-campus students in the population and respondent groups. by combining numbers for all campus locations into a total ‘on-campus’ figure and comparing that with the off-campus figure for both the population and sample, fisher’s exact 2 x 2 contingency test of mode of study by group was possible, and there was no significant difference in the proportions of off-campus students between the population and the sample (p = 0.030). although the overall response rate obtained was comparatively low, it was not unexpected for an online voluntary survey (cook, heath, & thompson, 2000). the generally good match between the sample and population demographic characteristics, including the proportions of off-campus students, and the confirmation that commencing students do not hold significantly different views from other students about the value of online aspects of their study, provides some confidence in drawing more general inferences about the wider deakin university student population from the respondent data. two significant differences were observed in the responses to the demographic information between onand off-campus students. the first was mean respondent age, which, for on-campus students was 24.78 years, and for off-campus students was 32.26 years. the size and variance of both groups were different, so welch’s robust anova test was performed. the observed mean ages were significantly different (f713.4 = 473.5; p < 7x10 -81 ). the second difference was mean duration of current enrolment, which, for on-campus students was 2.32 years, and for off-campus students was 2.66 years. the size and variance of both groups were different, so welch’s robust anova test was performed. the observed mean enrolment durations were significantly different (f635.4 = 14.1; p < 0.0002). these results were as expected, and lend further support to the representativeness of the respondent sample. experience at deakin university shows that, compared with on-campus students, off-campus students are more likely to be of a mature age and working full time while studying at less than a full load; hence they are, on average, older and take longer to complete their studies—similar cohort differences are also reported elsewhere (young & gibbings, 2007). no significant difference was observed between onand off-campus students in the proportion of respondents indicating that they used dso in their studies—99.52% of all respondents. access to dso respondents were asked to choose one of three options for their principal place of access (onor off-campus) for dso. based on pearson’s chi-square test, the distribution of responses was significantly different between onand off-campus students (χ 2 2 = 115.2; p < 1x10 -25 ), and these are presented in figure 1(a). respondents were asked to indicate any of three options for where else they access dso from. based on fisher’s exact 2 x 2 contingency test, the proportions of palmer, s. 74 respondents indicating secondary places of access for dso as “on-campus” (p < 4x10 -14 ) and “other” (p < 3x10 -14 ) were significantly different between onand off-campus students, and are presented in figure 1(b). 17.0% 0.2% 82.3% 93.6% 0.7% 6.2% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% on-campus students off-campus students other home on-campus 75.2% 8.2% 22.8% 17.1%20.5% 68.6% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% on-campus students off-campus students on-campus home other figure 1 (a) primary place of access to dso (b) other places of access to dso as might be expected, nearly all off-campus students indicated that their primary place of access for dso was their home. what is perhaps surprising was that more than 80% of on-campus students also indicated their home as their primary place of access. consideration of computing access from outside the university is no longer just the preserve of those supporting off-campus students. in terms of interacting with dso, the objective physical student experience is likely to be largely the same regardless of the specific mode of enrolment. for secondary sources of access for dso, off-campus students were significantly more likely to indicate “other”. while the details of the other sources are not known, experience suggests it is likely to be predominantly people’s place of work. respondents were asked to choose one of five options for their principal mode of access (type of computing device used) for dso. there were no significant differences in the distribution of responses between onand off-campus students. the overall combined distribution is presented in figure 2(a). respondents were asked to indicate any of five options for how else they access dso. based on fisher’s exact 2 x 2 contingency test, the proportions of respondents indicating secondary modes of access for dso as “desktop computer” (p < 5x10 -7 ) and “smartphone” (p < 4x10 -7 ) were significantly different between onand off-campus students, as presented in figure 2(b). journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 75 29.5% 69.8% 0.6% 0.1% desktop laptop tablet smartphone other † 58.5% 44.0% 25.4% 30.5% 5.9% 5.9% 29.1% 16.6% 1.8% 1.1% 0% 20% 40% 60% on-campus students off-campus students desktop laptop tablet smartph. other † no responses recorded for other figure 2 (a) primary mode of access to dso (b) other modes of access to dso dso is still largely primarily accessed via ‘full-function’ computers, although two-thirds of respondents indicated that a portable/laptop computer was their preference. mobile devices barely rated as the primary method of access to dso. interestingly, when it came to secondary modes of access to dso, a significant minority of all respondents indicated using a mobile device, with a smartphone being the most popular (and more popular with on-campus than offcampus students). mobile access to dso seems likely to be of growing importance to all students. importance and satisfaction ratings for each of the 15 core lms functions and 5 dso support functions (together representing the majority of deakin university’s current ole functionality) listed in figure 3, respondents were asked to indicate how important it was to the success of their studies and how satisfied they were with it. importance was rated on a scale of 1–5: 1 = not important; 3 = neutral; and 5 = very important, and satisfaction was rated on a scale of 1–5: 1 = not satisfied; 3 = neutral; and 5 = very satisfied. a “not applicable” response option was also available. presuming an ordinal scale of values for respondent ratings, an indication of the significance of the differences between the mean ratings for an item between onand off-campus is obtained from an anova test using mean item rating as the dependent variable and mode of enrolment as the grouping variable. a requirement for the anova test is that the variation of the mean rating be similar in both enrolment modes. levene’s test of homogeneity of variance failed for many dso functions, and in these circumstances a robust anova test using the welch test statistic was performed instead. based on a significance level of p < 0.01, figure 3 summarises the mean importance and satisfaction ratings obtained. where there was no significant difference (n.s.d.) in the mean importance and satisfaction ratings from onand off-campus students, the overall mean ratings are plotted as a point pair (functions 2, 5, 6, 7, 14, 15, 17, 18 and 20). where only the mean importance rating was significantly different, a vertical line is plotted, with the horizontal location given by the overall mean satisfaction rating, and the two endpoints of the line identifying the mean ratings separately for onand off-campus students (functions 1, 3, 4, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 16 and 19). for one function (10) both the mean ratings of importance and satisfaction were significantly different between onand off-campus students. in this case, a diagonal line is plotted, with the endpoints representing the mean importance and satisfaction ratings separately for onand off-campus students. palmer, s. 76 2 10 7 1 3 4 5 6 8 9 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0 3.00 3.25 3.50 3.75 4.00 4.25 im p o rt a n ce satisfaction ♦ no sig. difference • on-campus students off-campus students 1. accessing unit guide and other unit information 11. submitting assignments 2. accessing unit lecture, tutorial or lab notes etc 12. receiving feedback on assignments 3. interacting with unit learning resources 13. working collaboratively in a group 4. using the unit calendar 14. reviewing unit progress 5. reading unit announcements 15. using the e-portfolio 6. contacting teachers via internal unit messaging 16. elive synchronous communication tool 7. contacting students via internal unit messaging 17. ilecture class lecture recording 8. reading contributions to online discussions 18. other ilecture recoding (eg podcasts etc) 9. contributing to online discussions 19. deakin’s social software 10. completing online quizzes/tests 20. turnitin plagiarism/originality assessment figure 3 mean importance and satisfaction ratings for dso functions for all dso functions except one, there was no significant difference in mean satisfaction ratings between onand off-campus students. this suggests that regardless of mode of study most students are engaging with dso in a similar way, and finding similar learning value in, the functions provided by dso. as noted earlier, regardless of mode of enrolment most students indicated that their primary place of access to dso was from home, so this may contribute to the general commonality of experience. the one exception was that off-campus students recorded a significantly lower mean satisfaction rating for the function “completing online quizzes/tests”. in a study investigating student perceptions of online testing, two aspects were identified as having statistically significant differences between onand off-campus students (martz & shepherd, 2007). off-campus students were more likely to agree with the statement “i prefer taking tests with my other classmates in a traditional classroom”, and were less likely to agree with the statement “overall, i was satisfied with my performance on the test”, even though there were no significant differences in the actual test results between onand off-campus students. martz & journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 77 shepherd (2007) speculate that off-campus students at an off-campus location have fewer cues and references points than their on-campus peers with which to gauge their relative online test performance. they may therefore feel less certain about their performance, even though it might be good in absolute terms. at deakin university, on-campus students have access to laboratories with standardised computer hardware and software that is optimised to work with dso, and which provide a high level of surety that an online quiz will function correctly. in contrast, offcampus students maintain their own computer systems, and there is a greater likelihood of compatibility problems that might cause online tests to function less reliably. this may be one of the contributors to the significantly lower satisfaction rating with online quizzes reported by offcampus students, especially if the test is formally assessed and contributes to their final unit mark. it has been shown that online quizzes can be academically beneficial for offcampus/distance students (anderson, 2009), so more investigation into the reason(s) behind the difference between onand off-campus student ratings for this specific dso function is called for. of the 10 dso functions that recorded significantly different mean importance ratings (but not satisfaction ratings) between onand off-campus students, off-campus students recorded lower mean ratings for the three functions “using the unit calendar”, “working collaboratively in a group” and “deakin’s social software”. the unit calendar and deakin’s social software tools were not widely used dso functions, and this may have led to their low importance rating by off-campus students. note that along with the e-portfolio function (15), which was also not widely used, these three functions have very low absolute mean ratings of importance and satisfaction for both onand off-campus students. of the dso functions that are in common use, online group work received the lowest satisfaction rating. potential practical problems with online group work are noted (liu & tsai, 2008), and it is perhaps not surprising that students who have elected to study in off-campus mode might view and rate group work as being less important than do on-campus students. for the other seven dso functions recording a significant difference in mean importance rating between onand off-campus students, off-campus students recorded higher mean ratings for the functions “accessing unit guide and other unit information”, “interacting with unit learning resources”, “reading contributions to online discussions”, “contributing to online discussions”, “submitting assignments”, “receiving feedback on assignment”, and “live synchronous communication tool”. this group of dso functions incorporates functions that could be viewed as ‘value adders’ by off-campus students, enhancing their overall learning experience beyond that which they would traditionally experience with printed study materials alone. interacting with online discussions is identified, as is submission/return of assignments—traditionally a bugbear for off-campus students—where postal delivery times (internal and external to the university) might add more than a week to the turnaround time in both directions for hard copy off-campus assignments. off-campus students also place a premium on the function of synchronous communication. these results are not inconsistent with the findings from an investigation of the factors motivating distance education student use of the internet—the most important motivators were content seeking and social contact (stafford, 2005). this group of lms functions includes items differentially rated by off-campus students as having relatively high importance but relatively low levels of satisfaction, including “receiving feedback on assignments” and “elive synchronous communication tool”. these findings suggest a potential mismatch of expectations and actual experience for off-campus students, as well as suggesting areas for action/attention that could yield improvements in the university experience for offcampus students. palmer, s. 78 frequency of use for each of the 15 core lms functions and five dso support functions listed in figure 3, respondents were also asked to indicate, on average, how frequently they used/accessed it. frequency was indicated on a scale of 1 = never; 2 = less than once per week; 3 = once per week; 4 = once per day; and 5 = multiple times per day. a “not applicable” response option was also available. presuming an ordinal scale of values for respondent ratings (as for the importance and satisfaction ratings), as appropriate, an anova or robust anova test was performed to determine any statistically significant differences between onand off-campus students in the mean frequency of use reported for dso functions. figure 4 summarises the mean frequency of use ratings obtained, including estimated 95% confidence intervals. based on a significance level of p < 0.01, where there was a significant difference in the mean frequency of use reported, this is indicated by a ‘*’ next to the dso function. 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 1 2* 3 4* 5* 6 7 8 9 10* 11* 12* 13* 14* 15* 16 17 18 19* 20* m e a n f re q u e n cy r a ti n g dso function on-campus students off-campus students figure 4 mean frequency of use ratings for dso functions a key observation here is that for all cases where a significant difference was observed between onand off-campus respondents, on-campus students reported the higher mean frequency of use of that dso function. although not directly comparable on a function-by-function basis, previous research based on responses from onand off-campus engineering students at deakin university indicated that off-campus students spent more hours per week online, were more regular users of email, and were more frequent users of online discussions than their on-campus counterparts—about double in all three cases (palmer, 2001). this apparent rank reversal over the intervening decade seems unlikely to be the result of off-campus students actually reducing their frequency of use of online systems. rather, it is more likely that on-campus students have significantly increased the frequency of their use of online systems due to the dramatic growth in the use of online systems in on-campus teaching during the same period (smith & caruso, 2010)—so called ‘blended learning’. so, while the previously observed large differences in the general use of online technologies may be now more equalised, in the case of certain dso functions significant differences remain, with on-campus students reporting statistically significant higher mean frequency of use for more than half of the dso functions surveyed. one potential impact of this observed difference is in the application of ‘academic analytics’. academic analytics is the term applied to the mining of data from various university information systems for the purposes of improving decision making (goldstein, 2005). it has been proposed that information about students’ interactions with the university could be used to predictively identify students at risk of not succeeding in their studies, and to take some action to intervene before matters become too serious. frequency of journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 79 student interaction with the university lms is one of the claimed predictors of student performance (dawson, mcwilliam, & tan, 2008; morris, finnegan, & wu, 2005). however, more recent research in this area has highlighted the need for more investigation of the impact of student demographics (fritz, 2011), including course delivery modality (macfadyen & dawson, 2010). it seems clear that systems premised/designed/templated on models of frequency of oncampus student interactions with an ole should consider the possibility that off-campus students may interact significantly differently with some aspects of the system. for example, an academic performance ‘early warning’ system designed to detect students at risk on the basis of some measure(s) of student interactions with an ole could potentially return false positive indications for off-campus students compared with on-campus students, if mode of study is not taken into account. given that deakin university is currently investigating the use of such academic analytics tools, and the fact that off-campus students make up nearly one-third of the student population, the observed differential frequency of access of dso is a factor that should be taken into consideration. overall satisfaction respondents were asked to indicate their level agreement with three statements regarding their overall perceptions of dso on a scale of 1–5 – 1 = strongly disagree; 3 = neutral; and 5 = strongly agree. table 2 presents the statements, the mean rating responses for onand off-campus students, and the result of an anova test of the significance of the observed difference in the mean ratings. while mean ratings for off-campus students were higher than on-campus students for all three items, only one item had a significantly different rating – off-campus students had a significantly higher level of agreement with the statement ‘dso is reliable and available when i need it’. it is not immediately clear why off-campus students would perceive the same system used by all students as more reliable. table 2 mean ratings of overall satisfaction with dso statement on-campus off-campus significance dso enhances my learning 4.25 4.33 f1314 = 2.34 p > 0.12 dso is reliable and available when i need it 3.93 4.21 f1314 = 23.85 p < 2x10 -6 i am satisfied with the level of support i received in using dso in my studies 3.82 3.93 f1314 = 2.95 p > 0.08 deakin university is in the process of transitioning to a new lms system that will provide the core functionality for dso. the final item on the dso evaluation survey asked students whether they have been adequately informed about the process of changing the lms. the overall “yes” response was 38.8%. fisher’s exact 2 x 2 contingency test of response by mode of study was possible, and there was no significant difference in the response proportions between onand offcampus students (p > 0.058). conclusion this paper presents a large-scale, up-to-date and fine-grained investigation of the differences between onand off-campus student engagement with an ole, using an australian university with a significant off-campus student enrolment base as a case study. it was found that, in some ways, onand off-campus students are becoming more alike—the primary place of access to dso for both groups was home, mobile access to dso seems likely to be of growing importance palmer, s. 80 to both groups, and there was no statistically significant difference in the mean satisfaction ratings between onand off-campus students for virtually all dso functions. compared with research conducted more than a decade ago with engineering students at deakin university which indicated that off-campus students accessed a range of online systems with about twice the frequency of on-campus students, the current investigation shows that frequency of access is now much closer, though not identical, for both groups. these observations are perhaps more evidence of a general trend in the blurring of the differences between onand off-campus students—for example, in australia a majority of on-campus, full-time enrolled students are engaged in significant part-time work (devlin, james, & grigg, 2008). while there are similarities between onand off-campus student engagement with the ole, there are still significant differences to be found in the details of the investigation. off-campus students gave significantly higher mean ratings of importance (though not satisfaction) to a range of dso functions that could be viewed as ‘value adders’ by off-campus students, enhancing their overall learning experience above and beyond what they would traditionally experience with printed study materials alone. the use of online quizzes stands out as the sole dso function receiving significantly lower mean ratings from off-campus students for both importance and satisfaction, and further work is required to explore why this might be. for more than half of the dso functions surveyed, on-campus students reported a statistically significantly higher mean frequency of access than off-campus students. this result may be important if an institution implements ‘academic analytics’-type systems that use frequency of ole access as a trigger mechanism for identifying students at risk academically. more generally, the discovery of significant differences between onand off-campus student responses to items on the dso evaluation survey challenges the institution to understand the reasons for the observed differences and, if appropriate, act to ensure a level of equity in online experience for all students. the finding that elements of the institutional ole are not universally perceived and used the same way by all student groups also challenges the value of standard, ‘one-size-fits-all’ institutional policies and templates relating to the use of oles. references anderson, h. d. (2009). formative assessment: evaluating the effectiveness of online quizzes in a core business finance course. journal of distance learning, 13(1), 26–40. calvert, j. (2005). distance education at the crossroads. distance education, 26(2), 227–238. cook, c., heath, f., & thompson, r. l. (2000). a meta-analysis of response rates in webor internet-based surveys. educational and psychological measurement, 60(6), 821–836. dawson, s., mcwilliam, e., & tan, j. p-l. (2008). teaching smarter: how mining ict data can inform and improve learning and teaching practice, 25th annual conference of the australasian society for computers in learning in tertiary education (pp. 221–230). melbourne, australia: ascilite. devlin, m., james, r., & grigg, g. (2008). studying and working: a national study of student finances and student engagement. tertiary education and management, 14(2), 111–122. fritz, j. (2011). classroom walls that talk: using online course activity data of successful students to raise self-awareness of underperforming peers. the internet and higher education, 14(2), 89–97. goldstein, p. j. (2005). academic analytics: the uses of management information and technology in higher education. boulder, co: educause. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 81 larreamendy-joerns, j., & leinhardt, g. (2006). going the distance with online education. review of educational research, 76(4), 567–605. liu, c.-c., & tsai, c.-c. (2008). an analysis of peer interaction patterns as discoursed by on-line small group problem-solving activity. computers & education, 50(3), 627–639. macfadyen, l. p., & dawson, s. (2010). mining lms data to develop an “early warning system” for educators: a proof of concept. computers & education, 54(2), 588-599. martz, w. b., & shepherd, m. m. (2007). online internet testing: lower perceived performance by students. in m. k. mccuddy, h. van den bosch, w. b. martz, a. v. matveev, & k. o. morse (eds.), the challenges of educating people to lead in a challenging world (vol. 10, pp. 499–511). dordrecht, the netherlands: springer netherlands. morris, l. v., finnegan, c., & wu, s-s. (2005). tracking student behavior, persistence, and achievement in online courses. the internet and higher education, 8(3), 221–231. palmer, s. (2001). onand off-campus engineering student usage of a computer conferencing system. journal of research on computing in education, 33(3), 280–298. palmer, s., & holt, d. (2010). students’ perceptions of the value of the elements of an online learning environment: looking back in moving forward. interactive learning environments, 18(2), 135–151. reynolds, d., treharne, d., & tripp, h. (2003). ict—the hopes and the reality. british journal of educational technology, 34(2), 151–167. saba, f. (2005). critical issues in distance education: a report from the united states. distance education, 26(2), 255–272. salinas, m. f. (2008). from dewey to gates: a model to integrate psychoeducational principles in the selection and use of instructional technology. computers & education, 50(3), 652–660. smith, s. d., & caruso, j. b. (2010). the ecar study of undergraduate students and information technology, 2010. boulder, co: educause. stafford, t. f. (2005). understanding motivations for internet use in distance education. ieee transactions on education, 48(2), 301–306. west, r., waddoups, g., & graham, c. (2007). understanding the experiences of instructors as they adopt a course management system. educational technology research and development, 55(1), 1–26. woods, r., baker, j. d., & hopper, d. (2004). hybrid structures: faculty use and perception of web-based courseware as a supplement to face-to-face instruction. the internet and higher education, 7(4), 281–297. xie, x., lin, f., & zhang, t. (2001). comparison between onand off-campus behaviour and adaptability in online learning: a case from china. behaviour and information technology, 20(4), 281–291. young, f. r. & gibbings, p. (2007). learning flexibility: the environment and a case study, 24th annual conference of the australasian society for computers in learning in tertiary education (pp. 1121–1133). singapore: ascilite. palmer, s. 82 biographical notes dr stuart palmer spalm@deakin.edu.au<mailto:spalm@deakin.edu.au> associate professor stuart palmer’s research interests include the evidence-based evaluation of teaching and learning initiatives. � this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. palmer, s. (2012). understanding the context of distance students: differences in onand offcampus engagement with an online learning environment. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 16(1), [pp. 70–82]. mailto:spalm@deakin.edu.au%3cmailto:spalm@deakin.edu.au http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ scanned document research note a four-step process for the development of knowledge-building communities in a digital intranet ken stevens f acul ty of education, memorial university of newfoundland st. johns, newfoundland, canada in very small schools, most of which are located in ruial communities, it is often difficult to justify the appointment of spedalist teachers for small numbers of students. senior students in the smallest and most remo te communities often have difficulty accessing spedalist teachers in subjects such as mathematics, sdence, foreign languages and art. when young rural people are denied access to advanced classes in sdence and mathematics in their local schools, subjects that are required for entry to engineering, medicine and other professional faculties in post-secondary institutions, many career options are closed. accordingly, many senior students in rural schools have been encouiaged to complete their secondary education in larger schools, most of which are located in uiban areas . in the canadian province of newfoundland and labrador, where two thirds of schools are officially classified as rural, the search for alternative approacl1es to the provision of educational and, indirectly, career opportunities for senior students has been a priority (stevens, 1999). a four-step process has been piloted to enhance rural educational opportunities for senior students, using information and communication teclmologies, in one of the ten school districts of newfoundland and labrador. within the new educational structure that has been created it has been necessary to reconsider teaching and learning processes: • a new electronic educational structure known as a "digital intranet" has been established; • within the digital intranet, virtual classes in biology, chemistry, mathematics and physics have been organized; • within the virtual classes in each of the four disdplines, the organization of "knowledge-building communities" has been encouiaged; • within each knowledge-building community, pedagogy appropriate to virtual teaching and learning environments is being developed. the creation of a digital intranet a digital intranet is an electronic educational structure based on web-links between journal of distance learning, vol 6, no 1, 2001 © distance education association of new zealand 45 teachers and learners at designated sites, in selected areas of the curriculum. a digital intranet enables schools to interface both administratively and academically and within this web-based structure, participating sites must coordinate their timetables. minimum specifications were adopted for computer hardware and network connectivity. all schools involved in the project had satellite dishes installed. software had to be identified and evaluated. software was required for both the development of the resources, and the delivery of instruction. front page 98 was selected as the software package. additional software was used for development of images and animated gifs, including snagit32, gif construction set, real video, and similar packages. many course management software packages were evaluated and finally webct was selected. this package enabled the instructor to track student progress, it contained online testing and evaluation, private email, a calendar feature, public bulletin board for use by both instructor and student, a link to lessons, chat rooms for communication between teacher and student, and more. for real time instruction meeting point and microsoft netmeeting were selected. this combination of software enabled a teacher to present real-time interactive instruction to multiple sites. the digital intranet emolled its first students in the 1998-1999 school year and in the 2000 school year this new educational structure was extended to serve selected sites in several other school districts in the province. the development of virtual classes the construction of a digital intranet to link eight rural sites in dispersed communities in one school district of newfoundland and labrador with the centre for telelearning and rural education at memorial university of newfoundland has opened new educational opportunities for senior students in rural communities. students are able to connect with teachers both synchronously and asynchronously from their local schools and, if they have internet access, from their homes. within the digital intranet virtual classes have been organized for senior students in biology, chemistry, mathematics and physics. by linking sites from dispersed communities to share resources within the digital intranet, students are able to participate in virtual classes. this contrasts with the traditional practice of taking senior students out of rural communities to complete their schooling in larger urban institutions. the development of knowledge-building communities the collaborative educational structure of the digital hltranet and, within this, the construction of virtual classes, has led to the emergence of new ways of learning and teaching (stevens, power, boone, & barry, 1999). instruction includes both synclrronous and asynchronous components. synclrronous instruction is accomplished through the use of microsoft netmeeting and meetingpoint. this combination of software allows students in multiple, rural schools to communicate in real time with each other and with their instructor. students and instructor are journal of distance learning, vol 6, no 1, 2001 © distance education association of new zealand 46 able to share applications, make use of whiteboard, chat, video and voice communication. at present, technical limitations restrict the use of this combination of software to the morning sessions of the school day. asynchronous delivery of instructional resources makes use of two software packages, webct and knowledge forum. webct provides student access to all asynchronous course resources including: • • • • • • • • lessons: complete course outline, lesson notes, homework, assignments, and labs (physics, chemistry and biology). bulletin board: enables public communication between students and instructor. private e-mail: to communicate their " virtual their instructor. allows students privately with classmates" and calendar: outlines daily activities, labs, lessons, assignment due dates, and general reminders. tests (quizzes): provides for student self-evaluation. evaluation items may include matching, multiple choice, short answer, and essay type questions that may include supporting graphics. presentations: used for creation of individual student web pages. my record: allows students private access to their evaluation records. knowledge forum: knowledge forum is a separate software package. the icon has been placed on the webct welcome page to facilitate student access. during the pilot year (1998-1999), many of the students used their asynchronous class time to complete homework for other courses . however, from the beginning of the new school year in september 1999, knowledge forum has proved to be a particularly useful addition to the resources used in the knowledge-building process as well as the development of virtual classes. knowledge forum enables students and their instructor, located in separate schools, at different times, to take part in virtual classroom discussions. for students in an unsupervised class, using knowledge forum has provided an important advantage in allowing the instructor to monitor, and more importantly, be a part of tl1e activities of students who are neither physically present in the same building, nor present at the same time. since the implementation of knowledge forum both student management and knowledge building have improved. pedagogy appropriate to telelearning in the development of a new educational structure (the digital intranet) and process (virtual classes), new ways of organizing teaching and learning are taking shape. the difference in the pedagogy of traditional (face to face) and telelearning classes is to be found not in the structures, processes or technologies that are used, but in the pedagogy that mediates teaching and learning. the pedagogy of telelearning in this pilot study is shaped by synchronous and asynchronous learning environments . by introducing knowledge forum, knowledge can be developed symmetrically or asymmetrically. symmetric knowledge advances occur when students' activities are organized in such a way that tl1ey can learn from one ano ther. asymmetric knowledge advances occur when each student is expected to learn the same journal of distance lea rn ing, vol 6, no 1, 2001 © distance education association of ne w zealand 47 things from the teacher, which are specified in advance. in asymmetrical knowledge advancement the flow of information is in one direction: the teacher does not necessarily learn from the students and students do not necessarily learn from one another except insofar as they cooperate to help one another achieve what is prescribed to be learnt. four types of knowledge advancement are being developed in virtual science classes, structured by the digital intranet: • • • • type 1: symmetric knowledge building in a synchronous learning environment (students primarily learning from other students simultaneously). type 2: symmetric knowledge building in an asynchronous learning environment (students primarily learning from other students in delayed time). type 3: asymmetric knowledge building in a synchronous learning environment (students primarily taking instruction from the teacher, simultaneously). type 4: asymmetric knowledge building in an asynchronous learning environment (students primarily taking instruction from the teacher in delayed time). the search for appropriate pedagogy for telelearning aims to develop a seamless on-line relationship between teacher and student as well as between students themselves, within which knowledge can be constructed. the telelearning and rural education centre at memorial university of newfoundland is linked to several other canadian universities through the telelearning network of centres of excellence (tl· nce), an organization that seeks to prepare young people for living in a digital world (information highway advisory council, 1997). a vital,> part of this process is the search for effective applications of information and communication technologies for teaching and learning in the k-12 system. references information highw a y advisory council. (1997). preparing canada far a digital warld. ottawa: industry canada. stevens, k. (1999). a new model for teaching in rural communitiesthe electronic organization of classes as intranets. prism journal of the newfoundland and labradar teachers' association, 6(1), 23-26. retrieved from the world wide web: http:// www.tellearn.mun.ca/ pubs i index.htrnl. stevens, k., power, d., boone, w., & barry, m. (1999). vista school district digital intranet-the delivery of advanced placement courses to young adult learners in rural communities. knowledge society network newsletter. retrieved from the world wide web: http:j i www.tellearn.mun.ca/pubs/ index.htrnl. ken stevens is professor of education, industry canada chair of telelearning and rural education, memorial university of newfoundland, st. johns, newfoundland, canada, alc 5s7. email: stevensk@morgan. ucs.mun.ca. his previous appointments were at victoria university of wellington and james cook university. he lives in canada and new zea land. journal of distance learning, vol 6, no 1, 2001 © distance education association of new zealand 48 microsoft word 01 deanz 2012 nichols 010412.docx journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) i editorial the deanz 2012 conference was themed with some irony. ‘shift happens’ was appropriate from the very start of planning the event for wellington—until july 2011, preliminary organisation was underway in christchurch. wellington was confirmed with members as the venue in august 2011, and this change required a largely fresh start to planning. shift happens! however, one thing that didn’t shift was the decision to publish peer-reviewed papers for the conference in a special issue of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. it is my pleasure to introduce this special conference issue of the journal. the deanz 2012 sub-themes of resilience, relevance, and reform were obvious areas of focus following the christchurch earthquakes and the introduction of education performance indicators to elements of tertiary education funding. the sub-themes will continue to be relevant as the means of educating at a distance, the expectations of students, and the requirements of funding agencies further adapt. the sub-themes are further elaborated as:  resilience: dealing with uncertainty and coping with changes you can and cannot influence  relevance: providing educational services that are relevant to the context and culture of the learner  reform: moving to better futures for all by addressing political, social, economic, and personal drivers. this issue features 12 articles, all of which are accepted as peer-reviewed papers for the deanz 2012 event. the themes of the conference are broadly reflected across this issue. before introducing the articles in vol. 16, issue 1, it is timely to comment on the quality of the work. while the criteria for peer-review were somewhat different for this issue, all of the papers in this submission have been peer reviewed by our usual reviewers based on their clarity and flow, sense of context, clear and appropriate methodology, placement in current literature, and relevance to the conference theme. these criteria do not substantially differ from our normal expectations. first up, under the general heading of resilience, is an article by steve agnew and stephen hickson (university of canterbury, new zealand). agnew and hickson’s analysis of final grades following the cancellation of final exams reveals interesting correlations between online quiz marks and ‘invigilated’ assessments. next, julie willems (monash university, australia) takes a systematic look at resilience as it relates to indigenous students, and argues that resilience is in fact the responsibility of not just the student but also of educators, institutions, and the student’s community. willems’s work challenges distance educators to take a socio-ecological approach to their practice. maggie hartnett (massey university, new zealand) follows, with an article that challenges the oft-assumed correlation between online activity and student motivation. readers may recall hartnett’s previous article in vol. 15 (1), which also described student motivation in online distance learning (hartnett et al, 2010). hazel owen (ethos consultancy, new zealand) reports on the 3-year virtual professional learning and development (vpld) programme, and describes its success in establishing a community of practice. finally in the general sub-theme of resilience comes the work of taipjutorus, hansen, and brown (massey university, new zealand), who explore ways in which course design might improve learner’s self-efficacy. taipjutorus et al.’s pilot study in this issue forms the basis for a larger-scale project. the conference sub-theme of relevance also receives good attention in this issue. stuart palmer (deakin university, australia) provides a large-scale consideration of ole (online learning environment, otherwise known as a learning management system or virtual learning environment) use by onand off-campus students. palmer comments on reported importance of editorial ii the ole and access characteristics of deakin university students, and subsequently questions uniform policies and templates for ole use for onand off-campus students. the next article, by carolyn bennett (farnet e-learning cluster, new zealand) and michael barbour (wayne state university), describes the experiences of rural ‘e-students’ learning through online education in the far north of new zealand. bennett and barbour conclude with suggestions for e-teacher professional development, with specific reference to pedagogies for māori learners. lesley pohio and maryann lee of the university of auckland describe how they collaborated to redesign a course for the online environment. ending the collection on the sub-theme of relevance is the work of garry falloon (university of waikato, new zealand), who explores student perceptions of synchronous virtual classroom seminars and provides some useful tips for practitioners. our third sub-theme of reform first includes the work of khoo, johnson, and zahra (university of waikato, new zealand). khoo et al. describe an educator’s journey into using a learning management system to engage students with one another and to facilitate deep learning. our final two papers specifically consider e-learning adoption and classification, respectively. stephen marshall (victoria university of wellington, new zealand) applies the e-learning maturity model (emm) to a number of new zealand institutions as a means of investigating change processes. marshall concludes with five considerations for change management, which i am certain will resonate for those involved in institutional development. finally, amy wilson (massey university, new zealand) considers how e-learning might be formally categorised, with specific reference to the new zealand ministry of education’s classification system. some additional articles were not quite ready for publication in this issue but we hope to bring them to you in the future. the deanz 2012 event is likely to feature further non-refereed papers that will eventually be suitable for consideration, and which i certainly welcome. this issue of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning requires special thanks. paul geraghty and mike turney from open polytechnic assisted with the editing process, and deserve recognition for their efforts in supporting the work of kate hunt. dr luke strongman of open polytechnic provided valuable service in evaluating abstracts and communicating with authors in the initial stages. finally, i would like to give special thanks to our peer reviewers who went well beyond the normal call of duty in their voluntary work. this issue is certainly testimony to the resilience of those who helped to bring you this publication. the relevance is brought to you by the authors themselves; the reform is, ultimately, up to you. mark nichols woburn april 2012. references hartnett, m., st. george, a., & dron, d. (2010). being together: factors that unintentionally undermine motivation. journal of open, flexible and distance learning 15(1), 1–16. microsoft word jdl06maintext1word.doc journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 3 introduction bill anderson, mary simpson massey university palmerston north, new zealand a major reason we entered the field of distance education, and a prominent factor in our ongoing involvement, is related to the provision of access to education. wedemeyer (1981) highlights a moral aspect of distance education, one to which we remain committed: “instruction should be available any place where there are students—or even only one student—whether or not there are teachers at the same place at the same time” (p. 36). a recent research project has seen us considering the issue of access to online learning. we view online learning as closely connected to distance education (anderson & simpson, 2005) and so we see the issue of access, which lies at the heart of distance education, as central also to online learning. although online learning holds great promise, it appears not to hold the promise of universal access to learning opportunities. there are two sides to the issue of access. one is the question of supply. in online learning terms we might, for example, visit the question of broadband access. in new zealand the government has recently regulated to improve the provision of broadband services. at a more fundamental level, governments have engaged in projects to provide infrastructure enabling the provision of broadband. project probe in new zealand is one such example. one of probe’s primary objectives—to provide broadband services to provincial schools, local government, and business interests—was achieved by the end of 2005, at which stage 891 schools could access broadband (state services commission, 2006). another such project is network bc, a project of the provincial government of british columbia which aims to provide broadband services to small rural and remote communities. similar projects can be found worldwide. they talk about “bridging the digital divide” but often forget to mention that the bridge is normally a toll bridge. the other side of the access issue is demand. rather prosaically we might suggest that it is possible to lead a horse to water but somewhat harder to make it drink. in responding to this issue we find that, like the old joke, there is good news and bad news. the good news is that supply projects often seem to work in some measure. for instance, the network bc project was tied in with the bc campus initiative to increase the number of students learning online in british columbia—and targets for enrolments in bc campus have been met. but there are circumstances in which provision, even free provision, of services is not enough. that is the bad news. in 2003 crump and mcilroy conducted a study concerning the use of a community computing facility in a lower socioeconomic area in wellington. the journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 4 facility was situated in a city council high-rise apartment block and offered free access to the internet. investigations into usage revealed that after six months the majority of residents in the apartments still did not use the ict facilities. a survey of non-users within the apartment block was undertaken to obtain information about computer access and usage, tenants’ knowledge of and interest in the facility, factors that would encourage ict usage, and reasons for tenants not using the facility. analysis of the survey results led the authors to conclude that the digital divide would not be addressed through universal physical access to computer technology. they added, “with approximately 70 percent of the apartment population on state benefits, the struggle to meet basic needs is greater than for those people in work. interest in accessing computing, even when situated in a convenient social space, and offered at no charge, is unlikely to be seen as a priority for daily living” (crump & mcilroy, 2003). a similar tale is told in the final report of the wired up communities (wuc) project which occurred in the united kingdom from 2000 to 2002 (devins, darlow, petrie, & burden, 2003). “the aim of wuc was to bridge the digital divide by enabling communities to use ict to access jobs, learning opportunities, government and other services . . . and sought to provide ict to enable home access to the internet and to develop associated services to help to overcome barriers to use of the internet” (p. ii). the wuc was partially successful, but a final survey found that in homes where technology was provided free of charge to enable residents to access the internet, 25 percent of participants did not bother to do so citing lack of interest or lack of time. in addition, the report indicates, “there are concerns which have been voiced by both local and national stakeholders that the intervention has not reached those most at risk of exclusion” (p. 43) from the “information society.” simpson (2005, p. 92) concludes, “the development of online services and the trend toward the ‘information society’ will leave groups without access to the internet even further excluded from the ability to exercise democratic rights and claim the full benefits of that society,” where foremost among those benefits is access to education online. following on from the wuc report, the uk government funded a project to examine the potential of online learning to overcome social exclusion and to identify the factors that influence participation, drop out, and successful completion in online learning, especially in relation to learners who are socially or economically disadvantaged (see http://www.niace/org.uk/online/index. asp). the project is scheduled for completion this year, and indications are that it is providing valuable information about how online learning might promote social inclusion. what these projects reveal is that considerable work is required to ensure the advantages of online learning reach everyone. provision of supply is not sufficient, even if there is no charge. the moral imperative behind wedemeyer’s statement must be reinforced with political action if distance education is to continue serving all its communities in the online age. booth’s article in this issue of the journal highlights the issue of access. he reports on an interesting trial project in which students are able to access career advice journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 5 and counselling online—any time, any place—provided they can access the internet. the service, which is an online version of that available to all students in schools, may eventually extend to all students attending schools in new zealand. whether or not they will be able to take advantage of the opportunity may depend on their social or economic circumstances—unfortunately, since booth reports the real potential of such a service. two further articles, heinrich’s on a tool to assist assessment and henderson’s on support of distance students, are accompanied by a response from wyles to roy’s article on open source software in the previous issue of the journal. to round out the issue, murray reports on a further telrf research project and a number of book reviews are included. references anderson, b. & simpson, m. g. (2005). introduction. journal of distance learning, 9(1), 3–4. crump, b., & mcilroy, a. (2003). the digital divide: why the “don’t–want–tos” won’t compute: lessons from a new zealand ict project. first monday, 8(12). retrieved december 6, 2003, from http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_12 /crump/index.html devins, d., darlow, a., petrie, a., & burden, t. (2003). connecting communities to the internet: evaluation of the wired up communities programme (2000–2002). leeds, england: policy research institute, leeds university. simpson, o. (2005). e-learning, democracy, and social exclusion. in a. carr-chelman (ed.), global perspectives on e-learning: rhetoric and reality (pp. 89-100). thousand oaks, california: sage. state services commission. (2006). overview. new zealand e-government programme. retrieved may 30, 2006, from http:// www.e.govt.nz/resources/research/casestudies/project-probe/chapter1.html wedemeyer, c. a. (1981). learning at the back door: reflections on non-traditional learning in the lifespan. madison: university of wisconsin. cameron, m., fogarty-perry, b., piercy, g. 42 the impacts of the covid-19 pandemic on higher education students in new zealand michael cameron, university of waikato barbara fogarty-perry, otago polytechnic gemma piercy, university of waikato abstract the coronavirus pandemic and associated move to online learning for students in higher education has been disruptive and challenging. we report on the new zealand arm of an international survey of higher education students (n = 147). using quantitative and qualitative data from the survey, we find that students coped reasonably well with the disruption to their studies and were generally satisfied with how their lecturers and institutions responded to unanticipated lockdowns. in comparison with the global sample, new zealand students demonstrated a higher level of satisfaction. new zealand students reported the highest satisfaction with recorded video lectures, whereas the global sample preferred real-time teaching. many new zealand students felt that their studies were negatively affected, and vulnerable groups such as students with low financial resources were the most severely affected. moreover, students reported a range of negative emotions during lockdown that suggest mental health impacts may be a concern. our results indicate that clear communication from authorities, reducing the uncertainty for students, and ensuring that vulnerable groups are appropriately supported, may be the best avenues to reduce negative impacts on students during future significant disruptions to study, whether pandemic-related or otherwise. keywords: covid-19; lockdown; higher education; disruption; new zealand introduction in december 2019, a new disease labelled covid-19 was detected in wuhan, china (chen et al., 2020). by january 2020, sars-cov-2 (the virus that causes covid-19) had been confirmed and was already spreading worldwide (pullano et al., 2020). the first case of covid19 was reported in new zealand on 18 february 2020, and by 22 march, the number of confirmed cases was 66. facing the prospect of a rapid increase in the number of coronavirus infections, as already seen in many other countries, the new zealand government introduced a four-tier alert system on 21 march. new zealand moved to alert level 3 on 23 march, and then to alert level 4 at 11:59 pm on 25 march. alert levels 3 and 4 severely restricted the daily activities of people in new zealand1. under alert level 3, people were instructed to stay home other than for essential travel (for work, school if required, or limited recreation), physical distancing was required, gatherings were restricted to no more than ten people, and businesses could operate only if they could ensure they did so without close personal contact. under alert level 4, all businesses and educational 1 https://covid19.govt.nz/about-our-covid-19-response/history-of-the-covid-19-alert-system/#alert-levels journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1) 43 facilities were closed except for essential services (which included supermarkets, pharmacies, and petrol stations). new zealand returned to alert level 3 on 27 april 2020, and by 8 june all restrictions had been lifted and the coronavirus had been effectively eliminated from the country. however, new zealand’s experience during april and may represents one of the strictest lockdowns worldwide (baker et al., 2020). higher education institutions were severely affected by the lockdowns, with the change in alert levels (to alert level 4) being announced only weeks after the start of the first semester’s teaching. moreover, the alert level 3 restrictions were announced with only two days’ notice, and higher education institutions responded by immediately cancelling in-person classes and replacing them with online classes. assessment tasks that required in-person attendance on campus—such as tests, examinations, and laboratory sessions—could not proceed and had to be replaced with equivalent online assessments. in most instances, individual lecturers were left to determine how to adjust their classes to best meet learning objectives. while some support and guidance was available from the universities, the result was a mix of pedagogical approaches adapted at short notice to the online environment. the rapid shift to online learning, along with the general upheaval of social and economic life, created significant disruption for higher education students. students faced uncertainty about how their studies would be affected by the lockdown period, and most new zealand universities responded by assuring students that their grades would not be adversely affected by the disruption (e.g., owen, 2020; wiltshire, 2020). for example, the university of waikato applied “an automatic ‘impaired performance’ criteria across all students and comparing each student’s grades from a trimester 2020 to their average grades in 2019, or if they were a new student, comparing their grades to the paper average seen in previous years” (university of waikato, 2020). it’s important to understand how these students were impacted by the pandemic and associated lockdowns and how they perceived the period of online learning. although the coronavirus pandemic represents the first time in generations that university study has been significantly disrupted nationwide, it has been argued that pandemic diseases will be more common in future (e.g., jain et al., 2018). the coronavirus pandemic itself is not yet over, and further outbreaks have led to localised lockdowns, including in auckland in august 2020. disruptions to teaching and learning may also occur at institutions due to natural disasters, such as the christchurch earthquakes in 2010 and 2011 (dohaney et al., 2020). institutions and the government could benefit by having a greater understanding of how students adapted to their enforced online learning. in this paper, we report on the new zealand arm of an international study of the “impact of the covid-19 pandemic on life of higher education students” (aristovnik et al., 2020b). the global nature of the study means that we can compare students in new zealand with their peers internationally, in terms of the immediate response to the pandemic and (where appropriate) lockdowns and online teaching and learning. the survey was conducted during a period in which new zealand was in level 3 lockdown, with no on-campus teaching and learning for university students. this was also the case for most of the international sample. the international study has reported general findings elsewhere (see aristovnik et al., 2020b), based on the full sample of over 30,000 students from 62 countries. internationally, students were satisfied with the support of teaching staff during the pandemic but felt their workload had increased. they were concerned about their future professional careers and studying issues, and were feeling bored, anxious, and frustrated. we return to more detailed results from this international research later in the paper, and compare them with the new zealand sample. cameron, m., fogarty-perry, b., piercy, g. 44 our study is not the first to report on the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on higher education students in new zealand. akuhata-huntington (2020) surveyed māori tertiary students and received 351 eligible responses from all eight universities. this qualitative study analysed data using mixed methods based on mason durie’s model of te whare tapa whā (durie, 1985). a range of issues were identified by the student respondents—including ict accessibility and availability, greater financial stress and difficulty exercising, a stronger sense of disconnection, and sadness and isolation affecting mental health and wellbeing during lockdown. the research team felt that these effects were not isolated incidents during lockdown, rather that systemic inequities faced by māori students in new zealand universities were exacerbated during this time. similarly, akuhata-huntington et al. (2020) outlined the experience of a māori doctoral student resident in australia. taking a personal narrative perspective to represent student voice, the phd. student presented a māori response to covid-19. drawing on her interactions with a team of doctoral students, she highlighted a range of issues being experienced. these were consistent with akuhata-huntington’s (2020) findings. the doctoral student emphasised the importance of her māori values of family, community, and reliance on one another for care—and her personal faith (as opposed to institutional structures) as key to her coping with the consequences of covid-19. the international research literature on the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on higher education students is growing. in particular, negative mental health impacts have been noted (cao et al., 2020; elmer et al., 2020; paredes et al., 2021; perz et al., 2020; sundarasen et al., 2020), as well as impacts on students’ financial and food security (elmer et al., 2020; owens et al., 2020), learning (owusu-fordjour et al., 2020), and student performance more broadly (kamarianos et al., 2020; gonzalez et al., 2020). in general, the literature concludes that building student resilience to challenges and adversity is important in the context of the pandemic (bono et al., 2020; liu et al., 2020; ye et al., 2020), including through supportive processes and/or the provision of financial, logistical, technological, or psychological support where needed. indeed, the importance of supporting resilience has been shown in other contexts (fogarty-perry, 2019; fogarty-perry & seiuli, 2018; southwick & charney, 2012). our paper contributes to this important evidence base by focusing on the experience of new zealand students in comparison with a global sample. the remainder of the paper is organised as follows. in the next section, we outline the data collection and analysis methods, both quantitative and qualitative. we then present the results of the quantitative analysis, followed by the qualitative analysis. finally, we discuss the results in comparison with the global sample, and conclude the paper with some recommendations for government and higher education institutions. data and methods as part of the international “impact of the covid-19 pandemic on life of higher education students” project, a survey of new zealand higher education students was undertaken. respondents were recruited through an invitation to participate, which was distributed by their university. although all eight new zealand universities were invited to participate, only two (victoria university of wellington and the university of waikato) agreed to do so. the online questionnaire was in english, and was common to all international cohorts of the study (see aristovnik et al., 2020a for details). the survey included questions on the participants’ demographic characteristics and academic life, whether they were studying from home, their social life, their emotional life, and their life circumstances. most questions focused on the period of the pandemic at the time of the survey, while some questions asked retrospectively about the time before the pandemic (see aristovnik et al., 2020a for details). a final open-ended qualitative question asked for respondents’ “general views/words . . . of reflection on covidjournal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1) 45 19”. the new zealand arm of the study received ethics approval from the waikato management school human research ethics committee. the survey was open from 5 may until 7 june 2020. new zealand was in lockdown (level 3 or level 2) throughout that time, with no on-campus teaching or learning occurring. in total, 171 new zealand respondents commenced the survey, and 147 respondents completed enough of the questionnaire (i.e., the demographic section plus at least six questions from the academic life section) to be included in the final sample for analysis. overall, more than 31,000 respondents worldwide completed the survey, with 200 or more responses from each of 36 countries (aristovnik et al., 2020b). new zealand was the only country from the oceania region to participate. given the relatively small sample size of 147 available for analysis, the quantitative analysis involved three steps. first, each outcome variable was tabulated, then statistical differences by each sociodemographic characteristic were tested in a univariate analysis. each sociodemographic correlate achieving p<0.1 was then entered into a final multivariate regression model. adjustments were not made for multiple hypothesis testing, so results in terms of statistical significance were treated with some caution where p-values were close to threshold for conventional statistical significance. following the approach adopted in the international study (aristovnik et al., 2020b), outcome variables that were measured as satisfaction (on a five-point likert scale from “very dissatisfied” to “very satisfied”) were treated as continuous variables for analysis. outcome variables that were measured in terms of agreement (on a five-point likert scale from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”) were converted into binary variables with responses of “agree” and “strongly agree” coded as one, and zero otherwise. linear probability regression models were preferred over logistic regression models for these variables, due to the ease of interpretation of the results. because there was a small number of gender diverse students and students who were unwilling to give their gender, analysis by gender was conducted by comparing female students with all others. in all analyses, the base category for degree level was bachelor’s degree, and the base category for field of study was arts and humanities. in analyses involving lost jobs, the sample is limited to respondents who reported having a job before the pandemic. table 1 sociodemographic summary statistics new zealand sample global sample variable number percentage percentage age under 20 46 31.3 26.9 20–24 62 42.2 54.9 25–30 16 10.9 9.8 over 30 23 15.7 8.4 gender male 37 25.2 34.4 female 105 71.4 65.6 gender diverse 3 2.0 not reported prefer not to say 2 1.4 not reported cameron, m., fogarty-perry, b., piercy, g. 46 citizenship domestic 130 88.4 94.1 international 17 11.6 5.9 student status full time 130 88.4 88.1 part time 17 11.6 11.9 level of study bachelor’s 111 75.5 80.5 master’s 28 19.1 14.8 doctoral 8 5.4 4.7 field of study arts and humanities 16 11.0 10.2 social sciences 103 70.6 37.0 applied sciences 16 11.0 31.1 natural and life sciences 11 7.5 21.7 scholarship yes 34 28.6 29.2 no 85 71.4 70.8 high ability to pay for studies yes 63 52.5 52.6 no 57 47.5 47.4 cancelled face-to-face classes yes 122 83.0 86.7 no 7 4.8 13.3 not applicable 18 12.2 not reported moved home yes 31 26.1 not reported no 88 73.9 not reported lost joba yes 17 21.5 61.7 no 62 78.5 38.3 journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1) 47 institution victoria university of wellington 51 34.7 n/a university of waikato 91 61.9 n/a other 5 3.4 n/a a the denominator for students who lost their jobs is only those students who reported having a job before the pandemic. of the 147 valid responses to the survey, 80 respondents responded to the open-ended question “general views/words . . . of reflection on covid-19” that was suitable for qualitative analysis. of those, 71.3% were female, 87.5% were full-time students, 75% were bachelor’s degree students, and 71.3% were social science students. their average age was 25.5 years. drawing on braun and clarke’s (2006) framework, the open-ended question responses were analysed thematically. first, we identified key words or ideas that were relevant to the higher education response to covid-19 or the wider societal issues discussed in the media in terms of the lockdown and the pandemic. using the key words and ideas identified in the first step, and taking account of points of similarity among responses, responses were coded into 15 key-word topics. some responses were coded under several topics because of the multi-faceted nature of the answers. after each response had been allocated to an initial topic or topics, the responses were then re-coded in an iterative process to determine how often information relevant to the topics was located in each of the responses. this process resulted in some topics having more than 12 responses, while others had just one. the responses in dominant topics (six or more responses) were then re-read to further identify patterns and similarities within and across the answers. the topics were then classified into the broader themes based on patterns of commonality determined by key words that evoked the value of collectivity and demonstrated emotive responses to the lockdown. from this process, three overarching themes were generated: collectivity, emotions, and higher education. the first two themes were complex and included a number of sub-themes. for the third theme, answers were clustered based on the way in which the respondents commented with specificity on higher education in light of their lockdown experiences. the sub-themes included under “collectivity” were reflective, general, gratitude, critical). under “emotions” the sub-themes included depression and stress, general fears, fear of the unknown, fears for health, fear regarding the future/career/finances, balanced response, positive response, general stress, work/life/study balance. under “higher education”, responses were grouped into two sub-themes (negative views and balanced views). results satisfaction with online teaching and learning approaches as noted in table 1, 83% of respondents reported that their face-to-face classes had been cancelled. other respondents presumably had no face-to-face classes because of the structure of their degree (such as being in a research-only degree), or interpreted the transfer of classes to an online environment as not constituting “cancellation” of classes. respondents who answered that classes had been cancelled were asked a series of questions about changes in the teaching and learning environment (or academic life). the overall responses are summarised in table 2, which also identifies the statistically significant sociodemographic correlates in each case. in terms of lectures, respondents were most satisfied with online video recordings (mean 3.80 on the 5-point satisfaction scale), followed by real-time video conferencing (3.58). these were also reported as the dominant forms of lectures during lockdown, with 67.8% of respondents reporting recorded videos and 23.1% reporting video conferencing as the dominant replacement for lectures. cameron, m., fogarty-perry, b., piercy, g. 48 students who had lost their jobs had significantly higher satisfaction with recorded video lectures, while students with higher ability to pay had significantly higher satisfaction with lecture presentations that were sent directly to students. for tutorials, overall preferences were reversed, with respondents most satisfied with real-time video conferencing (3.69), followed by recorded video tutorials (3.57). video conferencing was the dominant replacement for face-toface tutorials, reported by 66.7% of respondents, followed by recorded video (17.1%). students who had high ability to pay for their studies had significantly greater satisfaction with videoconferenced tutorials, students aged 25–30 (but not older) had significantly greater satisfaction with tutorial presentations sent directly to students, and all fields of study had significantly higher satisfaction with written tutorial forums and chats than students in arts and humanities. table 2 satisfaction with online teaching and learning approaches sociodemographic correlates outcome mean (sd) [global mean]a univariate (coefficient)b multivariate (coefficient)c in place of face-to-face lectures, satisfaction with: recorded video lectures 3.80 (1.04) [3.26] domestic (0.61*) master’s (-0.55**) high ability to pay (0.40*) lost job (0.64***) lost job (0.66***) real time (video conferencing) lectures 3.58 (1.02) [3.30] age >30 (0.90***) full-time (-0.58*) written forums, chat, etc. 3.31 (1.14) [3.14] full-time (-0.57*) lecture presentations sent to students 3.25 (1.22) [3.10] age 20–24 (-0.58**) master’s (0.54*) social sciences (0.88*) high ability to pay (0.84**) moved home (-0.89**) high ability to pay (0.74**) recorded audio lectures 3.13 (1.22) [2.98] in place of face-to-face tutorials, satisfaction with: real time (video conferencing) tutorials 3.69 (1.13) social sciences (0.78*) scholarship (0.44**) high ability to pay (0.49**) high ability to pay (0.49**) recorded video tutorials 3.57 (1.01) written forums, chat, etc. 3.32 (1.19) social sciences (1.14***) applied sciences (1.45***) natural sciences (1.13**) social sciences (1.14***) applied sciences (1.45***) natural sciences (1.13**) recorded audio tutorials 3.12 (1.02) tutorial presentations sent to students 3.04 (1.05) age 25–30 (-0.95***) full-time (-0.85**) age 25–30 (-0.95***) journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1) 49 a global means are available only for satisfaction with lecture alternatives, and not for satisfaction with tutorial alternatives. b only statistically significant (at p<0.1) correlates are shown. c only statistically significant (at p<0.05) correlates are shown; * p<0.1; ** p<0.05; *** p<0.01. satisfaction with teaching and administrative support students’ level of satisfaction with teaching and administrative support are summarised in table 3. students were more satisfied with lectures (3.76) than with supervision and mentorships (3.47) or tutorials, seminars, and practical classes (3.37). students who had lost their jobs had significantly greater satisfaction with lectures, female students had significantly lower satisfaction with tutorials than male or other students, and full-time students had significantly lower satisfaction with supervision than part-time students. students’ level of satisfaction with support services was highest for teaching staff (3.96), tutors (3.74), and it or technical support (3.74), and lowest for international offices (3.05) and finance and accounting (3.08). students who had lost their jobs were significantly less satisfied with their institution’s international office, and full-time students were significantly less satisfied with public relations than part-time students. domestic students were significantly more satisfied with student counselling services than international students, and students who had moved home were significantly less satisfied than those who had not moved. table 3 satisfaction with teaching and administrative support sociodemographic correlates outcome nz mean (sd) [global mean]a univariate (coefficient)b multivariate (coefficient)c satisfaction with: lectures 3.76 (1.06) [3.30] female (-0.48**) social sciences (0.67*) applied sciences (1.12***) natural sciences (1.17**) lost job (0.51**) applied sciences (0.96**) natural sciences (1.10***) lost job (0.55**)d supervisions and mentorships 3.47 (1.14) [3.20] full-time (-0.78**) social sciences (1.63***) applied sciences (2.20***) natural sciences (1.25**) high ability to pay (0.63*) full-time (-0.71**) social sciences (1.11***) applied sciences (1.83***) tutorials, seminars, and practical classes 3.37 (1.17) [3.12] female (-0.75***) social sciences (1.22***) applied sciences (0.97**) high ability to pay (0.52**) female (-0.64**) social sciences (0.89***) satisfaction with: teaching staff 3.96 (0.91) tutors 3.74 (0.97) applied sciences (0.80*) natural sciences (0.97**) high ability to pay (0.39*) moved home (-0.51**) technical support and it services 3.74 (1.00) age >30 (0.58*) full-time (-0.53**) library 3.67 (1.09) high ability to pay (0.48*) cameron, m., fogarty-perry, b., piercy, g. 50 public relations (websites and social media) 3.65 (1.15) full-time (-0.82***) full-time (-0.82***) student affairs office 3.55 (1.08) master’s (0.67**) social sciences (0.95*) applied sciences (1.13*) natural sciences (1.33*) student counselling services 3.31 (1.11) domestic (1.44***) full-time (-1.03***) moved home (-0.83*) domestic (1.02**) moved home (-0.89**) finance and accounting 3.08 (1.18) age >30 (1.08*) social sciences (1.11*) moved home (-0.99**) international office 3.05 (1.28) age >30 (2.13***) lost job (2.57***) lost job (2.67**) a global means are available only for satisfaction with teaching, and not for satisfaction with administrative support. b only statistically significant (at p<0.1) correlates are shown. c only statistically significant (at p<0.05) correlates are shown. d when lost job was included as a covariate, no other correlate was statistically significant at p<0.05; * p<0.1; ** p<0.05; *** p<0.01. academic work and the academic environment respondents’ agreement with statements about their academic work and the academic environment during the pandemic are summarised in table 4. a majority of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with statements about their lecturers’ activities during the pandemic. the lowest level of agreement (61.5%) was with lecturers being open to students’ suggestions. arts and humanities students showed the lowest level of agreement about whether lecturers had responded to their questions in a timely manner. many students (74.5%) agreed that it was more difficult to focus on their studies, although this was statistically significant among students who had high ability to pay for their studies. a majority (53.5%) agreed that their performance as a student had worsened, while 22.8% agreed that their performance had improved. students with high ability to pay were both statistically significantly more likely to say their performance had improved, and less likely to say it had worsened. students were also obviously concerned about their ability to master the classwork and skills, but again this was of less concern for students with high ability to pay. workload was also an issue—59.8% of students noted that their study workload was larger or significantly larger, while just 10.3% noted that it was smaller or significantly smaller. there were no robust sociodemographic correlates with workload, suggesting that all students experienced similar changes in workload during the pandemic. table 4 academic work and the academic environment sociodemographic correlates statement: my lecturers… % agree or strongly agree univariate (coefficient)a multivariate (coefficient)b . . . have provided course assignments (e.g., readings, homework, quizzes) on a regular basis. 84.9 female (-0.12*) . . . have responded to my questions in a timely manner. 78.2 age 20–24 (-0.19*) female (-0.17**) social sciences (0.45***) applied sciences (0.55***) social sciences (0.36**) applied sciences (0.46**) journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1) 51 natural sciences (0.51**) scholarship (0.17**) natural sciences (0.51***) scholarship (0.18**) . . . have informed me on what exams will look like in this new situation. 77.7 high ability to pay (0.16*) . . . have provided feedback on my performance on given assignments. 63.5 . . . have been open to students’ suggestions and adjustments of online classes. 61.5 statement it is more difficult for me to focus during online teaching in comparison to on-site teaching. 74.5 age 25–30 (-0.39**) high ability to pay (-0.22***) age 25–30 (-0.44***) high ability to pay (-0.24***) my performance as a student has worsened since on-site classes were cancelled. 53.5 age 25–30 (-0.40***) high ability to pay (-0.18*) moved home (0.19*) age 25–30 (-0.46***) high ability to pay (-0.21**) i have adapted well to the new teaching and learning experience. 47.6 age 25–30 (-0.29*) i can master the skills taught in class this year even though on-site classes were cancelled. 44.6 age 25–30 (0.35**) age >30 (0.27*) full-time (-0.25*) high ability to pay (0.29***) age 25–30 (0.43***) high ability to pay (0.32***) i can figure out how to do the most difficult classwork since on-site classes were cancelled. 34.0 age 25–30 (0.51***) age >30 (0.46***) full-time (-0.28*) master’s (0.26*) high ability to pay (0.19**) lost job (0.28*) age 25–30 (0.56***) age >30 (0.43**) high ability to pay (0.23**)c my performance as a student has improved since on-site classes were cancelled. 22.8 age >30 (-0.22**) female (-0.21**) natural sciences (0.41**) high ability to pay (0.29***) high ability to pay (0.28***) workload (larger or significantly larger = 1) 59.8 age 25–30 (-0.39***) a only statistically significant (at p<0.1) correlates are shown. b only statistically significant (at p<0.05) correlates are shown. c when lost job was included as a covariate, age >30 was no longer statistically significant at p<0.05; * p<0.1; ** p<0.05; *** p<0.01. studying from home table 5 summarises respondents’ access to the resources and infrastructure necessary for studying from home, and their confidence with activities associated with online learning. respondents had high levels of access to most resources and infrastructure, but only 53.5% reported often or always having access to a quiet place to study. importantly, only 70.0% cameron, m., fogarty-perry, b., piercy, g. 52 reported having access to a good internet connection. in both cases, students who had moved home since the pandemic started were less likely to have access. respondents reported a high level of confidence with online learning activities, with the exception of applying advanced settings to software and programs (44.0%). table 5 studying from home sociodemographic correlates often or always have access to: % univariate (coefficient)a multivariate (coefficient)b a computer 96.0 domestic (-0.04**) scholarship (0.06**) scholarship (0.06**) office supplies (e.g., notebooks, pens) 92.1 webcam 91.1 age 20–24 (-0.11*) full-time (-0.10***) headphones and microphone 89.1 female (-0.10*) domestic (-0.12***) applied sciences (0.27**) domestic (-0.09**) required software and programs 86.1 full-time (-0.16***) social sciences (0.27*) lost job (-0.28**) full-time (-0.14***)c a desk 72.0 master’s (0.20**) applied sciences (0.36**) scholarship (0.17*) scholarship (0.19**) course study materials (e.g., course readings) 70.3 age >30 (0.21*) social sciences (0.46***) applied sciences (0.64***) natural sciences (0.48**) social sciences (0.44***) applied sciences (0.65***) natural sciences (0.49**) a good internet connection 70.0 age 25–30 (0.22*) domestic (-0.21*) social sciences (0.44***) applied sciences (0.64***) natural sciences (0.60***) moved home (-0.35***) social sciences (0.40***) applied sciences (0.59***) natural sciences (0.52***); moved home (-0.30***) a quiet place to study 53.5 age 20–24 (-0.22*) female (-0.27**) applied sciences (0.55***) moved home (-0.24**) moved home (-0.25**) a printer 44.6 domestic (0.37***) domestic (0.37***) statement: i am confident in . . . % agree or strongly agree univariate (coefficient)a multivariate (coefficient)b . . . using online communication platforms (email, messaging, etc.) 97.0 female (-0.04*) full-time (-0.03*) masters (0.04*) social sciences (-0.04*) . . . browsing online information 92.1 age 25–30 (-0.16**) age 25–30 (-0.15**) journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1) 53 age >30 (-0.16**) full-time (-0.09***) master’s (0.10***) . . . online teaching platforms (e.g., moodle, blackboard) 90.1 female (-0.09*) . . . sharing digital content 86.1 age 25–30 (-0.19***) master’s (0.17***) natural sciences (0.27**) master’s (0.18**) . . . using online collaboration platforms (zoom, ms teams, skype, etc.) 86.1 age 25–30 (-0.13**) natural sciences (0.27**) . . . using software and programs required for my studies 76.2 age 25–30 (0.28***); high ability to pay (0.16*); moved home (-0.27**) age 25–30 (0.31***) moved home (-0.22**) . . . applying advanced settings to some software and programs. 44.0 age 25–30 (0.29*) age >30 (0.33**) female (-0.21*) social sciences (0.37***) applied sciences (0.64***) high ability to pay (0.25**) moved home (-0.35***) social sciences (0.23**) applied sciences (0.45***) moved home (-0.24**) a only statistically significant (at p<0.1) correlates are shown. b only statistically significant (at p<0.05) correlates are shown. c when lost job was included as a covariate, full-time study was no longer statistically significant at p<0.05; * p<0.1; ** p<0.05; *** p<0.01. emotions experienced while studying during the pandemic finally, table 6 summarises the emotional experience of respondents while studying during the pandemic. respondents reported low levels of positive emotions including often or always feeling joyful (15.7%), proud (20.0%), or hopeful (25.6%). they reported high levels of negative emotions including often or always feeling frustrated (66.1%), anxious (64.5%), or bored (46.3%). female respondents were statistically significantly more likely to report feeling frustrated or anxious, and significantly less likely to report feeling proud. full-time students were statistically significantly more likely to report feeling hopeless than part-time students. older students (aged over 30) were statistically significantly less likely to report feeling anxious, hopeless, or bored. table 6 emotions experienced while studying during the pandemic sociodemographic correlates often or always feel: % univariate (coefficient)a multivariate (coefficient)b frustrated 66.1 female (0.33***) female (0.33***) anxious 64.5 age>30 (-0.50***) female (0.30***) doctoral (-0.30*) social sciences (-0.28***) applied sciences (-0.27*) high ability to pay (-0.17*) age>30 (-0.48***) female (0.25**) bored 46.3 age>30 (-0.37***) moved home (0.24**) age>30 (-0.33**) hopeless 27.3 age>30 (-0.32 ***) full-time (0.31***) age>30 (-0.28***) full-time (0.15***) cameron, m., fogarty-perry, b., piercy, g. 54 high ability to pay (-0.14*) moved home (-0.35***) hopeful 25.6 female (-0.18*) social sciences (0.26***) high ability to pay (0.16**) angry 22.3 age>30 (-0.18**) moved home (0.17*) proud 20.0 female (-0.22**) doctoral (-0.22***) high ability to pay (0.15**) female (-0.20**) doctoral (-0.23***) relieved 17.4 social sciences (0.19***) applied sciences (0.20*) social sciences (0.19***) joyful 15.7 female (-0.18**) doctoral (-0.18***) high ability to pay (0.13**) doctoral (-0.18***) ashamed 12.4 a only statistically significant (at p<0.1) correlates are shown. b only statistically significant (at p<0.05) correlates are shown; * p<0.1; ** p<0.05; *** p<0.01. qualitative analysis as outlined in the methods section, three overarching themes (collectivity, emotions, and higher education) were identified, and these included several sub-themes: collectivity (reflective, general, gratitude, criticism); emotions (depression and stress, general fears, fear of the unknown, fears for health, fear regarding the future/career/finances, balanced response, positive response, general stress, work/life/study balance); and higher education (negative views, balanced views). the responses were clustered under each relevant sub-theme, with some responses applying to a range of themes. for example, the following quote fits with collectivity (reflective and gratitude), emotions (stress and balanced) and higher education (negative): i think it has been significantly challenging for all involved. it may seem like life for students did not change that much but online learning has its own challenges. these include trying to stay motivated and connect with other students for compulsory group assignments. the majority of group members are fine but there is definitely a lack of communication and assessment input from certain group members. i feel we as a nation and government have dealt well with the situation by understanding the importance of lockdown and having clear guidelines to follow. (female, bachelor’s degree, social sciences, age 40). the multi-faceted nature of this response indicates that students responded to the open-ended question in a variety of ways. some combined insights on the personal effect of the lockdown with their more general views. however, many students chose to respond to the question from a more subjective perspective, homing in on their individual response to the crises. some provided single word responses, evoking specific emotions that they were presumably feeling or had felt, while others provided only slightly more detail regarding their personal struggles: depressing. (female, bachelor’s degree, applied sciences, age 19) not into it. (gender diverse, bachelor’s degree, natural sciences, age 24) stressful, life changing. (female, bachelor’s degree, social sciences, age 21) highly stressful and demotivating. (female, bachelor’s degree, natural and life sciences, age 20) stressful and lonely. (female, master’s, social sciences, age 22) journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1) 55 scary and worrying. (male, master’s, social sciences, age 45) disaster. (male, master’s, social sciences, age 35) the strongest thematic aspect was the number of comments that expressed different types of emotional responses to covid 19 or the lockdown, such as those above. many comments focused on negative responses to the pandemic, such as: this pandemic really affected my studies this year. it has been a bit stressful adjusting to the changes but i know we are social distancing for a good reason. (female, bachelor’s degree, social sciences, age 18) fear, including fear of the unknown or fear for the future, was a common emotion. for example: alien, stressful, unreal threat. (female, bachelor’s degree, social sciences, age 25) it’s all been quite unknown. (female, bachelor’s degree, social sciences, age 18) has been incredibly stressful financially and also in terms of future life prospects regarding work, study and travel in particular. (female, bachelor’s degree, social sciences, age 20). given the high response rate of women to the open-ended question, challenges resulting from having to balance study with other “shifts” (sarkisian & gerstel 2012) were also a common refrain. for example: covid-19 has been difficult to adjust to and will take a while longer to adjust to. a lot of other things have impacted my ability to truly focus on my studies during this time too. (female, bachelor’s degree, social sciences, age 20) it has been very challenging trying to manage working from home, study, children and home-schooling. my children couldn’t leave the house and i couldn’t even take refuge in my room to work. my toddler would camp outside the door crying. the first 3 weeks of lockdown were horrible. i cried every day and felt like a terrible parent, student and employee. now that we are at level 2, i am happy to see people out and about smiling and working. it was an uplifting experience finally leaving the house after 5 weeks and seeing so many smiling also mixed bag. (female, master’s, social science, age 34) as the second comment above illustrates, there were also comments that expressed hope, or were overwhelmingly positive. in terms of the latter: enjoyed the time with family and working from home. introverts dream! (female, bachelor’s degree, applied science, age 36). there were also responses that sought to balance the negative comments, indicating a desire for resilience. for example: it’s been shit, but i’m lucky to be in the country that am in. (prefer not to say, bachelor’s degree, arts and humanities, age 22). significantly though, the majority of responses mirrored wider discussions in the media, such as singling out the good fortune of new zealand due to the government and/or the leadership of jacinda ardern, as key factors in ensuring the safety of the nation. for example: the government, institutions, and citizens of my country have responded very well, but i can’t speak for other countries. (male, bachelor’s degree, applied sciences, age 27) cameron, m., fogarty-perry, b., piercy, g. 56 the lockdown has been an eye-opening experience and has shaken my lifestyle greatly, but we will all get through it. i’m glad the government set out these measures to ensure that the virus did not spread more rapidly throughout nz. (female, bachelor’s degree, social sciences, age 23). in contrast, three responses mirrored negative discussions in the media; two positioned the government’s response as being over the top and one endorsed the view that covid is the product of conspiracy theories. for example: millions more will suffer from unemployment, debt, loss of homes, loss of their businesses than would have died from this hyped-up flu. graduates will be suffering for the next 10 years because of governmental decisions for a flu that kills less people than cancer and other medical conditions based on worse case modelling. it is an absolute disgrace and my heart breaks for everyone that is going to be affected for the next 10 years . . . general view an absolute hoax. (female, bachelor’s degree, applied sciences, age 23) finally, some of the comments focused on respondents’ personal experiences of higher education during the lockdown period. these comments were relatively negative in orientation, such as: i am a mother of three and my husband also is studying. there was very little consideration and help given from the university and the government for people in our situation and it was disappointing. these last couple of months have been so hard emotionally and mentally. my university said all the right things but there was very little follow through or action. (female, bachelor’s degree, social sciences, age 29) i think it has been significantly challenging for all involved. it may seem like life for students did not change that much but online learning has its own challenges. these include trying to stay motivated and connect with other students for compulsory group assignments. the majority of group members are fine but there is definitely a lack of communication and assessment input from certain group members. i feel we as a nation and government have dealt well with the situation by understanding the importance of lockdown and having clear guidelines to follow. (female, bachelor’s degree, social sciences, age 40) overall, the qualitative comments reinforce the challenges identified in the quantitative analysis, particularly the strong emotional response of respondents. there is also much in common with the extant literature in terms of identifying the lockdown as a difficult and fearful experience. for example, respondents acknowledged that their support networks (families and friends) were key to coping with the challenges posed by the lockdown and the shift to online learning, resonating with the views in akuhata-huntington (2020). discussion new zealand has been fortunate in terms of the limited impact of the coronavirus pandemic to date, in comparison to other countries. at the time our survey was undertaken, there had been few cases or deaths, although new zealand spent several weeks in level 4 lockdown. the biggest impact on students in new zealand and globally has been the cancellation of face-to-face classes with, in most cases, a variety of online options (either synchronous or asynchronous) replacing them. new zealand students on the whole were quite satisfied with the change in the nature of teaching and learning to the online environment, and were more satisfied than students from other world regions (aristovnik et al., 2020b). however, not all alternative teaching approaches were rated equally, and new zealand students reported highest satisfaction with recorded video lectures and real-time (video-conferenced) tutorials. in contrast, in the global sample real-time teaching received the highest satisfaction rating for both lectures and tutorials (although in general, journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1) 57 satisfaction was lower with all alternative teaching practices in the global sample compared with the new zealand sample; refer to table 2). student preferences and satisfaction may depend on the modes they have been exposed to. in the new zealand sample, video recording was the dominant mode for replacing lectures, reported by 67.8% of respondents, compared with just 11.6% globally. asynchronous recorded lectures offer flexibility for students to study at a time and pace that suits their needs and aspirations. however, that comes with a trade-off of the loss of in-class interaction. the improved opportunities for interaction with lecturers and other students in a smaller synchronous group setting such as a tutorial may explain students’ higher satisfaction with synchronous video in that setting. new zealand students also showed a higher level of satisfaction with teaching and administrative support than the global sample, but they ranked the support services similarly to the ranking in the global sample (table 3). lectures received the highest satisfaction scores and tutorials the lowest. students were most satisfied with teaching staff and least satisfied with finance and accounting, and the international office. these differences may simply reflect that new zealand was less affected by the pandemic than other countries. nevertheless, the impact on student finances due to lockdowns and reduced financial security in spite of generous wage subsidies for those whose part-time jobs were furloughed (e.g., hospitality workers), and the uncertainty around international travel and student visa holders, may have contributed to lower student satisfaction with those areas of the universities. student counselling services also received a relatively low satisfaction rating, which might be problematic given the potential mental health impacts of the pandemic and associated lockdown (cao et al., 2020; elmer et al., 2020; paredes et al., 2021; perz et al., 2020; sundarasen et al., 2020). respondents generally agreed that lecturers are directing academic work appropriately. however, only 61.5% agreed that lecturers had been open to students’ suggestions in relation to online classes. the transition to teaching online was abrupt, with little time for lecturers to engage in the typical preparation; nor was there sufficient time to engage in a high degree of consultation with students over the necessary changes to course delivery and assessment. nevertheless, new zealand performed substantially better across these dimensions than other countries in the global sample (see table 2 in aristovnik et al., 2020b). students clearly faced difficulties with the transition to online learning, with many agreeing that it is more difficult to concentrate, and that their performance as a student had worsened. this was true of the global sample as well as the new zealand sample. moreover, over half of new zealand students (59.8%) believed that their academic workload was larger or significantly larger than before. this was substantially higher than the 42.6% in the global sample, which may be cause for concern. a higher academic workload increases pressure on students, which may be particularly damaging in a period of substantial upheaval and uncertainty. this may also explain the large number of answers to the open-ended question that focused on negative emotional responses. respondents generally had access to the resources they needed to study from home, and expressed confidence in using the digital tools necessary for online study. the main exception was having a quiet place to study, which was reported by just 53.5% of respondents. this was similar to the “almost half” of respondents in the global sample (aristovnik et al., 2020b, p. 24). when combined with higher workload, the lack of a quiet study space creates anxiety and exacerbates any workload pressures and learning challenges that students are facing. a good internet connection is an essential prerequisite for online study, but this was reported by just 70% of respondents. however, this was higher than the global sample, where only 59.9% of students had access to a good internet connection often or always. this result is similar to that described cameron, m., fogarty-perry, b., piercy, g. 58 by akuhata-huntington (2020), who found nearly a quarter of māori students reported lacking a good internet connection. respondents demonstrated a higher propensity to experience negative emotions during the pandemic, including frustration, anxiety, and boredom. new zealand students were substantially more frustrated than students from other countries (66.1% vs. 39.1%), and more anxious (64.5% vs. 39.8%). they were also less hopeful (25.6% vs. 39.4%) and less joyful (15.7% vs. 29.7%). while we cannot know from our data how the emotional experience of students compares with the time before the pandemic, these results are nevertheless concerning, and are similar to those reported in the life under lockdown survey of the general population (prickett et al., 2020). that survey found that young people (aged under 25 years) were more likely than older people to report negative emotions such as anger, depression, sadness, stress, and worry during lockdown, and were less likely to report enjoyment or happiness. students with a high ability to pay for their studies showed a higher degree of resilience in the face of the challenges posed by the pandemic and lockdowns, highlighting that students with lower access to financial resources faced particularly difficult circumstances. this finding was similar to those in the international study (aristovnik et al., 2020b). students with low ability to pay also tended to have lower satisfaction with online teaching and learning approaches. this may suggest that the financial pressures they faced affected how they perceived their studies, or inhibited them from using the online environment effectively to support their learning. students with low ability to pay also reported more difficulty focusing during online teaching, and were significantly more likely to report that their performance as a student had worsened (and were less likely to report that their performance had improved). they were also less likely to report confidence with mastering the skills taught in their classes, and in figuring out how to do the most difficult classwork. collectively, these results suggest that students with low financial resources are at greatest risk of being negatively affected by a disruption to their studies, such as those caused by the pandemic and associated lockdowns. surprisingly though, students who had lost their jobs did not appear to suffer from the same hardships as those with low ability to pay for their studies. this is somewhat contrary to the findings of fletcher et al., (2021), who reported that in the life under lockdown survey, households where the respondent was aged under 25 experienced greater economic impacts of the lockdown. however, this difference may reflect the ability of some students to access financial support structures that might not be available to non-students in their wider familial networks. our study has a number of limitations. first and foremost, the data come from an international study, and questions were developed by an international team with no input from most countries. that means that some questions that would be of interest (such as particular changes in assessment styles) were not asked. moreover, we are unable to disaggregate the results by ethnicity, because data on ethnicity was not collected in the survey. nevertheless, the international nature of the survey is also a strength, providing detailed and comparable data across many countries (aristovnik et al., 2020a). second, because the data come from a single cross-sectional survey, we are unable to definitively say whether the statistical relationships are causal, or merely correlation. this is compounded by some sections of the survey, such as the questions about emotion, where there is no baseline for how often students felt different emotions before the pandemic. longitudinal data would overcome these limitations to some extent, but not entirely, as it would have required the foresight to field a survey of students before the impacts of the pandemic were becoming established and lockdowns ensued. third, the sample size for new zealand of 147 respondents is relatively small, and due to item nonresponse, the sample size for some analyses is even smaller. this limits the statistical power to detect small relationships between the outcome variables and sociodemographic characteristics of the sample. finally, the qualitative analysis was limited to data collected on a single, openended question at the end of the survey. not all students provided a response to this question, journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1) 59 which was at the end of the survey. moreover, the question asked for general views or reflections on covid-19, and did not specifically ask about students’ experiences. a more thoughtfully worded question would have attracted more useful responses. in spite of this, we were able to extract some important themes from these data to support the quantitative analysis from the rest of the survey. overall, it is clear that most students had the tools and resilience to cope with the impacts and changes that the coronavirus pandemic and associated lockdowns imposed on them. however, many students felt that their studies were negatively affected and that vulnerable groups, such as students with low financial resources, were most severely affected. fortunately, pandemics are not common. however, the current pandemic is not over, and with new and potentially more infectious variants of the coronavirus now spreading worldwide (e.g., wise 2020), future lockdowns remain possible. higher education institutions and the government should take note of these results. students need more certainty about the effect of lockdowns on their studies, including what it means for classes and assessment. this information should be quickly and clearly disseminated to students when a lockdown is initiated. students should also be advised—in advance—of what a lockdown might mean for their studies, and how the institution would deal with the situation. students need access to appropriate counselling services which must be scaled up during periods of lockdown to ensure that students’ anxieties and worries can be appropriately addressed. this is particularly important for students who are facing changes in their home or working lives as well as their study, and for younger students who may be in their first sustained period away from their family and support networks. finally, appropriate financial support must be available to help vulnerable students to deal with the economic consequences of a lockdown, and to ensure that they can afford access to the tools and resources that they need to maintain their studies. acknowledgements this research was conducted as part of a global study of students: “impact of the covid-19 pandemic on life of higher education students”, led by aleksander aristovnik (university of ljubljana). we are grateful to staff at victoria university of wellington and the university of waikato for distributing the survey link to students at their institutions, and we thank all of the students who completed the survey. we also thank two anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions. references akuhata-huntington, z. (2020). impacts of the covid-19 lockdown on māori university students. te mana ākonga. https://www.temanaakonga.org.nz/nga-puka akuhata-huntington, z., foster, s., gillon, a., merito, m., oliver, l., parata, n., ualesi, y., & naepi, s. (2020). covid-19 and indigenous resilience. higher education research and development, 39(7), 1377–1383. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2020.1823327 aristovnik, a., keržič, d., ravšelj, d., tomaževič, n., & umek, l. (2020a). a global student survey: “impacts of the covid-19 pandemic on life of higher education students”— methodological framework 2020. http://www.covidsoclab.org/wpcontent/uploads/2020/06/covid19-methodological-framework-17062020.pdf aristovnik, a., keržič, d., ravšelj, d., tomaževič, n., & umek, l. 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(2020). the impact of covid-19 on learning: the perspective of the ghanaian student. european journal of education studies, 7, 1–14. https://www.oapub.org/edu/index.php/ejes/article/viewfile/3000/5638 paredes, m. r., apaolaza, v., fernandez-robin, c., hartmann, p., & yanez-martinez, d. (2021). the impact of covid-19 pandemic on subjective mental well-being: the interplay of perceived threat, future anxiety and resilience. personality and individual differences, 170(110455), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110455 perz, c. a., lang, b. a., & harrington, r. (2020). validation of the fear of covid-19 scale in a us college sample. international journal of mental health and addiction, 20, 273–283. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-020-00356-3. prickett, k. c., fletcher, m., chapple, s., doan, n., & smith, c. 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(2012). resilience: the science of mastering life’s greatest challenges. cambridge university press. sundarasen, s., chinna, k., kamaludin, k., nurunnabi, m., baloch, g. m., khoshaim, h. b., hossain, s. f. a., & sukayt, a. (2020). psychological impact of covid-19 and lockdown among university students in malaysia: implications and policy recommendations. international journal of environmental research and public health, 17(17), 6206. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17176206 http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejes.v7i7.3149 https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2020.1803882 https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/121455289/coronavirus-auckland-university-students-will-have-grades-scaled-up https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/121455289/coronavirus-auckland-university-students-will-have-grades-scaled-up https://doi.org/10.3390/nu12092515 https://www.oapub.org/edu/index.php/ejes/article/viewfile/3000/5638 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110455 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-020-00356-3 http://researcharchive.vuw.ac.nz/handle/10063/9022 https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.es.2020.25.4.2000057/ https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.es.2020.25.4.2000057/ https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203141977 https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17176206 cameron, m., fogarty-perry, b., piercy, g. 62 university of waikato. (2020, september 30). grades show university of waikato students fared well through covid-19 lockdown. university of waikato. https://www.waikato.ac.nz/newsopinion/media/2020/grades-show-university-of-waikato-students-fared-well-through-covid19-lockdown wiltshire, l. (2020, june 11). students not happy with victoria university’s plan to scale grades. stuff. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/121789671/students-not-happy-with-victoriauniversitys-plan-to-scale-grades wise, j. (2020). covid-19: new coronavirus variant is identified in uk. bmj, 371, m4857. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m4857 ye, z., yang, x., zeng, c., wang, y., shen, z., li, x., & lin, d. (2020). resilience, social support, and coping as mediators between covid-19-related stressful experiences and acute stress disorder among college students in china. applied psychology: health and wellbeing, 12(4), 1074–1094. https://doi.org/10.1111/aphw.12211 biographical notes michael cameron mcam@waikato.ac.nz michael cameron is associate professor in economics and research fellow in te ngira – institute for population research, at the university of waikato. he has won multiple teaching awards, and has current research interests in population and health economics, financial literacy, and economics education. barbara fogarty-perry barbpnz@gmail.com barbara fogarty-perry was programme leader, bachelor of social services and senior lecturer (disability and mental wellbeing), otago polytechnic, te pūkenga (at the time of writing). barbara has almost 40 years’ experience in educational settings ranging from preschool to tertiary education. her predominant research interests are inclusion, disability and resilience, and sustainability. she has published nationally and internationally. gemma piercy gemma@waikato.ac.nz gemma piercy is a lecturer in social policy at the university of waikato. she specialises in qualitative research and policy analysis. her research interests include employment relations and tertiary/adult education and training, the changing nature of work, identity and craft. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. cameron, m., fogarty-perry, b., & piercy, g. (2022). the impacts of the covid-19 pandemic on higher education students in new zealand. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 26(1), [42–62.]. https://www.waikato.ac.nz/news-opinion/media/2020/grades-show-university-of-waikato-students-fared-well-through-covid-19-lockdown https://www.waikato.ac.nz/news-opinion/media/2020/grades-show-university-of-waikato-students-fared-well-through-covid-19-lockdown https://www.waikato.ac.nz/news-opinion/media/2020/grades-show-university-of-waikato-students-fared-well-through-covid-19-lockdown https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/121789671/students-not-happy-with-victoria-universitys-plan-to-scale-grades https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/121789671/students-not-happy-with-victoria-universitys-plan-to-scale-grades https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m4857 https://doi.org/10.1111/aphw.12211 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ research note student perceptions of telecommunications technologies for accessing learning opportunities in two northern canadian schools the potential of telecommunications technologies for the education of students in small schools in rural communities has been the subject of many studies (barker and hall, 1995; barker, hall and wood, 1995; hughes, 1993; nevens,1996). in australia (lundin, 1994; stevens, 1994), new zealand (stevens,1995), canada (garlie, 1995) and many of the nordic countries (meisalo, 1996; stefansdottir, 1993) telecommunications have been used to provide new opportunities for rural students. in these countries small rural schools are increasingly seeking to provide senior students with increased access to information and communications technologies to expand access to learning opportunities. recent research in two small rural schools in northern canada has found that students value telecommunications technologies according to the level of access they have to them. students with ready access valued telecommunications technologies to a greater extent than their peers who had less access. the study was conducted in the canadian province of newfoundland and labrador in two small, isolated centres, identified by the pseudonyms "north community" and "south community". both north community and della healey and ken stevens telelearning and rural education centre faculty of education memorial university of newfoundland south community are located in coastal labrador, the northern part of the province, and in each centre fishing is the basis of the local economy. n o r t h community was described as the centre of government services to the north coast of labrador. accordingly, it has several federal and provincial agencies. south community can be described as the administrative centre for communities of the labrador straits area. it too has several federal and provincial agencies. the north community population of approximately 1100 people is predominantly innuit while most of the 500 people in south community are of british descent. the all-grade school at north community has an enrolment of approximately 400 students and a staff of thirty teachers. instruction is provided in both english and the local language, inukitut. enrolment has remained stable in recent years. students have some introductory computer courses available to them within the school and limited access to the internet. two or three distance education courses are offered each year within the school for senior students for whom there is no local teacher in a particular subject (eg advanced chemistry, advanced mathematics). the school at south community serves journal of distance learning, vol 4 , no 1 , 1998 © distance education association o f new zealand 30 students from two other surrounding communities. this school has a population of approximately 200 students and 'a teaching staff of thirtee n. enrolment has been decreasing in recent years. the south community school has a computer laboratory which is used to teach introductory courses in computing. two or three distance education courses are offered each year in subjects in which there is no local teacher. students do not have access to the internet services at this school. teachers, but not students, have limited access to the internet and there are many technical difficulties in getting" on line". between the two schools 22 participants were randomly selected for the study (north community n= 9; south community n=13), which included 20 level two and level three students and one school administrator from each site. (level three students are those who are in their final year of secondary education while level two students are those who are in their second last year). one administrator from each school was asked to assist in the selection of the subjects for the study and to advise on the categorisation of each student as "high" or "low" in terms of his or her access to telecommunications technologies. three criteria were used to identify students as having high or low access to information technologies: 1. a student who had access to distance education courses, as opposed to one who did not have access to distance education courses, was considered to have high access to telecommunications technologies. 2. a student who had access to the internet as opposed to one who did not have access or who had very limited access, was considered t o have high access to telecommunications technologies. 3. a student who had unlimited access to a computer (eg at home) compared to one who could only access a computer at school in specific time periods, was considered to have high access to telecommunications technologies. accordingly, 10 high access students (north community, n = 4; south community, n = 6) and 1 0 low access students (north community, n = 4; south community, n = 6) were chosen. the study· found that telecommunications technologies were valued differently by each category of student in these isolated canadian communities. both high access and low access students agreed that technology was vital in the functioning of their schools. however, the degree of importance of telecommunications technologies, (computers, the internet) varied. students who had low access to telecommunications technologies valued the computer in pragmatic ways; as a tool for preparing them for workplaces in which they expecte!tl to use computers and as a tool for the preparation of assignments. a low access student from north community remarked: in computer classes, students are taught how to use and apply computers for different tasks. students are more prepared to enter the workforce where computers are becoming more widely used. another low access student from south community noted: "it is a way for us students to type up assignments;" while yet another from south community said, "classes in micro-computers and computer applications helped me get a grasp on the use of computers and different programs." students who had high access to telecommunications technologies placed more emphasis on the opportunities they provided for learning at a distance. furthermore, high access students identified computers with connections to the internet and the "information highway" for extending and enriching their studies rather than as simply a means of preparing assignments and answering teacher-prepared tests. the students in the study expected that those who had high access to technology would pursue an academic secondary education. those who journal of distance leaming, vol4, no 1, 1998 ©distance education association of new zealand 31 had low access to technology were expected to complete a basic secondary education. a high access student from south commtmity commented: this year i am in third level chemistry at my school. this course would not normally be offered but it is through distance learning. now i will have a better opportunity to succeed at chemistry while pursuing a secondary education. participants who had high access to telecommunications technologies were more likely to perceive them as having a positive impact on their education than their peers who had low access. all students in this study were very isolated in geographical terms through the location of their homes in small labrador communities, but, through the use of telecommunications technologies in their education, some were less isolated than others. students with high access to telecommunications technologies believed that they had increased opportunities for post­ secondary school education and less difficulty gaining entry to courses in tertiary educational institutions. a high access student from north community acknowledged: current technology in this education system is valuable to me. with the internet open to me, research becomes a lot easier. also the advanced math 2201 class i'm taking through distance education has created new opportunities for me and others. another high access student from south community pointed out: the introduction to computer courses has opened up a new world for me. it has given me the opportunity of pursuing a post secondary education in this field perhaps. a fellow high access student from south community remarked: current technology in the education system is valuable to me. i do third level chemistry through distance education. if distance education wasn't available to this school i wouldn't be able to do this course because there is no teacher available with the qualifications to teach this course effective ly. distance education means a lot to me in this sense because i'm really interested in studying chemistry after high school. students with high access to tele­ communications technologies felt that they had similar opportunities to their peers in larger, usually urban schools in other parts of canada. a•high access student from south community commented: "distance education courses allow students to compete with other students from all over the province." another student from south community explained: it gives us a chance to compete with students in larger centres. due to our location, for many years, people felt that because we were not from a larger centre our education s y stem was inferior. with the advancements in technology, people who felt this way are beginning to realise that students in isolated places, such as south community, have the opportunity to receive just as good an education as others. students with low access to telecommunications technologies did not express as much optimism about competing with students in schools in larger communities as their peers who had high access. this research study will investigate the extent to which these perceptions of telecommunic­ ati ons technologies influence the post­ secondary school educational and vocational choices of these students. journal of distance learning, vol 4, no i, 1998 © distance education association of new zealand 32 references barker, b. & hall, r. (1995). case studies in the current use of technology in education rural research report, 6, 10,1-12. barker, b., hall, r. & wood, s. (1995). rural schools and the internet: providing an 'on/off ramp' to the information superhighway of the 21st century rural research report 6, 4, 3-10. garlie, n. (1995). teleconferencing to provide group counselling to rural at-risk students, morning watch, 22 (2-4), 37-46 hughe s , c. ( 1 9 93). l e a r n i n g t e c h n o l o g y programs in an isolated region: classroom applications of technology. rural education issues 3, pp.2 -15 lundin, r. (1994). rural isolation: technologies for the delivery of education and training issues affecting rural communities. proceedings of an international conference held by the rural education research and development centre, townsville, pp.157 163 mei s a lo, v. (ed) t h e integration of remote classrooms, helsinki, university of helsinki research report no. 160. nevens, m. (1996). connecting k-12 schools to the information superhighway. washington, d.c.: mckinsey and co. inc. s t e f a n sdot t i r, l . ( 1 9 93). t he i c e la n d i c educational network ismennt. in g. davies, & b. samways, (eds). teleteachingproceedings of the ifip tc3 third teleteaching conference, amsterdam: elsevier science publishers, pp.829835 stevens, k. (1994). australian developments in distance education and their implications for rural schools journal of research in rural education 10 (1), 78 -83 stevens, k. (1995). geographic isolation and technological change: a new vision of teaching and learning in rural schools in new zealand, the journal of distance learning, 1 (1), 32-38 della healey is a research student in the faculty of education at m emorial university of new­ foundland, st. johns, nf, canada, aic557. ken stevens is professor of education, chair of t e l e l e a r n i n g and r u r a l e d u c ation at memorial university of newfoundland, st johns, n f , canada, a i c 5 5 7 . a l l c o r r e s p o n d e n c e about this paper should be addressed to him. email: stevensk@morgan.ucs.mun.ca journal of distance learning, vol 4, no 1, 1998 ©distance education association of new zealand 33 the imperative of retaining contact with the remote distance learner: a perspective from uganda chris acar and tony wrightson northern integrated teacher education project kampala uganda introduction although distance education embraces a wide continuum of delivery systems ranging from 'very open and purely correspondence' to packages containing a combination of correspondence with formal face-to-face opportunities, experience has shown that the face-to-face factor is essential to the success of a distance education delivery system (perry and rumble, 1992, 15). this face-to-face component in itself ranges from (a) that with the more predictable functions­ periodic tutorials, field tutor-based support, residentials, group meetings, and so on, to (b) the more informac casuac spontaneous and essentially personal contact, with quite different functions envisaged than in the more conventional face-to-face component. both of these enhance the two-way communication between the tutor and the student which baath refers to as being at the heart o( and the backbone to, a distance education delivery system (baath, 1992, 36). the ugandan perspectives to be outlined here promote the second view above, that the on­ going, spontaneous, personal contact enhances the 'standpoint of the student learning at a distance' rather than just the 'standpoint of the institution teaching at a distance' (jenkins and koul, 1991, 107). where this aspect of the face­ to-face has been refined and encouraged (in an almost infinite variety of forms, and in response to an infinite variety of individualised learner needs) learning has been enhanced, motivation is higher, and learner retention rates have been much more impressive. a ugandan experience, with its distinctive context (combining attributes with constraints) is presented. the ugandan experience the northern integrated teacher education project (nitep) is a primary teache r t r a inin g programme being delivered i n th e ten districts of northern uganda, through three regional administration offices (refer to figures 1 and 2). this area has been damaged by years of warfare and a residual insurgency is continuing. the programme is part of an emergency, politically­ driven reconstruction programme in the north of the country. � k.m figure 1. uganda showing the location of the nitep project area journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 45 the programme is integrated in the respect that it is training teachers who are already in the field, and it is using existing primary teachers' colleges and professional staff in the districts, through which to deliver and support the programme. three thousand untrained teachers a r e u n dertaking a three-year, one-cycle, programme using a predominantly distance education methodology. this method, by having the learners (in this case the untrained primary teachers) remain in_ their home and work contexts, is proving to be more attractive in the ugandan environment because: • this large number of teachers could not be replaced in the classrooms of the north if they were to be released for a conventional full­ time programme; • there is insufficient capacity in the existing teachers' colleges to train this number as quickly as is required by the political motive of rapidly reconstructing the war-ravaged north of uganda; • the learners, themselves, have families and subsistence economic ties at home, in the villages, which makes a prolonged absence in a far-distant teachers' college unattractive; • t h e programme, targeting such a large number of teachers, is perceived as being cost effective; • the programme, designed as it is, as being on­ the-job, means that learning can be applied immediately, resulting in a momentum of improved teaching (and learning) in northern primary classrooms which, for so long, have been degrading. the three thousand students are mostly '0' level completers (from the third and fourth quartiles), with a very small minority having advanced to 'a' levels. they have been teaching, on an average, for about five years in the very poorly resourced, mostly rural, village primary schools. most are married, many are not being paid (and yet continue to teach!!); what pay they do get is very meagre (around $nz20 per month); and they have very poor (at best !) to no study facilities resources. because of th�s they are heavily tied to their village locations, eking out a subsistence living for themselves and their families. to be thrown in to a distance education study programme has been an enormous burden to them, but also a challenge that most have taken on with enthusiasm. their futures in the ugandan education system depend upon their passing the public teachers' certificate examination at the end of the three year programme of study. remuneration for trained teachers is gradually improving: this, in itself, provides longterm incentive enough in a country where economic and professional poverty have become deeply entrenched. the distance educ ation delivery system the basis of the methodology used in this distance model is a set of learner-focused modules based on the primary teacher education curriculum. these modules represent the core of the learner's experience. a total of twenty,of these modules (each of between two and three-hundred pages) have been written and are being supplied over the three-year period, along with a series of supplementary print-based materials such as action sheets, logbooks and newsletters, as well as audio tapes. these modules are not textbooks. t hey contain information just as textbooks do, but they are designed to involve the student in this information and in its practical application. t he 'activities' serve to promote interactivity between the learner and the modules to instigate the learning process. t hey have been designed to focus on the learning outcomes, thus they are repeatedly reinforced. these interactive strategies are sometimes referred to as 'embedded support devices' (shelley, 1995, 2). this 'core' which, for the nitep learner, represents a huge reading burden (even more so as it is being imposed upon a non-reading culture) is supplemented by a complex student support system, comprising over seven hundred field-based personnel performing a range of pedagogical, counselling and administrative functions, which will be outlined, further below. there is then in uganda a unique learner context: it comprises remote field situations, with related communication difficulties; poorly resourced schools; harsh e m p l o y m e n t journal o f distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association o f new zealand 46 conditions for the teacher (the nitep student); on-going problems of insecurity; very difficult economic circumstances; and the lack of an entrenched reading culture. it has become apparent that the student support system, with its planned formal c o m p o n e n t s a s w e l l as its ever-evolving informal components, has become crucial to the success of the programme, as it passes its halfway point. while the materials and formal p e d a g o g y a r e h i ghly r e g a r d e d , and an administrative and records system is now well d e v e l o p e d , the ability of the progr amme implementors t o retain contact with, and specific knowledge of, the learners in their contexts, has become pivotal. the student support system as the focus of concern the nitep stu d e n t support sy stem can be broadly categorised into two distinct levels: the formal and the informal. the formal levels have five basic components. first, the coordinating teachers' colleges. these are cooperating primary teachers' colleges from where all learning programmes are coordinated in a district. in each district there is one coordinating teachers' college, and at this institution there is a senior tutor who is employed by the programme on a part-time basis to implement the field activities. he is called the student support officer (sso), who is facilitated with a motorcycle as a means of transport. the sso is instrumental in ensuring the successful implementation of the student support system in the district. second, at twice-monthly weekend tutorials the students are guided in their studies by a tutor counsellor (tc) who, in most cases, is a trained and in some other nearby locality. between ten and 30 students are allocated to this tc at a study centre (sc) dependent upon student distribution. the tc also plays an additional administrative role in our system: s/he provides the main link between the students and the remainder of the support system. this means that s/he will not only run these fortnightly tutorials at the sc but will also visit each student in their respective schools, as well as ensuring, in the absence of an effective postal system, that students' assignments are passed to the tutor markers (tm) for marking, and then returned to the student. he will also maintain records of, and monitor, students' progress. t hird, twice-yearly residential sessions are supported by a team of subject-specialist tutors referred to in our system as residential tutors (rt). at each residential the rts have two weeks of intensive contact with the students guiding them in those areas that have been found difficult during either their private study, or at the tutorials with their tcs. fourth, the tutor markers (tm) are subject specialists who mark the student assignments in their il;reas of speciality. their main concern is to provide meaningful and interactive feedback to the students. they have been specially trained to do this. the comments given by the tm need to be d i r e c t , a n d y e t in conversational tone. with the comments also goes an assignment grade. fifth, the other cadre of player in our formal support system is the personal tutor (pt). s/he provides the most familiar contact with the student. usually s/he will be teaching on the same staff with the student. the pt offers professional development advice and a model to the student through a process of consultations and observations. this is achieved through the formal pre-conference, observation and post-conference phases surrounding a student lesson delivery. the pis have been trained in this process, which is part of the much larger formal teaching practice requirements imposed upon the project by the external examiners. the five components which have been outlined above are the formal contacts that fulfil the student distance education needs. crucial to the operation of these components at the district level are the overseeing and administrative functions of the three regional administration offices who are appropriately linked to the project headquarters as well as the district field personnel (see figures 1 and 2 above). however, it appears, as the programme develops, that journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 47 these, in themselves, are insufficient. pt pt (s t u d e n t s ) figure 2. the nitep student support system. · over the months, in the implementation process of the programme, a number of more informal contacts between the field-based support staff and the students have developed. these include: • a visit by a support staff to the student, at his or her school or l}ome if the student is absent from a bi-monthly tutorial the tutor or sso will move on a bicycle or motorcycle, or even on foot up to 60km, over rough roads, and through garden tracks, in sometimes very wet and muddy, or extremely hot conditions risking things like a bicycle breakdown, land mines and other road barriers• a visit by a support staff to an informal study group which will be taking place probably under a mango tree, with students seated on the ground, and being watched, and probably distracted, by a large number of small village children • students visiting support staff and sharing problems, such as the in�laws have taken my wife away, what should i do? i have raised most of the money needed to purchase a paraffin study lamp, but i need a final, small amount. what do you advise? my brother has just died from aids. i will be unable to attend the next tutorial, or submit my tn assignment. what should i do?my sister's dowry is being paid this weekend. i would like you, my tutor to come and attend the celebrati6ns the visit may occur spontaneously on a village road; or at the hquse of the support staff; or even at the village marua or drinking place(marua is a local drink brewed from millet flour. ) the students studying on the nitep distance education programme face all of the usual difficulties of the distance learner, whether that be in africa, new ze aland or elsewhere. however, because our students lack the basic communication facilitating tools, like transport (bicycles), postal services, telephones and radios, a dimension is added which makes the student suppoft system even more important. a student in a r e m o t e , and s o m e t i m e s inaccessible location (especially during the wet season), who receives a visit or, whether impromptu or planned, feels deeply cared for. in a distance education programme there is a strong correlation between care and learner motivation. the nitep student who receives such informal visits becomes stimulated, motivated and his or her work focus is re­ defined. the distance learner thus becomes encouraged toward the achievement of his or her learning outcomes. the perception is held by those administering the field-based student support system that a strong correlation exists between contact and student motivation and stimulus. study excuses given are generally reasonable and acceptable. these range from having no time to a lack of money to buy paraffin fuel for the lamp. whether these are true or not (and in most cases they are), the fundamental fact is that if the modules and supplementary materials are not read little learning occurs and the project objective of improving the quality of primary education in this disadvantaged region is threatened. so the more frequent and informal contacts a student has the more determined and motivated s/he feels. these contacts propel the desire, on the part�£ the student, to achieve even journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 48 higher. these contacts therefore promote the confidence required to proceed, the allaying of fears, the sense of belonging and being cared for, despite the difficulties and isolation, improved study skills and understanding of learning material through advice received. a local, acholi, proverb has it that by staying close to the anthill the duiker (animal) becomes to look like the anthill itself meaning that by promoting contact a model (of success) is provided for emulation 'yielding fruit to us, in nitep, these informal contacts have yielded fruit by serving the hidden needs of the students that it, the showing that someone cares, and that the learner has the support of others. a student who has received such frequent informal contacts once said 'i have no pro blems with my studies. everything is going on well. i have finished reading all of my new modules and i have just started on the process of re-reading the earlier modules and i am making summary notes from each of them -' such a student is highly motivated and is definitely enjoying his studies. another student who lives close to the project headquarters and frequently pays visits to its staff, has said: 'i have now bought a new bicycle and i find it easier to move from my school to the study centre and to th� place where we have our own little study group meetings -' again, such a student has developed a sense of belonging and a high level of commitment to his studies. there is now enough anecdotal evidence to suggest that the more informal support services and care the student receives in his/her studies the more committed the student is toward the study and achievement of terminal objectives. the two examples of our students described above come from one district where the support staff are caring and feel concerned about the students' progress. the caring student support officer (sso) in the context of the nitep programme the desirable qualities of a caring field pfficer includes the following: one who rises early and moves to remote locations in order to monitor student activities, progress and difficulties. s/he will be able to empathise with the students in their various circumstances; one wno visits the students frequently and in all conditions; one who works enthusiastically with energy, self motivation, commitment and over long hours without demanding high monetary gain; and one who is warm and dedicated to the students' struggle-s /he knows the students by name, and each of their learning contexts,. however, we also have cases of support staff who are uncaring a n d f e e l unconcerned about the distance learners' needs. in such districts the vital informal contacts between the students and support staff have not developed. the consequence of this has been a feeling of isolation on the part of the student (the distance learner) and a significant loss of interest and motivation in s t u d i e s . t h i s eventually leads t o attrition. the effects of the 'culture of care' in one district, 1 a', the 'culture of care' has become highly developed, with significant, on-going and informal support contacts being developed alongside the formal contacts. in contrast, in adjacent district 1b', no informal contact (or 'culture of care') has developed. however, the formal s u p p o r t s y s t e m i s operating a t a minimal, adequate level. the figures below illustrate t h e programme performance results in these two districts, at the halfway point in the three-year programmes. the data suggest that students in district 1 a' are more committed to the programme of study. there are no cultural, social, demographic, economic or educational reasons to believe that there should be a wide variance of results in these two adjacent districts. if we were to explain the differing phenomena in the two districts in an operational way, it would be that the field officer overseeing the student welfare journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 49 (the sso) in district a is clearly more diligent, energetic and mobile in his approach toward contacting students. the motorcycle, which has been provided to these professionals in each district, is moving earlier and more frequently in district a, as the sso visits students and tutors listening to problems, advising them on studies and tutoring, and linking them with other options to assist them to achieve (that is, a higher level of care.) above all the sso is both pro­ active, in searching for clues and evidence of problems and needs, and reactive, in his approach to his support work. meanwhile the reverse is happening in district b where the sso (and, as a consequence, most of his field-tutors) makes few attempts to maintain contacts with his students and tutors. table 1: programme results at the half-way point indicators district a district b initial student number 221 384 current student number 210 334 change in student number (percent) -5 -13 percent attending residential at the program mid-way point 99 90 student drop-outs percent explained 73 49 percent of students submitting latest tutor-marked assignment 97 93 overall mean of mid-program exam results 38 31 student support-' caring' rating high low the 'infectious' role of the student support officer given the vast area that our project covers and the very poor means of communication, it would be difficult for one field officer to reach all students and tutors scattered over the district, with the one available motorcycle. the sso's level of care and concern needs to be passed on to the field tutors, especially the tutor counsellors and personal tutors. where that has happened (as in district' a') the infectious 'culture of care' has become multi-dimensional and multi-levelled. it is manifested in informal contacts between tutors and students, among tutors, and among students, all of which results in commitment and an enhanced quality of teaching and learning. this is happening in district 'a', but not in district 'b'. an informally positive, infectious sso provides a direct impact on the level of care operating at the district level. this, in turn, appears to be crucial to stimulating success in the learning outcomes and, therefore, the distance education project objectives. conclusion from experience in our project location it<;�ppears that where the formal components of the student support system are working this is not, in itselt enough to ensure active participation in the learning process and success with the learning objectives. however, if these are working alongside a vibrant informal network of contacts, learning and learner­ motivation are much enhanced. this is dependent upon the infectious vitality and energy of the field administrators concerned. the culture of distance learning is new for uganda. the lii;arner is demanding, in an african sense, a feeling of 'brotherhood' from his distance teachers the modules, and the face-to­ face field tutors. this brotherhood is best provided by the informal contacts in a spirit of spontaneity, energy and humour. references baath, j. 1992: introduction to distance education. aecs course materials. jenkins, j. and koul, b. (editors), 1991 distance educationa review. indira ghandi national open university and international extension college. perry, w. and rumble, g. 1992: a short guide to distance educati on. i n t e r n a t i o n a l e x t e n s i o n college. shelley, val 1995: t he northern integrated teacher education project (nitep)its need to read concerns and solutions. internal project paper. chris acar is currently the student support co­ ordinator for the northern integrated teacher education project, uganda. he was formerly lecturer and head of science education at the institute for teacher education (itek), kampala, uganda. tony wrightson is currently employed by the international extension college of the united kingdom, as co­ ordinator of the technical assistance team attached to the northern integrated teacher education project. he was formerly head of the office of school liaison and advanced diploma unit, at the university of papua new guinea,goroka campus. journal of distance learning, vol 2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 50 microsoft word jahng formatted.docx jahng, n. s. 26 a systematic review of small-group communication in post-secondary online courses namsook jahng abstract this systematic review establishes a comprehensive understanding of research trends and the findings of current studies that focus on small-group communication in post-secondary online courses. the review includes 18 journal articles which are categorised and summarised on the basis of their common themes. this review finds that a majority of the studies focus on understanding or uncovering ‘learning processes’ by conducting content analysis (ca). further research is suggested to investigate ‘instructional design or methods’ to provide instructors with practical knowledge and ideas to enhance and assist the learning processes. methodological issues are also discussed, including coding reliability in ca, quantitative measures for assessing collaboration, and a need for causal relational experimental studies. keywords: systematic review; small group; communication; online course introduction the increasing popularity of online courses has been enabled by the rapid development of communication technology and the internet. exponentially growing numbers of post-secondary education institutions are delivering online courses worldwide. subsequently, there have been concerns and issues relating to the quality and effectiveness of teaching and learning in online courses. asynchronous communication (posting messages on a discussion board or group forum spaces) is a major method of communication in online distance education courses (rourke & kanuka, 2009). the archives of such communication have provided precious data for researchers to examine the dynamics of teaching and learning processes (mason, 1991). henri (1992) described the communication transcripts as “a gold mine of information concerning the psycho-social dynamics at work among students” (p. 118) and urged researchers to analyse the communication data so instructors could use the practical results to coach and facilitate learning. in this regard, many researchers have analysed communication transcripts to uncover the teaching and learning processes in online courses (murphy & ciszewska-carr, 2005). small-group activity is a popular instructional method to encourage collaboration in online courses along with whole-group discussion activity (benbunan-fich, hiltz, & harasim, 2005). in the literature, however, small-group collaboration is less well known than whole-group discussion activities. this literature review therefore aims to establish a comprehensive understanding of research trends and findings from empirical studies that focus on investigating journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(2) 27 small-group activities by analysing communication in online courses. by using a systematic approach, this literature review will provide researchers with information about the gaps and limitations of existing research on small-group collaboration. the review questions are: 1. what are the research foci in the studies that analysed small-group communication in online courses? 2. what are the findings of research that analysed communication during small-group activities in online courses? method this review employs a systematic method which is defined by explicit planning and transparent procedures so that other researchers can know what has been reviewed and how (gough, 2004; gough & rees, 2008; chalmers, 2005). the review method follows precise, comprehensive, and step-by-step procedures for (1) searching for potentially relevant studies; (2) screening the discovered, potentially relevant studies to include only those that meet the criteria for inclusion; (3) coding the included studies; (4) categorising/grouping the studies; (5) conducting an in-depth review; and (6) reporting the findings (badger, nursten, williams, & woodward, 2000). details of the procedures for each step are explained in the following sub-sections. electronic database searching education-related databases were searched (i.e., education resources information centre [eric], education index full text, academic search premier, and psycinfo) through the ebsco host platform. keywords for searching the databases were gathered for three domains: data type, course setting, and research focus (table 1). keywords were located by querying the thesaurus in each electronic database. the terms were connected with “or” and each of the domains were connected with “and”. through this procedure, a total of 1,083 publications were identified and transferred to refworks, an online citation management system. table 1 domains and search terms used for electronic databases data type course setting research focus bulletin board or message or post* or asynchronous communication or chat* or computer mediated communication or cmc or text or post* distan* course* or distan* learning or distan* instruction or distan* education or distan* program or online course* or online learning or online instruction or online education or online program or web-based course* or web-based learning or web-based instruction or web-based education or web-based program or electronic course* or electronic learning or electronic instruction or electronic education or electronic program or ecourse* or e-learning or elearning participation or relationship or critical thinking or quality learning or knowledge building or achievement or outcome or collaboration or collaborative learning or interact* or social presence or cognitive presence or community of practice or membership or group activity or content analysis screening: first and second inclusion/exclusion this phase involved four steps: (1) removing any duplicate studies that had been retrieved; (2) screening the remaining articles based on only titles and abstracts; (3) retrieving those articles that were included after the initial screening; and (4) screening the full text of those articles. a total of 301 duplicated publications were deleted from the refworks database system, leaving 882 items to be screened in the first inclusion/exclusion. during the initial screening process, inclusion/exclusion criteria were applied to titles and abstracts only. because this did not constitute a thorough application of the criteria, articles for which there was insufficient jahng, n. s. 28 information to exclude with certainty were automatically included for the second screening process. for the second screening stage, full texts of 139 articles were retrieved and screened, resulting in 51 articles about whole-group discussion and small-group discussion. eighteen articles that analysed small-group communication were the source of the final data for this review. table 2 inclusion/exclusion criteria criteria inclusion exclusion publication type published articles in english in peerreviewed journals conference papers, book chapters, dissertations, publications in other languages publication year 2000–2009 january before and after the inclusion period academic level post–secondary k–12 students course type pure online courses as distance education courses delivered via the internet mixed-mode courses (e.g., online discussions to support face-to-face courses) data type students’ text communication messages during small-group activity in online courses interview scripts, survey/questionnaire, observation, grade/achievement scores method primary research– quantitative/qualitative analysis of text messages reviews of other studies, opinion, or discussion papers that do not include any analysis of text data as shown in table 2, the screening process was conducted according to six inclusion criteria. studies had to meet all of the criteria to be included in the review. the review was limited to a post-secondary level, so studies involving k–12 students were excluded. k–12 online learning is mostly referred to as ‘virtual schooling’ and is fundamentally different from post-secondary online learning in terms of its theoretical foundation and the instructional methods employed (cavanaugh, barbour, & clark, 2009). to be included, a study must have also involved analyses of text communication messages. some studies involved multiple datasets (e.g., surveys, interviews, course marks) and written communication data. these studies were included, but quite a few studies were excluded that analysed students’ perceptions, experiences, satisfaction, or achievement scores without directly examining communication data. many studies were also excluded because the data were not collected from purely online courses but from hybrid/blended courses (i.e., a mixed mode of face-to-face and online learning). however, a few face-to-face meetings for orientation purposes at the initial stages of a course were not considered to contravene the definition of an online course. other limits applied to the scope of the review include the publication type (peer-reviewed journal articles), language (english only), and the date of publication (2000–2009). in terms of research methods, the review sought to include only primary research studies; reviews and opinion or discussion papers were therefore excluded. coding the data coding is the extraction of information from data. coding guidelines were developed, containing nine categories for 24 variables: administrative information (review name, date); document information (refworks id, author, year, journal name, article title); theoretical framework; sample description (number of subjects, gender breakdown, country); course description (course format, communication tools, course subject area, course name, academic level, assessment journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(2) 29 criteria, wholesmall-group activity); research focus (purposes, hypotheses, questions); methods (data analysis/synthesis); results (findings/conclusions), and reviewer’s comments. the 18 articles were coded by two independent reviewers. the coding agreement rate was 92%. any discrepancies were resolved by discussion and agreement. mapping the coded data mapping is the categorisation of the 18 articles according to common themes, based on the extracted data. four main categories were induced from the research foci (figure 1). subcategories were induced from research questions and findings of individual studies. figure 1 mapping the studies results as a result of the categorisation process, it was revealed that the majority of the studies (n = 13) investigated the ‘learning process’ as revealed in communication (figure 1). five studies examined the effect of input variables, and three studies investigated the facilitation effect by focusing on the instructor’s role or involvement. one study examined outcomes. this section presents the findings reported in the selected studies (table 3) and provides an overview of methodological approaches employed (table 4). final reviewed articles (n = 18) input effects (n = 5) learning process (n = 13) facilitating effect (n = 3) individuals’ characteristics (n = 3) gender (n = 1) instructional design (n = 1) research focus instructor’s role (n = 3) social presence (n = 5) successful collaboration (n = 4) setting/tools (n = 6) outcomes (n = 1) membership (n = 1) jahng, n. s. 30 table 3 list of studies in categories of research focus note: some studies are included in more than one category because they have multiple research foci. input effect identifying input variables that influence effective collaboration can provide useful information for group-forming methods and facilitating learning processes. five studies aimed to investigate the effects of inputs on collaboration processes. rose (2004) found that students in a structuredgroup design revealed higher levels of dialogue than did those in an open-ended group design. sun et al. (2008) experimented with a systematic group-forming method for better collaboration. individuals’ cognitive styles (liu et al., 2008) and gender (wang et al., 2003) were reported as non-significant factors influencing group collaboration. individuals’ characteristics liu et al. (2008) examined students’ cognitive styles (scope: internal, external, or flexible; levels: local, global, or flexible) in relation to their participation with a total of 208 mba students divided into groups of 4 or 5 members. their quantitative analysis found cognitive styles did not have a significant effect on the learning achievement or overall class participation. rather, cognitive styles had predictive power over the students’ satisfaction with their teamwork (trust and conflict management). sun et al. (2008) suggested a systematic group-forming method by identifying students’ attributes; that is, learning time, regions, ages, and value types (theoretical, aesthetic, social, political, and religious). to test the effectiveness and practicality of the method, the researchers compared students’ communication in 20 groups in experimental conditions with 20 randomly selected control groups. they found that the experimental groups performed better when measured by the amount of time they spent in the system, the amounts and content bytes of messages, and the rate of successful interaction, defined as “consummated communications through impulse and feedback between the message sender and the message receiver.” (p. 673) wresch et al. (2005) examined participation trends and how a small online community accepted new participants across the course period. the trend showed a significant decrease in the average number of weekly group comments between the first and second halves of the course. when a new member joined in the middle of the course, the number of comments significantly increased. research focus (main category) research focus (sub-category) publication input effects individuals’ characteristics liu, magjuka, & lee (2008); sun, cheng, lin, & wang (2008); wresch, arbaugh, & rebstock (2005) gender wang, sierra, & folger (2003) instructional design rose (2004). learning process social presence beuchot & bullen (2005); curtis & lawson (2001); goertzen & kristjánsso (2007); orvis, wisher, bonk, & olson (2002); wang, sierra, & folger (2003) successful collaboration curtis, & lawson (2001); lee & gibson (2003); makitalo-siegl (2008); thompson & ku (2006) setting/tools curtis (2004); maushak & ou (2007); mabrito (2006); schweizer, paechter, & weidenmann (2003); curtis & lawson (2001); vonderwell (2003) facilitating effect instructor role painter, coffin, & hewings (2003); rose (2004); vonderwell (2003) outcomes membership wang, sierra, & folger (2003) journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(2) 31 gender wang et al. (2003) examined gender differences in participation in synchronous communication. females in the study tended to continue socialising and to remain connected after the class, while males were inclined to initiate more task-related thoughts and ideas and did not stay long once the chat session was over. nonetheless, the authors did not find any direct effect of interaction styles on levels or equality of participation, and no significant difference in frequency of postings, although females posted messages more frequently (57% of total exchanges) than the male participants (43%). instructional design rose (2004) compared two types of small groups: cooperative and collaborative. cooperative groups were designed in a structured format and had careful and frequent facilitation and monitoring of the group process. the instructor assigned students to specialist roles in each group. collaborative groups were designed with a more open structure. group members were not assigned to any specific roles, and the instructor monitored their discussions sporadically. in the initial period of the activity, the cooperative groups had significantly higher levels of dialogue than the collaborative groups. communication messages were more interconnected in cooperative groups (90.68 %) than collaborative groups (81.34%) in terms of one message referring to another message by subject, topic, or name. over time, however, the collaborative groups appeared to catch up with the cooperative groups on in-depth cognitive process as well as cohesion of messages. the author interpreted the results as indicating that more structured strategies might be efficient with short-term heterogeneous groups, but similar levels of interaction would be attained if groups have a common history and persist for more than 3 weeks. learning process the quality of learning was evaluated to understand the benefits and effectiveness of small-group activity in terms of students’ experiencing self-directed learning (lee & gibson, 2003), achieving shared understanding (makitalo-siegl, 2008), and realising equal levels of contribution (curtis & lawson, 2001). the importance of social factors was emphasised in four studies. social communication is seen to enhance collaboration (goertzen & kristjansson, 2007; orvis et al., 2002), is associated with cognitive presences (beuchot & bullen, 2005), and strengthens supportive group membership (wang et al., 2003; curtis & lawson, 2001). in comparison, students struggled with problems when they collaborated through asynchronous communication because of its ineffectiveness (thompson & ku, 2006) and their discomfort while communicating with unfamiliar members (curtis & lawson, 2001). asynchronous and synchronous communication tools support different aspects of collaborative learning and provide different benefits (mabrito, 2006). to support social interactions that foster a more collaborative environment, online courses should be designed to provide various types of both asynchronous and synchronous communication tools (curtis, 2004; mausak & ou, 2007; schweizer et al., 2003; vonderwell, 2003). social presence beuchot and bullen (2005) examined garrison and anderson’s (2003) proposition for the importance of ‘social presence’ associated with ‘cognitive presence’. they assessed the relationship between interpersonality (social or personal interaction, or informal communication) and interactivity (more engagement and true interaction). they found that interactive messages were more likely to contain self-disclosure, and suggested that encouraging social interaction might lead to increased participation and expand the discussion. goertzen and kristjansson (2007) also aimed to understand social presence in collaborative efforts. they examined interpersonality by analysing social interactions in an online master’s programme of teaching english to speakers of other languages. their content analysis showed that 76.3% of the social jahng, n. s. 32 interactions were expressions of appreciation and 26.6% were affective expressions. the study concluded that an effective collaborative process is closely linked to the nature of interpersonal engagement among participants. building a supportive learning community requires respect for other members’ ideas. wang et al. (2003) reported that students frequently used chat functions to establish a pleasant social milieu. the study found that higher performing teams tended to use nicknames to refer to their teams and posted public comments to openly express their positive feelings about one another. orvis et al. (2002) also looked at social interaction in small groups during synchronous chat sessions in a military training course. social interactions were higher at the start and end of the course, while on-task discussions peaked in the middle months. the authors asserted that social interactions in this setting were similar to trends often observed in face-to-face settings. in line with these results, curtis and lawson (2001) suggested that online courses should be designed to encourage more social interactions, perhaps through more structured selfintroductions. they found that a lack of familiarity among group members constrained successful collaboration. successful collaboration curtis and lawson (2001) explored evidence of collaboration during group activities. the authors found that each member made an approximately equal contribution to discussions, suggesting there were no ‘lurkers’. while collaboration levels were different for each group, some students were offended when their opinions or ideas were criticised during discussions via email or bulletin boards. delayed-time and distance constraints were identified as major challenges to online collaboration. the asynchrony of the medium and students’ unfamiliarity with the communication tools also constrained group collaboration. because small-group members felt comfortable using email, they exchanged these more (n = 198) than they posted messages on the discussion board (n = 24). the authors also noted that the asynchronous online interactions lacked ‘challenge and explain’ cycles of interaction. they suggested using effective real-time tools to support interaction. lee and gibson (2003) explored self-directed learning in three dimensions: control, critical reflection, and responsibility. in the study, students exhibited highly learner-centred characteristics and were interdependent with peers for collaborative learning. they had constructed knowledge by judging diverse opinions and resources based on their own experience and knowledge, while selectively accepting or rejecting others’ comments. similar findings were reported by makitalo-siegl (2008), who demonstrated that team members achieved ‘shared understanding’ by actively exchanging their own perspectives and a variety of resources. during the small-group collaboration, students reflectively compared their own knowledge with personal experiences of interaction and collaboration with other students. however, problems associated with asynchronous text communication were noted as a major source of challenges during group collaboration. thompson and ku (2006) measured the degree of group collaboration in terms of four attributes: participation (number of messages), interdependence (interaction patterns), synthesis (number of statements with new ideas), and independence (number of messages sent to the instructor). in their analysis of group discussions, they discovered ineffective communication, conflict among group members, and negative attitudes toward group work. communication setting/tools mabrito (2006) analysed synchronous and asynchronous communication transcripts of four groups of 16 undergraduate students. the synchronous tool was used more for producing new topics and ideas (69%) than for follow-up comments (31%), while asynchronous tools were journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(2) 33 devoted to creating new ideas (47%) and expanding topics (53%). synchronous sessions were used for team building tasks such as organising group processes, while asynchronous discussions focused on the writing task itself. the study recommended that instructors consider including collaborative time in both synchronous and asynchronous environments. schweizer et al. (2003) asserted that using only text-based communication has limitations in that it deprives participants of socially rich communication. in the experimental study, the percentage of correct answers for each type of task and the coherence of the conversations were statistically compared to identify any differences among groups interacting in three pure e-learning settings—synchronous chats, asynchronous forums, and videoconferencing groups— compared with blended learning (a mixed mode of e-learning with face-to-face phases). the study found that learners in the blended setting led a much more coherent discourse than learners in the pure e-learning conditions, or in the face-to-face setting. two other studies (curtis, 2004; maushak & ou, 2007) recognised the limitations of asynchronous communication in supporting social interactions, and examined the potential of synchronous communication tools. curtis used synchronous chat rooms to supplement threaded discussions. the study analysed 86 chat messages collected from 11 students working in four small groups. the study demonstrated the potential of chat rooms. the students enjoyed authentic social interaction, negotiated their own understanding of the course material, and even had fun in the process. these outcomes are similar to those found in face-to-face groups. maushak and ou examined how using instant messages (ims) facilitated collaboration during a group activity. analysis of im transcripts revealed that most of the properties of face-to-face collaborative interaction could be identified in terms of mutually constructing knowledge (44%) and facilitating group processes (15% of all ims). however, challenging each other’s reasoning was rarely evident, because students did not know each other well. the authors asserted that im could be an efficient and productive tool for online project-based collaboration if there is careful design and implementation. using only asynchronous communication tools for small-group activities in online courses does not seem to be sufficient to provide students with a safe and comfortable setting for collaboration. vonderwell’s (2003) qualitative case study explored students’ perspectives and experiences by analysing asynchronous discussion transcripts and emails exchanged among students, and between students and an instructor during small-group activities. some students experienced frustration due to the non-cooperation of some of the team members. the study revealed members’ discomfort about interacting with the students whom they did not already know. facilitating effects rose (2004), painter et al (2003) and vonderwell (2003) identified instructors’ intensive and active monitoring and involvement as an important factor for higher levels of interconnected messages (rose, 2004) and for higher student participation rates (vonderwell, 2003; painter et al., 2003). painter et al. reported that the least interventionist strategy resulted in the least productive discussion in terms of both interaction and academic development. vonderwell also reported the importance of the instructor’s role in boosting collaboration and interaction. the qualitative case study concluded that instructors should carefully structure and design activities to assist those students who did not participate actively and those who were frustrated in the small-group settings of online courses. the author cautions online instructors that “merely providing discussions or collaborative activities does not mean that students will actively participate”. (p. 88) jahng, n. s. 34 outcomes wang et al. (2003) examined group membership construction during small-group activity. the authors asserted they found ample evidence of community-forming in terms of active participation, forming a shared identity, and establishing social networks. they measured active participation by the frequency of message exchanges and found a great majority of the students consistently attended webcasts and chat sessions. the remaining two factors were qualitatively examined by describing some incidences that appeared in text. for example, frequent uses of ‘we’ were identified as a representation of shared identity, and social–emotional expressions were identified as evidence of an established social network. methodological approaches employed in the studies most of the studies used descriptive research design to explore/examine synchronous and/or asynchronous communication in existing groups without manipulating any conditions or variables for comparison. only three studies (mabrito, 2006; rose, 2004; sun et al., 2008) used quasi-experimental design to measure the treatment effect of independent variables. as shown in table 4, 10 of the 18 studies employed content analysis (n = 9) or discourse analysis (n = 1) methods in terms of dividing communication data into units, coding them into categories, and counting the number of units in the categories. coding reliability was reported in nine studies: cohen’s k was reported in orvis et al. (2002), lee and gibson (2003), and beuchot and bullen (2005); inter-coder agreement rate (%) was reported in mabrito (2006), wang et al. (2003); negotiated agreement was used in thompson and ku (2006), and maushak and ou (2007); rose (2004) reported inter-coder correlation and cronbach alpha for intra-coder reliability; goertzen and kristjansson (2007) employed one-coder consistency, agreeing with herself over time. curtis and lawson (2001) did not report coding reliability. four studies (liu et al., 2008; sun et al., 2008; schweizer, 2003; wresch et al., 2005) performed quantitative analysis on the communication data by using the number of postings, logins, or connections. the other four studies (curtis, 2004; makitalo-siegl, 2008; painter et al., 2003; vonderwell, 2003) employed qualitative methods. table 4 methods employed in the studies publication sample method reliability methodological design and analysis mabrito (2006) 16 ca inter-coder agreement: 87% quasi-experimental group comparison (synchronous vs. asynchronous communication), quantitative description (raw scores, %) rose (2004) 20 ca correlation r = 0.7; cronbach alpha: 0.74–0.89 quasi-experimental, group comparison (cooperative vs. collaborative groups), quantitative description (raw scores, %, communication trends) orvis et al. (2002) 41 ca cohen k = 0.90; agreement: 94% difference tests (anova) among communication categories thompson & ku (2006) 12 ca negotiated agreement assessment of collaboration level, quantitative description (raw scores, %, collaboration rankings) maushak & ou (2007) 30 ca negotiated agreement quantitative description of synchronous communication (raw scores, %) lee & gibson (2003) 21 ca cohen k = 0.89–0.95 quantitative description of asynchronous communication (raw scores, %) wang et al. (2003) 21 ca agreement > 80% quantitative description of synchronous communication (raw scores, %) beuchot & bullen (2005) 16 ca cohen k = 0.64–0.65 evaluation of the amount and type of interaction and interpersonal content, hypothesis tests (x2) journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(2) 35 curtis & lawson (2001) 13 ca n/s quantitative description of asynchronous communication (raw scores, %) goertzen & kristjánsson (2007) 24 da one coder agreeing with herself over time quantitative and qualitative description of social presence liu et al. (2008) 208 qnta n/a group difference (anova) among cognitive styles sun et al. (2008) 415 qnta n/a quasi-experimental study on grouping methods, difference tests (anova) between experiment vs. control groups schweizer (2003) 96 qnta n/a difference tests (anova) among e-learning groups vs. blended learning groups wresch et al. (2005) 60 qnta n/a difference tests (t-test, x2) before and after joining new members into groups curtis (2004) 11 qlta n/a qualitative description of synchronous communication makitalo-siegl (2008) 3 qlta n/a qualitative description of shared understanding painter et al. (2003) 15 qlta n/a qualitative description of three different levels of tutor intervention groups (least-, more-, moststructured groups) vonderwell (2003) 22 qlta n/a qualitative description of asynchronous communication note: ca: content analysis; da: discourse analysis; qnta: quantitative analysis; qlta: qualitative analysis; n/a: not applicable; n/s: not stated discussion this literature review aimed, firstly, to locate empirical studies that examined communication in small groups in online courses; secondly, to categorise and summarise the findings of the individual studies; and, finally, to identify gaps and limitations in the literature that would suggest further research. this section discusses research topics/foci as well as methodological design and approaches for future research. it also recognises some significance and limitations of this review. research foci on small-group communication some key findings of the included studies confirmed those of the broader existing literature:  social communication is a critical element for effective collaboration.  although students might struggle with troubles caused by asynchronous communication tools, synchronous communication tools can be used to compensate for the limitations of the former.  small-group activities in online courses provide the benefits of both a learner-directed and a learner-centred collaborative environment for learning.  instructors should actively monitor and facilitate group collaboration.  participation (quantity of communication) is the fundamental element for successful collaboration, and is used as a typical measure to evaluate collaboration in small groups. the most popular research foci related to examining/understanding the ‘learning process’ in small online groups. the research issues and questions repeated in the 13 studies were: (a) how does social presence/communication or managerial/coordination communication influence cognitive presence/learning?; and (b) how do online group environment or communication tools relate to the quality of learning and participation in collaboration processes? the findings of the studies confirmed the existing theoretical perspectives and propositions regarding social jahng, n. s. 36 presence/communication as a significant factor associated with cognitive presence and a higher quality of learning. however, there is still a lack of research exploring specific instructional strategies and design to encourage and increase social presence/communication. more research is recommended, for example, to explore particular social activities (e.g., ice-breaking activities or games) and any synchronous communication tools (e.g., instant messages or audio/video chats) used to increase social communication. technology develops quickly and, as more diverse communication and collaboration tools become available, online educators and researchers need to experiment with various technologies to improve communication processes and support collaboration in online groups. participation was emphasised as the fundamental component of collaboration. the quantity of communication was frequently used as an indication of successful collaboration. however, communication quantity does not necessarily ensure the quality of collaboration, in spite of many researchers arguing such in the literature. because few researchers recognised the aspects of groups’ communication structure and relationships during collaboration, their studies often ignored factors such as democratic contribution to the group tasks through more equalised participation or open communication networks. only a few studies looked at aspects of participation such as equal contribution (curtis & lawson, 2001); shared understanding (makitalo-siegl, 2008); and interdependence, synthesis of information, and independence (thompson & ku, 2006). it is suggested that researchers assessing collaboration in small groups devise indices or measures that are more diverse than the quantity of communication. group collaboration was not evaluated according to individual groups. most studies compiled all the communication messages and analysed the overall quality of collaboration without comparing or assessing the collaboration levels of each group. evaluating collaboration processes in individual groups (e.g., thompson & ku, 2006) would allow researchers to identify hindering or facilitating factors by comparing the higher and lower levels of collaborative groups. thus, more research is suggested to identify indicators and factors for more or less collaboration in small groups in order to provide practical guidelines and strategies for online educators. looking at the findings from the studies that investigated input effects on group collaboration (e.g., effectiveness of open-ended/less structured design, group-forming methods, gender and individual characteristics), instructors may better facilitate and prepare the groups in consideration of the input variables. rose (2004) reported that open-ended/less structured design can be effective if the students are a homogeneous group—that is, they have similar levels of knowledge and have established friendships, often because they have taken courses together in a long-term programme. with regard to group-forming methods, an issue remains as to how to best mix and match students in small groups with variables such as gender, learning styles, geographical regions, and time zones. more research is needed to experiment with different group-forming methods in diverse environments with different techniques (e.g., learner-self allocation or instructor allocation). for example, although wang et al. (2003) reported no significant gender effect on participation, the dynamics and patterns of communication in a homogeneous gender group (such as female-only or male-only groups) could be significantly different from mixed gender groups. the teacher’s role was confirmed as being the key to more effective and higher quality collaboration in small groups. certainly, instructors’ careful monitoring and intensive facilitation would be beneficial to group collaboration. in practice, however, the issue is the instructors’ workload and time commitment. there can sometimes be too many messages to read and thus too little time to provide timely intervention for problems that might be hindering collaboration processes in individual groups. most current course management systems show students’ participation in terms of quantity. more complete indicators for critical problems in groups journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(2) 37 would help instructors to provide prompt and proper assistance to at-risk groups in collaboration processes (jahng, nielsen, & chan, 2010). more research is suggested to identify or develop instructional methods, and theoretical concepts and models that can be used to support instructors in practice. research design and methodological issues in the included studies this review found some limitations in the research methods employed in the studies that were included. while over 50% of the studies in this review used content analysis methods, all but one of the authors recognised the importance of coding reliability to make their study replicable, and reported inter-coder and/or intra-coder reliabilities. however, the researchers used diverse indices (agreement percentage, cohen’s kappa, negotiated agreement, one-coder consistency) without justifying their choice of index. percentage agreement is not a recommended index, and should be used with a second index that accounts for agreement expected by chance (lombard, snyder-duch, & bracken, 2002). nevertheless, two studies reported only agreement percentages. a negotiated agreement approach, which can be useful in exploratory research (garrison et al., 2006), was recommended. in order to make the reliability transparent, the initial agreement rate had to be recorded before the negotiation was performed and reported. researchers conducting content analysis should properly assess and clearly report inter-coder reliability as well as intracoder reliability because “without the establishment of reliability, content analysis measures are useless”. (neuendorf, 2002, p. 141) this review identified a lack of experimental or quasi-experimental methods. there were no experimental studies and only three quasi-experimental studies included in the data. in educational research, experimentation controlling interested variables for group comparisons is regarded as a difficult approach. nevertheless, experimentation provides a way to determine causal relationships between variables. to provide online educators with practical insights for specific instructional methods, designs, and communication tools that can be used in diverse contexts, researchers are encouraged to conduct a range of substantial experiments that go beyond describing existing strategies and methods. significance and limitations of the systematic review a systematic review is a powerful method for reviewing literature – it provides an overview of primary studies that use explicit and reproducible procedures (greenhalgh, 1997). the objective criteria for including and excluding studies leads to an unbiased identification of relevant studies by limiting favouritism and judgements based on the reputation of the author(s). however, this review recognises that this advantage also poses a potential risk for missing some renowned and relevant studies. for example, some relevant studies might not be included in the review because they were not indexed with the keywords that were selected, or the published journals were not included in the databases that were searched. categorisation of studies was done by inductive coding methods instead of using an a priori (upfront) coding scheme. common themes emerging from the results of the coding were used to group the studies. the author acknowledges that different categorisations would be possible, depending on the review questions and purposes of future studies. jahng, n. s. 38 references badger, d., nursten, j., williams, p., & woodward, m. 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(2005). international online management education courses: a study of participation patterns. internet and higher education, 8(2), 131–144. biographical notes nsjahng@gmail.com namsook jahng recently received her doctorate in the department of curriculum and pedagogy at the university of british columbia. her research interests include evaluating/facilitating collaboration in online courses, using up-to-date technologies to enhance teacher education across disciplines, and connecting research findings with practice. her research specialties are in statistical analyses, metaanalyses, systematic reviews, content analysis, and social network analysis. currently, she works as a statistical analyst and research consultant. � this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. jahng, n., s. (2012). a systematic review of small-group communication in post-secondary online courses. journal of open, flexible and distance learning,16l(2), [26–40]. microsoft word 07final_kato.doc journal of distance learning, vol 11, no 1, 2007 © distance education association of new zealand 1 the impact of a one-year teacher training programme in uganda habib kato, lawrence eron, john maani, aron y. otto, daniel okot, santo auma-okumu, sarah bunoti, andrew cula kyambogo university kampala, uganda background the world conference on education for all (efa) was held in march 1990 in jomtien, thailand. at the conference a declaration was adopted by member states and international agencies to agree to take immediate steps to achieve education for all by the year 2000. the declaration took a broad view or vision of basic education as consisting of formal schooling, non-formal education programmes, open learning systems, and distance education (padhan & chaudhary, 2004). all of the members thought these options would provide avenues for basic education to children, especially in developing countries, and, as importantly, also would benefit the adult population. since the conference was held more than a decade ago, tremendous development has taken place in the provision of education to disadvantaged populations in the developing world. distance education (de) has gained real credibility as a method of providing training to the populations denied formal training and as a way of upskilling national work forces. creed and perraton (2001) argue that teachers have been the most notable beneficiaries of distance education. the demand for distance education is tied to the need to upgrade the knowledge and skills of untrained and underqualified practicing teachers arising from the ever-increasing demand for education. this scenario has challenged traditional teacher education institutions to develop distance teacher education options. the evolution of traditional teacher education institutions into dual-mode providers encounters two major challenges. one challenge is the requirement to recruit or develop qualified, experienced, and supportive personnel who understand the philosophy of de, to organize, control, and direct this evolution. the other is the need to cope with the tensions that emerge as de brings innovation and flexibility to the delivery systems of the institutions. in uganda, following the publication of the government white paper on education (1992), universal primary education was introduced in 1997. this development has tremendously increased the demand for qualified teachers to meet the increased number of children in primary schools (ministry of education and sports, 2004). in response to this challenge, kyambogo university, in partnership with the then international extension college (iec) of the united kingdom, developed a one-year journal of distance learning, vol 11, no 1, 2007 © distance education association of new zealand 2 programme to address the initial knowledge and skills needs of the large number of new support staff required to deliver distance teacher education programmes throughout the country. in uganda, kyambogo university has been the traditional government teacher education institution, delivering inservice and advanced secondary teacher education at its main campus in kampala and working with a national network of teachers’ colleges to deliver primary and basic secondary teacher education programmes. all such programmes had been of a conventional on-campus nature, full-time in nature, from two-year (certificate) programmes to those longer in duration, and all involving various aspects of practicum experiences with attachments to local schools. the emergence of the distance, in-service option enabled the training of the large number of practicing but untrained teachers in the ugandan school system, as well as providing more advanced training to the equally large number of practicing under-trained teachers, i.e., those with minimal training who required upskilling and further training. kyambogo university introduced two distance programmes in response to the demand: • a diploma of education primary external (depe) qualification for primary teachers wishing to upgrade from a two-year trained certificate level to a three-year trained diploma level; • a diploma of special needs education, external (dsnee) for special needs teachers to upgrade in the same way as for the depe. in addition kyambogo university is planning to offer a bachelor of education, primary external (bepe) degree programme to enable primary teachers to begin the process of upgrading to a three-year trained level. more than 5,000 students enrolled in the depe and dsnee programmes. these were delivered using a combination of specially delivered print-based self-study modules, elements of formal and informal face-to-face components (including tutorials), tutor-marked assignments, and support and communication systems utilizing radio, sms, and postal communication systems as well as nationwide resource people. many of the people used initially to provide the practitioner support services had limited experience in, or knowledge of, distance delivery systems. kyambogo offered short training experiences for these people but this was felt to be insufficient. kyambogo’s relationship with the iec was used to develop a more formalized programme of study for these support people, delivered by distance to promote empathy for the distance learner which was considered very important. to kick-start the training of distance education practitioner-facilitators in uganda, a total of 70 trainees was selected from a number of institutions, notably kyambogo university, makerere university, national teachers’ colleges, and primary teachers’ colleges. the selection of these trainees was on the basis of their active contribution to the distance education (primary) and special needs programme outlined above. the selected trainees consisted of lecturers, administrators, academic registrars, principals, and deputy principals. they pursued a programme, designed by the journal of distance learning, vol 11, no 1, 2007 © distance education association of new zealand 3 iec in collaboration with kyambogo, which led to the award of a certificate in distance education. this programme was run over a period of one academic year and delivered through a distance mode. description of the delivery model the delivery model included the following: • three print-based self-study modules, each supplemented with a module of readings, and supported by a learner’s handbook. the modules centre around three courses: learner support in distance education, distance materials design and development, management of distance education. • a short face-to-face residential course, where learning challenges were explored and experiences shared. • a major tutor-marked assignment, with feedback shared in the residential course. • attachment of a tutor to each de practitioner-trainee. these tutors were selected on the basis of their experience and training in distance education in uganda. this expertise was generated through one-cycle de donor-funded projects which had formerly operated or were currently operating in uganda. in addition, a specialist from iec was seconded as an occasional advisor to the department of distance education, kyambogo university, to assist with aspects of programme implementation. in january 2002, 65 of the 70 original participants to the training programme successfully completed the first cycle of this programme and were awarded the certificate in distance education of the iec. problem statement once the graduates returned to their respective work places, there was a need to assess the impact of this training on their performance in the training and support of primary teachers they undertook within the depe and dsnee programmes. a research exercise was conceptualized to establish the impact of the iec course. the purpose of the study was to determine the impact of the iec course on the competence and confidence of the graduates in managing and supporting distance education programmes. we were interested to explore the following two questions: 1. what impact has the one-year iec course had on the performance of the graduates in the support and delivery of distance teacher training? 2. is there a difference in performance between the graduates and nongraduates of the iec course in the support and delivery of distance teacher training? methodology the method used was essentially qualitative, using a series of comprehensive questionnaires (of the open-ended model used by patton, 1990). these questionnaires explored skills and experiences, performance, attitudes, and confidence. results from the questionnaires were collated and some simple parametric statistical analyses were undertaken. a total of 117 respondents participated in the study. these included: • 36 graduates of the first cycle of the iec programme, from the 65 who completed; journal of distance learning, vol 11, no 1, 2007 © distance education association of new zealand 4 • 32 peer and supervising staff members; • 49 non-participant peers and administrators who were used as a control group (those working alongside the one-year programme graduates, but who did not themselves undertake the programme). respondents were all drawn from kyambogo university, makerere university (also in kampala), and national teachers’ colleges (ntcs) and primary teachers’ colleges (ptcs) located in the four traditional regions of uganda—the north, east, central, and western regions. three categories of questionnaires were used for collecting data. all of the questionnaires contained both openended and closed questions. category one: iec one-year programme graduates. this questionnaire solicited information from the iec graduates on personal data, usefulness of the iec course, and performance of the graduates after the iec course. the information on personal data identified the profiles of the graduates who took part in the iec one-year programme. category two: staff working with, and alongside, the iec graduates, but not as distance practitioners. this questionnaire sought information on the usefulness of the iec course on the performance of the graduates. it sought to check whether the iec graduates changed their way of working with distance learning students and other staff after their training. category three: those people who had not undertaken the iec programme of study, but were working as distance practitioners alongside the iec graduates. this questionnaire sought to find out how this alternate group of distance practitioners compared with the graduates of the iec course on knowledge of distance education methods in teaching and in supporting the distance learner. the study was carried out in all the institutions in which the graduates of the one-year iec programme worked. the questionnaires were designed, pilot tested, and corrected where necessary. they were then administered to selected respondents by the researchers. the qualitative information was clustered under themes and interpreted based on the research questions which guided the study. key findings the following key findings resulted from collation and analysis of the data. graduate perception of the programme’s value the overwhelming majority (92 percent) of graduates felt the programme was positive and extremely valuable for their understanding of distance education and in the provision of skills and knowledge which could be applied as they support the delivery of kyambogo distance teacher training programmes. this was certainly consistent with the original programme objective to develop human capacity in the delivery and management of distance learning (international extension college, 2001). in particular, graduates felt that the programme familiarized them with the important conceptual aspects of distance education. they noted that the programme met their expectations and was relevant to their work, especially the study and support journal of distance learning, vol 11, no 1, 2007 © distance education association of new zealand 5 materials. also, they noted the mode of delivery was particularly appropriate and helped them to develop a real empathy with their own distance learners, thus changing many of their existing professional and personal attitudes toward the distance learners. they also felt a need to encourage other distance practitioners, not yet trained, to undertake the programme if given an opportunity. self-assessment by the programme graduates in terms of assessing their own performance, graduates felt particular areas of their work had improved significantly given the knowledge and skills gained from the programme. these areas included: attitude to, and reception of, distance learners; ability to listen to, and understand, distance learners; need to be flexible in using (creating or modifying) systems to support distance learners; providing study guidance to distance learners; and designing, analyzing, and organizing study materials for distance learners. much of this learning revolved around changed attitudes toward, and understanding of, distance learners and their distinctive contextual needs. when compared to the practitioners who had not undertaken the programme of study, all of these areas had been greatly enhanced among the graduates. these improvements were in comparison to areas such as the provision of face-toface components of delivery to distance learners, planning for de delivery, and record keeping, all of which saw no significant self-perception difference between the graduates and those not yet having undertaken the programme. this is of concern given that tait (1995), simpson (2000), and bhalalusesa (2001) all agree that these aspects are important for effective delivery models. these changes of attitude and in levels of understanding and empathy were manifested in enhanced levels of care by the graduates for the distance learners— regarded, in the ugandan context, as a key component in the retention of and success for such learners. application of concepts learned in the programme participants agreed, overwhelmingly, that they were now able to apply concepts learned in the programme to their professional work context in the delivery and management of distance education. this stood in marked contrast to the non-participants, who still felt distinct shortcomings in these conceptual areas. most notably, the participants felt able to implement: • newly learned writing and design skills for the development of distance self-study materials—whether for print-based or multimedia (especially radio scripts) delivery. • the need to understand the personal and contextual circumstances of all learners so as to enhance levels, and modes, of student support. • the process of undertaking environmental analyses (using a swot-type approach) in order to better understand the institutional capacity to design and support the effective delivery of a programme to distance learners. • the concept of programme logic in the design and development of distance learning programmes, with the key components of developing objectives, activities, and measures of progress journal of distance learning, vol 11, no 1, 2007 © distance education association of new zealand 6 along with (and this is important in uganda with its contextual volatility) risk analyses and responses. this concept, however, was noted as being the most difficult to apply. responsibilities gained after the iec course a large majority of the participants indicated they were given significant new responsibilities in the delivery and management of de after completing the programme. they attributed this to management and supervisors understanding that they had acquired new knowledge, skills, and understanding. responsibilities given were related to the following roles: trainers and trainer coordinators; team leaders (for student support and materials development); learning facilitators. these areas of responsibility closely equated with the areas graduates perceived as having been the most useful from the programme content. non-participants also were being given similar areas of responsibility, although, as they indicated, this was because of the shortage of appropriately experienced resource persons. they felt a lack of sufficient skills and knowledge in their new areas of responsibility and expressed eagerness to have opportunities to undertake formal training of a type provided by the one-year programme. reduction of attrition among distance education students the programme participant-graduates indicated that the programme had greatly enhanced their understanding of distance learners and their support needs. they were then able, more effectively, to design, implement, and manage appropriate support mechanisms which enhanced learner retention rates in the programmes (depe and dsnee) they were delivering. in contrast the nonparticipants had significantly less understanding of the need to develop support mechanisms which would impact on learner retention and success rates. key academic support mechanisms which participant-graduates noted as a result of exposure to the programme content included: • remedial work • building learner profiles • designing learner-friendly materials • time management/budgeting for distance education • conducting regular face-to-face meetings • keeping students busy • encouraging them to study seriously • helping them understand terms • sharing with them the need for special needs education • making learning materials accessible • encouraging students to read literature on special needs education non-academic issues identified by the participants as measures to help in reducing attrition included: • empathy • individual attention • encouraging early payment of fees • regular visits to them • teaching personal experience essentially the participants seemed now to have a strong realization that real innovations are required in academic support, learning methods, guidance and counselling, and non-academic support methods, in order to promote improvements in student progress and retention. case and elliot (1997) suggest these represent the foundations for the journal of distance learning, vol 11, no 1, 2007 © distance education association of new zealand 7 development and implementation of successful retention programmes for distance learners. in addition the role of care, guidance, and counselling is also paramount when combined with efficient and flexible systems of student support. simpson (2000) and acar and wrightson (1996) reflected this from their own experiences. the majority of the participant-graduates indicated these values had been inculcated in them through exposure to this programme, whereas non-participants seemed not to have been so acculturated. resource allocation there was remarkable synergy between participants and non-participants when asked to identify the key aspects in distance education which required resourcing in order to enhance delivery of distance programmes. both essentially ranked the following areas as most important for resourcing: materials development; learner support systems; training of learning facilitators (tutors, counsellors, etc.). this synergy may have occurred because of exposure to de programme delivery by all categories of respondents. participants, however, seemed to have a better understanding of how resources could be used within each of these areas. other areas of attention varied widely in perception of importance between the two categories. one such area was the role of resourcing information and communication technology. although both categories rated this reasonably high, the non-participants considered this much more important (in fact just below the three most important categories listed above), whereas the participant-graduates rated this much lower. it may well be that the participantgraduates, through their training, had a more realistic understanding of the learning contexts of the ugandan de learners. performance of the iec graduates after the course peers of the participant-graduates who were either co-professionals or managersupervisors in some way were asked to comment on the graduates’ performance as a result of their exposure to the training. they were specifically asked to comment on performance areas which they felt had been enhanced, especially in relation to both the participant’s preprogramme performance and those of the non-participants. the following areas were regarded as having superior levels of performance, and all related to areas of content and coverage provided by the one-year programme: • transparent and open interaction with fellow staff, with a willingness to share • capacity to interact with, and care for, the distance learners • knowledge of distance learning programme delivery aspects • planning for distance programme development and implementation • caring attitude toward the work and the distance learner one area which peers felt had not changed was in the keeping of student records. this points to a possible need for future revision of such a training programme—given the impact that student records (in generating feedback) can have on learner morale. when asked to self-assess their performances, participant-graduates also rated these areas as the most positive areas of their improvement. journal of distance learning, vol 11, no 1, 2007 © distance education association of new zealand 8 conclusions & implications given that the main objective for developing such a training programme, in the ugandan context, was to enhance the capacity of the distance education support and management practitioners, the following represent the main areas of impact, with clear implications for continued existence of such training: • by undertaking this training, the practitioners were able to empathise with their own distance learners and their learning contexts. this involved understanding elements of time, study, and personal constraints. a greater understanding of ways of dealing with the mature adult learner was gained, including a stronger awareness of the study skill requirements of the distance learner. • exposure to the training promoted changes in the tone and care required when relating to de learners. it inculcated a willingness to attend to the needs of the distance learners. this was reflected in real attitudinal changes among facilitators in the way they deal with distance learners. the study has enhanced problem anticipation skills, and has provided a stronger sense of obligations and commitments for the management and support staff in the distance education delivery model. • it appears to have promoted the use of teamwork and collaboration in the delivery of distance education programmes as a result of the teambased experiential learning engaged in by the learners on this programme. • all of this has meant that the pool of conventional educators can be assisted to convert to distance modes of thinking. these, in turn, as newly knowledgeable people, have been able to cross-fertilise with their colleagues to promote the spread of understanding around management and delivery of distance education. this has further impacted on enhanced levels of collaboration among staff in newly developed dualmode institutions. much of the traditional tension in such institutions is now being dissipated. • analytical skills acquired from the study can now be applied more effectively in a number of areas of management and delivery of distance education—most notably in materials development, management systems, planning processes, and student support design and delivery, i.e., in the key pillars of distance education systems. • in general the culture of the learning model used in this training programme has encouraged multilevels of collaboration between the distance learners themselves and between support and management practitioners in the field. in the ugandan context, which is still somewhat dominated by conventional modes of teacher education delivery, distance education has had to promote levels of awareness and understanding among the wider group of educators. this training programme has been extremely effective in assisting in this process by promoting empathy, understanding, and objective knowledge of the value and convenience of the distance delivery mode in dealing with the demands from, and unique contexts of, the rapidly changing ugandan learner environment. journal of distance learning, vol 11, no 1, 2007 © distance education association of new zealand 9 references acar, c., & wrightson, t. (1996). the imperative of retaining contact with the remote distance learner: a perspective from uganda. the journal of distance learning, 2(1), 45–50. bhalalusesa, e. (2001). supporting women distance learners in tanzania. open learning, 16(2), 30–33. case, p., & elliott, b. (1997). attrition and retention in distance learning: programmes, problems, strategies, and solutions. open praxis, 1(1), 30–33. creed, c., & perraton, h. (2001). distance education for basic education in the e9 countries. paris: unesco. government of the republic of uganda. (1992). white paper on the educational policy review commission report: education for national integration and development. kampala, uganda: ministry of education. international extension college. (2001). inception report for capacity building in open and distance learning in uganda. cambridge, united kingdom: iec. ministry of education and sports. (2004). educational statistical abstract. kampala, uganda: ministry of education and sports. padhan, a., & chaudhary, s. s. (2004). addressing training needs in universalisation of elementary education: a distance education perspective. indian journal of open learning, 13(2), 151–165. patton, m. q. (1990). qualitative evaluation and research methods. newbury park, california: sage. simpson, o. (2000). supporting students in open and distance learning. london: kogan page. tait, a. (1995). student support in open and distance learning. in f. lockwood (ed.), open and distance learning today. london: routledge. the authors are a team of experienced distance educators and researchers from kyambogo university, kampala, uganda. kyambogo university is the government university charged with overseeing the training of all teachers for uganda. the authors conducted the research as an action research component of the capacity-building project described in this article. scanned document phil race and steve mcdowell, 1996: 500 computing tips for teachers and lecturers. kogan page, london, pp.135, nz$37.00. with more and more people buying computers for home and school use, guides like this are assured of a place in the market. in this slim volume race and mcdowell set out the steps for 'getting started with computers' in the first chapter, beginning with the purchase of the necessary hardware. part of this chapter is devoted to 'green' issues in relation to computing, with advice to the reader to ask the salesperson about the extent to which components in the new machine can be recycled, how to set up a 'paperless' office, and how to save on printing costs by making handouts to students available on disc with the facility for editing. race and mcdowell have set out their 500 tips in note form under 47 topics divided into four chapters which, following the first chapter, are devoted to software, it for teaching and learning, and a concluding chapter called 'more bits and pieces' which covers such things as multimedia, printing, monitors, 'space junk', the law, viruses, and a large range of other matters. surprisingly, the internet receives little attention and this large topic is covered in a mere two pages. marty people beginning computing will want to know more about the internet than is provided here but will have to look elsewhere. in a book that covers so many aspects of computing, more information on the internet could reasonably have been expected by readers. there are some useful tips about the internet though. readers are advised to use the internet 'at cheap rates if possible' to reduce their telephone accounts, and there is a little information on e-mail, newsgroups, modems, service providers, and on-line information services. book reviews i w04ld have found this book very useful when learning to use my first computer. the authors have organised this introductory volume on computing in a carefully graduated way. there are a few explanatory pages at the beginning of each chapter which inform the reader how the pages that follow are organised and how to use them according to the level that one has already achieved. clearly, not every part of each of the four chapters will be necessary for all those who consult this book, but anyone other than an it professional is sure to find at least some of tips provided by race and mcdowell useful. advice when learning to use a new programme such as 'don't try to learn too much', and the authors' acknowledgement that modem programmes are extremely complex and that most users will only ever use a small part of them is reassuring for anyone being introduced to computers and computing. advice like finding a 'real task to try' when beginning to use a computer is also useful, acknowledging that one usually learns how to use a computer by focusing on a particular job that needs to be done. advice to allow time to learn a new programme and to save one's work often will be appreciated by novices as well as by more seasoned use(s of computers. i found the section on word processing particularly sound, as well as the following section on where to go next inserting pictures and diagrams, 'foreign' characters, file exchange options and so on. for me, the most useful part of the book of 'tips' is the section on spreadsheets, an aspect of computing that i have always found difficult. the format of 500 tips for teachers and lecturers makes the book easy to use and the column will be a useful companion for the beginning computer user. the format enables the reader to access the tips easily and each piece of journal of distance lea ming. vol 3. no i. 1997 (e) disranee edu cari on assoeiarion of new zealand 36 advice is succinct and easy to understand. 500 tips for teachers and lecturers is sure to find a place beside many home and school computers. the clarity of the language used by race and mcdowell is refreshing in a field that is easily clouded by jargon which, for many beginning as well as seasoned users, can be very intimidating. this volume already has a place near my word processor. ken stevens victoria university of wellington terry evans and daryl nation (editors), 1996: opening education policies and practices from open and distance education. routledge, london and new york, pb: uk14.99. opening education is the latest addition to the routledge studies in distance education series. this book will be read by the distance education and open learning fraternity but will also command the attention of educationalists generally. terry evans and daryl nation, the editors, provide an overall framework for opening education in a brief introductory chapter and successfully synthesise their contributors' ideas, viewpoints and information at the end of the book. they quickly focus the reader on the importance of globalisation in opening education; of modern technologies that enable world-wide audiences to access various local, regional and national educational experiences, and of transformations to these contexts because of global influences. the editors and their contributors exemplify the importance of rigorously examining educational ideas, policies and practices arising from the interplay of local and international influences. fourteen selected contributors from different national contexts assist the editors to define and debate important issues related to open and opening learning. some of the chapter writers are well known but others are less familiar. such a selection has provided a rich variety of material, contexts and perspectives as well as a refreshing stylistic melange. the book's purpose, to provide the opportunity to reflect on opening education, is enhanced by eclectic choice of contributors, all of whom underscore the importance of issues of globalisation, technology and life-long learning. these issues emerge as the common threads of ideas, experiences and comment in relation to opening education. to suit their particular purpose, the editors have sequenced their contributors' chapters. however, they can be read in any order without compromising the connectedness of the book. j ames hall and andrew robinson in their respective initial chapters provide a modern technology focus. hall contends that technology is able to change all learning and as a consequence the traditional organising concept of universities is being challenged. new structures and practices are emerging, blurring distinctions between distance and campus-based learning. from the european context, andrew robinson analyses and discusses the european union policies to readjust educational frameworks to promote life-long learning utilising the products of the information technology revolution. open and distance learning are acknowledged as important agents for educational access, technology transfer, regional development and job creation. he identifies many of the barriers to progressing towards these goals, yet optimistically points to how these barriers can be overcome. including contributions related to the often ignored school and non-formal sector in distance and opening learning, adds to the appeal of this publication. ole aaberhus and brian kenworthy take the reader to mongolia. the material and their analysis is based on their own work and that of others in assessing educational needs and constructing a proposal j otl m al o/distance lea m ing, vol 3, n o i , 1997 (c) distan ce educa ti on associ ation of new zealand 37 for distance education as an ins trument in the overall development of mongolia. providing education in a vast, thinly populated country undergoing dramatic political and economic changes presents incredible challenges. an example of local adaptation of appropriate technology-based educational solutions sourced internationally is provided in this chapter. home-based education, research conclusions about its effectiveness and its increasing popularity as an alternative to institution-based schooling are covered in roland meighan's contribution. most of his material relates to the united kingdom and provides insights into the characteristics of homeschoolers, the education establishment's treatment of them and the effectiveness of such provlslon . meighan concludes, "home educators are, without necessarily intending to, blazing the trail for a future flexible education system that provides alternatives for everybody, all the time." margaret haughey and judy roberts survey policy and practice in open and distance schooling in canada. their contribution covers federal, provincial, school jurisdiction and individual school initiatives to develop technological infrastructures to expand educational opportunities. of particular interest is the decentralising of distance education, the development of education partnerships, schools and school systems sharing resources and the increase in school based distance education. this succinct but comprehensive examination invites interesting comparisons for antipodean readers familiar with their own correspondence based distance education institutions. two different approaches are taken by victor jakupec and richard johnson respectively in their analyses of the australian governments' reforms and restructuring of distance education since the mid 1980s. for jakupec, policies and reforms were devised to conform to economic rationalistic ideology of the new right. he concludes though that the demise of the short-lived decs has propelled distance education into the mainstream as higher education institutions adopt open and flexible deli very policies and practices . rich a rd johnson sees the failure to rationalise distance education in australian higher education as having led to waste and an inability to achieve coherent purpose and provision. this situation he regards as the result of direct,ionless policy and a lack of will on the part of all stakeholders to work through issues to find sound solutions. from australia to india, and sontash panda discusses the interrelationship between policies on education and distance education and actual practices. a brief history of india's higher education and distance provision is followed by his observations on distance education practices, especially issues such as access, relevance, quality and effectiveness. finally, he suggests the need for traditional and open universities to converge and collaborate far more than at present. angelo castro and charles wong provide a contrasting context to that of sontash panda. hong kong is a developed, populous but pocket sized territory. distance and openness take on new meanings in hong kong where continuing education is an important alternative for working adults. the writers highlight the significance of 'temporal distance'. both local and overseas institutions operate in the territory and the writers discuss the policies and practices that characterise such dual provision. readers will be reminded of richard johnson's view of the australian policy experience when they reflect on the comments these two writers make about the ad hocery of government policies in hong kong. increasingly, stakeholders are demanding an assurance of quality services from their distance and open learning institutions. andrea mcilroy and robyn walker discuss the potential of total quality management, a practice drawn from the business world, as the basis of a quality solution. tqm is explained, some quality practices implemented in education contexts are discussed and they outline how tqm could be applied within j ot/mal of distance leaming, vol 3, no 1, 1997 (cl distance edu ca ti on associ ation of new zeal an d 38 distance education with advantage. nick campion's open learn ing, closing minds is the last contribution in the book. as the arresting title to this chapter suggests, nick campion alerts the reader to the disservice to educational processes that results from an uncritical acceptance of current discourse promoting open learning. an analysis of changing learning contexts is followed by comment on the perceived educational contributions of open learning. using material from alan bloom and other theorists he provides a basis for the critical examination of university level open learning policies and practices. terry evans and daryl nation have succeeded in providing a very accessible book that discusses substantive issues. their choice of contributors from a wide range of contexts heightens interest while the ability of all contributors to communicate their ideas in clear, jargon free prose is refreshing. by inviting readers to reflect on the concept of opening education, the editors and their contributors have achieved their purposes admirably. from the range of ideas, experiences, policies and practices concerned with distance, open and flexible learning, the reader cannot help being drawn into constructive reflection on many of the issues related to opening education. alan dodds the correspondence school, wellington peter raggatt, richard edwards & nick small (editors), 1996: the learning society: challenges and trend s. routledge, london and new york, 302pp., £12.99 a book describing radical changes to adult education in britain may not appear to have much relevance to students in new zealand tertiary education institutions, but the many well written chapters in the learning society covering thirty years of changes to what used to be known and understood as adult education would suggest otherwise. the story it tells will seem familiar to new zealand readers. in many cases only the names and local details are different. this is because ideological influences known popularly as thatcherism and reaganism have filtered through to all levels of the education systems of the britain, australian and new zealand. as th e learning society points out the transformations wrought by thatcherism in british politics and society have changed old style adult education with its concern over liberal theories of adult education, its providers and how the sector was (and sought to be) provisioned . the changes have led to a utilitarian version of adult education which emphasises a lifelong, but flexible, kind of vocationally oriented learning provided in a range of different settings as diverse as the home, the workplace, study groups or individuals . quite literally, the responsibility for providing education for adults in the postcompulsory period has shifted from the state to the individuals and employers. the concept of change is a common strand running through the learning society. the most influential of the changes are those concerning the new technologies. it is pointed out that technological changes not only impinge upon the workplace and the modes of production but they underlie a greater demand for the more highly skilled workers not to mention the expectation that employing organisa tions should be 'learning organisations' with the potential to develop fully their workers abilities. unfortunately, as the editors of the learning society point out, with the cultural changes that have taken place as a result of the introduction of 'a consumer society', there is now a clear tendency to favour those who are most likely to have access to education and training over those who are economically active but less well off. yet, on the other hand, there are those who have derived benefits from the technological, economic, social and cultural changes which have taken place during the last thirty years in britain. the shift to a learning society has provided new learning opportunities for social journal a/distance learning. vol 3. no i. 1997 (c) distance education association of new zealand 39 activists including feminists, environmentalists, conservationists, and other similar movements. the principal message in the book under review is that lifelong learning, while in the present climate it tends to emphasise the government's economic and labour market objectives, it also makes a contribution to the wider cultural, social and equitable goals of society. the 17 chapters in the learning society, in one way or another, explain the decline of liberal adult education in britain and europe and the rise of the learning society concept. chapters by stock, and tuijnman, paint a historical picture of the decline of the liberal influence in adult education in britain and europe. tuckett and tett investigate the consequences of these trends in terms of funding and participation levels, especially of the older adult age group. employment related issues such as company cultures, parttime casual and temporary work, and equity are covered in chap ters by clarke, hart and tuijnman. policy, theoretical issues, and the future of the evolving learning society are covered by schuller and bostyn, workpole, field, jansen and van der veen. chapters by van der zee, and the commission of social justice look especially at the personal effects that the changes are having upon individual adults within the learning society, while waterman et al, payne, and cooper investigate the nature in employment conditions (including career opportunities) and what this means in terms of employer obligations and responsibili ties. with technology playing a seminal role in the move to a learning society reinforced by the government's shift in policy towards individual choice in education and training, this reviewer was interested to see what the contributions in the learning society said about adult learning methodology issues such as experiential learning, flexible learning, open learning and distance learning. apart from a brief mention of experiential learning by jansen and van der veen and scott's prediction that the university campus of the future will provide new forms of teaching and learning in a 'wired-up campus', most of the methodology issues are presented in three chapters: field (op en learning and consumer culture), cooper (guidance and coherence in flexible learning) and kirkup and jones (new technologies for open learning). of these three contributors cooper's main concern was to demonstrate that flexible learning will complicate choices people now have to make about new forms of learning which in turn complicates both educational guidance and career choice. one likely outcome of the trend to 'port-folio careers' will be for a move away from institutional to community-ba sed guidance. field's interest was in the way adult education and open learning have been influenced by the consumption patterns of a consumer culture. he suggested that the passion for open learning has resulted in new links being created between the educational and domestic worlds which enhance 'furtive learning' and open up a whole new range of preferred forms of learning, such as lifestyles, and motivation to learn as an individual or in a group, which in the end is still determined by one's level of disposable income. thus, in field's view the development of lifelong learning as a form of human development is very much dependent upon the culture and economic capital and the way they interact. the last chapter in the learning society is by kirkup and jones who write about new technologies and open learning. to these writers it is the promise of the new technologies in the delivery of education and training that links open learning and distance education to the notion of the learning society. because of this distance education as a term is dated and open distance learning (odl) is more appropriate because among other things it puts the emphasis for learning upon individual learners, a dominant theme in the learning socie ty. the odl approach has brought many new opportunities but at the same time it has shown up weaknesses that are not easily overcome by the technologies . j ournal a/distance leam ing, vol 3 , no 1, 199 7 (c) distance edu ca tion assoc iati on of new zeal an d 40 the uneven distribution of the new technologies across social groups, according to kirkup and jones, will limit their potential or simply reinforce historic and contemporary education and training inequalities among adult learners. like field, kirkup and jones indicate that access to new opportunities in life, or in this case the new information and communication technologies, is dependent upon the adult leamer's wealth and lifestyle. the editors of the learning society have put together a comprehensive resource book for those interested in studying adult learning in the modem age. the message they, and their collection of authcrs, have passed on about the changes that have taken place in britain and europe is an overall positive by qualified one : the learning society is thus not likely to be a utopian society in which learning opportunities are available to all without restriction but one in which fresh challenges and new opportunities will be presented to those concerned with adult learners and lifelong learning alongside older questions of justice and equity. as i have come to expect with open university course materials, this book is another valuable resource for those studying adult learning, not only in britain and europe, but in other countries with a british heritage . i have no hesitation in recommending the learning society to students and teachers of adult learning, and to any librarians seeking to update their collections of adult education and adult learning reference materials. at a cost of about $nz30 the learning society is a good investment. graham wagner new zealand council for educational research fred lockwood (editor) 1995: open and distance learning today. routledge studies in distance education, london, ppxv 377, $nz103-00 (hardback); $nz36.66 (paperback) this is a particularly wide-ranging volume of essays about contemporary distance education. it is international in scope and brings together contributions from a very wide range of distance educators, some of whom will be well known to readers. lockwood has organised this collection of contemporary writing on distance education and open learning into eight parts, beginning with five essays on trends and directions in distance education. this first of these, by david hawkridge of the open university, provides a timely overview of the big bang theory in distance education which looks at current directions in the much discussed information super highway where this is going in different parts of the world. hawkridge's analysis of the much hyped phenomenon provides the reader with a perspectives of where telecommunications are likely to go and not go in the next five years. this is well placed as the opening essay in this diverse and wide ranging collection and provides the reader with a framework within which to consider where distance education and open learning are heading in th e much discussed information age. another essay in the first section which i found particularly valuable was by michael moore who provides a literature review of american distance education from the american journal of distance education. this chapter will be a valuable reference for those wanting an overview of this important source of distance education research for the immediate future. tony bates' chapter on creating a vision in open and distance learning concludes this section. his analysis of the field is grounded, appropriately, in the changing education environment with which we are all familiar. i found this initial section of lockwood's collection which contains five thoughtful and diverse essays very stimulating and have returned to re-read some of them. as a group of essays they fulfil the promise of the section's heading trends and directions'. a relatively little-researched area of distance education, the student experience, is the subject of another section of this collection. this collection of only three essays contains a thoughtful chapter by terry evans on the jollmal ofdistall<e leawing, vol 3, no 1, 1997 (el distance education association of new zealand 41 potential of research with students to inform the development of the future courses. there are other essays throughout the collection that cover the leamer's perspective of being taught at a distance, including one by the editor on assessment material. anyone who has taught a course at a distance will recognise the need for learner support and lockwood has taken care to provide a section of this book on how this can be managed. i am sure that this will be one of the most widely used sections of this collection by distance educators. the following sections of this collection of essays cover information technology, the use of media by learners, course design and assessment, the development of textual materials and various other dimensions of distance education. there is something in this book for almost everyone who has any involvement with teaching or learning at a distance. perhaps the scope of the book is too broad, but as an introduction to distance eduction this volume of contemporary essays is excellent. as a snapshot of the state of the art of distance education in developing societies at the present time, it is unsurpassed. it could be argued that there is scant attention to the provision of education at a distance in developing countries, but to attempt to cover this complex area would over-extend the scope of an already broadly based collection. one of the features of this overview of the state of the art of distance education in developing countries is the changing nature of the field and the number of essays which deal with electronic aspects of the delivery of courses. one contribution which stands out is desmond keegan's chapter about teaching and learning by satellite in a european virtual classroom. the technologies of teaching courses this way are explained in technical but lucid terms and even the costs are included. of the 209 students who enrolled for the course that is described and taught by satellite, 207 passed the final examination. as keegan notes, the low drop-out rate from distance education courses may reflect the possibility that students do not drop out from distance education courses when paid for by their company or when they do the course in company time. this collection of essays is so wide-ranging and covers so many different aspects of contemporary distance education, from so many different perspectives (the leamer, the teacher, the course designer, the evaluator) as well as providing a section on current directions that it is not possible to be other than impressed at its scope. it is a definitive collection of essays about a changing field at a time in which a growing numbers of institutions are becoming aware of the convergence of information and communication technologies and their implications for teaching and learning. ken stevens victoria university of welling ton journal ojdistance learning. vol 3. no i . 1997 (cl distance education association of new zealand 42 introduction shirley had just joined ute. the u niversity oftele-existence. there were no conditions, other than the fee which let her use the facilities. getting on to courses was another matter. it all depended on the professors, how many students they accepted, what they expected in a student, how much they charged and of course whether you really wanted to study with them. it was up to the learner to choose what was worth doing and the open policy of letting learners and teachers find their own levels had, everyone agreed, resulted in some brilliant innovations in teaching. there was a system she had heard about where groups of students who really wanted to study a particular topic or learn about the ideas of a particular person would hire someone to teach them, paying whatever they needed to ... she stood in the quad watching the patterns the telepresences made with the colours of their gowns. each colour signified a field of interest so there would be clusters of people with the same colour all arguing with each other, and blinking on and off as they came and went ... ... there was a reassuring link with tradition in the shapes of the jour towering buildings on each side of the quad. each one was dedicated to the founding factors on which the university was based: teachers, learners, problems and knowledge. pointing at the building of knowledge she flew up to its great rotunda and looked around at the giant 'mappa mundi' of knowledge about tele-existence and virtual reality. ute was there in the centre with the world's biggest collection of virtual realities. some benefactor had the wisdom to foresee the need to begin collecting from the beginning. the other parts of the the search lalita rajasingham department of communication studies victoria university of wellington wellington new zealand map showed the known territory of other collections of information and knowledge in different media that were allied or collections of information and knowledge in different media that were allied or related to the field of tele-existence and virtual reality. most of them could be accessed through internet but these days netu!orking knowledge was like using the underground. you were always having to change networks and it was expensive. what was really fascinating was the terra incognita at the periphery of the map which was continuously updated as rumours came in of new developments in computergenerated virtual reality (cgvr) ... to see the whole domain of a subject laid out on a 'live ' map that was endlessly developing was exciting and all she had to do to find out more about something was to box it with her finger and like a mandelbrot set it would show another knowledge map at another level of detail. you could search and explore until you found the knowledge y o u wanted and downloaded it for study. it was also possible to use the system to find an expert in a field, or someone who shared your interests ... soon she was talking to what she knew from the shape of his gown was a second year student who shared her interest in the effects of tele-existence on children. before long the conversation switched to what was happening in the place of problems ... from here shirley drifted to the learners locus ... because students go to a university to meet students as well as study, even if everyone is a telepresence. before she left the campus, shirley wanted to visit the towers of teaching .. she moved back to the quad where there was a large crowd of telepresences watching a performance of virtual music. a full moon ivoried the towers of journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 26 teaching. it was the balance, she mused as she lifted off her head mounted device (hmd) unit and savoured the heat of the midday sun. it wast he special balance of the traditional and the new that made for a great university. that and keeping up appearances. how feasible is this scenario? the technologies that make a ute possible will be available by the end of this decade. technologies like virtual reality and multimedia can give human beings fully immersive computer-generated, simulated communication encounters in real time. why the search? as information technology impacts on all sectors of society, it changes the way we live. as problems become global, for example, environmental issues, global solutions are needed. this in turn calls for internationalised knowledge. just as national economies are jacked in to global, so national education systems and classrooms are facing major challenges. learning processes are lagging appallingly behind and are leaving both individuals and societies unprepared to meet the challenge posed by global issues. this failure of learning means that human preparedness remains underdeveloped on a global scale. learning is in this sense far more than just another global problem: its failure represents, in a fundamental way, the issue of issues . . . (botkin, elmandjra and malitza 1979, 9). the problem worldwide, societies face the dilemma that their education systems are designed to meet past the nee d s of a g ricultural and industrial societies, no t the coming information society. we live in a period of transition between an industrial and information society. but our educational systems based on a factory model are preparing people for the ideas and attitudes and values of a way of life that is fading away and for work in are a s of shrinking l abour requirements. scho ols seem unable to respond to the new needs of the societies that support them. it is no longer sufficient for people to become literate and numerate. the growth of the knowledge industry has brought a demand for new skills, and new literacies. e ducation systems are failing to provide the quantity and quality of workers which countries will require for sustaine� economic growth in the next century. they are also failing to address that part of the education of an individual that is needed to prepare them as citizens of an information society. what kind of system is needed to prepare people for life in an information society? it is the search for answers that prompted john tiffin and i to write our book in search for the virtual class: education for the information society. it is not a search to replace the conventional classroom. it is a search for an alternative or complementary loci of learning in the future. does the problem lie in the way education is administered, the methods of instruction and the content of curricula? these are the issues that advanced industrial societies focus on as they attempt to find a solution. in our book, our concern is with the extent to which the problem lies with the classroom as a communication system for learning. the classroom is a resilient system that has lasted for many hundreds of years. any new alternative system has to be at least as successful as the conventional classroom. the use of technology in education can be justified on some critical grounds: it must provide as, or more effective, and cost efficient learning than conventional classrooms and expand educational opportunity for more people than was hitherto possible. around the world the demand grows for more education and training opportunities. most societies now believe that their future advancement can no longer only depend on their land, climate and extractive fuels but rather upon the capability of their people, and this depends upon how they are educated. education is fast becoming the key issue of our time. western educational tradition can be regarded as a two by four by six activity, to use a metaphor from the building trade. it is contained within journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 27 the two covers of a book; took place within the four walls of a classroom; and happened during six periods of the day. this deeply ingrained idea is changing. education as a lifelong activity is becoming regarded as one of the characteristics of an information society. advances in science and technology mean that increasingly industrial processes are knowledge-based and driven. workers have to maintain their employability by constantly renewing their knowledge and skills particularly to satisfy the growing demand for knowledge workers with internationally competitive skills. the increase in the number of tertiary students in most countries is in part because more school leavers are going on to further education, but it is also due to the growing number of adults and particularly women returning to the educational system, seeing this as the key to economic advancement. more than the rise in unemployment, it is the rise in the unemployable that will be the critical issue facing governments in the next decade if education systems are unable to cater for the skills that will be required in a fast changing future workspace. can this worldwide demand for more education be matched by an expansion of existing classroom-based educational systems? what is need ed ? what is needed is effective, cost-efficient instruction that can match the needs for skills related to technological change, delivered interactively, at the convenience of the learner. the learner, irrespective of their physical location should be able to interact with the teacher, with the content and with one another in synchronous and/ or asynchronous mode. this is telelearning. as te lecommunications, computers and broadcasting merge to provide us with powerful information technology, new ways of learning and teaching will challenge the traditional classroom, not replacing it but providing alternative and complementary ways to extend educational and training opportunities for more people than is possible with conventional classrooms. these new technologies, made possible with advancements in digitisation processes, create a communications environment allowing us to communicate using sound, text and pictures in sophisticated combinations and so replicating the multimedia environments of traditional face-to-face communication in a classroom. this is the virtual class where teachers, learners and curricula intera ' ct as telepresences from any location. dennis gooier (1986) uses the metaphor of a national water utility and describes the concept of an educational utility thus: [the education utility consists of a massive and dynamic reservoir of information and educational programming from which individual teachers and learners can select the information and education resources they wish to work with, and when. the 9ppropriate information can be transmitted via a state network in an economical manner to the school or site requesting the information] (gooier 1986, 18). in our book we prefer the metaphor of the electrical utility that has become a universal source of power where people can plug any device that worked with electricity. an educational utility such as a virtual class will allow people to attach information devices such as computer modems, telephones fax machines and security systems or give them information in any mode, from anywhere and at anytime. coupled with the advancements in technology that are creating mcluhan's global village, there is a growing trend in this decade towards the sharing of materials, facilities, networking of institutions and intprnationalising of banking, education and training. as information superhighways crisscross borders, it becomes vitally important for countries wishing to function successfully in the global economy of the next millennium to learn to be drivers on the superhighways. ed ucation is communication shannon and weaver in their seminal book the mathematical theory of communication observed, 'it is clear that communication either affects conduct or is without any discernible and probable effect at all.' (1949, 5). education is the journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 28 practice of a kind of communication. what are the fundamental communication functions that allow education to take place? how does the classroom facilitate such communication functions? how can the use of information technology such as virtual reality and multimedia improve the classroom? it would be true to say that all of us, at some time, need some assistance to acquire complex sets of skills that are external to us. the term education is used to include training, life and citizenship skills, and learning without direct supervision, through mediated instruction as in the case of distance education or self teaching materials. however, the primary locus of education is seen to be the classroom. in seeking to improve the classroom by using technology it is necessary to establish a relationship between the ideas of information technology, communication and education. as industrial societies become information societies, conventional communication systems are becoming information systems. w here, for example, communication was based on paper transactions and face to face meetings in rooms there is now increasing use of information technology. from depending on transport systems to get people and paper to the place where business is done, society is beginning to use telecommunications to similarly to move information to where it is needed. if communication is the process of moving information from one source to another, the process of education can be described in terms of moving information from a source that has the information (for example, a teacher) to someone who is yet to learn how to use the information (the learner). of course, both a p e rson's genetic endowment and their environment contribute to the way they develop. however, is a violent, unsociable, unemployable person the consequence of a genetic predisposition, or a lack of parental guidance, or what they see on television, or a failure of classroom teachers? whatever the prime factor, a positive way that we have to prepare people for their part in society is by creating an effective educational communication system for those that need it. one advocate of the environmentalist approach in education whose work has provoked interest in recent years is lev vygotsky, and his concept of a zone of proximal development (zpd) provides a basis for looking at education as communication. simply stated, according to vygotsky tj::e zpd is the difference between what a person can do by themselves and what they could do with help from people more experienced than themselves (vygotsky 1978). the zpd implies that any educational system involves people who have roles as teachers and as learners and a communication process between them that allows the teachers to help the learners to solve problems that they would not be able to solve by themselves. in addition, 'problem solving under guidance . . . or i n collaboration w i t h ' m e a n s p r a c t i c e a n d feedbacj<., and a two-way interactive communication process between teachers and learners that is dynamic. what vygotsky did not have in mind in the pre-computer era he lived in, is the possibility that the helping hand for the learner need not be human. nor could he have realised that developments in telecommunications as well as computers would mean that the teacher, human or otherwise, could be anywhere and only present with the learner in a virtual sense. the four critical fa ctors of education in his zpd, vytgotsky specifies three factors in the educational process: someone in the role of the learneri someone in the role of the teacher, and, something that constitutes a problem which the learner is trying to solve with the help of the teacher. by implication there is a fourth factor: the knowledge needed to solve the problem (tiffin and rajasingham, 1995). it is the interaction of these four factors -learner, teacher, knowledge and problem in a particular context that constitutes the fundamental communication process that is education. how can the new information technologies intermesh the four critical factors of education? can they create an effective, complementary and or alternative to the classroom? journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 29 the information society the development of society can be divided into three phases: the agriculture society where our. great grandparents and grandparents worked on the land and studied in village schools close to their homes. in the industrial society people began to travel away from their homes to work in factories and get an education. conventional educational systems were based on transport systems where one had to travel to school by foot, rickshaw, bus, train and if one wanted to get international education, then one had to fly there. we now live in the transition period between industrial and the new era, the information society that arrives as the electronic information superhighways enter silently into our homes. telecommunications networks carrying telephone and television analog signals have become largely available around the world. however, it is the digitally based communications that are the basis of the information age, allowing vast amounts of information to be created, collected and distributed almost instantaneously over vast distances, over an integrated terminal. for example, integrated services digital network services (isdn) allow the fast transmission of voice, text and pictorial information over one composite terminal giving the user value-added services such as teleactivities. access to isdn and the superhighways of information means that one could telebank, telework, telelearn, teleshop and so on without leaving one's home. distance from any place is no longer a limiting factor. there are many countries today where increasingly people are using telecommunications to do their transactions without having to face massive traffic jams. as demand for these value-added services grows, countries are rapidly allowing the new computer­ based, packet-switched frame relay networks to transmit domestically and internationally. the prime example of course is internet with about 30 million subscribers in 1994, and increasing. another significant information carrier is direct broadcast satellite that can be more economical than cable for transmission over vast distances and difficult terrain. satellite communication is increasingly becoming the preferred transmission medium in india and amongst the isolated communities, particularly aborigines in australia. it is possible, however, that the communication utility for the information society could be a mixture of both satellite for international inf�rmation access and terrestrial cable for domestic retrieval. what will the global communications network mean for cultural integrity and development? according to buckminster fuller, the american social commentator, in the information age we would need to think globally and act locally. to do this people would need education to learn how to use the technologies as tools to create their own culturally appropriate messages and courseware, rilther than importing them. an information society implies a society based on an infrastructure of information technology where the main form of employment is as information workers. ironically, however, our own grand-and great grandchildren in the information society, like their forebears in the agricultural society, could be working, playing and learning close to home. work, entertainment and learning will be delivered to homes through telecommunication networks, eliminating the need for travel. in this scenario, human society would have come the full circle in how they conduct their daily activities. as broadband isdn, fibreoptics and satellites that are the new superhighways and infobahns become available, instead of transporting physical material across space using roads, information superhighways transport information across not only geographic, but cognitive and symbolic space in time/ space compression. it is possible that multimedia and computer generated virtual reality technologies in the next decade could transform education and help create the virtual class. but roads will not disappear. classrooms will not disappear. there will be, an alternative, complementary loci of learning, a virtual class. journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 30 virtual reality the virtual class is made possible by virtual reality technology. virtual in this context means reality in effect, not in fact. already we are aware of virtual universities, virtual schools and virtual classes on the global communications network, the internet. this network allows people separated by distance to meet by writing to each other. today, the technology for basic virtual classes exists. technologies such as videoconferencing and multimedia allow a virtual class where we can see and hear one another. research shows, however, that we are slowly able to move our whole bodies into a virtual class. for example, it is possible to attend a virtual class by putting on a helmet; by putting on data gloves our hands in a virtual class can write on a virtual whiteboard. research currently being done in japan, europe and the united states suggests that one day we will be able to step inside a virtual learning environment as full bodied telepresences that can hear, see, talk with and even touch and smell other telepresences in classrooms and communities that are virtual simulacra of the subject being studied. we could study the human heart inside a heart, study hamlet inside elsinore castle, the history of india during shah jehan's time inside the taj mahal, and so on. this kind of scenario is no longer science fiction. professor john tiffin of the department of communications at victoria university of wellington is currently working with dr nobuyoshi terashima, the president of the advanced telecommunication research laboratories in kyoto japan to design a virtual seminar where students in new zealand could meet with students in japan as telepresences w h e r e they can see each other in three dimensions, talk to one another and even touch one another and the virtual objects that they share. s u c h a facility is scheduled to be commercially developed by the year 2000. what are the forerunners of the virtual class? the conventional classroom the conventional classroom as the locus of learning has been around for many hundreds of years. it has been most successful in meeting the needs of the societies they served and provided an effective, multimedia and interactive environment for education processes. however, as economies become information based and global, new kinds of education and training systems become necessary to produce people with internationally competitive skills for a fast changing f�ture. to survive, the classroom depends on rapidly depleting, finite extractive fuels used for buildings and travel. also the bureaucratic structure of traditional educational systems that are usually bastions of conservatism makes it difficult for them to incorporate changes rapidly. today, keeping up to date with developments means that curricula need updating regularly. students are now paying clients, and increasing numbers of students are working adults. unlike educatiqn, commerce, being more global, tends to incorporate information technology as a matter of strategy. but education needs to become more responsive to market needs because students looking to upgrading their knowledge and skills today are intolerant of education and training systems lagging behind industry. distance education:tradidonal since very early times, there were people who could not attend schools because they lived in remote areas, could not afford the travel, had a disability, or would not do so by choice. for these people distance education was the only alternative. distance from educational opportunities can be measured not only in kilometres but also in terms of social or economic inequalities. it may be just as difficult for someone living in an urban area to attend classes on a campus as it is for someone living in a remote rural location. distance education relies on communication technology to bridge the gap between teacher and learner, and historically this was correspondence and postal based. it has a long history and most countries have had successful distance education programmes since the nineteenth century. byorn holmberg described distance education as a didactic conversation and michael moore cited interaction between students as journal o f distance learning, vol2, no. 1 , 1996 (c) distance education association o f new zealand 3 1 instrumental to learning. interaction and collaboration in the learning continuum are given impetus by network technology that allows synchrono:us and asynchronous interaction. print, radio, television, telephones and computers have been used in distance education around the world since the late eighteenth century. their success was limited, however, because they were mono or stand alone technologies allowing limited synchronous interaction between teachers and learners that is critical in the learning process. distance education: new a united nations report published in 1989 identified distance education as the fastest growing sector in the knowledge-based world economy. as communications technologies move towards digitisation and convergence a new kind of distance education called telelearning is becoming available. today this includes teleconferencing, audiographic and videoconferencing. what are the implications for distance education as it seeks to operate in the new interactive electronic workspace? the process of convergence requires new alliances and new kinds of collaboration among the players. worldwide, technologists in the computer, telecommunications and television industries are locked in collaborative competition trying to overcome inherent barriers that are endemic to their cultures. similarly, as educational utopias pitch against technological idealsl new paradigmatic relationships based on alliances and collaboration pose unprecedented challenges. collaboration among all players is critical however if interactive technologies are to be used successfully i n teaching, creating, interpreting and integrating knowledge for problem solving. the fundamental problems in creating networks that can serve academic, training and commercial purposes are not technical. they are organisational and financial a n d need close negotiation between educationists, networks and technology providers. a union of forces is necessary for the creation of a modern, cost effective distance education system for a nation enroute to the next decade. the key role in building an electronic infrastructure and its governance would belong to government because it involves policy and national development strategy issues. research in distance education suggests that it is learner-controlled. teachers remain just as critical to the education process, but their roles change to tllat of facilitators and navigators to help students find information and most importantly, sift and structure information for their needs. successful education is a collaborative process. students need to interact with teacher, with content and also with one another. w hile the traditional use of technologies in distance education such as print and post, radio, television and computers gave learners limited control over their learning, new information· technology such a s teleconferencing, audiographic conferencing and videoconferencing allow synchronous and asynchronous learning. irrespective of location the learner can interact at any time with the teacher, the instruction and with other learners using the written word, the spoken word and still and moving pictures. in the late 1990s, advancements in information technologies such as virtual reality and multimedia allow fully immersive, interactive, realtime communications through audio, textual video and even touch and smell. this kind o f development could create a communications environment where all the functions of a conventional classroom can take place (tiffin and rajasingham,l995). the virtual c lass tod ay information technology is already widely used in education and training. computer-assisted instruction, computer-managed instruction and the use of computer simulations for training goes back to the sixties. audioconferencing has been used since the seventies and instructional television has been tried around the world since the fifties. it is, however, the coming together of computer and telecommunications technologies that could lead to the virtual class as the primary or complementary loci of learning in society. journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 32 how is it possible to have the effect of a class without the reality of a classroom? a classroom is a communication system that makes it possible for a group of people to come together to talk about something they want to learn, and to look at pictures and diagrams and text that help them understand. the question is, can information technology provide an alternative communications system for learning that is at least as effective? the idea of a virtual class is that everybody can talk a n d be heard and be identified and everybody can see the same words, diagrams and pictures, at the same time. this calls for the use of telecommunications and computers. at its simplest, it can be done using two conventional telephone lines at each site, one to link telephones and one to link computers. one line is for sound, and one is for pictures that can be generated on the video display unit (vdu) of a computer. to link more than two sites, a teleconferencing bridging system is also needed. teleconferencing bridges can be linked to other teleconferencing bridges and theoretically there is no limit to the number of places that can be linked, or where these places are. this is one technology that makes a form of virtual class possible today and there are pilot projects taking place in many countries that show that it can be made to work at least as effectively as a conventional class. such projects make it possible to think about what a virtual class could be like in the future, as telecommunications systems improve. in time it will be possible to use the public switched telecommunications system to transmit high quality digital sound and high definition video images. audiographic conferencing systems are being upgraded to include videoconferencing. not only is it possible for everybody in a virtual class to talk to one another, they can also see one another. we can expect, through the nineties, a rapid development of teleconferencing technology and attempts by the teaching world to adapt it for educational purposes. the virtual class tomorrow the telephone can provide televirtual voices. teleconferencing can provide the effect of a meeting without people actually meeting and is already being adapted for instruction and called a virtual class. however, a new technology is emerging in the nineties called virtual reality. involving the use of a datasuit, helmet and gloves that are connected by sensors to a computer, it seeks to create the effect of actually beirlg inside a simulated reality. we are beginning to conceptualise it as a new medium and come to some appreciation of its possibilities. applications of virtual reality are being developed in such fields as architecture, medicine and arcade games. however, its origins were in institutions, in the development of flight simulators for training. it is time to see how it could be applied to education and the development of virtual classes in the fullest sense as wraparound environments for learning where students as telepresences can see hear, touch and perhaps one day even smell and taste. what will be possible with virtual reality fifty years from now? what form could a virtual class take? what potential capabilities could it have? will the ute with its virtual classes likely to be an improvement on a conventional classroom as a communication system for learning in the coming information society? finally, will the ute be similar to the place where our children and their children can access a mappa mundi of knowledge just by the flicker of an eyelid, or the fractal turn of the head, or a mere whisper? references cooler, d.d. 1986: the education u tility: the power to revitalise education and society. educational technology, englewood cliffs, new jersey. reich, r. 1991: the work of nations: a blu eprint for the future. simon & schuster, london. t iffen, j.w. and rajsingham, l. 1995: in se arch for the virtual class: education for the information society. routledge, london. vy got sky, l.s. 1978: mind in s o c i ety. th e development o f t h e higher psychological processes. h ar vard university pre s s , ca mbrid g e , massachusetts. lalita rasasingham is chairperson, department of communication studies, victoria u niversity of wellington, p.o. box 600, wellington, new zealand. journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 3 3 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 91 book review digital community, digital citizen julie carle bay of plenty polytechnic ohler j. b. (2010). digital community, digital citizen. ca: corwin (pp. xii, 241) our news headlines increasingly describe the tragic fate of cyber victims. young people share horrific stories of text bullying and online harassment. a recent harvard study conducted by dr carrie james concluded that most young people were devoid of ethical thinking or consideration of others when using the internet. students reported alarming incidents of cyber bullying (grove, 2010). unfortunately parents are often unaware of their children’s virtual lives and therefore unable to give guidance. technology is becoming a ubiquitous part of the lives of children who have grown up digital, and current generations are born digital. yet, for many parents, teachers, and policy makers the power of these new media and social networking spaces is often poorly understood. digital citizenship was a very topical issue in 2010 and, appropriately, this complex subject continues to receive a great deal of attention. in his latest book, digital community, digital citizen, dr jason ohler casts some understanding on what can be done to address these issues. his book is divided into three main themes: the call to digital citizenship, the role of technology, and the importance of character education in the digital age. dr ohler explains many issues relating to virtual space, and sets guidelines for virtual behaviour and creating online learning communities. these recommendations are supplemented with many practical activities for teachers to consider. he uses straightforward language and engages the reader by complementing the text with suggestion boxes, tables, and prompts. because many educationalists and parents are less digitally literate than children they often don’t understand today’s digital playground, making them more defensive of traditional practices. dr ohler addresses many of the fears of technology including “invasiveness”, “vulnerability”, “indisconnectability”, “resocialization”, “dehumanization” and others. he examines the flip side of these fears, calling them “accompanying delights”. while calls for digital safety often result in locked down, restrictive policies on access, dr ohler focuses on developing discerning judgment and applying technology wisely. he suggests that teachers need to help students analyse their discoveries “creatically” by blending creativity and critical thinking in the development of students’ unique perspectives. as well as making many practical suggestions for teachers, dr ohler describes the “ideal school board” and how it should navigate digital citizenship. he suggests the combination of “disinhibition”, an underdeveloped adolescent brain, and lack of a moral compass can be a recipe for inappropriate online behaviour. dr ohler discusses the “outer edges” of online freedoms, warning that new policies and laws might not address the underlying issues associated with digital behaviour. he provides a comprehensive list of resources and background reading, and his five-step agenda for his “ideal school board” provides a useful framework for developing a school policy on digital citizenship. the section on the adolescent mind explains moral development in children, and suggests how to help them develop character. the discussion and video links on the teenage brain are quite enlightening for those of us who battle to understand our teens. i found the supplementary resources to be an engaging diversion from the text, especially the videos of michael sandel at justice harvard where young people tackle justice and the right thing to do (harvard university’s justice with michael sandel). book reviews 92 digital community, digital citizen is a compelling read because dr ohler writes with persuasiveness and humour. he looks to schools to “help students use technology not just effectively but also creatively and wisely, so they can balance technology’s opportunities and limitations in order to cultivate a life that involves critical thinking, creativity, hope, purpose, and a respect for themselves and their communities” (p. 149). although its bias is north american, most of the issues and recommendations, which are based on democratic western values, are equally applicable to our new zealand context—especially since new media is not confined by geographic or cultural boundaries. extreme cyber bullying is a worrying trend that needs attention, and developing good digital citizenship is a starting point. i believe digital community, digital citizen could be a useful supplement for parents, teachers, and policy makers—together with other new zealand-specific resources, such as those found on www.netsafe.org.nz, hectors world and the www.mylgp.org.nz hub. references grove, j. v. (2010). harvard study finds teens online lack ethics. retrieved from http://mashable.com/2010/09/21/ethical-consideration-online/# harvard university’s justice with michael sandel. (n.d.) retrieved from http://www.justiceharvard.org/ http://www.netsafe.org.nz/ http://www.mylgp.org.nz/ http://mashable.com/2010/09/21/ethical-consideration-online/ http://www.justiceharvard.org/ robin mason ( 1998). globalising education trends and applications. london: routledge, pp. 167, nz$45.58. mason begins with the question, "is the advent of global education a threat or a promise?" the answer, she concludes, is that it is neither: t h e higher education m a r k e t is changing rapidly and there is much evidence to support the rumours of l a r g e scale closures of existing institutions, of very different working conditions for staff at those educational establishments which remain, and of wholesale re-thinking of the o r ganisational, pedagogical and t e chnological delive r y o f h i g h e r education. many o f these changes are caused by or informed by the growth of some forms of global education (p. ix). the globali sation of e d u c a t i o n is a development that is becoming increasingly significant to many distance e d u c a tion professionals although the implications of this trend for institutions, programmes and careers is not at all clear. mason provides a timely examination of the globalization of education in an appropriately international context together with the media t h a t make this possible. attention is given to the social and cultural implications of globalising education for developing countries and for the expanded markets it provides for established providers. mason is well placed to write on this subject as h e a d of t h e centre f o r i n f o r m ation technology in education at the uk open university. her criteria for offering global education include: (i) having students in more than two continents of the world able to communicate with each other and with the book reviews teacher, (ii) an express aim on the part of the teacher or institution to attract international participation, (iii) course content devised specially for transnational participation, (iv) support structures, both institutional and technological, to tutor and administer to a global student body, and (v) operations on a scale of more than one programme and more than one curriculum area, with more than 100 students. however, the author 's search found n o t a single i n s t i t u t i o n offering global education according to these criteria. a major ar gument for global education, according to mason, is the benefits it provides for students, who become part of a diverse, international student body within which interaction is encouraged. the taste of global interaction in a course reported by one teacher on his first venture onto the information superhighway left him concluding: i cannot i m a g i n e e v e r passing a semester in the classroom again without the umbilical cord to the network to energise, diversify, and deepen what we do (p. 4). a second and particularly powerful argument is the improved access to education that is provided for more students, especially those in t h e d e v e l o p i n g w o r l d . there is an educational rationale for global education in making "the expertise of the few" widely available and, finally, there is the growing realisation that many areas of the curriculum are global in nature and lend themselves to development on an international scale. the european association of distance teaching universities, for example, has encouraged the joint authorising amongst its members of the european m b a and of a comprehensive course in the humanities called "what is europe?" journal of distance learning, vol 5, no 1, 2000 © distance education association of new zealand 48 with the increasing prominence of the internet in teaching and learning and an expanding range of educational software, the means of making one's ccmr s e s and e d u c a t i o n a l products globally available i s becoming a n option for more institutions. one of the most powerful arguments for considering the globalisation of education is simply the access it provides for many people. as one commentator noted: technologically-mediated knowledge provides the basis of individualising learning in a more complete and active way . . . here distance is subservient to the discourse of open learning and 'educative' processes are displaced and reconstituted as relationships between producers and consumers in which knowledge is exchanged on the basis of the usefulness it has to the consumer (edwards, 1995). the implications of global education for those who teach at a distance are exciting but, as this book sets out in some detail, the process is complex and there is much to be considered by institutions considering global expansion. five case studies of the applications of global education provide a broad overview of recent developments in this area and form the basis of a discussion of recent trends: the duke university g l o b a l executive m b a programme, the graduate certificate i n open and distance learning of the university of southern queensland in australia, the move from tv to t h e i n t e r n e t of the jon e s educational company, i b m global training and education and the uk open university. these are collectively examined in the final section of the book in terms of the technologies that these institutions use, joint c o u r s e development, on-line support s y s t e m s , individualised learning and, o f course, use of the internet. mason concludes with a look at future trends, focusing on the future transformation of universities, the social and cultural impact of global education and the 'educational exploitation' of computer and communi­ cations technologies. the implications of globalised education are becoming increasingly apparent to those who use the inter11et and its growing number of applications. the move from traditional, centralized distance education institutions to mass teaching and learning on dispersed sites that is possible from teachers' internet-linked computers, opens the possibility of global teaching and learning. while the range of teaching and learning at a distance has been considerably extended by advances i n information and communication technologies, the pedagogical, social, cultural, political, professional and financial implications of doing so are enormous. this book is ambitious in attempting to d r a w together an exceptionally complex and rapidly changing area of education. i found the chapter on pedagogy and global education to be of particular interest for the way in which it brought together a range of ways of organising teaching and learning in this emerging environment. mason provides a useful section in this chapter on assessment, and a discussion of some of the cultural implications of teaching across nati onal boundaries. this is a timely discussion of contemporary practices in global education based on diverse institutional case studies. it provides anyone contemplating teaching transnationally with an o v e r v i e w of the complexities of an emerging area of distance education. reference edwards, r. (1995). diff e r e nt discours e s , discourses o f difference: globalisation, distance education and open learning. distance education, 16,2. ken stevens memorial university of newfoundland, canada journal of distance learning, vol 5, no 1, 2000 © distance education association of new zealand 49 geoff scott ( 1999). change matters: making a difference in education and training. sydney: allen and unwin, pp. 236, nz $39.95. " .i as the introduction to this book points out, there were some 800 books published in the us in the first half of the 90s on change. some would have b e e n 'snake o il', most had relevance to business and a few related to change in education. managing change in educational institutions is not the same as managing it in the corporate sector. some change managers describe educational change as not unlike herding cats. scott's book reminds us that the best way to manage cats is to put out milk and give them a comfortable environment. inasmuch as scott recognises the real issues in managing educational change, this book is highly recommended as a useful, practical and enthusiastic work. chapter one examines the dynamics of the change process in education. scott describes a number of myths about change management, mostly drawn from the non-education sector. he proposes an educational framework consisting of the milieu, learning progr ammes, leadership and the external context. these are displayed in an atomic molecular diagram below which runs the horizontal version of the action-research spiral. chapter two offers a change management process for learning programme innovation and enhancement. scott proposes a 'swamp' model of educational programming where the outcome of an effective learning programme must survive navigating the nature of the subject, similar programmes elsewhere, accreditation requ irements, available resources and tools, conditions of learning and the nature of students. a cloud entitled 'general conditions' hovers above the swamp. apart from risks entailed in crossing the swamp, scott shows that startup shortfalls, inadequa t e p l a n n i n g and ineffective consultation a r e key f a c t o r s ca using innovations to fail. chapter t h r e e f o c u s e s on workplace improvement and the need for supportive workplace cultures if change is to be effective. scott advocates continuous quality improvement (cqi), an extension of the business tqm model, as a change mechanism in education. he describes how cqi can placate angry 'trjbes' who inhabit the swamp by making the workplace conditions more conducive to change. chapter four examines workplace action­ research in the educational context. here he identifies some new 'tribes' who live in the broader educational context and whose adherents or allies might be found among the locals. he identifies photographers, experimenters, naturalists and activists. he uses metaphors to describe how each tribe operates an<\ what it believes in. knowing this helps the change manager identify and use particular strengths and insights about the task on hand. scott deals with one of the key elements of change later in his book. he notes that leadership is not about the powerlessness of the led. he uses the reflection-in-action model to show how successful educational leaders think and act. he draws on fullan' s ideas about emotional and cognitive intelligence, knowledge and skills, as well as highlighting the need for an ability to encourage a critical mass of staff to 'ride the wave of change'. so, is all change progress? we know it is not, but progress will not occur without change. scott concludes that educational institutions and change managers are having a rough time navigating the swamp. in the end he states "it is people that matter, that the golden rule is doing unto others ... and that actions speak louder than words", which, although hardly new, constitute the combination of the 'what' and 'how' of change that makes the difference. the book is highly recommended to those responsible for delivering educational services and to those who participate, willingly or otherwise, in educational change. . andrew higgins higher education development centre, otago university. journal of distance learning, vol5, no 1, 2000 © distance education association of new zealand 50 scanned document role of human teacher in web-based intelligent tutoring systems kinshuk information systems department, massey unnersity p almerston north, new zealand ashokpatel cal research and software engineering centre , de montfort unnersity leicester, united kingdom reinhard oppermann gmd-fit, schloss birlinghoven sankt augustin, germany david russell leicester business school, de montfort university leicester, united kingdom introduction the research on intelligent tutoring systems (ltss) has expanded in recent years to new dimensions due to the advent of the internet as a global communication medium. this brings about a new area of research which was not considered till now due to the localised nature of academic environments. this area is the adaptation to local contexts by the systems while they are being used by students in different parts of the world. these local contexts reflect the distinction between the two roles of its designer teacher and its implementer teacher which probably are far apart, with different personality attributes, styles, and preferences. this fact develops a concern among teachers who distrust the itss as being unable to reflect their own pedagogic aspects, but rather embodying the beliefs of the its designer (major & reichgelt, 1992). hl fact, current research on itss has been narrowly focussed only on the interactions between an its and a student, largely neglecting the role of the teacher in the design and implementation of such systems. this paper presents the concept of a human teacher model in the itss which would consider the attributes and role of a human teacher both as a designing collaborator and a teaching collaborator within a joint cognitive system consisting of the its, student and human teacher. this paper very briefly examines the contexts of an intelligent tutoring system (its) to encourage a broader journal of distance learning, vol 6, no 1, 2001 © distance education association of new zealand 26 perspective in designing itss, however, its utility extends to any educational resource. there is a need to consider the environmental contexts of an its in addition to the interactional context frequently addressed in the existing research. these contexts are required to address some of the key aspects of any educational system (see patel, kinshuk, & russell, 1999). two important aspects that need attention are: (i) what are the various teaching shjles and how is the performance of an educational system affected by the possibly divergent teaching styles of the teachers involved in designing and implementing various educational resources; and (ii) does the nature of a particular domain favour a specific teaching approach or method of knowledge representation, providing points of convergence among the possibly divergent teaching styles. the environmental contexts are those that surround the design and implementation of an its and they significantly help or hinder its acceptability and performance. the paper is based on a broader consideration of contexts that led to the development of basic intelligent tutoring tools (itts) for introductory numeric topics by the byzantium project under the teaching and learning technology programme of the higher education funding councils of the united kingdom (patel & kinshuk, 1996b). the internal structure (see patel & kinshuk, 1996a) and functionality (see patel, kinshuk, & russell, 2000) of the itts have been discussed elsewhere but the following narrative very briefly describes the scope and structure of an itt and provides a brief development history. a basic itt has a narrow focus. it encompasses a single topic or a very small cluster of related topics. it is a mixed-initiative system with an overlay type of student model. its inference engine processes knowledge rules stored in a two-fold knowledge base, giving it a degree of intelligence. the scope of an individual itt can be enlarged by combining various itts. an itt may thus be seen as a building block of a larger and more comprehensive tutoring system. it may also be mixed and matched with other internetbased technologies (e.g., streaming audio/video) or non internet-based technologies (e.g., audio/video cds) as well as human teachers (kinshuk & patel, 1996), in various configurations of computer integrated learning environments (cile) to suit classroom based, open and distance learning. the development of the early itt prototype commenced in 1990 at the de montfort university, united kingdom, when the need was established to provide some kind of a tutoring tool to replace at least some aspects of teaching and assessment for introductory level business studies. the purpose of such a tool was to release some of a lecturer's time with a view to better utilise it for richer interaction with advanced level students. four itts were developed as fully functional advanced prototype applications for the teaching and learning of different techniquesinvolving dissimilar domain logic and operations, to provide a better understanding of the critical aspects of the interface and internal structural requirements for these diverse applications. the applications are currently operational and have already been used by student numbers in excess of 7,000 to date at multiple institutions. stoner and harvey (1999) carried out an independent evaluation at the university of glasgow, involving the itts and journal of distance learning, vol 6, no 1, 2001 © distance education association of ne w zealand 27 another widely used traditional computer based learning package. they found the results to indicate that student performance had improved significantly over the period since learning technology materials were introduced and that this improvement appeared to be mainly reflected in the students' ability to complete the questions in the area of learning covered by the itts. their student feedback focus groups observed: the itts were useful because you could go over bits you were unsure about. it was better than a book because it was interactive. with the interactive questions you tend to pay more attention than you would to a book. i prefer the itts because the other package waffles on about what you already know and provides no incentives to pay attention to what it says. the itt offers instant feedback, is more involving and you can do as many questions as you like. of the two tutoring systems, 71 % of students showed a preference for the itts while 8 % indicated no particular preference. the students wanted more tutoring systems, similar to the itts, for other topics and were positive about computer aided learning (cal) in general, observing that it was good to use cal if the tutoring software was good. they also found that student performance had improved to a greater extent when the itts were better integrated into the curriculum. this confirmed the project team's own implementation experience of the test versions, that the implementing teacher/tutor plays a crucial role in the success of a tutoring system. the idea of the necessity of additional contexts, beyond the interactional contexts normally considered by its designers, has emerged from various inter-disciplinary deliberations undertaken during the design, development and implementation of the itts. it has also benefited from the on-going discussion on proposed further developments including implementing the methodology on the world wide web with a view to sharing both the development activities and their outcomes (see patel et al., 1999). the contexts of an its the need to employ the interactional contexts in an intelligent system arises from the necessity to accommodate the notions of co-operation, explanation and incremental knowledge acquisition (context-97, 1997). the research as reported in the literature, points to the notion of context being employed primarily with respect to the tasks of plan recognition, knowledge structuring, knowledge representation, reasoning, and discourse management. employing context in these tasks improves the human-computer interaction and facilitates intelligent feedback by the system. for example, widmer and kubat (1993) described a system called flora3 that implements incremental concept learning in dynamic environments where the target concepts may be contextdependent and may change drastically over time. dybkjaer, bernsen, dybkjaer, and papazachariou (1995) reviewed a spoken language dialogue system that uses context to provide systemdirected dialogues to enable controlled steps in the direction of mixedinitiative dialogue. an example of the use of interactional context for providing better reasoning journal of distance learning, vol 6, no 1, 2001 © distance education association of new zealand 28 is found in protege-ii system, a meta-tool for constructing task-specific expert-system shells (walther, eriksson, & musen, 1992). the application of context to plan recognition has been explored by johnson (1995) who presented a system called react, used for training operators of the communication links in nasa's deep space network (dsn). the systems described above paint a general picture of the existing research. they all suggest appropriate design philosophy using the notion of context as applied to the human-computer interaction. we suggest, however, that other classes of contexts, in particular the environmental contexts are perhaps even more important from the point of view of wide-spread usability in the actual learning environment and the its designers need to look beyond the student-system interaction issues. environmental contexts the environmental contexts of itss are analogous to the contexts of office application systems (such as word processing packages, spreadsheets and so on). while the contexts of office application systems can be defined in terms of the user attributes and nature of the tasks, those of the its have to be described by the student, the learning goal, the learning environment, and the practical application environment where the learning results will be employed in due course . major groupings of the environmental contexts may be listed as (i) student (the student's capabilities, preferences and motivation), also including student peers (ii) teacher (the designing and implementing teacher's preferences and outlook) (iii) discipline (the nature of subject discipline) (iv) characteristics of knowledge (the characteristics of the domain knowledge) (v) characteristics of the medium (the capabilities of the computer hardware and software employed as a tutoring medium) and (vi) social environment (the social environment in which the its is designed and used). these groups of context and their main constituents are depicted in figure 1. this paper, in the main, addresses the teacher as an environmental context of an its. the teacher as an environmental context a pedagogic designer of an its needs to consider the categories of the students based on several criteria: (1) the novice and expert users of a tutoring system (prior knowledge of how to use a tutoring system on any particular hardware/software platform), and (2) the novice and experienced students, based on (a) knowledge-due to prior exposure to the subject discipline and (b) learning ability due to prior exposure to academic instruction. the user sophistication (as determined by factors such as age, experience, socioeconomic background, prior education and so on) may also be a factor to contend with, for instance, adult learners may be rich in experience but poor in formal education. a much improved appreciation of the complexity of the task undertaken by the traditional its designer has brought about increasing recognition of two concepts. the first is the general acceptance that knowledge has a contextual component and that the context provides a systematic way to cluster, partition and organise knowledge and its dimensions (brezillon & abu-hakima, 1995). the second is the acceptance of the role of a student's natural intelligence, i.e., common sense and general problem solving abilities in the learning process, to the extent that some researchers argue that the journal of distance learning, vol 6, no i, 2001 © distance education association of new zealand 29 human tutors virtually never provide the sort of explidt diagnosis of student misconceptions that is sought to be / i homogeneity i i operational/conceptual i i physicallvirtuall i teaching traditions i i operational i causal contextual characteristics of knowledge --provided in the traditional its (cumming, 1991). its hardware capabilities software capabilities i communication capabilities i characteristics ---_ of the medium itur~"'", ,,/ i i , \ i i i i levels i \ discip6ne _~ mm_, _l-stuj;;;t;;~d~t ' human teach;;.-r-----i ~ natural abilities ,ff" 1 teaching styles ,i personality attributes i global local perception model? <: .. "' ercention ,po educational desigfie;'" implementing teacher teacher social values i institutional values i evolution of common metaphors social environment learning styles motivation / student cultural historical geographical power relationship state of technology figure 1: the environmental contexts of an intelligent tutoring system newman (1992) has noted that the observations of instructional interactions in which a teacher was helping a student or group of students indicated that the teachers often did not have an understanding of exactly how the students were approaching the task. the over ambitious design of traditional rtss attempted to outperform a human teacher though, as chen (1995) noted, lithe methods currently used in areas pertinent to computer-based learning environments are incomplete in addressing the wide range of cognitive and pedagogical issues involved". given the natural intelligence of the student, journal of distance learning, vol 6, no 1, 2001 © distance education association of new zealand 30 " i perhaps the endeavour at deep understanding of the student's mental processes, though it may be desirable, does not appear to be very critical and the educational purpose may be better served by providing the teacher with better and more efficient tools for teaching. the attempt at eliminating the teacher from the process has perhaps resulted in many years of research with little to show in terms of tutoring systems that are operationally successful in the real learning environment. while tlle idealism provides a good impetus to research in the laboratories, it is essential to grasp the ground reality as expressed by devlin (1997): "thousands of hours of effort by brilliant computer sdentists, mathematidans, linguists and system engineers have yet to produce an interactive help facility on a photocopier that is even remotely as good as an office junior, just out of high school, who has had an hour's instruction on using the machine." an its, realistically, can only be seen as a joint cognitive system (dalal & kasper, 1994) comprising not only the tutoring software and a student, but also an implementing teacher and to an extent the peer students. the student-its interaction is therefore, a convergence of the human psychology of a student and a teacher, and to the degree to which the tutoring software is "intelligent", the cyber-psychology of an its-reflecting the psychology of the its designers including their perception of students, teachers and the learning process. the teacher plays various roles including those of providing the context, selecting and scheduling other educational technologies, managing the curriculum and overseeing the learning progression. hl tlle ensuing power relationship, the preferences of a teacher will certainly be more important than the learning style of a student, in gaining wider acceptance of a tutoring system. identifying these preferences is a difficult task as the teachers may have different personalities and possibly different teaching styles born out of their traditional, progressive or vocational outlooks and their own learning styles (entwistle, 1981). however, it is recognised that the orientation to teaching strongly influences the teaching methods adopted, learning tasks set, assessment demands made and the overall workload specified (gow & kember, 1993). these, in tum, influence the student approaches to learning. high workloads, surface level assessment demands and lack of freedom in the learning environment are the factors that are found to coindde with an extensive use of reproductive approaches by students (gow & kember, 1993). this observation obviously leads to the question about how similar conditions of increasing workloads, performance assessment demands, increasing constraints of the work environment and changes in the "institutional culture" as the education sector becomes competitive and commerdalised, affect a teacher's teaching style. if a teacher is forced to adopt a superfidal teaching style due to one or more of such environmental factors, the situation may be improved by harnessing the its in a supportive role to free up some of the pressure (kinshuk & patel, 1996). however, unless the its has a teacher model and enables its re-configuration to suit the implementing teacher, it will not find easy acceptance as the last thing the harassed teachers would want to do is to fight against their own past practices and invest time in implementing someone else's pedagogy. we suggest that a human teacher model journal of distance learning, vol 6, no 1, 2001 © distance education association of new zealand 31 should formally be incorporated in the design of an its and indeed in any educational system: to recognise the different teaching styles, to put on record the teaching style(s) adopted in the design and enable manual or automatic adaptation to suit the implementing teacher. an explidt explanation of the teaching style adopted in the design not only enables an implementing teacher to understand the designer's rationale but also helps in dealing with the cognitive dissonance arising from any differences in the teaching styles. in fact, this might also contribute to improvements in the student learning in the case of less adaptive systems, as the rationale behind the adopted teaching strategy is made clear. it is also important to recognize two facts (clark, in press) : (i) it is the instructional method and not the media that causes learning as has been demonstrated in many media comparison studies; and (ii) the human brain, that has evolved over millions of years, does not change rapidly and can be overloaded by the sensory output that the technology is capable of delivering. to prevent such cognitive overload, the amount of information and in particular, the richness of some of the contextual information may need to be constrained in early stages of learning. the situation, however, is quite complex. it is the novice learners who benefit more from richer representations as these provide multiple stimuli. it is also the same group of learners who are more likely to get distracted in the absence of directed learning since they may still be developing adequate meta-cognitive skills of setting learning goals, selecting effective learning techniques, monitoring progress towards the goals and adjusting strategies as needed. different teachers would direct the learning process by constraining it in different ways, including defining an appropriate grain size of learning, learning in a situational context or abstract learning that is applied to problems of varied context. an its therefore needs some mechanism for adapting to the teaching style of an implementer teacher. the need for such adaptation to the implementing teacher is even more critical in the case of tutoring systems that are implemented in far away places or are run on the internet and are accessed at long distances. the wide cultural differences may make some of the representations difficult to comprehend. similarly, the teaching style adopted at the design stage may turn out to be unproductive in a different cultural setting. the implementing teachers, in such cases need some way to access a localized its. domains and the process of education the process of education involves traversing the granularity within various domains to varying extents, from detailed to abstract and from intrinsically simple to complex representations of knowledge the complexity generally arising from implidt knowledge, implied context and inferred semantic. it is observed in current educational practices that learning takes place over a number of topics in a number of subjects over a period of time with progressively increasing depth and/ or breadth. this practice indicates that there are levels in the leaming process at which knowledge is instructed and the students advance in the process of an educational model progression along the part-whole dimension. they first learn about each component of an ultimate framework and journal of distance learning, vol 6, no 1, 2001 © dis tance education association of new zealand 32 then learn how they combine in the framework. it follows from the above discussion that the type of teaching and learning at an introductory level is likely to be qualitatively different from that at an advanced level. at the introductory level, the students are more likely to be learning the details that are later taken for granted as implicit to an advanced level dialogue. similarly the nature of the discipline being taught, in terms of the subject matter being widely homogenous (e.g., law) or a wide collection of discrete concepts (e .g., operations research) or in terms of dealing with the physical world (e.g., the actual measures of mechanical engineering) or its virtual representation (e.g., the monetary representations in accountancy) is very likely to determine to a very large degree the teaching methods adopted and the technology employed for the purpose of teaching. an advantage of systematically considering the nature of discipline and the level at which it is instructed lies in the possibility that it may provide points of convergence while the preferred teaching styles may create points of divergence between the designing and implementing teachers. incrementally growing more successful itss while the effort put into developing very intelligent itss, that can entirely replace all the functions of human teachers and provide a much enhanced level of adaptivity to student needs, is laudable, it may be more productive to adopt the approach that was successfully implemented in the development of office applications. the first word processor did not aim to eliminate the steno-typist. it aimed at making the steno-typist more productive by providing more efficient ways of working. over the years, word processors have improved in terms of functionality through inclusion of a spell checker, a grammar checker, ready made templates, an improved help facility, wizards and the integration of speech interface. it is now possible to replace the steno-typist with a computer system. similar incremental growth has been seen in all office applications. the advantage of this approach is that it rapidly brings the technology into the workplace, improves the performance and comfort level of the humans who use the technology and encourages the humans to harness the technology more productively. adopting this approach, that has already been proven in the case of the development of office applications, the its designers should design the system with the human teacher in mind and as the target user. the its designers should try to make the human teachers more productive and increase their comfort level while gradually improve the functionality. references brezillon, p., & abu-hakima, s. (1995). using knowledge in its context: report on the ijcai-93 workshop. ai magazine, spring, 87-9l. chen, m. (1995). a methodology for characterising computer-based learning envirorunents. instructional science, 23, 183-220. clark, r. (in press). chapter 2. in h. stolovitch & e. keeps (eds.), handbook of performance technolof{li san francisco: jossey bass. context-97. (1997). call for papers for the context-97 conference. re trieved from the world wide web: http: //www .swi.psy.uva.nl/mailinglists/kaw / archives/0416.html journal of distance learning, vol 6, no 1, 2001 © distance education association of new zealand 33 cumming, g. (1991) . using artificial intelligence to achieve natural learning. in r. lewis & s. otsuki (eds.), advance research on computers in education (pp. 51-62). amsterdam: elsevier. dalal, n . p., & kasper, g. m. (1994). the design of joint cognitive systems: the effect of cognitive coupling on performance. international journal of human-computer studies, 40,677-702. devlin, k. (1997). goodbye descartes: the end of logic and the search for a new cosmology of mind. new york: john wiley & sons. dybkjaer, l., bernsen, n. 0 ., dybkjaer, h., & papazacharlou, d. (1995, august 19). on the use of context in building language dialogue systems for large tasks. the ijcai-95 workshop on context in natural language processing, montreal, canada. entwistle, n. (1981) . teaching styles, learning and curricular choice. in strjles of learning and teaching (pp. 225-242). new york: john wiley & sons. gow, l., & kember, d. (1993). conceptions of teaching and their relationship to student learning. british journal of educational psychologjj, 63, 20-33. johnson, w. l. (1995). plan recognition in a situational context. the 1995 ijcai workshop on the next generation of plan recognition systems, montreal, canada. kinshuk, & patel, a. (1996) . intelligent tutoring tools redesigning itss for adequate knowledge transfer emphasis. in c. lucas (ed.), proceedings of 1996 international conference on intelligent and cognitive systems (pp. 221-226). tehran: ipm. major, n., & reichgelt, h . (1992) . coca: a shell for intelligent tutoring systems. lecture notes in computer science, 608, 523-530. newman, d. (1992). formative experiments on the coevolution of teclmology and the educational environment. in e. scanlon & t. o'shea (eds.), new directions in educational technology (pp. 61-70). new york: springer-verlag. patel, a, & kinshuk. (1996a) . applied artificial intelligence for teaching numeric topics in engineering disciplines. lecture notes in computer science, 1108, 132-140. patel, a, & kinshuk. (1996b). knowledge characteristics: reconsidering the design of intelligent tutoring systems. in a behrooz (ed.), knowledge transfer (pp. 190-197). london: pace. patel, a, kinshuk, & russell, d. (1999) . hyperits: a web-based architecture for evolving a configurable learning environment. staff and educational development international, 3(3), 265-280. patel, a., kinshuk, & russell, d. (2000). intelligent tutoring tools for cognitive skill acquisition in life long learning. educational technologjj and society, 3(1), 32-40. stoner, g., & harvey, j. (1999, april) . integrating learning technologjj in a foundation level management accounting course: an e(in)volving evaluation. paper presented at the cti-afm annual conference, brighton, u.k. walther, e., eriksson, h., & musen, m. a (1992). plug-and-play: construction of task-specific expert-system shells using sharable context ontologies. in proceedings of the aaai workshop on knowledge representation aspects of knowledge acquisition (pp. 191-198). san jose, ca: aaai. widmer, g., & kubat, m. (1993). effective learning in dynamic envirorunents by explicit context tracking. lecture notes in artificial intelligence, 667, 227-243. kinslwk is senior lecturer, information systems department, massey university. he has been involved in large-scale research and development projects for cognitive skills based adaptive educational environments and has published over fortrj-five research papers in international refereed journals, conferences and book chapters. he is an active researcher in learning technologies and human computer interactions. telephone: +64 6 350 5799, ext. 2090. fax: +64 63505725. email: kinshuk@masse1j-ac.nz. journal of distance lea rning, vol 6, no 1, 2001 © distance education association of new zealand 34 ashok patel is director, cal research and software engineering centre, de montfort university, leicester, united kingdom. he has been designing educational software for more than ten years. by profession, he is an accountant and is director, cal research in the facultlj of business and law. telephone/fax : +44 116 257 7193. email: apatel@dmu.ac.uk. reinhard oppermann is researcher, gmd german national research centre for information technology and professor, social computer science, university of koblenz. he has experience in several international co-op projects on researching and designing information systems. telephone: +49 2241 14 27 03. fax: +49 2241 14 21 46. email : reinhard. oppermann@gmd.de. david russell is principal lecturer, accounting and finance, leicester business school, de montfort university, leicester, united kingdom. he is also professional doctorate programme director and course director, msc accounting and finance. telephone/fax: +44 116 257 7247. email: drussell@dmu.ac.uk. journal of distance learning, vol 6, n o 1, 2001 © distance education associa tion of n e w zealand 35 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 31 obtaining high retention and completion rates in a new zealand odl environment: a case study of strategies employed by information and library studies faculty at the open polytechnic sandra maathuis-smith, the open polytechnic of new zealand shannon wellington, the open polytechnic of new zealand amanda cossham, the open polytechnic of new zealand alison fields, the open polytechnic of new zealand jan irvine, the open polytechnic of new zealand sarah welland, the open polytechnic of new zealand mary innes, the open polytechnic of new zealand abstract open and distance learning (odl) provides unique challenges for student retention and course completion. in an increasingly competitive educational environment, measures such as retention and completion form the basis for the evaluation of institutional and student performance. information and library studies (ils) faculty at the open polytechnic achieve and maintain consistently high retention and completion rates across their faculty-taught odl courses. this research documents the development and application of strategies that contribute to these high success rates. information and library studies faculty, through a framework of action research, undertook an analysis of implementation strategies designed to support student retention and completion. this framework provided a methodological foundation for focus-group discussion. the faculty evaluated and disseminated the strategies derived from these focusgroup discussions across other ils courses in an iterative process of application and analysis. strategies for retention and completion in this research are discussed in the context of course selection, orientation, layered support, communication between students and faculty, support between student and faculty, social interaction, and community building in an odl environment. keywords: completion; distance education; retention; student success introduction the external publication of educational institutions‘ performance in league tables, together with an increasingly competitive educational environment, has placed retention and completion at the top of the agenda in many new zealand educational institutions. there is a growing tendency to maathuis-smith, s. e., wellington, s., cossham, a. f., fields, a., irvine, j. r., welland, s., & innes, m. 32 associate high dropout rates with poor institutional performance (ashby, 2004). the implications for government funding and student experience are costly for the institutions in question. retention strategies are, increasingly, focusing on the issue of how to retain students from a very wide variety of backgrounds (ashby, 2004). educational institutions that use elements of odl practice in their course delivery generally experience lower reported rates of retention and completion than institutions operating in face-toface teaching environments (simpson, 2004). research by levy on the persistence of students enrolled in e-learning courses supports this statement, ―students attending e-learning courses dropout at substantially higher rates than their counterparts in on-campus courses‖ (levy, 2004, p. 185). dropout rates are believed by some to be 10 to 20 percentage points higher than in a face-to-face teaching environment (carr, 2000; diaz, 2002; frankola, as cited in berge & huang, 2004). the purpose of this research is to explore the strategies that the open polytechnic‘s information and library studies faculty employ to achieve and maintain consistently high retention and completion rates. rates for courses in these programmes range from 80% to 96%; these are amongst the highest at the open polytechnic. the school within which these courses sit averages 69% across all courses. open polytechnic students study by distance, and usually part time. information and library studies faculty have chosen to analyse, synthesise, and discuss their strategies in light of the consistently high retention and completion rates they achieve. this study uses the framework of action research to gather and synthesise data. the process of action research allows for the cyclic gathering, analysis, and application of findings relating to the central research question. this central research question asks what strategies contribute to the high retention and completion rates in this discipline area. background the tertiary sector in new zealand in 2010 the government published the tertiary education strategy (2010–2015), which set out their strategic direction for the next 5 years (ministry of education, 2010b). this education strategy provides the context for developments and priorities in the new zealand tertiary education sector. following on from this strategy, the tertiary education commission (tec) has issued education performance indicators which enable comparisons to be made based on four factors: how many students are successfully completing their courses, how many are completing their qualifications, how many are progressing to higher-level study, and how many are being retained in study (tertiary education commission, 2010a). qualification retentions are categorised as ―the proportion of students in a given year that complete a qualification or re-enrol at the same tertiary provider in the following year‖ (tertiary education commission, 2010b, p. 5). these factors illustrate that the strategy is strongly aligned with qualification and course completions, as well as retentions. the open polytechnic context as with other higher education institutions in new zealand and elsewhere, the open polytechnic faces commercial and competitive pressure to show a return on funding investment in the form of tangible quantitative outcomes. one of these tangible performance and funding measures is based on completion and retention rates. while these rates have always been a focus, there is a new emphasis on how to better meet student needs in light of both the tertiary education strategy and the educational performance indicators. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 33 the open polytechnic of new zealand is this country‘s only dedicated tertiary distance education provider. it occupies a unique position in the new zealand polytechnic sector. its emphasis is on open and distance learning as well as research in online and distance learning environments. the open polytechnic‘s primary method of delivery for student learning material and supporting resources is a mix of print and web platforms (open polytechnic of new zealand, 2007). moodle, an open-source course management system, is the preferred learning management system and provides the basis for a well-developed online campus community for the open polytechnic student body (fisher, chipinduku, & maathuis-smith, 2010). all ils courses provide support and resources for students via the online campus. the research context context pertaining to the ils faculty, programmes, student body, and course delivery has been provided to frame our discussion of research findings. strategies for retention and completion discussed in this research include factors such as course selection, orientation, layered support, communication between students and faculty, support between student and faculty, and building social interaction and community in an odl environment. programme structure and delivery information and library studies faculty form part of the school of information and social sciences. the ils programmes cover two key but disparate professional areas of information management: library management and records management. there are 15 individual courses within the programme structure of two degrees, three diplomas, and two certificates. enrolments in these 15 courses number approximately 220 equivalent full-time students (efts) annually. all courses are defined as web-based, meaning that the courses ―require students to access the accompanying online materials and resources. access is required, as online participation is required‖ [original emphasis] (ministry of education, 2010a, p. 93). within this definition there is a range of practice, varying from courses that provide print materials with online support and resources to those delivered completely in digital format. the variations in delivery are designed to make the most of the type of content being disseminated, as well as making judicious use of new and existing functionality in the online campus learning platform. the ils programmes occupy a unique place in the new zealand tertiary environment. the open polytechnic provides the only undergraduate qualification in information and library studies. this may suggest a restricted or captive audience and it is true that, with few options to study elsewhere, students are more likely to focus on completing these programmes successfully. however, there are undergraduate odl options in australia (for example, at charles sturt university) and a post-graduate option at victoria university of wellington. the faculty that teach ils at the open polytechnic do not assume that enrolled students will be retained and complete qualifications— they actively engage in strategies to ensure that this is the case. additionally, one first-year course in information literacy is a core course in the bachelor of applied science and many of the courses can be taken as electives in other majors in the applied science, arts, and business bachelor‘s degrees. information and library studies faculty the following is a brief overview of the collective professional and academic experience of the ils faculty. the impact of this experience and how it has shaped student interaction in an odl environment is also addressed and provides an important foundation for our discussion of retention and completion strategies. maathuis-smith, s. e., wellington, s., cossham, a. f., fields, a., irvine, j. r., welland, s., & innes, m. 34 information and library studies faculty have a wide range of experience in academia and the professional sector. a number have held academic positions in both face-to-face teaching and distance education institutions. collectively, they have amassed more than 50 years‘ teaching experience in odl. their collective experience and qualifications provide a comprehensive foundation for the self-analysis and practical application of the principles, challenges, and opportunities afforded through an odl environment. faculty stated that their wide range of experience in learning and teaching has provided a sound understanding of the issues, benefits, and potential pitfalls of a number of different educational delivery modes. this awareness translates into how they manage students in their current distance teaching. faculty members practice a student-centric approach to deliver their courses. one ils faculty member stated: interestingly, the whole time i have been a teacher, i have also been a student. my experience of learning at different institutions, across various levels of qualifications and modes of delivery have informed and influenced my values, beliefs and practices about what it means to be a teacher. so my study informed my teaching and my teaching created situations for learning. salmon (2003) also believes that this type of student understanding is a desirable component in an odl teaching environment. salmon‘s table of e-moderation competencies that are important for faculty recruitment lists personal experience as an online learner as the number one valued competency. flexibility in approaches to teaching and learning is also deemed desirable, along with empathy with the challenges of becoming an online learner (salmon, 2003). an awareness of what it means to be a student in an odl environment, as well as a theoretical understanding of the pedagogy of teaching in varying distance education models creates a unique context for engaging with their student body and developing strategies to inform best practice in the areas of retention and course completion. a faculty member stated: my teaching experience and ‗hands on‘ professional experience/practice are closely intertwined, i teach what i apply myself in the marketplace. this has enabled me to provide students with up-to-date advice, and an excitement for the profession. i have found that students respond to a teaching style that demonstrates knowledge of the real world rather than a purely theoretical approach. information and library studies students the ils student demographic has been fairly consistent since the programmes were established: the majority of students (between 79% and 93%, depending on the sub-programme) are female, and 75% are over the age of 30 (cossham & irvine, 2009). there is still the same ―extremely wide spread of students, whose abilities, degree of understanding and needs for support vary enormously‖ (mccahon, 1999a, p. 12). some students have previous tertiary study experience and careers in other fields, while others are starting off for the first time on a serious career pathway (cossham & irvine, 2009). most study part time, and work part time or full time as well, frequently in libraries or information management positions. although this does not necessarily give them direct employer support (cossham & irvine, unpublished research), it does give them substantial industry knowledge and commitment to both the profession and to their studies. both undergraduate degrees offered through the open polytechnic are recognised as pathways to professional registration by the library and information association of new zealand aotearoa (lianza). the records and information management diploma is recognised by the records and information management professionals australasia (rimpa). there is therefore an incentive for students to successfully complete and use the qualifications towards professional registration and recognition. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 35 methodology the examination of strategies to support retention and completion in ils faculty practice was developed through a framework of action research. action research is a form of self-reflected enquiry used by practitioners in social situations to improve the rationality and justice of their own practice (wilkinson, 2000). action research is usually collaborative and undertaken by the practitioners without involvement from outside researchers (wilkinson, 2000). action research has been chosen as the vehicle of study because it affords an opportunity to engage in an emic, holistic, and interpretive way with the research population. within a framework of action research, both elements (action and research) progress concurrently. new knowledge is generated, informing action which recursively informs research (rowley, 2004). this process is demonstrated in this research through the collection, synthesis, and action cycle undertaken by the ils faculty. the ils faculty and programmes form the research population in this study. faculty participated in a series of focus-group discussions which centred on the individual strategies employed to enhance retention and completion rates in their taught courses. the strategies discussed in these focus groups were collectively assessed by group members and, where applicable, integrated into other ils faculty-taught courses. the success of the applied strategies were evaluated in subsequent focus groups and modified or discounted depending on measurable success towards higher retention and completion rates. the data derived from these focus groups forms the basis for analysis, discussion, and recommendations in this research. as noted by pickard (2007), when using action research caution must be exercised in the generalisation of findings beyond the bounds of the defined research population. each educational environment, student body, and faculty practice is unique and contains many contextual variables. transferability of findings in this research must be considered within the context of these variables. in presenting these research findings, contextual information has been provided to clearly position the research population under study in the wider academic environment. key supporting literature has been intertwined to frame observations and documentation from focus-group sessions. the integration of the literature through the documented research findings supports the iterative process of action research by closely aligning the body of knowledge with discovery which, in turn, informs the direction of further inquiry. there is, therefore, no separate literature review. definitions the definitions of retention and completion are multi-faceted, complex, and further complicated by the different measures adopted by respective organisations (berge & huang, 2004). there does not appear to be one internationally accepted model for defining and calculating retention in an educational environment. this, however, has not deterred retention from becoming a major measure of institutional performance, even though there is not always parity between institutional data. the current body of knowledge on this topic uses various terms to discuss the concept of retention: dropout rates and student persistence are two such examples. these terms have been used interchangeably in the reviewed literature to indicate the percentage of students who complete their course and all assessment activities. in this research completion is defined as the submission of all assessment components in a course, irrespective of actual pass or fail. a course is a single subject paper, usually completed over one semester. a programme is a series of courses which, when successfully completed, leads to the award of a qualification. maathuis-smith, s. e., wellington, s., cossham, a. f., fields, a., irvine, j. r., welland, s., & innes, m. 36 this research defines retention as the continued participation in a course to completion. the retention rate is usually expressed as a percentage (rather than a raw number) and is calculated from the total number of students enrolled in a course or programme at the beginning of the enrolment period. data drawn from the open polytechnic‘s student management system is used to calculate the retention rate statistics for each offering of each course. strategies for retention the following section synthesises the conversations held in focus-group settings to discuss the strategies that faculty believed contributed to the high retention and completion rates in their odl courses. this data is integrated with literature pertaining to retention and completion to situate the research findings within the wider body of knowledge. student retention and completion in distance education is a very complex issue. berge and huang note that ―in higher education, the problem of a student‘s lack of persistence is complex and multi-dimensional‖ (2004). students withdraw from courses for a number of different reasons. there is often a combination of academic and non-academic reasons involved in these decisions, many of which are out of the parent institution‘s control and influence (simpson, 2004). mcgivney also notes, ―there will always be some students who do not complete …. it is a fact of life that people‘s choices, aspirations and circumstances change‖ (2004, p. 45). in 2010 faculty conducted an informal follow-up review of students who failed to complete one of the ils courses. the results of this review supported simpson‘s and mcgivney‘s viewpoints. students who withdrew from the course were contacted by the course leader and, without exception, indicated that neither the course nor the lecturer was the reason they did not complete. choosing the right course a study of the factors influencing learner progression in further and higher education institutions has concluded that choosing the right course is fundamental to learners at every level (comfort et al., as cited in mcgivney, 2004). rovai also notes that ―investigating student characteristics and skills prior to admission makes it possible for institutional support staff to identify students who are likely to benefit most from support services and who need to be monitored‖ (rovai, as cited in nichols, 2010, p. 97). information and library studies faculty use a number of strategies in their engagement with students to ensure the right study pathways are being chosen. this also ensures that students who require additional support enrol with those wider support mechanisms in place. this is more complex than it sounds. there is not necessarily direct (or even indirect) contact by faculty and study advisors with students when they first enrol—only complex enrolments or multiple course enrolments trigger awareness amongst faculty of the need for additional advice about study pathways. when this occurs, faculty liaise with open polytechnic programme advisors to devise clear pathways through required courses while incorporating electives of the student‘s choice. information is provided about programme pathways; it outlines the content of different courses at the appropriate level of study, and gives advice on likely or probable next courses, especially for courses at level 5 (first year). transition to higher education as well as identifying strategies to identify at risk students, barefoot (2004) reminds us that there are many potential causes for student drop-out, and that average or even above-average students may also benefit from special assistance during the sometimes difficult transition to higher education. strategies used by the ils faculty to minimise this risk include redirecting students who are struggling with study skills into either a level-5 information literacy course (one of the journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 37 ils courses), or into the certificate in tertiary studies skills, which helps students develop a broader range of basic skills (including how to study by distance). many generalised academic supporting resources are also provided both in print and online (e.g. guides and assistance with referencing styles), as well as a referral system that links students to student learning services and provides another layer of support for those at risk. faculty promote these resources directly from individual course pages in the online campus environment. orientation in an odl environment moxley, najor-durack, and dumbrigue (2001) argue that retention is about more than just completing the course: it is about supporting students to become successful learners who are able to meet their study goals. to help students become successful learners, strong student communities are paramount. in face-to-face learning environments these student communities are often cemented during an orientation process. in the traditional sense, orientation is an opportunity for new students to meet staff and familiarise themselves with the campus and its services. in online or distance modes of education, orientation can still perform this function. siemens (2002) states, ―students new to online learning need time to acclimate to the environment‖. many students come to distance or online learning with preconceived ideas and expectations, which may be based on prior educational experiences. orientation can be seen as a way to ―help students reframe their expectations, attitudes, and feelings about the next step in their educational journey‖ (moxley et al., 2001 p. 78). orientation can also be used as a time for students to appraise the course content and to meet fellow students and faculty. the content of an orientation resource or session should meet student needs to support their transition into tertiary distance learning. the strategies employed by ils faculty during a student orientation period vary, but all aim to encourage engagement with the course resources and participation in course discussion forums. ongoing strategies to reinforce orientation are employed throughout the semester and include print, phone and online communication between student and student, and course leader and student. a major focus of these communications (for first-time students in particular) is how to study and learn online. this includes information on how to access online course pages and resources, how to use the online discussion forums, and the importance of netiquette when working in the online campus. the ils student community is based on interactive discussion forums provided for each course through the online campus. students are encouraged to use these forums to share their ideas and workplace experiences with their fellow students. this again generates a sense of engagement. a printed newsletter with profiles of relevant faculty is also mailed to all ils students and is replicated on the online campus. an initial welcome posting by each course leader is disseminated via email through the online campus. students are also encouraged to post introductions or work through ice-breaker activities in course discussion forums, and to update their student profiles. study-group forums are developed to allow students in different geographical areas to create their own communities for personal and academic collaboration and support. one of the key findings from mccahon‘s research was that personal knowledge of students by tutors increased students‘ ―sense of identification with the programme and the likelihood of their completion‖ (1999b, p. 3). a personal profile database was trialled in one course to help faculty better understand their student body. this was compiled using the online campus moodle database function and replaced the student profile forms that previously had to be filled in by hand and posted back to the course leader (with a consequent very low response rate). maathuis-smith, s. e., wellington, s., cossham, a. f., fields, a., irvine, j. r., welland, s., & innes, m. 38 information and library studies faculty collectively noted that while the polytechnic provides a wide range of general information for students, the information is very dispersed and could easily be brought together in the online environment to create a more structured student orientation session or resource. this material includes such things as how to use the online campus, exercises in library literacy, and programme-wide introduction forums with icebreaker activities. this initiative has been noted as an area for further development, requiring wider institutional support and input. external support for students the layering of external support for students is also important. the body of knowledge on adult learning notes that having a supportive family or partner significantly assists the motivation and persistence of adults engaged in programmes of study. often these programmes of study demand a considerable amount of time and financial and psychological commitment (mcgivney, 2004, p. 42). mcgivney (1996, cited in asbee & simpson, 1998) also outlines three factors that particularly mitigate student withdrawal. these factors are: good support from partners, family, and friends; good contact with the institution; and good contact and support from other students. faculty discuss their engagement with the ideology of layered support through the creation of initial contact strategies for students. one faculty member states: working with material i obtained from the communication lecturers, i created a pamphlet entitled helping your student. the content of this pamphlet was based on the work of ormond simpson (1998). the intention was to provide an official document which students could hand to family, friends, and employers to gain their support. marketing staff are currently working with this document and it is intended to become part of the wider student support materials. at the time of this research, this resource was still under development. communication between students and faculty communication between student and faculty is paramount in any strategy which aims to support retention and completion. moxley et al. (2001) state: student retention and persistence … is a product of students forming strong relationships with educators and education staff. particularly with members of the teaching staff who are devoted to holding on to their students, facilitating their success and helping students to achieve those educational aspirations and outcomes ... (p. 82). information and library studies faculty noted through focus-group discussion that personalised communication (especially for new-to-study students) enables them to identify with a real person rather than an email address. feedback to faculty from the student body supports this. many stated that a strong and friendly lecturer presence made a significant difference to their student experience. in some cases, this presence made the difference between continuing with their studies and withdrawing from the programme, especially in instances where there were no personal problems to otherwise hinder student progress. faculty use a variety of methods to communicate with students and strongly emphasise that communication in a distance environment should not be a ‗one size fits all‘ approach. not all students prefer the same channels of communication, and some for their own reasons will be unable to use some of the channels available. the open polytechnic systems provide a number of channels for communication, including class email distribution lists managed through the online campus. there is also a free-phone number for students to contact their lecturers directly, thus removing the barrier of cost to this form of communication. students are encouraged to contact their course leader if they face any difficulties. one-to-one email communication between journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 39 students and lecturers provides a parallel option to both phone and class emails. faculty members noted through the focus-group discussion that students ask questions at any time of the day or night (even if answers are provided only during working hours). students also use the course forums to discuss aspects of the course and their learning. this is strongly encouraged by this faculty group, both to improve student engagement with the course, and to manage large student numbers in individual courses. faculty then have the option of collating responses to several student queries with a single answer woven into a collective response. print newsletters are also sent out to students: these provide an alternative form of contact and ensure that information is available to those students who may not manage well in the online environment. a faculty member notes: i am a great believer in empathy, building up trust, approachability, communication, and positive and constructive feedback as fundamental strategies for success in teaching and retention of learners. the course [at entry level and often the first course students take in the programme] has week-by-week automated postings. these have detailed guidelines on what to study and time management. these newsletters are sent to the students via the online campus directly to their email inbox. this has the effect of looking like personal communication from their teaching staff. strategies such as following up on students who have not logged into the online campus a few weeks into the course were also implemented. these students are sent an individual email and letter via post. the letter outlines the benefits of using the online campus and explains the need for them to check that their contact details are correct. this contact usually prompts those who are reluctant to use the online campus or feel hesitant about the course to login and engage with the course content. alternatively this communication prompts them to contact staff to ask what their options are (e.g. transfer or withdrawal). faculty note that this strategy often helps to open the lines of communication, and that students seem to appreciate the individual contact. faculty also found that some esol students prefer email communication over verbal communication such as phone calls. email allows esol students to read information slowly and repeatedly if required. focus-group discussions noted that tailoring communication channels is a very important strategy for retention and completion: i usually respond to students using the method of contact they employed to contact me. for instance i have had students with strong listening and talking skills, (aural learning style), who prefer to call on the telephone, and ask questions, rather than write emails or online forum messages. information and library studies faculty stated that using a range of channels can be difficult in very large classes, especially if a significant number of students prefer phone calls. communication channels are also prone to change, depending on the types of queries the student has. the choice is often difficult to predict until the strengths of the individual students are known. different aspects of teaching are also better suited to different communication channels. for one course, i ask students to email me complex questions that require a detailed response, and to either set a time to talk to me, or call me when they get the email. this enables both of us to be well prepared. i also take emailed questions that i think are relevant to the whole class and post them to the discussion forums along with my response (without identifying the student who asked the original question). providing feedback providing students with individual as well as group feedback is one of the more personal and tailored ways of communicating with students in an odl environment. it is most often maathuis-smith, s. e., wellington, s., cossham, a. f., fields, a., irvine, j. r., welland, s., & innes, m. 40 associated with feedback on assessment and group work. lamer (2009) believes that providing timely feedback is the first critical strategy in reducing the feeling of isolation that leads to lower retention rates for online students. the relationship between feedback, engagement, and retention is also supported by goleman (1995) who emphasises that feedback should be specific and explicitly provided to ensure that the student understands how and why they did not do well in an assignment. he also notes that if feedback is seen as criticism, the result could be precisely the opposite of what is normally expected: emotional backlash accompanied by resentment and a strong sense of distance. this feedback can occur even before an assignment is due. one of the strategies discussed in the focus-group sessions was the availability of resources to assist students to actively engage with and complete assessments. most ils faculty now provide a breakdown of marks well before the assignment due dates to show students exactly how marks will be allocated to each component of an assignment. feedback from students has been positive, with students confirming that it takes out much of the guesswork when it comes to interpreting assignment questions. post-assignment feedback includes using standardised tightly controlled marking criteria and marking sheets for faculty and adjunct faculty to help ensure consistent and appropriate feedback for each student. this is balanced with individual feedback by the marker, and course feedback has shown that students appreciate the personal and direct marking style rather than generic statements. it removes the fear that they are ‗just a number‘ and motivates many to adopt the changes suggested in their next assignment. this in turn leads to better marks, which help build confidence. using students‘ names when giving feedback and communicating in public forums is also noted by faculty as a strategy towards retention. i have noticed that well-timed and constructive feedback can set a student on a path to success in future courses. i think it is important to take the time to offer personalised feedback early on in the study pathway. i find that the marking of the level 5 courses, and in particular the marking of the first entry-level course for students, takes a lot of time. over the years i have encouraged adjunct faculty markers to use constructive feedback techniques in their marking. student-to-student support students in open and distance learning often feel they are studying on their own. boyle, kwan, ross and simpson state, ―there can be particularly acute issues in the distance learning environment where students often report feelings of isolation, little sense of connection and belonging, and are challenged to maintain engagement in and motivation for learning‖ (2010, p. 122). creating opportunities and frameworks which encourage support between students was another important strategy identified by ils faculty towards retention and completion. faculty have used elements of functionality in the online campus to create a number of channels and resources for student-to-student support. the formation of geographically based study groups or online communities can help maintain motivation and create a solid social student environment. strong points were made by faculty in focus-group discussion about the need to instil guidelines on appropriate netiquette. one faculty member noted: … one terse student email can inhibit student-to-student interaction for the rest of the semester. students frequently do not realise how their typed messages come across on forums, and may need a gentle reminder that it‘s a public setting, not person to person private communication. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 41 however, written communication via forums is encouraged, especially as a way of sharing different experiences in varied workplaces, and to reduce the individual direct questions relating to the same issue. boyle et al. (2010) note that older forms of student support, such as student-tostudent mentoring, may still have much to offer when it comes to increasing engagement and retention. one interesting example of this is demonstrated by the following comment made by a faculty member: students using the frequently asked questions (faq) page started to show ownership of the course by responding to each other‘s queries. this led to social interaction and became an example of student-to-student support. this interaction also exemplified the adult learning principles of recognition of prior experience and respect from the other students. other ils faculty members noted that students were also using the forums to talk with each other to identify pieces of information not otherwise readily available to them. examples included identifying the types of practices and standards used in different types of libraries. faculty believe that this encourages students to share experiences and knowledge (creating a wider pool of shared information) and, at the same time, to participate in the course in a more social and interactive way. social elements were also identified as an important factor in improving retention and completion rates by ils faculty. online campus resources such as the synchronous chat sessions can be used to develop the social element of the class. students can ask the course leader to set up a chat so that a study group can work together. study groups, especially those that meet face to face, are also a useful device to provide support to students, and some larger libraries have organised such groups to support employees who are enrolled with the open polytechnic. one ils faculty member noted: my course has an exam and students are encouraged to use the chat room facility to facilitate revision sessions. these sessions served to create a social learning experience for revision. one semester, i monitored who participated in the chat and noticed that overall these students achieved better results in their exam than those who did not participate. conclusion the purpose of this research has been and continues to be to explore strategies employed by participating lecturers in their teaching practice to maintain consistently high retention and completion rates in ils courses. faculty, through focus-group discussion, have synthesised teaching practices which they feel lead to high retention and completion rates in their taught courses. the action research framework employed in this study was designed to uncover, examine, synthesise and disseminate the strategies used by this group of faculty to maintain high retention and completion rates within their unique setting. the complexity of reasons for student engagement and student retention has been noted both in the literature and in the experience of ils faculty when dealing with their students and courses. no one factor, on its own, accounts for the majority of success in student retention, but a combination of factors, which meet a combination of needs for a majority of students, will go a long way towards maintaining student engagement. the paper highlights key strategies deemed to be important for high retention and completion rates. recommendations a key component of action research is to derive recommendations to guide future decisionmaking, to use these in practice, and to re-evaluate the outcomes arising from these actions. recommendations arising from this research include a range of strategies for further action. it is maathuis-smith, s. e., wellington, s., cossham, a. f., fields, a., irvine, j. r., welland, s., & innes, m. 42 noted that one of the most important aspects is that faculty should be lifelong learners themselves, preferably with participation in and an understanding of e-learning. this creates understanding of and empathy with the student experience. 1. faculty should participate in e-learning as learners, if possible. 2. students should receive good pre-enrolment advice to ensure their course selections are relevant, they are fully aware of the commitment involved, and they are motivated to complete the qualifications. 3. employers and families should be encouraged to create supportive work and home environments. one strategy is to send information leaflets about odl studies directly to them. 4. orientation should be carefully planned and use introductory newsletters, encouraging forum comments by the course leader, and ice-breaker activities to make students feel part of the group. students who do not participate should be followed up after the first 2 to 3 weeks of a semester. 5. a range of different communication channels should be used to allow students a choice, and social interaction and student-to-student support should be actively encouraged. 6. thoughtful, personalised feedback should be given when marking assignments, particularly in first-year courses. references asbee, s., & simpson, o. 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(2004). the impact on retention of interventions to support distance learning students. open learning: the journal of open and distance learning, 19(1), 79–95. doi: 10.1080/0268051042000177863 tertiary education commission. (2010a). educational performance in tertiary education. retrieved from http://www.tec.govt.nz/learners-organisations/learners/performance-intertiary-education/ tertiary education commission. (2010b). revised educational performance indicators for sac funded tertiary education organisations. retrieved from http://www.tec.govt.nz/documents/reports and other documents/sac-educationalperfromance-indicators-march-2010.pdf biographical notes at the time of writing, the authors were all lecturers in information and library studies for the school of information and social sciences at the open polytechnic of new zealand. sandra maathuis-smith sandra.smith@openpolytechnic.ac.nz sandra maathuis-smith has graduate and post-graduate qualifications in library studies, information technology, and education. research interests include online and distance adult education, organisational learning, and educational psychology. sandra lectures in records management and library studies. shannon wellington shannon.wellington@vuw.ac.nz shannon wellington is a senior tutor in the school of information management at victoria university of wellington. her research interests include convergence between memory institutions, library and museum history and the exhibition of documentary heritage materials. shannon is completing doctoral research that looks at integration between galleries, libraries, archives and museums. amanda cossham amanda.cossham@openpolytechic.ac.nz amanda cossham is a principal lecturer in the school. her professional and research interests include continuing professional development, graduate outcomes, cataloguing and classification, current awareness services (sdi), and records and information management. amanda is a member of the editorial boards of the new zealand library and information management journal, and information research. alison fields alison.fields@openpolytechic.ac.nz alison fields is a senior lecturer in library and information studies. she has 15 years‘ experience as a librarian and 10 years as a distance educator. her research interests include continuing professional development, the research process, and information access and library services in distance education. alison is editor of the new zealand library and information management journal. http://www.tec.govt.nz/learners-organisations/learners/performance-in-tertiary-education/ http://www.tec.govt.nz/learners-organisations/learners/performance-in-tertiary-education/ http://www.tec.govt.nz/documents/reports%20and%20other%20documents/sac-educational-perfromance-indicators-march-2010.pdf http://www.tec.govt.nz/documents/reports%20and%20other%20documents/sac-educational-perfromance-indicators-march-2010.pdf mailto:sandra.smith@openpolytechnic.ac.nz mailto:shannon.wellington@vuw.ac.nz mailto:amanda.cossham@openpolytechic.ac.nz mailto:alison.fields@openpolytechic.ac.nz journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 45 jan irvine jan.irvine@openpolytechic.ac.nz jan irvine has a master of library and information studies (mlis), and a certificate in designing and facilitating e-learning (2010). she has 19 years‘ experience in a wide range of libraries and has taught information and library studies since 2000. jan is a member of the editorial board for the new zealand library and information management journal. sarah welland sarah.welland@openpolytechic.ac.nz sarah welland has a post-graduate degree in information management and over 19 years‘ experience in records and archives management. she combines lecturing with records consultancy work in a range of organisations around new zealand with volunteer work developing a local history collection. sarah lectures in records management and archives management. mary innes mary.innes@openpolytechic.ac.nz mary innes has a background in public and academic libraries in new zealand, australia and canada. she has a master of information management from victoria university wellington. she is interested in the future of libraries and new ways of providing library services, and in the workings of multi-branch library systems. mary is currently lecturing in children‘s literature and knowledge management. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 new zealand license. maathuis-smith, s. e., wellington, s., cossham, a. f., fields, a., irvine, j. r., welland, s., & innes, m. (2010e). obtaining high retention and completion rates in a new zealand odl environment: a case study of strategies employed by information and library studies faculty at the open polytechnic. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 15(1), 31–45. mailto:jan.irvine@openpolytechic.ac.nz mailto:sarah.welland@openpolytechic.ac.nz mailto:mary.innes@openpolytechic.ac.nz http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/nz/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/nz/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/nz/ journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 99 revisualising innovative online learning spaces in an early childhood teacher education programme lesley pohio, university of auckland maryann lee, university of auckland abstract this paper presents a descriptive analysis of the challenges and rewards of revisualising and designing an innovative online space for a first-year bachelor of education early childhood education course, visual arts in the early years. the perspectives offered are drawn from a design project involving collaboration between the course lecturer and learning designer. central to the creation of this online learning space were the underpinning values and philosophy of the early childhood curriculum te whāriki (ministry of education, 1996). with this as our guide, we set out to create a rich visual online learning experience that reflected the creative learning environments in early childhood education. the challenge was to transform a dynamic and fluid face-to-face teaching and learning context into an online mode. this engendered considerable rethinking not only of the content, but also the conceptual framework that informs best practice in e-learning. that is, the educational experience supported a conceptual framework that promoted social, cognitive and teaching presence (garrison & anderson, 2003). in order to capture the specific qualities of the course in the proposed design, it was essential to understand the underlying principles and values that informed the course. as edwards, gandini, and forman (1998) assert, “the space has to be a sort of aquarium that mirrors the ideas, values, attitudes, and cultures of the people who live within it” (p. 177). it is argued that unless these beliefs are inherent in the design, the online learning environment that supports the depth of engagement and critical reflection by the learner is compromised. keywords: visual arts; online learning; collaboration; flexible learning; early childhood education introduction the rapid growth of e-learning technologies available to tertiary institutions, together with the widespread use of the internet, has the potential to transform all forms of education and learning (garrison & anderson, 2003). the opportunity for early childhood student teachers to study online and at a distance has become increasingly available through many teacher education sites in new zealand. online study options are considered to provide greater flexibility for students, enabling them to work at their own pace and offering an alternative to face-to-face learning (du plessis, walker, & naughton, 2008). teaching at a distance through an online mode presents potential challenges for teacher educators. despite having a sound pedagogical background in teacher education, many struggle pohio, l., & lee, m. 100 to design effective online learning environments for their students. factors such as a lack of adequate time to plan courses, limited technical knowledge of the online learning technologies, and few opportunities for professional development are common contributors to poor design (tickner & gallagher, 2010; shephard, 2004). however, one of the most significant challenges for teaching staff is the required shift from the way they teach in a face-to-face environment to effective teaching in an online learning environment (pallof & pratt, 2007). too often, face-toface instruction is simply replicated online, whereby the learning focus is on content and knowledge acquisition, rather than interaction and social engagement of meaning (jonassen, 2007). the online environment then becomes a depot for lecturer resources and presentations, with little scaffolding to encourage meaningful student engagement, either with the materials or each other. bearing these challenges in mind, it was essential for the course lecturer to access the expertise of the learning designer for support with the design process. the multifaceted layers of the course materials demanded the skills of a learning designer to help synchronise all the components and to reflect the holistic nature of the course. collaborating in this way created valuable opportunities for critical engagement and reflective analysis of the course. the goal was to create a space that emulated the rich everyday learning experiences found within a creative early childhood education context. garrison and anderson (2003) support the notion that “a quality educational experience is the dynamic integration of content and context created and facilitated by a discipline expert and pedagogically competent teacher” (p. 4). this paper first outlines a pedagogical framework that underpins the visual arts course (ministry of education, 1996) and supports e-learning best practice (garrison & anderson, 2003). it then discusses the design approach by examining four key design concepts that draw on specific examples of the course. pedagogical framework a vital step before embarking on the design process was to ensure that there was a shared understanding of the pedagogical framework between our roles as course lecturer and learning designer. the principles that underlie the early childhood curriculum, te whāriki (ministry of education, 1996), and visual arts education best practice (mcardle, 2003) formed an important pedagogical guide for shaping the course design. there are four foundation principles within te whāriki (ministry of education, 1996) that provide valuable reference points. empowerment—whakamana advocates early childhood education services that enable young children to develop a sense of self-worth and identity. opportunities are provided for children to actively participate in a supportive environment where they are encouraged to contribute their own experiences and ideas that are valued and respected. holistic development—kotahitanga provides a model of learning that brings together all aspects of the child and their experiences (physical surroundings, emotional context, and relationships with others), rather than separating learning as the acquisition of discrete skills. children learn in contexts that have meaning and which acknowledge what children bring to them, reflecting the holistic way children learn and grow. family and community—whānau tangata emphasises the importance of the integral role that family and community play in early childhood education and in young children’s learning. understanding and valuing the contributions of different communities enhances the well-being of children. relationships—ngā hononga develops responsive and reciprocal relationships with people, places, and things that are paramount in early childhood education. creating learning environments where children can make meaning of their experiences through their engagement with each other and open-ended materials helps to increase the complexity of their learning. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 101 in relation to visual arts education best practice (pelo, 2007; robertson, 2000), the ways in which visual art experiences are presented in early childhood education are underpinned by these same principles. the visual arts are seen as an integral way for children to communicate and express ideas, making meaning of their experiences and the world around them through graphic and symbolic languages. it is considered more meaningful to interweave visual arts experiences throughout the curriculum than simply present separate disjointed activities as traditional perspectives on children’s art-making suggests (kolbe 2005). mcardle (2003) proposes that “the teaching of [visual] art should also be viewed in relation to our ways of seeing the teacher and the meaning of pedagogy” (p. 38). the e-learning conceptual framework identified by garrison and anderson (2003) resonates strongly with the principles identified in te whāriki (ministry of education, 1996) and reflected within visual arts education practices. this framework contends that the online environment needs to allow for social, cognitive and teaching presence, and these overlap to provide an educational experience. key attributes of the e-learning educational experience include developing relationships and connecting to other learners, the construction of new knowledge and meaning, the design of the course environment, and the facilitation of engagement (palloff & pratt, 2007). design approach the process of analysing and reflecting on the pedagogical framework provided us with a strong premise from which to make design decisions. with the learning outcomes, course assessment, and required readings already determined, the design approach specifically relates to the creation and graphical layout of the course materials and online learning activities. it was not our intention to simply transfer our face-to-face course materials online, or to replicate existing online courses by following a generic design template. instead, the design needed to reflect the specific qualities of the course and encompass the values and beliefs that underpinned visual arts in the early years. the importance of a well-designed web interface is often overlooked when creating online course materials in tertiary institutions. consistent navigation, clear structure, and easy access to content are paramount for any course website. lock (2007) highlights the significance of good technical design, and the effect it can have within online environments in developing communities. he states that “interface needs to be intuitive to the user, must complement the learning goals, and put learning at the forefront . . . the interaction design of the online community needs to support intuitive and user-friendly orientation, navigation, usability, and functionality” (p. 138). this concept is further supported by sweller’s (1994) cognitive load theory, which argues for the importance of presenting content in an organised and structured way that enables learners to easily access the course content rather than grappling with the layout. with this in mind, we engaged a graphic designer and technical administrator to ensure the design layout of our web pages was cohesive in form, had a clear hierarchy to scaffold the learner, and allowed spaces for different types of media content. by working closely with specialists, we aimed to ensure that our learning intentions were not compromised by the limitations of the technology. in an early childhood context, the notion that the environment plays an active and critical role in influencing and shaping teaching and learning is also familiar. te whāriki describes how “children in early childhood education settings should experience an environment where they discover and develop different ways to be creative and expressive” (ministry of education, 1996, p. 80). similarly, teachers are encouraged to critique their environments to ascertain the theories of teaching and learning they may be mirroring and how these affect young children’s learning experiences (curtis & carter, 2003; pairman & terreni, 2001; pohio, 2006). it was also important for the course lecturer and learning designer to carefully assess their online pohio, l., & lee, m. 102 environment and ascertain whether it restricted or opened up possibilities for student teachers’ active exploration. the following section outlines four key concepts that emerged from the design approach. these are: opportunities for collaboration and reflection; multiple pathways to learning; strong visual provocation; and a holistic and integrated approach. 1. opportunities for collaboration and reflection a fundamental component in early childhood education is designing environments that foster connections and a sense of belonging and community. (ministry of education, 1996). brooks (2003) proposes that when “children are exposed to other ideas through the interactions with others in their community they are able to grow into the intellectual life of those around them” (p. 3). this view is no different when it comes to creating distance online learning environments for tertiary education (new zealand council for educational research, 2004). at the heart of every online course is the creation of a learning community that provides opportunities for collaboration and reflection through members of that community engaging with one another. palloff and pratt (2007) describe the key factors in a learning community space as: “mutual exploration of ideas, a safe place to reflect on and develop those ideas and a collaborative, supportive approach to academic work” (p. 6). therefore, presenting students with a multitude of spaces to engage with each other and to develop a sense of community is a significant feature in our course design. incorporating components such as discussion forums, online galleries, and online portfolios are some of the ways that can contribute towards a sense of community being engendered, as the following examples suggest. discussion forums there were five facilitated online discussions throughout the course—each one was situated within a weekly course theme alongside course readings, resources, and associated activities. this guided environment played a role in provoking thoughtful and reflective participation and discussion, particularly with the inclusion of visual imagery. for example, in one online discussion students photographed and shared a sculpture that they had made out of natural materials. reflecting on their readings and their own sculpture explorations, they then discussed the teaching and learning opportunities for young children in this experience. two learning intentions were served through this. first, the students themselves explored the properties of natural materials and their aesthetic qualities. second, it helped them to recognise the rich possibilities for teaching and learning the natural environment presents for young children’s learning. sharing their explorations in a visual and written format contributed to fostering a deeper connection with one another, and developing a sense of identity, both individually and collectively. online gallery the online gallery exhibited a variety of paintings created by well-known artists from new zealand and abroad. students were asked to examine the paintings, identify different elements within the artwork, and describe the possible ideas and feelings that they evoked. understanding basic elements (line, shape, colour, texture, space) and principles of the visual arts provides a framework of practice for teachers when engaging with children (mcardle, 2003). exposing students to different artworks provided opportunities to interpret and reflect on new artwork together. online portfolio online portfolios provided an optional space for students to reflect on their visual art learning journey, and were also an avenue for receiving timely feedback from one another and showing their accomplishments. barrett (2011) argues that e-portfolios should provide both choice and voice, so that students feel intrinsically motivated to engage, which in turn leads to an journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 103 environment that promotes good participation. including students’ visual imagery presented within their own portfolio can provide another rich dimension to the course, by allowing them to express their ideas through a range of different visual mediums. in an early childhood context children are also able to make their thinking visible through the visual arts. (robertson 2000) this can be demonstrated by creating galleries of their artwork, having individual portfolios, and sharing artwork with families and communities. 2. multiple pathways to learning the ‘hundred languages of children’ is a metaphor used to describe the multitude of ways or ‘languages’ children (and adults) use to communicate and connect (edwards et al., 1998, p. 3). the use of graphic and symbolic languages such as paint, wire or clay provides children with multiple invitations to construct, express, and reflect on their thoughts and feelings, and represent ideas in different ways. te whāriki (ministry of education, 1996) suggests that: “[t]he environment should offer a wide variety of possibilities for exploring, planning, reasoning, and learning, with space arranged to encourage active exploration, providing both new challenges and familiar settings so that children develop confidence” (p. 83). by providing multiple learning pathways for students, we encouraged them to extend their learning outside the digital ‘walls’ of the course. these learning pathways were created in defined sections of the content, and displayed links to additional resources and literature, such as youtube clips and websites. each section prompts students to further explore in their area of interest via the internet. opportunities for students to access multiple domains of knowledge via the internet are extensive, and are becoming more widely acknowledged in the academic arena. as siemens (2005) states, “[i]nstead of presenting content/information/knowledge in a linear sequential manner, learners can be provided with a rich array of tools and information sources to use in creating their own learning pathways” (p. 26). with this in mind, we were conscious of providing students with a variety of learning experiences and possibilities, both within the course and through the internet. feature artist an example of a multiple pathway was the profiling of a new feature artist each week, whereby students were encouraged to search the internet to learn more about the artist’s work. this allowed the students to extend their knowledge about different artists and the inspirations behind their work, building a repertoire of possibilities for use with children in the future. another facet of this exercise was to encourage students to explore their local community to take note of the work of artists that surround them. initiating connections with local artists can lead to collaborations being fostered between the artist and the early childhood centre, thus enriching young children’s understanding and appreciation of local artists’ work (loughran, 2001). 3. strong visual provocation visual representation is strong in early childhood settings, whether it is through play equipment, children’s artwork, or natural installations. these elements create a visually rich and stimulating environment (curtis & carter, 2003). when a new environment is encountered, children often scan the space to try to understand the meanings and intentions contained within the particular place. the environment gives cues or signals about what is possible or expected. the way in which an environment is constructed reflects the values and beliefs of the people who inhabit it (edwards et al., 1998). the visual imagery displayed and how this is placed can promote certain messages about the way in which children can interact within the environment. as we approached the design, we were aware of the language or messages being promoted through visual imagery. the notion that visual imagery can be ‘read’ is gaining traction, although oral pohio, l., & lee, m. 104 and written modes of communication still retain dominance. however, in this increasingly visual world the effect of visual images cannot continue to be ignored. mcardle (2003) highlights the need to be visually literate to interpret and read these images. despite research, particularly in cognitive theory, that supports the integration of text and images to enhance learning (paivio, 1990; sweller, 1994), when it comes to creating online course materials within academic institutions the purposeful use of imagery is often overlooked. the emphasis is predominantly placed on the written word, and text-heavy web pages are a familiar sight. if images are included, they are typically used for decoration rather than intentional learning purposes. we were therefore mindful to select images that aligned with the course values, and these were used deliberately and purposefully for intended learning outcomes. visual provocation were also used to deepen the learning experience. these provocations incorporated children’s artwork, photographs of artwork in the community, and images describing visual art techniques. one aspect included a visual image accompanied by a relevant quote. when placed together, these captured the essence of the theme for each week. for example, we presented an image of two young children drawing with sticks on the beach with a quote: “to a young child, the world is full of materials to touch, discover, and explore. to find, collect, sort, and use materials is to embark on a special kind of adventure” (weisman topal & gandini, 1999, p. xii). the juxtaposition of the text and visual imagery conveyed a stronger message than if they had been placed separately (paivio 1990). 4. holistic and integrated approach weaving students’ prior learning experiences and their new understanding together throughout course work reflected the principle of holistic development—kotahitanga (ministry of education, 1996). through students’ journeys in creating their own artwork, disseminating relevant readings, and engaging in discussion with each other, they are encouraged to consider their own identity, values, and beliefs in relation to others around them. it is critical for students to reflect on who they are and the experiences and knowledge they bring to the course as they make new meaning, articulate ideas about the role of the teacher, and reconsider the image of the child. loughran (2006) states: “with a recognition that beliefs and knowledge are so closely tied to one another, students of teaching need opportunities through which they might begin to purposefully confront, define, redefine and realign their practices and beliefs” (p. 116). a holistic approach acknowledges and draws upon each student’s prior learning and life experiences in order for them to understand how these experiences shape teaching. an integrated approach to course design was achieved by interlinking all the course materials—a practical task page, video clips, online activities, and readings and resources—from the weekly topic page. by providing one access point, students were able to approach their topic in an integrated way, rather than as separate components. in particular, we linked the practical visual art tasks with the early childhood visual art theoretical content to show the connection between the two. this allowed students to assimilate the pedagogical meaning behind practical visual arts tasks, rather than simply focusing on the technical ‘how-to’ skills. mcardle (2003) suggests that: “without some strong philosophical underpinnings, our visual art programs could simply be a series of ad hoc ‘activities’, or the slavish following of a formula” (p. 36). conclusion this paper presents our perspectives as the course lecturer and the learning designer, and the complexities we each confronted throughout the design process. the two different lenses created a catalyst to constantly scrutinise the course materials. key to the design was the collaborative journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 105 manner in which the expertise of educational design, teacher education, and visual arts practices in early childhood education was drawn upon. it was essential that there was commonality in understanding about the direction and nature of the course. this entailed constant dialogue and reflection to ensure that the design framework mirrored the pedagogical principles underlying the course. the paper seeks to foreground the importance of four key concepts that were critical to the development of this project. in summary, these were: opportunities for collaboration and reflection, which enabled students to not only share their perspectives and visual art experiences, but also critically engage with others through different avenues; multiple learning pathways that encouraged students to access a wide range of rich information from a variety of different domains; visual provocations, which emphasised the use of imagery in conjunction with the written text, to enhance learning and to capture the essence of the course; and a holistic and integrated approach that embraced and acknowledged students’ prior knowledge and lived experience. other considerations were also significant in the design process, but have not been fully addressed in this paper. in particular, the bicultural nature of te whāriki (ministry of education, 1996), and how it can be reflected in an online learning environment, deserves further investigation and discussion. this area of distance education has undergone insufficient exploration. we also recognise that the course design is still evolving as we continue to reflect, re-evaluate, and further develop course materials in response to students’ feedback. several key changes have been identified to strengthen the course. one is the addition of a private online journal to allow students to engage individually with the lecturer and receive detailed feedback about their developing ideas. another is to embed video clips within the course materials from a recently developed visual arts dvd, visual arts inspirations: people, places, things (university of auckland, 2011). this will enhance the content by providing greater links to authentic visual arts practices in early childhood contexts. the final change is the provision of better technical help materials to support students, with the optimisation and uploading of their personal images to moodle. we also plan to undertake a research project that captures student teachers’ online engagement, and their feedback on the design of the course and how this affects their learning. the effectiveness of teachers’ online presence will also be examined. as garrison and anderson (2003) note, rather than simply addressing the course content, it is important that “the purpose of innovation must be the enhancement of the quality of the learning environments and learning outcomes” (p. 106). through the recognition of a well-considered pedagogical framework and design process, we can begin to create an innovative online learning experience that reflects the rich learning environments in early childhood education. references barrett, h. (2011). balancing the two faces of e-portfolios. retrieved from http://electronicportfolios.org/balance/balancingarticle2.pdf brooks, m. (2003). drawing: the social construction of knowledge. australian journal of early childhood, 29(2), 41–49. curtis, d., & carter, m. (2003). designs for living and learning: transforming early childhood environments. st paul, mn: redleaf press. du plessis, k., walker, l., & naughton, c. (2008). ready, steady, study: implications of online learning for early childhood teacher education. journal of distance learning, 12(1), 1–8. http://electronicportfolios.org/balance/balancingarticle2.pdf pohio, l., & lee, m. 106 edwards, c., gandini, l., & forman, g. (1998). the hundred languages of children: the reggio emilia approach—advanced reflections (2nd ed.). london, england: ablex. garrison, d. r., & anderson, t. (2003). e-learning in the 21st century: a framework for research and practice. london, england: routlegefalmer. jonassen, d. h. 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(2004). the role of educational developers in the expansion of educational technology. international journal for academic development, 9(1), 67–83. retrieved from http://matematicas.reduaz.mx/mat01/des/pr/a13.pdf http://www.educate.ece.govt.nz/~/media/educate/files/reference%20downloads/oldece/environmentsconference.pdf http://www.educate.ece.govt.nz/~/media/educate/files/reference%20downloads/oldece/environmentsconference.pdf http://matematicas.reduaz.mx/mat01/des/pr/a13.pdf journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 107 siemens, g. (2005). connectivism: learning as network-creation. retrieved from http://www.elearnspace.org/articles/networks.htm sweller, j. (1994). cognitive load theory, learning difficulty, and instructional design. journal of learning and instruction, 4, 295–312. tickner, s. & gallagher, g. (2010). working with wikis: are we ready? in j. jesson, v. carpenter, m. mclean, m. stephenson, & airini (eds.), university teaching reconsidered: justice, practice, inquiry (pp. 44–59). wellington, new zealand: dunmore. university of auckland. (2011). visual arts inspirations: people, places, things [dvd]. auckland, new zealand: author. weismen topal, c., & gandini, l. (1999). beautiful stuff! learning with found materials. worcester, ma: davis. biographical notes lesley pohio l.pohio@auckland.ac.nz lesley pohio is a senior tutor in the faculty of education, university of auckland. she teaches on the graduate diploma and bachelor of teaching (ece) programmes, predominantly in the area of visual arts education through both face-to-face and distance learning. her research interests include the visual arts and information and communication technologies in early childhood education. maryann lee maryann.lee@auckland.ac.nz maryann lee is a learning designer in the faculty of education, university of auckland. her role is to provide support to lecturers in the area of online learning. maryann's interests include designing flexible learning materials and the use of e-portfolios. � this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. pohio, l., & lee, m. (2012). revisualising innovative online learning spaces in an early childhood teacher education programme. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 16(1), [pp. 99–107.]. http://www.elearnspace.org/articles/networks.htm mailto:l.pohio@auckland.ac.nz mailto:maryann.lee@auckland.ac.nz http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ distance education in new zealand: in february 1922, in wellington, miss mackenzie counted new zealand's first roll, 107 children, for correspondence classes; a mile away, the first new zealand public radio station took the air two threads, agency and technology, in the weave of new zealand distance education. history? the writer of this historical sketch faces several problems. first, the historian is not usually a participant. while this sketch is based on published records, it also draws on the writer's own thirty years of experience in new zealand distance education. one person's perception may be another's distortion. second, until the various participants in new zealand d i s t a n c e e d u c a t i o n pooled some of their interests in the mid-1980s within deanz, their earlier activities occurred in separate sectors of education, developing at different rates at different times. third, our participants are very d i v e r s e . a m o n g t h e m are thousands o f individuals, learners, teachers, administrators, technologists and a host of others. distance education is such that they almost invariably function as members of some collective group, in an organisation, association, institution, or network. it is on the historical development and interactions of these collectivities that this sketch focuses. few individuals are named1, and where poss i b l e , familiar acronyms are used for organisations (which are listed in the two tables) finally, like many histories, this brief account of new zealand distance education has the an historical sketch donald bewley p almerston north new zealand problem of where to start. were not all imported manifestations of 'pakeha' education a form of distance education curriculum? do we begin with the first missionaries? even when, at the earliest universities, instruction was face-to-face but 'external' assessment from england was required, wtl.s that really 'tutored' distance education, different in degree, not kind, from the tuitionless 'exemption from lectures' so commonly allowed? (owens, 1985, 17-25) or did new zealand distance education begin when australian commercial correspondence courses were made accessible here? this sketch ignores (or almost) these pre-cursors because they do little to explain our shape and character for distance education. to narrate the d e v e l o p m e n t of distance education of that kind, we dip in at a time when the new zealand public advocated, and were answered by, distance education; and when, by coincidence, a new technical venture, its resource significance unforeseen, also began. correspondence school and broadcasting, later icons of distance education, give us our arbitrary start in february 1922. table 1 shows major provider institutions, that together complement and are a counterpart to the national system of public education. there are some o t h e r s , more ephemeral so n o t included. each has a distinctive role and history which some have celebrated in (sometimes very full) detail 2 . ]au mal of distance leaming, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 14 agency description acronym 1 international commercial corre-spondence schools; founded overseas and ics correspondence schools imported early in the 20th century, they provide a range of .1 personal and vocational education courses 2 stott's (heavily marketed) and issue their own certificates. 3 t he new zealand founded 1922; provides at all levels of the school programme nzcs correspondence school (including pre-school, second-language for immigrants . . . ) for children unable to get to school and ad pits whose schooling was truncated; it also teaches secondary subjects in regular schools that lack specialist teachers 4 t he open polytechnic of founded 1944 as nz technical correspondence school, later topnz new zealand institute; provides wide variety of vocational subjects for formerly diplomas (and recently degrees) and professional certification. nztci 5 massey university's offers dual-mode distance education over a wide range of own cues, centre for university university degrees and diplomas and towards degrees was extramural studies elsewhere. was 'extramural studies' first as victoria u. branch 'extramural 1960-3, then at massey u. from 1964. renamed cues 1978. studies' 6 advanced studies for established at nzcs 1962 (and serviced from there for many astu teachers unit (now years) to provide mid-career courses for schoolteachers (now professional & (sometimes in close collaboration with the colleges of aspesa community education) education network). separated off during one of nzcs's paceo many changes of location, thereafter having quasi-separate entity under the nz education 0\:!partment, until integrated with palmerston college of education about 1980. 7 workers education founded with support from the national council of adult wea-tlji'e association-trade union education in 1968; within the framework of w ea's historic postal education service policy for workers it has provided nz trades union officials with on-the-job training (organisational management, labour trades union law, negotiation skill, tu history etc) and tu members and education authority their families with second-chance, non-public-examination basic education skills; amalgamated 1987 with t uea and was tuea consequently lost when tuea was disestablished in 1992. 8 continuing education operated 1975-89. offered radio series targeted at adult conted,rn2 unit, radio new zealand interest groups (e.g. new parents, over-fifties, cancer sufferers and their families, polyn�sian immigrants, etc); recordings were then distributed via national film library and public libraries. 9 university various departments have or have had courses: local radio extension/ continuing instruction and nationally networked voice teleconferences education departments (otago u.), early childhood education training (massey u.), training for adult educators (waikato u.), law and criminology for police and more recently librarianship (victoria u., wellington); agriculture (lincoln u.). t he auckland u. department's new start programme has served many secondchance distance education students. 10 polytechnics interacted with tci/topnz to support latter's students. have offered independent courses (e.g. beekeeping at bay of plenty poly, veterinary technician training, etc at auckland institute of technology (which now interacts with etv). several polyteclu!ics use materials prepared by other providers, in joint programmes. 11 education television major providers have attempted own support activities using etv television, several making video cassettes for home viewing, massey u. broadcasting programmes, nzcs videorecording teachers' comment for students. nztv now screens series, often imported, some used by students enrolled through other providers. table 1. provider agencies -. journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 15 agency description acronym 1 nz correspondence school founded 1936, supports nccs's pupils individually and cspa collectively, and parents' association provides substantial political advocacy for nzcs. 2 international council for international conference i council of correspondence icde distance education education/educators [icce] (founded 1938 was professional formerly body to encourage formerly correspondence education in icce north america and pan-pacific, then worldwide. became in 1982 icde, marking wider range of de systems. 3 nz council for educational founded 1936, this major research agency has maintained a nzcer research watching brief on de and on educational telecommunications since the late 1970s. 4 mu-extramural students founded 1963 for social purposes but re-organised with fresh exmss society authority 1977 for advocacy and political voice. 5 australian & south pacific regional professional group, founded 1973. emphasis on tertiary aspesa external studies association sector; included nz agencies: now more national as open and (now distance learning association of australia [odlaa] since odlaa) separate deanz and south pacific association for de established. 6 peacesat organisation established (c.1973) to manage communication and peacesat research functions of us pacific-located redundant satellite at s1; nz terminal in wellington controlled many pan-pacific sessions ats 1 7 university of the south including for de; gave experience of,satellite use for de and was base for pan-australasian de discussions of de technology; pacific extension services subsystem satellite network usp-net formed basis for u. south usp-net pacific inter-island de communication links. 8 rural activities education initiated c.1977 to counsel rural students about options for reap programmes learning and to provide back-up. some now superseded by regional polytechnics. 9 asian-pacific programme of unesco regional network which nz joined in 1981 with nzcs, apeid education innovation for nztci and cues among nz centres named to support asian de development ventures. 10 distance education initiated 1984 to encourage support and study of de in nz; open deanz to all who manifest interest in nz distance learning. 11 commonwealth of founded 1988 under aegis of commonwealth secretariat to col learning disseminate de practices among 'developing' country members of commonwealth. table 2. support agencies and networks table 2 lists other agencies that have played a part student societies, media organisations, experimental programmes, support networks, and so on, and there are others which could have been li sted. not all distance education professionals are teachers. there are broadcasters who create programmes for children at nzcs and elsewhere or screen educational television series for adults that other agencies use to complement their own courses. communication specialists with computers and satellites create and disseminate instructional packages.like the providers, these agencies, specialists and networks recur and interact throughout our distance education history. a pattern? what pattern has evolved that gives new zealand its own identity? again, my suggestions and selection may not match what others would choose: our distance education is, and has long been, kaleidoscopic: the k a l e i d o s c o p e ' s c e n t r a l structure comes from the key public institutions which offer qualification courses, at various levels. alongside are the shapes and designs of many other distance education agencies. there are commercial schools, flourishing like stott's and ics, succumbing like hemingway's; or newcomers who seek high f e e s f o r n e w instructional methodologies o r a knowledge journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 16 product by distance learning in a newly evident · market; or those who offer new-age alternative i complementary therapies or non,western religions and spirituality. some are voluntary agencies, hard hit now by loss of government support, notably.wea-tupes. government departments, among them the police, inland revenue and the military (and also temporarily tuba) run training schemes at a distance, as do banks; or they employ other agencies to tailor courses for them. churches, too, improve the t h e o l o g i c a l or c o u n s e l ling skills of their congregational workers by distance education means. alongside providers are studentor p a r e n t or community-based support organisations, cpsa, exmss, reap staff. among this diversity, and other activities not listed here (bewley, 1988/9), overlap is a recent a n d s t i l l u n u s u a l phenomenon. not a l l programmes have formal outcomes: while some do satisfy public examinations, others offer qualifications of their own, and some eschew a l t o g e t h e r formal assessment either as unnecessary for self-motivated students or because they may deter those hesitant to confront examine rs. the propriety of the distance mode is rarely nowadays questioned. fortunately, in the openness of deanz to membership, a kaleidoscopic collegiality has developed 3 • membership socially of learner 'communities' has always figured large: apart from contributions from some very substantial learner support organisations, there is a long record of efforts to make students feel less alone, more part of a group. nzcs's pioneer programme of social learning was applauded at the 1938 first international meeting of correspondence educators ( icce, 1938). the school's radio broadcasts have for many years created the sense of school community (and public awareness) with weekly principal's talks and. the annual public end-of-year ceremony (now televised). many polytechnics have made support for distance learners, wherever they are enrolled, a part of their community programmes. approval comes more readily from nz public and political sources than some educational ones: the formal agencies, nzcs in 1922 and topnz in 1946, arose from post-war public pressure that ready access to education was not to be denied to returned soldiers' families nor ex-soldiers themselves who wanted to learn a trade. from 1936 cspa was there to stir political support on behalf of nzcs. teacher shortage, potentially another denial of education, kept pressure on universities 'to retain extramural stu dies, provided there was tuition. it was pressure within the teaching profession that caused astu to be set up at nzcs and ensured continuing mid-career distance study for teachers. nzde agencies usually began tentatively (and parsimoniously) before discovering appreciative and growing clienteles: there is a myth that distance students occur because 'normal' provision is temporarily over-extended, but they will be no more when 'the crisis' ends. the myth has been prejalent in new zealand, so each new venture has been thought to be undeserving of long-term investment. nzcs, topnz and cues have suffered this myth but by their persistent growth have contradicted it. new distance learning opportunities for other social and vocational groups have been perceived and these have encouraged more growth. conventional courses and their distance learning counterparts usually interchange: although nzcs and topnz operate independent distance programmes, their single-mode approach is moderated by much similarity of programme, interchangeability and complementarity with their counterpart face-to-face institutions. curricula and courses are frequently designed together and are taught in parallel. cues courses are dual-mode versions of massey university's degree/ diploma courses and cross­ credit freely to qualifications at o t h e r universities. even before prior recognition of learning became well-nigh obligatory, most distance education agencies earned full credit from their peers. formal (that is, qualification-oriented) new zealand distance education programmes have until recently been print-beset: most major credit-awarding agencies (with the exception of the university of otago's q.istance learning programme) rely on print. they have also developed uses for journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 17 other media a n d technologies, some in a subsidiary teaching role, some as student support, some for management. this is a very fast-growing area, ,but teaching, including distance teaching, has lagged for dearth of investment. nzde has been culturally pakeha until recently and changes are limited: the style and models of distance education worldwide, including here, derive from european intellectual culture, curriculum, institutional organisation and individualised learning. maori and pacific languages and cultures are now taught in distance mode, with culturally appropriate content, teaching and learning in the mix. less common, if at all, are such elements in other subjects where there are maori or pacific island distance learners. nzde has provided mid-career education including scope for many women to reshape their lives and careers: relatively open admission, distance learning c o u r ses that are manageable in constrained d o m estic circumstances, the development of distance education courses a t t r a c t i v e to women candidates and the expansion of support networks where women can be at ease w i t h one another, have contributed to the opportunities that various agencies of nzde have provided. distance education not only has high proportions of women learners, b u t of teachers and organisational leaders. women have led exmss since the early 1970s. by 1990, astu and topnz (and tuea and, previously w ea­ tupes) were in the executive care of women, as deanz has been from its second president onwards. some but not all these features surface during the brief narrative that follows. a longer larger narrative could highlight and elaborate some issues which in a general narrative remain shado wy. the events described form the maintrack, along which some key players in new zealand distance education have emerged and eventually banded together, in part to discover their individual and their common elements of identity. by banding together in various situations, and eventually in deanz, they have not only managed to protect their own interests but to share the wealth of their experience, within and outside new zealand. our history b eginsa week before wwi ended, the attention of the minister of education was drawn to the recent example of australian ' lessons by m a i l ' a n d he was reminded (public concern had already been expressed) of the need f o r 'a school o f correspondence' for new zealand 'backblocker children'. in 192 1 miss mackenzie, the first teacher of correspondence classes w a s appointed f o r t h e start of t h e 1 9 2 2 year; 87 children were expected but 107 enrolled for the new year, growing to 204 by august. a second woman teacher was added. in mid-1923 mr s.m. mills, 'heaqmaster of the correspondence school' was appointed. enrolments still rose but were capped at 500. the cap was lifted in 1927; in 1929 a secondary division was added and that year the roll passed 1000 (nzcs, 1947, 5-9). on courtenay place, a mile away from nzcs's original home, the government building, the first new zealand radio station, set up by the forrest brothers, took the air. national radio evolved three or four years later a n d responsibility for news and information became greater (anon, c. 1970, 2256, col.l). nzcs and broadcasting first linked in july 1931 when the principal began a series of talks called 'correspondence school'. through the 1930s, and ever since, concepts of radio support developed: nzcs lesson material was provided (1936), nzcs assemblies transmitted and the 'break-up' aired (both in 1937). nzcs and radio themselves became t w o significant threads, correspondence institution and technology, in the tapestry of new zealand distance education. together they became symbolic of the interest of its providers in cultivating, without wholly converting to, other media than print. most agencies now make much use of audiocassettes. radio new zealand itself became a provider for a time, its continuing education joumal of distance leami11g, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 18 unit broadcasting non-credit series for adults on significant issues, then distributing them as audiocassettes around public libraries. nzcs has persisted with radio but its 'break­ up' is now an annual television event. apart from videocassette instructional material for a small range of courses, nzcs uses teacher-made videocassettes for direct tuition between teacher and child. christchurch polytechnic (as it then was) showed early interest in educational television. topnz has made, and imported, instructional videocassettes. massey university. h a s p r o d u c e d programmes f o r recorded broadcast, mostly but not exclusively, for cues students. cues now occasionally uses tvnz's etv programmes. most etv credit courses derive from auckland institute of technology. telecommunications add another dimension: the major teleconference pioneer has been the university of otago, but its system has been widely shared, being later joined by telecom new zealand limited and its technological developments. agencies now use their computers to provide (as well as management) student access and enquiries, and variously (because some students lack equipment and skills) for instruction. international recognition in a u g u s t 1 9 3 8 , a pacific r i m group of correspondence educators (from the usa, canada, australia and new zealand) met at victoria, bc, canada for the first international conference on correspondence education, th e r e b y i n a u g u r ating the profe ssional o r g a n i s a t i o n that we now know as t h e international council o f distance education. nzcs's social learning schemes as described by p r i n c i p a l butchers brought nzcs to immediate prominence, earned butchers the chair of icce's first research committee and the promise of an icce meeting in nz (icce, 1938, 56-71). the attention paid to overcoming pupil loneliness, the numerous clubs that children could join to bring them into friendly c o r r e s p o n d e n c e with other children, the guidance from peripatetic teachers, the radio broadcasts, the associations of parents and past pupils, the exhibition of pupils' w o r k i n wellington opened b y the governor-general all established that n e w z e a l a n d s t y l e of correspondence education was infinitely caring for the life of childhood and as satisfying (and probably healthier) as any other pupil could expect echof11g the fraser /beeby dictum that then guided new zealand education. the second icce scheduled for 1940 eventually took place after 1945 in lincoln, nebraska, usa. ostensibly pacific rim again, it had only one new zealander, one australian, a filipina; the rest came from the usa and canada, except for two norwegian correspondence educators and a yale professor speaking on behalf of sweden's hermods school (in 1938 a lone scot had been the european contingent). at the end of the conferen<ce , butchers ( w h o s e p a p e r had presented' a general account of new zealand education, mentioning only two instances of distance education, university extramural studies and the wea book box scheme) became president of icce (icce, 1948). the third icce ['of correspondence educators'] and the first international distance education conference conducted in new zealand, was held in christchurch. its historical significance lay, first, in the significant contribution and display by the recently established new zealand technical correspondence school (founded in 1 9 4 6 on the basis of v o c a t i o n a l c o u r s e s developed b y the army during and just after wwii and by wellington high school). second, there were present, participating (offering advice and experience as well as hospitality) many cpsa members and former nzcs pupils, alongside the professional correspondence educators. finally, attending were various top level new zealand educators, the minister, director-general, director of nzcer, post­ primary chief inspector, officer for higher education and various others. not only did the principal, nzcs but also his colleague principal from nztcs (a former nzcs teacher) attended and, perhaps more significantly numerous staff from nzcs and nztcs. the distance education topics were shrewdly chosen and carefully prepared, as befit ted butchers final icce journal of distance learning, vol2, n o . 1, 1996 ( c ) distance education association of new zealand 19 a c t i v i t i e s ( i c c e, 1950). the next, 1953, conference regretted his absence, congratulated him on his publications (but could not fund his proposed history of correspondence education). studyi ng extramurally even before the 1920s there was another thread. although more the subject of disdain and pity than institutional pride, university 'extramural' students continued to enrol, with no attendance at classes and little advice on what to do about course prescriptions and textbooks, availing themselves of a high probability of failure. in 1925, due in part to these struggling students at a distance, the new zealand university system r e a c h e d i t s l o w e s t point of reputation. according to the reichel-tate report, it had 'unrivalled facilities for gaining university degrees, but . . is less successful in providing university education' (owens, 1985, 18). in 1959 the hughes parry report initiated major reorganisation of the new zealand university system: the federal university of new zealand dissolved, its colleges in auckland, wellington, c h r i s t c h u r c h a n d dunedin becoming autonomous (massey and lincoln agricultural colleges somewhat less so) although all owing considerable responsibility to the university grants committee. one anticipated change did not occur, namely, the abandonment of the 'exemption from lectures' i' extramural studies' system. instead, because of a teacher shortage and the need to upgrade other teachers, it was a g r e e d that ' e x e m ption' would c a r r y an obligation to enrol for tuition; and that tuition would be provided by victoria university staff located in palmerston north (where they also provided degree classes for students at the local teachers college). it was later agreed that massey college would be accorded full university status in 1964 but would take over responsibility for the palrnerston north outpost college, with its general studies (that is, arts) courses and its concomitant extramural teaching (which in 1963 included second year courses for the first time). with enrolments beyond 1000, extramural studies, 'study guide'-driven and tutored, had defied expectations that enrolments would soon plateau and reduce (owens, 1958, 50-57). already the other universities realised that they could abandon not only 'exempted' students but also evening part-time classes, redirecting students to extramural studies. throughout the 1960s extramural numbers grew, encouraging departmental and institutional growth at massey univt;rsity, where f a c u l t i e s o f humanities, social sciences, education and eventually business s t u d i e s g r e w a n d diversified . in 1962 the currie commission on education had reported on all other education outside the universities. among its many findings it highlighted the need f o r i m p r o v e d a n d expanded teacher education, some obtainable part-time and e x t r a m u r a l l y from t h e universities. some however needed t o b e more practical and,classroom-oriented. so a group of retired school inspectors was gathered as an advanced studies for teachers unit into a section at nzcs to develop correspondence diploma in teaching courses. growth there escalated too, the more s o when m a s s e y university developed i n the early 1970s a bed degree, allowing credit from astu courses. astu stayed for some administrative purposes with nzcs long after the school went to yet another site there is a separate history of nzcs to be written around its many changes of location before settling, in the care of the new zealand department of e d u c a t i o n , at wellington teachers' college, then palmerston north. these distance education providers, nzcs, nztci, extramural studies, astu, had small beginnings, were sparsely funded, and were presumed temporary until other developments removed the problems and the pressures. except the problems never disappeared! pressures and numbers increased as other problems were seen to be susceptible to the same distance education solutions. these e a r l y p r o v i d e r s simply expanded their roles t o b e c o m e more comprehensive agencies, more permanent institutions. the imagination of those who dedicated themselves to these ventures became regularly directed to issues of innovative and creative teaching (with slender resources), journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 20 responsiveness to further professional and public interest and, most of all, to the immediate, often complex, needs of those learners whom they enrolled. identity, i-lome and abr oad w ha t w e have s e e n so far has been the emer g e n c e o f several distance learning i n s t i t u t i ons, each with distinct style and function, each growing within its own market. the remainder of our history veers towards collaboration and a growing sense of unity within a national pattern of distance education. the earliest director of extramural studies outlined a national system when in 1968 he described all three main institutions, nzcs, n z t c i a n d h i s own within one account (freyberg, 1970). yet the de institutions still largely ignored each other, going into their separate professional associations, as nzcs did with australian correspondence schools, and as massey university did in 1972 when it shared in founding aspesa, a regional grouping of post-secondary distance education institutions. both nztci and massey (and other tertiary institutions) in the late 1960s established links with united kingdom open university and its coterie of institutions. the tension between identifying one's sectoral interests, school with school, university with university, and identifying as essentially new zealand distance learning institutions, was partly resolved in 1975. the then director­ general of education asked the three major institutions t o work together and adopt a common brief to describe themselves as 'new z e a l a n d d i s t a n c e education' f o r a commonwealth conference on learning and teaching in wellington. although we presented, by present standards, a limited picture, it established for us a sense of comprehensive system, that was re-iterated on other occasions, for example at tenth anniversary celebrations of both the open university in 1979 and aspesa in 1983 (bewley, 1981, 1984). the next step, again triggered in 1975 by the director-general of education was to invite a committee of various parties from various agencies, under the director of the national council of adult education, to review the state of 'learning at a distance in n ew zealand'. w hile beneficial to the participants, its public impact was largely dissipated by its d e l a y e d pu blication, more t h a n f i v e y e a r s l a t e r (department, o f education, 1980). it brought together, however, a group who largely shared the direction of distance education. after the committee ceased m e e t i n g in 197 7 , t h e principals o f nzcs and nztci and the director of cues made a practice of termly meetings which continued until deanz made such meetings no longer necessary. despite fresh awareness of one another, each major institution still continued along its own track with little reference to the others. nzcs develope� a number of special services, for immigrants, for pregnant schoolgirls, and its adult role increased markedly. its triumph was its own, custom-built (but under-estimated) school in wellington. nztci found new paths to develop as new industry training boards asked for new-style qualifications and as educational technology grew it presented the most technological of the providers with acute challenges. at massey, the designation cues marked a new level of recognition within the university. new policy ushered in third-level extramural courses (owens, 1985, 68-71), at last asserting that an entire new zealand degree could be taken extramurally ( h i t h e r t o extramural students had been obliged to take at least that level of their majoring subject in face-to-face mode, d e s p i t e long-standing examples from australia and spectacular new ones from open university). after a sharp skirmish or two, the step forward to full degrees in the distance mode on a par with any others was secured, leading in d u e t i m e to t h e unquestioned advance to distance education masterates. cues had considerable help in winning these s t r u g g l e s f r o m exm s s , a reorganised, vocal body that found it could exercise increasing political muscle (tripe in crump and livingston, 1981; williams and williams, 1985; barker, 1992). many extramural students had by now a c h i e v e d e m i n e n t p o s i t i o n s a n d o t h e r s w e r e i n t h e van o f journal o f distance learning, vol2, no. 1 , 1996 (c) distance education association o f new zealand 21 significant new movements. although exmss operated for a while within the general massey students' association, conflicts of interest (and financial management) led it towards more autonomy and less-trammelled advocacy. d u r i n g the 1970s not only the scope and collaboration of the main provider agencies increased, but contributions were made by other colleagues in new ventures, some of them like the university of otago's audioconferencing system, challenging the received methodologies (but often finding fellow enthusiasts within the established institutions). c on t ribut i o n abr oad, col laboration at home for a third time, the director-general of education challenged the three senior distance learning institutions to work as a national team by all becoming members of the national group of 'associated centres' for unesco's asian-pacific programme of educational innovation for development (apeid). each approved 'centre' must have a reputation of innovative activity t h a t co u l d be shared with other centres throughout the asia-pacific region. the three institutions were able to present a concerted example of the contributions that distance education could make to national development. two major apeid workshops were conducted within new zealand: in november 1981, nzcs was the principal host with nztci and cues as co-hosts for a workshop on distance learning systems and structures (unesco-apeid, 1981); in 1985 nzcs shared, with primary school colleagues, in a workshop on reading and language. at both, steps were taken to ensure the presence of some pacific island educators even if their countries had not yet joined apeid. otherwise new zealanders were resource persons in other countries, cues and other academic staff for training distance education personnel (unesco-apeid, 1985) and the impact of communication technologies (adams et al., 1985), and both massey and nztci staff for work with apeid' s companion organisation, unesco's higher education consortium. the presence of n e w z e a l a n d d i s t a n c e educators a t international conferences became common again. nzcs attended correspondence school gatherings in australia, canada, europe and had publications in epistola didactika. cues (and exmss) members attended aspesa and published in its bpoks, and in distance education. cues shared with the university of the south pacific the organisation of aspesa's 198 1 forum in fiji (crump and livingston, 198 1), with staff from nztci attending. nevertheless, the sectoral split between primary-secondary and tertiary still affected t h e cho i c e o f professional conferences. in 1982, however, both the principal, nzcs a n d director, c u e s attended a n icce meeting i n canada (where the name was changed to icde) and assisted aspesa's capture of the next meeting in 1985 for melbourf1,e. there we could expect an all­ sector new z·ealand presence. before that icde gathering took place, massey celebrated the twentyfifth anniversary oi extramural studies. part of the celebration was a professional conference, officially under the aegis of aspesa but organised by cues with members of other new zealand distance learning agencies invited. on the agenda was the speculative question whether new zealand needed its own aspesa 'chapter' (aspesacues, 1984). debate was lively and its outcome was a resolution to create a distance education association of new zealand. membership of deanz and of its executive group was to encompass students and support organisations, not just major providers (although they were expected to contribute substantial 'facilitation'). some members, it was felt, would want to continue within other regional and international organisations. reciprocally, aspesa/odlaa and icde members from overseas have attended deanz meetings, an opportunity for new zealand distance educators to reflect in company with international colleagues on their purposes and practices only a few can go to icde far afield or wait ten years or so until it next comes to australasia. deanz, however, continues to be the collectivity where new zealand issues are aired, and it has become a public voice for distance education. joumal of distance leaming, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 22 prior to the 1985 icde in melbourne, the icde president met with the deanz executive. later, icde's secretary.,..general visited new zealand. exmss were reqipients of an icde research grant. between the two organisations cordial and lasting relations have been established that were further strengthened by deanz in 1994 hosting an icde regional conference. although nzde activities in apeid waned in the later 1980s, new requests for assistance came from the commonwealth of learning. the s p r e a d of o p e n and distance learning especially where communications technology can increase its flexibility had been seen as a worthwhile alternative to large-scale movement of third world students away from their home cultures. long study away leads to alienation: needy countries lose good intellects. new z e a l a n d 's e x p e r i e n c e of economical development of distance education at every e d u c a t i o n a l l e v e l makes its contribution valuable (as does usp's experience of satellite teaching). the pacific is represented at col by a new zealander with considerable experience at home, at usp and with peacesat. the eye of the 1990s the 1980s and early 1990s saw radical changes throughout new zealand education. as early as 1982 the national council of adult education, a longtime supporter of distance learning, became a barely­ surviving casualty of government financial stringency (dakin, 1988, 128-134), disappearing altogether in 1990. the government policy document, tomorrow's schools, proposed radical challenges to schools like nzcs which had substantial adult enrolments. tertiary education was reviewed against funding principles with limited scope for unorthodox provision or for groups of adult learners who are the targets of much distance education provision. new policies did, however, boost interest in imaginative management and communications technology, so .have distance learning ventures particularly attractive to government. my brief does not go beyond the brink of the 1990s, but 1990 was a relatively high point in new zealand distance education, in the trust placed in it by the new zealand public and by international agencies, a n d in the self­ confidence it has from recognising through deanz the essential harmony among the diverse activities that constitute new zealand distance education. finally a pattern? is there a pattern, a set of characteristics, that recurs? the principal agencies came into being not through the creative imagination of an individual, nor through the ideological thrust of a political party, nor even, until recently through sharp sensitivity to profit in the open market. they arose from recognition of learners struggling in situations for which distance learning could cater, and nagging pressure public and political because education was almost entirely state­ driven jor some provision to be made. their inauguration and development never had the flamboyance (nor the air of technological advance) of the campaign in britain for its . university of the air i open university; nor were they accorded substantial initial investment like the massive recent ventures of some asian countries. in its attention to learners, flexibility about entrance and quiet innovations i n teaching style, new zealand distance education has evolved its own worthwhile and well­ respected national character . notes 1. this decision to omit names was not taken lightly nor without regret. for example, we know the debt that deanz owes to ormond tate. but to analyse and honour contributions such as his (there are many others, colleagues and friends) would need book-length to do them justice. only butcher, first principal, nzcs, and later president of icce, is named. 2. some examples of such c e l e b r a t o r y publications are listed i n the bibliography. for nzcs, two booklets were published for the twenty-fifth and fiftieth anniversaries (nzcs, 1947; 1972}; there is also another for the sixtieth year. cspa asked its sometime chairman, ex-mp allan dick, to compile its sixtieth anniversary booklet (die�, 1986). nztci published a history, .journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 23 1946-1980, which was largely the work of col. s . b . w a l l a c e , w i t h help perhaps from t. houghton's researches (nztci, 1982). dr john owens, historian a:nd member of the first extramural teaching team from 1960 on, wrote about the first twenty-five years of massey university's extramural programme (owens, 1 9 8 5 ) . exmss, which has a worldwide reputation among distance learning student organisations has explained its role in studies by williams and w illiams, 1985 and more recently by barker, 1992 (and by tripe in crump and livingston, 1981). aspesamarked its tenth year with kevin smith's 1984 compilation. no doubt there are others of this genre already published or to come. 3. if the range of de is so diverse however, should we be asking what, in this array of agencies, does 'distance education' mean? are 'distance teaching' or 'distance learning' (or similar noun phrases with ' open' for ' distance') synonyms or distinctively different? our professional association deanz uses 'distance education' in its title. membership is available to whoever has an interest in that activity however they may perceive its meaning and their own role within it. deanz seeks its members widely: teachers, learners, their f a m i l i e s , a dministrators, technologists, employers, etc, etc . . . to define too rigidly would be to exclude. to define at all is beset with issues (keegan, 1990, 18-47). our principal agencies prefix 'education' (or 'studies' or 'learning', etc) with 'correspondence', 'extramural', 'open', 'continuing' and other descriptors. 'education' is a word already brimming ov er with meanings; if we add these quasi-synonymous other terms that by their metaphors extend, not narrow, education's meanings we must have an inclusive not a restrictive meaning for 'distance education'. minimally, ' distance e d u c a t i o n ' may mean only instructional material via print, voice, video, electronic display, or whatever medium from which, without the live presence and proximity of a teacher, learning can be expected to occur. in our common practice, however, much more in organisation, support and criteria of quality is expected. we can respect attempts by keegan 1990 (and others whom he cites) to 'define' de but not feel bound by every attribute he requires. then we can accept the extraordinary variety of 'distance education' when it reaches out to do all, and more, that face-to-face education undertakes. it forms a comprehensive counterpart to lifelong learning, before, tprough and after school, formal and non-formal, vocational and non-vocational, public and private. references adams, r.s., bewley, d.r. & povey, t.a. 1985: possibilities offered by advances in communication tedmologies, bulletin of the unesco regional office for education in asia and the pacific, 26 (dec. 1985) 13-36. anon c.1970: at the turn of a knob, new zealand heritage 6, 2252-59. aspesa-cues 1984: distance education support systems: wprking papers. cu es f o r aspesa, palmerston north. barker, e. 1992: narrowing the gapbroadening the horizons: a paper outlining the development of a peer support network for extramural students in hayford, j. bewley, d.r. 1981: community r e s o urces in distance education. in pentz, m.j. and neil, m.w. bewley, d.r. 1984: new zealand: complementary qualified monopolies. in smith, k. bew ley, d.r 1988/9: readings on new zealand distance education: 1. institutions and agencies 2. learning and teaching. book of readings for massey university courses education 36.265/365, massey university, palmerston north. bewley, d.r. kinsella, a.b. and mcveagh, h.e. 1975: mass delivery systems (a new zealand case study): 1. the correspondence school 2. masseu university, extramural studies 3. n.z. technical correspondence institute. papers presented to the commonwealth conference on learning and teaching,, department of education, wellington. campbell, a.b. 194 1: educating new zealand. department of internal affairs, wellington. crump, p.d.l. and livlngston, k. 1981: dimensions of distance. proceedings of the fifth biennial forum of aspesa, 3 vols. aspesa, suva/ palmerston north. dakin, j.c. 1973: education in new zealand. david & charles, newton abbot. dakin, j.c 1988: focus on lifelong learning: the national council of adult education 1938-88. nzcer and ncae, wellington. dick, a.d. 1986: 1936-1986: golden jubilee history of the new zealand correspondence school parents association. nzcs, wellington. joumal of distance leaming, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 24 freyberg, p.s. 1970: part-time higher education by c o r r e s p o n d e n c e . a paper p r e s e n t e d at t h e conference on new institutional models for higher education, east-west center, hawaii. hay ford, j. 1992! voices of experience conference 1992. university of south australia external student union, adelaide. icce [international conference on correspondence education] 19 38: report of first international conference. victoria, bc, canada aug. 22-4 dept of education/icce, victoria, b.c. icce [international conference on correspondence education ]1948: proceedings of second international conference. lincoln, nebraska, usa, oct. 11-15, u.nebraska/icce, lincoln, nebraska. icce [international conference of correspondence e d u c a t o r s (sic) ] 1 9 4 8: proceedings of t hird international conference. christchurch, nz, april 18-27, nzcs/icce, wellington. keeg an, d. 1990: foundations of distance education. second edition. routledge, london. nzcs [the new zealand correspondence school] 1947: the correspondence school silver jubilee 192247. nzcs, wellington. nzcs, 1972: a golden jubilee history 1922-72: the correspondence school. nzcs, wellington. n e w z e a l a n d department of education 1980: learning at a distance. report of a working party, department of education. wellington. nztci [new zealand technical correspondence institute]1982: history of the new zealand technical correspondence institute. nztci, wellington. ow ens, j.m.r. 1985: campus beyond the walls. dunmore press, palmerston north. pentz, m.j. and neil m.w. (editors), 1981: the education of. adults at a distance. kogan page, open university; london. smith, k. 1984: diversity down under in distance education. aspesa-ddiae, darling downs. unesco, a p e i d [asia-pacific p r o g r a m m e o f educational hmovation for development] 1982: new zealand distance lea r n i n g: s y s t ems & structures. conference report, 4 vols , nzcs for unesco-apeid, wellington. unesco, apeid 1987: distance learning systems and structures: training manual. vol.ii of the report of a sub-regional training workshop, colombo, sri lanka, 1984. unesco-roeap, bangkok. w illiams, m. & w illiams, j. 1985: the_evolution and furlction of a student-operated support network for distance students. exmss, palmerston north. don bewley is professor emeritus, director of extramural studies (1967-1986) massey university, palmerston north. journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 25 microsoft word jdl05maintext1word.doc journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 63 maturity model? paper presented at the sixth australasian computing education conference (ace2004), dunedin, new zealand, january 2004. in r. lister, & a. young (eds.), conferences in research and practice in information technology, vol. 30. paulk, m., curtis, b. chrissis, b., & weber, c. v. (1993). capability maturity model: version 1.1. ieee software 10(4), 18–27. sei. (2004). process maturity profile: software cmm 2004 mid-year update. pittsburgh, pennsylvania: software engineering institute, carnegie mellon university. retrieved november 19, 2004, from http://www.sei.cmu.edu/sema/pdf/swcmm/2004aug.pdf spice. (n.d.). software process assessment version 1.00. retrieved december 18, 2002, from http://www.sqi.gu.edu.au/spice/ taylor, j. (n.d.). twenty-nine steps to heaven? strategies for transforming university teaching and learning using multimedia and educational technology. milton keynes, uk: the open university knowledge network. retrieved july 18, 2005, from http://kn.open.ac.uk/public/document. cfm?documentid=3027 u.s. department of defense. (2001). sharable content object model: reference model 1.1. retrieved august 20, 2003, from http://www.adlnet.org/index.cfm? fuseaction=scormabt stephen marshall is the project director for the ecdf project “determination of new zealand tertiary institution on e-learning capability: an application of an e-learning maturity model.” marshall is a senior lecturer in educational technologies and currently acting director of the university teaching development centre at victoria university of wellington. research in progress: learning from adopters and resisters of e-learning in new zealand polytechnics and institutes of technology hugh barr, stephen bright, john clayton, stephen cox, beverley gower, david mitchell waikato institute of technology hamilton, new zealand introduction the exponential growth of e-learning practices in higher education has resulted in an increasing interest in the ways in which faculty members in tertiary institutions perceive e-learning and the ways in which they apply e-learning in their courses. faculty who might be described as “innovators” or “early adopters” have generally embraced e-learning enthusiastically; other faculty remain disengaged or disinterested. disengagement may be due to faculty concerns about access to technology, software, and networks or it may stem from concerns about time allocations and staff support. disinterest may be due to a perceived lack of relevance of e-learning strategies to particular courses, or it may simply reflect faculty members’ dispositions to change, innovation, and adoption. the project briefly described in this paper seeks to determine the causes of disengagement and disinterest in the adoption of e-learning approaches among teaching faculty. journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 64 hodas (1993) points out that technology is never neutral. its values and practices must always either support or subvert those of the organisation into which it is placed. hodas claims that the failure of technology to alter the look and feel of institutions results from a mismatch between the values of the institution’s organisation and those embedded within the contested technology. the introduction of technology inherent in e-learning not only requires faculty to learn how to use new technologies—it also requires a paradigm shift in how educators orchestrate the act of learning. as important as learning how to use the technology appropriately, faculty need to learn how to personalise their instruction, regardless of the technology they use, and incorporate student involvement activities into their instruction. some faculty remain sceptical about this process and they can feel overwhelmed by the knowledge and technical expertise required to deliver new courses. it has long been recognised that teacher beliefs have a significant impact on the relative success of innovation in traditional settings. teacher beliefs heavily influence what is possible or appropriate within an institution. these beliefs fulfil two functions: the need to know and understand and the need to ward off threatening aspects of reality. it is the interaction between these two that can make or break flexible learning initiatives. the project our project is concerned with teacher beliefs and with investigating the factors that lead tutors in new zealand’s twenty polytechnics and institutes of technology to adopt or resist the incorporation of e-learning approaches into their teaching practices. in the project we will consider acceptance of and resistance to e-learning from the perspectives of both tutors and institutional management. specifically the project seeks to: • establish a database showing the extent to which polytechnics and institutes of technology in new zealand utilise e-learning in their teaching programmes; • identify the critical factors that influence early and later e-learning adopters to commit to this approach; • ascertain why some tutors resist or refuse to adopt e-learning approaches; • examine the relationship between institutional policies and on-the-ground realities with respect to e-learning; • use data and conclusions from the project to draw up a set of institutional guidelines that might be used to encourage greater adoption of e-learning in polytechnics and institutes of technology. the rates at which members of any organisation accept new technologies or innovations have been most often regarded according to the categories devised by rogers in his seminal text on innovation. rogers (1995) describes innovation using five attributes: rate of adoption, relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, and trialability. the rates at which members of a social system adopt innovation can be similarly categorised. rogers uses the terms innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards to describe these categories. the wintec team has modified and rewritten journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 65 rogers’s descriptors to develop five new categories that are neither positive nor negative. we assert that narrow visions of e-learning are overly restrictive and potentially counterproductive. for the purposes of this project, we have used the definition provided by the ministry of education’s interim e-learning framework to describe e-learning as: e-learning is learning that is enabled or supported by the use of digital tools and interaction between the learner and their teacher or their peers. e-learning opportunities are usually accessed via the internet though other technologies such as cd-rom are also used in e-learning. (new zealand ministry of education, 2001) research method the project will use both quantitative and qualitative research methods. quantitative national surveys will be balanced through the use of data from policy statements and from individual and group interviews. advocates of qualitative research point out that techniques like case studies produce much more detailed information than is available through a statistical analysis. moreover, while statistical methods might be able to deal with situations where behaviour is homogeneous and routine, case studies are needed to deal with creativity, innovation, and context. qualitative case studies will involve the collection and presentation of detailed information about particular participants and groups. conclusions drawn from the case studies will emphasise exploration, description, and the interplay of a number of variables in order to provide as complete an understanding of a situation as possible. the research methodology includes an extensive review of international literature, case studies, focus group interviews, and national surveys. in phase one of the project, directors of learning technologies in all twenty polytechnics and institutes of technology will be surveyed to determine the nature of their institution’s e-learning policies and the extent to which e-learning has been adopted in that institution. in phase two the research team will complete case studies in three institutions. in each of these case studies, the researchers will analyse policy documents pertaining to e-learning, interview key management personnel with relevant roles in e-learning, and conduct a number of focus group interviews with a range of tutors. the main feature of phase three will be an online survey of 300 to 400 tutors in all new zealand polytechnics and institutes of technology. in this survey tutors will be asked to identify those factors that influence their adoption or rejection of e-learning and to list the relevant and related technologies they currently use. the project will yield three major reports, which will include guidelines for future practice. one will be based on a survey of e-learning managers, a second will explore factors that have led to tutors incorporating e-learning in their teaching, and the third will look into problems tutors experience in adopting elearning into their teaching. these reports will be aimed at providing evidence that could lead to increasing the uptake of quality e-learning in tertiary institutions in general, and polytechnics/institutes of technology in particular. journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 66 references de boer, w., & collis, b. (2002). a changing pedagogy in e-learning: from acquisition to contribution. journal of computing in higher education, 13(2), 87–101. errington, e. p. (2001). the influence of teacher beliefs on flexible learning innovation in traditional university settings. in f. lockwood. & a. gooley, (eds.), innovation in open and distance learning: successful development of online and web-based learning. london: kogan page. hodas, s. (1993). technology refusal and the organisational culture of schools. educational policy analysis archives, 1(10), 1–19. naidu, s. (2003). trends in faculty use and perceptions of e-learning. learning and teaching in action, 2(3), 27–33. new zealand ministry of education. (2001). interim e-learning framework. wellington, new zealand: author. o’quinn, l., & corry, m. (2002). factors that deter faculty from participation in distance education. online journal of distance learning administration, 5(4). retrieved from http://www.westga.edu/ ~distance/ojdla/winter54/quinn54.htm rogers, e. d. (1995). diffusion of innovations. new york: the free press. david mitchell is the project co-director for the ecdf project “an investigation into factors that influence new zealand polytechnic/institute of technology tutors’ uptake of e-learning, with particular reference to early and later adopters and resisters.” mitchell is currently research director at wintec, following on from his distinguished record in research and publishing during his career at the university of waikato. life, learning and flexible delivery introduction the general thesis of this paper is that flexible learning is a critical development i n assuring high quality educational provision for individuals at all stages of their lives, but there are significant dangers that the potential of this approach to the delivery of learning opportunities will be compromised by the actions of education professionals. to establish this position it is necessary to understand what is meant by a concept central to our present conference theme, that is, flexible delivery. the reasons are fairly obvious. first, if people at all ages are to derive something of value from a particular approach to educational delivery, then it must in part be a product of the characteristics shaping it which distinguish it from other forms of delivery that adds this apparent value. second, we need to understand whether there are similarly distinctive characteristics of or requirements for education throughout life, and specifically beyond the walls of our familiar teaching institutions, that are likely to be best served by flexible delivery. finally, we need to consider the role of the educational professional in relation to both lifelong learning and flexible delivery to determine. whether what educators are doing now: with flexible delivery makes it likely that its potential for serving a larger function is being circumscribed. i want to unpack this introduction. first, why do i say that flexible delivery is a critical development for learners at all stages of their lives? in part this is pre-empting the discussion of what we mean by the term and the characteristics which shape it, but in general the importance i place on this development derives from (1) the shift in power relations it affords for teaching and learning, and specifically the passage of control to the learner from the teacher, (2) the use it makes of developments in bruce king , southern sydney institute new south wales tafe commission communications technology which are shaping all other aspects of our lives, and which have been relatively slow to make an impact in. teaching institutions beyond compulsory levels of schooling, and (3) its recognition that the context within which structured learning is to occur is more likely to be informal rather than formal, that is, learners will study at hpme or in the workplace or wherever suits them, even when takh1g programmes from traditional providers." second, why do i see the potential of flexible learning being compromised by the actions of professional educators. the answer will be developed below, but it involves the shift in power relations mentioned above and this has a number of dimensions, two of which i will refer to here as the structural and the psychological. the first involves the very establishment of educational institutions as assessing and certifying bodies and the need those within them perceive to establish conditions through which the validity of their certification can be maintained. the second involves the individual teacher and the strong dhnension of personal control as a driving force in teaching. this is hardly a new idea, but my experience strongly reffiforces the notion that one of the strongest threats that can be presented to individual teachers is the prospect that they be moved from the central position in the management of others' learning. generation gap there is the further dimension at the present time of a possible generation gap between learners and teachers in relation to processes of communication. by this, i mean much more than the differences between y ounger and older people in our societies in the acquisition of computer literacy, although this�is critical. it also has to do with journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 3 how people source, access and disseminate ideas. this came home to me markedly while listening to a radio debate about helen ge1rner 's book, the first stone., a fictionalised account of an a c t!lal sexual harassment case at the university of melbourne's ormond college which has polarised feminists in australia. garnet and anne s ummers, a prominent publisher and former women's advocate, were debating women's responses to the book in terms of feminist theory with two y ounger women, one a student activist and the other a disk jockey on abc radio's alternative rock station, triple j. the age gap between the two pair of women was approximately thirty years, that is the older women were about my age! two points struck me with some force. first, the older women did not know of the younger, although the reverse was not true, despite the fact that one of them is a leading performer on national radio with one of the largest listening audiences in australia. second, the older women implicitly criticised the younger for not publishing their views and representing the perspectives of younger women. but, of course, they had done so, on popular radio and through the internet, both media the older pair did not access. what became equally clear is that, unlike summers and garner, they saw those media as much more contemporary sources of ideas than the books and journals the older women regarded as appropriate for disseminating and accessing information and 9pinion. what was particularly telling was that summers and garner, both successful professional communicators, appeared not to recognise that the internet in particular was a primary source of intellectual exchange for the generation behind them, rather than s i m p l y an additional means of dissemination beyond the literary sources they turned to for reference. i have spent some time on this anecdote, for my experience in university distance and open learning, and more recently in tafe, persuades me that is generational difference is quite patent amongst educators and their students and, i suspect, likely to become a significant barrier to the opportunities for flexible delivery that developments in communications technology offer. two points need to be made at this juncture: first, flexible delivery is, in my view, very much in the hands and the controlof professional educators, that is, those who deliver teaching programmes within our conventional schools, vocational education and training colleges, and universities. i say this because flexible learning is centrally a delivery issue and this is where teachers and lecturers have made a determined bid to stake their claim within the educational process, although this is not as strongly the case in the vocational education and training sector. further, there have been real pressures on teachers to adopt flexible delivery and those who have responded will have strong commitment to their new practice. the funding authorities of public education have tended to pursue flexible delivery as a national strategy in an attempt to reduce the unit costs of teaching (debt, 1994a). individual institutions have sought similar savings from the extension of techniques developed in distance education into on-campus teaching under the flexible delivery banner. such pressures are accompanied by a legitimising rationale which is strongly defensible in educational terms. it is not surprising, therefore that teachers and academics, as ted nunan (nunan, 1994) have pointed out, have made either a pragmatic or ideological commitment to use flexible delivery strategies. what is more, having made such a commitment, because teaching is such a highly individualised activity and lacks a technical culture, the new strategies staff have adopted will carry a significant personal commitment. i do not think this influenced by whether such institutions are privately or publicly funded, although there is probably an argument that some private providers are concentrating on a niche market involving technologically driven and individualised study programmes created by the inflexibilities of public providers. however, there are other resource issues which make it difficult for small providers to move to flexible delivery. at one level, this is highly desirable. despite the concerns raised above about teacher control as an issue in flexible delivery, there is no doubt in journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 4 my mind about the general desirability of learning programmes being shaped in terms of their purposes, content and sh'ategies to support learning by those who have a professional understanding of education as a social force. in other words, despite the cautions raised here, i do not want to see conh'ol of learning wrested from educators simply to pass into the hands of politicians, press barons or the entertainment industry. clearly, i would argue that more power should pass to learners, with a re­ conceived role for teachers in facilitating the learning process. that brings me to the second point, which concerns the significant questions that need to be asked about the role, if any, of professional educators in lifelong learning. this will be taken up below when we have clarified what we mean by flexible delivery and lifelong learning. flexible de livery and lifelong learning for the purposes of discussion, i have adopted the definition of 'flexible delivery' used in an australian document, flexible delivery: an overview of the national framework for implementation in tafe. the base document was endorsed by the national tafe chief executive's committee in november, 1992. this is not intended to be parochial on my part. the paper was prepared after two y ears of national investigation and consultation in australia during 1991 and 1992 and represents a very comprehensive summary of current thinking in the field. the definition used is: flexible delivery is an approach to vocational education and training which allows for the adoption of a range of learning strategies in a variety of learning environments to cater for differences in learning styles, learning interests and needs, and var iations in learning opportunities. three comments need to be made. first, i think we could substitute any level or area of education for 'vocational education and training' without altering. the force of the concept of flexible delivery advanced in the definition. second, the critical orientation of the definition is to catering for diversity. generally, this takes two forms, which can be related: the maximisation of choice over the elements which comprise the total learning situation and the use of flexible arrangements to pursue access and equity objectiv�s. third, the definition begs the critical question of whose approach we are considering. it remains silent on the related matters of participation, purpose, planning, and permission in the educational transaction. this is not just playing with words, for the idea of an approach which allows a range of learning options to be exercised is predicated on the notion of an authoritative decision-taker. let me expand this a little. the word approach in this context is being used in the sense of method or ,steps taken in setting about a task which in turn suggests the deliberate adoption of a set of arrangements which is intended to bring about some desired end. what is of interest is whose intention that might be. it is evident, i suggest, that it is not intended to be that of the learner. the point i am trying to make here is that even in this very broad definition of flexible delivery, there is a clear indication that the learning opportunities afforded by a particular programme have to be planned by someone other than the learner. that is, there is a critical role in flexible delivery for the professional educators, whether we think of that person as a curriculum developer, educational planner, or teacher. those labels do not mean the same thing, of course, but i am trying to avoid the notion that the educator 's role is unambiguous in flexible delivery. the tafe document identifies seven characteristics of flexible delivery: • flexibility in terms of entry, programme components, modes of learning and points of exit • learner control and choice regarding the content, sequence, time, place and method of learning • appropriate learner support systems • the application of learning technologies where appropriate journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 5 • access to information on courses and services • access to appropriate learning resources • flexible assessment processes a number of observations can be made about this list. first, it is obviously describing flexible delivery from the point of view of existing provider institutions. thus, it carries the explicit assumption that existing courses will be used, that there will be a system of learner support, that some authority figure will determine that constitutes an appropriate application of learning technologies, and so on. now, this is not s u r p r i s i n g , given the source of the document, but the list also demonstrates the confusion of ideology and practice when definitions and defining characteristics are developed to take into account existing educational systems. for example, consider the tension, if not contradiction between the first two characteristics. the first allows flexibility over programme components, which presumably is a requirement of the providing institution, while the second gives control over content, sequencing and other course components to the student. if these two are taken to operate together, then the only control a student has is to exercise choice between predetermined options, which is not control at all. indeed, the second characteristic distinguishes between control and choice, although to what end is not really now clear. take another example. the second characteristic gives the student control over the sequence of programme components, but presumably this is constrained by the information provided about courses in characteristic five. and how much control does a student have if someone else determines what learning technologies and resources are appropriate? now, this seems to be fairly sloppy thinking. to understand why a major document, the product of considerable work, presents such a confused case, it is worth looking at the antecedents of flexible delivery and how they have been taken up in the paper. these include distance education, developments in open learning theory, and changes made possible b y developments in communications and computer technologies. antecedents of flexible delivery distance education, itself a development fwm correspondence education, has become established over the last quarter century as a legitimate dimension of conventional course provision at all levels of formal education. of course, this sentence has immediately to be qualified. the legitimacy is still contested in some conventional educational institutions and by individual teachers in those schools, colleges and universities where distance delivery is a substantial part of overall course provision. further, the quarter century is a rough approximation to the period of significant growth of n�w institutions, such as the great open universities of asia, the consolidation of external studies in tertiary education in north america, australasia, south africa and in europe. it certainly encompasses the period of significant academic publishing in the field. this is not to diminish the much longer involvement in correspondence education of many institutions around the world and, drawing on my own experience i think immediately of the schools of the air in australia, the external studies provision of tape through which i pursued matriculation in the mid-sixties, the off­ campus programme of the university of queensland which commenced in 1911, and the later but formative influence of the university of new england which set the pattern for distance education at university level in australia. two things need to be said. first, most attempts at flexible delivery in conventional provider institutions have their base in existing distance education infrastructure and practices. this is not surprising. typically, distance educational providers have three infrastructural elements which are highly supportive of flexible delivery: an administrative mechanism for dealing with students who do not access educational programmes in the conventional way, a capacity to produce learning resource materials, and a student support sy stem. the application of journal of distance leaming, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 6 distance teaching capacity to flexible delivery is explicitly discussed in the jevons and northcott report, costs and quality in resource­ based learning on, and off-campus, (nbeet, 1944b). macfarlane (1992) in a recent report, teaching and learning in an expanding higher education system, summarises the situation from a uk perspective: with the transformation of higher education into a system that is adapted to servicing the needs of much larger numbers comes the imperative to develop much greater flexibility. distance a n d open learning methods long practised by the open university free students from the constraints of time and place, a n d even allow for more individualised feedback to students than could be contemplated within the traditional university teaching system. second, there is a direct link between the underlying assumptions of distance delivery and moves to introduce flexible learning. experience suggests that conventional universities move to distance provision for one or more of the following reasons: • course or subject viability • raising the profile of a teaching area or institution • reducing the unit costs of teaching • deploying staffing capacity • to enable collaborative ventures • marketing educational courses and services • enhancing quality • access and equity considerations • passing educational control to students of course, these are very different in nature, the fir s t six being essentially pragmatic considerations for a provider institution, with the remaining three having strong educational and normative underpinnings. ted nunan (1994, 5) argues for flexible delivery on such educational grounds: the question of improving practices to promote quality learning depends upon our ability to structure a teaching and learning environmentthat is, upon our ability to see quality learning as a matter which depends on more than teaching as it also involves the phy sical a n d communication r e s o u r c e s of the environment, the access to support for learning and resolution of learning difficulties,' and the student's approach to learning. promotion of quality learning involves looking at the ways in which courses are delivered and with flexible delivery there is the opportunity to bring the issues together in way s which suit a wider range of style of learning. the similarity with recent government documents advocating moves to flexible delivery is marked, (see, for example, nbeet, 1994b). in the formal advice of the national board of employment, education and training to their minister (nbeet, 1994c, 3), the chair of the higher education council, professor ian chubb wrote: the higher education council believes that the opportunity and potential now exist for universities to make more effective use of distance education materials, methodologies and technologies to enhance student on­ campus learning environments . . . it is important for universities to recognise that quality outcomes in the wider use of distance education on-campus are attainable. this can be done by using minimal distance education processes and procedures, as well as by providing state-of-the-art materials, methodologies and technologies. it is important to remember, however, as ted nunan (1994, 1) has pointed out, that for government policy makers ' at the broadest level, flexible delivery is one response to resource allocation issues'. at policy level, it is probably dominant. as a member of the steering committee for the project from which the higher education council's advice derived, i was extremely conscious that a constraining factor for the project officers was the need to joumal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 7 have advice re11dy for the minister in time for the preparation of budget papers. i think there is a sharp distinction in australian universities between those who rather naively believe that flexible delivery, particularly that mediated by sophisticated technology, will reduce costs and those who see the potential for improving the quality of teaching and learning through more flexible delivery approaches. flexible delivery has its intellectual base in open learning theory. this can be shown by comparing the characteristics of flexible delivery identified above with one of the standard definitions of open learning, provided by dick johnson (nbeet, 1990): open learning is an approach rather than a system or technique; it is based on the needs of individual learners, not the interests of the teacher or the institution; it gives students as much control as possible over what and when and where and how they learn it; it commonly uses the delivery methods of distance education and the facilities of educational technology; it changes the role of teacher from a source of knowledge to a manager of learning and a facilitator. despite constraints which will be discussed below, the most familiar australian instance of open education at university level, the programme offered through open learning australia, has made significant ground in moving towards the ideal embodied in that definition. entry requirements have been overcome, much more flexible course structures have been developed, the capacity for choice over units of content has been increased, credit transfer a r r angements have dramatically improved, study periods are more frequent and so on. the situation appears somewhat different in vocational education and training, although on first sight one could be excused for thinking that the same agenda prevailed. indeed, in the recent report of the national flexible delivery project in australia (anta, 1995, preface), differences between 'open learning' and 'flexible delivery ' are dismissed a s semantic, and the preceding definition of open learning is adopted in its entirety as a description of flexible delivery. that differences between the two concepts as so readily dismissed helps account for the difficulties the rest of the paper presents. this report is likely to become a key document in the vocational education and training sector in australia and as such is worthy of greater consideration than is possible here. what is immediately apparent is the movement away from the value position of the definition, which focuses on the learner, to one which is centred on the client. immediately following the definition is a statement: this defines flexible delivery in the context �f the training market it is customised training designed to meet the needs of clients. (anta, 1995, i) the shift from learner to client is significant, for on page 4, the report continues: . . . the key clients of the sy stem are enterprises because they are competing for high value added jobs to provide employment and that they utilise and invest in skills to do so. what this does is effectively render the value commitments of the definition meaningless. for all practical purposes, individual learners have been kissed goodby e and the realities of v o c a t i o n a l e d u c a t i o n a n d t r a i n i n g dramatically revealed: the principal clients are not learners but€nterprises. this is completely unabashed. the recommendations of the report call for the establishment of a national policy framework which would promote an approach, inter alia: • where flexible delivery is viewed as training which is provided to meet the specific demands/needs of an enterprise client. this customisation of training is the point at which provision can be determined as flexible. • where clients rather than providers determine the training product (anta, 1995, 25). joumal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 8 ! i i want to be perfectly clear. there is no criticism here of the critical role of enterprises in shaping vocational education and training. what i am concerned about is the invoking of a particular value position the priority given to learner control which has no relation to the specifics of what follows and is, as indicated, immediately repudiated by the rest of the text. learners are not ignored completely, of course. the report covers a number of important considerations in implementing a system of flexible delivery, for example identify ing necessary elements of student support systems, (anta, 1995,12). what is of concern is that we understand that when discussing flexible delivery in different sectors of education we are talking about very different things. stakeho lder s the differences turn on who comprise the stakeholders in education and training. nunan (1994,5) identifies them for university education: students, academics, those staff engaged in supporting teaching and learning environments, and those engaged in designing and managing courses. to these, we would have t o add the university as an organisation, the professional bodies that provide accreditation for qualifications or are represented on course advisory committees, and funding authorities including government. in secondary education, we would want to include students, parents, teachers, the school as an organisation, government officials, formal parent organisations, sometimes powerful pressure groups, and so on. what is to be taught is negotiated to establish some common ground among the stakeholders on what knowledge and related skills students should be expected to acquire. this is then mediated through the ability, personality and training of the teacher or lecturer involved. what is critical here is the degree of control various stakeholders are able to exert on the content and delivery of learning programmes which stakeholders might be described as internal to the educational process and which external. elsewhere (king, 1994, 6), i said: .. . the attempts by governments to take greater control of the national curriculum agenda in schools, the move to prescribed competencies in vocational education, and the quality assurance interventions in higher education make it quite clear that those groups who see themselves as representing national and vocational interests are determined to assert their participat�ry, even determining, role in setting the purposes of education. if any thing, the contribution . . . of the australian professional teacher or lecturer has diminished over the last decade. my experience with schools, universities, and more recently in the vocational education and training field strongly suggests that only in the latter case are external stakeholders recognised as legitill!ately in control of educational developm ' ent and delivery. in schools and universities, students and their teachers still exercise a critical influence on what occurs in the teaching/learning interaction. the role of teachers, however, will have to change because of the third contributing element to flexible delivery, developments in communications technology. changing par adi g ms i have argued elsewhere that over the past century and still in most schools and colleges, the dominant paradigm in educational provisions has been information transmission, that is, students have gathered to receive information and acquire skills determined and imparted by an authority figure the tea cher. developments in communications technology make the weaknesses of the information transmission model both apparent and afford an alternative. i discussed this in a paper for the learning environment technology australia conference in adelaide last year (king, 1994,3-5): what is wrong with the information transmission model centres on two issues. first, it is at odds with what most educators claim to be the point of their activities. second, it is increasingly impractical. these are both elaborated below. ]au mal of distance learning, vol 2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 9 . . . in both general and vocational education, there is now widespread acceptance of the importance of students being able to engc;tge with, question and reflect upon the content and context of their studies . ... in short, the aims of both general and vocational education stress the active cognitive involvement of the learner and emphasise those higher order skills which are the components of intellectual judgement. this necessarily involves a view of the educational process in which learners might for good reasons come to different perspectives or understandings on the same matters. such a view is logically at odds with a transmission model of teaching and learning whereby students are directed to particular knowledge and specific interpretations of it. secondly, the transmission model is simply not up to the task of teaching beyond elementary levels. the sheer volume of information now available on any non-trivial matter makes its channelling through a single individual's presentational capabilities necessarily result in content which is partial, selective and more or less idiosyncratic. the two points are interrelated. the point of educational practice identified above increasingly requires of learners that they become information literate. that is, our students should develop growing competence in understanding how society orders, stores and retrieves information. they must be able t o identify what information they need, understand how it can be located and accessed, in order that their understanding and judgments might be shaped, tested and confirmed by its application. it is simply anachronistic to order teaching as though such competence can be achieved by students relating to the knowledge and understanding possessed by a single authority figure. the test of good teaching must become less a matter of transmission of information which, by some relevant test, is accurate and relevant and rhore one of supporting students in accessing and using information from a range of sources. inevitably, because of the sheer volume of informati<;m now available on any subject and the time required to access and process it, being a successful teacher or student will increasingly depend upon familiarity with, and skills in using, information technology. information technology is not simply a faster route to conventional wisdom. because of its almost unlimited potentl.al to bring information sources together, it enables the generation of new understaj1pings formerly the prerogative of the privileged few. the implications for teaching are significant. students now can become more expert on a given subject than their teachers and it is the new obligation of teachers to encourage and support that end. this takes us both backwards and forwards in the discussion. backwards, in that it is clearly at odds with the point made in discussing stakeholders concerning control in vocational education and training being outside the providing educational institution. forwards, in that the movement of control to learners afforded and necessitated by developments in technology has implications for the subject of the final section of this paper, lifelong learning. in relation to vocation education and training, it needs to be acknowledged that many of the skills acquired by y oung workers involved relatively straightforward instruction and supervised practice. this notwithstanding, two comments need to be made. first, developments in the workplace will increasingly be computer driven and require operators who have sufficient understanding of processes that they can be both receptive to change and readily reskilled. second, many enterprises would actually welcome training that was more learner centred and technologically oriented. joumal of distance leaming, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 10 a coopers and lybrand study, small business · training: needs preferences and markets cited in the final report of the national ·flexible delivery project (f\nta,1995,6) indicates that small business has a preference for training which is: • demand driven • learner-centred and learner-directed • short, sharp and specific rather than general and theoretical • built around active learning strategies including the use of team and group learning and problem-solving related to practical issues in the workplace • flexible in the programming of sessions in terms of time and place • sanctioned and supported by a peer group such as an industry association, and • built on personalised and segmented markets. the study highlighted the need for adequate learner support for flexible delivery in the workplace, including through skills centres or telecentres. now, if it genuinely is the case that small businesses would welcome flexible delivery of training that was learner-centred, why are they not getting it? some obvious responses come to mind. first, as the anta report (1995,5) indicates, the bureaucratic barriers to small businesses becoming involved in training are considerable. second, the costs of introducing the technologies which would support flexible learnin g can be significant. third, small businesses may well not have their voice heard in the formal organisations which purport to represent stakeholders. fourth, flexible delivery involves on-the-job training which is a source of tension between industries and providers, particularly over assessment. finally, as indicated earlier, flexible delivery threatens the teachers in training institutions. it is an irony that as enterprises seek changes towards more flexible delivery, it is their historical association with training colleges which no frustrates them. over time, teachers have developed a comfort zone which renders change both undesirable and, for many, apparently unnecessary. the industrialisation of the teaching force, the implacability of the training culture, and the continuing demand for course places which youth unemployment creates, have contributed to a situation in which many teachers see no reason to alter their practice. this is reinfor�ed in my view by the separation of course development and delivery which occurs in some vet organisations. where course development is primarily industry led, and teaching progressively controlled by industry established training standards, then there appears little incentive for teachers to be proactive in relation to alternative approaches to course delivery. this is exacerbated by contestation between teachers and enterprises over the validity of off-the-job assessments. if i have fairly; characterised the vet climate, there seems littl� reason for teachers to adopt more than minimalist approaches to flexible delivery. again, the situation is compounded in those vet organisations where there has been a traditional separation of classroom teaching from distance delivery. flexible delivery requires that provider institutions have a significant infrastructure to support learners. where this, together with all relevant expertise in student support is remote from the possibly not understood or known by technical teachers, then flexible approaches are likely to founder on the reluctance of teachers to become involved with something which seems to them hopelessly unrealistic. in these circumstances, the interests of individual learners seem doomed to come a poor last to the interests of other stakeholders. lifelong learning finally, i want to turn the lifelong learning. in the discussion above concerning the inadequacy of information transmission approaches to teaching, i said: . . . our students should develop growing competence in understanding how society orders, stores and retrieves information. they must be able t o identify what information they need, understand how it can be located and accessed,_ , in order that their journal o f distance learning, vol2, n o . 1, 1996 (c) distance education association o f new zealand 1 1 understanding and judgments might be shaped, tested and confirmed by its applications. i i argued that technologically driven approaches to flexible delivery were essential to bring about this d e s i r e d e n d . t h i s seems to me to be absolutely the bridge to lifelong learning. there are various related concepts: for example, lifelong learning, recurrent education, continuing education, and education for the third age. this is not my field, and i seek here only to make some comments upon that learning which individuals voluntarily engage in at any time to increase their personal fulfilment or enhance their social and economic situation. t h e r e a r e c l e a r l y s u b s t a n t i a l e x i s t i n g o p p o r t u n i t i e s f o r i n f o r m a l l e arn ing in developed societies, through broadcast media, public libraries, participation in the arts, travel, and participation in various clubs and private a g e n c i e s . i do n o t i n t e n d to address this dimension of lifelong learning here. there are other, more formal kinds, for example, second­ c h a nce education for those who have not acquired necessary social or vocation skills in earlier y ears, the inservice education undertaken by professionals to maintain the currency of their practice, and learning in the workplace which has a similar inservice dimension. i want to focus on the last of these. in an excellent report, de veloping lifelong learne r s t h r o ug h undergra duate education, (nbeet,l994a) phil candy and his colleagues have drawn on their own earlier research to s h o w t h e r e is a large n u m b e r o f m a j o r differences between initial formal education, specifically at university, and learning which occurs in the workplace. wh e r e a s u n i v e r s i t y l e a r n i n g is generally curriculum-driven, competitive, theoretical, abstract, longterm, and generalised, workplace learning tends to be more problem-based, c o l l a b o r a t i v e , a p p l i e d , i m m e d i a t e and s p e c i a l i s e d . t h e y a c k n o w l e d g e , too, that workplaces are themselves subject to change, through internationalisation, total q u ality management practices, workplace restructuring, and so on, such that the very sort of learning that workers need to undertake is changing. the implications of this seem to be: (1) the way we teach people pefore they enter the workplace will not match the way they need to learn on the job, and (2) what we teach them about the job will have limited currency and utility. further, (3) if they have not acquired skills in seeking new information for themselves, they will become progressively out of step with the demands of their workplace. to compound that,, (4) even if they have such skills, these may become outdated over time, for example, through changes in the manner information is stored and retrieved. finally, (5) if their workplace brings them into contact with'*'uppliers, customers or other staff who have more sophisticated understandings and capacities to learn about the workplace, they will become increasingly frustrated and less functional. of course, if the individual concerned changes jobs, the whole cycle accelerates. one of the submissions to the study undertaken by candy et al. contended: no biochemist this c e n t u r y c o u l d anticipate a state o f knowledge stability adequate for a professional career that did not have constant input from new sources. the extensive digitisation of reference material and storage of data in national and international respositories means that the established practice of j o u r n a l browsing may be expected to decline. [even] teaching the mechanics of keeping current is therefore not practical, so we trust that the attitude of responsibility to keep current is what is transferred by our teaching. (nbeet, 1944a,34) this, i think, extends the obligation i identified above to use technology such that our students were able to understand how society stores, retrieves and uses knowledge. it suggests that what is critical is inculcating an attitude of responsibility to remain current in whatever field one finds,q_neself, if y ou like, developing journal of distance learning, vol2, no.1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 12 . responsibility for one's own learning. quite simply, this must become the new role· of teachers in all sectors beyond elementary levels. i now, this seems an impossible task if the other stakeholders of education and training, through pursuit of their own legitimate interests, remove the learner from the centre of the learning process such that the skills and attitudes of mind w h i c h f o s t e r p e r s o n a l r e s p o n s i b i l i t y a n d commitment to continuing learning a r e not fostered. further, if teachers do not model such responsibility in the way they operate in their w o r k p l a c e , t h e n t h e role of e d u c a t i o n institutions in supporting lifelong learning seems hopelessly circumscribed. i think it was lawrence stenhouse who observed that the two driving forces in teacher behaviour seemed to be the need for rectitude and for control, that is, the need to be right and be in charge. neither is appropriate for the present, let alone the future. if teachers, or any other stakeholder, force learners from their rightful place at the centre of learning and fail to support them in assuming responsibility for and exercising real control over their own learning, then the profession of education will become a horse that has bolted, and all we will be left with is the sound of a stable door banging in the wind. references australian national training authority, 1995: national flexible delivery project, final report, consultant kim bannikoff, unpublished photocopy. king, b., 1994: point and partnerships in contemporary education. a paper delivered at the learning environment technology australia conference, september 25-28, adelaide, pp. 3-5. macfarlane, a., 1992: teaching and learning in an expanding higher education system: report of a working party he committee of scottish university principals. pqlton house press, midlothian. national tafe chief executives committee, 1993: an overview of t he n a t i o n a l f r am ewo r k fo r implementation in tafe. flexible delivery working party, south brisbane. national board of employment, education and training, 1990: open learning. commissioned report no. 4, agps, canberra. national board of employment, education and training, 1994a: developing lifelong learners through undergraduate education. commissioned report no. 4, agps, canberra. national board of employment, education and training, 1994b: costs and quality in resource-based learnin/ onand offcampus. commissioned report no. 33, agps, canberra. national board of employment, education and training, 1994c: increasing the learning options. advice of the national board of employment, education and training and its higher education council, agps, canberra. nunan, t., 1994: flexible delivery a discussion of issues. university of south australia distance education centre. bruce king is director of the southern sydney institute, new south wales tafe commission. this paper was presented as a keynote addres s to the 1995 distance education association of new zealand conference in auckland. journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 13 quality assurance in tertiary education: a discussion of current developments and practices introduction the concept of quality and quality assurance (qa) in tertiary education has taken on increasing significance over the last two decades. practices of teaching and research in institutions of higher learning have been criticised both inside and outside the sector as lacking claimed and espoused excellence and quality. governments demand greater accountability and transparency with regard to public expenditure, whilst industry spokespersons tend to criticise the quality of recent graduates. the growing qa movement, partly legislated, partly self-imposed, is the response of the sector to the disquiet in the community. this article cites some of the criticisms made of the tertiary education secto r, briefly describes the history of the quality movement in industry and provides a snapshot of the evolving tertiary education qa systems in britain, the us, australia and new zealand. it concludes with a more detailed example of qa practice at institutional level in the fastest growing sector of tertiary education, that of open and distance learning (odl). it is suggested that the introduction of qa has been beneficial but that it presents an ongoing challenge to many individuals in regulatory government agencies and in the tertiary education sector itself. ba ckg r ou n d until r e c e n t l y, t h e accepted view that universities would always provide quality services was rarely called into question. three pillars of quality maintenance in universities, consisting of external peer bill grote the open polytechnic of new zealand review of research publications and theses, external accreditation or endorsement of professional programmes and stringent admission requirements for new students, were deemed to be sufficient. there were no explicit standards to judge teaching performance, and individual behaviours that are now questioned were accepted as quaint eccentricity. it was up to the (elite) student to succeed, sometimes against the odds. as the sector moved from an elitist to a mass education s y s t e m (wagner, 1998), new universities (for example in the uk and australia) or university 'equivalent' institutions (for example the new zealand polytechnics) were created, straining the existing order. concurrently, respected reports were published which highlighted perceived problems in the sector. for example, the boyer commission (1998) in the us found that many students graduate from university and colleges unable to think logically, write clearly or speak coherently. a report released by the australian minister of education (eunson, 2000) on employer satisfaction with graduate skills, found that three quarters of australian university and tafe (technical and further education colleges) graduates are not suited for the jobs for which they apply, with the greatest problem being lack of communication and generic skills. in addition (as discussed further below), critical review of the research publication output of universities, a key performance indicator that is subject to peer review, has contributed to a more detached and questioning view, not only of universities journal of distance learning, vol5, no 1, 2000 ©distance education association of new zealand 5 but also of the entire tertiary education sector. these issues taken together with questions a b o u t high student drop-out rates 'and demands for greater1 public accountability (mcgettrick and mansor, 1999, p. 131) have provided fertile ground for continued political concern and intervention. this scenario of growth, change and challenge in the tertiary education sector set the scene for a reappraisal of quality, and of how it might be achieved a n d maintained. it is now accepted that this new quality consciousness in higher education has tended to follow developments in the manufacturing and service industries. as little as two decades ago, manufacturing in western countries concentrated on quantity. for example in the us, one third of product was scrapped as a normal operation during production (schargel, 1994, p. 15). customers n o t happy w i t h products learned from experience and could resort (in the west anyway) to finding another supplier. a typical example is provided by morrison (1994, p. 45) who cited a report by the (british) motor industry research unit, which quoted average warranty figures of £100 per car for austin rover, compared with £17 for nissan. the technologically advanced western countries found themselves suddenly overtaken by the newcomer, japan, which not only produced goods more cheaply but also to unsurpassed l e v e l s of quality. in the context of the automotive, optical, machine-tool, electronics and shipbuilding industries of the time, this meant that products performed in the way they were meant to, that they did so without breaking down, and that they lasted longer. the us manufacturing industries bearing the brunt of this quality onslaught realised that many of the theories that guaranteed the japanese success had been supplied to the japanese by some their own experts, notably w. edwards deming and later j. m. juran, (deming, 1986; juran, 1992). what followed in the us and the rest of the western world is the well-known period during the 1980s of learning, understanding and apply ing quality concepts t o manufacturing and subsequently t o service industries. saylor (1996, p. 21) writes: "total quality management has transformed some of america's competitor nations into economic powers. in addit ion, m a n y american institutions have already used tqm to pursue victory". the slogans of the time include the now well­ known acronyms of quality assurance (qa), total quality management (tqm), just in time (jit) production, quality circles, kaizen, total quality (tq) and zero defects. · deming, juran, and crosby (see for example kogan, (ed.h1989; cornesky, 1992; sallis, hingly, et al 1992; sallis, 1993; kaufman & zolm, 1993; sims & sims, 1995; lewis & smith, 1994; liston, 1999) are possibly the best known gurus of this quality reawakening. they and others in the field were giving essentially the same message, expressed succinctly by crosby (1984), as the a b s o l u t e s of quality management: 1. quality is defined by conformance to requirements. 2. there is no such thing as a quality problem. 3. it is always cheaper to do the right thing the first time. 4. the only performance measure is the cost of quality. 5. the only performance standard is zero defects. the requisite various schemes and processes involved include the e s tablishment of standards and self-correcting mechanisms (an example is the deming cy cle) to ensure maintenance and improvement of quality. two common definitions of quality also used in educational contexts are 'fitness for a purpose' (after juran) and 'meeting specifications' or 'c onformance to requirements' (after crosby). the second of these is probabfj' the less subjective and the journal of distance learning, vol5, no 1, 2000 ©distance education association of new zealand more accepted by industry. the principles of quality assurance (qa), used here as a global term rather than one to describe another specific theory, were subsequently adopted by service industries with great success. the victory of the quality move ment in technologically advanced western countries was dramatic, effective and complete. in 1994, morrison, with regard to british industry, wrote: "now we are in the 1990s it is good to be able to record that the downward slide in quality appears to have halted and there are encouraging signs of industry beginning to respond to all the efforts that have been made to recover lost ground" (morrison, 1994, p. 41). quality is now expected, is built into processes and barely needs to be mentioned in the new, much more competitive and critical, global consumer culture of the late 90s. one concept from this period that has stayed in the public view is adoption of, and accreditation with, the iso 9000 family of international standards. these standards assure potential clients of a manufacturing or service industry that the organization will do what it says it will do, and that there are mechanisms in place to detect and correct non­ conformance. the tertiary education sector was slow to take up the new quality message and this resulted in the call for grea ter accountability and transparency from funding and regulatory agencies. the following arguments were put forth (with some justification) in support of the status quo by tertiary institutions: • quality is already assured through networks o f peer review and the performance of graduates in the public and private sectors. • higher education requires much professional judgment that cannot be constrained by or contained within regulations. the best quality assurance is highly qualified, competent staff who put their research work out for peer review through regular publication in learned journals. • even if quality control measures were imposed, they could not be enforced because of issues related to academic freedom, tenure of position and autonomy of the institution. • h o w can one c o m b i n e adherence t o standards, with excellence? institutions of higher learning are in the pursuit of excellence in teaching and research. " f o c u s i n g on f i t n e s s f o r p u r p o s e or conforming to r e q u i r e m e n t s could diminish the mission of the institution to be the critic and conscience of society. • the ultimate aim of adopting qa (or tqm) in a service industry is to satisfy and/ or delight the client. many students spend 3 years or more in tertiary study driven by necessity, to attain a desired position possihly against their strong preference if they had a choice. compared to students who are intrinsically motivated and who enjoy learning, the former might at times feel antagonism and little satisfaction with their study. how can the qa approach deal with this potentially large, negative group of dissatisfied clients, although later in life these same students might come to value and appreciate the experience? it w a s (and i s ) sugg e s t e d that a key performance indicator for universities is the number of research papers published by staff. individual output is also r e cognised for promotion purposes; thus, vast numbers of papers in increasing numbers of journals have been and are being published. such a system, where professors with a pool of eager and t a l e n t e d postgraduate s tudents are particularly blessed, has caused growing d i s s a t isfaction w i t h the q u a l i t y of this indicator. commentators in the us have been particularly blunt. morrison (1996) writes: "the vast majority of what passes for research publication in the majority of universities in a m e r i c a is mediocre, e xpensive and unnecessary; it is dispiriting and it depresses the whole scholarly enterprise". finn and manno (1996) state: "among 833,000 faculty members [in us institutions] it's a fair guess that no more than 50,000 will ever produce journal of distance learning, vol5, no 1, 2000 ©distance education association ofnew zealand 7 new knowledge of any significance"; and there is " ... constant pressure from faculty for less teaching and more time for research; and tons of research that primarily serves the career needs of t h e p r o f e s s oriate r a t h e r than significantly enlarging human knowledge ... ". similar sentiments were expressed by the new scientist (may 2, 1998): "forty-seven percent of articles are never referred to again in the scientific literature, even by the researchers who did the work. another 33% were cited 10 times or fewer." critical evaluations were also provided by alexander (1999) who reviewed publications on innovative teaching research projects in australia. another damming investigation of research related to open and distance learning is contained in "a review of contemporary research on the effectiveness of distance learning in higher education" (phipps & merisotis, 1999). evidently there are unresolved issues with the use of this indicator in ranking universities. but the measure is easy and cheap to use, the selection having been done free by peer reviewers. additionally it may be argued that papers that do not report new knowledge at least enable their writers to maintain the skills, the networks and the conversations amongst the research community. in addition, attempts at using citation counts, or the prestige of the publishing journal, have had limited success in ranking academics or in demonstrating the quality of the university, as shown by the continuing disquiet amongst some of the stakeholders (johnstone, 1992; daniel, 1997). west (1997, p. 1) wrote in the introduction of his report about higher education in australia: "there is a feeling of unease in the universities. many believe that traditional intellectual values and sound scholarship associated with higher education and in particular, the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake are under threat." and: "there is also a feeling of unease about universities in terms of their capacity to meet the needs of business and industry." hence, it seems reasonable that there will be questions about effectiveness or cost-benefit, in the light of ever-increasing expenditure of public funds, at a time of critique from within and outside the sector (livingstone, 1999). this contrasts with the overwhelming success in improving quality and service, and in cutting costs, by some private and public organisations. excluding the united states, the first segments of the tertiary education sector to become subject to new methods of external scrutiny were the former polytechnics and colleges of higher education in the uk and australia respectively. these institutions were given the opportunity to e n t e r the realm of the universities by offering degree courses. to enable this to happen, accreditation processes were institute� (and repeated in n ew zealand with regard to the polytechnics) that gave the public some confidence and these institutions the necessary seal of approval to proceed. this early growing c o n f idence in the then polytechnics and institutes of technology in the uk and australia expressed itself through, for example, industry preference in hiring graduates in many disciplines from these institutions (unpublished report grote, 1980). since these beginnings this 'new' form of quality assurance in the entire tertiary education sector (in the four countries considered here) has, after many false starts, taken on some momentum. it is evolving and is likely to encompass the entire sector including the old universities in the nations of the english-speaking world. the above discussion attempts to provide reasons that, if taken together with growing budgetary pressures in many advanced countries, could account for the interventionist and regulatory stance taken by many ministries and ministers of education. as discussed in the next section, this critical and regulatory stance expresses itself, particularly in uk, australia and nz, in visiting and revisiting the area of quality assurance in the tertiary education sector. journal of distance learning, vol5, no 1, 2000 ©distance education association of new zealand 8 , quality assurance in tertiary education in australi�, the us, the uk and new zealand australia for australian universities the federal g overnment establishes the accrediting agencies and receives and evaluates the reports relating to qa activities. recent education policy development in australia is informed by the west report (west, 1997), a culmination of other white papers and reports. together with the ''higher education report (her) for the 1999 to 2001 triennium", it was prepared for the minister of education, and both are references for the following section. the australian commit t e e for quality assurance in higher education (cqahe) was established for 1993, 1994 and 1995. the committee considered general issues in 1993, teaching and learning in 1994 and research in 1995 (liston, 1999, p. 44). the terms of reference for the committee expired at the end of 1995 and the general assessment was that "the quality review process had been successful in changing the culture within the whole university system" (her). the higher education report lists a number of changes that resulted from the cqahe activities, such as the creation of senior posts within universities to take responsibility for teaching quality; the creation of teaching awards; the use of a wider range of assessment procedures; the incorporation of teaching criteria in promotion; and encouragement of innovation in teaching (see also alexander, 1999 on this topic). however, it became apparent that the cqahe' s work carried a high administrative cost and therefore the review programme was not made permanent. another organisation, the higher education council (hec) will continue consolidation o f the "quality framework". w hilst the australian universities will be responsible for quality assurance in their institutions, they are required to provide some minimum data to h ec on, for example, graduate attributes, feedback from employers about the quality of graduates, and graduate destination s.urveys. it was evident that individual universities' approaches to quality vary widely. they have variously decided, for example, that there will be reporting requirements, benchmarking projects, institutional and faculty -based quality assurance and improvement guide­ lines. the system will include participation of external assessors, the gathering of external feedback and periodic completion of surveys. at the �o urse a n d p r o g r a m m e l e v e l , australian universities a r e self-accrediting through such structures as their academic board. government approval is required for funding purposes and allocation of effective full time student unit (eftsu) places (see also quality management in universities, piper, 1993). in summary, quality assurance in australian universities involves: • t h e r o l e of p r o f e s s i o n a l bodies in accrediting professional courses • the sector-wide indicators published in "the characteristics and performance of higher education institutions" • the use of external examiners for most research degrees and s o m e h o n o u r s degrees • the encouragement of innovation and good teaching through t h e committee for university teaching and staff develop­ ment and specific initiatives through the higher education innovation programme. it is of interest to note that, according to a number of articles in the higher education section of the australian, the federal minister of education intends to re-establish a permanent body along the lines of the short­ lived cqahe. attempts to define the sector are ongoinlf for example it is now proposed journal of distance learning, vol5, no 1, 2000 ©distance education association of new zealand 9 (illing, 2000) to measure how australian academics spend their time, by carrying out an audit of teaching costs in universities: the exercise is intended to provide data for allocating future university funding. the technical and further education (tape) sector is under the control of the respective state minister of education and subject to centralised quality assurance measures with regard to curriculum and delivery methods. uni t e d states the us has a long­ stand i n g sy stem of n o n -g o v e r nmental regulating organisations, whose task it is to establish norms for the methods and structure of teaching programmes, the qualifications of teaching f a c u l ty, and t h e facilities and equipment necessary to support instruction (world guide to higher education, 1996). four components make up the us institutional evaluation system (kells, 1989). first, there is state controlled licensing or granting of a charter. second, there are over 50 national accrediting organisations established within the framework of various professions and academic fields, which lay down standards and guidelines in their subjects thereby influencing and sometimes determining curriculum and assessment. third, individual institutions may initiate and maintain audit, review and assessment activities comple­ menting or going above those of the other agencies. fourth, there are six regional accrediting organisations, founded by the colleges and universities themselves, that on a voluntary basis certify institutions as meeting the standards in their region. these accrediting organisations then certify both college and university departments and specialised professional and occupational schools. as an example, a community college due for re-accreditation (which occurs every three to five y ears) would write a self-evaluation report against the standards determined by the board of the local accrediting organisation. the college would then be visited by a group of peers who might spend two to three days at the colleg e . their r e p o r t and recommendations would be taken into account i n a decision to grant further accreditation or a request to remedy certain problems. it seems fair to say that the us system has not led to the sustained controversy (related to ranking) generated in australia through the operation of cqahe, or more recently, the work of qaa in the uk (excluding scotland). however, there is criticism of the quality of graduates (see for example the boyer report, 1998). the us system seems to be simple and cost-effective and has had the support of stakeholders (kells, 1989, p. 96). however, the us accreditation system has been under some criticism receatly through the accreditation of the university of phoenix (padilla, 1999) and the accreditation by the north central association of colleges and schools of jones international university (crow, 1999). both are unique institutions of higher learning that do not fit the m o u l d of the " s tandard university ". it is debatable at this point whether this highlights the flexibility or the looseness of this accreditation system. united kingdom universities in the uk are self-accrediting, whilst polytechnics have been quality assured by the council for national academic awards (cnaa). the united kingdom education reform act of 1988, the 1992 education bill and a number of reports and white papers set the scene for reform of the sector. this recent history of change saw t h e poly technics become universities and the cnaa disestablished in 1992. since 1998 the enlarged university sector has, as a recommendation of the dearing report (dearing, 1997) in an obvious parallel development with australia, the quality assurance agency (qaa) (barnett, 1999; newton, 1999), which is drawing up codes of practice. for example, the "qaa subject review handbook, october 1998 to september 2000", has over 53 pages of detailed guidelines journal of distance learning, vol5, no 1, 2000 ©distance educationfusociation of new zealand 10 and instructions for reviewers. "the times higher education supplement" (thes july 23 and august 20, 1999) describes some of the controversial aspects of qaa operation with regard to funding, consultation and lack of scrutiny of it by a third agent. as a further quality measure, uk universities are ranked on research performance, where the ranking i n f l u e n c e s future funding allocations. however, utley (1999) reports that the higher education funding council for england acknowledges that "the standing of teaching has been damaged by the prestige and cash attached to research excellence". hence, a shift in funding priorities is being proposed. quality assurance of the tertiary education sector has been taken up by the uk open university (ou) as one of its key functions. the uk, like the other countries reviewed, has about 30 professional organisations that lay down stringent requirements or carry out their own examinations before registration or admission of candidates to the profession. in britain and other countries inspired by british customs and processes, there exist committees of vice-chancellors or of vice­ chancellors and principals who may have some tacit qa function. in the case of new zealand such qa functions are defined in law. related to these functions is the ancient institution of "the visitor", a person who might visit a university as an independent arbitrator and provide recommendations to the council and vice-chancellor on matters that could include qa concerns. in addition to peer networking and reviewing, uk universities invite an external examiner to sit in committee when final marks and grades are determined. the current state of affairs in the uk is neatly summed up in the opinion section of the thes (july 23, 1999, 14): "the qaa, keen to implement the government's agenda by securing uniform arrangements, has once more run up against the autonomy of its masters, the institutions. universities with visitors are apparently unwilling to give up a remote, slow and secretive arrangement devised by the medieval church to check heresy, despite the evident drawbacks." the article goes on to suggest that a reasonable compromise, could be made resulting in the modernisation of the role of the visitor. new zealand new zealand established and defined the operation of qa through the education amendment act of 1990. the act created the new zealand qualifications authority (nzqa), giving it a number of functions, which included the setting of standards, developing a framework for national qualifications, and establishing policies and criteria for qa. however, this legislation also ensured that the autonomy of universities with regard to qa remained intact: "the authority (nzqa) shall, in the case of criteria or policies in respect o f universities, consult the vice-chancellors committee (vcc)" (education amendment act 1990, s. 253 (2) (a)). nearly ten years down the track, one can discern some similarities in nz developments with the current role of the qaa in the uk in 1999. the role of nzqa was under scrutiny in 1999, with an expectation that it would be r e o rganised and its functions c h a n g e d . however, the n e w nz government, elected in november, 1999, has since indicated that it does not wish to make changes at present and instead organized the formation of a committee to guide future tertiary education developments. the polytechnic sector has, under delegated authority from nzqa, established the poly technics programme committee (nzppc), which accredits all programmes other than degrees. the nzqa still retains the task of accrediting non­ university degree and higher d e g r e e programmes through a peer committee and against standards that take industry support, academic quality, merit and coherence, financial resources and student support issues into account. after accreditation, ongoing monitoring and moderation regimes must be journal of distance learning, vol 5, no 1, 2000 ©distance education association of new zealand ii instituted and maintained. the v cc has set up its own qa body, the academic audit un�t (aau), which, on its own initiative or by invitation, reviews and assesses academic quality at the whole university o r faculty i department level (woodhouse, 1995). the aau audited all seven nz universities between 1995 and 1998. reports of the aau are available to the public. a summary report outlining examples of good practice (williams and woodhouse (eds.), 1999) has subsequently been published. in addition, the committee on university academic programmes (cuap) is involved in accredi tation and approval of new programmes. cuap, like the nzppc, uses criteria published by nzqa as the framework in accreditation processes. qa in acnon: an open and distance learning example the availability of open and distance learning (odl) courses and programmes is growing rapidly world wide. it is noteworthy that much of this growth occurs in traditional campus based face-to-face institutions, and the internet seems to be the favourite delivery option chosen. the literature on quality issues in odl has grown significantly over recent years (see for example tait, 1993a, 1997; mcilroy & walker, 1993, 1996; mcilroy, 1997; rowntree, 1998; calder, 1994; fage & mills, 1999, prebble, 1999). the 1995 conference of the international council for distance education was dedicated to quality issues (see conference proceedings edited by d. sewart). one benchmark for successful application of qa in practice, in open and distance learning, is the uk open university (ou). thorpe (2nd ed, 1993) describes in detail the reasons for and practices of evaluation in the ou' s open and distance learning programmes, and provides a detailed working guide for practitioners. tait (1993b) summarises ou quality assurance practices and activities as occurring through: • the course team, where collaborative non­ hierarchical teams work and rework draft materials • developmental testing of course materials before they become generally available • monitoring of correspondence teaching • m o n i t o r ing ,of s t u d e n t assignment turnaround times by tutors • inspection and support of tutorial and counselling staff's face-to-face activities. course development at ou may take three years and courses may, with modifications, stay in production for eight years. this may raise other quality issues such as currency of materials and relevance. in addition, the ou participates in those qa­ related activities applying to all universities in the uk, such as use of external examiners or research ranking (although qaa processes have been modified to apply to an odl provider). an example of qa practice in odl outside of the university sector is provided by the open polytechnic of new zealand (topnz). the open polytechnic is involved in a wide range of integr ated qa activities, w h i c h are distributed throughout the organization (topnz quality policies, internal documents 1999). as mentioned before, nzqa accredits then monitors all degree and postgraduate programmes. nzppc fulfils this function for non-degree level programmes. there are also professional bodies that register or admit graduates of relevant programmes, and the entire open polytechnic organization has attained iso 9001 certification. in addition the open polytechnic degree programmes are about to be approved by the open university for open polytechnic candidates who ha,ve completed their degrees to receive also the ou d e g r e e credential, and for the open polytechnic to be able to deliver ou courses. the open polytechnic collects and publishes the results of student and stakeholder surveys in its annual reports. in addition, individual staff members engage in odlrelated research journal of distance learning, vol5, no 1, 2000 ©distance education association of new zealand 12 projects that are p ublished in conference proceedings and in journals. students and representatives f r o m industry \and the professions are c.bnsulted for the purposes of new programme development, accreditations and review processes. staff upgrading of qualifications, professional development, and consulting and research outputs are encouraged and supported. internal academic quality assurance rests with the academic board, which debates and determines academic issues and regulations and recommends approval of courses, programmes and student results to t h e council o f the institution. like the uk ou, the course design process is an example of applied quality assurance. at the open polytechnic, the wider course design team, comprising project manager, discipline specialist (content writer), instructional designer, technical editor, moderator, and editor, includes (for degree level courses) normally at least two external individuals. the discipline specialist or technical editor and the moderator are u s u a l l y drawn from the university sector o r are practising professionals. external moderators are also consulted in the writing of exams and at times during reviews or consultations on academic issues. this external input contributes to the currency and overall quality of the material. ex tending the odl example: qa issue s in i n t e r ne t provision odl programmes entirely delivered via the internet are in the main still in prototype and testing stages (farrell, 1999), although a number of post-graduate programmes, for example the mba, show growing maturity. the literature in this new field is dominated by advice books such as internet based learning: a n introduction and framework for higher education and business, (french et al., 1999) or the digital university, reinventing the academy (hazemi et al (eds.), 1998), providing typical examples. the debate about qa issues in internet odl occurs at present mainly in journals such as the chronicle of higher education (for example, carnevale, 2000 "assessing the quality of o n l i n e courses remains a challenge, educators agree"; or hara & kling, 2000, "students' distress with a web-based distance education course"). a recent monograph p u b l i s h e d ,un d e r the auspices of new zealand's universities academic audit unit (auu) by butterfield et al (1999) titled: "external quality assurance for the virtual institution" gives a more in-depth treatment of the topic. the shift to provision via internet of tutorial and student support and the production of interactive multimedia courses, delivered via the net or on carriers such as cd-rom, will pose a new set of quality challenges. in many instance� existing methods will be adequate but in some cases new protocols will need to be developed. for example, some publishers who were happy to give copyright clearance for print-based material are reluctant to do the same for material that is to be included in net­ based c o u r s e s . universally acceptable protocols to regulate such activities are required. furthermore, the validity and reliability of assessment over the net, if implemented, will require particular attention in order to retain the confidence of those who participate in the assessment process and/ or depend on these results. in summary, some of the key issues are: • lack of access by many students, raising questions of equity and fairness • institutions providing dual mode, that is, contact and distance (net) provision, where one, usually net, provision is under­ resourced • in their 'me too' rush to be on the internet, institutions scanning vast amounts of lecture notes and readings into the web­ site, with no benefit to the students who have to print off material that may not have been designed for instruction • q u e s t ions related to ownership of intellectual property and to security of information • the misjudgement by many that (well­ designea) telelearning material may be journal of distance learning, vol5, no 1, 2000 ©distance education association of new zealand 13 cheaper to produce and maintain " a lack of instructional designers who know how to use these new technologies to enhance deep learning " the unavailability of trained individuals, standards and processes to effectively judge the quality of net-based courseware and student support. the entire enterprise is in transition. it is a seemingly mad rush driven by competition. involved a r e s o f t w a r e and hardware producers, various vendors, t e r t i a r y institutions, enthusiastic o r luddite lecturers, n e r v o u s m i n i s t r i e s of education and increasingly c o m p u t e r and net-literate students. it is clear that an institution or group of institutions providing internet-based learning opportunities to an international audience will not be able to let qa standards slip f o r v e r y l o n g . n o t only e t hical considerations but also pure self-interest when wishing to attract fee-paying international students will enforce the setting up and the maintenance of high standards guaranteeing quality. conclusion the examples of national qa approaches provided indicate a desire to achieve g r e a t e r t r a n s parency and accountability through operation of external audit and accreditation agencies. concurrent with these activities are the ongoing actions by governments to rein in the burgeoning costs of mass education and to shift more of the costs away from the public purse on to students, as has happened o v e r the last decade i n australia, nz, and the uk (in that order). it seems that the uk, nz and australia have moved in the direction of the 'voluntary' us accreditation s y st e m , despite the many reviews, changes in direction and examples of political opportunism, in the former countries. however, it seems that qa, often part of a tqm approach, has had some successes. for example as the previously cited reports indicate, there is now much greater emphasis on teaching quality by having teaching­ learning included in qa assessments and ranking, and more serious efforts are made to reduce the drop-out of students (brindley, 1989; 1995). traditional odl with team based production systems can provide a good example of qa in action. but paradoxically at present, odl' s latest offshoot, internet odl provision, suffers from a lack of agreed standards of qa,, where the simple 'scanning in' of large text based learning resources is but one common example of bad practice. the application of qa principles in tertiary education provision is, on balance, a positive development, especially as it applies to a publish-or-perish syndrome to the detriment of good teaching philosophy, and to the newer often private-for-profit institutions. a well constructed and balanced external review of the tertiary education sector may propose many positiv€ developments. however, the many white papers, reports and legislative changes in the uk, australia and new zealand could have the effect of stifling reforms, as a result of constantly changing requirements, confusion, resistance and uncertainty. this ongoing fine-tuning may in fact have the effect of reducing quality. this happens because the service of tertiary education is provided to students over many years, 3 to 4 years for undergraduates, much longer for those studying part-time, requiring longt e r m planning and s ignificant investment thus, providers are able to react to changing market forces only relatively slowly. whilst ongoing change is necessary, too often changes are imposed on changes in progress, preventing a required minimum degree of stability to be maintained. however, the real danger is that governments' hidden agendas are primarily cost containment and redistribution of resources in the light of expanding mass education, whilst paying lip service to academic freedom and the independence of universities. on review of the literature it seems that in the debate about quality, students, the principal clients, who pay increasing amounts of money for these learning opportunities, have been relegated to play a minor and passive role, essentially that of filling in questionnaires. journal of distance learning, vol5, no 1, 2000 ©distance education association ofnew zealand 14 i i this treatment, as well as the often, token membership on academic boards or councils (students suffering financial hardship and dependence tend not have a strong input into such committees) must become a focus of future deliberations on qa issues. in this international move towards national institutionalised qa systems, operating amongst competing institutions of higher learning, there exists now an opportunity to establish and publish internationally comprehensive best practice and benchmarking data (see vroeijenstijn, 1999; liston, 1999, pp. 4-6). this information will benefit national and international students and communities without needing to diminish or intrude upon academic freedom and institutional autonomy. but more importantly, it is suggested that the time may be right to agree on a number of standards. the us sy stem provides a good example. an interna t i onally recognised academic validating and/ or accrediting agency, above and beyond iso 9000 or the global alliance for transnational education (gate) (liston, 1999, p. 5), could then be established. such an agency could bring some order and uniformity in qa approaches, and most urgently, ensure maintenance of highest possible standards, including internet provision, across the world's tertiary educational institutions. however, whatever system is adopted, if it is to be used widely, must be free from ongoing government interference, be affordable, inspire confidence and have the requisite simplicity and stability to allow long term planning. references a l exan der, s. ( 1 9 9 9 ) . an evaluat i o n of innovative projects involving communication and information technology in higher education. herdsa, 18, 2. barnett, r. (1999). the coming of the global village: a tale of two inquiries. oxford review of education, 25, 3. boyer commission on educating undergraduates, reinventing undergraduate education: a blueprint for america's research universities. strum kenny, s. chair (1998) http:/ /notes.cc.sunysb.edu/ pres/boyer. n s f/w e b f o r m/ i m a g e s/$f i le/ boyer.txt brindley, j. e. (1989). retention strategies: a pre­ admission p r o g r a m m e f o r a d u l t d i s t a n c e learners. i n eastcott, d., farmer, b . and lantz, b. (eds.) aspects of educational and training technology,.yol23, london: kogan page. brindley , j. e. (1995). learners and learner services: the key to the future in open and distance learning. in roberts, j. m. and keough, e. m. (eds.) why the information highway: lessons from open and distance learning, toronto: trifolium books. butterfield, s., chambers, m.,moseley, b., prebble, t., uys, p. and woodhouse, d. (1999). external quality assurance for the virtual institution. wel l i n g t o n : new z e a l a n d universities academic audit unit, aau series on quality no 4. calder,j. a. (1994). programme evaluation and quality: a comprehensive guide to setting up an evaluation system. london: kogan page. carnevale, d. (2000, february 18). assessing the quality of online courses remains a challenge, e d u c a t o r s agree. t he chronicle of h i g h e r education, a59. cornesky, r. a. (1992). using deming to improve quality in colleges and universities. madison, wi: magna publications. inc. crosby, p. b. (1984). quality without tears. new york: mcgraw-hill. crow, s. (1999). virtual universities can meet high standards. t he chronicle of higher education, h t t p : / i c h r o n i c l e . c o m/w e e k l y /v 4 6/i 1 0 / 10b00501.htm daniel, j . s . (1997). w h y universities need technology strategies. change, 4, 29. dearing, sir r. (1997, july). summary report: higher education in the learning society. national committee of inquiry into higher education. 'the dearing report'. ncihe, london: crown copyright. also at http:/ /www.leeds.ac.uk/ educol/ncihe deming, w. e. (1982). quality, productivity and competitive position. cambridge, ma: mit press. deming, w. e. (1986). out of the crisis. cambridge, ma: mit press. education amendment act (1990). sections: 253 (2) (a), 257 (5) and 260. wellington: published under the authority of the new zealand government. eunson, b. (2000, february 16). 'soft' de-skilling costs grad jobs. the higher education section of the ausj-yalian. . fage, j. b. and mills, a. r. 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(1989). the second irony: the system of institutional evaluation of higher education in t h e u n i t e d s t a t e s . in k o g a n . m. ( e d . ) evaluating higher education. london: jessica kingsley publishers. k o g a n , m. (ed.) ( 1 9 8 9 ) . evaluating higher education. london: jessica kingsley pub. lewis, r.g., and smith, d.h. (1994). total quality in higher education. delray beach, florida: st lucie press. liston, c. (1999). managing quality and standards. buckingham: open university press. livingstone, g. (1999). the quest for the holy grail or hunting the snark? bridging the qualityresources divide on effectiveness and efficiency. assessment & evaluation in higher education, 24, 2. m c g e t t r i c k , a. and mans or, n. ( 1999). standards and levels a case study. assessment & evaluation in higher education, 24, 2, p. 131. mcilroy, a. and walker, r. (1993). total quality m a n a g e m e n t : •s o m e i m p l i c a t i o n s f o r t h e management of distance education. distance education, 14, 1. mcilroy, a. and walker, r. (1996). total quality management, policy implications for distance education. in evans, t. and nation, d. (eds.) opening education. london: routledge. mcilroy,a. (1997). aquality picture: perspectives on a distance learning programme. journal of distance learning, 3, 1. morrison, s. j. (1994). managing quality: an historical review. in gale, b. d. (ed.) managing quality (2nd ed.). new york: prentice hall. m o r r i s on ,\j . l . ( 1 9 9 6 , m a y/j u n e ) . a new carnegie commission on higher education may well be overdue. on the horizon. new scientist (1998,may 2). newswire section, 158, 2132, p. 21. newton, j. (1999). an evaluation of the impact of external quality monitoring on a higher education college (1993-98). assessment & evaluation, 24, 2. oakland, j.s. (1989). total quality management. oxford: heineman publishing. padilla, a. (1999 july i august). the university of phoenix, inc. on the horizon, 7, 4. phipps,r. and merisotis,j. (1999,april). what's the difference? a review of contemporary research on the effectiveness of distance learning in higher education. the institute of higher education policy and us national education association (nea), www.ihep.com p i p e r , d. w. (1993). quality management in u n i v e r s i t i e s , v o l .l. c a n b e r r a : a u s t ralian government publishing service. prebble, t. k. (1999). quality assurance in dual m o d e i n s t i t u t i o n s . in w i l l i a m s , p. and woodhouse, d. (eds.) achieving quality: examples of good practice in new zealand universities. wellington: academic audit unit, aau series on quality, no. 3. quality assurance agency for higher education qaa (1997, december). subject review handbook, october 1998 to september 2000. reference no: qaa 1/97. rowntree, d. 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(1993a). systems, values and dissent: quality assurance for o p e n and distance learning. distance education, 14, 2. tait, a. (1993b). systems, value and dissent: quality a s s u r a n c e for open and distance learning. in tait a. (ed.), quality assurance in open and distance learning: european and international perspectives, conference papers, 2830 september. cambridge: downing college. tait, a. (1997). quality assurance in higher education: selected case studies. in tait, a. (ed.) perspectives on distance education. vancouver: commonwealth of learning. the times higher education supplement, thes (1999, july 23 pl4, & august 20). thorpe, m. (1993). evaluating open and distance learning (2nd ed.). harlow, uk: longman. unesco (1996). world guide to higher education, (3rd ed.). paris: author. utley, a. (1999, september 3). jury out on bid to fix university teaching. times higher education supplement, thes. v ro e ij e ns t ij n , a. i . ( 1 9 9 9 , june). the international dimension in quality assessment and quality assurance. assessment and evaluation in higher education. bath: carfax publishing company. wagner, a. (1998, november). redefining tertiary education. the oecd observer, 214. west, r. (1997). learning for life (the west report). canberra: australian government publishing service and www.deetya.gov.au williams, p. and woodhouse, d. (eds.) (1999). achieving quality: examples of good practice in new zealand universities. wellington: new zealand universities academic audit unit, aau series on quality no.3. woodhouse, d. (1995). audit manual: handbook for institutions and members of audit panels (2nd ed.). wellington: new zealand universities academic audit unit. dr bill grote is senior research fellow, the open polytechnic of new zealand, private bag 31914, lower h u t t , new z e a l a n d . e m a i l : grobil@topnz.ac.nz journal of distance learning, vol5, no 1, 2000 ©distance education association of new zealand 17 introduction nickirpage christchurch polytechnic institute of technology christchurch, new zealand since 1995 the journal of distance learning has occupied an important and unique place in the body of literature pertaining to distance, open, and flexible learning in new zealand. its success is underpinned by the existence of a group of extremely talented and dedicated educators who devote their time unstintingly to the deanz executive. from this year the journal will be undergoing a further maturation as the newly appointed permanent editors, bill anderson and mary simpson, take up the reins. bill and mary have already voiced suggestions for further strengthening the publication's existing processes and infrastructure, and we look forward to those ideas being implemented. this issue went through several iterations before its final form and content emerged. it was originally conceived as a themed issue, the idea being that articles would be sought that contributed to an overall history of the development of open and distance learning in aotearoa/new zealand. time has its own way of shaping outcomes, however, and although the eventual selection still bears the hallmarks of that early planning, the four articles presented span a variety of topics. the first paper sees don bewley continuing on from his earlier article "distance education in new zealand: an historical sketch" (1996). in this account bewley looks at some of the developments that have shaped the more recent directions of flexible learning in new zealand, particularly at the post­ school level. bewley's ability to present a big-picture view while focussing on key influences makes him ideally suited to an undertaking of this nature. nola campbell, the author of the second of the two historically themed articles, has been referred to as a pioneer in new zealand with regard to online learning, predominantly in the area of teacher education (mclachlan-smith & gunn, 2001). campbell's endeavours bring her into direct contact with current thinking and innovation in new zealand schools, and she uses this connection to shape an overview and analysis of early elearning developments in this sector. in the next article, mark nichols explores the topic of justifying elearning initiatives from a financial perspective. tempting though it is for educators to focus on more altruistic aims in the provision of elearning opportunities, the reality is that accountability must be sought at all levels. nichols' timely discussion draws on practices followed in the corporate sector, and suggests ways in which they may be applied in tertiary education institutions. journal of distance learning, vol8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 3 in the final paper, ruth smith outlines a study that was prompted in part by her own experience as an online leamer. this experience, coupled with the widening of her own professional role as a tertiary leaming adviser and (fledgling) eeducator in a private training establishment, led her to ask some key questions about staff and student support in the online environ­ ment. smith takes a case-study approach within the context of her own institution, but the outcomes and insights of her research have immediate application to other programmes and courses. this issue also offers three book reviews, all of which are for publications that clearly have much to offer readers looking for guidance in eleaming and distance education. i hope you will enjoy reading this issue of the joumal, and will continue to support the publication and its umbrella organisation, deanz, into the future. i wouldlike to thank those who have contributed: the authors, advisors, and reviewers who gave so freely of their time and expertise. i wish the incoming editors well in their new venture. references bewley, d. (1996). distance education in new zealand: an historical sketch. journal of distance learning, 2(1), 14-25. mclachlan-srnith, c., & gunn, c. (2001). introduction. journal of distance learning, 6(1), 3-4. journal of distance learning, vol8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 4 microsoft word 06 deanz 2012 taipjuturus 010412.docx taipjutorus, w., hansen, s., & brown, m. 56 investigating a relationship between learner control and self-efficacy in an online learning environment widchaporn taipjutorus, massey university sally hansen, massey university mark brown, massey university abstract in both traditional face-to-face and online learning contexts, self-efficacy has been shown to be a key contributor to learner success. once established, self-efficacy can be generalised to other learning situations, with the strongest effect occurring with learning activities that are closest to those in which self-efficacy has been improved. self-efficacy is not only a good predictor of learners’ academic outcomes, but efficacious learners also tend to persist, cope, and adapt well, even when they have no prior experience. learners who have low confidence in their ability to study can become frustrated, overwhelmed, and demotivated—they are more likely to achieve low grade point averages, and in some cases drop out. when people become online learners, especially for the first time, they may feel less confident, despite being familiar with day-to-day computer and technology usage. they may still lack essential learning and technology skills for tertiary education and online learning. to support these learners, online courses should be designed to foster learners’ efficacy. research findings have shown that embedded learner control in online modules can enhance learning, improve attitudes, and increase self-efficacy. however, little research has been done to examine self-efficacy of online learners with different levels of learner control in a real online class setting. therefore, this paper describes current research that focuses on this gap in research, and uses a quantitative research design to investigate the relationship between learner control and learner self-efficacy. online learning self-efficacy scales and a set of questionnaires were developed and validated. in a pilot study, 31 postgraduate online learners were asked to assess their own self-efficacy and experience with different levels of learner control. preliminary results show a positive relationship between learner control and online learning self-efficacy. keywords: online learning; learner control; online learning self-efficacy introduction the term self-efficacy was coined around 40 years ago by albert bandura (1977a). since then, research in this area has been growing steadily. bandura (1997) defines self-efficacy as “beliefs in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments” (p. 3). it is a judgement of confidence about the performance of a specific task (lorsbach & jinks, 1999). self-efficacy is not the same as ability or motivation, but they are strongly related (kozlowski & salas, 2010). indeed, self-efficacy is the personal determination of one’s own ability to deal with a certain task. notably, this determination is not based entirely on journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 57 actual past experience or existing ability and skills, but also on learners’ perceptions of their own knowledge and ability relative to the task or situation (deture, 2004). however, self-efficacy is specific to the context of a situation, and when a situation changes, one’s efficacy is also altered (hodges, 2008). for example, the transition from secondary school to university is challenging for learners. a change in learning approach, such as from traditional face-to-face learning to online learning, might affect learner self-efficacy (maathuis-smith et al., 2011). in education, self-efficacy is a key contributing factor to learners’ success, because self-efficacy “influences the choices learners make and the courses of action they pursue” (pajares, 2002, p. 116). generally, self-efficacy is influenced by four main sources: enactive mastery experience— that is, hands-on experience; vicarious experiences—that is, other people’s experience; social persuasion—that is, appraisal or feedback from others; and physiological and affective states— that is, stress, emotion, mood, pain, and fatigue (hodges, 2008). mastery experiences are considered to be the most significant source of efficacy (bandura, 1977a). once self-efficacy is established, it can be applied to similar learning situations. the closer these situations are to those in which self-efficacy has been improved, the stronger the effect (bandura & adams, 1977). self-efficacy influences several aspects of performance that are important to learning in terms of the effort put forth and persistence in accomplishing a task (multon, brown, & lent, 1991; zimmerman, bandura, & martinez-pons, 1992). bandura (1997) argues that individuals develop particular beliefs about their ability to handle a specific situation. multon, brown, and lent (1991) specify that self-efficacy can alter learners’ perceptions of their learning environment. in other words, efficacious learners can perceive their learning environments positively or negatively. learners who have low self-efficacy are more likely to give up easily when faced with frustration and difficult tasks. indeed, lorsbach and jinks (1999) noted that “low selfefficacy probably leads to less effort, which in turn leads to lower success, resulting in even lower self-efficacy” (p. 160). however, self-efficacy and persistence increase when learners accomplish activities or tasks. despite this, efficacious learners still might not be motivated to put forth their effort if they feel that little has been learnt about the topic, or what is left to learn has little value compared with what is already known (nilsen, 2009). although multon et al. (1991) found a positive relationship between self-efficacy and academic performance and persistence, they advocate for more research to understand how self-efficacy influences academic outcomes. despite the fact that they may be using computers and technology in their daily life, learners might feel less confident to attend online classes, especially for the first time. they may not have enough of the necessary learning and technology skills for university and online learning (kennedy, judd, churchward, gray, & krause, 2008; mandernach, donnelli, & dailey-hebert, 2006; ratliff, 2009; wojciechowski & palmer, 2005). therefore, online courses should be designed to support these learners so that their self-efficacy is improved and maintained. some studies suggest that embedded learner control in online modules can enhance learning, increase positive attitudes, and raise self-efficacy (e.g., chang & ho, 2009; ebner & holzinger, 2007). however, few studies have inspected the self-efficacy of online learners with different levels of learner control in a real online class setting. therefore, this study in progress is needed to explore this missing piece of knowledge. literature review since research has focused on learners’ self-efficacy in learner-controlled online learning courses, reviewed literature in relation to this area is described in the following sections. taipjutorus, w., hansen, s., & brown, m. 58 online learning self-efficacy in online learning, self-efficacy is considered to play a significant role in learners’ performance and persistence (pajares, 1996, 2002). self-efficacy is not only a good predictor of learners’ academic outcomes, but efficacious learners also tend to adapt, persist, and cope well, even when they have little prior online experience (swan, 2004). learners who think that they have low ability to study are more likely to get low grades, and in some cases give up their study (kekkonen-moneta & moneta, 2002; lim, 2004). they can also become discomfited, demotivated, and overwhelmed. however, the relationships between self-efficacy, academic outcomes, and other variables are complex. like learner self-efficacy in traditional face-to-face setting, bates and khasawheh (2007) found that self-efficacy in online contexts is influenced by previous success with online learning systems, online learning technology anxiety, instructor feedback, and pre-course training. these influences align with bandura’s (1997) sources of efficacy information—enactive mastery experience, social persuasion, and affective states (table 1). table 1 the sources used to describe self-efficacy of learners in online learning learner control learner control is found to be of direct benefit to online learning. research by means, toyama, murphy, bakia, and jones (2009) found that online learning can be enhanced by giving learners control of their interactions. this finding is supported by mayer’s (2003) pacing principle, one of the 12 principles for multimedia learning, which posits that learners can learn better if they are allowed to have control over the pace of their own learning. aligned with this principle, mayer and chandler (2001) found that a group of learners with learner-controlled animation understood presented concepts better than another group with linear animation (tabbers & koeijer, 2009). thus, learner control can “promote a deeper or more long-lasting effect on memory” (williams, 1996, p. 960). although learner control has been studied for more than 50 years, no clear definition and theory has been established because it is multidimensional (derouin, fritzsche, & salas, 2005). in general, learner control is the extent to which learners can choose what, where, when, and how to learn (kraiger & jerden, 2007). the concept of learner control was previously employed in the classroom to enhance the learning process by allowing learners to choose the way they learnt, or how they expressed what they had learnt. this concept was later implemented with technology-assisted instruction. the nature of online learning makes it possible to provide learners with the opportunity to make their own choices and put them in charge of their learning pace, sequence, and content (milheim & martin, 1991). learner control differs, depending on the technique used and the background theory applied. the concept is also changing as technology develops. as reviewed by derouin et al. (2005), there are several types of learner control, including “sequence, pacing, content, context, method of presentation, optional content, task difficulty, and incentives” (p. 185). many of these learner controls use hypermedia. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 59 hypermedia are computer-based documents composed of hyperlinks and media in various symbol sets, including texts and graphic icons, to give information and serve as an index that allows users to access further information in a non-linear fashion (jaffe, 1997). they can be seen as the product of hypertext and multimedia (scheiter & gerjets, 2007). with hypermedia, online learners can easily access learning content and interact with their peers and instructors. researchers have found that hypermedia can also give learners a sense of control, which in turn affects their level of confidence and motivation (chou & liu, 2005). online learning with learner control and hypermedia is unique in the sense that learners can not only navigate through their learning environment as they wish, but they can also interact more. therefore, high levels of learner control are embedded in the design of online courses to enforce learners’ interactivity. learner control and online learner self-efficacy previous studies have shown that the sense of control learners gain while interacting with instructional media and content can result in increased satisfaction, enjoyment, and confidence (luskin & hirsen, 2010). however, the effects of user-controlled online environments on learner self-efficacy are not consistent. on the one hand, findings show no differences in learner selfefficacy between non-interactive multimedia and interactive multimedia classes. for example, maag (2004) found that learners in an interactive multimedia online lesson showed no knowledge and self-efficacy gain compared with a control group, but they were more satisfied with the interactive tools. in the same way, jaffe’s findings (1997) show that the degree of interaction does affect learner self-efficacy. however, these effects are not significantly different. this discrepancy between findings may be because the online learning environment is complex and dynamic, and the increase in learner self-efficacy can be a result of many influences other than levels of learner control. however, other research reports an improvement in learner self-efficacy in user-controlled online environments. ebner and holzinger (2007), for instance, found that games enhanced learning, motivation, and self-efficacy due to a factor that they called ‘joy’. likewise, chang and ho (2009) found that students with the learner-controlled version of their web-based interactive instructional language programme had higher test scores and self-efficacy levels than those in the programme-controlled version. having established the lack of consistency in the findings of previous research and the complexity of the concept of self-efficacy, the next section introduces a theoretical framework for the present study. theoretical framework this section describes the theoretical framework that informs this study. it is based on the premise that, in order to support learners by enhancing their efficacy, an online course should be designed to help learners improve their self-efficacy. lawless and brown (1997) indicate that the ability to control one’s instructional sequence can enhance learning, improve attitudes and increase self-efficacy. kay (2001) reports that: constructivists further emphasize the learner’s role in actively constructing their own understanding of a learning domain. it seems that we can improve learning effectiveness by giving the learner control over, and responsibility for, their own learning. (p. 114) some researchers attest that high levels of learner control can improve learners’ performance (e.g., chou & liu, 2005). at higher levels of learner control, learners are engaged in greater levels of interaction. these interactions, especially with others, including their classmates and instructors, can make learners feel more efficacious due to activities they and their classmates have accomplished, as well as the feedback received from peers and instructors, leading to emotional states such as satisfaction and a sense of belonging (piccoli, ahmad, & ives, 2001). taipjutorus, w., hansen, s., & brown, m. 60 as research on online learning concentrates its focus on the creation and support of effective online courses, learner support has emerged as an important consideration (thorpe, 2002), and has become an important aspect in the design of online courses. a few studies have looked into the effect of learning design, especially the concept of learner control, on learners’ self-efficacy in an authentic context. as noted earlier, this study has been framed by bandura’s self-efficacy theory (bandura, 1977a, 1977b). building on previous research in this area, a quantitative approach has been adopted to address the research questions and to establish whether there is a statistical significance in the relationship between learner control, the independent variable; and online learning self-efficacy, the dependent variable. taking the contextual nature of this proposed study into consideration, a correlational survey is the most appropriate research design, since randomisation presents a great difficulty (punch, 2009). in addition, manipulation of the independent variable is inappropriate and could cause risk or harm to participants. methodology the methodology was strengthened by the process of piloting the survey that would inform the later study. this pilot study had two phases: the construction of the data collection tools, and the data collection. in the first phase, the extraneous variables (age, gender, computer skills, and previous online experience) were identified, as they can influence the observed variables. the questionnaires were constructed to measure both independent and dependent variables, including these extraneous variables, using items generated from the reviewed literature and validated tools. it comprised four sections: (1) demographic data; (2) a self-report of learners’ computer skills for academic purposes (csap), computer skills for social purposes (cssp), previous experience in online learning environments, and experience with learner control (lc) while studying in the recent online programme; (3) an online learning self-efficacy scale (olse); and (4) open-ended questions for qualitative data. for this study, the population frame was online learners in an online programme at a tertiary institution in new zealand. the purposive sample group was learners in an online programme where levels of learner control are embedded within the course design. students studying for a graduate diploma in an initial teacher-education programme were selected as the pilot group, since this programme had three compulsory online papers that met the research criteria. more importantly, these online papers were intentionally designed to maximise the learner-control approach. for example, learners are encouraged to do a group project in their own way, or they are allowed to complete different tasks, choosing their own order within a flexible timeframe. ethical approval was obtained, following the ethical requirements and guidelines of the chosen tertiary institution. after the questionnaire was constructed and validated, it was distributed online to the pilot group at the end of semester 2, 2011. they were invited to participate in this research by accessing it through a link posted on their online learning website. a clear explanation of research objectives and research instructions was given to all participants in the letter of invitation and in the questionnaire. within 3 weeks, the pilot data were gathered and the data collection was closed. the quantitative data were analysed using statistical analysis software. descriptive statistical analysis was used to calculate descriptive data, such as means, medians, and ranges of the sample. in order to see whether there was a correlation between these two variables, a scatter plot was used first to get a general view of the relationship. then, a bivariate correlation—pearson’s product–moment correlation coefficient (r)—was calculated to confirm the direction of this relationship and the size of effect. the statistical significance of the coefficient determines whether the relationship between the observed variables is unlikely to happen by chance and, in journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 61 this case, indicates whether learner control in online courses correlates with learners’ online learning self-efficacy. results of the 112 students in the programme, 31 students responded to the pilot questionnaire, making the response rate just under 30 percent. the sample group (n = 31) comprised seven males and 24 females, and approximately 75 percent were between 25 and 45 years old (table 2). table 2 characteristic of the sample group by age and gender seventy-five percent reported that they had intermediate information technology skills and the rest regarded themselves as advanced users (figure 1). figure 1 perceived computer and information technology skills results showed that around 16 percent of participants had a basic csap level and half had intermediate skills, while almost half of the responses indicated a basic cssp level. only 10 percent had an advanced level (table 3). taipjutorus, w., hansen, s., & brown, m. 62 table 3 actual computer and information technology skills measured by csap and cssp about 84 percent described themselves as having some or a lot of online experience, whereas two participants had no online experience at all (table 4). half of the participants reported that they had attended a short online course, an online diploma programme, or an online undergraduate programme before they enrolled in this recent online programme. table 4 previous experience in online learning environments participants were asked to report how often they were exposed to online activities with different levels of lc. scores from each item were added to be lc scores. results showed that participants scored in the range of 124–204, with a mean of 166.31 and a standard deviation of 25.26 (table 5). table 5 experience with different levels of learner control in the recent online programme the dependent variable, olse, was also calculated from scores given to each item on the scale. for the group, the mean of online learning self-efficacy was 74.89, with a range score of 46.84–100. no outliers were found. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 63 a scatter plot was used to determine the relationship between the observed variables. an upward trend was revealed, suggesting that a positive relationship between the variables did exist (figure 2). figure 2 scatter plot showing learner control and online learning self-efficacy scores a visual presentation, a histogram, and the normal q-q plot were used to test the assumption for using the inferential statistics, pearson’s product–moment correlation. olse, the dependent variable, appeared to be normally distributed (figure 3) and linear (figure 4). figure 3 histogram of online learning self-efficacy score with a normal distribution curve taipjutorus, w., hansen, s., & brown, m. 64 figure 4 normal q-q plot of online learning self-efficacy scores since the assumptions were met, the pearson’s product–moment correlation coefficient (r) was calculated to assess the size and direction of the linear relationship. this coefficient showed that two variables were positively and moderately correlated with: r(27) = 0.287. qualitative data demonstrated that most participants were confident about their online learning programme, as they expressed their answers as “confident”, “very confident”, “pretty confident”, or “very successful”. on the other hand, some participants found the programme hard, and felt less confident about finishing. they described it as “hard”, “difficult”, or “overwhelming”; and their feeling as “less confident”, “not 100% certain”, or “i don’t feel confident”. some would rather not take the online programme again. discussion most participants in the sample group were aged between 16 and 45, which meant they would be familiar with digital technology. consequently, they tended to report themselves as intermediate or even advanced users. no one reported that they had basic computer skills. however, findings specified that 16 percent of participants had a basic csap level and half the responses had a basic cssp level. when comparing computer skills from the participants’ self-report with csap and csap scores, around 53 percent of participants estimated their levels correctly, but 42 percent overestimated their computer and information technology skills. this occurrence agrees with previous research which found that the perceived computer skills of students are higher than their actual abilities (baim, 2004; jurica & holmes, 2008). the preliminary results of the pilot showed that a correlation between levels of learner control and online learning self-efficacy does exist, though the value of the coefficient (r) is moderate to weak. furthermore, pearson’s product–moment coefficient is suitable only for a linear relationship. however, there is the possibility that these two variables are not linearly correlated. this would explain why pearson’s coefficient value is small. while this preliminary result is inconclusive, a larger sample and the use of a range of other statistical analysis techniques may provide more conclusive results. in line with this, another collection of data is planned for a more diverse sample of learner control experience and level of journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 65 self-efficacy. students in a 4-year online bachelor’s degree programme embedded with learner control in the same college will be purposively selected as the sample group. the main data collection will be started after the questionnaire is adjusted and validated. in addition, in the larger study an independent t-test will be performed to determine whether the online learning self-efficacy of learners in high and low levels of learner control is significantly different. an analysis of variance (one-way anova) will also be used, to determine whether mean differences between subgroups are statistically significant. in the main study the relationship between other variables, such as age, gender, computer skills, and prior experience in online learning and online learning self-efficacy, will be examined to see if these variables have an effect on the investigated relationship. it is possible that the investigated relationship might be more complex than the design for the preliminary study allowed for. as the coefficient of determination (r2) is 8.7 percent, this value indicates that other variables are having an effect on the measures. the analysis of covariance (ancova) will be used to remove the influence of these extraneous variables and get a clearer picture of the investigated relationship. as with the pilot study, qualitative data will be used to complement the findings from the quantitative analysis. thematic analysis will be employed to identify specific themes that are consistent with the concept of learner control and bandura’s self-efficacy. open coding will be used to organise and identify some of the emerging themes. the result of this analysis will be triangulated with the results from the quantitative analysis of this research. conclusion this paper describes a pilot of a larger study (in progress) that focuses on the relationship between learner control and the online learning self-efficacy of adult learners participating in a tertiary-level programme. a correlational research design was employed, based on bandura’s self-efficacy theory. after preliminary data were gathered and analysed, results showed a moderate correlation between learner control and online learning self-efficacy. it is anticipated that a more conclusive result will be reported with a larger sample for the main study. given the identified gap in the research on learner control and self-efficacy, it is important that we continue to learn more about this relationship. the main study will look closely at whether time experiencing learner control affected learners’ self-efficacy. extraneous variables will also be observed to see their influence over the studied relationship. it is hoped that findings from this research will benefit online learners, educators, and developers, and that it will shed some light on how to 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(2005). individual student characteristics: can any be predictors of success in online classes? online journal of distance learning administration, 8(2). retrieved from http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/summer82/wojciechowski82.htm zimmerman, b. j., bandura, a., & martinez-pons, m. (1992). self-motivation for academic attainment: the role of self-efficacy beliefs and personal goal setting. american educational research journal, 29(3), 663–676. biographical notes widchaporn taipjutorus w.taipjutorus@massey.ac.nz jeab is a phd candidate at the school of curriculum and pedagogy, college of education, massey university. jeab’s research focuses on adult online learners, and particularly on how to raise and maintain their self-efficacy via online learning course design. sally hansen s.e.hansen@massey.ac.nz dr sally hansen is director of teacher education and director of teaching and learning at the college of education, massey university. sally has research interests in self-efficacy theory in relation to teaching, learning, performance, and achievement for both learners and teachers. mark brown m.e.brown@massey.ac.nz professor mark brown is director, national centre for teaching and learning and director, distance education and learning futures alliance at massey university. mark’s main research interests lie in the areas of teaching and learning development along with blended learning and distance education. he has a journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 69 particular interest in learning design, the nature of teachers’ work, and the forces and tensions underlying educational policy. � this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. taipjutorus, w., hanson, s., & brown, m. (2012). investigating a relationship between learner control and self-efficacy in an online learning environment. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 16(1), [pp. 56–69]. hartnett, m. 28 relationships between online motivation, participation, and achievement: more complex than you might think maggie hartnett, massey university abstract with the increasing importance and rapid growth of online courses, diversification of the student population, and the growing concern over retention rates, exploration of learner online participation and possible relationships with motivation and achievement behaviour is becoming increasingly relevant in higher education. previous studies (gerber, grundt, & grote, 2008; picciano, 2002) have tended to explore links between learner activity and performance in online environments. but the relationships that may exist between motivation and participation (both in terms of quality and quantity of activity) in online contexts are not well understood. indeed, participation, particularly active participation such as posting messages to online discussions, is frequently used as a proxy for motivation, with more active learners being perceived as more motivated. this paper presents findings of one aspect of a larger study (hartnett, 2010) that explored the motivation of pre-service teachers situated within two separate and distinct online distance learning contexts. self-report motivation data, achievement, and online usage statistical data, in conjunction with asynchronous discussion-forum transcripts, were used to explore possible relationships between motivation, participation, and achievement in these contexts. analysis revealed important differences between and within the two cases (e.g., nature of the task and assessment approaches) that indicated situational factors played a key role in determining whether any significant relationships were present. in other words, various factors within the specific learning environment combined in complex ways to influence motivation to learn and the nature of student participation. in an age of increasing exploration and interpretation of online learner behaviour via automatically collected systems statistics (beer, jones, & clark, 2009), these findings highlight the need to be cautious about using online activity as the only gauge for assessing student motivation in online contexts. keywords: motivation; online participation introduction over the last decade and a half, distance education has undergone a period of considerable change (larreamendy-joerns & leinhardt, 2006; moore & kearsley, 2011). the growth of the internet and related technologies has resulted in a merging of online teaching and learning into the routine practices of universities (roy & schumm, 2011). at the same time, it has given distance education a new appeal (tallent-runnels et al., 2006). following bates (2005), online learning is viewed here as a subcategory of distance education that specifically uses the internet journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 29 and the world wide web. online learning is one increasingly popular method used by institutions in various countries to provide opportunities and meet the needs of a growing and increasingly diverse student population (moore & kearsley, 2011). online learning has a number of potential benefits, not least of which is the ability to overcome the temporal and spatial restrictions of traditional educational settings (bates, 2005). notwithstanding the advantages offered by online learning, a variety of factors have been identified as crucial to the success of online courses (andresen, 2009). motivation is one such factor (bekele, 2010). just as motivation is a key factor in learning, engagement, and achievement in face-to-face educational contexts (brophy, 2010), so it is in online learning environments (jones & issroff, 2007). poor motivation has been identified as a decisive factor in contributing to the high drop-out rates from online courses (muilenburg & berge, 2005). although concern about student motivation and engagement in technology-mediated environments has been evident for some time (rovai, 2003), research in this area is limited both in quantity and scope (artino, 2008; bekele, 2010). literature review/theoretical framework motivation and learning online brophy (2010, p. 3) defines motivation as “a theoretical construct to explain the initiation, direction, intensity, persistence, and quality of behaviour, especially goal-directed behaviour”. motivation can influence what we learn, how we learn, and when we choose to learn (schunk, 1995). research shows that motivated learners are more likely to be actively engaged, exhibit enhanced performance, undertake challenging activities, and display resilience in the face of difficulties (schunk, pintrich, & meece, 2008). contemporary views link motivation to individuals’ cognitive and affective processes such as thoughts, beliefs, and goals, and emphasise the situated, interactive relationship between the learner and the learning environment (brophy, 2010). existing research in online contexts has tended to adopt a limited view of motivation that does not acknowledge the complexity and dynamic interplay of factors underlying and influencing motivation to learn. instead, designing motivating learning environments has received attention (chanlin, 2009; keller, 2008). more frequently, research has focused on identifying traits of successful online learners where motivation is seen as a personal characteristic that remains relatively stable across contexts and situations (wighting, liu, & rovai, 2008). such studies indicate that intrinsic motivation is an important characteristic of successful learners (shroff, vogel, & coombes, 2008). a further, though relatively sparse, area of research has explored relationships between learner online participation and motivation (dawson, macfadyen, & lockyer, 2009; hartnett, 2010; martens, gulikers, & bastiaens, 2004). in contrast, relationships between online participation and achievement behaviour (where achievement is used as an indicator of motivation) have been studied more extensively, in terms of both quantity (bures, amundsen, & abrami, 2002; gerber et al., 2008; rovai & barnum, 2003) and quality (gerber et al., 2008) of participation. self-determination theory of motivation various frameworks have been used in studies of motivation in online contexts (artino, 2008; bures et al., 2002), including intrinsic–extrinsic motivation theory (martens et al., 2004; xie, debacker, & ferguson, 2006). self-determination theory (sdt) (ryan & deci, 2000) is an influential contemporary theory that explicates intrinsic–extrinsic motivation in greater depth and is built on the fundamental premise of learner autonomy. it argues that all humans have an hartnett, m. 30 intrinsic need to be self-determining or autonomous (i.e., experience a sense of agency and control), as well as competent (i.e., feeling capable) and connected (i.e., feeling included and linked to others), in relation to their environment. if the environmental conditions are such that they support an individual’s autonomy, more autonomous (i.e., higher quality) forms of motivation will be promoted (ryan & deci, 2000). when intrinsically motivated, outside incentives are unnecessary and may even be counterproductive (brophy, 2010), because the reward lies in carrying out the activity. in contrast, students who are extrinsically motivated undertake activities for reasons separate from the activity itself (ryan & deci, 2000); for example, gaining good grades, avoiding negative consequences, or because the task has utility value (such as passing a course in order to earn a degree). alternatively, the activity may be seen as relevant to a future career. extrinsic motivation processes are explained in terms of external regulation because the reasons for undertaking the task lie outside the individual. however, the degree to which an activity is perceived as externally controlled can vary, and therefore different types of extrinsic motivation exist (see hartnett, st george, & dron, 2011, for further explanation). research in both face-to-face (lepper, henderlong corpus, & iyengar, 2005) and online settings (hartnett, et al., 2011) has shown that multiple types of motivation can and do co-exist. the ways in which a student is intrinsically or extrinsically motivated are important, with more selfdetermined students experiencing positive learning outcomes even when extrinsically motivated (brophy, 2010). results presented here relate to one aspect of a larger study (hartnett, 2010) that explored the motivation of pre-service teachers situated within two distinct online distance learning contexts. here, relationships between motivation, engagement (i.e., online participation), and achievement are explored. methodology case studies case-study methodology was used to explore the complex phenomenon of motivation in a manageable way (yin, 2009). purposive sampling methods (patton, 2002) were used to select two information-rich cases. although the broader institutional context was beyond the scope of the wider study, the effect such influences can have at the situational level have been noted previously (vallerand & ratelle, 2002)., potential cases were therefore identified from the same programme within the same institution in order to reduce differential contextual influences at the institutional level. cases were chosen based on predetermined criteria of importance to ensure relevance to the research question. in particular: (a) courses were required to be predominantly web-based, with only limited resources provided by alternative methods such as print; and (b) students were required to participate in the online learning community as an integral part of their assessed coursework. procedures ethical consent to undertake the study was gained prior to the collection of data. data comprised self-report motivation data, achievement data, and online usage data, in conjunction with questionnaire data and asynchronous discussion forum transcripts. learner motivation was measured with the self-report situational motivational scale developed by guay, vallerand, and blanchard (2000), which operationalises several of the motivation types identified within the sdt framework. the scores reported for each motivation type were then journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 31 used to calculate a single motivation score called the self-determination index (sdi) for each participant (see hartnett et al., 2011, for further explanation). online statistical data comprised the number of times each student accessed any tool or a content page (hits), the number of messages each student opened across all discussion topics (messages read), and the number of messages each student posted across all discussion topics (messages posted). these were used as a measure of the quantity of online participation, both active (posts) and passive (hits and reads). online discussion transcripts provided a source of data that enabled the quality of online participation to be explored in relation to reported levels of motivation. given the focus of this investigation and methodological issues associated with the rigorous, in-depth analysis of online discussions (garrison, cleveland-innes, koole, & kappelman, 2006), existing online transcript content analysis models were not used. instead, themes that emerged from the online transcripts, and that were also supported by the literature (dillenbourg, 1999), were used as indicators of the quality of engagement. these themes were negotiation of understanding, collaboration, and contribution to meaningful dialogue. these procedures comprised data generated after the completion of coursework in each case study, namely the questionnaires; and data generated during this period as part of normal online course administration processes (i.e. online asynchronous discussions and student usage statistics) but collected after all coursework was completed and graded, and results submitted. downloaded discussion transcripts were refined by removing any messages posted outside the assignment timeframe, and only those messages posted by study participants were included for analysis purposes. context and participants the two courses that provided the context for the case studies were situated within the larger context of a pre-service teacher education programme within a new zealand tertiary institution. students in this programme were preparing to teach in new zealand primary (i.e., elementary) schools. these courses were considered to be internet-based rather than fully online, because students received some print material (study guide) and digital resources (cd-rom—see case study 1) at the beginning of their course. the online learning platform used for online communication and most content delivery was the webct learning management system. the boundary for each case study centred on one assignment and its associated online activities. in both case studies, all participants had similar prior experience of online learning and group assignments. while both cases were chosen from courses within the same programme, the instructional design of each was different. case study 1 was situated within a compulsory integrated science and technology course. teaching staff consisted of a course coordinator with science expertise and a tutor with technology expertise. the tutor was responsible for most of the online teaching and management of the course, and focused on use of online resources and facilitating related asynchronous discussions. students usually took this course in the third and final year of their degree. the case study itself focused on a problem-based learning (pbl) assignment worth 60 percent of the final mark. it was undertaken over a 6-week period in which students were required to work collaboratively in small groups. problem-based learning is an instructional approach built around authentic, ill-structured problems that are complex in nature (schmidt & moust, 2000). case study 2 was positioned within an introductory social studies curriculum course that formed a compulsory component of the same programme. students usually took this course in the second year of their degree. an individual micro-teaching and reflection assignment (with associated hartnett, m. 32 online activities), which required students to plan and teach two consecutive lessons in a school of their choice and then reflect on their experience, formed the boundary for case study 2. students completed this assignment over a 4-week period and it was worth 40 percent of the final mark. the course coordinator was responsible for all online teaching throughout the semester. a total of 21 student participants took part in the two case studies (12 in case study 1 and nine in case study 2). they were recruited from the semester 1 (february–june) 2008 online offering of each course. participants were located throughout new zealand and undertook their courses at a distance from the main campus. the respondent group comprised two males and 19 females (one male in each case study). participants’ ages ranged from 18 to 55, with 90 percent in the over-24 age group. it is important to highlight that the wider study was predominantly qualitative in nature and that the information and statistical data reported here helped to illuminate the findings. the intention was not to generalise to the wider population of online learners. results motivation, online participation, and achievement several non-parametric correlations were calculated to explore relationships between the sdi score as a measure of overall motivation, online participation (active and passive), and achievement (at assignment and course level) for each case study. student online usage statistics data were captured over the course as a whole for both case studies. case study 1 a highly significant relationship was found between sdi scores (i.e., motivation) and the number of messages posted (i.e., active participation) over the course (see table 1). this means that the higher the motivation reported by a student, the more active the student was, in terms of the number of messages posted, within the discussion topics. no such relationships existed between passive online participation indicators (i.e., messages read or hits) and motivation. table 1 case study 1 – spearman rho correlation coefficents (rs) between sdi, achievement, and participation course online participation no. messages posted messages read hits sdi 12 0.77** 0.48 0.28 assignment mark 12 0.58* 0.63* 0.40 course mark 12 0.49 0.51 0.42 *p <0.05 **p<0.01 relationships between online participation and achievement (as an indicator of motivation), for both the pbl assignment and the course as a whole, were also explored. the relationship between the number of messages posted during the course and the assignment mark was found to be moderately statistically significant (see table 1). this suggests that the higher the number of messages posted—that is, the more visibly active online a participant was during the course—the higher the mark achieved for the pbl assignment. in terms of passive participation, a moderately journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 33 significant relationship was also found between the number of messages read throughout the course and the assignment mark. in other words, the higher the number of messages accessed by a participant, the higher the mark achieved for the assignment. no significant relationships were found between participation (active or passive) and achievement for the course as a whole. a reason for these differences may be that the nature of the pbl activity (i.e., collaborative and high stakes) needed greater active online participation to achieve good marks, in comparison with the course as a whole. in other words, the nature of the task has influenced the motivated behaviour of participants. case study 2 no significant relationships were found in this context (see table 2). that is, no relationships exist between a participant’s online activity (active or passive), level of motivation, or their achievement. it is interesting to note, however, that the relationship between the sdi score and messages posted over the course approached significance (r s = 0.64, p = 0.06, ns). while caution must be taken when interpreting these results, they are not unexpected given that online participation was not critical to doing the assignment or completing the course. table 2 case study 2 – spearman rho correlation coefficents (rs) between sdi, achievement, and participation course online participation no. messages posted messages read hits sdi 9 0.64 0.55 0.46 assignment mark 9 -0.24 -0.40 -0.13 course mark 9 0.02 -0.43 -0.05 all coefficients are statistically non-significant using the number of messages posted is, however, only a rudimentary measure of participation, as the quantity of messages does not necessarily equate to quality of engagement (andresen, 2009). to determine whether any differences existed in the nature of online engagement and motivation, online transcripts were explored in both case studies. as mentioned previously, themes that emerged from the qualitative data that were also supported by the literature (dillenbourg, 1999) were used as indicators of the quality of participation. quality of online participation and motivation case study 1 high-quality participation in terms of input, negotiation of meaning, and development of understanding was apparent among students that reported high motivation (i.e. positive sdi scores). for participants reporting low motivation (i.e., negative sdi scores), individual approaches were more evident. the former approach is evident in the example that follows. here, students discuss and seek clarification about the results of the science experiment carried out by one member of the group. hartnett, m. 34 hi everyone if you could just clarify the impact results elizabeth so that we have all got it around the right way!! (i.e., was it bark that absorbed the most impact?) (asydisc cs1: irene, 1 19 march, 2008) elizabeth responds: hi irene under the investigation of a 1-metre drop where all four samples were placed on the same foundation, bark absorbed the most impact and wet-pour rubber the least. (asydisc cs1: elizabeth, 19 march, 2008) wendy is still unclear about what the results mean, and seeks further information. hi elizabeth i was just wondering if you could clarify what type of bark you used for the test . . . can you also please clarify the results of the impact test as to which is the best as i think we are a bit muddled in that department? . . . (asydisc cs1: wendy, 19 march, 2008) again elizabeth provides additional information to help the group’s understanding of the experimental results: hi wendy the bark was straight from the playground and was 3 months old. it had been sold as certified playground bark, which means no piece is larger than 30 mm diameter and there is little dust. as for the impact testing. we dropped a cricket ball from 1 metre and measured the bounce. the wet-pour rubber produced the highest bounce, followed by pre-pour rubber matting, followed by artificial turf, then bark. i believe this means that rubber absorbs the least impact and bark the most. i believe this makes bark the recommended material. however, all samples were trialled on top of a wooden deck and possibly in situ the ground under the material may play a large factor . . . (asydisc cs1: elizabeth, 19 march, 2008) this line of questioning and negotiation of meaning continued until a common understanding was reached. in contrast, hazel’s comment below highlights a more individual and isolated approach. review of the group’s asynchronous transcript confirmed periods where little online activity occurred between her and the other members: after [developing] the initial [problem] . . . statement full online activity rarely occurred due to the varying demands of our commitments. so the assignment tended to be done by the other two members . . . with me adding my bits as and when completed. (hazel, questionnaire cs1) case study 2 quality participation was evident in the online activities that occurred concurrently with the micro-teaching assignment. the following example is representative of the quality and depth of engagement from a variety of participants that had no clear association with the level of motivation they reported. this discussion focuses on a relevant social issue at the time (the 1 pseudonyms are used journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 35 changing of new zealand legislation relating to parental control, dubbed the ‘anti-smacking’ legislation). i’m one of the minority completely in favour of the amendment of s 59. i agree that it won’t stop child abuse overnight, but i think it will have a big impact on future generations and their attitudes to smacking. the argument that “it won’t stop child abusers anyway” seems pretty weak to me—on that basis we shouldn’t bother having laws for anything, because the baddies never pay attention to them. i'm pretty surprised at how few people have actually read the amendment for themselves—i know facts get in the way of a good argument :), but i can’t help thinking that a lot of parents would be quite reassured to know that restraining their child from harm is not illegal (contrary to popular belief). i thought sean’s us gun control analogy was right on the money—people aren’t really signing petitions in great numbers because they want to smack their kids, they are indignant because they perceive the amendment as infringing on their personal rights. (asydisc cs2: may, 25 march, 2008) the wider study found that all participants perceived the environment to be supportive of learner autonomy, including the online discussions (which were seen as dynamic, interesting, and engaging), and participants tended to regulate their participation depending on their interests and needs. based on this, it appears that although participation was expected there was sufficient flexibility to allow participants to determine the level of engagement that met their own learning needs. discussion motivation and amount of online participation the only significant relationship between online participation and motivation occurred in case study 1 (for active participation only). in other words, participants reporting high levels of motivation were more visibly active within discussion topics. support for the case study 1 finding is available from previous research studies into motivation and participation in online environments. for example, xie et al. (2006) and bures et al. (2002) both found that active participation by learners in online discussions was related to their level of motivation. the motivation literature also highlights that autonomously motivated learners are more likely to be actively engaged in learning (see brophy, 2010, for reviews). support for the lack of any significant relationship between motivation and active participation in case study 2 is also available. for example, martens et al. (2004) found that more intrinsically motivated students do not necessarily do more. rather, they do different things and specifically engage in more exploration. similarly, the study by dawson et al. (2009) showed no differences in learners’ online participation based on their motivation. the lack of any significant relationship between motivation and passive participation was consistent across the case studies. this differs from findings from dawson et al. (2009), who found that passive participation was significantly positively related to student intrinsic motivation. possible reasons for the significant positive relationship between motivation and active online participation in case study 1 and the lack of a relationship in case study 2 may be found in the differing nature of the tasks within each case study. while no grade was assigned to online contributions in either context, a factor that some argue is necessary in order to provide learners hartnett, m. 36 with an incentive to participate in online discussions (andresen, 2009; rovai, 2007), expectations for online participation were made very clear to students at the commencement of each course. the collaborative nature and high percentage of the final grade (60 percent) associated with the pbl assignment in case study 1 meant that students were not just expected to contribute—they had to do so to successfully complete the assignment and, in turn, the course. the number of messages posted in this context (or lack of them) may therefore be a more accurate indication of a participant’s motivation to learn. in contrast, the more independent nature of the case study 2 micro-teaching task, as well as the course as a whole, allowed learners greater flexibility. in particular, the completion of the micro-teaching assignment did not depend on participation in the online activities that accompanied it, as it did for case study 1. in case study 2, therefore, learners reporting lower motivation, and those who reported higher motivation but preferred to exercise more independence and chose to regulate their online activity, could both potentially access and contribute to online discussions to a lesser degree. differences in communication patterns (i.e., independent and interdependent) have been previously noted in the online literature (rovai, 2001), as has interaction selectiveness (b. anderson, 2006). based on these results, it is difficult to draw definitive conclusions regarding relationships between motivation and participation in online environments. notwithstanding this, results from both case studies are supported by prior research, although the extensive motivation literature provides strong support for the case study 1 findings (e.g., deci & ryan, 2000). however, taken together the results indicate that the nature of the task (e.g., collaborative versus individual, task completion independent versus dependant on participation), individual differences (for autonomy, competence and relatedness support) and other considerations (e.g., time constraints and high-stakes assessment) are important factors that influence participation in a particular context in complex ways. it also highlights the limitations of using quantity as a measure of participation, as prior research has noted (andresen, 2009). motivation and quality participation quality online participation was evident across both case studies. findings from case study 1 showed that participants who reported higher levels of motivation also demonstrated more collaboration, negotiation of meaning, and development of understanding with their peers. for participants who reported lower levels of motivation, collaboration and negotiation were less evident. this finding suggests that there is an association between the motivation of participants and the quality of engagement evident in the asynchronous online discussions. this is in line with research undertaken in traditional educational settings that has consistently shown a link between cognitive engagement and the quality of motivation (see schunk et al., 2008, for a review). quality engagement was also evident in the online activities in case study 2. contributions from several participants clearly demonstrated engagement in meaningful dialogue as well as depth of understanding that had no clear link to the level of motivation reported by these learners. in other words, cognitive engagement in online discussions was evident from learners who reported lower motivation levels as well as those who recorded higher levels. this finding is supported by other studies that have shown that the quality of online interaction is influenced by numerous factors within the learning context, such as the role of the instructor (andresen, 2009; rovai et al., 2007), a sense of connectedness with the instructor (gerber et al., 2008), sense of community (t. anderson, 2008; rovai, 2007), prior knowledge and interest in discussion topics (cheung, hew, & ling ng, 2008), time constraints (xie et al., 2006), differing communication patterns (rovai, journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 37 2001), clarity of expectations (rovai, 2007), requirements in terms of contributions (mandatory or otherwise), and the awarding of grades (cheung et al., 2008; xie et al., 2006). once again, the conclusions that can be drawn from the cross-case findings are tentative and appear to be situation dependent. case study 1 results suggest that within the context of a collaborative pbl assignment there was a connection between the quality of online engagement and the motivation experienced by students. this was not apparent within the context of the individual micro-teaching assignment in case study 2. here, quality participation was evident from students reporting varying degrees of motivation, ranging from moderate to high. taken together, these results highlight the complex relationships that exist between an individual’s motivation and their behaviour in terms of their participation in an online learning context. achievement and online participation the only significant relationship between achievement and active online participation (messages posted) occurred in case study 1 (at the assignment level). this finding is indicative of the available research. for example, several earlier studies have shown relationships between the numbers of messages posted by learners and their subsequent achievement (beer et al., 2009; gerber et al., 2008; rovai & barnum, 2003). on the other hand, support for the lack of a relationship between active participation and achievement (at both assignment and course level) by learners in case study 2 is also available (picciano, 2002). a moderately positive relationship was also found between achievement (at the assignment level) and passive participation (messages read) in case study 1. a similar association between student participation ‘behind the scenes’ and their achievement has been noted by webb, jones, barker, and van schaik (2004). similarly, the lack of any significant relationship between passive online participation and achievement data in case study 2 is also supported by prior research (rovai & barnum, 2003). these mixed results point to complex relationships between achievement (an indicator of motivation) and online participation that are sensitive to contextual influences. in case study 1, the nature of the assignment task and the high weighting towards the final mark were particularly important factors. online participation was essential to do the assignment and, ultimately, to complete the course successfully. this was not the case in the case study 2 context, where assignment (and course) completion, and therefore achievement, were not directly linked to participation with others. it also highlights the limitations of focusing only on the quantities of activity and the importance and relevance of exploring the actual quality of the activities themselves to gain a clearer picture of participant engagement, as others have argued (rovai & barnum, 2003). conclusion the mixed results point to complex relationships between motivation, online participation, and achievement that are sensitive to situational influences. the lack of conclusive results indicates the need for online teachers to carefully consider the relevance of using the number of messages posted by a student as a default indicator of online participation and, in turn, motivation. as shown in this research, high numbers of postings by learners do not necessarily equate to more motivated students, and vice versa. hartnett, m. 38 references anderson, b. 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(2009). case study research: design and methods (4th ed.). thousand oaks, ca: sage. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 41 biographical notes maggie hartnett m.hartnett@massey.ac.nz maggie is a lecturer in the school of curriculum and pedagogy at massey university, teaching in the areas of e-learning and educational psychology. her research interests include motivation in e-learning environments, online teaching practices, electronic portfolios, and learner support for online and blended learning. � this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. hartnett, m. (2012). relationships between online motivation, participation, and achievement: more complex than you might think. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 16(1), [pp. 28–41]. mailto:m.hartnett@massey.ac.nz http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ microsoft word stevens craig formatted.docx journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(2) 11 two frameworks for preparing teachers for the shift from local to global educational environments barbara craig, victoria university of wellington ken stevens, memorial university of newfoundland abstract the research outlined in this paper is based on the convergence of two conceptual frameworks that guide the transfer of knowledge and skills from traditional teacher education, which focused on teaching in single classrooms, to open networked learning environments that include both inter-institutional teaching and learning and local and global community engagement. through these frameworks, schools can be extended in terms of time, space, organisation, and capacity. this will be demonstrated on the basis of new zealand research in inner-city urban environments and canadian research in rural newfoundland and labrador. there are implications for the professional education of teachers from schools that have the capacity to engage with global learning environments, including new ways of relating to learners, learners’ parents, networks, and communities. several of these implications will be analysed in the conclusion of the paper and should generate discussion that will inform current and future research. keywords: open learning networks, virtual environments, professional development, collaboration, new technologies introduction the introduction of e-learning and an expanding range of communication technologies have changed classrooms from local to global educational environments. the rapid growth and educational application of the internet has challenged traditional ways of teaching and learning at a distance (ben-jacob, levin, & ben-jacob, 2000) that were based on paper and the postal system. the growth of e-learning in schools has led to pedagogical considerations and to the development of new ways of managing knowledge that enable these institutions to assume extended roles in the regions they serve—as seen in rural atlantic canada and in urban new zealand. despite being geographically far apart, e-learning in these two regional contexts shares a common history of having developed from the innovative vision and experience of teachers in the first rural network of schools (cantatech) in new zealand in the late 1990s. cantatech was a local bottom-up initiative that used audiographic technologies to create a virtual classroom across a group of very small rural high schools in the south island of new zealand (langley, 2003). these early developments were driven by falling rolls in rural communities and the resultant challenge of providing sufficient curriculum choices for senior students. the challenge to teachers and learners is learning to work in this new environment, where the place of learning may be some distance from the source of learning. craig, b. & stevens, k. 12 rural atlantic canadian schools the province of newfoundland and labrador has a population of approximately 500,000 people, of whom fewer than 30,000 live in labrador. in newfoundland, the island portion of the province, almost all of the population lives in coastal settlements which include the capital, st john’s. approximately two-thirds of schools in the province are located in rural communities. the decline of traditional rural education in newfoundland and labrador coincided with a national initiative to prepare people across the country for the information age (information highway advisory council, 1997; ertl & plante, 2004), and this initiative provided impetus to apply emerging technologies in the classroom. in rural newfoundland and labrador, the introduction of the internet and internet-based technologies has transformed the capacity of small schools to deliver programmes (brown, sheppard & stevens, 2000; healey & stevens, 2002; stevens, 1999a; 2001; 2002b). there have also been major changes in the configuration of small schools in isolated communities in other developed countries that have substantial rural populations to be educated. in new zealand (stevens, 1999b; 2000), finland (tella, 1995), iceland (stevens, 2002a), russia (stevens, sandalov, sukhareva, barry, & piper, 1999) and the united states (dorniden, 2005; glick, 2005; schrum, 2005), a variety of communication technologies have been engaged to promote educational opportunities for students and more efficient ways of organising and managing knowledge in collaborative electronic structures. these changes have implications for regional economies. two e-learning developments have changed the nature of education in rural newfoundland and labrador in the last decade: (1) the opportunity to study online from schools located in remote communities, and (2) the possibility of enrolment in advanced placement (ap) courses from rural schools.1 both developments have implications for the professional education of teachers. the development of collaborative canadian schools the search for appropriate new educational structures for the delivery of education to students in rural newfoundland and labrador has led to the development of school district intranets within which virtual classes have been organised. several challenges have been met in the process of developing e-teaching within school district intranets. electronically linking eight sites within the former vista school district to collaborate in teaching ap biology, chemistry, mathematics, and physics has created a series of open classes in rural newfoundland that are now known as the vista school district intranet. the vista school district intranet aimed to use information and communication technologies to provide geographically isolated students with extended educational and, indirectly, vocational opportunities. the development of the intranet within a single school district involved the introduction of an open teaching and learning structure to a closed one. accordingly, administrative and academic adjustments had to be made in each participating site so that ap classes could be taught. the vista initiative challenged the notion that senior students in small schools have to leave home to complete their education at larger schools in urban areas. by participating in open classes in real (synchronous) time, combined with a measure of independent (asynchronous) learning, senior students could interact with each other through audio, video, and electronic whiteboards. around the time the vista intranet was being established in canada, virtual networks were emerging in other parts of the world, including the united states (for example, the florida virtual school), finland (tella, 1995), new zealand (roberts, 2009), and iceland (stefansdottir, 1993). 1 advanced placement (ap) courses enable senior students to begin undergraduate degrees with part of their programme already completed at high school if they have passed courses at grade levels specified by the university of their choice. before this initiative, ap courses had not been taught online or in rural schools in canada or the united states. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(2) 13 in eight schools within the rural vista school district of newfoundland and labrador, 55 students were enrolled in ap biology, chemistry, mathematics, and physics courses. although ap courses are a well-established feature of senior secondary education in the united states and canada, it was unusual for students to be able to enrol for instruction at this level in small schools in remote communities before the intranet was established. the advanced nature of these courses requires highly qualified and experienced teachers who are often difficult to attract and retain in small schools in rural communities. furthermore, because of their size, small rural schools have few students able to undertake instruction at this level. this initiative was significant for rural canadian education because it was, as far as can be ascertained, the first time courses at this level were delivered to students who would otherwise not have had access to them because of the size and location of their schools. introducing ap subjects to small schools in a remote region of canada was a step toward including rural people in the emerging knowledge economy. several graduates of this programme were subsequently able to enrol in science and engineering faculties at the local university, having already completed a small part of their postsecondary programme. more importantly, perhaps, they entered universities knowing that they could successfully compete academically with students anywhere in north america. from closed to open teaching and learning environments the major change for students in the first intranet in newfoundland and labrador was the opportunity to study advanced science subjects and mathematics as members of open classes from their small, remote communities. students in the vista school district intranet were frequently subject to scrutiny by their peers as they responded to each other through chat rooms, audio, and video as well as with their ap online teacher. the intranet provided students with access to multiple sites simultaneously, and the opportunity to work independently of a teacher for part of the day. the need to prepare for classes before going online became increasingly apparent to both teachers and students if the open, synchronous, science classes were to succeed. the changes that took place in the closed learning spaces of traditional rural schools led to a ministerial inquiry into the implications of these developments for the future of rural education in the province. after the inquiry, the provincial government expanded the links amongst schools by creating the centre for distance learning and innovation (cdli) 2 within the newfoundland and labrador department of education (government of newfoundland and labrador, 2000). the centre develops and administers online learning that complements traditional classes in schools throughout the province. since its inception it has considerably extended e-learning throughout newfoundland and labrador. urban new zealand schools the physical geography of new zealand, a long narrow country with sparsely populated and hard-to-access mountainous regions on two islands, makes the task of providing high-speed connectivity to all schools very challenging. successive governments have implemented policies to connect rural schools and remote communities to provide equal learning opportunities to all students. in 2002 the labour government launched project probe which, over 3 years, connected almost 900 isolated rural schools with broadband at a speed that could support two-way videoconferencing—but not the web 2.0 platform. this result was achieved through partnership with local councils to build local mush networks (open-access fibre networks) to enhance rural economies. current government policy3 is to roll out high-speed broadband to urban schools through the ultra-fast broadband initiative by 2016. at the same time, all but the most remote 2 http://www.cdli.ca/ 3 see http://www.med.govt.nz/sectors-industries/technology-communication/fast-broadband/education craig, b. & stevens, k. 14 rural schools will receive broadband through the rural broadband initiative (new zealand ministry of education, 2012). in the last 10 years a number of new zealand inner-city urban school networks have emerged as local solutions to sharing resources and expertise across schools. these inner-city aggregations have drawn on the experience of earlier rural collaborations (such as cantatech and, later, the virtual learning network) in which small, geographically isolated schools experimented with forming online learning environments. here, their students could use digital technologies to participate in classes taking place elsewhere in the network (starkey & stevens, 2006). over time, some of the rural clusters connected to the virtual learning network have partnered with urban schools in their regions. one such example is the current resource-sharing arrangement between otagonet, which comprises a network of rural schools, and dunedinnet, which connects urban schools (roberts, 2010). cantatech is in the process of evolving into the greater christchurch schools network (gcsn), which will create a community across the region, sharing content between urban and rural schools through a high-speed fibre optic infrastructure (zwimpfer, 2010). inner-city school collaborations have an advantage over their rural counterparts simply because they are located in centres where broadband is faster and more reliable. most recently, highspeed urban school networks have emerged as regional fibre loops. a loop is formed in a community in which a provider of ultra-fast broadband (urf) is willing to forge a partnership with the schools to create a high-speed aggregated learning network. the concept began with the nelson loop, a network that connects large urban high schools and small, remote, rural primary schools in a shared online environment (newton, 2007). the nelson loop has been a model for other urban regions, as other groups of schools have set about developing local aggregations or loops. in addition to the loop (nelson), there is the wellington loop, the north shore education and access loop (neal) in auckland, and gcsn. these loops have participated in the ongoing development of the proposed new zealand national education network (nen) (gould & wenmoth, 2009). high-speed networks teaching and learning across a network of schools requires a higher speed of connectivity than most schools in new zealand currently have. the current national government is therefore rolling out ultra-fast broadband to rural and urban communities. this network will provide speeds that allow teachers and students to upload multimedia projects and participate in services such as high-definition videoconferencing or streaming live broadcasts (new zealand ministry of education, 2011). such services allow students to access a much wider network of expertise and opportunities than is offered within the four walls of their physical school (roberts, 2009). the new zealand wellington loop project demonstrates how high-speed, uncapped, reliable fibre-optic internet access to schools in an inner-city community—a “fat, fast and free” (newton, 2007)—will encourage teachers to use new technologies in their classrooms. it offers professionally managed and supported digital resources and services that would otherwise be too costly for individual schools to provide for their own teachers and learners. it is almost impossible for any individual school to manage these services except by collaborating with other schools. this online learning community is enabled by using several web 2.0 technologies that facilitate networking and collaboration. this project aspires to demonstrate the potential of sharing resources, services, and web 2.0 applications and to provide some evidence of authentic benefits for both the teacher and the learner when aggregating expertise across a group of schools that are working in partnership rather than in competition. the experiences of teachers and learners participating in these fibre loops will pave the way for the government’s commitment to roll out journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(2) 15 fibre to 97% schools (all but the most remote) by the year 2016. the success of the project depends on showing that the benefits of aggregation include savings associated with collective buying power, economies of scale to ensure access to advanced services (as well as the social aspect of networking such as peer-to-peer assistance between schools with technical expertise), and professional development (craig & stevens, 2011). the wellington loop the wellington loop initiative broke new ground in that it was set up in one of the few areas in new zealand that could immediately offer the ultra-fast connectivity required for web 2.0 applications. researchers were able to investigate the potential of uncapped high-speed access. as one of the defining purposes of the loop is “establishing, maintaining and promoting a high speed fibre optic learning network” (chapman tripp, 2007), lessons learned will provide protocols for other regional networks. schools in inner-city wellington had the advantage of partnering with citylink, an open, high-bandwidth fibre network that uses the trolley-bus network in downtown wellington to provide high-speed internet access to inner-city businesses. (citylink was established in 1995 as one of many strategies initiated by the city council to build wellington as an infocity2).these schools are also physically close to two national universities and are therefore able to connect the loop to one of the nodes on the kiwi advanced research network (karen), which supports international research collaborations through 1gb/sec connections to sydney (australia) and california (united states). the speed of karen has allowed schools to use high-definition videoconferencing with instant responses and interactions, and its capacity allows a whole class to have simultaneous access to applications such as google earth and e-portfolios—without any delays in uploading data. initially six wellington loop schools were connected to each other through the citylink highspeed infrastructure, and were able to receive shared services. connectivity through the karen network made it possible to work on global collaborative projects. unlimited internet traffic was particularly attractive to schools. under previous arrangements, schools paid for usage on a payfor-data system, but the loop contract was a fixed monthly cost with no cap on the amount of data they used, both nationally and internationally. because the loop provides the infrastructure that enables access to the applications and services, the technical team has been challenged with synchronising the implementation of pedagogical initiatives with their ict systems so that one did not impede the development of the other. teachers needed assurance that, when they clicked on any application icon, the services would work. today, five of the foundation member schools continue to work collaboratively through this network and a further four schools, including two primary schools, have joined the project. the wellington loop trial has generated experience and models of good practice to disseminate to future aggregations. the ministry of education is drawing on research conducted on regional loops (gould & wenmoth, 2009) to establish both the pedagogical and system benefits of being connected to a proposed advanced nen. the lesson learned from the wellington loop is that the only way to support web 2.0 services is through aggregation and collaboration. individual schools have benefited from sharing costs and expertise. this was particularly true of ict procurements (such as sharing servers to store resources) but also applies to minimising the risk of making bad technical decisions that could prove costly. within a loop, smaller schools will be supported by larger schools that have greater experience of hardware and school-level ict network management, and that have full-time technical support—all of which can be shared across a collaborative network. schools need to procure services locally to meet their teacher and learner needs, but will need to be connected at the national level to benefit from other shared services (davis, 2010). craig, b. & stevens, k. 16 the concept of the networked school the future of schooling in new zealand is a vision of complete integration of physical and virtual teaching and learning, where schools are nodes on a national network contributing and using shared resources and expertise (davis, 2011; wenmoth, 2010). in this vision all teachers need to be able to use digital technologies alongside their everyday face-to-face teaching in the classroom (new zealand ministry of education, 2012). learning will take place at a time and place of students’ convenience, whether that is within the four walls of the classroom, at home, or in the community—and anywhere in the world, face to face or online (lee & finger, 2010). teachers require new ways to collaborate with these wider communities. two conceptual frameworks for the last two decades in new zealand, canada, and in other developed societies, small schools located beyond major centres of population have been academically and administratively linked, initially in school district intranets, and subsequently in more diverse configurations. schools in inner cities, likewise, responding to demand for greater student choice and personalisation of learning, have aimed to become members of urban clusters or loops, to collaborate and share expertise and resources beyond their physical walls. two conceptual frameworks provide ways to consider changes in schools and the role of teachers as they move from local to global educational environments. framework one: face-to-face and virtual teaching newfoundland and labrador following initiatives in new zealand, the development of the first school district intranet in newfoundland and labrador involved a combination of technological, pedagogical, organisational, and conceptual change (stevens, 2007). in rural newfoundland and labrador this combination supported the creation of a rural school district intranet of four interconnected components as shown in figure 1. figure 1 development of learning networks journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(2) 17 technologically, the development of the school district intranet was difficult. in many parts of the province the telecommunications infrastructure was barely adequate to link schools within such a structure. minimum specifications were adopted for computer hardware and network connectivity. all schools involved in the project had direcpc satellite dishes installed to provide a high-speed down-link. in most rural communities in this part of canada, digital telecommunications infrastructures do not enable schools to have a high-speed up-link to the internet. appropriate software had to be identified and evaluated for both the development of the resources and the delivery of instruction within the intranet. pedagogically, the integration of schools in a single district meant teaching in ways that were different from traditional classroom practices. instead of providing instruction exclusively within their own classrooms, teachers had to consider teaching collaboratively from one site to another in what became shared teaching and learning space. the challenge of teaching between rather than exclusively in schools focused attention on what van manen (2002) terms “the pedagogical task of teaching”. some teachers found it difficult to accept a colleague from another site teaching ap students online in their school from another school in the district intranet. teachers who taught the initial ap subjects of chemistry, mathematics, physics, and biology within the new collaborative structure (the school district intranet) had little pedagogy to guide them other than (for one teacher) previous experience as a distance education instructor. the delivery of classes between schools (or sites) raised issues involving the balance of synchronous and asynchronous instruction, motivation (murphy & rodriguez-manzanares, 2009), control, lack of student confidence based on inexperience in learning other than by formal classroom instruction, and assessment. one of the first challenges for students was how to interact online with peers they had not met. in some cases this led to awkwardness and embarrassment that threatened to impede learning. teachers had to adjust to talking less during lessons, and to prepare questions very carefully so that all students could participate. judicious questioning by teachers helped students learn from each other as they all considered how to respond. organisationally, the integration of schools in a district intranet involved institutional collaboration, beginning with the coordination of senior class timetables so that students located on multiple sites could be taught together online. unlike earlier initiatives in new zealand (stevens & moffatt, 2003), where self-governing schools do not have assistance and direction from school boards, newfoundland and labrador schools were organised in school districts— each of which had a board office that provided administrative, curriculum, and technological support. the board office organised the first rural district digital network, including the selection of online teachers and technical and organisational support. because the issue of schools coordinating their timetables for senior classes was not fully resolved during the first year of operation, some classes had to be repeated. during the initial year it became apparent that students needed on-site as well as online support if they were to succeed. this was not understood before the intranet was established because participating students were considered by everyone—teachers, parents and themselves—to be ‘independent learners’. in almost all cases, ap students in each of the four initial science subjects reported that they needed help to stay ‘on task’ to succeed. in subsequent years some teachers were appointed as mediating teachers (m-teachers) whose job, in addition to teaching traditional classes on site, was to mentor and assist where necessary, and to liaise with the e-teacher who uses teaching from another site (barbour & mulcahy, 2005). conceptually, the development of a school district intranet required a different way of thinking about teaching, learning, and the organisation of schools (dipietro, ferdig, black, &preston, 2008). the first conceptual change for teachers was that, rather than being appointed to teach their own classes, in their own classrooms, in the schools to which they were appointed, a selected few were asked to teach other teachers’ students, in other classrooms beyond their own school and community, and online. a second conceptual change initiated by the first school craig, b. & stevens, k. 18 district intranet was the introduction of learning at a distance in traditional classrooms. in the first intranet in newfoundland and labrador, some teachers were introduced to the notion of teaching both in a traditional classroom and online, through the internet. this was an important step in the integration of virtual and actual teaching. students were also introduced to the notion of learning both on site and online during a school day. these were significant steps in the integration of onsite and on-line education or the merging of actual and virtual classes (stevens, 2005; stevens & stewart, 2005). a third conceptual change was that schools that were small in terms of the number of students attending in person, and the number of teachers who were appointed to them, could become relatively large schools in terms of the range of subjects they could offer by adding online instruction. finally, there was a conceptual change in the realisation by students, parents, and teachers that school location was not necessarily a barrier to accessing areas of the curriculum that had not traditionally been provided on site in traditional classrooms. advanced placement subjects, taught in large urban schools throughout north america, could be accessed by senior students in small and geographically isolated schools. each of the four parts of the matrix in figure 1 was shaped through collaboration with each of the other parts. the organisation of the intranet depended on the connectivity provided by internet-based technologies, assisted by the installation of satellite dishes in newfoundland and labrador schools. the technological dimension depended on the organisational skills of administrators in the school district office collaborating with on-site administrators and teachers. several times during the first year of operation technological problems were solved collaboratively by administrators and teachers working alongside technicians. technological changes, introduced by the internet and its application to school district organisation to facilitate the administrative and academic linking of classrooms in small and dispersed schools, encouraged teachers to consider new, collaborative ways of teaching in open learning environments. the introduction of the first school district intranet in newfoundland and labrador challenged the exclusivity of traditional classrooms in which a defined number of students were taught, in person, by a single teacher. new zealand conceptually, the wellington loop project set out to link educational institutions virtually so students could work between schools and learning levels with the aim of creating a seamless learning community (zwimpfer, 2010). it promised a new way of teaching and learning, by sharing digital resources across the schools and by connecting students to the global online world. its statement of purpose clearly focuses on the ‘cs’ in ict—communication, connectivity, and collaboration—and not just on the distribution of knowledge. the loop facilitates the construction of learning and the generation of new knowledge. ideally, the goal was to achieve personalised learning for students, and for teachers to collaborate via web 2.0 tools for educational inclusion. like the initiative in newfoundland and labrador, this initiative encountered social, organisational, technical, and pedagogical challenges. conceptually, the wellington schools had proud diverse cultural histories and had to move from a competitive relationship (they compete for student enrolments) to a collaborative one. this shift occurred as teachers in the same subject areas made connections, shared ideas, and started to coordinate activities. gradually the level of connectedness grew and communities of practice emerged across disciplines, and with the librarians and the technical support staff (craig & stevens, 2011). pedagogically, the online services had to enable what was already happening in the classroom, not be an add-on or place additional demands on the teacher. the technical challenge was to provide access to each resource with just two clicks. teachers are time-poor, and certainty that the technology will work is key to their willingness to participate in an e-learning network. without the speed and capacity afforded by the karen network, the loop teachers would not journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(2) 19 have enjoyed the benefits of the applications they considered most authentic or engaging, such as google earth (craig & stevens 2011; gould & wenmoth, 2009). organisationally, cloud-based applications provided the advantages of financial benefits as well as access to resources that are not limited to a single physical location (gould & wenmoth, 2009). unlimited access posed some challenges to the traditional closed school in that students (and their parents and caregivers) could then log on to these resources from home and communicated with their teachers outside of regular school hours. social software that enables collaboration, and the sharing and creation of resources, was the central core of this initiative and this, in turn, was supported by the technical and organisational features of the network. framework two: implications for teachers’ professional education changes in rural education in newfoundland and labrador and urban new zealand can be further considered within another four interconnected quadrants. the creation of school district intranets and the advent of e-learning led to the development of collaborative structures and processes, adaptation of new technologies, and innovative ways of using them in schools. figure 2 professional development framework collaboration has been critical for the success of e-learning in rural schools in newfoundland and labrador. as rural schools changed from closed, autonomous institutions to become administratively and pedagogically open to other sites (schools) within intranets, collaborative teaching and learning was facilitated. collaborative teaching and learning do not depend on school size or location; nor do they depend on school district intranets. the lesson for the global community from collaborative teaching and learning in newfoundland and labrador has been the need to create structures and processes to support this. similarly, in the new zealand context, teacher ict capacity has been built through a collaborative professional development programme in which schools group together regionally and develop a programme of their own craig, b. & stevens, k. 20 design. these ict pd clusters are characterised by collegial support within the group (ham, gilmore, kachelhoffer, morrow, moeau, & wenmoth, 2002). as the 3-year pilot scheme came to an end, the wellington loop schools received ministry of education funding to form their own ict pd cluster. the cluster would support all teachers in this aggregated network to successfully integrate e-learning into their physical classrooms (craig & coman, 2009). the creation of school district intranets was based on organisational and managerial innovation that led to the development of virtual educational structures to support traditional schools. innovation that led to the creation of new educational structures and processes in newfoundland and labrador was grounded in the demise of the fishing industry and rural outmigration. the organisational and managerial response has been the development of extended learning opportunities for young people and, indirectly, for their families and communities. the structural innovation introduced into the new zealand context is the development of e-learning communities of practice through the national education portal te kete ipurangi (tki) with support for all teachers, parents, and communities (billowes & alexander, 2010). educational changes in rural newfoundland and labrador are based on the adaptation of existing structures and processes within which teaching and learning have been extended by integrating traditional and virtual classrooms. by adapting to internet-based structures and processes, traditional small rural schools have increased their capacity. many small newfoundland and labrador schools have become, in effect, sites within extended teaching and learning environments. the new zealand cluster pd programme, on the other hand, is innovative in that it is a bottom-up approach to teacher professional education—teachers have a say in their learning, professional development is adapted to the culture and needs of their communities, and they are supported in their own classrooms. through collaboration, innovation, and adaptation, newfoundland and labrador has created sustainable rural schools, and preserved an important aspect of the cultural identity of the province. it could be argued that the cdli supports the cultural identity of the province and sustains rural communities by creating extended learning opportunities. new zealand, by taking a bottom-up innovative approach (rather than a top-down policy directive) to taking schools and teachers into the 21st century, values and upholds the cultural identity of individual schools and regional clusters. three implications for teachers and teacher educators teachers have traditionally been prepared for what have been, in effect, closed autonomous classrooms in schools. it is now necessary to consider the implications of networked, virtual environments that complement traditional schools and what dawley, rice and hinck (2010) describe as the “unique needs of k–12 online teachers”. students preparing to become teachers in rural canada will increasingly be expected to contribute instruction to open, networked, virtual learning environments from the schools to which they are appointed (furey & stevens, 2008). the integration of virtual and actual (face-toface) learning spaces provides opportunities to develop collaborative teaching and learning (barab, thomas and merrill, 2001). while teachers in new zealand initially hesitated to use online tools to develop and contribute to learning communities (billowes & alexander, 2010), preferring to interact in the face-to-face environment of their regional pd cluster, tki now supports teachers to interact online. in both contexts the implications for teacher education is that collaborative communities of practice can support a teaching environment where technologies are developing at an everincreasing rate. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(2) 21 the canadian and new zealand studies have three implications for educators, particularly those charged with providing instruction for students who live in small communities distant from major centres of population. firstly, collaborative pedagogy can be adapted to meet the reality of schools in internet-linked structures. in addition to preparing teachers for traditional, closed, autonomous classrooms, e-teaching and e-learning can extend classroom space, time, organisation, and capacity. secondly, the introduction of virtual, collaborative teaching and learning presences in traditional school environments challenges the notion of geographical isolation as an educational policy consideration. the wellington loop, for example, where an aggregated network includes primary, secondary, and tertiary teachers and learners, challenges the notion of isolation by level of schooling. thirdly, creating integrated virtual and actual learning communities has policy, pedagogical, and organisational implications for enhancing access to both teaching and learning opportunities. conclusion: lessons for the global community the problems faced by new zealand and rural newfoundland and labrador over the last decade, and the community responses to them, are of potential interest to educators and policy makers in other places. the matrices show how schools and (indirectly through them) communities can be sustained. there are several lessons for the global community in the building of sustainable schools based on e-learning. firstly, small schools can become large schools. schools that are small in terms of the number of students who attend, in person, every day, can become large educational institutions by electronically accessing and disseminating teaching and learning. in newfoundland and labrador this growth has been achieved by the first two cells in the matrices above: acceptance of new technologies and using them in collaborative ways. in new zealand, aggregated networks are formed across levels of educational institutions, connecting schools and tertiary institutions. the lesson for the rest of the world is that school size, location and level are no longer important in educational terms. secondly, the importance of collaboration in teaching to complement new collaborative structures is highlighted by recent developments in both new zealand and canada. thirdly, virtual and actual teaching and learning can be integrated. in newfoundland and labrador steps have been taken to integrate traditional and virtual teaching and learning within intranets and, more recently, through cdli. today, many young people attend small schools in their rural communities in this province while also being taught by e-teachers employed by cdli. there is a growing belief in new zealand that a national system of education needs to evolve into a networked community, and that all classrooms will be sites for virtual learning experiences. finally, teaching and learning in traditional small schools and in larger urban counterparts can be complemented by introducing new structures and processes. the third cells of the matrices in figures 1 and 2 —organisation and adaptation—were applied in the development of intranets or shared services in both countries. this structure revolutionised the way education was delivered in both canada and new zealand. the concept of the intranet (or the loop), based on emerging collaborative technologies, is the foundation for building increased teaching and learning capacity in schools by merging traditional and virtual classrooms. craig, b. & stevens, k. 22 references barab, s. a., thomas, m. k., & merrill, h. 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(1999, october). the development of open models for teaching physics to schools in dispersed locations in russia and canada. in v. grementieri, a. szucs, & v. i. trukhin (eds.), information and communication technologies and human resources development: new opportunities for european cooperation (pp. 148–154). european distance education network: budapest, hungary. tella, s. (1995). virtual school in a networking learning environment. helsinki: university of helsinki, department of teacher education. van manen, m. (2002). the pedagogical task of teaching. teaching and teacher education 18(2) 135–138. wenmoth, d. (2010). the future: trends, challenges and opportunities. in elearnings: implementing a national strategy for ict in education, 1998–2010 (pp. 196–203). christchurch, new zealand: core education. zwimpfer, l. (2010). building a national ict infrastructure for learning, in elearnings: implementing a national strategy for ict in education, 1998–2010 (pp. 33–44). christchurch, new zealand: core education. biographical notes barbara craig barbara.craig@vuw.ac.nz barbara craig is based in the school of policy and implementation in the faculty of education at victoria university of wellington. her research interests include digital literacy, school–community collaboration, social inclusion and other social justice issues regarding globalisation. she is a member of the new zealand unesco communications sub-commission. ken stevens stevensk@mun.ca ken stevens is a professor of education at memorial university of newfoundland where he was appointed to a chair in e-learning funded by industry canada. he is currently cross-appointed as adjunct professor of education at victoria university of wellington. he lives in canada and new zealand. � this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. craig, b., & stevens, k. (2012). two frameworks for preparing teachers for the shift from local to global educational environments. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 16(2), [11–25.]. scanned document eliciting and analysing expectations of novice distance learners cynthia white departme nt of linguistics and second language teaching massey university of p almerston north students who undertake distance learning for the first time at the tertiary level will have had experience of forrnallearning in other settings, usually within conventional classroom settings. they may have certain expectations of learning through this new mode concerning, for example, what it will be like to be a distance learner, or what will be the pluses and minuses offered by distance learning. it is also likely that some of these initial expectations will not be met, or may be only partially met, and that new beliefs will emerge based on their experiences . a number of researchers since the 1980s have highlighted the importance of studying the experiences of distance learners. harris (1987, l35) argued that 'the individual student, especially in distance systems with relatively open admission, tends to be seen ... in rather abstract terms'. ramsden (1984) emphasised that a student's perception of the learning context is an integral part of his or her experience. a few years earlier marton and svensson (1979) highlighted the potential of students' conceptions of learning to have a limiting influence on their approach to study. researchers have also pointed to the need to develop an increased understanding among tutors, administrators and others of the position and viewpoints of the distance learner. for example, brew and wright (1990) interviewed eleven open university tutor counsellors and found a lack of understanding of the processes involved in distance learning seen from a student's perspective. jegede puts it well when he highlights the different viewpoints of distance education held by researchers, administrators, teachers and students and foregrounds 'the need for more information in the practice of distance education from different perspectives' (1992, 238). the common thread in such observations is that distance learners have expectations about learning and the learning context and that these expectations influence how they carry out their learning experiences; at the same time, because of the constraints of the distance learning context, the nature and impact of such expectations and beliefs may tend to be little understood and easily overlooked. it would be a mistake to assume that it is possible to characterise a set of uniform expectations of novice distance learners or to establish a set of commonly-held beliefs among more experienced distance learners. to do this would be to assume that a 'typical' distance learner, whether novice or experienced, is readily identifiable. rather, one would expect to encounter a range of expectations and beliefs, and to counter any assumption that distance learners form a homogeneous group . holmberg's perspective that 'diversity, rather than uniformity, characterises distance education'(1989, 128) was borne in mind in developing the first part of a study of the expectations of novice distance learners. consider learners planning to undertake distance learning for the first time. what do they expect? which aspects of distance learning do they have expectations about? what is foregrounded in their expectations? f otlma! of d istanee leaming . vol 3. n o 1. 1997 (c) distance educati on assoc iation of new zealand 3 are there areas of experience in which their expectations conflict with the realities of distance study? do their expectations shift over time as they develop more experience as distance learners? what are the emergent beliefs about distance learning which students develop on the basis of their experiences? to answer these questions a longitudinal study was undertaken of novice distance learners. research design the researcher who attempts to investigate the expectations of distance learners faces two constraints. first, there are obvious difficulties of access to distance learners, more especially in the use of group-based data-gathering instruments (for example, focus groups, group interviews). second, researchers (for example, pajares, 1992) have commented on the inherent difficulty of getting people to reflect on and articulate their beliefs about learning, particularly through a single snapshot data collection approach. for this study it was decided that the most appropriate means of access to distance learner expectations would be individual rather than group based . in addition, it would take place through several phases to permit more fine-grained exploration of expectations and to capture shifts in such expectations. research carried out by van meter, yokoi and pressley (1994) into note-taking theories of college students was influential in establishing the general approach of the research design. they describe their approach as: ... consistent with contemporary qualitative methodologies that stress the gradual emergence of the operations of a study as data are collected and analysed . thus, rather than a single, fixed set of questions being used through the investigation, the interview evolved as the study proceeded so that students' beliefs could be explored in more detail in later interviews involving other students (van meter, yokoi and pressley 1994, 324). in this investigation of distance learners an iterative approach to data collection was adopted, involving several phases rather than the single questionnaire and / or single interview approach. information on expectations was collected prior to enrolment, then through several phases during the course, of a single semester of fourteen weeks' duration. at each phase of the study the instruments were adapted according to the kinds of information which had emerged in earlier phases. the starting point for the study was to identify a number of domains of expectations which would then set the parameters for subsequent, more detailed investigation. phase one took place over a period of approximately fifteen months and involved naturalistic, opportunistic interviews with prospective distance learners who had not studied before at the tertiary level through distance education (n=18). they were asked about their expectations of extramural study (the term used by massey university). more general questions such as previous study and experience with learning languages were included at times to make the interview more naturalistic. care was taken to ask only general questions and not to cue their replies to focus on particular areas. the interviews attempted to identify the range of student expectations rather than the specific details of those expectations. however, follow-up questions were asked based on their initial responses. thus students who talked about, for example, prior learning experiences, were asked: do you think extramural study will be very different from other learning experiences? how do you think it might be different from classroom-based study? the length of these interviews varied greatly, from a few minutes to around 15 minutes, depending on the response and interactional style of the student. a reflective approach was adopted where appropriate after the suggestion of van meter et al :'during each interview the interviewer continuously j ournal of distance lea rning. vol 3. n o 1. 1997 (c) distance edu cati on assoc iati on o f n ew zeal an d 4 reflected to a participant what she believed the participant had said ... thus providing opportunities to correct any interviewer misconceptions' (1994, 325). the interviews were not recorded but notes were taken immediately afterwards . domains of expectations content analysis of the notes from the phase one interviews revealed six domains of expectations. these are given below, with a paraphrase to indicate how each domain was defined. • . conceptions of distance learning: 'what extramural study might be like' • prior learning experiences : 'how extramural study may be different from attending classes' • learner role: 'as an extramural student i'll have to ... ' • advantages and disadvantages: 'what the good and not so good aspects of extramural study will be' • success: 'to succeed i'll have to ... ' • control: 'i'll be able to ... i'll not be able to as mentioned earlier, the aim of the phase one interview was to identify domains, rather than to explore in detail the content of expectations. in-depth exploration of expectations was to take place in subsequent phases of the study. the second phase of the study took place with an intact group of extramural students undertaking the study of spanish and japanese at the first year level. students within these classes were invited to participate in the study, and ethical procedures were followed in approaching and interacting with them. the aim of the second phase was to gain more detailed information on each of the domains of expectations during their first two weeks of study. to do this, a questionnaire was constructed comprising open-ended questions, ranking exercises and tasks requiring students to evaluate certain statements in terms of their own experience. the questionnaire was mailed to students and the response rate was 67 percent. these respondents formed the main sample for the remainder of the study: the 'novice' learners (n=23) and the 'experienced' learners (n=26). all students in this sample had had experience in learning other foreign languages. responses obtained from students through the questionnaire were analys e d, and results revealed that the most detailed responses at this phase were obtained in three domains: conceptions of distance learning, success and control. these are the subject of discussion of the remainder of the article. conceptions of distance learning this domain concerns what is foregrounded in the student's mind about distance learning, in this case, extramural study. responses from prospective learners related to what extramural study meant to them e.g. a flexible means of study, a way of working independently. in constructing the questionnaire items relating to conceptions of distance learning, the distance research literature was also surveyed. one conception of distance learning quoted in kleist (1986) had not been encountered in the phase one interviews. this was the view that the distance course is the course you do when you cannot do the 'real', classroom-based course. a variation on this view is pointed to in the question posed by holmberg (1989): is distance education to be regarded as a mode of communication in its own right, or simply as a substitute for conventional face-to-face education? this interpretation was included to see whether it is a viewpoint held by students. information from the initial interviews and from the research literature indicated seven conceptions of distance learning. these were included as alternatives in the following questionnaire item (see table 1). a summary of responses from the 23 novice learners are given in table 2. the most frequent conceptions related to flexibility, to the ability to set your own pace and to work independently, and to the possibility of developing skills in independent learning. j ot/ m al of d ista nce learning. vol 3. n o i . 1997 (c) distan ce edu ca ti on associati on of new zealand first up, what do you expect? what does extramural study mean to you? v alternatives which most closely match your expectations: o in extramural study you can work independently. o as an extramural student you can study at a pace that suits you. o you have flexibility in the way you study as an extramural student. o as an extramural student you can work at your own level. o extramural study is the course you do when you can't follow the classroom course. o through extramural study you can develop skills in independent learning. o as an extramural student you are free of the constraints of the conventional classroom which of the above statements most closely matches your expectations of extramural study? underline one, or write your own statement below about what you expect of extramura study. table 1. questionnaire items relating to conceptions of distance learning none of the novice students viewed distance learning as a substitute for a conventional classroom-based course. students were also asked to nominate a single item which was the closest to their conception of distance learning. results from this more open-ended question were consistent with those in table 2 in that the flexibility characteristic of extramural study was chosen by 20 of the 23 respondents. the elaborations they gave to the expectation of ' flexibility' revealed the conceptions leamer independence flexibility: pace of study flexibility: means of study flexibility: level of study substitute course development of independent learning skills freedom from classroom constraints interpretation of this term from the leamer's perspective. elaborations indicated that flexibility is primarily perceived in terms of their lifestyle rather than flexibility for themselves as learners in relation to the material. that is, flexibility is seen in relation to the external circumstances of their lives. this was expressed in terms of 'convenience', 'flexibility with other parts of my life', 'fits in with my other. commitments', 'allows me to juggle study, work and family', 'does not number of responses 17 18 22 2 o 15 6 table 2. response frequencies for conceptions of distance learning journal a/distance learning, vol 3, n o 1, 1997 (cl distance education assoc iati on of new zealand 6 what do you think su ccess as an extramural student depends on ? rank the following statements using numbers (1 for the most important factor, down to 9 for the least important.) success depends on ... o personal motivation o knowing how you learn best o the quality of the course materials o the quality of interaction with the tutor o attending the on-campus course o persistence o the amount of interaction with tutor o the amount of time you spend studying o confidence in yourself table 3. ranking exercise relating to success interfere with my professional career'. a number of students also recognised the flexibility for the learner inherent in the nature of distance learning, but this comment was never foregrounded. success success has been variously defined in the distance education context (for a discussion on this see cull, 1993.). among the learners in this study success was interpreted primarily as completing and passing their courses. a number of factors which students viewed as important for construct 'effort' learner characteristics metacognition interaction materials success featured in the initial interviews, including motivation, confidence and persistence. within the distance research literature motivation (for example, thompson, 1990), the quality and quantity of teacherlearner interaction (beaverson, 1988), and the quality of course materials gegede, 1992) have been cited as critical to success. the extramural students in this study were asked to rank sources of success as given in table 3. the nine factors in the questionnaire item can be seen as relating to five underlying item amount of time studying persistence confidence in self motivation knowing how you learn best quality of interaction with tutor amount of interaction with tutor campus course quality of course materials table 4. constructs and items relating to success j ounlal of d ista nce learning. vol 3. no i . 1997 (el distan ce edu ca ti on assoc iati on of n ew zealand success factors motivation confidence in self quality of course materials amount of time studying persistence quality of interaction with tutor amount of interaction with tutor knowing how you learn best campus course mean ,ranking 1.3 3.9 4.8 5.5 5.6 7.8 8.1 8.3 8.9 table 5. mean ranking of success factors among novice learners (n=23) constructs: 'effort', learner characteristics, metacognition, interaction, materials (table 4). the first three constructs are more internal to the leamer, the last two relate more to external factors and to the institution. the mean ranking of results for novice learners are displayed in table 5. the mean ranking of results for the experienced cohort are displayed in table 6. analysis of the results reveals that novice distance learners placed confidence and the amount and quality of interaction higher than experienced distance learners. experienced distance learners placed 'effort' (persistence) and metacognition (knowing how you learn best) more highly than novice learners. several success factors motivation persistence knowing how you learn best amount of time studying quality of course materials confidence in self quality of interaction with tutor campus course amount of interaction with tutor explanations can be given for the difference between the two groups. it could be that novice learners are attuned to building up their confidence at the early stages of their experience of extramural study. experienced learners on the other hand may have already developed their sense of confidence and are able to recognise the importance of other factors. what the results show is that the experienced learners rated factors internal to the learner as more important for success and novice learners appeared to be oriented more to external factors (amount and quality of interaction) as well as self-confidence. the study will continue to trace any shifts relating to success factors among the novice learners, to see if more internality develops with their experience of distance learning. mean ranking 1.3 3.7 3.8 4.0 4.2 4.6 6.5 8.1 8.1 table 6. mean ranking of success factors among experienced learners (n=26) journal of distance leaming. vol 3. no 1. 1997 (c) distance education association of new zealand an important point to note here is that responses to factors such as quality of materials and the campus course are likely to be related to the individual student's experience. if students are unable to attend the campus course then obviously it will not rate highly as a contributor to success. similarly it could be that they have found the course materials to be quite uniform in standard, or expect the materials to be of a consistently high standard, and as such do not consider this factor to be of significance. thus it was not possible to be entirely sure of the degree to which the student's individual circumstances and experiences shaped their interpretations of some of the items in this domain of expectation. control one other domain which featured prominently in the responses of prospective students related to their expectations of choice in distance learning and personal control over their learning. early indications were that this is a complex construct, comprising varying interpretations, with both positive and negative attitudinal factors attached. it was thus decided to elicit dimensions i do have control over .. . further information about this construct through open-ended questions. learners were asked to provide written responses to the following questions: do you think extramural students have control over their learning? what do you have control over? what do you not h ave control over? content analysis of their responses revealed two broad categories of control: control in relation to the study context and control in relation to input and interaction. students were strongly divided over whether they saw themselves as having control over the dimensions of the study context, and input and interaction. in addition many students expressed the ambiguities inherent in the notion of control. the responses are summarised in table 7. results reveal that the possibilities for control inherent in the distance study context also mean the student is vulnerable to the intrusion of external commitments into th e study process. one student put it well when she wrote: i do not have control over .. . study context when i study (timing, frequency but whether i actually get the duration) time ... where i study time frames of the course how i study (pace and amount) (for example, assignment due dates, when i get feedback) integrating study into my life external commitments often impinge input and i can repeat, reorder ... input low levels of interaction interaction time is not wasted on materials cannot learn from others and interactions irrelevant to my lack of immediate feedback needs depth and extent of feedback table 7. responses relating to the domain of control among novice learners. j oumalo/distance lea ming. vol 3. n o 1. 199 7 (c) distance educati on associati on of new zealand 9 as a distance learner i think i'll have the time to study i couldn't fit travelling time, trying to find a park .. . into my life. but at the same time because i'm studying at home i am concerned whether i'll actually get the time. i guess that's where you have to make the time. the opportunities to integrate study into daily life are seen by many novice learners as highly attractive but are soon found to be something of a two-edged sword since other pressures can detract from focus and priorities. novice distance learners also interpreted control in relation to input and interaction; they felt they had control over input due to the packaged nature of the course: now i have received all the material it's all here sometimes in class if your attention wanes you miss out on a really important point and then you're lost. here i have everything written down, or tapes i can play again and again . also two students referred positively to the control they had over their interactions: for me i think i like having control over interactions. i know i won't be able to learn from others in the class their questions can be helpful when you realise it's something you're also not sure about, but mostly i think you waste a lot of time. this way of study can be more concentrated, streamlined, because i won't have to waste time sitting through things that aren't relevant to me. however these two comments were unusual. most students felt the main thing they did not have control over was the lack of interaction and input, and they saw this as a detractor. one student wrote relating to input: i'm quite apprehensive. i'm very new to all of this. when you attend classes you get the input i have to make the input. i wonder how i'll go. a typical comment concerning interaction was: at this stage i feel the lack of interaction is something 1 have to accept i have no control over that. but i think too that i'll ha'&e no control over the feedback 1 get from the tutor how much they give me and .whether it's what i really need to help me or not. i know i could always ring up the tutor but i'm not sure i'll do that much. students were asked a final general question: is the freedom in extramural study an advantage or a disadvantage? why? replies to this question were consistent with the kinds of ambiguities given in earlier responses relating to control. for the most part they felt the freedom was an advantage, but expressed concerns about motivation and focus in the relatively free environment. the novice learners in this group expressed their expectation that they would have to manage their feelings about the learning, especially when feeling urunotivated. thus freedom was seen as an advantage, but also as requiring of the learner greater affective contro l and discipline than in the classroom setting. a concern with affective control of learning among distance students was one of the findings in a comparative study by white (1995, 1997) of classroom and distance learners. conclusion this paper has presented some preliminary insights into how distance learning is conceptualised by novice learners. within this group, extramural study is seen as offering flexibility to the learner within the wider context of their lives. the notion of success is seen in the early stages of extramural study as dependent more on external factors (for example, quality of materials and interaction), and less on internal factors relating to the learner (for example persistence, self-knowledge). this domain is a promising avenue for investigation in later phases of the study to see if there is a shift from external to j ournal of d ista nce learning. vol 3. n o 1. 1997 (e) dis[anee eduea[ion assoeia[i on of new zealand 10 internal locus of control as learners accrue experience in the n ew le arning context. early stages of the study have also pointed to the complexities surrounding the domain of control and choice in distance learning. the possibilities for control are seen by learners as pertaining to the study context (this is close to the earlier discussion of fl exibility) and to input and interaction. within these two areas, negative p erspectives (for example, limitations on spontaneous input) were viewed as concomitant with the more positive aspects of freedom (for example, freedom from unwanted input). the need for affective control and discipline was highlighted in the freer learning envi.ronment of extramural study. finally, it is important to emphasise the preliminary nature of this research and that what is reported here relates to the first two phases of a longitudinal study. although exploration of the expectations and emergent b eliefs of distance learners has barely begun, it is an important area of enquiry within distance education if we are to develop a deeper understanding of the distance learning process. references beaverson, a. 1988: overcoming the distance: reflections on being a distance learning teacher, prospect 4, 77-81. brew,a. and wright, t.1990: changing teaching styles, distance education 11,2. cull, m. 1993: the mea ning of success: a litera ture review, in themes: distance education: policy, principles and practices. proceedings of the ninth annua l deanz conference massey university, palmerston north, 133-143. evans, t. and juler, p. (editors), 1992: resea rch in distan ce education, volume 2, geelong, deakin university press. harris, d. 1987: openness and closure in distance education. the falmer press, barcombe. holmberg, b. 1989: the co ncep t, bas ic character a nd d eve lopm e nt potent ia ls of distance education, distance ed ucation 10,1,127-136. jegede, o. j. 1992: constructivist epistemology and its implications for contemporary research in distance learning, in evans, t. and juler, p. (editors). kleist, j. 1986: "it's over to you": distance learning in the a.m.e.p. , prospect 1, 45-54. marton, f and svensson, l. 1979: conceptions of resea rch in student learning, higher education 8,4,471-486. marton, f, hounsell, d. and entwistle, n. (editors) 1984: the experience of learning. edinburgh, scottish academic press. pajares, m. f. 1992 : te ac hers ' b e li efs and e duc a ti ona l re sea rch: cleaning up a mes sy construct, review of ed ucational research 62,3,307332. ramsden, p. 1984: the context of lea rning, in marton, f, hounsell, d. and entwistle, n. (eds) . thompson, g. 1990: how can correspondencebased distance ed ucation be improved ? a survey of attitudes of students who are not well disposed towa rd correspondence study, journal of dista nce education 5,1,53-65. van meter, p., yokoi, l. and pressley, m. 1994: college students' theory of notetaking d erived from their perceptions of no te-taking, journa l of educational psychology 86,3, 323-338. white, c. 1995: autonomy a nd strategy use in distan ce foreign language learning: research findings, system 23,2, 207-221. white, c. 1997: effects of m ode of s tudy on fore ign langua ge learning, distance education 18,1, 178-196. cynthia white is senior lec turer, department of linguistics and second lang uage teaching, massey uni ve r si ty, pri vate ba g 11 222, palmerston north. journal of distance learning . vol 3. no 1. 1997 (c) distance educarion association of new zealand 11 microsoft word jdl06maintext1word.doc journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 26 supporting learners: the tension between institutional provision and learners’ expectations judith ann henderson christchurch college of education christchurch, new zealand introduction the rapid growth of open and distance qualification programmes over the last decade has introduced a new set of challenges for tertiary education providers. study from a distance increases the support and interaction needs of learners with a diverse range of academic skills and abilities. in new zealand, tertiary study is provided through a variety of distance modes by universities, colleges of education, polytechnics, and private training establishments, with more courses and qualifications being offered by an increasing number of providers every year. this escalation has raised awareness of the challenge facing tertiary education providers to provide effective support for these learners to ensure they are not disadvantaged by choosing to study in this mode. this paper focuses on issues and challenges in the provision of study support from the perspective of the tertiary institutions and of their learners. although it is primarily a review of current literature, illustrative comment is drawn from data gathered from the participants of three recent investigations. study 1, the challenge of providing effective support to distance learners, questioned a small group of adult learners enrolled in distance courses on how effective they found the available support systems. questionnaire responses were analysed, followed by interviews with a sample of those who had replied initially. study 2 was a study of first-year learners, investigating what factors assisted them to remain committed to their study. this case study on retention of first-year students in tertiary institutions was part of a major research project, improving tertiary student outcomes in their first year of study, conducted over two years in seven tertiary institutions. that project sought the views of students, lecturers, and administrators through questionnaires, focus groups, and interviews. online learners enrolled in the diploma in ict in education were the focus of study 3, conducted in 2003 by kachelhoffer and morrow. perceptions of learner support learner support has been defined as “all activities beyond the production and delivery of course materials that assist in the progress of students in their studies” (simpson, 2000, p. 6.). theorists are divided on exactly which elements constitute support and their definitions change accordingly. simpson divides support into two broad areas: academic support (cognitive, intellectual, and knowledge issues) and journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 27 non-academic support (affective and organisational aspects). mills (2003) regards learning materials as part of academic teaching and therefore outside the framework of learner support. he argues that a change of approach is needed to place student support in a more important position alongside the production of teaching materials. kenworthy (2003) discusses rumble’s analysis of several approaches, which makes the distinction between “compensatory services,” which are designed to overcome students’ learning difficulties, and “comprehensive services,” those built into the programme being delivered. it can be argued that the quality of course materials is a significant factor in the success or failure of distance learners and they should therefore be seen as part of the support structure. mclachlansmith (1998) discusses several methods of instructional design that can use study materials to create a supportive framework within the teaching-learning situation. thorpe (2003) sees the boundaries of learner support and course design and development blurring because of the nature of collaborative learning that is generated through online interaction and group activities. a focus group in study 2 said they appreciated study materials that were “sequenced clearly for us.” use of humour was also appreciated where appropriate. there is at least one voice questioning the value of continuing to offer support services. mason (2003) suggests that the development of online courses and virtual learning should be accompanied by a re-evaluation of learner support within the role of the educational provider. she asks if it is still the business of any university to ensure that learning happens. because a significant number of the learners enrolled in these courses belong to the lifelong learning generation, she argues they will “take charge of their own learning needs and choose courses which fit the requirements of their lifestyle” (mason, 2003, p. 91). the use of information and communication technology (ict) for education has revolutionised delivery and support options. it has been characterised by rapid development, increasing sophistication, greater availability and affordability for those who continue to upgrade their qualifications in new zealand. many institutions are exploring the opportunities for creative online support systems, and a whole new competitive industry is developing based around the provision of online tertiary study. this is leading to a growing tension between learners, who demand increasingly sophisticated online support structures, and tertiary institutions, which may not be able to afford to provide them. twenty years ago the literature classified distance learners as disadvantaged compared with their on-campus peers. learner isolation was seen as a major challenge for distance providers to surmount (henderson, 2003). today online communication is greatly reducing the loneliness of the distance learner. in a more recent development, learners studying on campus are demanding the same benefits that online support and communication are bringing to open and distance courses. turoff, discenza, and howard (2004) argue that the increasing availability of ict is blurring the boundaries between distance and face-to-face delivery: journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 28 a student in a face-to-face class that is not augmented by a collaborative learning approach and by asynchronous group communications technology is not getting as good an education as the distance student who has those benefits. (p. 4) from the learner’s perspective traditionally tertiary education catered for students enrolling after graduating from secondary school. this trend has changed markedly over the last 25 years in new zealand, aided by the adaptability allowed within distance programmes. the ministry of education recorded 154,129 students under 25 studying with tertiary providers in 1999, in comparison with 108,315 at or over the age of 25. by 2004 the balance had shifted, with 216,743 students under 25 recorded and 349,917 aged 25 or over (ministry of education, 2005). interest may spark the adult learner’s enrolment in one part-time course, although more commonly the goal is completion of a full qualification. whatever their reason for enrolling in tertiary study, adults require learning designed to fit in with their already busy lives, as they struggle to cope with the time pressures that occur when juggling work, study, and family commitments. distance study offers these learners more flexibility by eliminating the boundaries of time and space. learner isolation has been identified as an important challenge for distance educators in much of the literature. however the support and communication opportunities made available by developments in ict could be reducing this problem. the vast majority of distance learners are now computer literate and can enrol for courses with web support, where they have the option of “chatting” to their tutors and other learners online. socialisation is not such a priority for some mature learners, especially the more experienced—as illustrated by the comment of one learner, “i study by distance to avoid the chit chat.” when face-to-face tutorials are offered, some learners choose not to attend, even though they live within a few kilometres of the venue and the course is scheduled for a convenient time. self-sufficiency or lack of time were the main reasons given for this choice (henderson, 2003). the most influential support factor identified by our study 1 learners was their own home environment. this factor remained consistently important no matter which delivery method they are using for their studies. families can be a mixed blessing, endlessly supportive or a major stumbling block to continuing study (leach, et al., 2005). one survey participant believed the questionnaire he filled in should also “encompass the support given at home, both financially and personally.” conversely, another woman commented she received little support for her study from her family, which placed her under extra pressure. one focus group member in study 2 explained, “you get support at college but it’s nothing like your personal life— family and friends. it’s the personal side of things that drives you.” the tertiary institution has a role to play in assisting partners, family, and friends to support learners’ needs, even though these groups are outside its direct sphere of influence. some institutions now develop resource kits for family members, explaining the tertiary system, the challenges the distance learner will journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 29 be facing throughout their study programme, and how to support them through these. learners today are becoming more discerning, demanding high-quality materials and services, and are prepared to challenge the tertiary institution when they are not satisfied with the service provided. o’leary (2000) describes distance learners as usually “serious, disciplined, conscientious, and demanding.” the tradition of pride in being an integrated member (and eventually a graduate) of a wellestablished tertiary institution is losing ground as mature learners see themselves more as a client or customer, shopping for the best educational products and services. they are critical of any problems placed in their path by the institution and may choose to go elsewhere to complete their qualification. this issue was raised on several occasions during our surveys. one learner had started her qualification at one institution, then switched to another after a year of what she described as “run around.” kenworthy explains: the expectations of a more sophisticated, more demanding student body and the growing trend towards life-long learning have also contributed to the need for institutions to adapt and plan for this changing educational environment. one result of this has been a growing trend to perceive potential students as clients or customers, and higher education as a commodity which can be packaged, marketed and sold like any other product. (2003, p. 55) it was noted that administrators interviewed for our case study often used “the rhetoric of client service” (prebble, et al., 2004). lentell endorses this view: the growing commercialism of distance education whereby education becomes another consumer good has focused providers’ attention on students as customers of services (teaching and learning support) as well as the product (study and course materials). indeed the quality of customer service is, in the highly competitive distance learning market, frequently the distinguishing feature between providers. (2003, p. 68) from the institutional perspective in 2003, mills advocated a change in institutional thinking about learner support in distance education. academic teaching, which he categorized as the production of course materials and therefore considered to be outside the support framework, was still taking precedence over learning and student support in most educational institutions. he argued that learner support should be perceived as central to distance education provision alongside materials production. from a financial perspective, institutions saw the provision of support as a cost, whereas the production of materials was classed as income generating. mills (2003) believed, “by planning learner support as an integral part of a teaching and learning programme, rather than an afterthought which can be excised when times get difficult, institutions can demonstrate a recognition of the link between income generation and learner support” (p. 104). financial considerations are becoming a major issue for new zealand institutions journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 30 offering open and distance study options. this impacts greatly on the level of support that may be considered. from 2008, an increasing proportion of government institutional funding will be tagged to course retention and completion rates, however distance learners traditionally have a higher dropout rate than those studying on campus. providing effective support structures could therefore be seen as cost effective by encouraging persistence with study, which would result in higher completion and retention rates. with learners adopting a more consumer-driven approach to the choice of institution, institutions are facing the problem of balancing learners’ expressed needs against budgetary constraints. one example is the level of services to be provided after hours, an issue raised by three people among the study 1 participants. a considerable number of distance learners study at nights or weekends, and they expect to have access to the library and computer helpdesk and to be able to make contact with their tutors when they are studying. provision of this level of service may require major changes to employment contracts for academic, support, and technology staff, not to mention the additional costs of keeping the institutional facilities open for expanded periods. an ongoing challenge for tertiary institutions is the provision, maintenance, and continual upgrading of efficient systems, which enable learners to complete the initial and ongoing administrative requirements quickly and effectively. acheson (2004) comments that it can be exasperating to observe how often the needs of learners are created by factors within the institution. she believes that the role of the institution is to support learners by enhancing their learning without imposing any additional hurdles in their way. zepke, et al., (2005) found that two groups of staff with major influence on whether learners stayed or left were the front-line administrative staff and staff working in student support services such as libraries, study skills centres, counselling, health services, and hospitality areas. the first contact a prospective learner has with the institution is often with liaison or administrative staff. institutional recognition of their importance in the support structure should ensure that they receive appropriate training. provision of individualised advice and guidance, resulting in the selection of the most appropriate study programme at enrolment time, is a crucial part of the support structure. effective tutoring is another important part of the support structure that can result in better outcomes for the both the institution and their learners. one focus group member needed “good tutors who want you to learn and are really committed to their own teaching.” lentell (2003) believes the importance of tutors in distance education has gained recognition in recent years and has encouraged institutions to appoint suitably qualified educational professionals in this role. as recently as 1998, mclachlan-smith indicated that although some academic staff were academically well qualified, they were poorly prepared for distance teaching. they knew too little about the needs of distance learners or how to promote learning. howd (2000) encouraged educational institutions to employ seasoned practitioners. in the last five years, the role of the tutor has become even more crucial with the sharp increase in distance enrolments and the journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 31 growing variety of forms of delivery. appointment of suitable people to fill this role should be of paramount importance for the institution. the skills required from a tutor are many and varied. merisotis & phipps (1999) say, “faculty involved in distance education find themselves acting as a combination of content experts, learning process design experts, process implementation managers, motivators, mentors, and interpreters” (p. 16). often the tutor is the only person from the institution who gets to know the learner as an individual, so the relationship developed during a course will make a lasting impression and may even be the deciding factor in whether the learner continues to study at that institution, because of the multiple roles they play. as most of the contact with distance learners is conducted either online or by telephone, tutors require proficient oral and written communication skills and the facility to respond promptly to queries. they must be able to understand the diversity of the learners in their tutor group, which may include members of minority groups and other cultures. as one learner said, “they have to relate and know what situation you are in.” perhaps the greatest skill required is the ability to switch from teacher to facilitator of learning, adopting a student-centred approach to their work. when we asked distance learners for feedback on their experiences with tutors, their responses indicated a very strong desire for human contact and an appreciation of the ongoing contact with their tutors, especially when the response was received promptly and was easy to understand and implement. they classed warmth and humour as highly desirable characteristics, and their comments included such words as “accessible,” “encouraging,” “sympathetic,” and “supportive.” learners found their tutors’ enthusiasm for the topic motivating and appreciated their personal interest in each member of their tutor group. one learner described her interactions with an “abrasive tutor” (her words) and how this coloured her whole experience of study that year. another described her excellent rapport with one tutor, who shared her own resources with the learner when they discovered a common interest. the increasing number of institutions that provide support and ongoing professional development for tutorial staff is evidence the significance of this role is now being acknowledged. the constant escalation in enrolments for distance study raises the dilemma of whether to maintain services at the same level as in previous years when numbers were smaller. most institutions offer a suite of support services for their distance learners in addition to library services and tutorial support, including academic skills assistance, counsellors, and ict helpdesk. all of these are reliant on the goodwill and expertise of the staff to provide an efficient, quick service that will be both welcoming and inclusive to those contacting them from a distance. study 1 participants indicated that although they accessed only library and helpdesk services regularly, they expected the other support structures to be available should they be needed. for example, the chaplaincy service was one form of support that featured prominently in interviews with learners studying on campus, but which is not usually available to distance learners. this is a gap that could be filled by developing a journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 32 chaplain’s web site, allowing distance learners access to confidential advice. ict—an agent for change the rapid growth of information and communication technology (ict) has been the most important development in distance education in recent years, enabling new methods of course support and delivery. support services, originally available only for on-campus learners, are now accessible to those studying from a distance, thereby removing location as an issue. the world wide web has enhanced communication with staff from the teaching institution, as well as opening up more possibilities for interaction between learners. by encouraging the development of active online communities, staff can significantly reduce any feelings of isolation for those learners participating. alongside the significant advantages, however, come yet more challenges for tertiary providers of distance education. as tait and mills state, the first challenge in the provision of learner support in open and distance learning is “the impact of ict on what is wanted by learners today, what can be provided by institutions, and what restructuring of organisations has to follow” (2003, p. 1). for learners, on the other hand, the growth in ict has enhanced their opportunities while also increasing inequity, as not all potential learners are able to access the required technology. linking learners with technology is not always straightforward. those who enrol in online learning programmes for the first time need to learn how to use technology effectively, as well as developing the traditional academic skills required for successful tertiary study. tertiary institutions must therefore provide an accessible technology support structure on top of their present academic support systems. discenza, howard, and schenk (2002) suggest that learners can become distracted by technology, while the institutions face the challenge of maintaining the infrastructure required. even online enrolment requires the development of an easily understood information package to ensure the learner is guided towards enrolling for the most appropriate courses. no matter how effective the online support services provided, there is no assurance that learners, especially those who need them most, will use them. for academic staff the introduction of ict into education has required new styles of teaching. gone is the traditional classroom with the lecturer at the front of the room controlling the learning process. online learning requires the educator to master the new technology and to become a supportive facilitator of learning. kenworthy (2003) explains this change in focus from teaching to learning as the point where transmission models of teaching are replaced by learner control of navigation, resource use, and interaction. ensuring that learners participate fully in the programme of study, encouraging deep learning, and creating new methods of ongoing evaluation and assessment are issues to address. support structures must be in place to ensure that the learner is getting the most out of their study experience. thorpe (2003) perceives the boundaries of learner support and course design and development blurring for online courses. course design and learner support start to merge, in thorpe’s view, because the nature of collaborative learning that occurs is generated through online interaction and group activities. journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 33 the time factor involved in teaching online is a serious resourcing issue for institutions. thorpe (2003) explains that, although some course materials will be prepared in advance, the structure will adapt as the online interaction develops, integrating the experiences of the learners with resources provided. the tutor therefore requires highly developed skills of learning facilitation. our study 2 survey feedback from tutors indicates that it took them twice as long to facilitate a class online in comparison to a traditional distance or face-to-face course, because of the individual nature of the interactions. learners also expect instant feedback to their questions, which puts added pressure on the educator. one adult learner in study 2 commented on her growing sense of frustration when she did not receive a reply to an email for several days. lentell (2003) believes that technology still poses challenges, including a lack of skills in its use for teaching and learning. some academic staff are resisting the change to technology-based education and refuse to adapt their courses to e-teaching. if the institution wants computer-based learning programmes to be a success, it would be advised to have effective support structures in place for staff, to develop skills in the new technology and encourage participation. the communication opportunities introduced through delivery of study and support programmes online can virtually eliminate the feeling of remoteness reported by learners in traditional distance courses. educators in online classes foster the development of a sense of community through interactive projects and bulletin boards. working cooperatively in groups is an important part of academic learning and online learners can assist others to understand new concepts through participating in chat room discussions. as one study 1 participant said, “that group support and e-mails from others keep me motivated.” computer-mediated communication has heralded a change in communication patterns to a position where people develop working relationships online with colleagues they will never meet face-to-face. learners adapt to this change with structured encouragement and support from the online educator, forming virtual tutor groups to learn cooperatively. a minority of learners still need encouragement to work cooperatively, however. research by kachelhoffer and morrow (2003) conducted with a group of online learners indicated that, while close interaction with their tutor was important to all respondents, there was some variation in opinion about interaction with peers. however the majority of online learners recognised the importance of interacting with others, sharing work, and receiving feedback from their peers. they indicated that they felt part of a community and were confident about sharing opinions in this safe environment. for example, incidental online chat between learners allowed one woman to realise, to her relief, that she was not the only person struggling to complete a particular assignment on time. she said, “it was reassuring to discover that others needed answers to exactly the same questions.” another respondent commented, “the online discussion forums have increased my network of professional colleagues.” over the last ten years, a new competitive industry has developed around the provision of online learning, with many new tertiary providers competing with experienced providers journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 34 for enrolments. kenworthy (2003) questions whether the “commercial imperative” of these new providers will recognise the need for learner support and be in a position to provide this. within the last two years in new zealand, several providers have gone out of business or been shut down because their standard of courses and services did not meet required quality standards, and other institutions are presently under review. this commercial imperative will become increasingly important when government funding for courses shifts further towards funding retention and outcomes, rather than course enrolments. conclusion this paper has discussed the issues and challenges faced by tertiary institutions in the development and maintenance of effective support systems for learners studying open, distance, online, and flexible study programmes, supported by data from three research projects. distance education has been revolutionised by the development of e-learning, which has almost eliminated the isolation factor and introduced new possibilities for supporting learners. the learner’s perspective was also examined, highlighting their support needs. study from a distance increases the support and interaction needs of learners, and their expectations are forcing institutions to adapt to the rapidly changing educational environment. references acheson, c. (2004). managing change in tertiary education: student services as a resource for retention strategy. paper presented at the association for tertiary education management, nz branch conference, wellington, new zealand, july, 2004. discenza, r., howard, c., & schenk, k. (2002). the design and management of effective distance learning programmes. hershey, pa: idea publishing group. henderson, j. (2003). the challenge of providing effective support to distance learners. paper presented at the herdsa conference, christchurch, new zealand, july, 2003. howd, a. (2000). will cyber-school pass or fail? insight on the news, (june 12, 2000), 22–23, 39. kachelhoffer, a., & morrow, d. (2003). taking teachers into the twenty-first century: a new zealand initiative in online professional development. paper presented at the fourteenth international conference of the society for information technology and teacher education (site), albuquerque, new mexico, march, 2003. kenworthy, b. (2003). supporting the student in new teaching and learning environments. in a. tait & r. mills (eds.), rethinking learner support in distance education: change and continuity in an international context. london: routledgefalmer. leach, l., zepke, n., & prebble, t. (2005). now you have got them, how do you keep them? students’ views of why they stay. paper presented at the herdsa colloquium, wellington, new zealand, august, 2005. lentell, h. (2003). the importance of the tutor in open and distance learning. in a. tait & r. mills (eds.), rethinking learner support in distance education: change and continuity in an international context. london: routledgefalmer. mason, r. (2003). online learning and supporting students: new possibilities. in a. tait & r. mills (eds.), rethinking learner support in distance education: change and continuity in an international context. london: routledgefalmer. mclachlan-smith, c. (1998). designing for dialogue at a distance: reflections on how to create and maintain an effective teaching-learning relationship with students. journal of distance learning, 4(1), 11–22. journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 35 merisotis, j. p., & phipps, r. a. (1999). what’s the difference? outcomes of distance vs. traditional classroom-based learning. change, 31(3), 13–17. mills, r. (2003). the centrality of learner support in open and distance learning: a paradigm shift in thinking. in a. tait & r. mills (eds.), rethinking learner support in distance education: change and continuity in an international context. london: routledgefalmer. ministry of education (2005). full year tertiary statistics 2004. retrieved january 26, 2006, from http://www.minedu.govt.nz/ index.cfm?layout=document&documentid =10508&indexid=7552&indexparentid =6142 o’leary, m. (2000). distance learning and libraries. online, 24(4), 94–97. prebble, t., leach, l., & zepke, n. (2004). student retention: some tertiary administrators’ perspectives. paper presented at the nzare conference, wellington, new zealand, november, 2004. simpson, o. (2000). supporting students in open and distance learning. london: kogan page. tait, a., & mills, r. (eds.). (2003). rethinking learner support in distance education: change and continuity in an international context. london: routledgefalmer. thorpe, m. (2003). collaborative on-line learning: transforming learner support and course design. in a. tait & r. mills (eds.), rethinking learner support in distance education: change and continuity in an international context. london: routledgefalmer. turoff, m., discenza, r., & howard, c. (2004). how distance programs will affect students, courses, faculty and institutional futures. in c. howard, k. schenk, & r. discenza, (eds.), distance learning and university effectiveness: changing educational paradigms for online learning. hershey, pennsylvania: information science publishing. zepke, n., leach, l., prebble, t., henderson, j., leadbetter, j., solomon, n., & wilson, s. (2005). improving tertiary student outcomes in their first year of study. paper presented at the tlri symposium at the nzare conference, dunedin, new zealand, december, 2005. judith ann henderson is the co-ordinator, new zealand diploma of specialist subjects (secondary teacher) at the christchurch college of education. she was previously the academic dean in the school of professional development at the christchurch college of education. her research interest is in learner support. scanned document research note narrative and constructivism in cyberspace: instructional design for distance delivery using hypertext on the internet educators can only watch with awe the spectacular developments in information technologies. hypertext could yet realise the vision that learning is learner controlled. world wide web sites on the internet give learners access to a whole world of learning opportunities. in short we can now conceive of abandoning instructional design which is focused on teacher as centre and student as margin, hierarchy and linearity in favour of design based on multilinearity, student control and world wide networks. even technosceptics, and i am one, must admit to the potential. distance delivery in particular has benefited from hypertext and the internet. the potential of these media encouraged wellington polytechnic to start project hydi (hypertext in distance education) its bachelor of education was the polytechnic's first programme to navigate in distance education cyberspace. a sampler has been completed and the process of developing courses has begun. but poorly designed courses are poor no matter how exotic their delivery. so the project hydi team has undergone a crash course in instructional design for distance delivery using hypertext and the internet. nick zepke department of educational development wellington polytechnic wellington conventional instructional design theories and practices were examined first. the emphasis here seemed to be on structure: predetermined learning outcomes; the dominance of content over process and teacher ordered and controlled delivery (sylvester and hunter-reid, 1996; print, 1988; gonczi, hager, oliver, 1990; nzqa, 1991; golby et al. 1981) . but an emerging literature on instructional design for the internet pictured a different instructional process. here students were to be in charge. using the vast knowledge reservoir of the internet and the flexibility and interactivity offered by hypertext, students learn through discussion and creation of their own knowledge (nix and spiro, 1990; eraut, 1993; latchem, 1993; crook, 1994; mason, 1994). never enchanted by binary opposites like these, the hydi team saw the necessity of both teacher narrative and student construction of knowledge in designing distance education using hypertext. for the writer, a member of the hydi team, the most important source for a working synthesis of these positions was attendance at a 'face-to-face' conference: the association for the advancement of computing in education (aace) world conferences on multi and hypermedia and journal of distance lea rning. vol 3. n o i. 1997 (c) distance edu cati on associati on of new zeal and 20 telecommunication (1996). over 30 papers and numerous discussions enabled me to develop a working model for instructional design for distance delivery in hypertext and the internet. in getting to the model, i first note some dominant themes relating to concepts about instructional design on the internet. then, in a series of recommendations i outline the practical implications of the emerging model. towards a view of instructional design on the internet six broad statements capture my emerging concept of instructional design for learning and teaching on the internet. each is made up from the ideas and research presented in key conference papers. 1. teaching with hypertext, like all teaching requires a strong 'narrative' line. narrative carries key content concepts in an orderly fashion . concepts are organised and sequenced by the teacher. 2. a number of teaching / learning tools enables instructional designers to fashion and sustain a logical narrative line. 3. the whole point of hypertext, however, is that it enables students actively to construct knowledge and their own learning paths to that knowledge. 4. competent hypertext instructional design balances an orderly narrative controlled by the teacher and the construction of knowledge controlled by the learner. 5. a number of teaching/learning tools enable instructional designers to achieve and maintain this balance. 6. design balance is the overwhelming message from the conference and forms the key assumption for the emerging model. the importance of narrative line this was a constant theme. bielenberg and schnieders (1996) , zeiliger (1996), and delouis (1994) all built their messages on the need for hypermedia teaching to include a strong narrative line organised and sequenced by the teacher. bielenberg and schnieders offered 'story' as the engine for narrative. zeiliger emphasised concept maps. delouis offered the concept of 'total knowledge', which includes the ability to transform simple perceptions of many distinct knowledge objects into one single abstract narrative. mohl (1996) just worried that without narrative, the medium (the internet) would outstrip the message (content) in importance . it was laurillard (1996), however, who argued most cogently for the necessity of narrative line in hypermedia teaching. she offered meno's paradox to explain the danger of offering too much choice to learners. 'how can you learn something you know nothing teachers' constructs -discursive -students' constructs reflect;on i i adaptlon activites reflect;on i i adapt;on teacher constructed world __ interactive -student constructed world (hypermedia) activites (hypermedia) figure 1. a model showing relationships between discursive and j interactive learning in hypermedia journal of d istance lea rning, vol 3, n o i , 1997 (cl distance educa ti on assoc iati on of new zealand 21 about?' a pandora's box of options and interaction, hypermedia, in fact, threatened a 'tyranny of choice' for learners. narrative provides structure for students. she explained this point via a learning model. in any teaching situation there are teachers and students. teachers have their own constructs. through reflection and adaptation, teachers construct a world. students similarly construct their world from reflective and adaptive processes. in a teaching situation two processes link teachers and learners: discursive action, such as teacher explanation, and interaction, such as discussion and research . hypertext tends to emphasise interaction between teacher and student, student and student or student and materials while ignoring the discursive side of the teacher-learner equation. she has a visual representation of her learning-teaching model. the discursive activities are narrative in nature. they give structure and content and motivate many learners to carryon learning. tools for maintaining n arrative line i came across five tools which will h~lp hypermedia instructional designers maintain a strong narrative line. they are: repeated references to learning outcomes, cultural contextualisation, story, concept maps and knowledge building. learning outcomes laurillard (1996), collis (1996), carver et al. (1990) and reeves (1996) all referred to the importance of explaining regularly, referring to and evaluating learning outcomes. this orients the learner to what is to be achieved, is being achieved or has been achieved. laurillard also suggested that learning outcomes should be accompanied by prerequisite knowledge, skills and attitudes for stated learning outcomes, some guidelines as to how important each learning outcome is (time needed, for example) and also how projects and exercises are related to learning outcomes. cultural contextualisation henderson (1996) works with aborigines and torres strait islanders in a hypermedia distance teacher education programme. she adopts vygotsky's view that people's potential development is determined through problem solving with guidance from and in collaboration with more capable others (teachers?). this implies that instructional design carries strong narrative. however, students are different. they perceive the world from many different perspectives. these may be generalised as cultural perspectives based on gender, ethnicity, class or institution among many others . so the narrative line must relate to the different cultural contexts. if it does, instructional design will be multiple cultural, not multicultural. henderson admits that this is difficult to do, but offers what she calls the inverted curriculum as a possible approach. this means that as parts of the narrative line the teacher includes material from multiple cultural perspectives . it also means that healthy doses of critical theory and postrnodem discourse are included. story bielenberg and schnieders (1996) and bielenberg and carpenter-smith (1996) offer another perspective on narrative in hypermedia teaching. they argue that the narrative in a programme can be shaped just like a story, through 'the intentional use of key elements of story structure action, character, conflict, genre'. while bielenberg et al. use story in a case study format, it is not necessary to confine it to this. story is found in any narrative and can be grounded in theory. the work of kuhn as it applies to education can be told in story form, for example. the anomalies and puzzles experienced in a troubled paradigm can be expressed in actions. attackers and defenders of paradigms can be written as characters who interact in the story. because paradigm wars are big on conflict, opposing views can be expressed very dramatically. even in story form, the drama of paradigm change must meet basic academic criteria. these define the academic genre. journal of distance lea rning , vol 3, no 1, 1997 (c) distan ce education association of new zealand 22 \ ii stories seen in this ecle ctic light can b e motivational, problem setting and interactive. above all they provide the teacher with the opportunity to introduce and maintain the strong narrative line called for by laurillard. concept maps it must be admitted at the start that the research reported by zeiliger (1996) did not show that students using concept maps for hypermedia learning did better on post tests than students who did not use such maps. nevertheless, it appeared to me that concept maps are useful tools in establishing and maintaining a narrative line. zeiliger based his concept maps on three components: upper level concepts, contributing concepts and the creators of concepts. students could click on to any of these components and navigate from there. starting points seemed to depend on whether students liked an inductive approach (contributing concepts to learning), a deductive approach (upper level concepts), or a people centred approach(creators of concepts). knowledge building to some extent this label is more appropriate for a discussion of constructivism, than a description of a tool for maintaining narrative, which is essentially knowledge representation. nevertheless, delouis' (1996) work with brain traumatised patients suggests that narrative also contributes to knowledge construction by students . she described a four-part process of 'knowledging' for achieving something she calls 'total knowledge'. total knowledge is both functional and subjective . the knowledging process always involves functional knowing first, then subjective knowing. it also always involves associating new knowledge with existing concepts or experiences. meno's paradox suggests that functional knowing is difficult to guarantee without teaching. similarly a teacher can more easily stimulate associations than can the student working alone . a narrative line which includes references to the practical uses of a concept or process taught, and guides students through a process of concept association, will help a student journey towards delouis' state of total knowledge. constructivism and knowledge construction laurillard and friends, however, camp in the hypermedia virtual desert. educational media enthusiasts see hypermedia as the opportunity to revolutionise education. according to them it empowers students to construct their own knowledge. boyle outlined the principles of constructivism as follows: • construction of knowledge rather than instruction • learning tasks should be authentic not artificial • learning takes place in a social context and is by nature collaborative • students have both voice and ownership in the learning process • students must draw on their experiences in the knowledge construction process not only on facts • students must awaken to their part in the knowledge construction process taken to extremes this line of reasoning leads to solipsism: all know ledge is inte rnally generated by individuals, not generated by external sources. most hypermedia educators seem to take a more modest view. nevertheless, they would follow bos, kikstra and morgan (1996) in arguing that sound instructional design for hypertext emphasises activity, know ledge construction tasks, collaborative learning , interaction and conversation, context and reflection. what does a constructivist approach to hypermedia learning look like in practice? according to lynn (1996), a practical 'real life' project is central. this must enable the student to build knowledge obtained from evidence obtained from teacher references or captured by surfing the internet. evidence j ou rnal of dista nce learning. vol 3. n o i . 1997 (c) distan ce education associ ati on of new zealand 23 should be discussed in groups, so some kind of interactive forum should be provided. the forum must allow for critiquing and adapting existing information and models. completed projects should be hung out on the internet so that they may be critiqued in an open way. whether criticism is by the general public or other students depends on the level of study. guidelines may be provided by the teacher as to what kind of comments is appropriate. lynn, who is associated with a major science project, suggests that student propositions, ideas, proof, argument and rebuttal should be critiqued by peers and teacher. this project based approach helps students to be critical of the rubbish that inhabits the hyperworld. it prepares them for lifelong learning. collis (1996) also suggested that a social constructivist approach to hypertext design be built around a real life project. she prefers to give projects to groups rather than individuals. each group member is expected to bring a specialism to the project so that in completing the project, the group completes a jigsaw puzzle with each piece an individual's contribution to the whole. the project may take as much as 70 percent of course time. students' work is supported by news groups, one on one communications with students and teacher, testing and even presentations by the teacher. collis has her class complete a course book each year of the principles learnt. this book is 'published' on the internet as critical testimony to the learning achieved. dainty, keeling and jones (1996) argue that hypermedia is excellent for motivating both intrinsic and extrinsic learners. intrinsically motivated learners respond to the empowerment and creativity provided by project work and the feedback provided by news groups and instructors. extrinsically motivated learners respond to the rewards and fun of hypertext learning. they do warn, however, not to 'disneyfy' the learning process as reliance on novelty factors leads to short term motivation. but does constructivist hypermedia ted learning suit all kinds of learners? reed (1996), ellis (1996), and rasmussen and davidson (1996) all reported on learning style research. reed reported on a number of projects testing students on the kolb assimilator, accommodator, diverger, converger inventory. he reports that no significant differences were found in achievement in hypertext usage. there is some difference, however, in the way students use hypertext. as can be expected, divergers tend towards non-linear use of hypertext; convergers were more reliant on linear, teacher constructed knowledge. accommodators were slightly more content to construct knowledge than assimi l ators . ellis and rasmussen and davidson reported similar non-significant results for the kolb inventory. reed (1996) also reported on some testing with the group embedded figure test (geft). again no significant differences were found between field dependent and field independent learners. both performed equally well, although field dependents' approach was more linear and they learned to greater depth than field independents. one study found that field independents outperformed their opposites slightly. my conclusion is that all kinds of learners can work successfully in a hypertext environment. achieving a balance between narrative and knowledge construction clearly there is a tension between narrative and knowledge construction. the instructional designer needs to find an appropriate balance between the two. reeves (1996) offered a learning design model which he thought might balance the two. his is a simple systems model. it defines a number of inputs brought by the student to the hypertext learning situation. these include: • cultural habits of mind which originate in the context in which the student lives; • learning aptitude based on individual learning styles, abilities, experiences; • whether motivation is extrinsic or intrinsic. joumal a/distance leaming, vol 3 , no i , 1997 (c) distance educati on assoc iati on of new zealand 24 the model also specifies a number of outputs which i would call learning outcomes. these, according to reeves, include: • knowledge and skills; • mental models of the world constructed by the student; • identification and solution of previously ill-defined problems; • intellectual curiosity; • lifelong learning. instructional design links student inputs with learning outcomes. reeves offered six dimensions as links. they were: • students should have the opportunity to construct their own learning; • they should have ownership of the project or task; • they should have a sense of audience; the opportunity to receive feedback from the whole of the internet world; • tasks and projects should be done collaboratively; • the teacher's know ledge and experience should structure the learning experience; • literature, other people's work, teacher's notes should be available at all times. diagrammatically reeves pictured his model as follows (figure 2). laurillard offered a less elaborate but similar model for achieving the balance. she argued that hypermedia instructional designers need to have students • discuss by attending to and articulating information which allows knowledge to be constructed; • act to achieve specified learning outcomes by receiving and giving feedback; • adapt knowledge and modify action in accordance with feedback; • reflect on, evaluate and synthesise both received and constructed knowledge. further tools for balancing narrative and knowledge constructs i have argued that hypermedia instructional design should balance narrative and knowledge construction. reeves and laurillard offered fairly generalised techniques for achieving this balance. the conference offered two further balancing ideas. inputs instructional design dimensions learning outcomes ---.~ knowledge and skills t construction of learning cultural habits!2ownership of task sense of audience aptitdes and collaborative support experience / motivation ~ teacher support metacognitive support mental models t problem solving t intellectual curiosity t lifelong learning figure 2. a model for achieving 'balanced' hypertext learning j ournal of d istance leaming . vol 3, no 1. 1997 (c) distan ce educati on associati on of new zealand 25 designing for learning style carver, howard and lavelle (1996) discuss adapting hypermedia to suit different learning styles. when students log in to begin a lesson, they are given the opportunity to explore the course material according to their learning style. carver et al. use felder's learning styles. felder deals with five dimensions of learning: sensing/intuitive; visual/verbal; active/ reflective; and sequential/global. their course material attempts to match teaching to learning style preferences. certain media is inherently appropriate to different learning styles. for example, their material includes slide shows, graphics and digital movies, features designed to appeal to visual learners who can focus on this aspect of teaching material. carver et al. concluded their paper by claiming that adaptive hypermedia based on student learning styles provide the ability to tailor individually the presentation of course materials to each student. designing for an inverted curriculum i have already reported henderson's contention that teaching in hypermedia should be multiple cultural, rather than multicultural, and include material from the perspective of different cultures. such cultures may be based on ethnicity, gender, institution, academic discipline or dominance. the model is multiple cultural because all these cultural types are treated from the inside by the instructional designer. when multiple cultural learning is facilitated and/ or led by the teacher, a strong narrative line is introduced. when students lead, social constructivism dominates. this balance is further enhanced by critical theory which critiques all constructions. henderson's model offers a design paradigm which reflects society's multiple realities, incorporates various ways of learning and teaching, and offers a critical dimension whether narrative teaching or constructive learning is occurring. towards a working model the foregoing discussion suggests that distance education on the internet should aim for balance between organising narrative and student construction of knowledge. to achieve this, i offer the following design guidelines for discussion. 1. design courses around 'real' problems to be addressed through 'real' projects; allow sttidents to explore given hypertext links and discover new ones; set problems which allow them to establish new meanings and understandings. 2. define problems in terms of learning outcomes; ensure that outcomes define both ends and means of the project and so offer guidelines for the learning process; support learning outcomes with concept maps to act as learning signposts . 3. provide supporting resource material in the form of stories, teacher notes and site addresses to allow necessary connections to be made; connect students to other students though bulletin and news boards. 4. use an instructional design which allows students to navigate according to their learning style preferences. try to cater for at least three different learning styles preferences for sequential narrative learning; preferences for global; and intuitive learning preferences for selfplanned learning 5. use projects which enable students to explore multiple cultural contexts which give rise to critiques of their own as well as other contexts. where possible, have students do this in groups to enrich their experiences. 6. publish finished projects on the internet to lend them authenticity and give students a sense of audience for their work. safeguard students from unsafe criticism but ensure that work is critiqued. 7. do not use hypertext as the sole delivery option. supplement hypertext programmes by classroom sessions, computer mediated communications (cmc) or even readings. journal of distance leaming, vol 3, no 1, 1997 (c) distance education association of new zealand 26 acknowledgment i would like to acknowledge the contributions of alsion viskovic (educational consultant) and philip uys (project leader) to the development of the ever emerging instructional model. references bielenberg, d. r. and carpenter-smith, t. 1996: efficacy of story in multi-media training. in carlson, p. and makedin, f. (editors), educational multimedia and hyp ermedia , proceedings of ed-media, acce . bielenberg, d. r. and schnieders, r. 1996: using story and cirama in interactive training. in carlson, p and makedin, f. (editors), educationa l multimedia and hyperm ed ia , proceedings of ed-media, acce. bos, e. s., kikstra, a., morgan, c. m. 1996: multiple levels of use of the web as a learning tool. in carlson, p. and makedin, f. (edi tors), educational multim edia and hyperm edia , proceedings of ed-media, acce . boyle, t. a. 1996: review and critique of constructivism. in carlson, p. and makedin, f. (editors), educational multimedia and hypermedia, proceedings of ed-media, acce. carver, c. a., howard, r. a., levelle, e.1996: enhancing student learning by incorporating learning styles into adaptive hypermedia . in carlson, p. and makedin, f. (editors), educational media and hypermedia, proceedings of ed-media, acce . chang, e. 1996: discrimination learning using interactive multimedia: bridging behaviourism and constructivism. presentation to the world conference on educational multimedia and hypermedia, boston. collis, b.1996: pedagogical re-engineering: design issues and implementation experiences with the www as a learning environment. presentation to the world conference on educational multimedia and hypermedia, boston. crook, c. 1994: computers and the collaborative experience of learning. routledge, london. dainty, g., keeling, d., jones, e. 1996 : motivation to learn? the potential of hypermedia . presentation to the world conference on educational multimedia and hypermedia, boston. de louis, s. m. 1996: the role of multimedia features in the natural world for the human knowledge processes: applications to the design of mediated computer communications. presentation to the world conference on educational multimedia and hypermedia, boston. ellis, a. e. 1996: learning styles and hypermedia courseware usage: is there a connection? in carlson, p. and makedin, f. 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(editors). educational multimedia and hypermedia, proceedings of edmedia, acce. nick zepke is head of the department of educational development, wellington polytechnic, private box 756, wellington. j ournal of distance leaming. vol 3. no i. 199 7 (c) distance i'ducation association of new zealand 28 microsoft word jdl06maintext1word.doc journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 46 reviews bereiter, c. (2002). education and mind in the knowledge age. mahwah, new jersey: l. erlbaum associates (pp. xiii, 526). i looked forward to reading this book as someone who has worked with carl bereiter (of the ontario institute for studies in education of the university of toronto) through the now disbanded telelearning network of centres of excellence (tl.nce). until recently, the network linked researchers in schools and universities across canada as well as in learning organizations in other places. the network highlighted the collaborative power of information and communication technologies and the internet. bereiter was a senior researcher in tl.nce and brought to its symposia a scholarly and erudite perspective that questioned ways we think about knowledge: its organization, presentation, and meaning. bereiter is well known for his work in cognition and educational psychology. in this book he presents a “new theory of mind” or a new way of thinking about knowledge and the mind. he begins with a challenge: here we are in the information age, relying on a theory of mind that is older than the wheel. every other folk theory—folk physics, folk biology, folk economics—has had to yield to more powerful theories, better equipped to address the problems of an adventurous civilization. . . . something called “cognitive science” arose in the 1950s and developed rapidly. its most conspicuous manifestations have been in artificial intelligence and robotics, but it has had a significant and sometimes revolutionary effect on all the behavioural sciences. although it may be true that most of the world’s business is still conducted according to folk theories of mind, this may be only a matter of cultural lag, which will be overcome as cognitive science takes hold. (p. xx) bereiter argues that in today’s knowledge age, education’s conceptual tools are inadequate for the issues and challenges that are faced. two things are required: to get away from the idea of the mind as a container and to understand the role of individual minds in societal knowledge production. bereiter proposes in this book an alternative model of the brain and of knowledge, a model in which the brain does not actually contain knowledge. the need, it is argued, is to understand how a brain can sustain knowledgeable and intelligent behaviour. such a model needs to be developed in order to have a theory of mind that can be used in the knowledge age. bereiter draws on current ways of thinking about knowledge and the mind, including information processing, cognitive psychology, situated cognition, constructivism, social constructivism, and connectionism, in a search for a way of thinking that is appropriate for the challenges faced by education in the knowledge age. journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 47 in the preface bereiter notes the tl.nce was a federally supported program to advance the development and use of learning technologies, but through a project within it on cognitive/ epistemological models for knowledge. building funds were in fact devoted to the “most fundamental issues of what such an enterprise is about.” knowledge is the pivotal idea in this book and the author contrasts the stuffing of mental filing cabinets with the development of a richer conception of what it is to be knowledgeable. this book is a major contribution to the development of thinking about knowledge and the mind in the context of an age in which information is increasingly accessible and, in many ways, a basis for social and economic organization. bereiter raises fundamental questions about knowledge, the mind, knowledgeability, and the brain. the second part of the book is devoted to “education and knowledge work,” where issues surrounding educational planning and the teaching profession are discussed. education and mind in the knowledge age contains a chapter called “can education become a modern profession?” bereiter points out that there is a failure to connect research and invention, or education’s inability to function as a knowledge-creating institution. the failure, he argues, is not the fault of teachers, administrators, researchers, or politicians. it is systemic. two cultures exist within education: a traditional craft culture and a research culture. while there is interaction between the two cultures, each is stultified by the division. bereiter argues for a hybrid culture within which craft and research cultures can together solve common problems. he notes, “a problem that seems to have potential for cultural fusion is teaching for understanding.” this is a lengthy and complex book that sets out fresh ideas about how we think about schools, education, educational reform, the teaching profession, the relationship between theory and practice, and, within all this, the place of information technologies in teaching and learning. it is written by a respected scholar with international standing who has developed a theory of how classrooms can be changed. bereiter draws on a considerable body of classroom research in which he and his colleagues have been involved, as well as a considerable body of cognitive theory. education and mind in the knowledge age invites us to reconsider what we mean by knowledge and the mind today. bereiter writes with grace and simplicity. complex ideas are made accessible and most readers will recognize situations outlined by the author in their own professional and personal lives. bereiter writes about some of the most fundamental concerns of education (knowledge and mind), yet the book will meet most educators’ demand for “relevance.” this is one of the most insightful and timely books on education i have read. it deserves to be read and discussed widely. ken stevens memorial university of newfoundland newfoundland, canada journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 48 howard, c., boettcher, j. v., justice, l., schenk, k., rogers, p., & berg, g. (eds.) (2005). encyclopedia of distance learning, vols. 1–4. hershey, pennsylvania: idea group reference (pp. 2500). in a foreword to this collection, seymour papert invites readers “who consult this encyclopedia in a sober spirit” to share with him “a moment of being drunk with amazement at its table of contents.” the table of contents is fifteen pages long, but once the reader understands its alphabetical structure, articles in the four volumes that follow are easy to access. what papert is no doubt referring to is the sheer volume as well as the range of papers in this collection about a relatively new field of education. this is probably the most extensive collection of papers ever to be published in the field of distance learning, and, at almost us$1,000, the most expensive. as such it is more likely this collection will be purchased by libraries than individuals. considering the international nature of the contributions to these volumes, they are likely to be widely consulted. hundreds of international contributors to the encyclopedia of distance learning have provided an extensive coverage of topics in the field of distance learning, with an emphasis on major areas where online learning and technology have an impact on education: k–12 education, higher education, continuing education, and professional and technical training. many of the contributions describe how institutions have reshaped themselves to take advantage of developments in information technologies to encourage increased interaction between students, teachers, institutions, and societies. an encyclopedia is defined by the cambridge encyclopedia of language (1997) as “a book or set of books containing many articles arranged in alphabetical order, which deal either with the whole of human knowledge or with a particular aspect of it.” between 1751 and 1765 denis diderot edited and partly wrote 17 volumes of the encyclopédie (which in time grew to a total of 35 volumes) in an attempt to bring together a systematic outline of civilization’s knowledge, thereby promoting a new ideology of open dissemination of knowledge. the editors of the encyclopedia of distance learning argue that diderot’s mission “parallels the contemporary challenge,” in that ways to increase the dissemination of our collective knowledge of the world are still being sought. the question this set of books seeks to answer is, “how can the knowledge of civilization be spread throughout the world with the use of the personal computer?” (vol. 1, xxxvii). this is a big question and the editors acknowledge, “writing an encyclopedia on any subject is an extraordinary conceit, particularly on a subject as new and amorphous as computer-based learning on an international scale.” a note from one of the editors introduces the acronym “tilde” (technology, instruction, learning, design, and evaluation), around which items were selected for inclusion in the encyclopedia. each of these categories encompasses a range of media applications and aspects of teaching, learning, and program development. the editors note that while these could be discussed as separate entities, “the reality of online distance learning has merged all aspects of teaching (professor and instructor, support services, interactivity, design, evaluation, and technology) and learning journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 49 (usability, access, interactivity, design, evaluation, technology),” arguing, “online distance learning is a manifestation of a true reform/shift in education since societies began educating the masses and not just the elite” (vol. 1, xxxii). each of the editors has his or her own “editor’s notes” in volume one, which are useful in providing access to how they each perceive distance learning. patricia rogers, in her editorial introduction, argues, “the whole history of distance learning is about access to education.” if this is the case, much of what is contained in these volumes is significant as there is a good deal of attention to pedagogy and to the changes that e-learning has brought to how we think about teaching and learning in schools and in higher education. while not everyone is convinced that e-learning has a place in educational institutions (zemsky & massy, 2004), many contributors provide insights into changes that are taking place around the world. as norris (2005, pp. 687–688) notes in the second volume of this collection: when it comes to online learning we have set our sights too low, by far. we have largely digitized our existing approaches to learning— paving the cow paths, as it were. most practices have focused on existing learning relationships and experiences, rather than on new experiences and value propositions that could be created for students, faculty, staff and other stakeholders. many institutions have failed to see e-learning infrastructures as part of emerging institutional and system-wide infrastructures that fuse academic and administrative processes, experiences, and value propositions. and many institutions have so far failed to create enterprise-wide strategies for leveraging these resources in new ways. one of the most thoughtful and insightful contributions in this set is by patricia rogers, who discusses “teacher-designers.” she observes that the promise of various technologies to “revolutionize” education has never really met this expectation. she argues: as one who researches and practices online distance learning, i believe the growth in instructional management systems (ims), new interactive objects and shared objects, the push for seamless integration of systems and coding standards, has more to do with recognizing and supporting teaching and learning than it does in teacher-proofing instruction. that is, the teacher-designer (rogers, 2002) and the learners are the focus of the new technologies, rather than a program-controlled delivery system. . . . it all boils down to learner needs, sound teaching, and appropriate instructional design, working with the characteristics of the variety of multiple media available to online learners to create an accessible and interactive environment for learning. (vol. 1, xxxiii) correspondence-based distance learning, common during the twentieth century, has been transformed by the advent of the internet and e-learning in the twenty-first century. today, according to the editors, “it is not a matter of whether or not all educators should take advantage of distance learning, but how journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 50 soon and in what way. it is no longer a question of whether or not distance learning will become one of the dominant forms of educational offerings across the world, but how soon and to what extent” (vol. 1, xiv). as an encyclopedia, this collection will be consulted in different ways. it provides information on geographical regions, pedagogy, technology, management, and global issues. the reader who considers the range, complexity, and innovation reported in these collected papers may reflect on what it all means. it is clear that e-learning has become a powerful, global educational phenomenon that is reshaping both the delivery of education as well as the nature of teaching and learning. as papert says in the foreword, it is not really appropriate now to talk about learning online, learning with technology, or learning with computers, just as we do not talk about learning with paper. the internet and computers are part of the mainstream of how we organize education so that “learners from any place in the world can now connect with, and interact with, anyone, anywhere at any time” (vol. 1, xiv). many educators are still adapting to this reality in terms of organization, teaching, learning, and policy. this comprehensive collection of papers on distance education from around the world is a recent addition to the idea group’s growing reference series on information science research. the aim of the encyclopedia of distance learning, according to its editors, is to address the needs of a broad audience of educators, trainers, administrators, librarians, human resource professionals, and instructional designers involved in all aspects of online learning. these four volumes will, i predict, become a standard reference at a time of increased convergence of traditional and internetbased teaching and learning. collectively, they provide an extensive map of the field in 2005 and a snapshot of its increasingly complex parts. ken stevens memorial university of newfoundland newfoundland, canada references crystal, d. (1997). the cambridge encyclopedia of language. cambridge, uk: cambridge university press. norris, d. (2005). driving systemic change with e-learning. in c. howard, et al. (eds.), encyclopedia of distance learning, vol. 2. hershey, pennsylvania: idea group reference. rogers, p. l. (ed.) (2002). designing instruction for technology-enhanced learning. hershey, pennsylvania: idea group publishing. zemsky, r., & massy, w. (2004). thwarted innovation: what happened to e-learning and why. final report for the weatherstation project of the learning alliance. university of pennsylvania, in cooperation with the thomson corp. lai, kwok-wing (ed.) (2001). e-learning: teaching and professional development with the internet. dunedin, new zealand: university of otago press (pp. 206). classroom and school applications of the internet and information and communication technologies (ict) to assist teaching and learning are now a major consideration in the professional development of teachers. for many teachers the place of ict in classrooms is not clear and ways in which they can enhance teaching and learning are not widely understood. how teachers and their schools are to make the journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 51 transformation from traditional classrooms to internet and ict-enhanced learning spaces is a challenge. many need encouragement to even consider the role of ict and the internet in their classrooms and, as the editor of this book notes, they need time in which to learn how to use what for many are still new technologies. the transition is not always easy, particularly for busy teachers who are not naturally drawn to new technologies. in this book kwok-wing lai has brought together a range of papers written by school and university teachers in new zealand. the ten chapters, all written by people in or associated with the school of education of the university of otago, are organized in three sections: the use of the internet and ict for the professional development of teachers; resources available on the internet for teaching and professional development; and ethical, social, and other issues around internet use in classrooms. the various otago authors are well-placed to observe the need for professional development in ict for new zealand teachers. lai notes that this book was, in itself, a professional development exercise for each of the contributors. the outcome will be useful for the teaching profession in this country. in his opening chapter lai notes, “research has documented positive outcomes of ict use in a variety of learning situations” (p. 9) and “it has been clearly documented in the literature that it is teachers’ attitudes towards technology, their beliefs in teaching and learning, as well as their styles of teaching that affect how students use technology and what sort of learning experience they will have” (p. 10). for me, one of the most important observations in this volume is on page 38: “we believe that the greatest potential of the web is its ability to support structured collaboration and conversation among a community of learners.” structured collaboration is a very important dimension in the work of many small schools in new zealand that are linked to one another through such networks as canta-tech and otagonet. within these electronic school district intranets, based on the internet, teaching and learning can be shared and thereby enhanced. this is now an important dimension of the educational experience of rural students in this country. at a micro or classroom level, structured interaction is also important. structured interaction that involves collaborative learning assisted by one or more teachers has the potential to greatly enrich the learning experiences of students. structured interaction identifies one of the fundamental reasons for enhancing teaching and learning with the web and with various other technologies. it is the potential for collaboration in both teaching and learning that computers in classrooms provide that is one of the most important reasons for their introduction to classrooms. nevertheless, a decision to engage in structured interaction, whether at the school-toschool level or within classrooms, requires rethinking both teacher and student roles and the ways learning is to be organized and supported. lai and his coauthors have covered many issues that will be of concern to teachers contemplating the introduction of ict in classrooms. there is a chapter on legal, ethical, and social issues surrounding “the wired school” and another on dealing with inappropriate material on journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 52 the internet along with various strategies that teachers and parents can use. lai himself is the author of the first two chapters which focus on the matter of ict and the professional development of teachers. together with his colleague and prominent online teacher ann trewern, he proceeds in the third chapter to outline a case for online learning as an alternative way of providing professional development for teachers. chapters on the development and evaluation of websites and on resources for teachers on the world wide web round out this useful volume. this book is about ict in the professional development of teachers and will be useful for many members of the profession as well as for teacher educators. the introduction of ict in classrooms challenges these traditional learning spaces and lai and his colleagues provide many insights into the implications of how teaching and learning are shaped by it. the book will be readily understood by teachers who are new to technological considerations in teaching and learning. it is written for teachers rather than for information technologists and, unlike many others in this field, it is written by new zealanders who draw on examples and case studies from this country. on another level this book will find a place in the professional and the continuing education of teachers. it draws on international scholarship in the field of e-learning, integrating it with local material. this volume deserves a place in every new zealand school, particularly those that have yet to develop programs for supporting teaching and learning using ict. ken stevens memorial university of newfoundland newfoundland, canada von prümmer, c. (2000). women and distance education: challenges and opportunities. london: routledgefalmer (pp. xx, 220). christine von prümmer has focussed on the potential of distance education to provide equal opportunities for women. in providing this focus, based on research undertaken at the german fern universitat (feu), an institution that provides a case study for this book, she has introduced me, and i suspect other readers, to the sociology of women in distance learning. issues of social class, mobility, minority women and distance learning, communication and the use of emerging learning technologies are all discussed. the author provides a considerable body of gender-based pedagogical insights into learning at a distance, supported by international research in which the uk’s open university (ou) features prominently. anyone developing or teaching a course at a distance will find this research data informative. prümmer has provided a tour de force of the impact of distance learning on women and, in doing so, opened up an important, but not widely discussed, area of the sociology of education and educational policy. this book is significant for me in two ways: sociological and pedagogical. on a sociological level, prümmer develops and intertwines the themes of equity and opportunity in this analysis of women in distance education. the traditional rigidities and social class basis of the german education system are outlined to demonstrate problems of social mobility—issues that will be familiar to researchers in the uk and in many commonwealth countries. fortunately, a glossary of german educational terms is provided. in bringing this relationship journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 53 into sharp relief, the author has focussed on a subject that has perhaps been overlooked by educational researchers because it is so obvious. women and distance education draws attention to the relationship between distance learning and women students, at a time when distance learning/ e-learning/tele-learning are becoming part of the educational mainstream through the integration of online and onsite instruction in schools, universities, and vocational training institutions. on a pedagogical level, prümmer draws attention to communication and learning styles in distance education and, in particular, the preferences of women students. tables quantifying preferences by gender in terms of modes of communication show some interesting differences that could, usefully, be noted by distance education course developers. this book is, however, primarily a sociology of education. a good deal of attention is given to problems in learning at a distance that face working-class and minority group women. issues of access and control permeate women and distance education in terms of the frequency of contact they have, as students, with distance learning universities (particularly the feu and ou). a chapter is devoted to distance education and the social mobility of women students and their “occupational goals,” their subject choices and their social class backgrounds. a good deal of material is presented here and this has the potential to stimulate comparative studies in other parts of the world. the role of distance learning in social mobility is an area in which more research could be encouraged. this book will, obviously, find a place in the literature of feminism and education and in the broader field of the sociology of education. as a distance educator, it has brought to my attention several previously overlooked sociological dimensions of teaching and learning at a distance and provided insight into gender differences regarding preferences in communication. ken stevens memorial university of newfoundland newfoundland, canada journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(2) 25 cultural dimensions of learning in online teacher education courses antony (tony) hunt, faculty of education, university of auckland sue tickner, faculty of education, university of auckland abstract aotearoa new zealand’s demographics are changing rapidly and, as a consequence, there is now greater diversity in the tertiary student population. this diversity is evident in the continuing growth of māori and pasifika student participation. teacher education is increasingly emphasising social competencies and intercultural awareness. online pedagogies based on sociocultural methods require openness to difference, understanding, and sharing; but it is a challenge to support productive learning communities that span diverse cultural backgrounds. this study began with a literature review, and then the eight dimensions in the cultural dimensions of learning framework (cdlf; parrish & lindervanberschot, 2010) survey were modified for use with online courses. the modified survey was trialled with 112 students and four lecturers in 11 online teacher education courses offered by a new zealand university. although respondents exhibited a wide range of choice in the survey, the participants were not sufficiently diverse to reveal any differences that might be attributed to culture. it was concluded that the cdlf could provide a useful stimulus to promote discussion amongst learners and teachers and that this discussion could raise awareness of the diversity of approaches to learning that could have a cultural basis. however, the lack of attention to indigenous worldviews and the limited evidence of reliability in the cdlf scales suggest that further empirical research of this survey instrument is unlikely to be worthwhile. keywords: distance education; electronic learning; online learning; pedagogy; multicultural education; culture; ethnicity; learning preferences introduction this paper arises from the desire of the curriculum design and development group in a new zealand faculty of education to better understand the learning needs of our increasingly diverse student population, and to give them more appropriate online experiences. a literature search was conducted, and an initial study was set up to investigate one approach that emerged from that literature. the paper describes issues that were identified from the literature review, and findings from a trial survey that aimed to identify links between learning preference and cultural orientation. although culture is crucial to this paper, culture itself remains very loosely defined. warschauer (2009) comments that culture has “a long and inglorious history in educational policy and practice” (p. x) and draws attention to many injustices that have been meted out by members of dominant groups. although nationality, ethnicity, and language have traditionally been perceived hunt, a. n., tickner, s. 26 as defining features of culture, working definitions are pluralistic, shifting, and contested. lahdenperä (2000) identifies seven dimensions of culture: cultural artefacts, repeated patterns of behaviour, collective religious conceptions and belief systems, ways of thinking, emotions, ways of communicating, and relating to one’s surroundings and self-concept. this socialconstructionist view of culture permeates current discourse and much of the literature discussed in this paper. growing student diversity according to the royal society of new zealand (2013), there has been an unprecedented increase in the ethnic, cultural, social, and linguistic diversity of the new zealand population, including “over 160 different languages spoken in new zealand, while auckland is one of the most culturally diverse cities in the world” (para. 1). in common with universities in many other countries, new zealand tertiary institutions are facing an increasingly diverse student population. across new zealand, the proportion of the indigenous māori and large pasifika populations participating in tertiary study is increasing, as is the proportion and range of students from more diverse ethnic backgrounds. at the start of this study in 2010, ministry of education statistics (wensvoort, 2011) showed that the proportion of students in tertiary education identifying as european had dropped to 59% from 68% in 2000. the proportions of other ethnic groups had increased, with 18% identifying as māori, 8% as pasifika, 18% as asian, and 5% as from other groups. regardless of ethnicity, most students were citizens or permanent residents, but the figures included a significant number of international students, of whom 72% were asian. in 2011, the faculty of education at the university of auckland enrolled 256 students with foreign citizenship and, in 2012 there were 330. these students came from a wide range of countries, including britain, canada, and the united states as well as asia, the middle east, africa, and europe. the most recent statistics published by the new zealand ministry of education (2015) note the trend: compared to 10 years earlier, the age-standardised participation rate has been increasing for bachelors and postgraduate qualifications and decreasing for non-degree qualifications. māori and pasifika have higher participation rates in non-degree qualifications than europeans and asians. differences among the ethnic groups in the rates for higher-level qualifications have narrowed. (p. 3) growth in online learning at the same time as ethnic diversity is increasing in tertiary student populations, online learning is becoming more popular for both distance and on-campus students (guiney, 2011; mason, 2007). these two trends are strongly related. goodfellow and lamy (2009) suggest there are three reasons for the growing diversity in tertiary education: 1. national policies to increase participation in higher education 2. the expansion of transnational e-learning, including enrolments of foreign students and staff development of corporate, governmental, agency, and other “non-educational” providers 3. the spread of new media communication being incorporated into course design (see also rogers, graham, & mayes, 2007). for these reasons “cultural diversity” may be understood to incorporate a wide range of differences. thus, in examining the causes of this diversity, we can see that online learning may attempt to provide for the range of educational needs of learners, whilst also encouraging some of that diversity. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(2) 27 terminology for this study we have adopted some working definitions. culture is a complex and multi-dimensional construct that represents the shared values, beliefs, and basic assumptions of groups of people. it includes elements such as language, customs, social behaviour, and religion, and it influences how individuals relate to the world. online education refers to formal courses of study that include significant use of the internet as a means of communication and participation in educational activities and interaction. it includes courses that are conducted entirely at a distance and those that may be considered to be blended—for which students also attend face-to-face classes or group meetings. within this scope, this study is concerned with courses that are carried out as part of either initial teacher education (also known as pre-service teacher training), or further education for practicing teachers (also known in new zealand as professional learning and development, [pld]). literature review the current study followed a literature review which investigated current understandings of the influence of culture and ethnicity on student success in online learning. this was carried out by an international undergraduate student who was awarded a scholarship to work with the authors under the university’s summer scholar programme during the 2010–2011 vacation. the specific objective of this review was to carry out a search for literature that focused on the influence of culture and ethnicity on student learning online, and to create an annotated bibliography relating to factors that are relevant to flexible and online teaching and learning in aotearoa new zealand, particularly in higher education. the research questions were: 1. what research has been carried out into the influence of culture and ethnicity on flexible and online learning? 2. how can the evidence from this research inform the practice of flexible and online teaching in aotearoa new zealand, particularly in higher education? literature was identified largely through keyword searching of the eric database and google scholar. papers to be read in full were then selected from abstracts, with relevant material selected from that subset. further material was identified from bibliographies and known new zealand sources including the ministry of education, ako aotearoa, and the tertiary education commission. by the end of this review, 327 literature references had been recorded. of this number, four were books; three were web pages; seven were reports; and the remainder were journal articles, book sections, and conference papers. of these, 43 papers could not be obtained in the time available and 41 of the remaining papers were considered to be of high relevance. major studies there are already a number of literature reviews covering culture or ethnicity in online learning environments; for example, rutherford and kerr (2008) and mcanany (2009). mcanany organises her review of prior research findings into three principles: “do no harm”, “know your learner”, and “incorporate global concepts”. the “do no harm” principle cautions against creating instructional material, including phrases or images, that might evoke an unwanted emotional response in people of different cultures and that, in turn, could impede their learning. for example, representations of alcohol or animals can be offensive to certain groups. the “know your learner” principle suggests that it is important to obtain a clear conception of the target audience who will receive the message, because the nature of the message received is determined by their cultural context, expectations, and experiences. the third principle emphasises the hunt, a. n., tickner, s. 28 importance of incorporating global concepts and images in instructional messages to educate and broaden the world view of all learners; for example, by providing references to world-wide historical events, works of art, and other international events and artefacts. in her paper, mcanany (2009) provides a wealth of such practical advice for designers of inclusive learning environments. the study by rutherford and kerr (2008) arose from research for the development of an online module for french-speaking canadians (e-pedagogies interculturelles) and specifically aims to provide recommendations to teachers and designers to help them create inclusive educational design. rutherford and kerr provide a clear review of the field to 2008, and an excellent overview of the models discussed later. they also review other and older frameworks, including the seven aspects of flexibility proposed by collis, vingerhoets, and moonen (1997) in their multidimensional model, which argues that learner choice is at the heart of inclusive design. papers with theoretical frameworks most of the remaining literature identified in our search fell into one of two types. some were case studies with little or no theoretical grounding, but the majority of the papers applied or adapted one or more aspects of the main theoretical frameworks that had been developed to conceptualise cultural factors or to aid in culturally inclusive learning design. the most notable of these theoretical frameworks are described below. hofstede’s model of cultural differences one of the most widely used frameworks for studying cross-cultural communication, originally in corporate settings, is based on work conducted by geert hofstede (2008), hofstede and hofstede (2005) and colleagues. hofstede developed a four-dimensional model of cultural differences which he claimed characterise cultural behaviour originating from different societies. the four dimensions are: small versus large power distance (relationship to authority), individualism versus collectivism, masculinity versus femininity, and tolerance of uncertainty and ambiguity versus uncertainty avoidance. later he added a fifth dimension—long-term versus short-term orientation—as a result of studying asian societies imbued with confucian thought and philosophy (rutherford & kerr, 2008). this framework forms the basis of many later models. cultural dimensions of learning framework the cultural dimensions of learning framework (cdlf) (parrish & linder-vanberschot, 2010) builds on hofstede’s framework. it describes eight key cultural dimensions regarding social relationships, epistemological beliefs, and temporal perceptions, and illustrates their spectrums of variability as they might be exhibited in instructional situations. the survey, which the authors based on the cdlf, is intended to illuminate the range of preferences among learners (see figure 1). the survey is also proposed as a useful tool for educational providers to better understand their own cultural biases and to account for them in their practice. highversus low-context cultures morse (2003) applied a framework, originally devised by hall and hall (1990), in which cultures were compared according to their dependence on context. high-context cultures (generally asian) place a high value on non-verbal and situational elements of communication, whereas low-context (generally western) cultures rely on the communication itself being explicit. in online discussions, high-context groups tend to be more “inwardly oriented”, meaning these students value the time afforded by computer-mediated communication to think more about their own contributions, whereas low-context cultures tend to value communication with peers (rutherford & kerr, 2008, p. 69). journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(2) 29 inclusive pedagogical model mcloughlin’s (2007) inclusive pedagogical model claims that learning is a form of acculturation and that sociocultural approaches are most likely to facilitate the recognition and appreciation of diversity. new zealand studies the annotated bibliography published by the ministry of education in new zealand (guiney, 2012) points out that international and new zealand literature on e-learning and non-english speaking learners tends to focus on the differences between asian and western learners. international writers draw attention to the problems that asian students encounter in using the english language, coping with a learner-centred pedagogy, and feeling culturally inhibited in their relationships with other learners. in contrast, the author perceives that new zealand research tends to report participation in online learning as being a positive experience for asian students. despite this research on asian learners, the consideration of culturally responsive education in this country has focused on māori and, to a lesser extent, on pasifika students. a number of studies were carried out in new zealand, funded by the government’s e-learning collaborative development fund (ecdf), which arose out of the tertiary e-learning framework and operated from 2003 to around 2007. although the new zealand council for educational research (nzcer; 2004) reviewed a wide range of issues related to e-learning in the general tertiary context, including one section entitled “māori and e-learning”, little could be identified as a cultural dimension. the nzcer document was followed by a report (institutes of technology and polytechnics of new zealand, 2005) of a hui (conference) held under the auspices of the institutes of technology and polytechnics of new zealand (itpnz) specifically to discuss e-learning with māori learners. cultural issues were, inevitably, a focus of the discussions involving experts in māori learning and in e-learning, and the report identifies specific issues of pedagogy and philosophy that are of value to e-educators. a companion report, also published by itpnz, identified critical success factors for effective use of e-learning by pacific learners (koloto, katoanga, & tatila, 2006). the latter is grounded in case studies and interviews with learners and teachers, and provided an understanding of issues of e-learning from a pasifika viewpoint that led to recommendations for practice at institution and course levels. the recommendations in koloto et al. (2006) are similar to those for the compulsory education sector presented in quality teaching for diverse students in schooling: best evidence synthesis iteration (alton-lee, 2003), which stresses the importance of making links between the cultural contexts experienced by children at home and at school. another ecdf-funded project (jeffrey, arkins, laurs, & mann, 2006) studied students from different ethnic groups and their learning characteristics—such as their achievement, motivation and preferences for listening, and collaboration or working alone. european students were rated higher than others on independence, intrinsic motivation and a preference for working alone. more recently, a literature review focused on e-learning environments in the context of te reo māori and kaupapa māori education has been published (tiakiwai & tiakiwai, 2010). this review “highlights the importance of incorporating māori cultural practices into e-learning” (p. 3). online learning cultures in their introduction to an influential volume examining learning cultures in online learning, goodfellow and lamy (2009) draw attention to the view of culture shared by models such as hunt, a. n., tickner, s. 30 those of hofstede (2008), hall and hall (1990), and others discussed above. they argue that these models stem from an “essentialist” viewpoint that permeates most cultural research, and in which individuals are described in terms of cultural attributes where culture is seen as: . . . the manifestation in individuals of all the values, beliefs and ways of thinking and doing things that come with the memberships of particular national, tribal, ethnic, civic or religious communities. culture, in this view, is a consequence of geographical, historical, climatic, religious, political, linguistic and other behaviour and attitude-shaping influences that are assumed to act on everyone who shares the same physical and social environment. (p. 7) these frameworks have provided useful practical guidance for educators seeking to design online learning to meet the assumed characteristics of learners (see, for example, edmundson, 2007), but because this standpoint is usually conducted from a western, anglophone viewpoint, it raises many issues of ethnocentrism. in contrast, goodfellow and lamy (2009) promote a problematised and multi-faceted view of culture and investigation of the notion of “learning cultures”. only recently have internet cultures started to be theorised on their own terms. the views in this edited book encompass “cultural learning styles” (the preferences of individuals), “cultures of learning” (the norms and values associated with learning in specific institutions), and “learning cultures”. one of the contributors, ess (2009), argues that cultural identity is a hybrid that has many more dimensions than nationality or mother tongue. he also views online environments as culturally coded spaces that invite the formation of “third cultures” based on the combination of elements from different cultural traditions in which individuals socialise to form their own identity(s). in carrying out this study we have attempted to hold to this complex view of culture, and to remain aware that online learning involves the interplay of a large number of cultures, including those that result from the multiple communities of the learners and of the teachers, the prior learning (and teaching) experiences of these participants, the culture of the institution, and that of the internet itself. in teacher education we must also add the culture of the profession to which the participants belong, or are preparing to join. according to major (2005), exploring and understanding one’s own cultural, linguistic, and ethnic identities before examining those of others is an essential starting point for multicultural education programmes. while that personal study is now an important component of initial teacher education, it is our view that online educational environments bring additional cultural challenges. as a consequence, we established a study to explore cultural dimensions of online learning in teacher education and to develop an approach in which we apply the understanding gained to improve the experience and outcomes for students participating in this mode of learning. our trial cdlf survey our survey of the literature convinced us and our colleagues that there was a need for greater recognition of cultural diversity in the design and teaching of online courses, particularly those targeting students from “non-traditional” backgrounds (who are increasingly sought by the university). the literature reviewed above provides strong support for the view that one appropriate strategy for a culturally diverse group of students is to engage lecturers and students in discussions that would reveal the cultural values of each individual. current practice in initial teacher education is to engage students in identifying their own values and beliefs, and it is appropriate to extend this to the online environment. this extension fits well with the needs of teacher education, where students are preparing to take on the teacher’s role in a multicultural school or centre. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(2) 31 if, as is claimed, the cdlf (parrish & linder-vanberschot, 2010) helps designers and lecturers to acknowledge and better understand the cultures and norms that they and their students bring to learning, the framework and its survey should be a useful diagnostic tool for professional learning. lecturers and teacher education students in online education courses could use such a tool to reflect on their own preferences and use that understanding to enhance their learning. by examining their prior conceptions, participants may also be better able to understand the challenges of working in inter-cultural environments. by clarifying their beliefs and those of their students, lecturers would also be in a better position to plan effectively to meet their students’ diverse needs and to respond to students as the course progresses. research questions the questions therefore became: (a) can the cdlf provide students and lecturers in online teacher education courses with relevant data to examine their personal preferences for learning and teaching? and (b) how could this approach be developed in practice? therefore, in the initial phase of the study a trial of the survey was planned with a group of students and staff to answer the following questions:  how do participants respond to the items?  do participants display diversity in their responses?  do the responses display identifiable differences based on cultural and other factors?  does the pattern of responses support the eight cultural dimensions to which they have been related? the second phase of the study, dependent on the outcome of the first, was to design and trial tools based on these findings to provide practical ways of engaging students and lecturers in an examination of the values that may affect their participation in online learning. procedures in the first phase, students and teaching staff participating in online courses in the faculty of education were invited to anonymously complete the online cdlf survey. we intended to analyse the survey data to reveal patterns of response and compare sub-groups of participants. the intention was to also collect sufficient data over time to enable a factor analysis as the first step in developing an instrument for further use. approval for the study was obtained from the university’s human participants ethics committee at the end of 2011, and lecturers of the online courses offered in the first semester of 2012 were contacted and asked to agree to their students being approached through their course’s moodle website. this process was repeated in the second semester. a total of 140 students in the 11 courses were invited to participate. parrish and linder-vanberschot constructed the cdlf survey with 36 items that were designed to measure eight dimensions of learners’ views about learning in the three areas of social relationships, epistemological beliefs, and temporal perceptions. these dimensions are explained in detail by parrish and linder-vanberschot (2010) and are summarised in table 1. by combining scores for the items relating to each dimension it was intended that users could get an indication of the degree to which their views fall towards one end of the dimension or the other. hunt, a. n., tickner, s. 32 table 1 the cultural dimension of learning framework cultural dimension related questions social relationships a equality and authority how is inequality handled? how is status demonstrated and respect given? what interactions are appropriate for those of unequal status? b individualism and collectivism which prevails—the interests of the individual or the interest of the group? to what degree are interpersonal relationships valued? c nurture and challenge which is the more important set of goals— cooperation and security or recognition and advancement? which achieves better learning outcomes—supportive acts or challenging acts? epistemological beliefs d stability seeking and uncertainty acceptance how is uncertainty dealt with? is it avoided or accepted? is structure assumed to be more important than flexibility? what is the status of knowledge—established or in a process of development? e logic argumentation and being reasonable how are arguments developed? which is more important—logical consistency or practical outcomes? how is disagreement managed? f causality and complex systems (analysis and holism) how is causality assigned typically? is it assigned to a single, most likely source, or is it assigned to the broader context? temporal perceptions g clock time and event time do people conform to an external measure of time, or do they allow the event at hand to unfold in its own time? which are more important—deadlines or relationships? h linear time and cyclical time do people see time as a path and see goals as necessary destinations, or do they see time as a pattern of interlocking cycles into which they step in and out over the course of a life? adapted from parrish and linder-vanberschot (2010, pp. 7–9) the survey was trialled in the original format designed by parrish and linder-vanberschot (2010), with only minor changes to reword items that were specifically oriented to face-to-face or classroom environments. items 2, 3, and 4 were modified: “class discussions” (q. 2, 4) was changed to “discussion forums”, “class discussion” (q. 3) changed to “online discussion”, “classroom time” (q. 31) changed to “course activities”, and “each day” (q. 31) changed to “as the course progresses.” these items (see table 2) were coded into the quiz module in the moodle learning management system. in the second semester, questions were added to gather feedback on the survey itself. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(2) 33 table 2 the first four items in the cdlf survey used in this study, based on the “survey on culturally based learning preferences” designed by parrish and linder-vanberschot (2009b) instructions: select the number that best indicates the level to which you agree with one or the other statement. selecting 1 indicates that you strongly agree with the left-hand statement, selecting 10 indicates that you agree strongly with the right-hand statement. selecting other numbers indicates lesser degrees of agreement with one side or the other. 0 example: open discussions in online forums are critical for learning online. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 selecting 3 indicates that the left-hand statement describes your opinion best, but only to a moderate degree. students should read in an online course and not interact unless asked to do so. 1 students should feel comfortable engaging in dialogue if they disagree with their teacher—it is part of learning. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 students should not openly disagree with or challenge their teacher—it disrupts learning. 2* discussion forums are for trying out new ideas, testing one’s knowledge, and asking questions. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 before entering discussion forums, students should have mastered the course content so that they will have minimal questions. 3* students should participate in the decision on what is discussed and what activities occur in the course. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 the teacher’s assignments and activities defined in the syllabus should be followed without deviation. 4* students should feel comfortable contributing to online discussion whenever they have something to add. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 after the teacher has presented material, students should think about it carefully before contributing to online discussion. *these items have been modified are marked with an asterisk and the new wording is italicised. note: the survey was administered online. all invited participants were given access to this survey and the participant information through a hyperlink which they received in an email and was permanently accessible from their course moodle site. data collected by moodle did not provide any information that could identify the person completing the survey. although the data was downloaded as a text file, it was discovered that, owing to a software error, not all fields could be accessed in this way and so an assistant manually transcribed the missing codes. some initial calculations were carried out in a spreadsheet before being further analysed in spss statistical analysis software. participants in 2012 and 2013, researchers received 112 responses to the survey. details of the respondents are shown in table 3. as noted earlier, 140 students were enrolled in these courses, making an 80% return rate for students. the far greater number of female respondents (91%) reflects the small number of male students enrolled in the courses—a common characteristic of initial teacher education. when students were asked to state the ethnic group or groups with which they identified, the majority (70%) identified themselves as european, pākehā, 1 or from a specific 1 pākehā is a māori term for a european, and is used by many non-māori in new zealand. hunt, a. n., tickner, s. 34 european country. the data about programmes of study indicates that students in both initial teacher education and further study are represented. lecturers teaching online courses were invited to respond, but only four did so. their inclusion with the students helps to maintain the lecturers’ confidentiality. it was interesting that, despite the length and complexity of the survey, only 15 of the cdlf items were unanswered out of a total 4032 items over all respondents. findings the demographic data presented in table 3 shows that the sample was overwhelmingly female, student, and of european ethnicity. therefore, it was not possible to seek significant differences between sub-groups (such as men and women or different ethnicities). the means, standard deviations, and distribution of responses for each item and related information are summarised in appendix a by using box plots for each of the eight dimensions. the distribution of average scores for each dimension is presented in appendix b, following parrish and lindervanberschot’s (2009a) recommendation that users determine where their average scores lie for each dimension (in the middle, left, or right). in this way, scores for items were also combined for each dimension, showing the distribution of respondents who placed themselves at either end or in the middle of each dimension. to this end the mean score of items in a dimension was calculated and a decision made about which third of the range they fell into. the distribution of these scores is shown by bar charts in appendix b. table 3 demographic details of initial respondents number % total responses 112 100 role students 108 96.4 lecturers or tutors 4 3.6 sex female 102 91.1 male 10 8.9 age under 21 yr 1 0.9 21–30 yr. 31 27.7 31–40 yr. 34 30.4 41–50 yr. 29 25.9 over 50 yr 17 15.2 ethnicity european/pākehā 78 69.6 māori 6 5.4 pasifika 8 7.1 asian 15 13.4 latin american 1 0.9 middle eastern 1 0.9 none stated 3 2.7 programme of study bachelor 35 31.3 graduate diploma 26 23.2 post-graduate diploma 22 19.6 journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(2) 35 masters 23 20.5 cop 2 1.8 not stated 4 3.6 to provide an indication of the degree of consistency in individuals’ choices for the items in each dimension, a bivariate correlation matrix was calculated to show relationships amongst all of the items. for simplicity, appendix c shows only the correlations between items in each of the eight dimensions, for which strong relationships could be expected. the distributions of scores and the average responses are of interest because one purpose of the survey was to highlight differences on each of the eight dimensions. in general the distributions of scores for most items (which can be seen in the box plots) were wide, but usually skewed to one extreme. this may be taken to indicate an average preference. some individual items in a dimension have a noticeably smaller spread of responses, indicating more agreement between respondents. diversity of responses for any dimension is valuable as an indication that learners may differ in their personal preferences. agreement between respondents may indicate that they share similar beliefs or that the items cannot distinguish between their beliefs for a number of reasons. we cannot deduce, from this data, the extent to which individual students’ responses are consistent within a dimension. although diversity of responses in any dimension is valuable as an indication that learners may differ in their personal preferences, consistent response by an individual is also important. consistency across all items in any one dimension would suggest that the questions may be measuring the same attribute; some indication of this can be gained from the bivariate correlations. the overall trends apparent in the box plots are more clearly seen in the bar charts; figure 1 shows box plots and bar charts for the first two dimensions, and appendices a and b provide them for all eight dimensions. a equality and authority how is inequality handled? how is status demonstrated and respect given? what interactions are appropriate for those of unequal status? b individualism and collectivism which prevails—the interests of the individual or the interest of the group? to what degree are interpersonal relationships valued? hunt, a. n., tickner, s. 36 box plots for individual items authority oriented collectivist equality oriented individualistic bar charts for combined items equality oriented authority oriented individualistic collectivist figure 1 the measures of the first two dimensions in box plots and bar charts (see appendices a and b) if we accept, at face value, that the items represent aspects of the theoretical dimensions then these results indicate that, on average, respondents were clearly oriented more towards nurturing than challenging, and slightly less towards equality than authority. there was a clear tendency to accept uncertainty over seeking stability, and less tendency to select event time over clock time. the other dimensions were, on average, more balanced. an overview can be gained from mean scores and standard deviations for each dimension shown in table 4, which combines results for all items related to each dimension. the standard deviations indicate the spread of individual preferences. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(2) 37 table 4 mean scores for each dimension for all respondents, with a midpoint of 5.5 dimension n m sd equality — authority 112 3.11 1.36 individualism — collectivism 112 4.32 1.46 nurture — challenge 112 2.74 1.04 stability seeking — uncertainty acceptance 112 7.26 1.30 logic argumentation — being reasonable 111 5.43 1.39 causality — complex systems (analysis — holism) 111 5.52 1.59 clock time — event time 111 6.68 1.63 linear time — cyclical time 112 5.15 1.02 note: scores lie in the range 1–10. a mean of 1 indicates unanimous selection of the first pole (1) of the dimension while a score of 10 indicates unanimous selection of the second pole (10). the middle point of the scale is 5.5 the correlation matrices (see appendix c) show the degree to which individual students’ choices for items were related in each of the eight theoretical dimensions. while some correlations are statistically significant, there are few strong relationships and little or no correlation appears between many items, suggesting that a number of the items might not be indicators of these dimensions. an additional problem relating to the face validity of dichotomous scales is particularly important in aotearoa new zealand, where the treaty of waitangi formally recognises the importance of indigenous world views. fields, davis, and hartnett (2015) clarify the relevance of this in relation to online learning, citing the māori leader durie (2011). the cdlf was constructed from a non-indigenous perspective and its apparently linear scale could be open to wider interpretation from an indigenous perspective. take, for example, the second dimension (as described earlier) and the interpretation of the midpoint of the scale (5.5): individualism and collectivism which prevails—the interests of the individual or the interest of the group? to what degree are interpersonal relationships valued? both the good of the whole community and the value of relationships that are personally relevant to each individual are important in some cultures, including indigenous māori. a choice of midpoint may be interpreted as a wish for both in equal measure. however, it could also be interpreted as a wish for neither, or that the respondent does not perceive that they are relevant. in other words, the 1–10 scale might be a simple linear measure that is wildly inaccurate when used on a multi-dimensional construct. hunt, a. n., tickner, s. 38 discussion the data gathered provide some interesting indications of the apparent preferences of the participants. the participants expressed a range of responses to the items, some of which may indicate differing preferences to inform online teaching approaches. there appears to have been agreement on some dimensions. all participants were involved in teacher education and most have a european heritage, which may explain some of the similarity in responses. the apparent agreement may be a result of a lack of cultural diversity in the group or beliefs shared for other reasons, but could also indicate that the items cannot differentiate between respondents’ beliefs. however, the lack of robust correlations in the correlation matrix throws doubt on the validity of a number of items as indicators of the eight theoretical dimensions. parrish and lindervanberschot had called for further validation. subsequent to trialling the survey as reported here, information was received from a researcher at maastricht university who also could find no other work on the cdlf survey and had analysed a survey of 1850 students, finding little evidence of the reliability in the eight sub-scales (d. tempelaar, personal communication, april 18, 2014). the authors of this study therefore conclude that this survey is not suited to describing and comparing groups of learners. however, the cdlf survey may be a useful pedagogic strategy that continues to fit the intention of its designers, which was to promote self-reflection by helping students to relate their own beliefs to the cdlf. this strategy is recommended by the survey designers, who propose the following questions for respondents to consider along with their scores (parrish & linder-vanberschot, 2009a): questions to ask yourself: do these results feel accurate? in what situations might they not be accurate? do these preferences explain why i enjoy some learning experiences but not others? how can i adapt my learning habits to reflect my learning preferences? how can my instructor adapt his/her teaching style to reflect my learning preferences? to what extent are my learning preferences similar to or different from the other members of the learning community? (p. 2) at an individual level, therefore, analysis of responses could still provide a useful basis for participants in online education to consider their own preferences and compare these with those of their peers, while also facilitating critique by applying indigenous world views. by observing and facilitating the students’ interpretation and debate, teacher educators could become more aware of the relevant attitudes of their students. the ensuing discussion has the potential to make learning and teaching more effective in a programme or course. conclusion the opportunities for digital technologies to connect students in open, distance, and flexible learning with their lecturers and peers continue to grow. nevertheless, using this technological connectivity effectively to engage and support e-learners from diverse cultural backgrounds is not a simple task. this view is reinforced by the literature reviewed in this paper. it remains a challenge (particularly in the short timeframes of a teacher education programme) to nurture productive communities of learners so that they are equipped to maximise the potential benefits from the sociocultural pedagogies that are usually aligned with e-learning. there is work to be done to design and provide education that is relevant to the context and culture of the increasing journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(2) 39 diversity of learners. this is particularly important for universities in new zealand, which has a super-diversity of languages (royal society of new zealand, 2013). it appears from the study reported in this paper that there may well be differences in the way people from different cultures approach learning, but it’s not a simple matter. the essentialist descriptions provide hints and suggestions about possible ways to approach the problems of teaching in these conditions, but they also distract when they reinforce misperceptions of culture as monolithic and predictable. rutherford and kerr point out that “we all belong to several cultural groups and our individual cultural identities are constructed gradually through the interaction of these different cultural layers” (2008, citing collis, 1999 p. 69). it is therefore important that lecturers and course designers become aware of differences—particularly potentially offensive or isolating aspects—so they can avoid them when designing online learning and related teaching. all educators need to be aware of the cultural values of the teaching and learning environment that they create or promote, and this is perhaps even more important in virtual learning environments. we believe that one practical way of achieving this cultural awareness is to reveal the hidden assumptions of all participants and of the online environment itself. making some of these assumptions and differences explicit by sharing students’ personal experiences may be a constructive way to begin. this paper has described initial work on one possible approach using the cdlf, while also questioning the validity of its eight dimensions and its simple scale. acknowledgements the authors acknowledge support from niki davis, editor-inchief of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. we also acknowledge the contributions of nirroshini jayakumaran, the summer scholar who worked on the literature survey, and the students and colleagues who participated in the survey. references alton-lee, a. 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(2010). cultural dimensions of learning: addressing the challenges of multicultural instruction. international review of research in open and distance learning, 11(2), 1–19. retrieved from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/809/1553 rogers, c. p., graham, c. r., & mayes, c. t. (2007). cultural competence and instructional design: exploration research into the delivery of online instruction cross-culturally. educational technology research & development, 55(2), 197–217. royal society of new zealand. (2013). languages in aotearoa new zealand. retrieved from http://www.royalsociety.org.nz/expert-advice/papers/yr2013/languages-in-aotearoa-newzealand/ rutherford, a. g., & kerr, b. (2008). an inclusive approach to online learning environments: models and resources. turkish online journal of distance education, 9(2), 64–85. tiakiwai, s.-j., & tiakiwai, h. (2010). a literature review focused on virtual learning environments (vles) and e-learning in the context of te reo māori and kaupapa māori education. wellington: [kiore enterprises ltd] for the ministry of education. retrieved from www.educationcounts.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/72670/936_litrev-vlesfinalv2.pdf warschauer, m. (2009). foreword. in r. goodfellow & m.-n. lamy (eds.), learning cultures in online education (pp. x–xii). london: continuum. http://web.archive.org/web/20140308055003/http:/www.minedu.govt.nz/~/media/minedu/files/educationsectors/tertiaryeducation/nzcerfinalreport.pdf http://web.archive.org/web/20140308055003/http:/www.minedu.govt.nz/~/media/minedu/files/educationsectors/tertiaryeducation/nzcerfinalreport.pdf https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/series/2531/profile-and-trends-2014 http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/809/1553 http://www.royalsociety.org.nz/expert-advice/papers/yr2013/languages-in-aotearoa-new-zealand/ http://www.royalsociety.org.nz/expert-advice/papers/yr2013/languages-in-aotearoa-new-zealand/ http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/72670/936_litrev-vles-finalv2.pdf http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/72670/936_litrev-vles-finalv2.pdf hunt, a. n., tickner, s. 42 wensvoort, m. (2011). tertiary education enrolments—2010. wellington: ministry of education. retrieved from http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/101399/tertiary-educationenrolments-2010.pdf biographical notes antony (tony) hunt t.hunt@auckland.ac.nz tony hunt is an honorary research fellow in the school of learning, development and professional practice of the university of auckland faculty of education and social work, from which he retired recently as a senior lecturer. his teaching and research interests have focused on e-learning, educational technology, pedagogy, and teacher education. he has also worked in a professional development role in the faculty with the former centre for educational design and development, which he managed for a number of years. before working at the university of auckland he was a senior lecturer at the auckland college of education, an educational media specialist with the inner london education authority, and a secondary school teacher in london and auckland. sue tickner s.tickner@auckland.ac.nz sue tickner is educational designer at the university of auckland’s faculty of education and social work. her research interests are in educational design, online communities and collaborative technologies, and professional development for e-learning. she has worked in online and distance education and educational development for over 25 years, mostly in the united kingdom. before coming to new zealand she was a staff developer at the university of glasgow in scotland. sue has participated in many research projects in e-learning both in new zealand and with european partners. she has also worked at stirling university in scotland and as a tutor with the uk open university. hunt, a. n., & tickner, s. (2015). cultural dimensions of learning in online teacher education. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(2), [25–47]. http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/101399/tertiary-education-enrolments-2010.pdf http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/101399/tertiary-education-enrolments-2010.pdf mailto:t.hunt@auckland.ac.nz mailto:s.tickner@auckland.ac.nz journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(2) 43 appendix a: distribution of survey scores for individual items in box plots for each of the eight dimensions authority oriented equality oriented collectivist individualistic challenging nurturing uncertainty acceptance stability-seeking reasonable logical focus on systems & situations focus on causality hunt, a. n., tickner, s. 44 event focus clock focus cyclical time oriented linear time oriented journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(2) 45 appendix b: distribution of average survey scores for each dimension equality oriented authority oriented individualistic collectivist nurturing challenging stability-seeking uncertainty acceptance logical reasonable focus on causality focus on systems and situations hunt, a. n., tickner, s. 46 clock focus event focus linear time oriented cyclical time oriented journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 19(2) 47 appendix c: correlations between scores on items in each of the survey’s eight dimensions equality — authority item q1 q2 q3 q1 1 q2 0.36 ** 1 q3 0.21 * 0.14 1 individualism — collectivism item q4 q5 q6 q7 q4 1 q5 0.10 1 q6 0.31 * 0.36 ** 1 q7 -0.05 0.18 0.16 1 nurture — challenge item q8 q9 q10 q11 q12 q8 1 q9 0.02 1 q10 0.06 0.27 ** 1 q11 0.10 0.21 * 0.36 ** 1 q12 0.21 * 0.11 0.00 -0.04 1 stability seeking — uncertainty acceptance item q13 q14 q15 q16 q17 q18 q13 1 q14 0.29** 1 q15 0.27** 0.53** 1 q16 0.22* 0.40** 0.42** 1 q17 0.30** 0.36** 0.36** 0.34** 1 q18 -0.14 0.12 0.09 -0.01 0.12 1 logic argumentation — being reasonable item q19 q20 q21 q19 1 q20 0.10 1 q21 0.05 0.16 1 causality — complex systems/analysis — holism item q22 q23 q24 q25 q22 1 q23 0.11 1 q24 0.31** 0.05 1 q25 0.30** 0.18 0.04 1 clock time — event time item q26 q27 q28 q29 q26 1 q27 0.52** 1 q28 0.30** 0.26** 1 q29 0.20* 0.06 0.25** 1 n = 112 * significant with p<0.05 ** significant with p<0.01 linear time — cyclical time item q30 q31 q32 q33 q34 q35 q 36 q30 1 q31 0.42 ** 1 q32 0.10 -0.03 1 q33 -0.05 -0.19 0.07 1 q34 0.22 * 0.07 0.02 0.02 1 q35 -0.04 -0.15 -0.16 -0.01 0.12 1 q36 0.21* 0.12 0.04 0.15 -0.05 -0.02 1 this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ it gives me great pleasure and pride to be writing an introduction for the first issue of the journal of distance learning. the pleasure is personal. it comes from seeing a project with which i have been involved for several years coming to fruition. the pride derives from being involved in an organisation, the distance e d u c t i o n association of new zealand (de a n z), which continues to grow and develop and is prepared to support initiatives which involve some degree of risk. f r o m i t s inception in 1984, deanz, in accordance with its constitutional aims and objectives, has used a publication as a vehicle to disseminate information about distance education. the deanz newsletter, bulletin and flier have served this purpose well in the past. the n e e d for a profe ssional journal of international calibre was identified by the d e a n z executive in 1991. wi despread discussion and consultation then took place and a remit proposing that the bulletin be developed into a professional journal was finally ratified by the deanz membership at the 1993 annual general meeting. the journal of distance learning has been in developq�.ent since then. that deanz is able to publish a professional journal speaks volumes for the association. our energy, vigour and enthusiasm is apparent in many ways. for example, the increasingly high quality of the papers being presented at our annual conferences was one of the indicators that we would be able to sustain a journal. in addition, our members continue to be invited to present papers at international conferences, write for various publications and consult in developing countries. a journal also requires a dedicated, hard working and tenacious editor. this person must not only have g o o d networks within the education community, but also be capable of editorial extracting copy. from often very busy and sometimes reluctant authors. deanz is fortunate in having such a person in dr terry hearn, head of the distance teaching unit at. the university of otago. he is supported by an editorial board which is representative of deanz various constituencies. as i said at the beginning, the journal is something of a risky business. while the association is providing initial finance, it must become self-supporting. it will only become viable if y01�, our members, submit quality articles for publication that assure us of an interested and committed readership. the journal provides us with a wonderful forum for debate, a source of knowledge, inspiration and stimulation, a clearing house f o r information about distance education and open learning and an entree into the world of our colleagues. it will help to keep us energised and linked with the open and distance learning communities both nationally a n d internationally. if y o u h a v e done s o m e interesting research, developed a n innovative teaching approach or want to explore some theoretical construct, write about it and submit an article to the journal of distance learning for possible publication. encourage your colleagues to write as well. someone needs to write up the history of deanz. now there's an idea! i hope that the journal has a long and eventful life in which it explores important issues, informs our practise and serves the changing needs of our various constituencies. andrea mcilroy president, deanz in open praxis (1, 1994, 6-9), keith harry noted that there is onl}',a handful of refereed journals in distance education, among them the american journal of distance learning, vall, no. 1, 1995 (c) distance education association of new zealand 2 . journal of distance education (australia), the indian journal of open learning, the journal of distance learning (canada), and open' learning (united kingdom) . the journal of distance learning, published by the distance education association of new zealand, thus joins a small group of journals devoted to exploring both the theory and practice of distance education and distance learning, and marks an important new stage in the development of the distance education community and profession in new zealand . the establishment of the journal of distance learning also springs from a conviction that distance learning in new zealand has developed a n d continues t o develop in distinctive and interesting ways, and what we should share that experience with the wider international distance education community. several of the articles in this first issue describe ways in which approaches to distance learning in new zealand are being shaped by this country's cultural traditions and aspirations and by its geography. the distance education community in new zealand is small, but diverse: we should celebrate that diversity and try to ensure the journal of distance learning reflects that diversity, encourages communication, and fosters a sense of shared professional identity and purpose . terry hearn editor, journal of distance learning 1 journal of distance learning, vol 1, no. 1, 1995 (c) distance education association of new zealand 3 how can we help? supporting students in distance tertiary education: an evaluative study introduction retention of students in adult distance learning is a complex, multi­ dimensional matter, involving a wide range of variables. of particular interest is the mature student, returning to study in mid-life after many years away from education, often with considerable anxiety about their own abilities. the voluntary nature of tertiary education differentiates it from compulsory secondary schooling. however, the lifestyle character­ istics of mid-life students, busy with jobs and family commi t m e n t s , together w i t h the voluntary aspect, may affect a student's ability to persist and succeed with study. mature students bring life experiences and varied and often complicated backgrounds to study, which may (while also potentially being positive factors) increase the range of possible causes of w i t h d r a w a l or f a i l u r e . m a n y students are returning t o study because o f economic pressure and are being urged b y employers t o upskill while holding down a job. thus it is likely that for a variety of reasons mature students will need significant support during their study. while both motivation and persistence are relevant to all areas of education, nowhere are they more important than in the context of distance learning. particular features of distance education are loneliness, isolation, lack of face-to-face contact and encouragement and, often, the part-time nature of distance study, which inevitably means a long, slow process for gaining a qualification. all these are factors that contribute to well-documented rachel mccahon the open polytechnic of new zealand difficulties in retaining students on distance education programmes (willen, 1988; kortens, 1990; powell, et al, 1990; nash, 1991; yuen et al, 1994) and may have little connection with the original motivating forces that led them to begin:' this study analysed one programme which was successful in retaining 85% of its students t h r o u g h to t h e c o m p l etion of their qualification. it reveals some critical factors in the a d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d management of d i s t a n c e e d u c a t i o n at t e r t i a r y level, p a r t i c u l a r l y t h e i m p o r t a n c e of s u p p o r t s y s t e m s f o r d i s t a n c e s t u d e n t s within institutions. as with any programme of study, there were unique features which could be evaluated but not generalised. however, while immediate applicability elsewhere may be limited, this research does provide ideas and procedures which are capable of being tested in other contexts. in addition, the results complement the research literature about student support in distance and open learning. the research context the programme that was the focus of this research was offered by the school of library studies, s i t u a t e d at the wel l i n g t o n college o f ed u c a t i o n , n e w z e a l a n d . the school provided a two-year part time programme of study leading to the new zealand library studies certificate. this programme was largely delivered by distance education, with two face-to-face teaching blocks of a fortnight each incorporated into its structure. it was the only distance programme offered by the journal of distance learning, vol 5, no 1, 2000 © distance education association of new zealand 27 college of education at the time. students who enrolled in the certificate of library studies werelty pically female, in mid­ life and frequently had dependent children and ageing relatives. all were in work, varying from a few hours p e r week to full time employment. many had not studied for two decades or more and frequently had achieved only basic secondary school qualifications (mccahon, 1995). it was common, therefore, for people to come onto the programme with low levels of confidence as students, and with conflicts of responsibility between home, work and study. many encountered difficulties as they progressed with the programme, both academic and personal, which are revealed in the responses to this survey. some withdrew, some deferred their study for a time and picked it up again, but 85% continued and completed their certificate. the o retical model p o w e l l , conway and ross (1990) proposed a model of student success and persistence in a study of students emolled in a first y ear distance course offered by a canadian university (see figure 1). the authors examined those characteristics which students bring with them to study, which they called predisposing characteristics. their research focused on only one course at figure 1: a mult ivariate framework for analysing success and persistence in distance education first year level and did not examine persistence over t i m e leading to complet ion of a qualification. they recognised in their model, however, that two other groups of factors affect a student's progress and may influence such predisposing c h a r a c t e r istics as age and educational background. these two additional groups are institutional factors and life changes. as can be seen in figure 1, it is suggested that it is the interaction of all three sets of factors which forms an individual student's experience and leads to either persistence or withdrawal. this model provided the framework for the study, but all three sets of f actors were examined rather t h a n the single set of predisposin� characteristics to which powell et al restricted their research. there were several reasons for the selection of this model for the study: • it is comparatively simple and is capable of adaptation to particular contexts, such as the one under discussion. • the choice of factors included in each of the three categories can be varied yet stay within the intention of the model. • it is consistent in its general approach and theoretical grounding with other models and discussion in the literature. methodology a mail survey was both practical and appropriate for this project, in order to gather data from as many of the student group involved as possible. students were geographically spread throughout new zealand in both rural and urban situations. over 70% lived outside the greater wellington area and the remaining 30% were not a representative group, particularly in terms of the rural/urban balance. because the central purpose of this study was to gain insights i n t o human behaviour, experience and feeling, qualitative data was essential. the questionnaire design therefore provided as mu'ch opportunity as possible for journal of distance learning, vol 5, no 1, 2000 © distance education association of new zealand 28 respondents to add qualitative comments. two focus group sessions were held, one involving staff and the other with a group of students who w o uld later be invited to participate in the survey. the purpose of the focus group sessions was to tighten and finalise the draft questionnaire and to gather collective comment. some questions were added and others rephrased in light of the focus groups' input. the questionnaire had three sections, each one representing one of the three 'bubbles' of the model. section 1 related to the background characteristics of students other than their experience of study. section 2 investigated life changes such as illness, bereavement, change of job or home, marriage or divorce, and changes to levels of self-confidence and knowledge. the institutional factors in section 3 included course delivery, block courses, regional collections of resources, the toll-free phone line, marking, course materials, and tutor attributes such as availability and approachability. two groups of respondents were invited to participate: those students who had at that time recently c o m p l e t e d the certificate programme (questionnaire a) and those who had withdrawn from it during the previous two years (questionnaire b). the question­ naire was posted soon after the class had graduated while students' experience was still recent and their i n t erest level could be expected to be high. the response rate from completing students to questionnaire a was 60%, which was acceptable given that the survey was a postal one and the instrument was lengthy. since questionnaire b drew a response rate of only 33% , generalisation from it must be limited. there w e r e o n l y 15 potential respondents for this questionnaire and the relatively poor r e s p o n s e r a t e probably reflected lack of interest in being involved with the project given their earlier decision to drop out of the programme. summary of findings background or predisposi ng characteristics (section 1) this student group was characterised by several predominant factors: they were female, in mid-life and european. most were in the library profession at the time of participating in the survey, and more than 90% had two y ears' or more library work experience. most led busy lives, although work commitments were more often heavier than personal ones. more than half the respondents rated career development and gaining a qualification as their prime motivators for doing this course. a quarter of respondents reported that they had low or very low confidence with study when they began the certificate and this was closely related to education but not to age. those who had already achieved at tertiary levet regardless of their age, expressed higher confidence, even when they had not studied for many years, than those who had not gone beyond secondary school. previous education as a predisposing factor probably has most impact at the start of study and should, if the course in which the student is enrolled is effective for their needs, diminish with time. once a student has some success t h e i r l a c k of p r e v i o u s education and familiarity with study diminishes as an area of concern (benson et at 1991). this is borne out in the significant increase in confidence at the end of the programme that was reported by many of the respondents in this study. early support for such students is, therefore, a crucial factor in their ability to move beyond this initial barrier. work experience in the library profession was the one factor in common for all respondents, although the extent of that experience and the nature of the jobs themselves were widely v a r y i n g . h o w e v e r, this was probably influential for many students in that they began with some knowledge of the subject area and a surety based in practice that this w a s what they wanted t o do. for eight students the support they received from their journal of distance learning, vol5, no 1, 2000 © distance education association of new zealand 29 work p l a c e was a c r u c i a l factor in their eventual completion. although some of .the background factors examined might be less relevant to other student groups and other studies, many of them, particularly issues of 'busyness' and self-confidence, are raised repeatedly in the literature as influential in the progress and success of adult learners (moore, 1986; benson et al, 1991; candy, 1991; leach, 1997). life changes (section 2) the student group as a whole had experienced a wide range of major life events during their two y ears of study. only 11% of respondents to questionnaire a reported none at all, while others suffered enormous burdens of illness, change and personal upheavals of all kinds. yet all these students persisted. it is interesting that the respondents to questionnaire b did not, as a group, experience any greater number of life changes than those who completed the programme. the effects of major life changes on study were varied and by no means predictable, lending weight to paul's assertion that 'there are strong personal variables which . . . are critical in determining whether or not someone will drop out of a course' (paul, 1990, p.81). a student's background characteristics will come into play here, but these are as likely to be personality attributes combined with an individual's response to life experiences, as they are to be more measurable factors such as education, ethnicity or age. self-identity will strongly i n f l u e n c e an individual's ability to persist and succeed with study. in the responses to this section of the questionnaires it was evident that what becomes an almost insurmountable obstacle for one person, is a manageable challenge for another. despite reporting a similar range and number of major life experiences to the rest of t h e g r o up, more t h a n 40% r e p o r t e d no negative effects on their study. a growth in know ledge and an improvement in level of confidence with study were changes each recognised by 75% of respondents. these were important, if subtle, life changes, and were influential in stu dents' ability to complete the qualification. such growth enabled student s t o move along the continuum from emotionally dependent toward self-directed learner (see for example robinson, 1981; moore, 1986; benson et al, 1991; candy, 1991). institutional factors (section 3) t h e school o f library studies operated with a defined structure and a number of identifiable methods of student support. structural features such as block courses were intended as support mechanisms as well as m�thods of delivery. almost all of these features were valued highly by the student group (see figure 2). figure 2: structure of the programme and effects on study [totals do not reflect the number of respondents in the study but the number of individual responses to questions] structural feature positive neutral negative distance delivery 46 19 7 block courses 5 1 12 11 deadlines 52 15 5 deferral option 9 50 4 selected entry 24 37 3 regional collections 36 2 1 17 small staff 44 22 1 individuals v a l u e d particular aspects differently. for example, distance delivery was not liked by all respondents, nor did they all find it easy. this, coupled with unfamiliarity with this method of learning, presented many students with c o n s i d e r able c h allenges. although some respondents stated that it would not have been their preferred method of learning, they acknowledged that it was the only way that they could undertake the programme and were therefore motivated to make it work. fo.r such students extra support journal of distance learning, vol 5, no 1, 2000 © distance education association of new zealand 30 was n e e d e d right f r o m the beginning, especially for those with lower confidence with study. regional collections of books and resources were regarded positively by just under half the respondents, reflecting the fact that access to these collections was not equitable and geographical proximity, in particular, affected students' use and therefore their response. this result is consistent with the view of the student f o c us g r o u p t h a t the regional collections were problematic. access to resources was a factor for three of the five respondents to questionnaire b in their decision to withdraw from the programme. simple g e o g r a p h y w a s not a l w a y s t h e problem, however. a n unwillingness t o make the effort to locate resources and a dislike of having to share them with other students were also factors. even when individuals were less enthusiastic about a p a r t i c u l a r feature, they often acknowledged that this was because of figure 3 : importance of institutional support personal circumstances and that others could feel differently. for example, several students felt that block courses had a negative effect on their ability to complete the certificate because of personal circumstances but that they were valuable despite this. this finding is also discussed in. the literature by thorpe (1988), kember (1995), robinson (1995), and mills and tait (1996). the option of deferring study for a specified period gains a largely neutral response because the majority of students did not need to take advantage of it. support strategies such as the toll-free line, feedback on assignments, and staff attributes such as approachability and availability were valued highly by most respondents (see figure 3). the toll-free line, now a standard means of providing support to distance students, was extremely important for two-thirds of respondents and unimportant for only 15% . these students lived locally and therefore had no need of it. immediate contact was greatly 50,----------------------------------------------------------------� 45 40 35 "' 30 = � "g25 0 � � � 20 15 10 5 0 • extremely rmportant very important extensions staff approachability types of support important not very hnportant • unimportant journal of distance learning, vol 5, no 1, 2000 © distance education association of new zealand 31 valued and the toll-free line also encouraged the d e v e l o p m e n t of 'c o n v e r s a tion a n d c o m m u n i t y ' d e s c r i b e d by ta it (1996) . however, it would rl.ot have been successful if staff had not met student needs when they did make contact. personal attributes of staff in particular approachability and availabilitywere rated particularly highly as forms of support. feedback on the calibre of the staff was extensive and very positive and these elements were also emphasised by the student focus group. as h a l l (1998) notes, the rapport between teacher and student is an essential component of successful teaching (by both d i s t a n c e a n d f a c e t o face c o n t a c t) a n d a v a i l a b i l i t y a n d a p proachability are fundamental in establishing that rapport. nearly 85% of respondents said that they found it easy to ask for assistance, particularly after the first contact, which confirms the approachability and empathy of the staff. a strong theme here was that students felt anxious that their questions would be seen as trivial or that they would not be treated as equals. the attitude and approachability of staff is of paramount importance in this context. as tait (1996, p. 63) expresses it, the need is for 'interaction amongst equals, irrespective of roles such as student and tutor'. this study showed that the attitudes of staff, and the initial face-to-face contact, established an environment in which such interaction was easy, although some individual students found that their own shyness or reticence created barriers. genera l student supp o r t issues a s outlined earlier, support for students comes from many different sources, the institution being only one. in this study it was clear that home was a strong source of encouragement and practical help for many students. workplaces, other students, friends and personal characteristics of determination and faith w e r e also crucial to different individuals. the contribution of home, work and family in providing support is likely to have a profound effect on the social integration of students their ability to manage the many roles of their adult lives with the demands of study. the attitudes of employers and colleagues can affect motivation and achievement levels as well as perseverance toward completion. where family members encourage students to enrol and consistently recognise both their struggles and achievements, then there is likely to be a greater degree of integration between study and the demands of family and social life (kember, 1995). the institution can be influential in providing appropriate support, assistance with the development of coping strategies, and a culture of safety and trust where a student can feel able to acknowledge that they are having trouble and ask for help. for a third of the students in this study the school provided the most crucial form of support, outweighing home, w o r k , a n d f r i e n d s . s u c h a h i g h percentage confirms the need for the 'planned, student-centred support' which is emphasised in hall's (1998) notion of the rapport between student and tutor which arises from clear commu n i c a t i o n , e n t h u s i a s m , f e e d b a ck, intellectual challenge and approachability. no clear patterns emerged from the data to suggest that students with particular attributes relate consistently to particular t y p e s of support. there was no obvious relationship between age, education, ethnicity or personal comm i t m e n t s a n d a n y o n e s u p p o r t mechanism. such connections are probably as much a feature of personality and experience as they a r e of m e a s u r a b l e b a c k g r o u n d characteristics and therefore cannot easily b e isolated and linked. this i s consistent with the attributes of adult learning identified b y mclachla n s m i t h ( 1 9 9 8 ) , w h e r e the differentiation of one adult from another by their accumulated and unique life experiences leads to quite individual and sometimes unpredictable responses to study. students' differing abilities to cope and the strategies they u s e d a re!n d i c a t e d in t h e v a r y i n g journal of distance learning, vol5, n o 1 , 2000 © distance education association ofnew zealand 32 responses to questions that relate to the structural features and support mechanisms set up by the school. each person's success was an individual response to these factors. for example, while one student recorded 'myself' and another 'my own determination' as the only form of support needed or used, most others needed a mix of work, home, the school of library studies, friends and fellow students. many of the students in this study exhibited, initially at least, what moore (1986) refers to as an emotional need for dependence. this dependency is evident in the high number of students who expressed very significant needs for support and great appreciation when it was forthcoming. the importance of assignments as a motivator and as a mechanism to ensure that t h e w o r k was done, also s u g g e s t s dependency, whereas i n the truly self-directed learner, according to knowles (1990), 'intrinsic motivation has primacy over extrinsic'. the anxiety expressed about asking for assistance, and the relief that students felt at not being judged or made to feel foolish, further suggest a profound need for appropriate support. the emotional need for dependence may never disappear for particular students, while others may develop into fully self-directed learners. some may find that their need for dependence will vary in relation to their familiarity with the subject matter a n d immediate personal concerns. over time, and with a positive early experience, learners are likely to progress along the continuum from dependence toward independence. b u t because there are s o many complex factors at work in adult lives, individuals may do this at different speeds and unevenly, o f t e n retaining some need for approval, help and support. early support is crucial and this was provided to a significant extent in this programme by the initial two-week block course which included sessions on study skills and a deliberate effort from staff to be approachable, informal and friendly. it gave the opportunity to 'launch' the students, so that those who w e r e m o r e v u l n e r a b l e because of t h e combination o f their age, lack o f education and minimal confidence, did not have to kick start their study on their own faced only with a package of p.rinted material once launched, accumulated life experiences, maturity, and the ability to manage their own lives all provided these adult learners with resources on which to draw. when combined with the range of support sy stems described earlier, most were able to persist and eventually to succeed. gender and student support an additional and relevant feature in this context and of earlier certificate classes, was that they were overwhelmingly female. more than 90% of this group were women, a feature that may well have influenced the outcome of the survey. it is interesting to note some variations from the overall findings. because there were only six responses from males it would be u n w i s e to make any generalisations and in many respects there were no measurable differences. however, it is i n t e r e s t i n g to n o t e t h a t all six male respondents gave career development as a highly important reason for their undertaking the qualification and for all but one it was the most important. this is significantly different from the group as a whole. the men saw the block courses and distance education more positively than the whole group, while staff availability and approachability for male respondents were consistent with the main findings. they received support from home, work and the school, but none cited horne as the most important source. four indicated that the school gave them their main support and two did not single one out. again, this differs from the group as a whole, where home was identified by nearly 40% as their most vital support sy stem. the dominance of women in the certificate programme raises some interesting questions about the appropriate nature of student journal of distance learning, vol 5, no 1, 2000 © distance education association of new zealand 33 support for these students. if tait (1995) is correct, and notions of conversation and community are particularly important to women, then the style of both teaching and support offered by the school was highly appropriate to a majority of the class. because women place greater emphasis on inter­ dependence rather than independence, and on relationships between people (belenk:yt quoted in leach, 1997, p.6), the small scale of the school's operation and approachability of the staff were probably highly valued. the staff of the school was predominantly female too, with, at the time that these students completed their qualification, an academic staff of four women and one man and an administrative staff of two women. one student commented on t h e 'overall f r i e n d l iness of the staff members is i t a w o m a n thing or just personality ? it was important anyhow.' a second found that the greatest support for her was 'a personal interest in my situation and a willingness to help'. there was a culture of openness among the staff and a level of personal involvement between tutors and students that was not merely accepted but actively anticipated. conclusions and implications it is apparent from this study that students' background characteristics and life changes can be highly influential on their progress through a course, particularly in the early stages. effective sy stems of support, both institutional and personal, can, however, significantly increase the chances of retention and success. this is hardly unexpected, nor is it new, although the emphasis on staff availability and approachability is unusually pronounced in this s tudy. how e v e r, t h e notably high retention rate of 85% that was the catalyst for this project is not fully explained by these results alone. it is when the results of the survey are evaluated as a whole that an answer begins to emerge. the school of library srunms a whole greater than the sum of its parts? the nature of the school of library studies was such that it had a distinctive culture and atmosphere. it was a case of the whole being much greater than the sum of its parts; a notion which was evident from the student focus group. participants in that session were noticeably reluctant to isolate one element as being more important than another and preferred to discuss the structure of the programme and its support systems collectively. the school provided many individual features of successful distance education programmes, each of which contributed to the whole. but because of the small size and autonomy of its operation ahd the intimate nature of the school, these were able to be implemented in an unusually direct way and to be woven together with a resulting coherence unusual in larger organisations. in most tertiary institutions, usually because of the size and diversity of the operation, it is d i f f i c u l t to meld t h e v a r ious elements discussed in this paper into a coherent entity that will meet individual students' needs. e n s u r i n g t h a t studen t s ' background characteristics are taken into account, that they are appropriately handled when life crises interfere with their progress, and that the institution's sy stems are effective for the majority, are challenges which become even more pronounced in a d istance learning environment. the school of library studies was in an unusual and privileged situation since it remained a separate entity as the only distance programme in its parent institution and was permitted to operate autonomously in almost every respect. this allowed students and staff alike to have a deep sense of identification with the programme, and helped to develop kember's ( 1 9 9 5 ) n o t i o n of academic integration. that this is unusual is highlighted by current trends in tertiary education towards journal of distance learning, vol 5, no 1, 2000 © distance education association of new zealand 34 larger institutions, courses and programmes with increasingly high student numbers (sewart, 1995; paul, 1990; tait, 1995), and the demise of niche or specialist departments. in m a n y l a r g e distance education environments, it is a continual challenge to develop a sense of collective affiliationthe sense of belonging in a course, being part of an institution and valued within it. many distance learning students go through a course without ever making direct contact with tutors, administrative staff or other students (kember, 1995). they therefore may not have any sense of belonging to the institution or even to the class of students of which they are a part. where a truly open system exists, in which students may enrol at any time during the year, identification with a peer group may never be established. the school of library studies, by virtue of its small size and autonomous operation, was able to provide the conditions for sound academic integration. this intimate scale was emphasised early in the programme by the inclusion of the contact fortnight. it provided the foundations for a sense of belonging to a class and established relationships with staff. it also gave students the opportunity to see and experience the college itself, thereby establishing an institutional identity as part of their academic integration. in more subtle ways, the initial fortnight of contact laid the foundations for later study; study skills were discussed in tutorial settings, staff expectations could be made clear, and the culture and norms of the school became apparent. kember sees the need for ... moral or value integration between the academic conventions and norms of the institution and the perceptions and performance of the student (kember, 1995, p.99). this is much more easily achieved where some f ace-to-face contact has been made. the gaining of knowledge about students' which is fundamental to the development of a rapport with them (hall, 1998; marland, 1997), has a speedier and often firmer beginning in this way. it is important, however, that tutors do not then relax and assume that no further support or development of a relationship with students is n.eeded. a consistent theme in the qualitative responses to the last section of the questionnaire was the lack of judgement or sense of being 'put down' by the staff. this was a very real concern, as evidenced by so many comments which referred to empathy, receptiveness, personal knowledge of students, dedication and commitment. this sense of identifying with the whole school and the staff being 'on their side' adds an important dimension to student support, implying that the whole being greater than the sum of its parts is a valid and relevant concept in delivering distance education. multiple strategies his abundantly clear from this study that no one form of support can be effective for all students, but that a package of suitable structural elements and support systems are essential, one of which is dedicated, friendly and approachable staff. the recipe for success in this case was the unique package which was the school of library studies, coupled with the comparative uniformity of the student group, particularly in t e r m s of a g e , gender and work backgrounds. a pivotal ingredient in this was the compulsory block courses, which achieved several important objectives. they • enabled personal knowledge between staff and students to be developed, and initiated a culture of interactivity between them • provided a means of assisting students with study skills and strategies • acted as a 'launching pad' for distance study • established embryonic friendships and study groups • gave students the chance to identify with the institution and the school • provided a sense of belonging to a class of peers journal of distance learning, vol 5, no 1, 2000 © distance education association of new zealand 35 microsoft word jdl06maintext1word.doc journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 6 e-mentoring: providing online careers advice and guidance russell booth career services rapuara new zealand careers and the internet the number of career web sites has grown rapidly over the last few years, and increasingly career assessments and career planning systems can be found online. the result is that the delivery of career services has been changing in the same way the internet has affected other sectors (retail, banking, and health services). we can therefore assume that a growing number of individuals are using online career assessments and seeking online career information, advice, and guidance. individuals may now be electing to visit a career advisor only when it is practicable (location and time) and where they see the visit as adding value (watts, 2002). the advantages and disadvantages of delivering career services via the internet have been well documented (oliver & whiston, 2000; oliver & zack, 1999; reile & harris-bowlsbey, 2000; sampson, 1999; sampson, kolodinsky & greeno, 1997). one clear advantage is that it can free up the client and practitioner in terms of location and time. however, we do not know enough about which clients access or want to access internetbased career services; when and why they want to access them; how they can be supported online; the level of support they require; and ultimately how effective the online delivery of such services is. clients may be doing this independently from, or in conjunction with, a career practitioner (sampson, et al., 1997), but the chances are that most are not being supported by a practitioner online. in fact we also know very little about which career practitioners are incorporating the online delivery of career services into their practice, how they do it, with which clients, and whether it is indeed effective (oliver & zack, 1999). the career decision-making process is complex. it is reliant on the individual being able to process information about themselves and occupational information, make a well-informed decision, and implement a plan regarding the decision they have made (mau, 1999). evidence suggests that individuals “usually lack the cognitive capacity to process information about self and occupation” (mau, 1999, p. 262). in terms of acquiring and processing information, “most people don’t know what information they need, what information they want, and can’t use what information they have” (katz, as cited in may, 1998, p. 26). individuals also expect computers to be faultless and accurate, and may not be able to evaluate the information and answers from assessments to discern whether they are reliable and valid (sampson & lumsden, 2000). journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 7 for those who are using web sites to help with their career decision-making, operating in a remote, self-help mode may mean the results from the assessments and the related career information can become a liability and hinder them in making a well-informed career decision (sampson, 1999). each individual will approach the career decision-making process in a different state of readiness, and will therefore need different kinds of personal help from a career practitioner depending on their level of readiness (sampson & lumsden, 2000). if the role of the career practitioner is to help a client acquire the tools and skills to become an independent decisionmaker (gati, saka, & krausz, 2001; mau, 1999; sagiv, 1999), then many of those clients working online will probably need more guidance and assistance than online career programs typically provide (oliver & whiston, 2000; prince, chartrand, & silver, 2000). to assist clients to effectively use new communication technologies in the decision-making process, the challenge for career practitioners is to adopt more innovative ways to deliver career services using the channels available. these can be divided into synchronous (same time) communication channels, such as videoconferencing, phones, chat lines, and chat rooms, and asynchronous (not at the same time) channels such as e-mail, discussion forums, and message boards. pathfinder currently offers only the latter. new techniques will need to be developed to incorporate the technology into the delivery, as the traditional hour-long, face-to-face interaction has previously been the preferred, and often only available, means of benefiting from peer interaction and collaboration in careers work. using an asynchronous communication channel enables a client to record their ideas and decisions through writing. the process of writing these down can have significant cognitive benefits and learning opportunities for the client (harasim, 1990). “writing is thinking that can be stopped and tinkered with” (mcginley & tierney, cited in harasim, 1990, p. 49), where “the process of articulating thoughts into written speech involves a deliberate analytical action” (vygotsky, cited in harasim, 1990, p. 49). the end process is that the clients will often discover what they think, and the action of being forced to articulate their thoughts helps them to examine and defend their own reasoning process (mccabe, 1998). for individuals involved in the career decision-making process this would be incredibly helpful, especially when it is “apparent that most of the career development process takes place in our heads in the way we process information” (reardon, lenz, sampson, & peterson, 2000, p. 20). some career practitioners believe however that visual cues and nonverbal communication are superior to written text, especially in developing affective and cognitive relationships (boer, 2001). it has also been acknowledged that a practitioner just being with the client goes a long way to achieving this—where clients enjoy and cope with the spark, speed, and energy of discussions and where facial and hand gestures add to the meaning and feelings of the speaker. however, recently the telephone has become accepted as an effective alternative in the delivery of careers information, advice, and guidance through the development of learndirect in the united kingdom (watts & dent, 2002). in a face-to-face environment there could be issues for some clients around journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 8 the speed of conversations and the way they can quickly change direction. this coupled with a facilitator who may dominate “air time” means that the ability to participate regularly, contribute effectively, and ask for clarification in a verbal conversation can be difficult for some clients (meyer, 2003). other practical advantages of using asynchronous communication include the fact that the client and career practitioner do not need to be in the same place at the same time. this can be a welcome, effective alternative to phone tag, parking problems, and the scheduling and re-scheduling of appointments for busy clients and career practitioners. however, the collaborative nature of the intervention and relationship can still be maintained. using an online mentoring tool allows a skilled helper to question a client’s reasoning process and help them to develop new (and possibly previously unrecognised) ideas, insights, selfawareness, and career life themes, which are critical in the career counselling process (mcmahon & patton, 2002; sagiv, 1999). in addition, as the communication channel in this medium is relatively restricted because no visual or verbal cues are available, the need for clear and explicit articulation is required by the client and practitioner. meanings can be clarified and misunderstandings can be minimised. for some clients, there may be real value in working in this medium. kiwicareers pathfinder offers this alternative form of delivery for career counselling. kiwicareers pathfinder career services rapuara is the government agency responsible for making available career information, advice, and guidance to all new zealanders through a range of integrated access points. these include the web sites for kiwicareers (http:// www.kiwicareers.govt.nz) and career services (http://www.careers.govt.nz), the free 0800 contact phone centre careerpoint, and career centres in 16 locations throughout new zealand. kiwicareers pathfinder was launched on 1 july 2004. it is a free online career guidance and education programme that has recently been developed to help new zealanders make and implement their career decisions and to complement the kiwicareers web site. pathfinder allows users to register their details and create an individualised career profile. registered pathfinder users have the opportunity to: • identify their interests, skills, knowledge, etc., • identify and explore relevant career ideas, • identify and explore relevant programmes of study, • develop a personal career pathway, • develop a set of career goals and actions, • monitor their progress against the plan, making adjustment as required. all new zealanders can now gain universal access to free career guidance, 24 hours a day, in a variety of venues such as homes, libraries, educational institutions, marae, cyber cafés, and any other location with an internet connection. pathfinder is interactive and allows users to customise the information and activities to suit their needs. intended key user groups include: • unemployed people seeking realistic work options, journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 9 • employed people seeking to change careers or make other career-related adjustments, • new migrants to new zealand, • people returning to work, • young people making subject or further study choices, • young people in transition from study to work. users can also re-enter the site at any time to access and update their profiles as their skills develop or interests change. mentoring and pathfinder a feature built into pathfinder that is not publicly available at the time of writing is a text-based messaging system. the system allows a registered user to nominate a mentor who can access and view the client’s career profile as they complete it. pathfinder also allows the client and mentor to send and receive messages as the client works through it. in effect it is similar to an e-mail system, but accessible only to the client and mentor, and only within pathfinder. the client can construct their profile whenever and wherever they want. the mentor can also view the client’s profile whenever and wherever they want to. one important feature is that even though the mentor can view the client’s profile remotely, they do not have the ability to change information. the client can contact the mentor when they have reached a particular decision point in the programme and seek clarification or assistance when selecting the self-assessment exercises or in generating career ideas. likewise the mentor can send a message commenting on the progress being made, suggesting other assessments to complete or another section to move on to, or asking a client to comment on any results. messages are sent on whatever seems relevant to each student. a “contact my mentor” link is located at the bottom of pages in pathfinder that allows a message to be sent to the mentor from that specific page. when the mentor receives the message they can click on the message subject line to view the page the student is commenting on, such as “career ideas.” this allows the mentor to quickly view the activity or result related to the message. the pilot programme a short e-mentoring pilot programme was undertaken in a high school in hawke’s bay, new zealand, with five year 13 students over a six-week period. the traditional delivery method of careers information, advice, and guidance, especially in schools in new zealand, is face-to-face and one-to-one or in groups through career education programmes. it was explained that the aim of the study was to understand how the text-based mentoring activity helped the students. it was clearly stated that face-to-face support was also available should the student or mentor indicate this was needed. to help with data collection, each student attended a short face-to-face interview to answer questions regarding their experiences and thoughts after the e-mentoring sessions finished. the students were nominated by the school’s career adviser, on the basis that they had not clearly indicated their career ideas or plans at the end of the last year, their year 12. the students were able to access the internet through sessions booked in the school computer room for one hour each week. the students were also informed that once they had logged into the e-mentoring activity in pathfinder, they had the journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 10 option of working on their career profiles at home or in any environment where they could access the internet. during the pilot the mentor was the same person for each student—a career consultant with career services and a registered professional member of the career practitioners association of new zealand (cpanz). outcomes of using the online mentoring activity advantages for the students all of the students reported they had enjoyed working through pathfinder and interacting online through the messages. they commented that it had been useful to them in terms of improving their selfawareness and in identifying their career options. they also commented they had no problems using the e-mentoring activity or navigating pathfinder. in the mentoring activity, all of the students posted the same number of messages as the mentor and were usually in reply to a message posted by the mentor. only one student posted messages without any prompting from the mentor. the messages from the students indicated they were not surprised by most of the career options suggested by pathfinder, which is interesting as they had been chosen to participate because they had not indicated any clear career ideas previously. having time to reflect on their career ideas and discuss these with a career practitioner were seen as very advantageous by the students. the students focussed on the relevance of the suggested career ideas, their thoughts on why particular careers had been suggested, and their career preferences or favourites. many of the messages were quite long and detailed, which allowed the mentor to see if the students were making connections between the results of their assessments and the career ideas proposed by pathfinder. for some, but not all, the text-based interaction allowed them to articulate their personal thoughts, ask themselves questions, and “rationalise” their career ideas and future plans. comments such as, “this has helped me firm up my career ideas. . . . yeah, it made me think more and actually it made me weigh up things quite a lot” and “this way you can think about your options more and it makes you think more about what you want to do—it made me question myself more” were common with the students. when asked what specific advantages being able to read and write asynchronous messages had, one student mentioned not having the pressure to give an instant reply and the time to think first: “sometimes you feel pressured to say something, anything in a careers interview . . . sometimes just to make them shut up!” another student said she did have more time especially when thinking about her options at home. when a particular idea or question came to her she had the opportunity to log on and post a question or comment, knowing that it would be read and answered. even though she knew the response would not be as immediate as in a face-to-face discussion, she mentioned that it was important for her to write down her question, comment, and thoughts and know that her message was “captured, recognised, and would be replied to.” she also mentioned that in previous interviews she felt under pressure to come up with ideas or comments as she only had a limited amount of time in journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 11 an interview with the careers advisor—in lunchtime or if someone else was waiting to see them. this way she did not feel rushed, that her online mentor was rushing, or that she was “hanging around outside the office in a queue or trying to catch them around school.” it seems that students respond well to opportunities when they have the time to work through the career decision-making process and when they feel the person they are working with also has the time to work with them. advantages for the mentor for the mentor, there was far more flexibility around accessing the student’s profiles, reviewing their progress, and replying to or posting new messages. having the time to look at each student’s profile or read a question posted by them allowed the mentor to carefully consider an appropriate response, depending on what the student wrote, the context in which it was asked, and the perceived ability of the student to understand the answer. this was extremely beneficial. it is interesting to consider that the possible extra time taken to work with a student online may be no more than the time taken to arrange, meet, and discuss issues with a student face-to-face. in fact, it was felt that working online first can clear many issues and add more value to a face-to-face meeting for both participants. the messages the students posted gave the career practitioner an opportunity to assess what awareness they had about their interests, skills, abilities, and values and how these related to the career ideas suggested. the practitioner was also able to ask considered and structured questions or make observations to seek clarification or provide information to help the students increase their selfawareness. the students’ comments gave varying insights about their career directions, how these had been reached, and what options they were considering. some of the students were able to explain why the different career options had come up for them when asked by the mentor. for one student, hospitalityrelated careers were prominent: “hi, yes, i do want to work in the hospitality industry. i would love to be able to travel with my job but also get time to stay in new zealand. i do love working with people, at the moment i work in a dairy and have got to know the regulars that come in and enjoy it.” another student was asked about the career ideas he had thought about before and wrote, “i am kind of interested in working with my hands, operating machines, painting, etc., but at the moment i’m more interested in the technical drawing side of things (cad, animation). at the moment i’m working towards a career in computer animation as i’m doing a course in autocad which is giving an insight at what it’s like, and it will help me decide if i want to do the diploma next year.” another student was asked the same question and replied, “hey electrician would be my first choice. um i would rather be an electrician because it’s more working with your hands. i thought about being an electrician about a year ago.” these messages clearly show that some of the students have an awareness of their interests, abilities, and values and they are connecting these with specific career themes and ideas in a very active way. by writing them down they have recorded publicly their career ideas, which they may not have articulated so clearly previously. this gives the career practitioner an opportunity to discuss journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 12 these ideas further to ensure they are making well-informed career decisions. discussion several issues were raised during the pilot that focussed thinking around the appropriateness of this intervention, in terms of the activities done online and preferred learning style of participants. one student in particular had more time than others allocated to support him through the pilot. in completing the assessments, he had to be directed to particular sections more than other students so he could build his profile. he posted the least number of average and total words per message of all the students, which often made it difficult to understand his thoughts, comments, and ideas. he also consistently changed his mind in prioritising his preferred career ideas, based on the educational information related to each option. while this can be quite a normal and expected behaviour in the career decision-making process, the changes did not seem to be rational. after a period, it was decided to meet with the student face-to-face and clarify the situation and seek additional information from the school. it was decided that the online mentoring programme was not seen as the best environment to continue assisting this student. this was probably not due to literacy levels and it skills, which were proven to be at a high level, but more to do with his personal preference for a face-to-face careers interview. in discussions afterwards, it was clear this student placed a lot of value on face-toface interventions, as he said visual cues helped him understand what was being said in interviews and he also stated that he preferred to get instant answers on the questions he asked. this issue also partly surfaced when the students were asked about their preference for a totally online intervention, such as the e-mentoring activity, as opposed to a face-to-face interview. they all thought the idea of a blended format, with a mix of online work and face-to-face interventions, seemed a good idea, even though they did not think that the online discussions had disadvantaged them in any way. at issue here is the importance of providing choices for students, of enabling then to take control of the means by which they seek and obtain information and advice about the career options available to them. the pilot demonstrated that supporting students online with a text-based messaging system does have advantages for all participants in terms of time and location, which in turn can improve the ability for those involved to gain insights and develop learning regarding their career decision-making skills. we need to be able to assess new criteria such as a client’s learning style, literacy and it skills, and readiness in the career decision-making process to understand the effectiveness of online practice. this pilot showed that the suitability of this type of online support for some participants needs closer consideration, as does the clarity of the exercises and instructions in online sites. conclusion within the careers industry there is a possible fear that using computer-mediated communication for careers advice and guidance may lead to “simplistic, quick-fix, information-based approaches” (watts, 2002, p. 149), where the human interaction is minimised or non-existent, rather than one where effective relationships can develop. however, there are some clients who journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 13 will prefer this medium and not the traditional face-to-face interview. by not accommodating the needs of these clients we are determining the intervention method, not the client (farthing, 2003). as a profession we need to start extending our own actions, ideas, and thoughts around embracing technology. a first step in the right direction would be a move away from directly comparing face-to-face and online interventions and deciding which is best or which one we as a practitioner prefer. what we should be doing is considering how the new methods and techniques we develop for the online delivery of career services can affect and improve how 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(1999). integrating internetbased distance guidance with services provided in career centers. the career development quarterly, 47(3), 243–255. journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 14 sampson, j. p., jr., kolodinsky, r. w., & greeno, b. p. (1997). counseling on the information highway: future possibilities and potential problems. journal of counseling and development, 75(3), 203–213. sampson, j. p., jr., & lumsden, j. a. (2000). ethical issues in the design and use of internet-based career assessment. journal of career assessment, 8(1), 21–35. watts, a. g. (2002). the role of information and communication technologies in integrated career information and guidance systems: a policy perspective. international journal for educational and vocational guidance, 2(3), 139–155. watts, a. g. & dent, g. (2002). “let your fingers do the walking”: the use of telephone helplines in career information and guidance. british journal of guidance and counselling, 30(1), 17–35. russell booth was a secondary school teacher in england for eight years before moving to new zealand and working with career services rapuara in wellington. he spent several years working in different areas of career guidance in both new zealand and the united kingdom before leading the project to develop pathfinder, the free online career guidance programme. booth is currently the president of the career practitioners association of nz and runs career change ltd. in hawke’s bay. microsoft word jdl05maintext1word.doc journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 5 learning management systems and the realities of using open source software philip roy college of humanities and social sciences, massey university palmerston north, new zealand introduction you would not buy a car or house with faults and a limited guarantee, so why buy software like that? this question is presented as part of an argument for rejecting proprietary software and considering the use of open source software (wyles & clayton, 2004). questions like this, along with similar comments in presentations concerning open source learning management systems (lms), often fail to look completely at the pros and cons of using open and malleable software. instead, they focus the argument against the software you might be using within your institution by suggesting that you will be able to avoid the “big brother” commercial companies, might be able to circumvent your own information technology support department, or will get to tinker with the inner workings of something you might previously have been unable to touch. is this really the way in which we should promote the benefits of open source software— by talking about what it is not rather than what it is? of concern is that it is incredibly easy to see open source software through rose-tinted spectacles. the open source user community is massive, vibrant, supportive, collaborative, and incredibly active—but not always. it is important when looking at open source projects to realise that the projects you don’t see, the projects that failed or forked (development being split and taking separate paths) or had no clear direction, are as important to acknowledge and understand as those active projects being talked about throughout the e-learning community. behind the concept of open source an analogy can help explain the nature of open source software. imagine a group of parents on a working bee who come together to build a community playground. somebody probably came up with the idea because of a perceived need, and the passion and enthusiasm they have finally gets a group of people together to start the building process. the people that join in come with a variety of skills. some will be more suited at involving themselves in the planning stages or in project management. others might get stuck in and be far more hands-on with hammer and nail. others might make lunch on the sidelines, brew the cups of coffee to supply the working group, or may just make a financial contribution to the cause. the project is collaborative. it is journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 6 owned by everyone and developed together. people are free to come and go as they want and free to take whatever they have learned from the experience and use it elsewhere, to build again another day. the development of open source software is based upon a similar approach. a perceived need for a piece of software then sees a group of experts band together to develop the software and make it available to anyone wanting to make use of it. the birth date of the open source movement is somewhat ill defined, and its origins are often associated with the ongoing development of the internet and web technologies. the concept of open source was in fact in existence for many years prior to the internet, but a defining moment in its history includes the attempt by the developers of the netscape web browser to commercialise and dominate the browser market as surfing the web became more popular (newman, 1999). these attempts went against the standing ethos of freely distributable and shared programming. for many years academia had thrived on the ability to exchange technical developments with colleagues for the sake of research. those wanting to make money from such idealistic aspirations were now challenging this right. richard stallman’s frustration at attempts at the commercialisation of software code, his development of the gnu license (the license by which many open source projects are distributed), and his announcement that he would develop a unix-like operating system for all to use are other important milestones in the open source movement (stallman, 1998). the latter event led to the involvement of linus torvalds who, in the early 1990s, developed the kernel for the linux operating system, which is perhaps the best-known open source project. recently the use of open source software has gained prominence thanks to the internet and the ability to communicate and establish widespread online communities, as well as the ability to quickly distribute software. at the same time, an increase in the “distrust of microsoft’s dominance has pushed the previously fringe elements of free and open source software into the lime light” (siemens, 2003). the advantages of an open source lms the collaborative nature of open source software is something that many people take tremendous comfort in. glass (2003) suggests, “the open source movement is analogous to a utopian society. in utopian societies, people tend to believe they are onto something so powerful that it is fundamentally life-transforming, and they are willing to devote themselves wholeheartedly to the utopian movement of their choice” (p. 23). as reynolds (2003) points out, “these products are good because there is a collaborative community surrounding each of them in which people listen to the ideas of others and are willing to change.” many in the open source community also see the projects they are involved in as allowing for the freedom that proprietary software fails to offer. the main developer of the moodle course management system (http:// www.moodle.org) places tremendous emphasis on the collaborative nature of the project and is actively involved in researching and promoting the most effective way to continue its develop journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 7 ment, promoting what he calls a “social constructionist pedagogy” towards its development (dougiamas & taylor, 2003). the special interest group in open-source software for education in europe (sigossee) sees the collaborative and adaptable nature of open source as advantageous. they believe that open source software allows for the reflection of particular course content or pedagogical approaches, for the fostering of a “community” of institutes that support the exchange of ideas and concepts, and is an approach that allows for learners to become involved in improving the software. they also believe many institutions make use of open source systems because of the institution’s need to cut costs. within a new zealand context, many extol the virtue of open source lms, specifically because the products are free in cost and free from ownership by a commercial company. this means not only are you able to be involved in using an open source lms—the institution implementing the tool can access its code, determine how it works, alter code, and have more freedom over how to incorporate it into its structure and existing systems. ultimately the open source community hopes these alterations are fed back into the community for the betterment of the open source project as a whole. lms such as webct and blackboard started their life within a university environment with the freedoms noted here. while it would be interesting to consider their path of development within an open source approach, many still suggest that even open source developers “should ultimately involve commercial software providers in their efforts” (olsen, 2003). the reality of open source the analogy presented earlier has another side. picture summer days of garage sales and bake-offs, but also recall the devastation caused to a project by a key parent leaving town. remember the arguments during the project and the sheer frustration of seeing the first children rushing to use equipment being from parents who steadfastly refused to get involved or contribute. these memories portray another face of open source software development. approaches used for development of an open source project, the climate under which creation, bug fixing, and code writing occur, are as important to the success of a project as the functionality that is the end result. the approach of having multiple developers who choose themselves whether to stay involved and (more importantly) how to be involved means there is tremendous independence within any development group. therefore, when considering using an open source lms, it is important to look at the history of the project in some detail, take the time to discover just how active the project is, and determine the level of support (both from the user community and from other sources) that it receives. what has been interesting to note, with recent enthusiasm towards open source lms, is how little people know of the historical events surrounding the software’s lifestyle. given that it would be vital to consider these sorts of details with a major commercial purchase, the same robust approach should be taken when looking at using open source. indeed, given that open source usually relies heavily on the volunteer developer base to the project, it is important to take some time to understand just how journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 8 strong that base is. in that respect, one must set aside the enthusiasm of using such software and address the realities of development. as an example, consider ilias, a popular open source lms and one of three systems short-listed for an evaluation by the ecdf-funded open source vle project. for the early part of 2004, the ilias web site (http://www.ilias.de) had as its major news item that the university of cologne had funded another nine months of development. it announced this with the proclamation, “we will go on.” the fact that a substantial research project in new zealand short-listed a piece of software proudly promoting the saving of its demise (for at least nine months) does not reflect upon the research project, but on the fragility of open source. while “open” often means public and readily visible, we should not immediately assume that a visible presence online, combined with available patches, updates, and a wider talkative community associated with a project, implies either a large and stable developer base or strong future development. because of the large range of roles within an open source community, it is important to realise that the idea of a “community base” within an open source context does not necessarily mean an active base of people involved in the project. simply making use of an open source project does not mean that a person is an active contributor. so although it is easy to look at the activity occurring within an open source lms or to look at the suggested “install base” of such a project, such figures can be misleading. given the hands-on and freely distributable nature of open source software, such data will not distinguish between a large and active installation or someone simply downloading and trying out the software. in reality, it is easy to find examples of just how quickly an open source project’s progress can be affected even though that project may appear to be in heavy use. given the nature of open source projects—the freedom to be involved, the freedom to determine the extent of that involvement, and the freedom to express opinion and disagree with the underlying principles of a project—it is possible for key players or participants to hinder project development easily, particularly if their contribution plays a vital role in the software’s development. because of the “openness” of open source projects, the internal politics of development are often far more public than anything we might see in the commercial software development world. the recent history of xoops illustrates this point. xoops is a highly popular open source content management system with an activity rating on the sourceforge site (http://sourceforge.net) of 99.86 percent (meaning it has an incredibly active community) around the time of writing. the xoops community was thrown into turmoil in the middle of 2004 when one of the most highly revered developers (known only as catzwolf) closed his sister site and replaced its main page with a lengthy explanation as to why he had shut his site down. part of his statement said: i have come to a stage where i do not believe in the direction that xoops is taking now and i cannot ignore this anymore. what was once in my eyes a clear path forward has become nothing but a farce and i have become disillusioned journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 9 in its purpose and i do not see this changing. (http://wfsections. xoops2.com/) what took place over the 48 hours after this posting is as interesting to the history of the project as the software itself. with 47 postings by users to a thread in the forum on the main xoops site, entitled “what happened to catz?”, and more than 700 users reading this thread, visitors to the site witnessed frenzied activity as people tried to establish why the events had taken place, with members of the development team confessing they were as much in the dark as anyone else. postings quickly appeared with titles such as “putting it in perspective” and “is xoops development dead?” and appeared to conclude with a posting entitled “announcement regarding catzwolf’s rash departure,” where the leader of the core development team explained he had just made a two-hour transatlantic phone call to catzwolf to resolve issues. at the same time, he announced that catzwolf was back on board and would be co-sharing core module development responsibilities, which was an area that catzwolf’s posting had criticised. it is interesting to note that some four months later, catzwolf did indeed end his involvement (albeit quietly this time) with the project and has never returned. xoops is also a curious project if you delve further into its history. xoops is based on another open source project, but was spun off in a different direction (known as “forked” in the coding world) by a group of disgruntled developers who left the first project. xoops itself has also been forked into a project know as e-xoops, which became embroiled in arguments in the middle of 2004 as the development team became divided over something as simple as a name change to the project. with nothing but a voluntary commitment to the project, developers came and went as half the team wanted to retain a name connecting it to xoops, while others felt it was time to move forward and break all ties with the software from which it was initially spawned. although commercial software development may also suffer from disagreements over coding and usability, there is greater consideration and stability with many of these projects, as well as greater thought given to a more holistic view of the software, including documentation. conversely, with an open source project, you are more likely to find someone admired for his or her programming brilliance as opposed to a methodical development approach (wilson, 1999). in many cases, it is left to the community growing around a project to develop the support and documentation. in addition, open source projects are founded on coding that may be sufficiently complex in nature to require high-level expertise. despite the concept of open source software suggesting accessible and malleable software, “the notion of the average user feeling free to change the open source product is a highly mixed blessing, and one unlikely to be frequently exercised” (glass, 2003). many at the end-user level may have comments and suggestions to see the future development of an lms enhanced, but their ideas may fall flat if not supported by the community or by a developer willing to make coding changes in order to implement the ideas. so even with an open source project, users can become reliant on those with journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 10 skills superior to their own. in the case of xoops, catzwolf could be seen by some as a hero, while others might view him as a precocious developer who got his way through grandstanding. what of such events by a programmer in the commercial software world? while commercial software packages do sometimes reach their “end of life,” the decision to do so is taken using more business-like criteria (sales, cost of development, etc.) than on the basis of a personal grievance. such an event, dalziel (2003) says, often “splits the original open-source developer community into separate groups, potentially weakening both efforts” (p. 5). why are you really interested? those contemplating implementing or becoming involved with an open source lms should take the time not only to look at the history of the project, the number of developers involved, and the technical requirements of the system, but also to consider what would happen if the project were to fail. take the time to find out just who the people are that you might be about to rely on (don’t be quick to believe you’ll rely upon yourself) and just how many people truly are actively involved. not actively enthusiastic, but actively involved. in “open source: beyond the fairy tales,” gabriel and goldman (2002) point out that many see the use of open source development as a way of reducing costs of coding and believe the project will evolve faster as many developers will be working on it. the reality is, they say, “a typical opensource project attracts relatively few outside developers” (p. 1). any historical inspection of a project should also determine whether a project has received funding. however, while it might seem easy to assume that an open source e-learning project that receives funding is likely to be more successful, dalziel (2003) paints a more realistic picture: most open-source e-learning projects have not arisen spontaneously from the goodwill of freelance software developers. they are typically the result of government or foundation funding, where developers are paid for their contributions to the project (either as contractors or as salaried employees of organizations such as universities). in the wider opensource movement, a voluntary community of developers supports projects such as apache or linux, hence their ongoing development is independent of the vagaries of project funding. this is not the case in e-learning, making any given open-source developer community highly susceptible to collapse when project funding ends. (p. 5) current new zealand open source initiatives, exploring the use of an open source learning management system, saw more than $1 million allocated to research projects through the e-learning collaborative development fund. it is encouraging for all interested in this area to see research and development being funded on such a scale. however, in order to move forward with open source software projects like the ones occurring in new zealand, projects that imply free software, it is important to acknowledge that time, effort, and funds will continue to play a major role in the success in developing and using them. philip long, senior strategist for the academic computing practice at mit, summed it journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 11 up when asked if one value of the open source course management systems was saving money. his response was succinct and to the point: “i’m very sorry that so many of you think that’s a likelihood, because you’ll be sadly mistaken” (campus technology, p. 16). it is the hidden costs in using open source software that people need to be most aware of. it is not only the developers who need support during the lifecycle of a project, but the user community. while some may not see the non-technical user community as those who define an open source project’s structure, it will be this group that ultimately determines its success or failure. a vibrant community of users must be funded and encouraged in their use and support of a project, including the development of material to achieve the pedagogical goals behind using the chosen lms software. if open source products are seen as a better solution to the commercial products that many use, what is it about the functionality of a commercial product (ignoring their so-called lack of malleability) that no longer appeals? in many instances, the answer will be hard to find but begs the question as to whether those who are enthusiastic are actually looking at what the software means to the end user as opposed to the end installer. are those using a product like webct or blackboard using it to its full potential or could something more be done with it? the next best thing doesn’t always mean moving away from what you’ve already got, but working better with what you already possess. finally, perhaps open source software, with its community focus, should in fact open our eyes to the value of a collaborative approach in e-learning. a discussion on the nz open source vle project web site was on the suggestion of a centralised support system (help desk) for users of moodle. currently a number of new zealand’s tertiary institutions make use of webct or blackboard, but there have never been any strong arguments by institutions to share resources. this raises the question, “if we feel a sense of community is important, why have many of us not embraced the online community that surrounds these commercial products already?” the most likely answer to this question is that institutions view their installation of a commercial lms as being set up differently to others’, and consider that having localised support people who know the set-up and know their own staff is a more effective way to offer support. those aiming to move to a provided service where an open source lms is set up externally (but still able to be altered to suit each client’s needs) may find that, given the malleability of such software, the commonalities that exist between various versions of the software may in fact be few and far between, and therefore centralised support may be difficult. this point highlights the tension between a centralised service and collaborative but independent functioning. the former provides economies but constrains local creativity, the latter allows development freedom but eventually leads to fragmentation. buying off the shelf scalise (2004) comments that in educational institutions the justification for using proprietary systems is often stability. however, he points out that this double-edged sword sees a trade-off between the stability the software provides and the resulting use of what is effectively a closed system, often with diminishing innovation. journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 12 it should be noted that this lack of flexibility is also in some way a reflection of the business processes involved in development of commercial software. chris vento, executive vice president for research and development and chief technology officer of webct, points out the stability and rigidity of commercial software in his web article “open systems and open source lms: settling the debate for the benefit of higher education” (2004): commercial open system providers have made significant and continuous investments in building and sustaining highly scalable, extensible, and comprehensive products. commercial open systems incorporate quality and performance engineering/testing, ongoing software maintenance, a formalized feature enhancement process, customer support, and professional services required to effectively support an enterprise elearning solution. beckman and wilson (2000) suggest that when a commercial project proves troublesome, the company producing it is still likely to ship the product, whereas a troublesome open source project is most likely to be abandoned. therefore, when reviewing open source projects that are available to use, you are less likely to find one that has a wide range of technical issues, as most of these are abandoned. they argue that this fact positively skews the success rate of open source projects in comparison to commercial software. interoperability: is meeting in the middle the solution? as the development of both commercial and open source lms projects continues, there has been acknowledgement of the need for open standards to allow interoperability between commercial packages and other systems. open standards such as the sharable content object reference model (scorm) and the open knowledge initiative have benefit in that “interoperability means that users are not locked to any one software system—they can substitute one standards-compliant system for another” (dalziel, 2003, p. 5). with commercial companies such as webct committing to many of the open standards such as those developed by the ims consortium (of which webct is a consortium member), perhaps our efforts with open source lie in embracing these standards and the interoperability that can be achieved even while utilising proprietary software. dalziel (2003) supports this idea and argues that open source software “is not free of risks and is not necessarily the most cost-effective option where commercial vendors have implemented open standards and demonstrated easy interoperability” (p. 6). it would be financially detrimental to commercial vendors to keep their systems closed and inaccessible to other systems. the environment in which an lms is implemented may see it surrounded by a myriad of other systems such as student management software, fees payment, results processing, and enrolment mechanisms. integration is essential and many lms companies not only provide systems for e-learning but products for other aspects of institutional life, such as blackboard’s portal system, content system, and transaction system. many of the developers of commercial lms are releasing details of their apis (application programming interfaces) journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 13 to third-party developers, to allow their learning management systems to become a more integrated component of any wider technical architecture that an institute might employ. examples of this include blackboard’s extend blackboard programme (http://www.blackboard.com/addons/ b2/faq.htm# question1) and webct’s technical references and integration documentation. if all live up to the ideals they are promoting and the support for open standards they aspire to, the arguments for and against the use of each type of software will not be as extreme as they first were and sometimes still seem to be. recognition and collaboration by open source and commercial developers may ultimately see a blending of projects or even easier sharing of resources and learning objects. the focus then would not be on which system is most appropriate, but on cooperation, sharing, and ultimately improvement of all learning environments that we create in the future. references beckman, p., & wilson, g. v. (2000, june). open source meets big iron. dr. dobb’s journal: software tools for the professional programmer, 25(6), 30. campus technology. (2004). syllabus2004 conference yearbook. retrieved december 1, 2004, from http://www.campustechnology.com/mag.asp dalziel, j. (2003). open standards versus open source in e-learning: the easy answer may not be the best answer. educause quarterly, 4, 4–7. retrieved april 10, 2004, from http://www.educause.edu/asp/ doclib/abstract.asp?id=eqm0340 dougiamas, m., & taylor, p. c. (2003). using learning communities to create an open source course management system. refereed paper, presented at edmedia 2003. retrieved april 12, 2004, from http://moodle.org/ doc/?frame=philosophy.html gabriel, r. p., & goldman, r. (2002). open source: beyond the fairy tales. retrieved april 25, 2004, from http://opensource. mit.edu/papers/gabrielgoldman.pdf glass, r. l. (2003). a sociopolitical look at open source. software practitioner newsletter & journal of systems and software, communications of the acm, 46(11), 21–23. newman, n. (1999). the origins and future of open source software. a netaction white paper. santa barbara, california: netaction. retrieved april 15, 2004, from http://www.netaction.org/opensrc/ future/breakdown.html olsen, f. (2003). sharing the code. retrieved april 15, 2004, from http://chronicle. com/free/v49/i47/47a03101.htm reynolds, r. (2003). it takes a village to build good software and education. retrieved april 12, 2004, from http://www.xplana. com/articles/archives/building_good_ software_education/print scalise, s.g. (2004). the future of e-learning in learning management systems. retrieved april 20, 2004, from http://www. syllabus.com/news_article.asp?id=8901& typeid=155 siemens, g. (2003). free and open source movements, part 1: history and philosophy. retrieved april 18, 2004, from http://www.elearnspace.org/articles/ open_source_part_1.htm special interest group on open source software in education in europe (sigossee). web page explanation of the sigossee. retrieved may 16, 2004, from http://www.ossite.org/about_sigossee/ stallman, r. (1998). the gnu project. retrieved april 15, 2004, from http://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject. html vento, c. (2004). open systems and open source lms: settling the debate for the benefit of higher education. retrieved may 5, 2004, from http://www.syllabus.com/news_ article.asp?id=9267&typeid=155 journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 14 wilson, g. (1999). is the open source community setting a bad example? software, ieee, 16(1), 23–25. wyles, r., & clayton, j. (2004). supporting free and open source solutions. discussion paper. retrieved november 23, 2004, from http://eduforge.org/docman/view.php/ 7/40/sustainability%20june04.pdf philip roy is an e-learning facilitator for the college of humanities and social sciences, massey university, and a flexible learning leader in new zealand. the multimedia writer for nz macguide magazine, he owns and operates nzmac.com. roy uses a wide range of open source software and has contributed to many projects. designing for dialogue at a distance: reflections on how to create and maintain an effective teaching-learning relationship withstudents the focus of the 1997 d e a nz seminar at which a version of this paper was originally presented was on the independent learner. as teaching consultant at the centre for university extramural studies at massey university at the time, my major role was to encourage staff to prepare materials which would promote learning, and, as that learning would primarily occur at a distance, the course design needed to promote independent learning. this paper has three main sections. it will first define the learning needs and characteristics of adult students and examine how to promote student learning at a distance. second, it will examine some selected student evaluations of extramural papers from massey university. the features which students have identified as helping or hindering an effective teaching-learning relationship between teacher and learner will be discussed. these include knowledge of learner needs, assessment and feedback, and administration and teacher availability. finally, the paper will discuss creating dialogue with students at a distance. it will detail an approach to distance teaching based on the notions of dialogue, scaffolding, and apprenticeship in learning, which may be a useful model for instructional design in diverse delivery modes. defining the learning needs and characteristics of adult students when i began most courses on instructional design for distance learning or claire mclachlan-smith faculty of medicine and health science university of auckland courses on adult learning, i found it very useful to get participants to focus on their own learning and what factors had contributed to their own success or failure in learning a new task. i asked them to reflect on the following issues: • think about an ability or skill you have which you are good at: how did you acquire that skill? how and why do you know that you are good at that skill? " name one thing which you do badly: why do you do it badly? how do you know you do it badly? i would then ask staff to identify the key issues in terms of promoting their learning and in their failure to learn, and if there were any similarities. we would then take the line of thought further to consider learning at a distance, and think about what factors could help or hinder learning. when the issue of students with previously unsuccessful learning experiences was added to the equation, most people began to recognise the difficulty of meeting the needs of students with diverse learning needs and experiences. usually we generated some ideas about the need for positive feedback, practice, time, personal interest and motivation, learning support, well designed materials, accessible tutors and so forth. in addition to recognising their own learning style and preferences, course participants would come to the journal of distance learning, vol 4 , n o 1 , 1998 © distance education association o f new zealand 11 conclusion that knowing something about learners in general would also be useful. so why am i telling! you this? it is because often new lecturing staff at massey university with whom i worked, were academically well qualified but poorly prepared for distance teaching, in that they either knew little about the needs of distance learners, or knew little about how to promote learning. both understanding of learners' needs and the lack of it are clearly demonstrated in some of the feedback from students presented later in this paper. merriam and caffarella ( 1991) outline several characteristics of adult learners, which can be particularly helpful in identifying the learning needs of students: • the context of adult learners' lives shapes their learning; • adults have assumed responsibility for managing their own lives and add the role of the learner to their other responsibilities; • learning typically arises from the context of their lives, which is tied to the sociocultural setting in which they live; • learning in adulthood is characterised by its usefulness for immediate application to the duties and responsibilities inherent in the adult role of worker, spouse, parent, citizen and so forth; • rich life experiences differentiate one adult from another, and self-identity is the result of accumulated unique life experiences; • adults are themselves an important resource for learning and often the need to make sense of experiences is the incentive for learning activity in the first place; • engagement of past experiences with new learning is different for adults than for children; adults modify, transfer and reintegrate meanings, values, strategies and skills, rather than formulate and accumulate as they do in childhood; • adults may need to unlearn bad habits and negative views of learning; • the tasks of adulthood are different from those of the child, as in addition t o acquiring new knowledge and skills, the adult is faced with the struggle to integrate personal and family relationships, life events and transitions and personal or employment-related crises. for example, aslanian and brickell ( 1980, in merriam and cafarellfl, 199 1) found that 83% of adult learners in their study were involved in learning to cope with a transition. they concluded, "to know an adult's life schedule is to know their learning schedule" (pp. 60-6 1). the reason for learning may not lie in the learner themselves, but in the tension between the learner and their socio-cultural world. although the basic process of learning is the same for children as for adults, learning is affected by 4:10n-cognitive factors such as pacing, meaningfulness and motivation. an adult's ability to respond slows with age, and time limit pressures have a negative effect on learning performance. adults do better with material which has personal relevance or meaning, which is part of the reason why adults tend to do well in any study they attempt, because they concentrate their learning in areas of their experience and interest. age and health factors, such as fatigue, medication, disuse of abilities, environmental conditions and interference from previous learning can all affect new learning. however, adults can more readily transform new knowledge as a result of their accumulation of life experiences, and adult thought can be defined as "problem finding" rather than the problem solving which typifies adolescent and young adult thought (merriam and caffarella, 199 1). effective adult thinking is not that which provides immediate answers, but that which first discovers the important questtons and exposes the important problems. · ladyshewsky ( 1995) argues that the following principles of adult learning need to be taken into account when devising any programme that will be effective and meet the needs of learners: ]oumal of distance learning, vol4, no 1, 1998 © distance education association of new zealand 12 ---------------------,. adults need to feel that what they are learning is important and relevant to them; " the learner should agree with fhe goals of the learning' experience; " the supervisor should provide a safe learning environment; " the student should be actively involved in the learning process; • the learner is given responsibility for progressing at his/her own pace; " the learner must see progress towards the established goals; ., the task students are being asked to perform should be practical and immediately applicable. defining a n d pr om oting a teaching-learning dialog ue there is a growing body of literature about how to create a teaching-learning dialogue with students at a distance, all of which fits in a cognitive constructivist model of education (garrison, 1993), in which the learner is seen to be an active constructor of knowledge and meanings. lockwood ( 1992) outlines three key methods of instructional design, which have gained in acceptance with distance education providers around the world. these are the notions of tutorial in print (rowntree, 1973), reflective action guide (rowntree, 1990) and dialogue (evans and nation, 1989). most people recognise these forms of instructional design when they see them. the tutorial in print simulates the experience of the student and a teacher in a tutorial, where the teacher provides resources, asks questions and sets exercises, and provides feedback on key issues. a reflective action guide provides guidance on knowledge and activities, but requires the student to do the bulk of the learning and the activity away from the materials themselves, and to gather and assess feedback for themselves. the notion of dialogue is based on the premise that adults are active constructors of meaning, and as such they should be part of the teaching-learning dialogue as if they were in the classroom, and they should be party to the thinking of the writer of the instructional materials. by using different type fonts, evans and nation present different aspects of the dialogue, which students are invited to join. all of the models have their strengths, but they all focus on the responsibility of the individual learner for their own learning, even though there is an implicit assumption that effective student support measures will go hand in hand with self-instructional materials. if we are to consider the teaching-learning relationship in a fuller sense of dialogue, then we need to look in more detail at the ways in which we can address the learning needs of students in the most effective manner. vygotsky's theory ( 1978) provides a useful framework for consideration of how to build upon existing cognition and recognise the shaping influence of life experience and culture. although much of vygotsky' s theory is based upon research with children, there is growing evidence that the principles can be usefully applied to adult development and learning as well ( bolton and unwin, 1995; moll, 1990). vygotsky's claim that higher mental functioning in the individual is rooted in social life was influenced by marxist theory, which basically states that in order to understand the individual it is necessary to understand the social relations in which the individual exists. vygotsky's general claim about the social origins of higher mental functioning in the individual surfaces most clearly in connection with the "zone of proximal development", which vygotsky examined in relation to i.q. and for the organisation for instruction. with regard to the former, he argued that measuring the level of potential development is just as important as measuring the actual developmental level; with regard to the latter, he argued that instruction should be more closely tied to the level of potential development than to the level of actual development (wertsch, 1991, p.28). vygotsky's theory of the zone of proximal development suggests the social interaction journal of distance learning, vol 4, no 1, 1998 © distance education association of new zealand 13 between the competent adult and the less competent young, is the means by which the adult lends "scaffolding" (bruner, 1986;p.74) to implant a vicaridus consciousness in the learner. vygotsky ( 1978) defines it as the "actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving" and the higher level of" potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers" (p. 86). vygotsky ( 1962) predicted that the "zone of proximal development" would be evident in the way in which teachers provide a scaffold for the learner within conversations between what they know and what they learn to know. this method of instruction is often referred to as cognitive apprenticeship, within which the more senior member of the relationship gradually withdraws support, as the learner becomes increasingly proficient in the task. vygotksy's ( 1987) ideas that the forms of speaking encountered in school provide the framework for concept development are usefully expanded by bakhtin's notion of the "voice" in learning, the idea that an utterance always expresses a point of view. bakhtin's notion of voice is not reducible to an account of vocal-auditory signals. it applies to written as well as spoken communication, and it is concerned with the broader issue of the speaking subjects' perspective, conceptual horizon, intention and world view (wertsch, 199 1). bakhtin considers that people make use of a social language in making an utterance and that the social language shapes what the individual can say. bakhtin called the process of making unique utterances in a social language "ventriloquation" (wertsch, 1991). as bakhtin argues " the word of language is half someone else's. it becomes 'one's own' when the speaker populates it with his own intention, own accent, when he appropriates the word, adapting it to his own semantic and expressive intention" ( bakhtin, 1981, pp. 293294; in wertsch, 1991). bakhtin viewed social languages and speech genres as the ways in which communicative and mental action are organised. through mediation or the "voice", learners learn not only the words of another person, but also their intention and purpose, which the learner may then internalise to enable them to self­ instruct the next time the event occurs. the "voice" in dis,tance teaching materials permeates the choice of media, the instructional design methodology, readings and textbooks, the assessment, and the feedback loops between teacher and student. recognition and reflection on the "voice" permeating materials is crucial, as it will play a large part in student achievement and progression. peer review of materials prior to production can assist in identifying the extent, clarity and sub-text of the teaching voice in the materials. gallimore and tharp ( 1990) state that instructing is rarely seen as a means of assisting performance, which they consider to be to the learner's detriment. it is important that instructing be included in teaching, because the instructing voice of the teacher becomes the self-instructing voice of the learner in the transition from apprentice to self regulated performer. the non­ instructing teacher may be denying the learner the most valuable residue of the teaching interaction; that heard, regulating voice, that gradually internalised voice, which then becomes the pupil's self regulating "still, small" instructor" (p. 18 1). questioning calls for active linguistic and cognitive response. there are two types of questions: assistance and assessment. assessment questions are used most often, while assistance questions are most help�ful. through cognitive structuring the teacher helps the learner to organise information: through memorization, recall or accumulating evidence. all of these types of questioning can be used to help learners develop through the stages of the zone of proximal development. . there are four stages to the zone of proximal development, according to journal of distance learning, vol 4, no 1, 1998 © distance education association of new zealand 14 gallimore and tharp ( 1990): stage 1: stage 2: stage 3: stage 4: performance assisted by more capable others; performance assisted by self; performance is developed, automatized and fossilised; automatization of performance leads to recursion through the zone of proximal development. gallimore and tharp ( 1990) argue that adults, like children, also cycle through the zone of proximal development, when they have to do something they have not done for a while, which used to be automatic. they consider that with peers, assisted performance may be reciprocal, especially if they are engaged in joint activities a reason, they argue, for providing a lot of small peer group activity in classrooms. in distance mode, it is one good reason for providing ways to gather students into study groups, either physically in the regions, or via e-mail, internet or teleconferencing methods. within an adult learning relationship, bolton and unwin ( 1995) consider that adult students need both instruction and inquiry as part of any course. bolton and unwin ( 1995) argue that the apprenticeship model, based on vygotsky' s theory, is useful for conceptualising the relationships involved. bolton and unwin outline the following aspects of a cognitive apprenticeship: • learning occurs in relationship to personal role models; " personal links to precede learning are established; • prior learning is recognised; " learning is task oriented. the notion of apprenticeship in adult learning involves an understanding that learning occurs in relationship to personal role models, so that teachers need to identify their own learning history, to stress that learning is a personal affair, and to indicate to students that they are still learning. establishment of a personal link to precede formal learning can be achieved by getting students to send in an autobiographical statement as their first contact with the teacher. in a massey context, this was sometimes achieved by use of a "self profile" form, which included details about the student and what they hoped to get out of the paper, along with contact details and study group information (for example, see mc lachlan-smith, 1998a; 1998b). in order to recognise prior knowledge and learning, teachers need to find out what students already know and can do and consider ways in which to support the apprenticeship. an easy way is to use the autobiographical materials to make comments on the first assignment feedback sheet which are personally meaningful, or to provide extra resources which may be relevant to the person's context. other ways include using basic classroom assessment techniques (angelo and cross, 1992), such as a rating system of core content to be included with the self profile form (e.g. i know a lot about this topic, i know something about this topic, i know nothing about this topic). in this way, you can get a snapshot of each learner at the beginning of the course and then help students to self-rate their progress throughout the course. to make the apprenticeship task-oriented, the structure of the task and the role of the learner need to be clearly defined. teachers should encourage creativity, so that if the learner can demonstrate the required capability they can move beyond the instructor (e.g. an "a" grade will demonstrate that the work taught the instructor something new). the learner can come to demonstrate expertise across a range of teaching tasks i content, so students can learn by teaching others (e.g. presentations, self and peer review). learning should be guided and evaluated in early stages, but not necessarily assessed, and assessment weighting should value achievements in later stages of the course. opportunities for self­ assessment need to be provided. journal of distance learning, vol4, no l, 1998 © distance education association of new zealand 15 the key issue in terms of creating and maintaining an effective feedback loop f�r students is to plan for it. wright and herte1s ( 1993) state that tertiary students in other countries identify the following features of a good teacher: • knowledge and enthusiasm for the subject matter and teaching; • good organisation of subject matter and course; • effective communication; • positive attitudes towards students; • fairness in evaluation and grading; • flexibility in approaches to teaching. many of our students identify similar features, which will be discussed in the next section. the interesting point about this list is that all of these characteristics can be planned for; none of them are necessarily the features of a "natural" teacher. if a teacher has carefully planned a course and addressed the learning needs of students, then they should be rated highly by students on these features of effective teaching. wright and herteis's ( 1993) definition of an effective instructor is particularly relevant: this is not a popularity contest, but "good enough" teaching will make students feel they are on a joint educational adventure with that teacher, on the way to competence and independence as a learner. the next section will address some of the ways in which students in 1996/97 at massey university considered that their learning needs had been met or overlooked. examples of practice which h a s h e lp e d or h in d e r e d stude n t learning as a teaching consultant, i was probably one of the few people on the massey campus who had an overview of both how the university was teaching by distance, and how effective students considered that teaching to be. part of my role involved designing and carrying out evaluations of extramural papers at the request of paper coordinators or their head of department. sometimes this was done because there was a problem which needed further identification and student comment, and sometimes because a teacher wanted feedback on their own performance, so that improvements could be made in the future. it needs to be stres,sed that the only evaluation i was involved in was done on a voluntary basis, and the evaluations were sent with both my name and the paper coordinator 's name on the memo, and stated that the information would be used for further development of the paper and distance teaching. i looked into my files of responses for examples of how teacher-learner relationships, assessment and marking procedures, and course administration and availability all affect a stud�t' s ability to complete the paper to a satisfactory conclusion. the examples come from a diverse range of disciplines and levels, and all references to discipline, teacher or level have been removed. the examples presented are in no way representative of the effectiveness of teaching at the university. it is important to note that i have particularly highlighted the examples where poor teaching practice has had a negative impact on student learning. however, i have also included examples of where good teaching practice has positively influenced student learning. the examples listed where poor teaching practice is highlighted, however, are useful illustrations of issues which cannot be ignored as papers are designed for an open, flexible or distance market. kn owledge of learner needs interestingly, given the previous discussion of the characteristics of adult learners, many students comment that staff have little to no understanding of the conditions under which they are studying, and what that should mean for the organisation of the paper. the following quotes indicate areas of concern: application of concepts of adult learning is poor. journal of distance learning, vol4, no 1, 1998 © distance education association of new zealand 16 i found the attitude of two of the tutors very arrogant. positive encouragement helps learning more than making adults look stupid. along with not recognising the needs of the adult learner, there were comments which related to the lack of recognition of workload in the materials: as a mature person returning to study, the time span for study relative to content is too short. i have withdrawn from the paper because full-time workload and new learning in this paper was too heavy. extramural needs more latitude with deadlines than internal students and more support. i know this because i have spent 5 years studying full-time and 5 years part-time. in my long experience there is a wide variety of support and flexibility standards among lecturers. lecturers need to understand that work flows can vary, emergencies arise, staff shortages occur, and all these can occur at horribly short notice, side swiping weekends put aside for assignments. some lecturers are very realistic and more than willing to accommodate students' individual needs plus provide encouragement. extramural students are very appreciative of this. in the introductory module i do not think the tutors have any idea how much work is involved. i suggest they get someone with no know ledge of this topic in to do it and see just how time consuming it is. students who were happier with their materials nearly always commented on the clarity of structure and recognition of workload and learning needs: excellent, well set out and understandable. review questions and points to ponder were helpful in directing my study. well structured course with clear objectives. good general coverage of a broad subject. overall workload appropfiate. the subject learning more about xxx, just makes me appreciate it and want to learn more about it! the paper coordinator was friendly, helpful and really knew the topic. the study guide was so well presented and organised. other students commented on the lack of "teacher voice" in the materials, as they looked for guidance on the readings and the textbook: there is inadequate material from the course tutor in each study guide. for example on each of the 13 modules there is no more than 4-5 pages of guidance before a whole pile of readings. i felt absolutely bogged down by the number of readings. the essay topics were so wide that they required extensive reading. i found it difficult to collate the different threads especially as much of the subject is so subjective. on the other hand, students rated courses highly which had a strong theory i practice link and which provided choice and opportunity for feedback. the paper is well organised with an excellent integration of theory t o practical application, which kept interest high. i enjoyed the range of choice in the modules to be completed; the paper can be tailored to personal interests. feedback was prompt and comprehensive. excellent paper. i really liked being "included in the journal of distance learning, vo14, no 1, 1998 © distance education association of new zealand 17 text". being permitted to draw on my own experiences let me reflect and gain greater unders tanding of various concepts introduced throughout the course by relating them to my life. also helped make me feel valued as i am, as i could have personal input. one of the interesting things about asking questions of adult students is that they have very clear ideas about how to promote student learning. many of them have reflected on their own learning and work conditions, and articulate very clearly what is effective. it is important to listen to these student messages, as this is a very mobile and articulate group of consumers, who can destroy the reputation of programmes and institutions in a short period of time. currently, more and more tertiary institutions are moving into the p rovision of open, distance and flexible learning opportunities. students have increased access to local providers and to major international institutions via the internet. it is therefore imperative that the home grown product is tailored to suit the learning needs of local students and that opportunities for seeking feedback from students are created. assessment and feedback assess­ ment procedures are one of the main ways in which lecturers and tutors have contact with students. as many students comment, this is often the only way in which they get personal feedback on their progress, and so they want it as comprehensive and as constructive as possible. it is important that staff think through the impact of their marking procedures on a student who is receiving comments outside of a classroom discussion of grades and results. some student comments demonstrate the effect of marking which does not help to create or maintain a teaching­ learning dialogue. also the marking is too tough for this module, destructive actually. last year i gave up the paper because of the attitude and destructive comments of the markers and this year i nearly did the same. for the next 2 papers i got a b and a, 3rd not marked yet. i do not claim to be a clever student but i do not want to be rubbished at my 1st attempt. apart from the (:omment that marking could be destructive, students also stated that they wanted transparency in marking procedures, so that they could see where they needed to improve or could locate themselves in the overall placement in the class. an amazing lack of constructive and helpful comments, or even inconstructive ones, a veritable paucity in fact, even on the final assessment. just nothing. i found the comments written on my assignment very difficult to read and understand. the final exam seemed to include work that was not covered in the study guide or in recommended reading. it would have been useful to get an answer sheet back with our assignment. lack of transparent criteria for marking; a marking schedule and non-emotive comments would have been more helpful. i did not find the comments "articulate" or "careless" very constructive. would quite like an overview of everyone's progress, medium/ average marks for assignments maybe, to let me know how /where i fit in overall, (a bit of competition, contact, for u s extramural isolates). all of my modules were late, although i can accept a depressed mark for this, what i can't accept is having put a lot of effort into my work to have somebody write totally meaningless comments over it. this indicates to me that my marker only skim-read my work. if i can put 50 hours into writing journal of distance learning, vol 4, no l, 1998 © distance education association of new zealand 18 these assignments an extra 5 minutes by a marker isn't a lot to ask for. rather than ridicule the methods of other disciplines, clearly set out criteria, examples of expectations would be helpful. i thought we had moved away from learning as being an attempt to guess what was in the mind of the teacher. on the other hand, students who had positive assessment experiences tended to comment favourably on the paper as a whole. the comments i received were constructive, supportive and encouraging. i really felt that the marker cared about my success i failure at all stages of the course. i have now completed my degree and of all the papers i have done, this was the best by far in this regard. most helpful and encouraging. found reading back comments helpful and positive, even where alternatives were suggested. my self esteem grew from reading comments. my attitude to the course became more and more enthusiastic. liked being sent a graph of overall distribution of grades for assignments to let students know how well they did compared with others. would recommend this for all courses. the tutor always provided constructive and supportive feedback on all work, ... created an environment where i felt "safe" as an extramural student. the tutor personalised the course with the inclusion of 'newsletter ' type updates of the course and encouraging words, which i personally appreciated. found the instructions accompanying each assignment helpful in the extreme. three cheers! the notion of support is strong in both the students who appreciated feedback from tutors and those who did not feel that they had received adequate feedback on assignments. as part of creating dialogue with students, course writers need to ensure that they have transparent criteria for assessment and that they endeavour to be as positive as possible in marking. this is often easier said than done, when time is short to turn the marking around and an assignment seems particularly inappropriate for the task set. it is imperative to find positive marking procedures, even if this means using a formulaic schedule, so that students can see at a glance where the weaknesses and strengths are in the assignment, and what they need to focus on for the next assignment. administration and teacher avail a b il ity students are most outspoken about issues in relation to teaching and administration. one of the key complaints extramural students have concerns the availability of the lecturer or tutor who will be marking their work or administering the paper. for many students this experience would colour their opinion of the paper as a whole. as far as help was concerned it took up to 3 weeks for me to receive an answer so maybe an 0800 number should be available to extramural students, as toll calls in prime time are not easy to finance for most people. lecturer did not respond to e-mail or correspondence. we were not aware till end of course that we could phone our tutor at home, as they were only available one day per week on campus. because of this many of my calls were not replied to, although the times i did speak to the tutor they were very helpful. delays in communication leave extramural students feeling very isolated, let alone the expense of the toll calls. journal of distance learning, vol 4, no 1, 1998 © distance education association of new zealand 19 other students comment on the effect of having a helpful lecturer or tutor and how this coloured their enjoyment of the course> i the teaching and learning aspects were always well received and helpful. my calls are always returned and i found my tutor's helpful and open approach was excellent, especially in my final year. i have enjoyed this paper and the personal help i have received from my tutor. personal contact with staff who are always helpful and enthusiastic about their subject area [was great]. thoroughly enjoyed this course. would recommend (a n d h a ve) to o t h e r s . f o u n d course i n t e r e s t i n g a n d informative. i actually looked forward to r e ading each study guide with excitement. help and teaching were most valuable. other students had suggestions for how the papers should be coordinated: i realise the enormous management and admin. problems that o c c u r with vacation/regional courses, but i have found them to be invaluable. they provide a focus, a chance to get re­ enthused. with the only contact being assignment and study g u i d e s , it becomes difficult throughout the year, to keep 'massey work' a high priority. it would be useful to have the e-mail addresses of the tutors at the beginning of the year. this is a much quicker way of asking questions than writing. i would like to see the use of e-mail and teleconferencing for seminars. that vital part of study cannot be handled by a campus course. o ng o i n g instruction i s essential. as these comments demonstrate, perceived availability and helpfulness are key attributes of the successful distance teacher. juggling all the demands placed on teachers can be demanding, b u t being available at an advertised time for phone calls, or promptly replying to letters or email are obvious ways in which to make students feel that they are part of a teaching-learning relationship. if teaching departments cannot pay for staff to make toll calls, then this should be indicated in the s t u d y g u i d e , a n d a l t e r n a t i v e arrangements made, such a s a "helpdesk" for an hour or two, once a week. none of the problems i d e n t i f i e d by s t u d e n t s are insurmountable; they simply require some creative forethought and planning. creating a teaching-learning dialogue at a distance as already stated, the comments presented are in no way representative of massey university courses, but they do give an indication of what works for distance students, and what factors present major obstacles to their learning. as a major provider of tertiary distance education, massey has long established minimum standards of presentation of materials and information of materials sent to students. however, the area which is hardest to regulate, is the relationship established between teacher and learner. this is particularly challenging if the materials don't have a strong teaching­ learning framework in the first place, and then students experience inconsistency in grading and lack of availability from their tutors. after two and a half years of intensively working with extramural study guides, and being pre s e n t e d w i t h numerous design challenges, i have developed a theory of what can help to create and maintain effective dialogue and feedback loops between teachers and students. the following are my personal suggestions for improving the chances of creating a teaching-learning dialogue with distance students and represent some of the advice i gave to new extramural teaching staff. i also think they provide some interesting and researchable i�?�ues for distance educators. journal of distance learning, vol4, no 1, 1998 ©distance education association of new zealand 20 plan for dialogue in all aspects of the course plan for dialogue on many levels: dialogue through choice of instructional design, dialogue through layout and design of materials, dialogue through f e e d b a c k o n a s s e s s m e n t , and a commitment t o promoting dialogue thro ugh access a n d availability procedures. all o f these forms of dialogue are part of a feedback loop, on which students should be encouraged to comment. developing technologies for distance learning will also require the creation of opportunities for effective dialogue, as students struggle to conquer new technology in addition to new content or disciplines. feedback needs to take many forms and it needs to be integral to all parts of the course. know the learner seek and keep profiles of learners, so that the c o u r s e can be r e v i s e d upon a s e n sible diagnosis of typical l e a r n e r s ' nee ds. understand the basic principles of adult learning and use these to ground courses in realistic teaching and learning goals. become a mentor in a cognitive apprenticeship with students plan to actively "scaffold" students' learning. introduce key concepts and techniques early in the course a n d gradually transfer responsibility for learning to the students. recognise that some students will require more "scaffolding" than others, and provide " e x t r a for e x p e r t s " opportunities, a s w e l l a s tips for those who may b e struggling. recognise and reward students appropriately when they become the expert in the relationship and teach the teacher something new. recognise and develop a teaching "voice" too many papers deny students an insight into the teacher 's thoughts and reasoning, yet this teaching voice can provide students with the framework for the construction of n e w knowledge and skills, a s well a s inspiring an interest in the subject. as lockwood (1992) argues, there are existing models of instructional design and numerous examples to draw on, but we must consider how students will learn from the materials and plan accordingly. design materials with a view to scaffolding student learning. provide a good road map to navigate the course make sure that transparent criteria and guidance for assessment have been included. signpost avenues of support, and send all the information in a clearly navigable format. remember that students are looking for enthusiasm and organisation! provide multiple avenues for student feedback simple examples of effective ways include: " assessment and marking schedules and constructive comments on feedback sheets; .. student self evaluations on progress sheets; " self review tests and exercises; '" activities in text; " reflective action guides; " dialogue in t e x t from multiple perspectives; " e-mail discussion lists or web bulletin boards; " a help desk at certain times of the day i week/month; " a commitment to answering messages promptly and considerately; "' post-course evaluation and feedback; '" a genuine commitment to listening to students' complaints; .. regular newsletters; .. overview of student performance on assignments; .. and so on ... conclusion this paper introduced the notion of creating dialogue at a distance using t h e c o n c e p t s of s c affolding a n d simple classroom assessment, and a thorough understanding of how adult students learn. an examination of a small sample of student evaluations raised some issues regarding the importance of feedback on assessment and accessibility of teaching staff. to use this information, it is necessary to design courses that are based on sound principles of adult journal ofdistance learning, vol4, no 1, 1998 ©distance education association of new zealand 21 learning and focus on learners' needs. several threads have been drawn together in this paper which are all connected by a focus on promoting independent and effective student learning at a distance. it is necessary to provide opportunities for students t o comment on course materials a n d then to listen to their comments, as they are in the best p o s i t i o n to c o m m e n t on how effective teaching-lear ning materials are. strong models of instructional design are also needed during the preparation of materials and recognition of the value and the contribution teachers make to building and shaping out students' knowledge and skills. if students are not given access to teachers' thought p r o c e s s e s , they are denied a w e a l t h of experience and skill at thinking about the topic. finally, a commitment needs to be made to teaching students at a distance by whatever means is possible. as new technologies arrive on the doorstep, keeping an open mind about how they could be used for teaching and how they might best suit the learning needs of students is imperative. becoming increasingly flexible and reflective on teaching practice is crucial, if we are not to become the dinosaur that was distance education. references angelo, ta & cross, k.p. (1993). classroom assessment techniques: a handbook for college teachers. 2nd ed. san francisco, ca: jossey bass. b a k h t i n , m. m. ( e d . ) . ( 1 9 8 1 ) . the d i a l ogic imagination: four essays by m. m. bakhtin. austin, tx: university of texas press. bolt on, n. & unwin, l. (1995). apprenticeship in distance learning. open praxis, 2, 11-13. bruner, j. (1986). actual minds, possible worlds. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. evans. t. & nation, d. (eds.) (1989). critical reflections on distance education. london: palmer press. gallimore, r. & tharp, r. (1990). teaching mind in society : teaching schooling and literate discours e. in l.c. moll (ed.) vygotsky and education: instructional implications and applications of sociohis t or ic a l psychology. c a m b r i d g e : cambridge university press. garrison, d.r. (1993). a cognitive constructivist view of distance education: an anal y sis of t e a c h i n g l e a r n i n g a s s u m p t i o n s . d i s t a nce education, 12,2, 199-211. ladyshewsky, r. (1995). clinical teaching. herdsa gold guide no.1. c a n b erra, act: herds a. lockwood, f. (1992). activities in selfinstntctional texts. london:•kogan page. mclachlan-smith, c.j. (1998a) writing your administration gtiide: a handbook for extramural teachers. p a l m e r s t o n n o r t h: c e n tre for u n i v e r s i t y extramu r a l s tu d i e s , mas s e y university. mclachlan-smith, c.j. (1998b). good ideas to share: examples of good study design for extramural t e aching. p a l m e r s t o n n o r t h : c e n t r e for u n i v e rs i t y extramural s t u d i e s , mas s e y university. merriam, s.b. & caffarella, r.s. (1991). learning in adulthood: a comprehensive guide. san francisco, f:a: jossey-bass. moll, l.c. (ed.) (1990). vygotsky and education: ins truc tional implications and applications of sociohistorical psychology. cambridge: cambridge university press. rowntree, d. (1974). educational technology in curriculum development. london: harper and row. rownt ree, d. (1990). teaching through self­ instruction. london: kogan page. v ygotsky, l.s. (ed.) (1978). mind in society: the development of higher psychological processes. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. v ygotsky, l.s. (1987). thinking and speech. new york: plenum. wert sch, j.v. (1991). voices of the mind: a sociol ogical approach to m e d i a t e d action. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. wright, w.a. & herteis, e.m. (eds) (1993). university teaching and learning: an instntctional resource guide for teaching assistants at dalhousie university. halifax, nova scotia: office of instructional development and technology. claire mcl achlin-smith w or k s at the good­ fellowunit, department of general practice, faculty of medicine and health science, private bag 9299, university of auckland, auckland, new zealand. email: c.mclachlansmith@auckland.ac.nz journal of distance learning, vol4, no 1, 1998 ©distance education association of new zealand 22 research note identifying support needs of maori students enrolled extramurally at massey university introduction the 1987 report of the universities review committee to the new zealand vice-chancellors' committee identified t h e l o w participation of maori people in university study as being of great concern. since t h e n a l l n e w z e a l a n d universities have a p p o i n t e d m a o r i liaison staff t o assist in recruitment of maori students. the numbers of maori students enrolled at massey university more than trebled between 1987 and 1994. massey university has provided support to int e r n al s t u d e n t s on campus with the appointment of a maori learning support consultant, but it faces the dilemma, given time and financial constraints, of how to provide targeted assistance to the increasing numbers of students enrolled extramurally. the number of students enrolled at massey u n i v e r s i t y c l a i m i n g m a o r i ethnicity h a s increased 42 percent i n recent years from 1 657 in 1992 to 2 401 in 1994. in 1994 maori students comprised 9.2 percent of massey university's roll compared with 3.6 percent in 1986. this has resulted from targeted recruitment of maori students since the appointment of a maori lia i s o n o f f i c e r in 1987, and increasing awareness amongst maori of the value of obtaining a tertiary education. unemployment and the increasing pressure from employers on workers to gain new qualifications and skills, a n d to u p g r a d e existing o n e s , have also contributed to the increase. in 1994 1 336 maori students were enrolled extramurally at massey university and 1 033 were enrolled internally. although targeted sl!pport is available to maori barbara brookfield and louise macfarlane massey university regional office hawkes bay students enrolled internally from the maori learning s u p p o r t consultant t h e r e is n o targeted supported available to extramural maori students. substanti,al funding has been made available to support maori education at the primary and secondary level through te kohanga reo and kura kaupapa, but there is little assistance available at the secondary and tertiary level. massey university faces the dilemma of how best to provide targeted assistance to the greater numbers of m a o r i students e n r o l l i n g extramurally, given existing time and financial constraints. in recent years there has been rapid expansion of student numbers without a comparable i n c r e a s e in r e s o u r c e s . t h e performance o f maori students at tertiary level has been lower than that of non maori. durie predicted in 1989 that 'unequal inputs will be necessary to ensure some equality of output'. however, adequate funds required to resource increased input for maori students at the tertiary level has n o t b e e n f o r t h c o mi n g f r o m government. a commitment to providing learning support to maori students enrolled internally was made in 1990 with the appointment of a m a o r i learning support consultant in a half time position. this position was funded initially by the vice-chancellors' contestable equity fund and the intention was to promote greater retention of maori students by encouraging the development of study skills, and through better utilisation of existing support services available on campus. the extramural regional adviser journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 51 network was also partially funded from the contestable e quity fund, but funding was withdrawn in 1992 after the passing of the education amendment act 1991. since then the university has funded these positions. the hawkes bay and poverty bay regions contributed 489 (20.7 percent) maori students to the massey university roll in 1994. of the students enrolling at massey university in 1994 who identified themselves as maori 345 (14.6 percent) were from the hawkes bay region and 144 (6.1 percent) were from the poverty bay region. the two tribes in the region are ngati porou (poverty bay) and ngati kahungunu (hawkes bay) and in 1994 14.2 percent of maori s t u d e n t s e n r o l l i n g at m a s s e y university belonged to ngati porou and 17.2 belonged to ngati kahungunu. the purpose of this preliminary research project as to develop an overview of the difficulties which extramural maori students in hawkes b a y a n d p o v e r t y b a y encount er. this information will be useful in deciding on the allocation of resources for meeting student support needs in the future. stud e n t survey all 2 69 students enrolled extramurally at massey university in march 1995 who live in the hawkes bay and poverty bay regions were sent a questionnaire in early april. completed questionnaires were received from 92 (34 percent) students. the questionnaires contained 25 questions and took approximately ten minutes to complete. most questions required the student to respond by ticking one or more boxes but in many questions students were given the opportunity to provide additional comments if they wished. the final question invited students to comment on any a s p e c t of t h e i r e x p e r i e n c e of studying extramurally with massey university. this elicited a wide range of responses providing a useful insight into the individual student's feelings and experiences. student profile sixty six (72 percent) of the respondents were women and 24 (2 5 percent) were men. two students did not answer the question on gender. the proportion of respondents who were women was higher than the proportion of women maori students on the extramural roll. in 1994 63 percent of maori extramural students were women. . twenty four (2 6 percent) of the students had enrolled at massey university for the first time in 1995 and 22 (2 4 percent) were students undertaking their second y e a r of study. nineteen students (2 1 percent) had b e e n enrolled for five o r more years. the respondents, therefore represented a group of students with a wide range of study experience. fifty one (55 percent) respondents were studying, towards qualifications in the humanities and social science faculties and fifteen (16 percent) were completing }\usiness studies qualifications. nine students (10 percent) were completing post graduate qualifications and the remainder were studying at the undergraduate level. sixty one students (66 percent) were in paid employment and of these 49 (53 percent) were in full time paid work. eleven (12 percent) were in part-time paid work and one student was on paid study leave. twenty seven students (2 9 percent) were not in paid employment. this is higher than the 2 1.5 percent of extramural students enrolled in 1994 who were not in paid employment. questionnair e response most students first became aware o f massey university's extramural programme from a local tertiary education provider such as their local polytechnic (22 percent), from massey university publications (21 percent), from a friend or family member (36 percent), or from their employer (10 percent). only three (3 percent) found out about the extramural programme through advertising. t his supports the university's low level of expenditure on advertising and its commitment to providing high quality comprehensive publications about the programmes offered. there is a high level of awareness of massey university's extramural programme in the poverty bay andflawkes bay communities. journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 52 nearly all respondents (92 percent) plan to enrol extramurally in future years indicating high motivation amongst maori students, a.nd a high level of satisfacti<j>n with their programmes. one student commented, 'i thoroughly enjoy my studies. it has become my favourite pastime'. a n o t h e r s t u d e n t who had b e e n enrolled internally said, 'the switch to extramural study perfectly suited my study needs. study time is flexible and the tutors are very supportive. the library service is excellent'. three of the students not re-enrolling extramurally were planning to enrol internally and two were completing their qualifications. students were asked their main reasons for studying extramurally. they were permitted to give more than one response. sixty four (7 0 percent) were studying to complete university qualifications and 23 (25 percent) wished to obtain a university credit. forty five (50 percent) were studying for personal interest and 49 (53 percent) said their studies would assist them in their work. problem s and difficulties experienced students could select from a list of t e n i t e m s relating to problems or difficulties experienced during their extramural study. they could tick as many as they wished a n d a l s o h a d t h e opportunity to specify problems they had encountered which were not included in the list. forty four (48 percent) students experienced conflicting demands on time because of work commitments. this was the most common difficulty experienced. as 61 respondents were in paid employment, nearly two thirds of the students who are in paid employment have difficulty balancing the demands of study and work commitments. cull sligo's findings in a 1991 study of students enrolled in a 100 level management paper support these results. she found that two thirds of students who withdrew w e r e o v e r c o m m i t t e d at w o r k . some respondents commented that the university's shift to semesterisation increased the conflict. o n e s t u d e n t wrote that 'the switch t o semesterisation has necessitated considerable changes and sacrifices' as she juggled her commitments to extramural study, full time employment and parenting. she found it extremely difficult to find 15 hours per week to devote to her study of one paper. whanau con;tmitments posed difficulties for 34 (37 percent) students. a student completing the last paper for her degree commented that extramural study was 'a very long lonely experience'. although she could be with her whanau 'the balance of roles as student, full time employee and parent makes it difficult to give quality time to my whanau'. a significant number of students, 26 (28 percent) experienced difficulty understanding the study guides or readings and 23 (25 percent) had difficulty, understanding what was expected of them. when asked in what ways material could be presented to them that would make it easier to understand, 43 (46 percent) said they would like to have regular tutorials with local tutors. twenty three students (25 percent) said they found it difficult working in isolation from other students. despite student preference for face to face contact with tutors and for contact with peers, the numbers attending regular regional tutorials offered in recent years has declined to the extent that most of these programmes have been discontinued. demands of employment, family and community commitments are the reasons cited for students being unable to attend tutorials offered. however, 53 (58 percent) respondents were planning to attend the short regional and campus courses offered in 1995. students are proactive in developing peer networks. fifty one (55 percent) had made contact with other massey university students in their region and 27 (29 percent) had joined a study group. one s t u d e n t s a i d , 'i h a v e surrounded myself with other students who are old hands a� extramural study' and another 'made use of my personal networks when i needed help'. some students described their reluctance to seek assistance: 'i believe the help and assistance is there but often feel shy and hesitant in interacting with the various processes in place for:qty benefit'. journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 53 in .the final open comment question four students, complained about slow turnaround of assignments and highlighted the need for prompt feedback on their work. five students commented that late receipt of study material created difficulties for them that they could not overcome. delays in confirming enrolments can occur because insufficient information has been s u p p l i e d . ' t h e m e r e fact of locating and informing iwi groups will in itself not be enough. increasing maori participation levels in e d u c a t i o n r e q u i r e s guidance through procedural matters' ( durie et al. 1989). it is i m p o r t a n t t h a t admission and enrolment procedures are culturally sensitive and do not discourage maori students .. forty three (47 percent) students felt that presentation of study material on video cassette tapes would assist their understanding of the material while 2 9 (31 percent) audio cassettes would assist them. this indicates a preference for aural learning in combination with the visual mode offered by the monochromatic printed material the students receive. seventy five students (81 percent) have the use of an audio cassette recorder and 70 (76 percent) have a video cassette recorder. whilst 49 (53 percent) have the use of a computer only 10 (11 percent) respondents felt presentation of material on computer disk would assist their understanding of the material. a small number of papers already use these methods along with printed m a t e r i a l in t h e i r de l i v e r y. daley (1989) suggested that audio tapes, to be a successful mechanism for delivery of study material, must be integrated into the course and 'have to cause, encourage, require a student to respond in some way or another'. the same could apply to video tapes and computer disks. financial difficulties were experienced by 32 (33 percent) students. thirty four students (37 percent) said they were not aware of sources of financial assistance available to them. students were asked from what sources they had sought financial assistance. nineteen students (2 1 percent) had taken out a student loan and 18 (19 percent) had applied for manaaki tauira funding. ten students (11 percent) received a training incentive allowance from new zealand income support service and six students (7 percent) received assistance from their iwi. thirty three students (35 percent) said that lack of finance had prevented them enrolling or completing their study in the past. lack of finance and knovxledge of sources of financial assistance are an important factor which limits participation and the success of maori students enrolling extramurally. as one postgraduate student said, 'i have overcome most difficulties except financial' . forty students ( 43 percent) had withdrawn from papers they had enrolled in at some time in the past. the main reason for withdrawal cited by 25 of these students was that the workload was too heavy. six students found the content of the paper inappropriate to their needs and five said the material was too difficult to understand. this rate of withdrawal is similar to the annual withdrawal rate for all extramural students. a literature search indicated that lack of time is the reason most commonly g i v e n f r o m withdrawal from extramural courses (tremaine, 1978; hooper, 1990). however, hooper (1990, 98) felt that 'lack of time may be a euphemism for inability to cope with the course content'. although students who had already withdrawn from their course this year were asked to return the questionnaire, the responses indicated that few had done so. f urther res earch on the attrition rate of maori students is required. although the questionnaire focused on the difficulties experienced, most students took the opportunity to comment on favourable aspects of their extramural study experience. many students expressed a p p r e c i a t i o n for t h e encouragement and a s s i s t a n c e t h e y h a d received from their course controllers and some singled out individuals for special praise. students also commented on the accessibility and approachability of course controllers. this supports baath's (1982) findings that the warmth and enthusiasm of tutors motivated distance learners. some students expressed appreciation that they now had the oppgrtunity for tertiary education journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 54 which they had been denied in their youth. one stud e n t said extramural study ' e nhanced academic and communication skills. massey university has given me the sound education i didn't otherwise have and it has given me a vision to succeed in life'. conclusion this study of maori students enrolled extramurally in 1995 who live in the hawkes bay and poverty bay regions found that s t u d e n t s e x p e r i e n c e d d i fficulty finding adequate time for study because of work and whanau commitments. many students also had difficulty understanding the study material and what the course controller required of them. other studies have shown that lack of time is the most commonly cited reason for student withdrawal from extramural study, and the experience of the maori students surveyed may n o t be m u c h different from those of a l l extramural students. t his requires further investigation. it is well known that 'the maori cultural way of learning is group oriented' (mortlock and birchfield, 1994). many students felt lack of p e e r a n d t u t o r c o n t a c t i n c r e a s e d t h e i r difficulties, b u t provision o f regular tutorials in the past has not been adequately supported. with increasing numbers of students having a c c e s s to c o m p u t e r s , e l e ct r o n i c m a i l communication with a tutor and peers may overcome feelings of isolation. it also offers the o p p o r t u n i t y f o r t u t o r i a l a s s i s t a n c e . interestingly only 11 o f respondents felt that the provision of material on computer disk would assist their understanding of the study material. more extensive provision of study material on video, audio tapes and cd-rom may cater better for the preferred learning styles of maori students. unfortunately new zealand is the only country in the western w o r l d w h e r e t h e r e i s not an o n g o i n g commitment to fund educational institutions to purchase new technology to assist in the delivery of education. t he numbers of students experiencing financial difficulties which prevent them enrolling or succeeding is of concern, and is likely to increase as students are required to pay for an increasing proportion of their tertiary education. as 37 percent of respondents were not aware of financial ass,istance available to them, greater effort should be made to raise student awareness of sources of financial assistance. extramural study has offered 'a second chance education for maori people many of whom have been failed by earlier educational institutions' (durie et al. 1992 , 2 1), and respondents indicated a high level of motivation to s t u d y, and satisfaction with their programmes. o n e respondent wrote, 'i myself think that a lot of maori students like myself have not tasted success, put when you keep telling yourself don't give up, you will succeed. i succeeded in 1994. now that i have the taste of it i just can't stop. i want more.' references baat h, j. 1982: distance students lear n i n g empirical findings and theoretical deliberations, distance education 3, 1, 6-27. c ull sligo, m . 1991: can we predict student achievement in distance study? a preliminary discussion. proceedings of the 7th annual conference of d eanz, wellington. 81-95. durie, m., durie, a., cox, l. and richardson, p . 1989: distance education and m ao r i development. proceedings o f t h e 5 t h annual conference of deanz, masterton, 15-24. hooper, k. 1990: exploring the reasons for drop­ out from first level accounting distance education at massey university. proceedings of the 6th annual conference of d eanz, masterton, 90-112. mort lock, s., and birchfield, m. 1994: te kakano o te reo: a comparison of two different groups of maori language students study ing in two different modes. proceedings of the icde conference, wellington. . t remaine, m. 1978: why students withdraw? cited in extramural student retention, report of ad hoc committee, 1990, board of extramural studies, massey university. journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 55 microsoft word 10 deanz 2012 falloon 180312.docx falloon, g. 108 inside the virtual classroom: student perspectives on affordances and limitations garry falloon, university of waikato abstract research indicates learners studying at a distance can experience perceptions of isolation and lack of ‘belonging’ and support, which can adversely affect their learning experience and performance. recently, the advent of affordable, accessible and reliable high-speed broadband has meant that a whole new array of digital tools to support synchronous interaction between students and tutors engaged in online learning have become viable, thereby potentially helping to address some of these issues. this paper presents findings from a study involving postgraduate students using the adobe connect and wimba live virtual classrooms to present a series of seminars as part of waikato university’s postgraduate diploma in education. it explores students’ perspectives of the value of the classrooms for building relationships and supporting communication and interaction, and examines factors that influenced this. results show that while virtual classroom use was viewed favourably, its value was influenced by task, communication tools, multimedia usability and technical/logistical factors—some of which were beyond student control. these factors will be explored and discussed, with recommendations being presented for teachers considering using virtual classrooms to support their online distance learning programmes. keywords: synchronous; virtual; classroom; interaction; isolation; presence; dialogue introduction extensive research exists highlighting the importance of interaction, communication, and relationship formation in distance learning (collis, 1996; gosmire, morrison & van osdel, 2009; picciano, 2002). however, since the early days of distance education, there have been issues apparent in terms of how this can best be achieved with learners who are geographically dispersed. research indicates that learners studying remotely can suffer from perceptions of isolation and psychological distance—and these perceptions can negatively affect their performance and contribute to course retention issues (moore & kearsley, 1996). recently, technology access and performance improvements have opened new possibilities for educators and students to interact and communicate in ways that more closely resemble face-to-face scenarios, using improved technology in synchronous environments such as virtual classrooms or googleplus. however, relatively few educators have explored this potential, instead opting solely for more conventional asynchronous systems such as moodle, blackboard learn, or desire2learn. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 109 this paper reports on the use of two examples of online virtual classrooms—adobe connect pro and wimba live classroom (now blackboard collaborate)—in postgraduate education programmes at the university of waikato. the research questions guiding data collection were: 1. what were students’ perceptions of the effectiveness of the virtual classrooms for supporting interaction, communication, and relationship development? 2. what factors influenced students’ ability to use the virtual classrooms for these purposes? interaction in online distance learning while the benefits of interaction in distance learning are well known (collis, 1996; haythornthwaite, 2002) work still needs to be done as to how to best achieve this (gunawardena & mcisaac, 2004). early work by moore and kearsley (1996) highlights issues distance learners face with isolation, brought about by what they describe as transactional distance, or “a psychological space of potential misunderstanding between the behaviours of instructors and those of learners” (p. 200). moore and kearsley comment on the need to balance learner autonomy and course flexibility with a level of planned interaction that is sufficient to establish quality teacher–learner dialogue, supportive of learning community and relationship formation. this perspective is supported by a 2004 study by hay, hodgkinson, peltier and drago, who compared student perceptions of the importance of tutor–student and student–student interaction in face-to-face and online post-graduate business management degree programmes. they found that, overall, students perceived tutor–student interaction as being “the stronger of the two interaction measures in terms of predicting effectiveness for both types of delivery” (p. 200) but that, in the online context, student–student interaction accounted for more variance in overall effectiveness than it did in conventional classrooms. they speculated that this might indicate online learners rely more on each other to support their learning. another study by garrison and cleveland-innes (2005) explored the qualitative aspects of online learner interaction. their study was motivated by a concern that “high levels of interaction may be reflective of group cohesion, [but it may] not directly create cognitive development or facilitate meaningful learning” (garrison & cleveland-innes, 2005, p. 135). their results, based on an analysis of the study process questionnaire administered to 75 graduate students, concluded that teacher presence and interaction modelling critical discourse was fundamental to promoting deep learning in online contexts. they found that while informal and social interaction were both important for relationship establishment and learner security as prerequisites for deeper learning, by themselves they appeared insufficient to ensure such learning occurred. garrison and cleveland-innes (2005) concluded that online learning interaction needs to be structured, planned and sustained, and that teachers must be prepared to take a leadership role by designing into their courses the opportunity and requirement for such interaction, as well as modelling it themselves. falloon, g. 110 synchronous and asynchronous interaction in online distance learning over the last decade, educational institutions have turned to the internet as the primary mechanism for providing their distance learning offerings, using an array of asynchronous learning management systems. while such systems are an enhancement of previous methods, they still offer limited options for interaction, and these are usually restricted to online forums and discussion groups, or text-based ‘chat’ rooms (allen & seaman, 2004; anderson, 2003; snyder, tan & hoffman, 2006). however, recent studies have identified a role for both synchronous and asynchronous online systems to support learners studying at a distance (falloon, 2011a, 2011b; hrastinski, 2008). hrastinski (2008) compared the type of student interaction on asynchronous discussion forums with that of the same group using synchronous chat. he used an adaptation of haythornthwaite’s (2002) framework that identified three types of interaction necessary in online distance learning (odl)—content-related, task planning, and social support. after analysing the oral discourse of two student groups, his results indicated a predominance of content-related interaction on asynchronous forums, and social-support interaction in the synchronous chat environments. in discussing results in relation to kock’s (2005) media naturalness hypothesis (the extent to which the medium used resembles face-to-face communication), he commented that synchronous communication appeared to “increase psychological arousal” (hrastinski, 2008, p. 53) through its ability to convey information that characterised natural media (e.g., immediacy, feedback, facial or verbal expression, body language). he suggested students may have felt more disposed towards using the synchronous chat to “exchange social support and discuss less complex issues . . . since this type of communication more closely resembles face-to-face interaction” (p. 54). hrastinski concluded that, in making decisions about the communication tools selected by online teachers, it was a matter of ‘horses for courses’. asynchronous environments appeared better suited to promoting deeper cognitive engagement such as that advocated by garrison and cleveland-innes (2005), while synchronous environments supported less formal, or social, engagement—both of which are necessary for a successful odl experience. similar outcomes were reported in earlier studies by wang and newlin (2001) and mcinnerney and roberts (2004), who concluded that synchronous tools assisted learner socialisation and interaction, helped establish a sense of learning community membership, and mitigated feelings of isolation. the following study explores students’ perceptions of using one of the most recent of these synchronous tools—the online virtual classroom—in their odl courses. it investigates their views on the influence of the classrooms on group interaction, communication, and relationship development, and identifies factors that affected these. research context this study took place in the second semesters of the 2010 and 2011 academic years (july– november) and involved two groups of students studying totally online for their postgraduate diploma in education. in total, 22 students undertaking the paper prof522 – the professional practice of eteaching, were involved in the study (12 in 2010 and 10 in 2011). most interaction during the paper was in moodle, the university’s online learning platform. this interaction comprised asynchronous discussions via forums on course topics, synchronous text-based chat at scheduled times, and asynchronous, less formal spaces for students to interact and ‘chat’ casually (‘café’ spaces). in 2011, these were supplemented by wimba voice, which allowed students to post messages and respond to forum postings by generating audio files that could be streamed to others. a typical course layout is shown in figure 1. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 111 figure 1 a typical moodle course layout for prof522(net) 10 and 11b during the 2010 paper, four monday or tuesday evening sessions using the new zealand ministry of education’s adobe connect virtual classroom were scheduled and, in 2011, three sessions were held using the wimba live classroom. the platform change was prompted by the university having the opportunity to trial wimba for 6 months during 2011. classroom use focused on an assessed seminar students were required to complete, and which explored the potential of e-learning for a selected stakeholder group. one session was used for ‘practice’ (students and teacher could problem-solve any technical difficulties) while, in the remaining two sessions, students presented outcomes from their research. an extra session was held mid-course with the 2010 group to introduce discussion topics, and to provide formative feedback on the paper after its revision from the previous year. in 2011, a trial classroom was also made available to students who wished to test their seminars with others and receive feedback before the actual presentation date. the virtual classrooms the term ‘virtual classroom’ has been used to describe a variety of online learning environments. these range from asynchronous systems such as those described previously, interactive learning spaces established in virtual worlds such as second life (masters & gregory, 2010), and synchronous systems where participants are able to engage in ‘live’ virtual meetings, and communicate using multimedia services such as streamed video and audio. figure 2 illustrates a typical presentation layout for the two classrooms used in this study. while adobe connect and wimba have features in common (such as a shared whiteboard space, voice-over ip, video streaming, file and desktop sharing, text-based chat, polling, and participant q&a and feedback capabilities) there are some fundamental differences in how some of these services operate. the main difference is with video handling—wimba allows streaming of the image of only one person at a time (the presenter); whereas, in connect, the whole group can be visible when elevated to presenter status. both platforms allow archiving of content and recording of meetings falloon, g. 112 for later review. while it is not the primary purpose of this article to compare and contrast the two platforms, data indicating specific features that have influenced students’ perceptions will be included and discussed. figure 2 typical layout of the two virtual classrooms: adobe connect pro (left) and wimba live (right) research method and data coding this research adopted an interpretive case-study methodology and used mixed qualitative/quantitative tools for data collection. these were: 1. semi-structured interviews, undertaken at the conclusion of both papers—to avoid possible conflicts of interest, these were scheduled after course grades had been calculated and communicated to students (see appendix a) 2. an anonymous mixed likert-scale/short-response online questionnaire (see appendix b) 3. screen recordings of each session—where students referenced specific aspects of, or made comments in relation to, the sessions in interviews or questionnaire responses, these were reviewed and relevant data noted. the interviews were completed and transcribed by the researcher and an assistant. the transcripts and questionnaire summaries were duplicated and copies coded independently for initial themes by the assistant and the researcher, following braun and clarke’s (2006) inductive thematic analysis framework. following an initial appraisal, the researcher and assistant met and discussed results. after discussion, the following broad themes across data, and responding to the research questions, were identified: 1. student perceptions of the effectiveness of the virtual classrooms for learning community consolidation (relationships), and for communication and sharing knowledge 2. influences on the students’ ability to interact and communicate in the virtual classrooms. these comprised task influences (purpose for use); multimedia-usability influences (ability to use different integrated multimedia options); synchronous communication tool influences (using the integrated synchronous communication tools); and technical/logistical influences (technical setup and general organisation). coding decisions were then further refined before final collation. in presenting the findings, qualitative data (interviews and written survey responses) have been used to illustrate, more journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 113 specifically, students’ reasons for their likert ratings, and to probe more deeply into their perceptions of the limitations and affordances of the classrooms and issues they experienced when using them. the research complied with university ethical requirements and, when presenting data, names have been substituted by letters to maintain anonymity. table 1 provides a summary of results from the likert component of the questionnaire. results have been entered as numbers of students rating each statement from 1 (strongly negative) to 5 (strongly positive), in addition to an average rating calculation across all students (av.). responses to other question types such as ‘yes/no’ (12, 13, and 14) and informational questions (8, 15, 17, and 19) are summarised in table 2. results and findings theme 1: learning community consolidation, communication, and sharing knowledge questionnaire data in table 1 indicates students viewed using the classrooms as enhancing their perception of membership of a learning community, and as supporting relationship development between group members. student responses to statements 4 (19/22), 5 (13/22), and 9 (17/22) pertaining to these factors were rated at 4 or 5, indicating they viewed the classrooms as valuable for relationship development and fostering cooperation, and that they assisted in lessening their sense of isolation. interview responses provided some insights into reasons for this. twelve students commented that the visual and oral nature of interaction possible in the classrooms had the effect of promoting a sense of responsibility and commitment towards others in their group, and in some ways made them feel obligated towards helping them. comments indicated synchronous interaction ‘personalised’ a relationship that had formed through the asynchronous forums in moodle, and that the added dimensions of sight and sound helped consolidate these at a more personal level. as student a commented: [the time in the classroom] automatically humanised everyone to each other. so up ‘til then you get these preconceived ideas in your head . . . because we had already contributed [asynchronously], but once we had them in the classroom it’s almost like meeting the person face-to-face, and you felt like you wanted to contribute more because you wanted them to do well, and not just yourself [emphasis added]. (student a, interview transcript, november 2011). some students commented that much relationship formation groundwork had been done prior to the classroom sessions, and that they served more to consolidate or evolve existing relationships to a different level. eight students commented on the uniqueness of their group in this respect, in that they had found establishing professional relationships a relatively easy process from the outset—something that they had not experienced in other online learning situations. these students typically saw the classrooms more as a bonus than an essential tool for establishing relationships, with one commenting, “after having all those other online experiences (forums etc.)—our particular community of learners—we connected at different levels… those connections were well and truly entrenched. once we got to the synchronous environment, that was a bonus”. (student e, interview transcript, november 2011). table 1 likert questionnaire summary: results from prof522(11)net and prof522(10)net (n=22) falloon, g. 114 interestingly, responses to statement 10 about ease of communication indicated that the number of students who experienced difficulties in adequately communicating their findings during the seminars was approximately the same as the number who didn’t, while five offered neutral responses. interview data revealed this mediocre result was partially linked to issues with how the video operated (particularly wimba), in that it did not provide students with visual feedback from the group when they were presenting. while data from the 2010 cohort using the connect classroom did not indicate this to be such a concern, it was still an issue for some. students remarked that the small size of the thumbnail image in connect meant registering any visual cues to improve their performance was virtually impossible. as one commented: “ [the images] are so small, it’s hardly worth having them. you can’t really make out how [the presentation’s] going journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 115 from them . . .” (student h, interview transcript, october 2010). in the case of wimba, the total absence of any whole group visuals was distracting for some, with one student likening it to: “lecturing into cyberspace. it’s the first time i’d experienced [the virtual classroom], and i found it a bit strange just talking into the ether”. (student c, interview transcript, november 2011). students also indicated that the structure of the seminar did not encourage interaction. twelve commented that the best use of the classrooms would be in scenarios that required two-way exchanges, and that the seminar model used in their courses did not support this. students valued the affordance of the classrooms for supporting use of a range of different communication tools in their seminars, but suggested such use could have been enhanced by designs that allowed for more verbal interaction. student k summarised the opinions of the group well: [the classroom’s] a really useful tool. it made us do things differently. we got to use the stuff we were learning about—and it helped, because we could use diagrams and voice and videos and things like that to show what we’d learned . . . the only thing i should say is that it would’ve been good to have gotten [sic] more feedback . . . you know . . . questions or comments from others. this needs to be built in somehow. (student k, interview transcript, october 2010). the feedback potential of the classrooms was mentioned by 18 of the 22 students. they commented particularly on the text-chat pods and the value these offered for sharing ideas and comments, both publicly and privately. these responses are supported by questionnaire data that rated the text-chat function second only to audio in tool value ranking (table 2). however, while most appreciated its usefulness, some found it off-putting, claiming it distracted them while they were presenting. four made remarks to this effect in their interviews, with one commenting that the constant activity drew her attention away from her presentation as, “it caught my eye all the time . . . flashing away in the bottom corner. i wanted to see what they were saying about my work . . . it was hard to concentrate”. (student g, interview transcript, october, 2010). others appeared uncertain about how the pod worked, and who was able to see what and when “. . . i couldn’t work out what the little bit down in the corner was (the chat pod). i thought it could be distracting for some people”. (student f, interview transcript, november 2011). six students commented on the limitations of classrooms if the expectation was deep understanding generated through reflective thinking. these students considered that, where deeper and more comprehensive knowledge was an objective, asynchronous modes performed better. ironically, data linked this perspective to the very benefit often cited for using virtual classrooms—that is, the value of synchronous interaction. these students indicated that the immediacy of interaction did not allow them opportunity for reflective ‘thinking time’, and that this affected their ability to ask questions they considered worthwhile. one commented that they saw the classroom as “a good place to introduce topics or wrap up” (student l, interview, october, 2010), while another highlighted the difficulty of keeping up with the onscreen activity: “the synchronous is harder to organise and doesn’t allow you to have that reflective thinking going on as you’re involved in it so much . . . and you don’t have that time gap you can respond . . . there’s so much going on”. (student f, interview transcript, november 2011). theme 2: influences on students’ ability to interact and communicate in the virtual classrooms data in this theme were coded under four interrelated sub-themes. these were: task influences, multimedia-usability influences, synchronous communication tool influences, and technical/logistical influences. figure 3 illustrates the interrelationships between these four subthemes. falloon, g. 116 figure 3 relationship between influences on students’ ability to communicate and interact in the virtual classrooms 1. task influences data coded under this sub-theme referred to student views of how well the classrooms supported the purpose to which they were put, and any affordances or limitations to this. questionnaire data indicated most students considered using the classrooms for seminars to be appropriate and worthwhile (16/22 rating statement 1 at 4 or 5), but interviews revealed that some students considered that the way the seminars were structured did not make best use of their synchronous capability. the data suggested that there is a need to blend significant offline preparation with synchronous online interaction, so that what goes on in classrooms represents deeper, more meaningful learning, rather than shallow, superficial interaction. to facilitate this, it was suggested that seminars should be spread out over more evenings with fewer on each, presentations and supporting notes should be made available in advance to allow others to review them and generate useful feedback and questions, and there should be more time for follow-up discussion after each seminar. furthermore, six students commented that they saw potential for independent student use of the classrooms outside the more formal purposes integrated within courses. remarks indicated that students identified value in classroom use for student-led tutorials, introducing and summing up learning modules, and for collaborative development of assessment tasks. however, while supporting such activities, some cautioned against over-use and the effect this could have on learner choice and flexibility—two of the main reasons they opted for odl in the first place. such views were well represented by student i, who stated: it’s a bit of a trade-off really. on one hand it’s really good being able to work together and share ideas using tools like the classroom, but if it was too often it would be a bit of a bind. after all, we choose to do courses online because it gives flexibility—we can work around other things—so if we had to turn up every week or every 2 weeks even, it takes a lot of that away. (student i, interview transcript, october 2010). this perception was supported by questionnaire results that indicated most students favoured a maximum of three or four sessions of up to 1½ hours in duration over a 12 week, semester-long course (see table 2). journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 117 table 2 questionnaire summary: technical, logistical and communication tools technical and logistical 2. multimedia-usability influences data coded under this sub-theme referenced feedback relating to the range of multimedia that can be used in the classrooms to communicate knowledge, and the benefits and frustrations associated with using them effectively. these data closely aligned with technical influences, as technical know-how proved an essential requirement supporting communication through effective multimedia use. it was apparent that a number of students felt disadvantaged by a lack of technical knowledge about how the classrooms worked—specifically, how to make best use of their multimedia support capability for their seminars. such functionality included video and audio streaming, annotation of charts and diagrams, using the drawing tools palette, and hyperlinking to external websites. comments indicated that while the familiarisation sessions1 1 an optional introductory session was held in advance of each series of seminars. falloon, g. 118 were valuable, they were insufficient to enable students to develop enough knowledge to use the multimedia capabilities of the environments to their best advantage. student n stated a lack of multimedia ‘know-how’ limited her ability to design a creative and engaging seminar, which may have negatively affected her grade. she remarked: i couldn’t figure out how to link successfully to the outside (external website) so that others could see it! i wanted to use prezi for my seminar ‘cos it has so many neat features . . . you can be much more creative than just powerpoint. i know you can do it in the classroom, but i couldn’t figure it out. i didn’t know if it was working properly—i couldn’t tell ‘cos i could only see my computer. in the end i gave up and just used boring old powerpoint . . . (student n, interview transcript, october 2010). this frustration was also apparent when students used the wimba live classroom. one described the environment as ‘clunky’, claiming that the difficulty of linking beyond the classroom discouraged her from using this capability. she commented: the other thing that was really frustrating was the linking, when you provided links. i was chewing up so much energy trying to get it to work in wimba. it didn’t like the fact that i wanted to move away to go to an internet site . . . it was just too hard. (student e, interview transcript, november 2011). these comments and similar feedback indicated additional work needed to be done to improve student understanding of how different multimedia could be successfully integrated into their seminars. 3. synchronous communication tool influences a range of synchronous communication tools is integrated within the virtual classrooms. these enable students to interact and share information through audio, video, text chat, shared ‘whiteboard’ and drawing tools, and file sharing and polling—as well as provide feedback and indicate questions and opinions using animated emoticons. of those tools available, students ranked audio, text chat, and video functions most highly (see table 2). while interview data indicated students valued the visual and audio functions for their community-building role, affordances and limitations were noted regarding their value for effectively communicating information. many limitations were technical in nature—some linked to the operation of the audio that only allowed for data transmission one way at a time. student l likened using the audio to talking on old-fashioned walkie-talkies, but at the same time recognised the difficulty of dealing with live audio and video when several people were involved: you felt like you had to say ‘over and out’ when you had finished speaking . . . just like those old walkie-talkie things! i suppose it has to be that way though, otherwise it could be chaotic with everyone trying to talk over everyone else. i found it annoying to have to hold down the button to talk . . . and sometimes i forgot, and wondered why the others couldn’t hear me. (student l, interview transcript, october 2010). communicating effectively with the tools relied not only on students knowing how to use them, but also their interpretation of how and when use was appropriate. the data suggest there was some confusion regarding this interpretation, as no guidelines had been established and shared prior to the seminars. it was clear some found the constantly changing text chat distracting, while others mentioned difficulties in maintaining concentration due to the number of simultaneous tool-related activities happening on screen. three students commented on limitations of the usefulness of the feedback pods, with one stating she gave up indicating questions due to response delays: journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 119 i kept signalling, but nobody took any notice! maybe they were concentrating on sam’s presentation or something . . . i had a question i wanted to ask her about one of her slides, but by the time she’d finished the moment had passed, so i didn’t bother. (student m, interview transcript, october 2010). these data illustrate typical issues students faced when using the classrooms’ communication tools. some of these issues were technical in nature, while others linked to the absence of guidelines for appropriate use. implications from these will be raised later in this paper. 4. technical/logistical influences data in this sub-theme were organised into technical (hardware/software/infrastructure) and logistical (organisational) influences on interaction, relationship development and communication. questionnaire data indicated a small majority of students experienced no technical issues using the classrooms (statement 14, n = 12), although those who did (n = 10) cited hardware quality and network reliability and speed as being the two major concerns (see table 2). unsurprisingly, students using wireless networks on low-specification laptops experienced most difficulty, as did those on cabled machines with capped data or different up and download speeds. data transfer rates on such configurations appeared insufficient to support the level of required activity, resulting in jerky or delayed voice and video delivery. four students voiced concerns about the effect of issues such as these on their seminars, and felt their performance and possibly their grade had suffered as a result. in one case, the student’s internet provider failed to complete necessary speed upgrades in time. she commented: if you are going to be assessed on a presentation, and your hardware is clapping out, or if your internet provider is not able to make that more fluid and synchronous, then it does compromise how you feel your presentation will be which will affect your confidence, and the way you are able to get the information out and be assessed on it . . . (student e, interview transcript, november 2011). other technical issues included difficulties with camera set-up, but these were predominantly confined to the connect classroom. unlike wimba, the version of connect used did not have a built-in setup wizard that automatically took care of video and sound settings—students needed to do this manually inside the classroom. some had difficulties with open applications such as skype conflicting with connect’s video requirements, while others found their version of flash player (needed for video and audio) incompatible or outdated. others experienced difficulty with connect recognising their camera, the camera speed being insufficient, or their environment presenting backlight problems that created dark images. while these issues presented challenges, most students viewed them as ‘part and parcel’ of working with new technologies, readily accepting that teething issues occur, and that useful learning can come from solving them. as one put it, “when those things do happen, you learn to fix them up yourself—it empowers you a bit more to fix things for yourself, and you know what you’re looking for next time”. (student a, interview transcript, november 2011). logistically, results from questionnaire statement 13 highlight the number of students who needed to make special arrangements to enable them to participate in the sessions (12/22). this result was a surprise, as the sessions were held on monday evenings (7.30–9.30 pm approx.) to avoid conflict with other work commitments. interview data indicated many issues related to technical challenges of the type mentioned earlier, with students choosing to use other people’s equipment in preference to their own, due to performance and reliability concerns. student c illustrated this by commenting, “i went to my cousin’s place and he has fast broadband—i was able to use his broadband, because i thought i didn’t want to take the risk”. (student c, interview transcript, november 2011). some overseas students opted to use community facilities such as falloon, g. 120 public libraries because they had better quality broadband, and four students in rural areas of new zealand chose to go to their local school for the same reason. different time zones presented an additional logistical challenge for international students, with some in canada and the middle east needing to work late into the night or early morning to participate. interestingly, none of them saw this as a major issue for the number of times the classrooms were used, but commented that if more frequent use was required, their thinking might change. as one put it, “as long as we know, we opt in on that basis. we have the choice— it’s our responsibility”. (student i, interview transcript, october 2010). other logistical issues mentioned included the need to organise childcare and sorting other family commitments, so they could participate uninterrupted. discussion and implications results suggest virtual classrooms can make a valuable contribution to odl, particularly for learning-community consolidation, offering different options for interaction and communicating knowledge, and developing and/or maintaining supportive relationships between students and teachers. however, results also indicate that maximising the benefits from synchronous environments requires considerable student and tutor preparation and know-how, and that they serve complementary, but fundamentally different purposes, to asynchronous environments. this study holds several implications for those considering using virtual classrooms in higher education. first, if the intention is to use classrooms for ‘high-stakes’ or assessment tasks, prior work must be undertaken with students to develop sufficient tool knowledge and understanding of the multimedia capabilities of classrooms to enable them to use these effectively in representing outcomes. this applies particularly to procedures for accessing external websites, streaming audio or video, using functions such as slide annotation, and live sharing of documents. this study is consistent with earlier reports (falloon, 2011b), in indicating the dangers of assuming students have, or will independently be able to develop, the know-how to use these to their best advantage. it is recommended that dedicated course time be allocated to develop this capability. it is also suggested that tutors need to play an active role here because of how the classrooms work (e.g., ‘administrator’ rights are needed to enable access to certain tools). while independent student exploration is valuable, there appear to be limitations to the depth of learning that can be generated by this type of activity. related to this, the quality of computer hardware and network connectivity undoubtedly affected student interaction and their ability to communicate knowledge in different ways. in using virtual classrooms, there exists potential for some students to be disadvantaged by such factors, some of which may be beyond their control. teachers must be mindful of this (especially when using classrooms for assessment purposes) and ensure as much as possible that expectations match the technical resources students have access to. there is tension between this stance and fully capitalising on the potential of classrooms to ‘push the envelope’ in terms of innovative approaches to knowledge communication. second, learning experiences seeking student participation through feedback and interaction should be structured accordingly, and guidelines should be established to enable the appropriate use of communication tools. this study revealed the limitations of virtual classrooms for encouraging deeper understanding through critical reflection, such as that advocated by garrison and cleveland-innes (2005). if one objective is for students to engage deeply with material and for the virtual classroom to support this, presentations and structured guidelines for analysis of content should be provided in advance, via asynchronous means. this also applies where there is an expectation of student contribution to and interaction with others’ work, through purposeful journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 121 discussion and questioning. like other studies (e.g., hrastinski, 2008; wang & newlin, 2001), this research indicates a clear role for both environments in odl. third, care should be taken to ensure over-use of virtual classrooms does not negatively affect student flexibility and choice, undermining reasons for them opting for odl. results suggest something of a ‘tipping point’ of three to four sessions per 12-week semester course, with a maximum of 1½ hours per session. beyond this, it is likely that use would be considered intrusive and could detract from student independence. this particularly applies to international students contending with time zones. finally, an important consideration for teachers contemplating using virtual classrooms is the effect their use may have on the nature of their work. in this example, classroom sessions were held on monday evenings to work in with students’ other commitments. as many students studying via odl are studying part time and usually have other employment, it is likely, as in this case, that evenings or weekends are the only suitable times for classroom sessions. teachers must be prepared to make this commitment, accepting the implications this has for their workload and working hours. conclusion while acknowledging the limited scope of this study, it does indicate a valuable role for virtual classrooms in promoting student interaction and consolidating a sense of identification as members of a learning community. it highlights the need for teachers to invest course time to develop student knowledge of how to best use the multimedia tools available in classrooms, and to carefully design, prepare, and structure classroom activities to encourage deeper, more reflective learning, if that is a goal. guidelines also need to be established about how and when communication tools should be used, so that their use does not distract other users. finally, the study suggests teachers need to be mindful of the technology constraints students work within, and while aiming classroom use towards full-utilisation, they must ensure no students are disadvantaged through technology quality or access issues. further research is needed to determine more accurately the appropriate blends of synchronous and asynchronous system use within odl courses, so that the specific capabilities of each can best benefit learners without impinging upon their flexibility and choice. references allen, i. e., & seaman, j. 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(2006). digest of education statistics, 2005. national educational statistics center, washington, dc: us government printer. retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2006030 wang, a., & newlin, m. (2001). online lectures: benefits for the virtual classroom. t.h.e. journal. retrieved from http://www.thejournal.com/articles/15513 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 123 biographical notes garry falloon falloong@waikato.ac.nz dr garry falloon is a senior lecturer in the department of professional studies in education at the university of waikato. his research interests include using digital technologies in education-business science partnerships, synchronous and virtual environments in online distance learning, and digital learning object design and use. � this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. falloon, g. (2012). inside the virtual classroom: student perspectives on affordances and limitation. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 16(1), [pp. 108–126]. falloon, g. 124 appendix a starter interview questions thank for being involved, ice breaker etc. 1. first of all, can you please tell me a little bit about yourself… teaching or other work experience, educational background etc. 2. what are your reasons (motivations) for engaging in learning via online distance mode? (probes: have you done any other courses or papers in this way? how many? in what areas?). 3. what do you see as the benefits of learning in this way? 4. are there any issues with, or limitations to odl, from your perspective? 5. do you find studying online challenging? why? (what is it about odl you find challenging/not challenging?) 6. to date, what has been your experience of odl? 7. what, in your view, makes a great odl experience? (probes: course content design, participants’ roles, technology mix etc.) 8. what does it take to develop one of these ‘great experiences’, do you think? using virtual synchronous communication tools in odl this year in prof522 we used the wimba virtual classroom and wimba voice for an assessed seminar and as an alternative to text for forum discussions, postings etc. in relation to that experience: 9. do you consider the use of synchronous tools such as the wimba classroom and wimba voice enhanced your odl experience? (probes: why, why not, how, in what ways?) detracted from it? 10. were there any issues, limitations or inconveniences for you attending the virtual classroom seminars? 11. do you consider using the virtual classroom to present an assignment seminar task was an appropriate use? (probes: why, why not?). 12. as a presenter, were there any factors relating to using the virtual classroom you consider affected your seminar presentation performance? (probes: audience feedback, technical etc.) 13. in listening and looking at others’ presentations, were you aware of any factors related to using the virtual classroom that influenced your experience as a member of the audience? 14. can you identify other ways the virtual classroom might be used in online distance courses? (probes: student directed use? coursework related, tutor-directed use? other uses?) 15. do you have any comments to make about the use of the audio facility (wimba voice) for forums and for other purposes, in this course? (probes: positive and negative points, limitations and affordances etc.) thank you for your time and participation in this interview. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 125 appendix b likert/short-response questionnaire statements 1. please indicate the extent to which you consider using the wimba (adobe) classroom was a worthwhile experience in this paper. 2. what effect did the use of the virtual classroom have on your perception of other course members? 3. what effect did the use of the virtual classroom have on your perception of the course tutor? 4. what effect did the use of the virtual classroom have on your perception of being part of a community of learners (belonging)? 5. what effect did the use of the virtual classroom have on your sense of learner isolation? 6. what effect did using the virtual classroom have on your studies? 7. please indicate your level of support for using the virtual classroom more frequently in courses such as this. 8. please indicate how frequently you would be prepared to participate in virtual classroom use (for example for tutorials) over a typical 12-14 week course. 9. what is your perception of the virtual classroom as a tool for student collaboration? 10. how easy was it for you to communicate your thoughts and knowledge using the virtual classroom? 11. what affect did using the virtual classroom have on your learning? 12. i had to purchase additional computer equipment to enable me to participate in the virtual classroom? 13. i needed to make special logistical arrangements to enable me to attend the virtual classroom sessions (e.g.: childcare, travel to access a landline, borrow a computer, upgrade my internet etc.) 14. i had technical issues connecting to the virtual classroom. 15. please rank your opinion of the technical features of the virtual classroom in order from 1 to 7 (least to most valuable). 16. 16. what is your perception of the adequacy of the performance of the virtual classroom (e.g.: quality of audio, video, speed of content delivery etc.?) 17. please indicate your internet connection speed if known. 18. how convenient for you was the timing of the virtual classroom presentations? 19. i consider the maximum duration for a virtual classroom session should be… 20. what affect did the prior distribution of presentation outlines have on your ability to ask questions or otherwise engage with and understand the presentations? falloon, g. 126 biographical notes garry falloon dr garry falloon is a senior lecturer in the department of professional studies in education at the university of waikato. his research interests include using digital technologies in education–business science partnerships, synchronous and virtual environments in online distance learning, and digital learning object design and use. � this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. falloon, g. (2012). inside the virtual classroom: student perspectives on affordances and limitation. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 16(1), [pp. 108-126]. microsoft word jdl05maintext1word.doc journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 27 design of web-based courses for secondary students michael barbour university of georgia athens, georgia, usa introduction in 1985 the government of newfoundland and labrador commissioned a study of small schools which called for “a distance education school to be established and . . . distance education courses [to be delivered] by correspondence, computers, videotapes” and with delivery using memorial university’s tele-medicine system (riggs, 1987, p. 28). in 1988 the government implemented a distance education programme to provide students in small schools with courses that were important for post-secondary admission but which were difficult to offer in rural schools because of small student enrolment numbers. in the programme’s first year, there was one course with an enrolment of 36 students in 13 schools. by 1999 to 2000 there were 11 courses with 898 enrolments (brown, sheppard, & stevens, 2000). the government appointed a royal commission in 1990 which recommended “that a school of distance education and technology be established” utilizing the tetra/ tele-medicine model, along with cdroms, electronic bulletin boards, and computer databases (williams, 1993, p. 321). individual school districts began to experiment with web-based methods of delivery. for example, in 1999 the centre for telelearning and rural education and the vista school district created the vista school district digital intranet: the delivery of advanced placement courses to young adult learners in rural communities, which saw the development of four courses for webbased delivery. in 1999 the government appointed a ministerial panel which recommended the creation of the centre for distance learning and innovation (cdli) based on a web-based model which would not be “totally dependent on high bandwidth technologies and [would have a] minimal reliance on synchronous communications, fixed schedules or other constraining elements,” as had been evolving throughout the province (sparkes & williams, 2000, p. 65). the cdli began in 2001 to 2002 with ten courses piloted in ten districts (i.e., one course per district). after the pilot phase, the cdli expanded its course offerings and students from all over the province could access any course. at present, the cdli offers 27 courses, with 11 others in development. this article reports the initial findings of a study that investigated design characteristics of a web-based distance education programme for rural secondary school students who were unable to access a full range of courses at their school. discovering the journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 28 characteristics perceived to be important by course developers and teachers of web-based courses along with the perceptions of the secondary students themselves was central in this study, which was guided by the research question: what characteristics do developers, teachers, and students perceive as important for an effectively designed web-based course for secondary school students? literature review according to roblyer and knezek: three assumptions educators often make about research on technologybased (i.e., computer-based and online distance learning) methods are that: (a) it has a commonly-held, theory-based agenda, (b) findings provide convincing evidence about unique ways modern technologies enhance achievement and motivation and (c) these findings shape practice in the field. the last thirty years of educational technology research notwithstanding, none of these assumptions are currently true. (2003, p. 60) in relation to this, gallini and barron believe: an increasing number of educators in k–12 and postsecondary settings are experimenting with the potential of the technologies for instruction and learning, but all of this is happening at a pace that is far surpassing the collection of useful data to test the mediational effects of the tools (2001–2002, p. 143). the virtual high school movement is an example of change happening at a pace that is surpassing the collection of useful data. according to clarke (2001) there have been 14 u.s. state-sanctioned virtual high schools since 1997 (pp. i–ii), while according to vail (2001) there were “more than 50 charter and public school online programs running in at least 30 states, and demand for them continues to grow.” with the growing number of virtual high schools, there is a concern that web-based distance education may not be suitable for all secondary students (mulcahy, 2002). there has been much research on webbased course design. collis (1999, pp. 204–206) sets out ten guidelines for instructional designers, which are summarised here: 1. plan for flexibility and adaptation when the world wide web–based course-support system is defined. 2. design for a variety of roles for both instructors and students; allow roles to be interchangeable or modifiable. 3. do not assume students will use the course-support site as a primary source of course content. 4. use the course-support site to supplement study materials, and to integrate and manage student study activities. 5. design the web site so that students and instructors can input and make use of a variety of combinations of supplemental media and resources. 6. design for minimal levels of technical support, for minimal levels of computerrelated skills and competencies, for minimal levels of online time. journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 29 7. reduce text fixed on the screen to a minimum; use a minimum of graphic and iconic elements and provide contextsensitive help. 8. offer a flexible assortment of tools which can be combined for different communication configurations. 9. design to organisational flexibility, so that courses of different lengths, offered at a variety of times, and with different types and levels of prerequisites and examination/assessment requirements can be supported. 10. be realistic about what instructors can and will do. gallini and barron (2001–2002) found “most students (77%) prefer a course structure with clear guidelines along with opportunities in the course to suggest alternative approaches to meeting course objectives [and] approximately 97% [of students] indicated that they communicated more with their instructors and peers in courses that integrated webbased components than in courses that did not” (p. 149). stein (2004) found “contrary to theories of transactional analysis that state that low structure, the ability to negotiate with the instructor, and the autonomy that online learning offers are valued at a premium . . . that structure was the most important factor in online learner satisfaction and community formation” (p. f1). however, this research focused upon post-secondary institutions and corporate america, both of which have adult learners as their primary interest (see also duchastel, 1997; mcknight, 2004; murphy, 2003; twigg, 2001; zhu & mcknight, 2001). in a review of distance education, gunawardena and mcisaac (2004, pp. 369–370) only refer to the k to 12 education system once, in a twoparagraph discussion of the use of personal digital assistants in distance education. in the same publication, hill, wiley, nelson, and han (2004) make no specific references to internetbased learning within the k to 12 environment. this lack of research on the secondary school learner is an important oversight because there is a difference between how adults learn and the way adolescents learn. the former— andragogy—is defined by darkenwald and merriam (1982) “as a set of assumptions and methods pertaining to the process of helping adults learn . . . knowles (1970) . . . argued that pedagogy—which we use here to mean an approach to childhood learning—is inappropriate for adults and thus its use should be restricted to children” (cited in merriam and brockett, 1997, p. 135). more specifically, knowles (1970) states: andragogy is premised on at least four crucial assumptions about the characteristics of adult learners that are different from the assumptions about child learners on which traditional pedagogy is premised. these assumptions are that, as a person matures, 1) his self-concept moves from one of being a dependent personality toward one of being a self-directing human being; 2) he accumulates a growing reservoir of experience that becomes an increasing resource for learning; 3) his readiness to learn becomes oriented increasingly to the developmental tasks of his social roles; and 4) his time perspective changes from one of postponed application of knowledge to immediacy of application, and accordingly his journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 30 orientation toward learning shifts from one of subject-centeredness to one of problem-centeredness. (p.39) even in his harsh critique of knowles’s concept of andragogy, bright (1989) states, “it is not being suggested that there are no differences between adults and children. on the contrary, there are probably many” (p.55). this distinction between andragogy and pedagogy provides a strong rationale for research into the characteristics of effective webbased design for secondary students. the study this study was the initial portion of a study on perceptions of the characteristics of effective web-based design for secondary school students within the cdli environment. this initial portion explored the perceptions held by an administrator of the cdli, course developers, and teachers. data collection the data collection process involved telephone interviews with course developers, teachers, and individuals who have held both roles for the cdli. an e-mail was sent to twenty-four teachers (eight of whom were also developers) and four course developers. four others were not contacted: three had retired from teaching and the fourth’s e-mail address was unknown. four individuals agreed to participate: two course developers and two individuals who were both course developers and teachers. the participants were: • john, who was one of the initial developers (and was perceived as one of the stronger course developers). • cliff, a retired teacher who spent 29 years in the classroom before designing his first course. • norman, one of four original developers who went on to teach online. he also developed sections of two other courses and at the time of the research was teaching a second web-based course. • bill, who was about to begin his thirtieth year of teaching, that last three as an e-teacher. he was another of the initial developers. in addition, an administrator with the cdli was interviewed. george had been involved in distance education in the province of newfoundland and labrador for the past decade and a half, first as a distance education coordinator in a rural school, then as an instructor and content developer, and later with a webbased programme. the main sources of secondary data were the cdli home page and the cdli developers’ server. the cdli home page includes all web-based course content developed for the cdli, along with a variety of multimedia learning objects. the developers’ server contains support material for web-based course designers and multimedia learning object designers. for the purpose of this study, the developers’ template included on the server was of particular interest. this template provides the structure that cdli course developers use to plug the content (i.e., text, image, and multimedia objects) into the actual course web pages. data analysis because of his experience with the cdli and other web-based initiatives directed at secondary students, the researcher developed potential analytical categories prior to the interviews being conducted. during the transcriptions of the interviews, the researcher began to identify themes that emerged during journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 31 each of the interviews (kvale, 1996). as themes were identified, each one was written in the form of a statement and the transcripts were again analysed for quotations that would support or detract from each of the statements (shank, 2002). these statements formed the basis of the preliminary findings. the analysis of the secondary data consisted of the researcher reviewing the documents initially for examples that would support or refute the statements mentioned above. after this was completed, the researcher again reviewed the documents for further evidence that would be useful in addressing the research question. in addition, analysis using a grounded design technique was also used. grounded design as described by hannafin, hannafin, land, and oliver (1997) has four conditions necessary for design practice to be grounded: first, design must be based in a defensible theoretical framework. the framework must be public; that is, it can be both articulated clearly and differentiated from other perspectives . . . next methods must be consistent with the outcomes of research conducted to test, validate, or extend the theories upon which they are based. . . . in effect, grounded designs reflect a close link between empirically verified approaches and those employed in a given learning system. in addition, grounded designs are generalisable, that is, the methods can be applied more broadly than only to a specific setting or problem. . . . finally, grounded designs and their frameworks are validated iteratively through successive implementation. (p.103) the grounded design approach was used to compare the actual design of existing courses to the beliefs espoused by the course developers and teachers to determine if the cdli courses were grounded in an instructivist or a constructivist framework. preliminary findings the statements taken from the interview transcripts yielded ten initial guidelines that course developers seem to use when designing courses for secondary school students. 1. developers should, in john’s words, “try to develop a good set of notes [and] a good set of worked examples” for the students. many of the interviewees indicated that students, especially those of average ability and below average ability, do not read their textbooks and when they do they have poor strategies for finding important material. they also referred to the fact that students should be shown how to respond to the questions they may be presented with. by providing the students with a good set of notes and worked examples, the course developer will give the student the opportunity to achieve the lesson outcome. 2. it was found that the students tend not to use the “you will learn” and “you should know” sections in the developer’s template. they don’t read . . . “you will learn” . . . “you should know,” they go . . . right to the “lesson.” (john) instead of going . . . “you will learn,” or “you should know,” and so on, they’ll click right to the “lesson.”. . . if i have any activities assigned to them, they’ll journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 32 simply just go right to the “activities,” they won’t even bother with the “lesson” itself. (norman) the only things that are looked at . . . are the “activity” sections . . . the other parts . . . there’s nobody looking at them . . . they go right to the “activities” . . . to see what they have to produce. then they’ll go back to the “lessons” to get the background . . . to the activities. (bill) based on these observations it seems course developers should also include the information about lesson objectives in the text of their “lesson,” in most instances in the first paragraph. 3. the lesson should provide students with clear instructions and expectations. students “need to have clearly defined what has to be done [over] a certain period of time” (john). “the directions and the expectations [need to be] precise enough so students can work effectively on their own, not providing a roadblock for their time” (bill). 4–6. the next three guidelines relate to text, images, and interactive items. in addition to providing clear directions and expectations, course developers also should ensure there is not too much text to read. unfortunately: you’re trying very often to explain things [that are] difficult to understand. the more explanation you have there the less chance . . . students are going to read it, but some of the concepts are just too difficult to be . . . presented very concisely. (bill) this requires course developers to use strategies to shorten long portions of text. one thing a course developer can use is an image. “by providing students a visual cue with the written information it does provide a connection for them” (norman). using images, course developers can break up the amount of text that is presented to the students and visuals are also useful to “communicate abstract ideas” (cliff). another way of imposing the learning experience for students can be through the inclusion of interactive items. these do not have to be sophisticated pieces of computer programming, but may be for example, a graph where students can “move their mouse over a point [and] it would identify what that is, and tell them the purpose of it on the graph” (norman). however, when selecting interactive items, developers should ensure that selections are based on solid content or pedagogy. “there should not be a lot of distractions there with things that . . . might be gimmicky” (bill). too often, “trying to be too flashy . . . really may distract . . . from the lesson itself and students may miss the message” (norman). 7. content developers also should consider the use of real-life examples. it is important to have students “looking a lot at their own lives [and] their own communities” (bill). “for example, if it’s . . . a student in newfoundland and labrador, you would use organisms that would reside in the province themselves,” which “can provide [the students] with something a little more sustentative and relate to where they are” (norman). journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 33 8. developers should not use the same format for every lesson. [each lesson] has to offer a certain sense of choice to the student’s preferred style or mode of learning. some students learn better by reading, some . . . with their hands, [and] some . . . by discussing items. now a well-designed lesson would either a) provide a couple of approaches or b) at least in the long scheme of things the lessons taken in aggregate would provide . . . a varied approach.” (george) 9. lessons should be designed for the average ability or below average student. “appropriateness . . . [is] an important thing . . . because a lot of . . . people who develop courses . . . design . . . for . . . top students . . . but we’re also going to have some very, very weak students . . . so even if you’re into doing complicated material . . . keeping it as simple as possible” (bill). always remember “students are still students and . . . we shouldn’t assume that they’re all self motivated. . . . it’s much better to shoot . . . for the average and below average student . . . making sure that . . . there’s a structure in place that guarantees they’re doing their . . . work” (cliff). 10. course developers should plan their entire course before they begin. more directly: do not attempt to write anything, do not attempt to construct anything, until you have designed your project out from end to end, from start to finish. . . . if you fail to do this, here’s what happens . . . if you get in there and get on with it and make a misstep, . . . undoing that mistake usually means changes that percolate right through the web of work that you’ve constructed. so, undoing your mistakes is horrendously difficult. second thing is that when you take the time to lay your project out from start to finish, the chances are you will confer with other people and that means that you will add layers of . . . important content . . . to your project that would not otherwise have been there if you did not take the time. (george) discussion the purpose of this study was to generate a list of characteristics of effective web-based design specifically for secondary students. as discussed earlier there are differences between the ways in which adults learn and how adolescents learn. considering the ten guidelines discussed in the previous section, it should be noted there was little similarity with the ten guidelines for instructional designers illustrated by collis (1999), which was provided for a higher education (i.e., adult) audience. based upon the interview transcripts, one of the reasons for this difference may be the maturity of the adolescent learner. in listing a set of four assumptions solely concerned with adult learner characteristics (noted earlier in this paper), knowles (1970) argued that adult learners were different from child learners. many of these assumptions were counter to the picture presented by the interviewees of their experiences with adolescent learners. the secondary analysis considered whether the courses, and specifically the cdli course template, are grounded in the same epistemological beliefs held by the course developers. all of the developers interviewed made comments journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 34 that indicated they attempted to design their courses in a constructivist fashion. john said he looked for “a way of guiding [students] through the course.” norman stated, “what i am trying to do is i’m trying to draw [the students] . . . to understand or to lead them to an understanding of certain content.” and bill commented, “the teacher being able to . . . guide the students and . . . be able to monitor . . . when the students weren’t grasping something.” cliff’s comments referred to some of the strategies he used: i have always found that effective because [you’re] getting the response early because the activity is early and you use that as a teaching tool rather than the students becoming like passive sponges and you give them information and . . . then evaluate them on whether they’ve got the information. these statements indicate the developers believe that the teacher is more of a “guide on the side,” whereas the structure of the developer’s template is more representative of a “sage on the stage” perspective. based upon an analysis of the developer’s template, there are many similarities between its individual components and robert gagné’s nine events of instruction. the table below compares these nine events of instruction with the developer’s template. table 1 cdli course and behaviourism (gagné’s nine events of instruction) gagné’s nine events of instruction cdli template / courses rationale gaining attention n/a there is no piece for this in the developer’s template and typically was not done in the courses reviewed. it is assumed that students will bring this with them. informing the learner of the objective you will learn this section provides a list of learning objectives for the lesson, written in student-friendly language. stimulating recall of prerequisite learning you should know this section provides a list of learning objectives that the students should know before starting the lesson, written in student-friendly language. presenting new material providing learning guidance lesson this section provides students with the instruction of the lesson, giving them information about the topic and examples of worked problems (if applicable). this is the section where the majority of learning is planned to take place. eliciting performance providing feedback about correctness activities this section provides students with readings along with online and/or written exercises for them to complete and receive feedback from the teacher. assessing performance enhancing retention and recall test yourself this section, in most instances, provides students with an interactive quiz they can take, have marked, and receive feedback on all by clicking a few buttons. journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 35 this comparison illustrates the behaviourist tendency of the developer’s template. this contradiction, along with the interviewees’ comments about how students use the various components of courses, may provide a reason for the cdli to revisit the developer’s template. conclusion while still a work in progress, the ten guidelines from the five initial interviews provide a promising start to answering the research questions. with the declining population in many rural areas and the necessity for the delivery of instruction to students in these schools, the number of web-based course offerings will continue to increase. during this period of growth it is imperative that the design of web-based courses allows all students to take advantage of the opportunity they afford. otherwise, as george said, “undoing [those] mistakes will mean changes right through the web of work that [has been] constructed.” references bright, b. p. (1989). epistemological vandalism: psychology in the study of adult education. in b. p. bright (ed.), theory and practice in the study of adult education: the epistemological debate (pp. 34–64). london: routledge. brown, j., sheppard, b., & stevens, k. (2000). effective schooling in a telelearning environment. st. john’s, newfoundland: centre for telelearning and rural education, faculty of education, mun. clarke, t. (2001). virtual schools: trends and issues: a study of virtual schools in the united states. macob, il: center for the application of information technologies, western illinois university. collis, b. (1999). designing for differences: cultural issues in the design of wwwbased course-support sites. british journal of educational technology, 30(3), 201–215. darkenwald, g. g., & merriam, s. b. (1982). adult education: foundations of practice. new york: harper and row. duchastel, p. 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(2004). exploring research on internetbased learning: from infrastructure to interactions. in d. h. jonassen (ed.), handbook of research on educational communications and technology (pp. 433– 460). mahwah, new jersey: lawrence erlbaum associates. knowles, m. s. (1970).the modern practice of adult education: andragogy vs pedagogy. new york: association press. kvale, s. (1996). interviews: an introduction to qualitative research interviewing. thousand oaks, california: sage publications. mcknight, r. (2004). virtual necessities: assessing online course design. international journal on e-learning: corporate, government, healthcare, & higher education, 3(1), 5–10. merriam, s. b., & brockett, r. g. (1997). the profession and practice of adult education: an introduction. san francisco, california: jossey-bass. mulcahy, d. (2002). re-conceptualizing distance education: implications for the rural schools of newfoundland and labrador. the morning watch, 30(1-2). journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 36 retrieved march 31, 2004, from http:// www.mun.ca/educ/faculty/mwatch/ fall02/mulcahy.htm murphy, e. (2003). moving from theory to practice in the design of web-based learning from the perspective of constructivism. the journal of interactive online learning, 1(4). retrieved march 18, 2004, from http://www.ncolr.org/jiol/ archives/2003/spring/4/ms02028.pdf riggs, f. (1987). report of the small schools study project. st. john’s, newfoundland: queen’s printing for newfoundland and labrador. roblyer, m., & knezek, g. (2003). new millennium research for educational technology: a call for a national research agenda. journal of research on technology in education, 36(1), 60–71. shank, g. d. 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(1993). our children, our future: report of the royal commission of inquiry into the delivery of program and services in primary, elementary, secondary education. st. john’s, newfoundland: queen’s printing for newfoundland and labrador. zhu, e., & mcknight, r. (eds.) (2001). principles of online design. retrieved march 18, 2004, from http://www.fgcu. edu/onlinedesign michael barbour is a doctoral candidate at the university of georgia at athens. barbour has been working with dr. michael collins at memorial university of newfoundland since 1999 on the characteristics of electronic messaging. his recent research interests include the design of web-based delivery of courses to secondary school students. microsoft word jdl06maintext1word.doc journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 15 addressing efficiency and quality of marking in essay assessment with e-learning support eva heinrich institute of information science and technology, massey university palmerston north, new zealand introduction assessment can be divided into two major categories that are often applied in combination: formative assessment, often called assessment for learning, and summative assessment, often called assessment of learning. formative assessment focuses on providing learners with feedback to assist them in recognising their knowledge gaps and offering guidance for closing these gaps, while summative assessment concentrates on assessing the current level of knowledge without the focus on guidance of learning (black & wiliam, 1998). formative assessment is regarded as being of very high educational value (black & wiliam, 1998; sadler, 1998; yorke, 2003). a prominent format for formative assessment is the essay format. essay questions provide students with freedom of response and require students to apply their knowledge and skills in organizing, integrating, and evaluating information (linn & miller, 2005; nitko, 2004). essays aim at the highest level of learning outcomes by emphasising the integration and application of ideas (gronlund, 2006). the importance of formative assessment and assignments in essay format is reflected in tertiary practise and policy. the policy documents of new zealand universities (auckland university of technology, 2002; massey university, 2004; massey university, 2005; university of auckland, 2002; university of canterbury, 2004; university of otago, 2002; university of waikato, 2005) emphasise the need for a mixture of coursework, combining summative and formative aspects, and summative final examinations. assessment that encourages independent thinking and deep learning and emphasises the development of communication, research, and thinking skills is favoured. the policies suggest that students need to be assisted in their learning and given guidance towards improvement by receiving a clear indication of the strengths and weaknesses presented in their work. one of the practical challenges around assessment with essays is the timeconsuming nature of the marking (linn & miller, 2005) that has to be performed by a human expert (hanna & dettmer, 2004). the individual nature of essays and the types of learning outcomes targeted make it largely impossible to journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 16 define one correct answer. automated scoring of essays and the automated provision of individually targeted formative feedback are not possible. therefore, the success of e-learning tools in supporting essay assessment has been very limited. today’s widely used learning management systems, webct (2005), blackboard (2005), and moodle (2005), provide basic support around the management of essay assignments. the systems allow the setting up of assignment parameters, regulate student access, deal with submissions, and administer summative marks. more advanced tasks, like the allocation of markers to individual essays or the exchange of marking information among markers, are not handled by these tools. most critically, no support is provided for the actual marking task. the next section of this article explores assessment theory around essays in more detail. then two novel e-learning tools for essay assessment are introduced and grounded in the theory. assessment theory & essays clarification of essays essays can be classified as “supply items” (gronlund, 2006). in contrast to selectiontype assessment items such as multichoice tests, essays require students to retrieve material from texts or memory and to compose answers in their own words (hanna & dettmer, 2004). essays are characterised by freedom of response that is not available when only selecting from predefined choices. writing an essay demands the ability to create, organise, and integrate data and ideas (linn & miller, 2005). whereas selectiontype assessment encourages students to remember and interpret the ideas of others, essays focus on the highest-level learning outcomes of analysing, evaluating, and creating (gronlund, 2006). advantages of writing as supply items, essays require the students to formulate their own responses. writing requires thinking and reflection to be able to communicate knowledge in clear, plausible, and effective ways (tynjala, mason, & lonka, 2001). writing, as required in formulating essays, plays an important part in achieving higher-level learning outcomes. essays across disciplines using essays for assessment is of value in all subject areas (linn & miller, 2005). in disciplines like the social sciences and humanities, writing has always been part of assessment. in the natural sciences writing has proven to be beneficial for the understanding of scientific concepts (tynjala, mason, & lonka, 2001). while writing and the textual format are probably most common, there are other ways to display data and ideas in the sense of supply items for higher-level learning. in disciplines like computer science, engineering, or architecture the development of models, expressed via diagrams, forms an essential part of the learning process. like the writing of essays the construction of a model requires analysis, integration, and evaluation. depending on discipline and task specification, an essay can contain combinations of written text, calculations, pictures, and diagrams. forms of essay questions the assessment literature distinguishes two forms of essay questions, namely restricted response questions and extended response questions (gronlund, 1988; hanna & dettmer, 2004; linn & miller, 2005; nitko, 2004). the distinction relates to the form and scope of the journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 17 answers expected and the degree of freedom given to the student. restricted response questions target more narrowly defined problems and limit the answers in terms of format and length. extended response questions might pose some practical limitations, such as the maximum number of words for an essay, but otherwise give the student freedom of form and scope. restricted response questions aim at measuring comprehension and application whereas extended response questions target synthesis and evaluation. marking of essays the nature of essay assessment poses a range of challenges for the marking process. knowledgeable human markers are required for judging the quality of responses (hanna & dettmer, 2004). the marking of essays is very time consuming and the reliability of the marking can be very low (linn & miller, 2005; nitko, 2004). to address these challenges the literature presents a very coherent picture of suggested techniques and procedures (gronlund, 1988, 2006; hanna & dettmer, 2004; lambert & lines, 2000; linn & miller, 2005; nitko, 2004). scoring rubrics successful marking starts with the definition of the essay questions. these questions need to be clearly linked to learning outcomes. it has to be assured that the most suitable form of assessment is chosen for the learning outcomes targeted. next, the marking has to be guided by a scoring rubric. there are two main forms of rubric supporting either analytic or holistic marking. an analytic scoring rubric requires an outline of an ideal answer or a list of major elements that should be included in an answer. it specifies the number of points that can be achieved for an answer or part of an answer. restricted response items are commonly judged with the help of analytic scoring rubrics. with extended response questions and the inherent degree of freedom they provide, it is not possible to develop a single model answer. holistic marking rubrics are suggested to assist in the marking of such questions. this involves the definition of quality criteria by which answers are judged and the provision of scores for each quality level. the availability of a scoring rubric allows the marker to focus on the learning outcomes to be assessed. without guidance from a rubric the marker can be influenced by matters of presentation over content. ideally an appropriate scoring rubric should be developed before administering the essay questions. planning of the scoring will help to refine the questions. making holistic scoring rubrics available to students before they write their essays will allow them to focus their efforts in the right direction. the marking process a number of procedures are suggested for the marking process. if an assessment consists of multiple questions each question should be marked separately. this will prevent the so-called halo effect, where a marker judges the merit of an answer not only based on its merit but influenced by good answers in the same essay to other questions. focussing on each question separately implies the marker has to work through the essays multiple times. if this is done it is best to vary the sequence in which the essays are assessed. it has been shown that the judgement of markers can evolve over the course of marking essays of a whole class. a marker might assess the same essay differently, depending on when the essay is looked at. this is called “marker journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 18 drift.” to counteract marker drift an essay that has been marked early on should be marked again by the same marker later in the process. if possible, the assignments should be marked anonymously, that is the marker should not know the identity of the student who has submitted the assignment. ideally, an assignment would be marked by more than one knowledgeable marker. following these procedures and using an appropriate scoring rubric will greatly enhance the reliability of essay marking and will further save time in marking. individualised feedback returning to the formative aspects of essay assessment, the importance of feedback needs to be emphasised. the marker should provide feedback to each student, outlining strengths and weaknesses in their work thus guiding them towards further learning (linn & miller, 2005; nitko, 2004; torrance & pryor, 1998; tynjala, mason, & lonka, 2001). individualised feedback that provides detailed information on the quality of an answer is mostly given in conjunction with an analytic scoring rubric. even when using a holistic rubric individual feedback should be supplied (nitko, 2004). while facilitating student learning is the most important aspect of feedback, a further advantage is the conclusions that can be drawn for teaching. by collecting all feedback the marker can identify strengths and weaknesses of answers across the whole class. this information can be used as a guide for further teaching (nitko, 2004). assessment of essays and especially the provision of individual feedback are very time consuming. the development of a statement bank of frequently used comments can make this process more efficient (mclachlan-smith & irons, 1998). e-learning tools for essay-type assessment: webctconnect and marktool the previous section of this article has discussed theoretical and research aspects of formative assessment using essays and has given a brief insight into the status of e-learning support for essay assignments. simple assignment management tasks are facilitated by current learning management systems, yet no support is provided for the actual marking. faced with this situation and the importance of essays for higher level learning, two novel e-learning applications for essay assignments have been developed. the following paragraphs will first briefly introduce these applications from a functional perspective and will then describe how they are based on the educational theories outlined earlier. webctconnect functional description the application webctconnect offers a variety of functions around assignment management, marking, and marking communication. as suggested by its name, webctconnect works in conjunction with the learning management system webct. the teacher uses the assignment tool in webct to specify assignments. the students submit their assignments to webct and it handles assignment management and storage. webctconnect provides advanced management facilities. in terms of document management this means the handling of assignments that consist of multiple files and an efficient return of marked assignments to students. all assignment submissions of one class are displayed to the marker in a table view. this table can be sorted by various criteria, for example name of the student or time submitted. a comment, visible only to the marker, can be entered for journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 19 each assignment. markers can be allocated to specific assignments and multiple markers can assess the same assignment independently. the markers can exchange their marking comments and the teacher responsible can decide which comments to return to the student. the teacher can develop a scoring rubric, called marking scheme. for each individual assignment the markers can provide feedback under the various categories of the marking scheme. under each category the markers can collect a list of frequently used comments that can be copied and adjusted for individual assignments. comments for each assignment and the marking categories are collated in a summary sheet that is returned to the student. all marking comments across all assignment submissions can be exported into a spreadsheet file. this file can be flexibly configured to contain numeric marks and/or textual feedback at detailed or aggregate levels. marktool functional description the application marktool focuses on the actual marking of essays. marktool itself does not address management issues. for essays that are submitted as assignments for a whole class of students, the management facilities of webct and webctconnect can be used. if just a small number of individual essays is involved, a formal management process might not be required and essays can be exchanged via general methods like e-mail attachments. the strength of marktool lies in the way it allows the marker to attach individual comments directly to the pages of an essay in electronic form. to start with, the teacher defines a scoring rubric or marking scheme. the categories of the marktool marking scheme are colour coded with colours defined by the teacher. while marking, the teacher then places individual comments on specific pages of an essay. the teacher can identify the exact reference point for a comment by drawing a graphical component, like a rectangle or an ellipse, onto the electronic essay page. via its colour code the comment is linked to a category of the marking scheme. the teacher has access to various display formats of the marked essay. marking comments belonging to specific marking categories can be hidden from view. there is a summary page that lists all comments sorted by marking category or marker. similar to the functionality of webct connect, frequently used comments can be developed and marking results across a grouping of essays can be exported into a spreadsheet file. the original essay file is not modified so multiple markers can assess the same essay and can exchange their marking comments. the student receives an electronic copy of their essay which is annotated with individual colour-coded marking comments. further, the student has access to the marking scheme and a hyperlinked summary page which provides them with an overview of all their comments in relationship to the marking scheme. table 1 presents an overview showing how webct, webctconnect, and marktool can be combined. a detailed description of the applications, links to related research publications, and software downloads are available at the web page http://www-ist.massey. ac.nz/marktool/. journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 20 table 1 the combination of webct, webctconnect, and marktool for the marking of essay-type assignments lecturer defines assignment parameters in webct students submit assignments to webct lecturer downloads submission information (date, time) and assignment files using webctconnect lecturer assigns markers using webctconnect lecturer/markers assess assignments using marktool, providing detailed feedback relating to marking categories lecturer and markers communicate about marking using webctconnect lecturer analyses feedback across all assignments using marktool lecturer uploads marks and marking feedback to webct students access webct to see their marks and marking feedback analysis of webctconnect in light of assessment theories a scoring rubric lies at the heart of successful essay marking. webct connect allows the teacher to define such a rubric. webctconnect focuses primarily on analytic rubrics yet holistic rubrics can be defined as well. to define an analytic rubric, different marking categories are named, sample solutions or key solution items are described, and a numeric mark, the upper limit the student can achieve in this category, is assigned. for a holistic rubric, the various quality levels are specified and described and the related marks are stated. the rubric needs to be defined before the marking of the essays starts. the rubric can be exported into a separate file and be given to students, or it can be sent to markers for discussion and shared use. webctconnect offers various ways to support the process of marking. as electronic copies of essays are marked and the actual marking data are stored separately from the essay files, remarking by the same marker or parallel marking by multiple markers is always possible. webctconnect displays all assignments for a class in a table format for easy overview. the markers can add comments to each assignment which will not form part of the feedback given to the student but will assist the markers in organising the marking process. that means a marker can write a note indicating the status of the marking. this can be used to manage the sequence of the marking, e.g., each essay question at a time, or to convey information like “review again” or “check with co-marker.” if holistic marking is used, the common sorting of essays into “piles” can be simulated via the comments. as all assignments are presented in table format, the display sequence of the assignments can be changed by sorting journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 21 via the various column headings. this presents a convenient way of modifying the marking sequence for multiple passes through the assignments. the ideal in essay marking is that each assignment would be marked by multiple markers. the tertiary reality shows that the lecturer responsible for the assessment is often supported by a team of markers to cope with the workload in large classes. this means that a team of markers needs to collaborate. webctconnect facilitates collaboration of marking teams. the leader of the team allocates markers to assignments and distributes the scoring rubric. all members of the team can exchange their marking data. these features form the technical foundations for working towards consistency and quality assurance. individualised feedback is very important for facilitating student understanding and learning. with webctconnect the markers can write comments for each individual assignment. these comments are aligned to the sections of the scoring rubrics making it easy to give targeted feedback. the student is presented with a summary sheet that shows the details of the scoring rubric, all individual comments, and the marks achieved. the writing of individual comments is time consuming. to assist the marker, frequently used comments can be collected for each section of a marking rubric. the marker can select from these comments and individualise them for each particular assignment. an important side effect of providing feedback to students should be the knowledge the teacher gains on the strengths and weaknesses of a class as a whole. webctconnect supports the exporting of all marking comments and marks across all assignments of a whole class into a spreadsheet file. looking at this file allows the teacher to analyse the marking data according to a variety of criteria. for example, the teacher can look at all comments made under a specific category of a scoring rubric. this will form the basis for gaining information on the level of knowledge of the class as a whole in a particular topic area and can flow into remedial teaching, if required. the distribution of comments and marks across the categories of the scoring rubric can provide insights into the quality of that rubric. analysis of marktool in light of assessment theories as marktool can be used in conjunction with webctconnect, many of the process-based advantages, like assigning of markers, keeping status information, and modifying the marking sequence, apply as well. used without the management support of webctconnect, some advantages still apply and some new opportunities arise. for example, as electronic copies of essays are marked and the marking data are stored separately, the same essay can still be marked by multiple markers and the results can be compared. without the management support the submission details of an assignment, especially the name of the student, are not immediately visible. assuming the students have been instructed to not write their names into their essays, it is possible to fulfil the requirement of anonymous marking. like webctconnect, marktool allows the teacher to set up a scoring rubric. again, both analytic and holistic scoring rubrics can be defined. current work on an extension to marktool will provide journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 22 for holistic scoring rubrics in matrix format. a standard holistic scoring rubric defines quality levels for the whole essay task. a more extensive holistic scoring rubric focuses on specific learning targets within the essay task and lists quality levels for each of these targets. such a holistic scoring rubric will provide better guidance for the markers and will allow assessing different aspects of a piece of work separately. as in webct connect, all marking data for a group of assignments can be exported and analysed by the teacher to gain insights for re-teaching. marktool does have several specific strengths. with marktool very detailed feedback can be given for each essay, with comments being placed as close as possible beside their reference points in the student’s work (renkl & atkinson, 2002). in marktool feedback is linked directly to its reference point in the essay. this provides the direct context between the content of the essay and the comment. the marker can make detailed comments that complement the higherlevel comments that can be given to summarise achievement. because the marker can create graphical reference points for each comment, no effort is required to explicitly describe the context of the comments. additionally, the marker is supported by a frequently used comments mechanism. for the student this means they can look at each page of their essay and find localised comments, providing them with detailed, contextualised feedback. as these comments are linked to the categories of the scoring rubric defined in marktool, the student gains additional information, guiding them to their strengths and weaknesses in particular areas of work. assessment theory identifies the danger that the marker of an essay can get distracted from assessing the desired learning outcomes of the essay by, for example, elements of presentation. to address this, the use of scoring rubrics is suggested. scoring rubrics clarify which learning outcomes are targeted and guide the marker throughout the marking process. marktool works with scoring rubrics and adds specific support for the marker. as outlined in the previous paragraph, the marker places individual comments that are linked to the categories of the scoring rubric directly on the pages of the essay. marktool allows the marker to choose for which of the categories comments are visible. if, for example, only one category is chosen, only the comments related to this category will be displayed on the assignment pages. this allows the marker to focus their attention on the specific category and therefore learning outcome. in a similar fashion, the summary page listing all comments for an essay can be sorted by categories. summary of the contributions of webctconnect and marktool ultimately, the two applications webct connect and marktool target improvements for learning and teaching around the essay assessment. for the foreseeable future human markers will be required for the setting of essay tasks and the assessment of students’ efforts. the role of e-learning technology and tools has to be supporting humans to fulfil their tasks more efficiently and at a higher level of quality. the educational theories on essay assessment suggest a range of techniques that so far are hardly supported by e-learning applications. webctconnect and marktool address a number of these techniques. journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 23 scoring rubrics are at the centre of reliable and efficient essay marking. in both applications the marking is based on such rubrics. webctconnect provides extensive support for the management of the marking process and the coordination of marking teams. marktool combines detailed individual feedback, which is set in direct context of an essay, with categories inside the scoring rubrics. both applications provide access to all marking information on class level and therefore facilitate feedback into teaching. steps towards quality assurance in team marking are made possible via the exchange of marking data for essays. a brief look at other e-learning approaches for essay assessment generic computing tools can be used to simulate some aspects of essay marking. for example, word processing or pdf annotation programs can be used to add feedback to essays. the disadvantage of such generic tools it that they do not provide any of the specifics demanded in the assessment theories. as a consequence, the individual marker needs to spend considerable effort in customising the generic tools and then in living with the work-arounds while marking each essay. there are two main problems with this approach. firstly, the markers need to be very familiar with the assessment theories as they do not receive any guidance from the tools. secondly, marking, especially formative marking, is an inherently time-consuming activity. without efficient tool support it is likely that markers will restrict their efforts in commenting and interacting with co-markers. what suffers is the quality of marking, and opportunities for learning and teaching are missed. the assignment tools of all common learning management systems only provide limited assignment management support and no assistance for the actual marking of essays. it can only be hoped that the developers of these systems will add new functionalities in the near future. on the positive side, there are some tools available that address specific issues in essay marking. turnitin (2006) offers a set of tools for essay marking. at the core is the detection of plagiarisms. turnitin compares essays against a huge database of previously submitted essays and information available on the internet. overlaps are noted and percentages of “sameness” are calculated. this assists the marker in deciding if a student has plagiarised. using the grademark tool, the marker attaches comments to an essay and assigns marks. grademark contains a simple form of an analytic scoring rubric and comments can be displayed as icons directly on the essays. the gradebook tool facilitates the management of essay marks for a whole class. the markin (2006) software allows the marker to insert either predefined symbols or textual comments into the essay text. additionally, summary comments can be given. the tool calculates some statistical information around the number and type of comments made. assignment management is addressed by supporting the marker in returning marked essays to students via e-mail. conclusions & future work the value and importance of formative assessment via essays is emphasised strongly in the educational literature. the nature of essay assessment brings with journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 24 it challenges for reliable and valid marking of essays. the literature addresses these challenges by proposing the careful design of essay questions, the use of suitable scoring rubrics, and the development of appropriate management procedures for marking. the currently widely used e-learning environments provide only very limited support for essay assessment. two novel applications, webctconnect and marktool, have been designed to fill this gap in the e-learning landscape. these applications incorporate the principles of good essay marking as suggested in the literature. webctconnect focuses on the management procedures for assignment marking, whereas marktool targets the provision of detailed feedback closely linked to a scoring rubric. overall, the applications aim at facilitating efficient, high-quality marking that supports learning and teaching. the hope is that the availability of such tools will help to lower the barriers for essay assessment and contribute to higherquality marking outcomes. while the availability of specialised tools is an important step in the right direction, it is by itself not sufficient. one issue is the need for integrating such tools with common e-learning platforms. many of the features derived from the assessment literature and implemented in webctconnect and marktool could be implemented in today’s widely used learning management systems. the developers of these systems have so far largely focused on summative assessment and have given only little attention to general assignment management issues. improvements in these systems towards formative assessment with essays, as outlined in this article, would be a big step forward towards high-quality assessment in support of learning. a second issue lies with the education of teachers, lecturers, and markers. at tertiary level the instructors are often subject experts with limited formal knowledge of learning and assessment theories. training courses that are offered as part of professional development often stay on a fairly abstract level. this is particularly true for formative assessment. hands-on courses linked to tool support are available for summative assessment, yet the same does not apply in the formative area. practical and specific information on how to set up a scoring rubric or on how to formulate feedback that contributes to learning is rarely presented. this situation could change with the availability of e-learning tools for essay marking. repositories of scoring rubrics and marking comments could be developed and integrated into training systems. these repositories could be annotated by education specialists in regard to the educational soundness of the examples contained. sorted by subject areas this would provide an excellent resource of concrete examples to guide academics in their professional development. references auckland university of technology (2002). guidelines on the policy for assessment of student achievement. retrieved october 25, 2005, from http://www.aut.ac.nz/staff/ academic_quality_office/policies_ guidelines_notes.htm black, p., & wiliam, d. (1998). assessment and classroom learning. assessment in education: principles, policy & practice, 5(1) 7–68. blackboard (2005). welcome to blackboard. retrieved november 2, 2005, from http://blackboard.com gronlund, n. e. (1988). how to make achievement tests and assessments. boston, massachusetts: allyn and bacon. journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 25 gronlund, n. e. (2006). assessment of student achievement. boston, ma: pearson. hanna, g. s., & dettmer, p. a. (2004). assessment for effective teaching: using context-adaptive planning. new york: pearson. lambert, d., &. lines, d. (2000). understanding assessment: purposes, perceptions, practice. padstow, england: tj international. linn, r. l., & miller, m. d. (2005). measurement and assessment in teaching. columbus, ohio: pearson merrill prentice hall. markin (2006). creative technology. software for teaching. markin. retrieved april 5, 2006, from http://www.cict.co.uk/software/ markin/index.htm massey university (2004). guidelines for the preparation and administration of examinations and other assessments. retrieved october 25, 2005, from http:// policyguide.massey.ac.nz/procedures/ assessmentexamguide.doc massey university (2005). the learning and teaching development programme. retrieved october 25, 2005, from http://tdu.massey.ac.nz/html/ learningteaching.htm mclachlan-smith, c., & irons, b. (1998). ideas to share: examples of successful extramural study guide design. palmerston north, new zealand: massey university. moodle (2005). moodle. a free open-source course management system for online learning. retrieved november 2, 2005, from http://moodle.org/ nitko, a. j. (2004). educational assessment outcomes. columbus, ohio: pearson merrill prentice hall. renkl, a., & atkinson, r. k. (2002). learning from examples: fostering selfexplanations in computer-based learning environments. interactive learning environments, 10(2), 105–119. sadler, d. r. (1998). formative assessment: revisiting the territory. assessment in education: principles, policy & practice, 5(1), 77–84. torrance, h., &. pryor, j. (1998). investigating formative assessment: teaching, learning and assessment in the classroom. buckingham, uk: open university press. turnitin (2006). plagiarism prevention. retrieved march 20, 2006, from http://www.turnitin.com tynjala, p., mason, l., & lonka, k. (2001). writing as a learning tool: an introduction. in p. tynjala, l. mason, & k. lonka (eds.), writing as a learning tool: integrating theory and practice (pp. 7–22). london: kluwer academic publishers. university of auckland (2002). teaching and learning policy: assessment of student learning. retrieved october 25, 2005 from http://www.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/ fms/default/uoa/about/teaching/ policiesprocedures/docs/ studentlearning.pdf university of canterbury (2004). assessment guidelines. retrieved october 25, 2005, from http://www.canterbury.ac.nz/ ucpolicy/index.aspx university of otago (2002). the teaching and learning plan. retrieved october 25, 2005, from http://www.otago.ac.nz/about/ pdfs/teachinglearningplan.pdf university of waikato (2005). assessment regulations. retrieved october 25, 2005, from http://calendar.waikato.ac.nz/ assessment/assessment.html webct (2005). webct.com. retrieved november 2, 2005, from http:// webct.com/ yorke, m. (2003). formative assessment in higher education: moves towards theory and the enhancement of pedagogic practice. higher education, 45(4), 477–501. eva heinrich is a senior lecturer in computer science at massey university. her main research interests are in e-learning support for formative assessment and in e-portfolios for computer science and engineering students. heinrich leads the research project “e-learning framework for formative assessment,” funded under the ecdf scheme of the new zealand tertiary education commission. microsoft word jdl05maintext1word.doc journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 46 flexible learning templates for dispersed learners: expanding the role of the content expert without pain michael alford, carolynn oleniuk, sharon roffey office of the united nations high commissioner for refugees geneva, switzerland introduction program development is an art, not a science. learning is a mysterious process and deciding on, designing and then conducting a programme of learning for a group of adults will require imagination, flexibility and willingness to take risks. (newman, 2000, p. 59) the challenge faced by managers of staff development programmes in multinational enterprises is: how to reach all staff with appropriate learning opportunities just in time, ensuring the maximum impact at the lowest possible cost per learning hour. the constraints are considerable, among them: limited staff time for learning, learners’ attitudes to learning, supervisor attitudes to learning, limited staff development budgets, widely dispersed staff, and variable technological skills and access to technology. while knowledge of adult learning as well as open and distance learning best practice (the science) is essential, a good measure of imagination, flexibility, and risk taking (the art) certainly helps. the unhcr flexible learning templates project was the recipient of the 2004 deanz award of excellence in distance learning. the citation noted that the templates are an “example of the use of best practice in professional development, including learner centred design and ‘just in time’ availability of resources to support practitioners.” in this article, we will describe the context, design, and delivery of a set of easily accessible, flexible learning tools aimed at distant and dispersed learners. we will describe the context, technology, and experiences to date with a set of bespoke but replicable learning templates. the context the office of the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) is mandated to provide protection and assistance for more than 20 million refugees worldwide. it is one of the larger un agencies with more than 5,000 staff, a third of whom work out of the geneva headquarters with the remainder, both international and locally recruited staff, dispersed in 277 offices in 120 countries. while some offices are in the country capitals, many field offices are in small towns quite distant from capitals and not surprisingly in remote border areas. the journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 47 staff development function is managed by a staff of 10 in the staff development section (sds) based at headquarters. sds manages the centralized training budgets, shapes and drives learning policies and practices, develops and delivers learning activities for generic and managerial competencies, and develops tools to facilitate learning in the organization. the sds staff are augmented by two important networks: training providers and learning coordinators. the former, who are primarily but not exclusively headquarters based, are subject matter experts in the various functional divisions and sections who, as one part of their job function, facilitate learning activities. they are allocated staff development funds to design, develop, and deliver functional learning activities for all staff. the learning coordinators are staff who have volunteered or been appointed in country offices to coordinate learning opportunities for staff in their offices. they can draw on training materials developed in geneva or use locally allocated funds to source and arrange learning activities applicable for their locally assessed needs. where they have the skills or can acquire these skills (unhcr provides a four-month distance learning programme in the facilitation of learning), they often develop and deliver countryspecific learning activities. since 1999, in recognition of the dispersal of the organization’s staff and their expressed desire for easy access to a greater number of learning opportunities, sds with both equity and access in mind and under the banner of the “democratization of learning” turned to flexible, open, and distance education or learning (fode) as the preferred delivery option. the challenges the nature of the unhcr learner what is the profile of the unhcr learner? clearly, the most important element is that they are widely dispersed. furthermore, each office is different: some are in the “deep field” with a staff of one or two, while at the headquarters in geneva there are more than 700 staff. this has a number of implications, including the level of information and communications technology (ict), the nature of hierarchical relationships, the size of teams, and the implications that has on team learning and peer support for learning as well as the physical learning environment. the last cannot be underestimated, as often distance learning solutions place the onus on the learner to find suitable learning space in the office or at home (tait, 2002). in the case of many locally recruited unhcr learners in the developing world, learning space is sub-standard, certainly at home, so the office provides the best physical space for learning. this, however, has the disadvantages of a lack of privacy and, during work time, the learner is plagued by interruptions. the unhcr learner is busy, as the humanitarian imperative imposes an urgency and importance on staff members’ functions. learning, particularly in the workplace, is sometimes seen as a betrayal to the cause at worst or, at best, a time waster. in some cases the learner feels guilty rather than proud of the fact that he or she is undertaking a learning activity. the unhcr staff member is ageing. while the average age of staff only moved from 42 years to 44 years between 1990 and 2000, there was a significant ageing of senior managers (unhcr, 2000). this has implications on fode in journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 48 two ways. first, on attitudes to learning, the younger generation sees continuous and lifelong learning as normal, if not a right. conversely, older staff come from the “job for life” mindset and do not necessarily feel they need to update their skills. indeed, for them, “experience” is what counts and new learning can be construed as admitting inadequacy. and, it is these managers who make decisions on learning policy. an extension of this is the generational competency and attitude towards information technology, from basic word processing and e-mail to online discussion and chat. the implications for fode are evident, as learning becomes more public, as it is increasingly on-site rather than in the safe environment of the workshop. to many older staff this is threatening, increasing learner anxiety and insecurity. unhcr, by its very mandate, expands and contracts with the increase and decline in refugee situations worldwide. in addition, with almost 90 percent of its income coming from voluntary contributions of donor governments, programmes can be affected from year to year by funding shortfalls. both factors increase the job insecurity of many, particularly local, staff. in addition, local staff have often had access only to inferior educational opportunities. unhcr provides many with their first access to an international working environment, to a modern office with computers and communications technology, and to an english or french (that is, a second language) setting. thus, there is much to learn in the new work environment and many realize that here is an opportunity to gain additional skills which might allow for “promotion” to an international post and thereby greater job security or for a greater competitiveness on the local job market. these factors have led to a thirst for learning among local staff, particularly after a learning drought in the 1990s. fode, due to increased learner access, can provide the means to quench this thirst. how to promote fode options berge (quoting his 1998 collaborative work with schreiber) describes the four stages of organizational maturity in regard to distance education: separate and sporadic distance learning events; an infrastructure that supports distance learning; the existence in the organization of a distance learning policy; and distance learning is institutionalized. berge clarifies that these stages are neither linear nor discrete. unhcr is probably hovering between stages 3 and 4. distance learning events, some of them quite complex and extensive, are taking place. for example the core of the learning repertoire is a series of ninemonth learning programmes in the main operational areas (refugee assistance management and refugee protection) as well as general management, which primarily use self-paced learning modules whereby the learner undertakes real time and real work activities in the workplace. a “facilitation of learning” programme blends distance facilitation and guidance with workbook exercises undertaken in the workplace prior to attendance at a seminar. since 2003 a suite of off-the-shelf e-learning courses has been accessible to all staff. however, if unhcr is to achieve berge’s “transformation” from instructorcentred to learner-centred training and from project events to the integration of fode into the organizational strategies, policies, and behaviours, additional tools for fode need to be developed and enhanced. journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 49 how to support training providers the development of distance learning programmes is a collaborative activity. it comprises design, development, and delivery stages as well as distinct roles. conventional wisdom dictates that for distance learning to be effective, no stage should be ignored and each role player should have the requisite expertise. teamwork between each of the actors is considered critical to success. while the same person or team of persons may implement a number of stages, it is common practice to separate the roles of content and process. content experts are chosen on the basis of their expertise on content and another set of skills is normally required for the development of the process. for many content experts the transition from the familiar classroom to distance learning is a challenge. the skills required for compiling a teaching course and writing self-study or trainer materials for others are quite different (murphy, 2000). in many organizations, and unhcr is one, it is not always possible nor is it cost-effective to separate the tasks of content expert and course compiler. it was in this context that unhcr explored the options for facilitating the work of the content experts by providing a userfriendly intuitive tool to convert content into the written course materials. the roles of content specialist, writer, and graphic designer are effectively collapsed into one. primarily the objective was to provide content experts with a user-friendly, intuitive tool to convert their own content expertise into learning materials. to attain this goal we chose to develop three templates to allow the easy creation of written course materials— templates for a workshop facilitator’s guide, a workplace coaching guide, or a self-study workbook. this not only results in cost savings but places greater control over the creative and development process in the hands of the content expert and is potentially very satisfying and empowering, leading to a higher degree of motivation. it is action learning at its best, whereby the content expert is not only passing on new content to others but is learning new skills in the process. one such skill is basic learning design. the first choice the content expert must make is whether to select the workshop facilitator’s guide, a workplace coaching guide, or a self-study workbook. the choice depends on subject matter, learner location, learning preferences, cost/benefit considerations, and all the other typical considerations that a learning needs assessment will generate. the content expert must make these decisions beforehand or seek advice to guide the decision. in doing so, a very powerful message is conveyed to the content expert: there are more ways than one to deal with a learning need. workplace and workbook options are added to the workshop (traditional onesize-fits-all solution to learning) option. all three templates facilitate distance learning. this is self-evident for the selfstudy template. and although, for the workshop and the coaching template, the facilitator and the coach respectively are often not separated from the learners at the point of delivery, with various technology options they may well be. the templates provide the flexibility of delivery choices, and access issues are addressed through their easy availability by the learning coordinators in all field offices. journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 50 the templates also address the need for usability of materials. considerable thought was given to the design of the templates, with the application of simple design and the use of culturally acceptable and gender-neutral graphics. a common look and feel is important, yet the developer is provided with a degree of flexibility to adapt and scope for creativity. materials development and production course delivery develop own use own delivery system commission from elsewhere commission another agency to deliver course buy “off the shelf” buy in existing course delivery system modify existing materials buy into modified course delivery system choices: buy or develop? while the objectives were clear to the development team in unhcr, there remained a number of options. calder’s (2002, p. 12) model, which is summarized in the table above, sets out the choices. for course delivery, the choice was not an issue, as the products were intended for in-house delivery and no outsourcing was intended. for the development of templates a search of external suppliers both commercial and nonprofit was unsuccessful. existing solutions used complex, often expensive technology, which required training to operate and often ongoing maintenance or upgrade charges. suppliers we contacted were not able to respond to the flexibility of providing the three different template models we required and the development costs were considerable. finally, the options available tended to assume the separation of responsibilities between content specialists, instructional designers, and graphic designers. to convert the concept into reality, we turned to an external consultant, albeit with previous experience in working in unhcr, but who was a wizard (a real one, not the microsoft version) in ms word functionality. technology choices the consultant was asked to develop the templates following established internal guidelines contained in various unhcr resource materials, while giving consideration to existing industrystandard practices as well as developments in adult learning principles. the choice of technology was neither obvious nor easy. we looked at the who, what, and how questions before deciding upon the final choice: who would be using the technology? what were the desired outcomes? how would it be implemented? prime considerations in our technology choice were the disparity between the “old school” and “new age” skills and attitudes of the staff (discussed earlier in this paper), the physical remoteness of a high proportion of unhcr out-posted staff, and the involvement of content experts external to the staff development section. while adhering to the prevailing in-house culture, we were mindful of the need to maintain a forward-looking approach in developing a robust, easy-to journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 51 use product that would stand the test of time and not leave us languishing in a pre-e-learning void. high on our list of importance was look, feel, and ease of use. in arriving at our final “back to basics” decision (a series of microsoft word and powerpoint templates with detailed step-by-step user guides), we had taken a path down a somewhat winding trail of technology to arrive at two final candidates. in a full-circle approach, we started with unhcr’s standard word processing software (microsoft word), moving to a dedicated authoring software (authorit, http://www.authorit.com/), and finally back to ms word. authorit had a principal advantage over ms word, as it was developed specifically as a content-management software. it seemed the obvious choice. authorit’s motto, “author, manage, publish,” was exactly in line with our ultimate goal to publish all learning material as a workbook, on a cd-rom, or on the unhcr intranet. authorit is a 100 percent dedicated authoring tool for the development of user documentation and electronic help files. in addition, authorit’s flexibility to import from, and export to, ms word and the ease with which it publishes web-friendly output were major positive considerations. what tipped the balance in choosing ms word, however, and the resultant compromise, was consideration of the end user. ms word was familiar territory and the new templates would require minimal training. intuition and exploration would suffice for the experienced user while a simple user guide, possibly complemented by a help desk, would serve the novice adequately. template development using basic ms word functionality, the consultant developed three templates: a facilitator’s guide, a coaching guide, and a self-study workbook. each guide comprises a title page, a contents page (which builds itself), a pre-written introduction (on, respectively, facilitating, coaching, or how to manage one’s self-study habits), a learning objectives page, followed by the learning activity chapters. each of the chapters provides templates for the particular learning methodology. for example, the facilitator’s guide has a workshop plan, a unit (lesson) plan summary, and a template for each facilitated session, with fields for learning objectives, time required, resources/equipment, preparation, activities, session wrap-up, review, and additional comments (“lessons learned”). this particular guide also includes a place-mark for a participant welcome letter and a supervisor/ supervisee learning contract. the “look and feel” is pre-set with wide margins and pre-selected fonts. the templates contain click-and-type form fields, built-in bookmarks for document cross-references, the automated generation of odd and even page headers, a collection of watermarks, attractive (culturally and gender neutral) icons, and page border graphics. in addition, three add-in job aids (situational, checklist, and work-flow) can be applied in order to describe typical workplace job tasks. a set of four customized powerpoint templates with unhcr logos is provided for the facilitator’s guide. in essence, the templates are delivered ready for topic customization. as a consequence, content specialists, whether internal or external, with only average journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 52 word processing skills are now able to produce exceptionally high-quality materials in the minimum time, thus allowing them to concentrate on the content while the formatting and the “look” take care of themselves. the unhcr learning templates have been included as a drop-down option in the word menu bar on all of unhcr’s networked installations. they are also accessible on the unhcr intranet and on cd-rom for those staff without access to the unhcr lan, and for those who wish to develop learning tools outside the workplace. the developer who wants to develop a learning guide thus first decides, on the basis of the end-user profile and the subject matter, which one of the templates is most appropriate. having made that choice, the developer selects one of the three options and the appropriate template appears, together with a toolbar. the unhcr learning toolbar is the jewel in the crown, as all automation lies therein: document styles, a collection of graphics, text boxes, icons, various add-ins, etc. the toolbar provides access to drop-down menus from which the style may be applied or the object inserted into the template. the developer populates the fields as appropriate and can delete those which are not required. the end result is a clear, simply designed, attractive learner guide. it is extremely quick to develop and content experts with little instructional design and graphic design experience get rather rapid satisfaction. we were particularly cognizant of the fact that several external content experts would be contracted to develop module content. contractors or unhcr staff working at home on their own equipment face very different challenges to those using the same tools in an office environment. the off-site worker does not necessarily have anyone to ask for help and, given the varying time zones in which we all work, access to a hotline, technical support, or help desk may be impractical. for these kinds of workers, usability in its fullest sense is vital. this, and the desire to instil a culture of selfhelp among our own staff, prompted the development of the detailed step-bystep user guides. the unhcr learning templates—getting started guide describes the functionality of the templates and is sufficient to get even a beginner up and running. implementation strategy in many ways, with the implementation of the templates we were attempting to promote unhcr’s learning approach to further incorporate what garrison and anderson (2003) define as second and third generation e-learning technology. they describe second generation as an emphasis on independent study and use of media to produce content and support learning. third generation e-learning is described as taking advantage of synchronous and asynchronous interaction via technology and embracing constructivist learning theories (e.g., problem-based learning, collaborative projects). while the nature of our humanitarian work naturally poses some technical limitations (e.g., staff members working in refugee camp settings with limited to no internet access), we strived to extend the reaches of technology through the templates to increase the use of selfpaced courses with or without tutoring and the availability of electronic course materials. through the implementation of the learning templates to create self journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 53 study learning materials, we also felt that it would foster the use of other communication modes to take advantage of interaction among learners and to encourage communities of practice where possible to enhance the learning. although full internet access may be limited in certain areas, learners generally have access to e-mail. for instance, to support collaborative learning with our staff members we have successfully used e-mail tutoring and listserv technology in addition to exercises in workbooks created with the self-study learning templates. in this way we are able to foster diverse ways of learning and promote various forms of human interaction. the team involved in introducing the learning templates felt that it was important to start the promotion of the products early in the project cycle for two key reasons. the first was to elicit involvement from the stakeholders— namely training providers—as they were viewed as very important to the eventual adoption of the new technology. the second was to gain early successes which could be used as good practices. the latter was very important to the project team, since the template project coincided with an overall shift in unhcr’s learning strategy to a much stronger collaborative, learner centred model. at the project initiation phase the overall goal was to achieve the highest possible adoption rate by our training providers. for this, we used a four-fold strategy which was not necessarily linear. the strategy itself was created in response not only to the project stages and timelines, but to the new way of viewing learning. the four elements of the implementation strategy 1. develop a plan for stakeholder involvement. to achieve early adoption and support, the project team requested the help of key users, a core working team, to assist with the template development process. the purpose of the working team was to provide input to the design and development of the templates. a series of focus groups led by the consultant was held, where the key users were invited to provide their feedback on the initial prototypes. the users also had the opportunity for handson experience with the templates in the later phases of the design. as a result we had users who were familiar with the technology and had some success in creating their own materials for use immediately in their own situations. 2. build in-house technical support and include this throughout. the need to ensure in-house technical support was seen as an important part of the plan. while we could expect that the template users would be comfortable with word processing skills, not all had experience in using word templates or basic manipulation of images and graphics. although our goal was to create user-friendly templates, we felt that it was also important to support the users as much as possible should they run into any difficulties. to do this, the project team initiated a meeting with the existing in-house technical support group at unhcr. at that meeting, we introduced the template concept and successfully secured their help to support users with their initial testing and implementation questions. in addition to this support, we established a second level or tier of help through the project team itself. journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 54 when we have asked the users, they have indicated that the support system seems to work well and they are satisfied with the response times. in our initial plan we incorporated the use of hands-on group courses or coaching sessions to help users learn the template technology and the ideas behind their design. we found, however, that it is much more effective to provide one-on-one coaching where needed. where possible, we also make connections between training providers who are using the templates so that they are able to provide support to each other and to share new ideas on how the technology can be used. 3. create a strong user-support plan. in addition to technical support, we felt through our experience in past technology implementations that it was equally important to support the non-technical issues when using the templates. for instance, would training providers have questions about learning theories and instructional design? would they be wondering how to use designeffective learning? would the use of the templates generate further interest in adult and workplace learning issues? the individual coaching is proving useful in raising and addressing these types of questions. in addition, references to the templates and how they may be used is made in regular in-house learning programmes targeted at training providers to develop their skills. during the focus group sessions and in the infancy of the template implementation, we discovered that the majority of the training providers—our key users—were positive about the templates and the changes that they were introducing to the design of learning materials (e.g., more white space, use of advance organizers, clearly stated learning objectives, transitions from one section to another, use of graphics). at the same time we came across some users who were more reluctant to adopt the new approaches favouring heavy use of text and limited use of graphics, their previous practice. while we have worked with them to find a compromise solution, there is still some way to go before full adoption of the newer design ideas. given that our training providers’ primary role is as a subject matter expert it is sometimes a challenge to convey the important linkage between the design of learning materials and effective learning. advocating a support rather than control role, our focus has been to help raise awareness of the benefits of improved design. 4. develop a comprehensive promotion plan. while our focus was primarily on headquarters-based staff members, we saw a clear need up-front to develop a comprehensive promotion plan. given that the responsibility for learning is widely distributed throughout the organization, promoting template usage outside of the larger learning programmes, which are developed and managed from headquarters, was seen as very important. while we are very pleased with the progress so far at headquarters, we are planning to expand the promotion to include more fieldbased training providers. current template usage currently the learning templates are being used in primarily the ways we anticipated: as learning materials that provide for self-study or supplement learning activities. they are also being used in ways we did not envision at the start of the project. journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 55 after the introduction of the templates, several job aids have been developed both by the staff who support overall learning at unhcr and by content experts. one example is a guide to the creation of surveys and needs assessments for learning within the organization. another that is currently underway is a guide to the use of presentation software that emphasises good use of graphics and layout. the self-study template has been one of the most popular of the options available. one training provider has used the template to create an orientation self-study guide on the international protection of refugees. other similar projects are also underway and have been initiated primarily through the result of personal contact and promotion by the earlier users. one of the most ambitious projects to make innovative use of the self study template is a management learning programme. the programme is in the latter stages of design and development and involves more than 20 stand-alone modules, which are provided mainly as self-study supplemented by e-mail tutoring and face-to-face components. while the basic layout and design of the templates is respected, the management learning modules will have their own particular look or brand so that they are identifiable to the learners. as this is a flagship programme for unhcr, it was important that the formatting and layout provide a high quality example for others to use in their own design. in another case, the template was modified to become the participant manual for the four-month facilitation of learning programme. as the purpose did not fit neatly into the initial concept for the template, some changes were required. with the help of an intern, we were able to change the resulting word document without having to modify the template itself. we also required the documentation in electronic format, and to keep the file size small for e-mailing to our field locations, we minimized the use of graphics and images. for printing purposes, we used only black and white to reduce costs and time for preparation. participants gave very positive feedback on the materials and are happy that the units are available easily in electronic format lessons learned during implementation after a relatively short implementation period, some lessons are already evident: 1. involve your information technology stakeholders early so they can have input into the design of the template technology and be prepared to support the initiative. this support could be in the form of technical support and also help to build enterprise-wide acceptance of the templates. 2. include future key users in the design and testing process. you may discover some users who are more reluctant to adopt better practices for the design of learning materials. it is in the early stages that we identified potential problems and issues from users and tried our best to minimize the impact throughout the implementation. 3. consider the value of gaining support from colleagues who lead training and learning in the organization, whether centralized or decentralized. their role can be important to supporting the initiatives and modelling effective usage of the technology. furthermore, use the templates as much as possible to journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 56 provide good examples of usage and promote their adoption into mainstream learning design. 4. encourage innovation and anticipate examples of unconventional usage. 5. identify a consultant (or in-house developer) who is willing to listen to the organization’s needs and be a partner in the implementation process from design through to implementation. an indicator of success imitation is the best reference. given the simple construction of the templates, they are easily customizable for other agencies. indeed, the un system agencies have a rather active learning community and developments in one agency are frequently shared with others. a number of agencies have been invited by unhcr to adapt the templates for their use. this may be as simple as changing the unhcr logo and watermark to theirs, but can easily allow for changes in graphics, icons, and text styles as well. a number of significant spin-offs have manifested themselves since the formal launch of the unhcr learning templates project. the merits of using authorit for the desirability of an eventual sds documentation library database were noted during the development. as a plan-ahead strategy, therefore, the styles in the word template and the authorit template that publishes to word have been mapped to correspond. future output created and produced using authorit would, in effect, be indistinguishable in terms of appearance from that created and produced using ms word—and vice versa. this allows for more qualified staff, familiar with the more complex yet more versatile authorit, to convert completed learning guides seamlessly to html for web or cd-rom. references anta. (1996). national flexible delivery taskforce: final report. brisbane, australia: australian national training authority. berge, z. l. (ed.). (2001). sustaining distance training: integrating learning technologies into the fabric of the enterprise. san francisco: jossey-bass. calder, j. (2002). the key players. in a. mishra & j. bartram (eds.), skills development through distance education. vancouver, canada: commonwealth of learning. commonwealth of learning (col). (2000). an introduction to open and distance learning. in col’s training toolkits. vancouver, canada: author. evans, t., & smith, p. (1999). flexible delivery in australia: origins and conceptualisations. fid review, 1(2/3), 116–120. freeman, r. (2004). planning and implementing open and distance learning systems: a handbook for decision makers. vancouver, canada: commonwealth of learning (col). garrison, d. r., & anderson, t. (2003). e-learning in the twenty-first century: a framework for research and practice. new york: routledgefalmer. murphy, d. (2000). instructional design for self-learning in distance educations. knowledge series. vancouver, canada: commonwealth of learning (col). smith, p. j., wakefield, l., & robertson, i. (2002). preparing for flexible delivery: learners and their workplaces. research report. south australia: national centre for vocational research (ncver). tait, a. (2002). the centrality of student support in open and distance learning: a paradigm shift in thinking. paper presented at the second pan commonwealth conference on open and distance learning. durban, south africa, july 30, 2002. journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 57 weal, n. (2002). needs identification and programme evaluation. in a. mishra & j. bartram (eds.), skills development through distance education. vancouver, canada: commonwealth of learning. michael alford and carolynn oleniuk are from the staff development section of the unhcr based in geneva. alford is head of the section and oleniuk is an instructional technologist. sharon roffey is an it consultant with expertise in the functionality of ms word. willems, j. 14 educational resilience as a quadripartite responsibility: indigenous peoples participating in higher education via distance education julie willems, monash university abstract considerations of educational resilience are often linked to student participation, retention, and outcomes in distance higher education, in spite of adversity, equity issues, or ‘invisible fences’ that students may face. this paper further develops the quadripartite model of educational resilience (willems, 2010; willems & reupert, forthcoming); that is, educational resilience as the shared responsibility of students, educators, institutions, and communities—as a means to help assess and promote educational resilience and minimise student attrition in a specific cohort of distance learners, namely indigenous peoples. through this lens the experiences of an online indigenous distance learner are explored. keywords: educational resilience; attrition; distance education; higher education; holistic approach; indigenous peoples; connectedness introduction considerations of educational resilience are often linked to successful student participation, retention, and outcomes in higher education, in spite of the challenges—the ‘invisible fences’ (o’rourke, 2008), or environmental risks (masten & obradović, 2006)—experienced. the inverse may also be erroneously assumed—in cases of attrition in distance education, a student has somehow lacked the resilient qualities or characteristics necessary for the successful completion of distance learning. framing resilience in terms of either a personal attribute or deficit without considering the context and communities within which that distance learner is embedded is flawed, as an individual’s responses cannot be dissociated from the context within which they are located. this paper builds on the notion that educational resilience in distance higher education is the quadripartite responsibility of the key stakeholders. this involves not only the student, but also their educators, the institution, and the student’s broader social community (willems, 2010; willems & reupert, forthcoming). indigenous peoples indigenous peoples are collectively underrepresented in higher education in many nations of the world (gray & beresford, 2008), including australia (bradley, noonan, nugent, & scales, 2008). according to the department of education, science and training (2001, p. 4), indigenous journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 15 peoples are defined as the “inhabitants of land where their forebears have lived for hundreds of generations, [are] distinguished by heritage, culture and language [and] have also been colonised by other groups”. indigenous peoples from around the world include the first nations peoples of canada and the māori of new zealand. in an australian context, the commonwealth of australia identifies an indigenous person as either aboriginal or torres strait islander (australian bureau of statistics, 2010). to be considered an aboriginal/torres strait islander, an individual must be of aboriginal/torres strait islander descent, identify as an aboriginal/torres strait islander, and be accepted by the community as an aboriginal/torres strait islander. while 15 percent of the new zealand population is identified as indigenous (department of education, science and training, 2001), indigenous peoples in australia account for only 2.5 percent of the total population (indigenous higher education advisory council, 2006). further, while 90 percent of the australian population inhabit 2.2 percent of the continent (predominantly along the east and south-west coastal fringes), 90 percent of indigenous australians live in areas that cover 23 percent of the continent, encompassing regional or remote areas (australian bureau of statistics, 2003). although referred to as a single collective, australian indigenous peoples are a heterogeneous group comprising many distinctively diverse and different peoples (department of education, science and training, 2001). as the queensland school curriculum council (2001, p. 2) notes: aboriginal histories, cultures, languages and societies are distinct from torres strait islander histories, cultures, languages and societies, and each group needs to be recognised accordingly. diversity exists both within and across these groups in terms of social, cultural, geographic and economic circumstances. indigenous peoples are often exposed to multiple equity issues and equity overlap (willems, 2010). they are frequently marginalised in terms of power, wealth, and access to quality education. they tend to have a higher birth rate than the rest of the population, are more likely to be living in poverty, and access to education is considered to be the key element to improving their lives (department of education, science and training, 2001), including their health. with the federal government’s widening participation agenda currently highlighting particular groups of ‘underrepresented’ students in australian higher education (indigenous australians; students from low socio-economic backgrounds; and regional and remote students) (bradley et al., 2008), issues relating to equity overlap become obvious when looking at the demographic characteristics of indigenous compared with non-indigenous students (australian council for educational research, 2011, pp. 2–3). indigenous students are more likely to be female, of low socio-economic status, of mature age (the mean age is 28 years), responsible for the care of dependent others, first in the family to participate in higher education, and more likely to come from regional or remote areas of the nation. educational equity for indigenous australians remains a continuing concern in australia. while there has been gradual improvement in access, participation, and outcomes across the various sectors of australian education since the 1960s, the discrepancy between indigenous and nonindigenous participation is most marked in the areas of secondary school completions and in commencements in higher education (gray & beresford, 2008). the department of education, employment and workplace relations (2010) reported that while there had been an increase in indigenous australians participating in higher education in 2010 compared with previous years, this still only represented 0.9 percent of all student enrolments in higher education (11,088 students). further, these indigenous student enrolment statistics do not have parity with indigenous people making up 2.5 percent of the australian population (indigenous higher education advisory council, 2006). indigenous students are not only significantly underrepresented in higher education, they are also collectively less likely to be successful in terms of participation, retention, and outcomes (o’rourke, 2008; devlin, 2009). according to kauffman (2003), fewer indigenous australians hold post-school qualifications than their willems, j. 16 indigenous counterparts in both the united states and canada. he suggests that australia has, in fact, the worst indigenous educational outcomes of any comparable western society. gray and beresford (2008) call this gap between australian indigenous and non-indigenous students a ‘wicked problem’. due to the “rapid migration of technology across geographic and socioeconomic boundaries” (masten & plowman, 2003, p. 75), today’s distance education is the means by which underrepresented (disadvantaged) groups of students such as indigenous students may participate in higher education (universities australia, 2008). however, exact figures for indigenous students participating in higher education via distance (or off-campus) learning are hard to find. there are many variants of distance education, and one form that many institutions of higher education offer in australia for indigenous students is ‘block-mode’ tuition. the australian council for educational research (2011, p. 3) estimates that while the “majority of indigenous students are enrolled in full-time, on-campus courses like most school leavers”, approximately 33 percent are enrolled via block mode. block-mode tuition is a form of mixed-mode tuition that couples residential on-campus intensives with lengthier off-campus periods (milton & vozzo, 2010). the off-campus component in block-mode tuition is often delivered by means such as online learning via the university’s learning management system and co-creation tools (reedy, 2011). while the australian council for educational research (2011) recently reported that block-mode tuition is considered to be beneficial for those indigenous students who are from regional and remote areas, are of mature age, or have community and/or family responsibilities, a study by barraket and scott (2001) identified that indigenous students who were female, of mature age, from low socio-economic status backgrounds, from regional or remote backgrounds, and studying using block-mode tuition were more disadvantaged than others, due to the compounding factors of poor information and communication technology (ict) literacy, lack of access to technology, lack of technological supports, and a lack of personal confidence. these findings are supported by reedy (2011), who discerned that while interest in learning with technology was high, there were very real challenges for the completion of the online assessment tasks due to the compounding factors of access, lifestyle, and attitude factors. gray and beresford (2008, p. 219) argue that these complex and interrelated social challenges can have an impact on the participation, retention, and resilience of indigenous students across the australian education sector. a coordinated approach across policy, practice, and research (devlin, 2009) is therefore necessary to overcome the formidable challenge of this educational divide. resilience the term resilience has many definitions, depending on the context in which it is used. historically, the term was first used by the physical sciences to refer to an element bouncing back to its original state or shape following the application of stress or exertion (boyden & cooper, 2007). the term was then adopted in medical science to imply the ability of the human body to recover from traumatic events such as accidents or surgery (boyden & cooper, 2007). in psychology and sociology, the concept of resilience initially focused on the ways in which children adapt positively to adversity (black & lobo, 2008), and it was subsequently applied to adults (bonanno, 2005). thus employed, resilience came to refer to the effective coping and adaptation of individuals, even when “faced with loss, hardship, or adversity” (tugade & fredrikson, 2004, p. 320). in this context, resilience is considered to be a social-emotional competency (bernard, 2006), and a specific individual trait (masten, 1994). in education, resilience as a term has only recently been adopted (willems & reupert, forthcoming). waxman, padrón, and gray (2004, p. 1) define those who have educational resilience as “students who succeed in school despite the presence of adverse conditions”. in higher education contexts, educational resilience is often linked with consideration of student journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 17 attrition (see, for example, devlin, 2009; grebennikov & skaines, 2009; pechenkina & anderson, 2011) and/or better than expected student participation, retention, and outcomes (walker, 2000), in spite of adversity, equity issues, or ‘invisible fences’ (o’rourke, 2008) that students may face. for indigenous students, educational resilience is related to overcoming the odds caused by coming from high-risk backgrounds (masten & obradović, 2008). distance education has often been connected with social equity (bates, 2005). it originated as the means by which students who were unable to attend classes in person could still access and participate in formal education (gunawardena & mcisaac, 2004). distance education has thus provided an opportunity for those who might experience educational disadvantage in terms of their geographic, ethnic, physical, or socio-economic capabilities, or their carer or incomeearning responsibilities, to participate. kemp (2002) argues that an understanding of educational resilience in distance education will help the development and promotion of protective mechanisms to foster the learner’s effective negotiation of their learning journey. towards educational resilience as a holistic and quadripartite responsibility a lingering challenge with considerations of educational resilience, however, is that it can still be viewed as an individualistic attribute or deficit, removed from the context within which the learning occurs. when resilience is deemed lacking (indicated, for example, by non-participation or non-completion), this in turn may be construed as a personal deficit—the student may not “have what it takes” (masten, 1994). this perspective can place the onus on the individual to become resilient, rather than examining whether the broader context in which distance learning occurs fosters resilience (willems & reupert, forthcoming). at a practical level, for example, while it is positive that institutions of higher and distance education provide solutions such as short courses for students to develop resiliency skills, it is but one part of the bigger picture. factors affecting educational resilience (participation, retention, and outcomes) for indigenous students in distance higher education in australia are often beyond the control of the students themselves. as friedli (2009) has argued, this overemphasis on the individual disguises the fact that individual issues have a social basis, that multiple factors are at play, and that any discussion of educational resilience needs to factor in the learner’s social, economic, and cultural context in order to gain a more holistic picture. if attrition is a concern in distance education, then this holistic understanding of educational resilience is critical to understanding student retention, not only for distance learners as a group in general, but specifically for indigenous peoples, who are deemed doubly ‘at risk’ due to the overlap of equity considerations (willems, 2010). previously, goodwin (2007) has suggested that three key stakeholder groups need to be considered when working towards fostering educational (academic) resilience: students, instructors, and institutions. in addition, simpson (2003) has argued the importance of the student’s community as a key ingredient in fostering student retention in distance education, especially the support of family and friends. encompassing these facets, the quadripartite model of educational resilience (willems, 2010; willems & reupert, forthcoming) encompasses four key stakeholder groups: the individual student, the educator/supervisor, the institution, and the broader social community (figure 1). each has a responsibility when it comes to fostering educational resilience. willems, j. 18 figure 1 resilience as a quadripartite responsibility (willems, 2010; willems & reupert, forthcoming) thus, rather than focusing on whether students are deemed to be resilient, the quadripartite model of educational resilience helps us to focus on the broader context in which learning takes place, as learning does not occur in a vacuum. further, as educational resilience is “a capacity that develops over time in the context of person-environment interactions” (egeland, carlson, & sroufe, 1993, p. 517), the quadripartite model serves as a framework to consider how this holistic capacity-building approach may be developed. educational resilience and indigenous distance learners this holistic framework addresses the question of how capacity can be built for the educational resilience of indigenous students participating in flexible, distance, online, or blended formal education. to address the importance of various factors relating to each of these four stakeholder groups in distance education, the experiences of denise 1 —a geographically remote indigenous distance learner—will be shared to make key points. the concerns emerging from denise’s responses will be used to help reinforce the factors for consideration. denise was part of a research cohort of 35 online distance learners (willems, 2005; willems, 2010) who participated in ethics-approved, qualitative case-study research, and who shared their experiences in online distance education. her demographic profile is as follows. denise is an aboriginal student enrolled in an undergraduate course in health sciences, which she completes predominantly via distance education with the addition of some on-campus block study. she lives in a relatively remote area of far-west new south wales, and is thus a great distance from any university campus. she is a single student of mature age, and from a low socio-economic background. she left school after completing year 10, and then worked for many years in various jobs. denise acknowledges her limited academic and information literacy skills. she is not only the first in the family to commence higher education, but is also the first in her extended indigenous community to do so. in addition to representing the three under-represented groups noted for national concern in australia—low socio-economic status, indigenous, and remote students (bradley et al., 2008)—denise also represents the ‘typical’ demographic of indigenous 1 ‘denise’ is a pseudonym journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 19 students in higher education in australia: female, low socio-economic status, of mature age, first in the family to participate in higher education, and from a remote area (australian council for educational research, 2011). additionally, indigenous students in higher education are typically enrolled in health, welfare, and education courses (jumbunna centre for australian indigenous studies, education and research & wammara aboriginal education centre, 1997). resilient indigenous distance learners when it comes to fostering educational resilience for indigenous distance learners, issues include overcoming low educational attainment and accompanying academic literacy and information literacy skills, access, costs, being the first in the family to participate in higher education, and social isolation. reedy (2011) determined that the personal impediments of indigenous learners in higher education included access. access involves not simply acceptance and admission to a programme of study, but also access to the technology of learning—especially in the case of flexible, distance, online, or blended learning, where education is delivered by means of technology. denise applied for entry to higher education as a student of mature age in order to break the chains of labouring positions. however, she did not expect to get a place when she first applied for her course, due to her educational background. she was surprised to learn that she had been accepted. one of the academic challenges that denise faced in entering higher education was that she lacked the academic skills to participate, and did not have opportunities to learn these in the lead-up to commencing her learning. her rudimentary educational background necessitated her spending more than the suggested length of time on each aspect of her course. without study skills, she felt that she constantly lagged behind the other students in her cohort. fostering students’ academic skills is an aspect for all stakeholders in the quadripartite process. educators can scaffold skills into their course design, as it cannot be assumed that participating students from similar disadvantaged backgrounds will have this knowledge. technological (information literacy) skills also warrant attention. denise felt she lacked the technological literacy skills to participate because she had had little experience with computer technology prior to commencing her studies. at the time of her acceptance, she could not type and had very few computer skills apart from rudimentary skills gleaned through work and her hotmail account. in an attempt to better prepare herself and get ‘study ready’, denise enrolled in some adult education courses in a nearby town. she commented about her surprise during the course when she became a mentor to other new students, by instructing and demonstrating the procedures that she had learnt. however, denise’s self-instigated pre-learning was costly—it involved not only the cost of the courses, but also the expense of driving kilometres to get to the nearest large town with adult education facilities. further, in spite of the investment of time and resources that were hard to spare at the time, denise shared that she did not learn how to complete simple computer functions such as ‘cut and paste’ until after the end of her first year of study. the simple, time-saving skills, which many take for granted, would make a huge difference for students such as denise. this is but one example of many of the information literacy skills that could be scaffolded into a course. o’rourke (2008) notes that being the first in the family to participate in higher education is akin to being a cultural pioneer venturing into new places and spaces. being the first in the family to participate in higher education was also a challenge for denise: willems, j. 20 denise is the first in her family to participate in higher education. no one in either her extended family network or her group of friends has ever attempted any form of postsecondary education. there was no one that she could turn to in her community to ask questions when she got stuck. some indigenous students may feel less competent or worthy than the general student population. others may feel shame if their attendance in higher education is not supported by their community or family group (gray & beresford, 2008). in contrast: despite having left school at the end of year 10, being the only member of her extended family to attempt tertiary education, and coming from a rural community in which tertiary education is a rarity, denise is rightfully proud of her achievements. resilient indigenous distance learners and educator responsibilities issues for educators, instructors, and/or supervisors in promoting educational resilience in distance higher education include connectedness, providing timely communications, flexibility, considerations in the learning design (including learning styles), and scaffolding the necessary skills, as previously noted. an emphasis on connectedness is important to many indigenous students. gibb (2006) notes that indigenous students like to make strong and deep connections with their educators, and this aspect of social community needs to be emphasised in their distance educators. in turn, educators need to work towards positive connections to help foster resilience: denise wants institutions and educators to understand that there may not be peers or mentors available in the community to support or encourage distance learners, and this disadvantage is compounded when you don’t get support and communication from your lecturers online. she wants a responsive relationship with her teachers and tutors. beyond connectedness, milton and vozzo (2010) identify a number of areas in which educators need to foster educational resilience among indigenous students in terms of the learning design in the context of open, flexible, blended, and distance learning. for example, as previously noted, academic literacy might be a huge barrier, and this needs to be scaffolded into the course design to develop academic literacy. care must also be taken to ensure that culturally inclusive language is used, and some authors point to the need for more multilingual and first-language approaches to education, rather than the provision of education. accessibility is also an issue, as there can be an overlap between indigeneity and disabilities. indigenous learning styles are another aspect to be factored into the design and delivery of teaching and learning in higher distance education. in a study on australian indigenous students, barnes (2000) noted specific differences between how indigenous australians and the broader student population prefer to learn. milton and vozzo (2010, p. 15) noted that indigenous students are more group oriented; are less concerned with personal achievement; prefer to learn in a holistic way (global learning) by having an overview, then major headings prior to detail; prefer to have visual media, such as diagrams, to help explain written text (visual learning); prefer to learn in practical settings; prefer to participate in oral rather than written examinations; and place great emphasis on their relationships with their educators and peers. resilient indigenous distance learners and institutional responsibilities research by pechenkina and anderson (2011, p. 17) found that the official institutional support structures provided for indigenous students can be an impediment to educational resilience. to help minimise university barriers, institutions have to be vigilant, as there is much that they can contribute in the fostering of educational resilience. some key factors for consideration include: provision of first-language instruction, considerations for low socio-economic status students journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 21 (costs), accessibility, and the provision of additional support structures. one ‘invisible fence’ (o’rourke, 2008) for indigenous peoples is that the language of instruction in higher education in australian is english. according to the results of the 2006 national census, 16 percent of indigenous australians nominated a language other than english as their first language (australian bureau of statistics, 2008), whereas the language of instruction is likely to be english. multiple accessibility issues relating to low socio-economic status, ict access, and internet access are experienced: denise comments that a number of assumptions were made about the distance learner’s ability to access the required skills, hardware, and software they need to successfully complete their courses. she said that living rurally and having very little income made purchases of anything beyond basic study needs impossible, and that if one subject had required her to purchase other software, for example, she would not have been able to do so. she commented that people who have incomes do not understand what it is like to not have the income or the financial reserves to purchase necessary equipment. denise felt that web pages should be kept simple. engaging in distance education is daunting enough without being overwhelmed or confused by complex websites. she said that she still didn’t know all the functions and possibilities of her webpage, but did learn enough to get by. denise reminds universities to keep online documents available in basic software format (for example, word), as other programs require additional software to run them, which in turn is expensive, and even if these programs are purchased, the student may not have enough memory capacity on their computer to install them. finally, denise believes that the costs of education are compounded by studying via distance education due to all this added expenditure. however, she also comments that if it were not for the opportunity to study via distance education, she would not have even attempted post-secondary study. shah and widin (2010, p. 30) note that, despite the increasing use of ict in the provision of formal education, access to ict and the internet, plus the ability to effectively use the technology, continues to be a challenge, especially for those indigenous students who live in regional or remote locations. o’rourke (2008, p. 5) cites one student, who stated: the uni forgets we don’t all live in the city or in a town . . . it’s harder financially because of the extra . . . costs and we can’t just duck into uni to get a book from the library or drop in forms . . . they forget us lot. another institutional barrier that is an ‘invisible fence’ to the successful participation of indigenous learners is the perceived lack of support from the university in general (o’rourke, 2008). while many indigenous units around the globe provide excellent support, they are but one part of the broader institutions. perkins and willems (2011) note that if indigenous support units exist within universities, they are often difficult to locate on university websites, especially for novice or visiting indigenous learners. they recommend providing direct and clearly visible links to these facilities on universities’ home pages. staff-to-student ratio is another ‘invisible fence’. in australia, the staff-to-student ratio is now over 20:1 (bradley et al., 2008) and, according to research, is a key contributor to the decline in student satisfaction (shah & widin, 2010). whereas relationships are seen as a crucial key aspect of the learning journey for indigenous peoples, staff connectivity may be diminished for the sake of economic rationalism. willems, j. 22 resilient indigenous distance learners and community responsibilities due to the compounding issues of ict, academic skills, the lack of online community with the overlay of the geographical distance from the university, denise feels separated from her educators and the peers in her cohort. the community aspect of the quadripartite model incorporates not only the distance learner’s broader academic community, including their peers, who might also be geographically dispersed, but also the community in which the distance learner lives, encompassing their networks of family and friends. the first subgroup involves the learning community in which students learn (their peers). in addition to a connection with their educators, an indigenous student needs to feel deep connections with their peers (gibb, 2006). this is crucial, as the distance learner’s family might not be familiar with the “requirements and expectations of university study and may not offer appropriate support” (shah & widin, 2010, p. 31), whereas peers can help provide that support. the second aspect of community is the broader sociocultural community in which the student is embedded. alford and james (2007) note that indigenous learners face challenges relating to such issues as negative family influences and conflicting demands emanating from their family and broader community. these can either limit or prevent successful outcomes (shah & widin, 2010), as these community demands tend to take precedence over formal learning (reedy, 2011). further, o’rourke (2008) found that there still exists a ‘cultural stigma’ within the indigenous community attached to indigenous learners participating in higher education. perhaps this is more a reflection of regional and remote communities, as, according to statistics by the australian bureau of statistics (2011), 8.7 percent of indigenous peoples living in cities hold a higher education degree, compared with 4.0 percent living in regional areas, and 2.7 percent of those living in remote areas. denise feels isolated not only from her academic community, but also from her physical and social community—separated from her friends and family because she studies at home. it is a double isolation for her. she feels increasingly isolated from her friends and family because she spends a great deal of time trying to succeed in her studies. her friends see that she is ‘at home’—which they associate with family and leisure time—not understanding that she is an off-campus student with studying responsibilities akin to a workday. as she is the first in her entire community to participate in higher education, her family and friends do not understand what is required of her to study successfully. her need to study has in turn led to her community to view her study as taking priority over them personally, and they are staying away from her. she finds this very difficult. in summary, supportive community environments can provide very real encouragement to distance learners (simpson, 2003), fostering educational resilience by enabling participation and success in higher education (morgan, 2001). conclusion educational resilience—successful participation, retention, and outcomes in distance higher education in spite of any adversity, equity issues, or ‘invisible fences’ distance learners face—is a key consideration in any education sector. for indigenous distance learners in higher education, with low participation levels per head of population and the potential for multiple equity overlap, the need to foster successful learning contexts is paramount. for these students, juggling the conflicting demands of community and the attempt to meet sometimes foreign educational and institutional expectations can in turn either limit or prevent their achievement of educational goals and career aspirations (shah & widin, 2010). journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 23 following the argument by friedli (2009) that a narrow focus on the resilience of individual students masks the social, economic, and cultural context in which learning takes place, this paper has promoted the quadripartite model of educational resilience (willems, 2010; willems & reupert, forthcoming) as a framework to gain a more holistic understanding of the complexities of disadvantaged learners, and to foster successful outcomes for them. it may also contribute to consideration of building capacity across all stakeholder groups and/or provide the basis for further applied research. this, in turn, will contribute to calls for rigorous national research on how educational resilience might contribute to the participation and success of indigenous students (devlin, 2009). for without such efforts, access, participation, and successful outcomes for indigenous peoples in participating in higher education via distance education—not simply in australia, but around the globe—could remain a ‘wicked problem’. acknowledgements the author wishes to thank ‘denise’ for generously sharing her experiences as a remote australian indigenous distance learner. she also wishes to acknowledge the contributions of reviewers to 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(2004). resilient individuals use positive emotions to bounce back from negative emotional experiences. journal of personality and social psychology, 86(2), 320–333. universities australia. (2008). advancing equity and participation in australasian higher education: action to address participation and equity levels in higher education of people from low socio-economic backgrounds and indigenous people. retrieved from http://www.universitiesaustralia.edu.au/resources/63/83 walker, r. (2000). executive summary. indigenous performance in western australia universities: reframing retention and success. canberra, australia: department of education, training and youth affairs. retrieved from http://www.dest.gov.au/archive/highered/eippubs/eip00_12/exec_summ.htm waxman, h. c., padrón, y. n., & gray, j. p. (eds.). (2004). educational resiliency: student, teacher, and school perspectives. greenwich, ct: information age. willems, j. (2005). flexible learning: implications of ‘when-ever’, ‘where-ever’ and ‘what-ever’. distance education, 26(3), 429–435. willems, j. (2010). the equity raw-score matrix – a multidimensional indicator of potential disadvantage in higher education. herdsa journal, 29(6), 603–621. willems, j., & reupert, a. (forthcoming). resilience and the distance higher degree by research candidate. in j. willems & b. tynan (eds.), research in distance and flexible learning: volume 2: micro level research in distance and flexible learning. edmonton, canada: athabasca university press. http://www.universitiesaustralia.edu.au/resources/63/83 http://www.dest.gov.au/archive/highered/eippubs/eip00_12/exec_summ.htm journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 27 biographical notes julie willems julie.willems@monash.edu dr julie willems is e-learning designer/educational developer at monash university department of rural and indigenous health (mudrih), monash university, australia. her research interests include exploring equity and access issues to technology by disadvantaged learners for formal and informal learning. � this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. willems, j. (2012). educational resilience as a quadripartite responsibility: indigenous peoples participating in higher education via distance education. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 16(1), [pp. 14–27]. mailto:julie.willems@monash.edu http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ scanned document the world of distance learning andrea volume 4, number 1, 1997 the first issue of andrea for 1997 contains an article by johan van heddegem on the ten project and courses. the project involves connecting a network of european centres dublin, lueren, lisbon, stafford, thessaloniki, and ellaga to a central station in madrid to create a virtual classroom. the image of the teacher is displayed on screens in each centre along with any documents in use. students in the remote centres can interact directly with the teacher and have access to graphic tools and a shared whiteboard. off-line access is by e-mail and computer conferencing. during the period of the project some 200 hours will be available to 700 learners in universities and large enterprises, with both undergraduate and graduate papers being offered . this experiment is being carried out using a fully integrated network of vsat, isdn and lan ethernet technology with national and transeuropean coverage. the project is supported in part by the european commission. additional information is available at http:// wwwfundesco.es/ten/ the european journal for open and distance learning the european distance education network (eden) is establishing a new electronic journal, the european journal for open and distance learning. an interim editorial board, chaired by erling ljosa (nks, norway), has been established. the intention is to offer various types of contributions based on a house style with 'short versions' in three languages, english, german and french . publication will be continuous rather than based on issues published at specific dates. the editors are martin valcke, open universiteit, netherlands, and anne bruce, scottish council of educational technology. the fifth annual eden conference the fifth annual eden conference was held from 8-10 july 1996 in the palais des congres, futuroscope, near poitiers, france . the theme of the conference was lifelong learning, open learning, distance learning. among the 100 papers presented were case studies, innovative uses of new technologies, organisational and staff training issues, new developments in central and eastern europe, collaborative links and networks, and open and distance learning for school-age children. the 252 delegates included representatives from canada, the united states of america, australia, china, and new zealand. details can be found on hup://www.open.ac.uk/ partners/eden conferences 1997 2-6 june 1997: the new learning environment: a global perspective. the 18th icde world conference, at the pennsylvania state university, usa. the conference explored the challenges and opportunities facing the global education community in the new environment being created by the rapid evolution of digital technology. the conference focused on four themes the changing technological environment; the new educational paradigm; technology, education and sustainable development; and opportunities for international cooperation. there were seven preconferences associated with icde'97. they were: • the cread/ibm workshop: toward a virtual university, 30-31 may 1997. • distance education and national development: research perspectives, 29-31 journal o/dista nce lea ming. vol 3. n o i. 1997 (c) distan ce edu cati on assoc iati on of new zealand 32 may 1997. • innovations in distance education: principles and practices from a faculty perspective, 30 may 1997. • medical education by distance and open learning, 31 may-1 june 1997. • faculty development programmes for distance education, 31 may 1997. • the international co-production consortium, 31 may-1 june 1997. • institute of educational technology, 31 may -1 june 1997. further information is available at http:// www.cde.psu.edu/lcde/ 23-25 june 1997: open and distance learning: a bridge from the 90s to the year 2000 and beyond : achievements and perspectives. the sixth eden annual conference, at the technical university of budapest, hungary. up-to-date information can be found on the eden home page at http://www.open.ac.uk/partners/eden 17-19 september 1997: open classroom conference, crete, greece. this second open classroom conference is being organised by the lambrakis research foundation and the european distance education network. the conference has four themes: • educational multimedia and flexible/ open learning environments: on-line and off-line multimedia products to support open learning processes. • distance learning services in education at school level: application fields, user needs, technologies, communication infrastructure, ipr handling. • operational models in school education: learning models, classroom settings, school establishments, eva luation of products, school-community interfaces. • 'european schools network': national, european and international initiatives and pilot projects, financial support, and good practice. further information is available at http:// openclass.lrfgr:8080 23-25 september 1997: the convergence of distance and conventional education: patterns of flexibility for the individual learner. the cambridge international conference on open and distance learning, cambridge, england. 29 september-3 october 1997: open, flexible and distance learning: education and training in the 21st century, university of tasmania, launceston. this conference, organised by the open and distance learning association of australia, in association with the australian association of distance education schools, will explore seven major themes: shifting paradigms the impact of globalisation on open, flexible and distance learning; technological issues; educational leadership; partnerships in education and industry; customising education and training; team building; and research and development and continuing professional development. expressions of interest may be posted to the odlaa forum home page at http :// www.comm.utas .edu.au/notices/odlaa.htm the international course on open and distance learning the open university is again offering an intensive four week training course on open and distance learning. the course, in its eight year, will be held at the open university's campus in milton keynes from 8 september to 3 october. the course involves a core programme in which participants will learn how to plan an open and distance learning system; determine the learner profile; establish a student database; work in course teams; produce learning materials; select appropriate media; use information technology; assess the quality and effectiveness of open and distance learning materials; design and format open learning texts; establish student support systems; set up on-line tutoring; establish student assessment systems; and evaluate systems. a personal programme is interwoven with the core. this course is part of the open university's journal of distance learning. vol 3. no i. 199 7 (c) distance education association of new zealand 33 institute of educational technology's programme of professional development in educational technology for open and distance learning. the institute has a home page at http://www-iet.open.ac.uk / pdet / in terna tional. further details about the course can be obtained from the course director whose e-mail address is k.pole@open .ac.uk the journal of instructional science and technology volume 1, no.4 of the journal of instructional science and technology is available at http:/ www.usq . edu.au/electpub / e-jis t / homepage.htm this issue focuses on the use of new technologies, particularly those involving networking activities through the use of computer-mediated communication. one paper deals with networking and the learning organisation, and a second offers an evaluation of the professional development programme of the queensland open learning network. the american journal of distance learning volume 10, no.2 of the american journal of distance learning contains a major article on technology and distance learning and a series of responses. the article, by chris dede, is entitled 'the evolution of distance education emerging technologies and dis'tributed learning'. responses are offered by philip c. abrami and eva mary bures 'computersupported collaborative learning;' gary mcl. boyd 'emergence for whom? a commentary on chris dede's "the evolution of distance education;'" chere campbell gibson 'towards emerging technologies and distance learning; challenges and change;' peter holt 'a response to chris dede;' roger kaufman 'some possible reality therapy for the wouldbe innovators : a response to chris dede;' gregg kearsley 'education as usual: comments on chris dede's article;' michael p. lambert 'keeping fixed on the objective: reflections on distance education's future;' farhad saba 'dede's distributed learning: a system perspective;' erv schieman and tom jones 'revisiting the medium/ design debate ... again:a response to chris dede;' thomas w.5mith -'a response to chris dede;' and chris dede -'chris dede's response.' distance online education symposium (deos) deos volume 7, no.1 contains two full length book reviews. the first, by tony bates, director of distance education and technology at the university of british columbia, reviews why the information highway? lessons from open and distance learning, edited by judy roberts and erin keough (trifolium books, toronto, 1995, pp 276). the book, which focuses on the canadian experience, has three parts . part 1 deals with emerging issues in open and distance learning, part 2 with case studies, and part 3 with, inter alia, analysis, research and evaluation. the second review, by zane berge, director of training systems, iso graduate programs at the university of maryland, baltimore county, is of starr roxanne hiltz's book, the virtual classroom: learning without limits via computer networks (ablex, norwood, 1994, pp. 406). web pages of interest readers may find the following web pages of interest: • commonwealth of open learning: http:/ /www.col.org for publications, col activities, and general information. • international centre for distance learning of the open university: http:/ / www.open.uk/ou.ou.htm/for details of distance education literature and information on commonwealth distance education institutions and courses. journal of dista1lce leam i1lg. vol 3. no i. 1997 (c) distan ce edu ca ti on association of new zealand 34 • the university of wiscon s in : http : / / www . uwex .e du/disted/qde/ references.htmlfor distance programmes available from a range of institutions. • the open university: http:/ / www.open.ac.uk/ou.ou.htm/ for information about the open university and its courses. a search of the internet using the word 'distance education' will yield many hundreds of web pages. worldwide database of distance learning the open university and hobsons publishing are publishing a series of guides to distance learning opportunities at all educational levels. the first world-wid e guide to institutions and departments offering distance learning options will be published in september of this year, with further guides to follow. th e information is also available at http :// www.distance_learning.co.uk new national distance education body for south africa a new national distance education body has been established in south africa. it is the national association of distance education organisations (nadeosa). the association aims to: • facilitate collaboration among distance education organisations in south africa; • advocate awareness, understanding, and application of distance education amongst policy makers, practitioners and learners; • promote research and evaluation of distance learning in south africa; • exert influence with regard to adequate policy (including financial support) for distance education; • advance the professional interests of distance education practitioners; and • promote and enhance quality assurance in distance education. the association held its inaugural confernce in august 1996. j ou m al of distance leaming. vol 3. no 1. 199 7 (c) distance edu ca ti on assoc iation of new zealand 3s book reviews 44 book review making the move to k–12 online teaching: research-based strategies and practices david adelstein wayne state university rice, k. (2012). making the move to k–12 online teaching: research-based strategies and practices. boston, ma: pearson (pp. 270). making the move to k–12 online teaching: research-based strategies and practices focuses on helping to design and update virtual education specifically in a k–12 environment. author kerry rice, currently an associate professor in the department of educational technology at boise state university, is an experienced consultant and educator in the field of k–12 virtual education. the audiences for this book are virtual educators who want to expand their virtual experience, and new teachers who want to enter the field. the book is also recommended for higher education professors who prepare future teachers. the nine chapters of the book follow the same basic format. real-life stories, related examples, and appropriate graphics are scattered throughout the book. each chapter concludes with a summarising “final thoughts,” while the “apply what you have learned” and “resources” sections offer an opportunity to get hands-on with the chapter topics. the book starts with the basics of what defines virtual education, who is involved on both sides of the computer, and the standards that these various programmes are held to. then there is a quick shift into appropriate pedagogical styles for virtual learning. the author clarifies the similarities between traditional face-to-face and virtual teaching strategies. challenges arise as a shift is made to a learner-centred style of teaching, forcing the educator to become project manager, instructional designer, and e-learning expert as well as being the teacher. the author works to alleviate perceived challenges by expanding on a wide variety of tools available to the online educator. starting with the basics of a learning management system, rice discusses a wide variety of asynchronous and synchronous options. topics include online communication (chat and web-conferencing), using the internet as a resource (video-sharing, simulations, and games), collaboration (blogs, wikis, concept maps, and social networking), presentations, and website creation (design and multimedia software). the book continues to progress in a practical fashion, helping to define virtual user roles and set up appropriate rules for the virtual classroom. this is a direct lead-in to building a sense of community, which is an integral part of teaching virtually. taking advantage of the various tools and options mentioned will help the virtual educator to design opportunities for collaboration, which is a key to building a sense of community. continuing to foster the theme of collaboration, the author guides the reader in facilitating online discussions and lesson design. the basics of management, support, and assessments are discussed in terms that can be applied to a wide variety of scenarios. the author offers strategies in choosing the proper tools and, as with the other chapters, showcases specific examples that offer insight to the reader. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 17(1) 45 the final portions of the book view specific student needs for the virtual environment. an entire chapter is given to the topic of students with special needs. the author supplies guidelines for identifying students, and ways to differentiate and offer support in a virtual environment. the book concludes by addressing what it means for a student to be a digital citizen, and the importance of online equity and safety. acceptable use policies examples are listed to help the educator get a head start on the process. as the author recommends, this book will probably be most appreciated by educators with experience or professors of incoming teachers. new teachers on their own should tread with caution, especially if their knowledge of virtual education is limited. the book quickly becomes dense with information that could be overwhelming for the uninitiated. the author realises this, and suggests that while the reader considers the wide variety of tools offered, they should move slowly, figuring out what is best for the individual. if the reader follows this advice, they will emerge with a vast array of knowledge and a strong foundation for virtual environments. the “apply what you have learned” and “resources” sections help this process, as does the e-portfolio activity at the end of every chapter. using the sections in tandem, the reader will learn from a hands-on perspective, driving the key points home. this is not a passive task, as the author does not hand-hold. all of the materials needed are available to use, either in the text or on the accompanying website, 1 but it’s up to the reader to participate in virtual situations. the e-portfolio activity allows the reader to sum up the experience, keeping an active log of their progress. in a book packed with information, the chapter on students with special needs is worth noting. this group is often ignored in discussions about virtual environments, but rice offers appropriate and logical suggestions to help a particular section of students to find success. the ideas here will undoubtedly be of use to virtual educators who want to create an inclusive community. overall, the author has provided the reader with a book packed with sound information, useful tools and supportive activities. if willing to put in the time, the reader will certainly find the guidance they need as they continue to shape their virtual classroom. 1 there is an online supplement for this book at https://sites.google.com/site/bestonlineteacher/home https://sites.google.com/site/bestonlineteacher/home book reviews 46 book review from digital natives to digital wisdom: hopeful essays for 21st century learning nicholas mcguigan macquarie university prensky, m. (2012). from digital natives to digital wisdom: hopeful essays for 21st century learning. california: corwin press (pp. 240). for many a ‘digital native’ marc prensky will need no introduction. he stands as a visionary and thought-provoking educational leader for the 21st century. prensky’s writings have challenged, inspired, and motivated forward-thinking educators to look beyond the traditional classroom and embrace technology as a means to craft truly inspirational learning experiences for their audiences. this latest prenskian text, from digital natives to digital wisdom, pulls together a collection of essays written over the past decade to illustrate a point—learning has been transformed as a result of the digital age. the world of today has embraced technology, allowing a truly global environment to exist, and resulting in a world dominated by financial markets, outsourcing, competition, and shifting political power—where ‘change’ is often the only remaining constant. prensky provides criticism of our educational environment, suggesting that individuals need an educational experience that better prepares them for an often unpredictable and uncertain future. throughout his text, prensky argues that the promise of greater access, enhanced technology, social networking, and widened participation creates a seismic shift in the educational context that we are all so familiar with—requiring us all to make a contextual change! this is not altogether surprising, given the recent announcement (july, 2012) of coursera’s massive open online courses (moocs) where some of the most illustrious us universities will co-exist to offer online courses that are freely available to the global learner (lewin, 2012). coursera, the brainchild of two stanford university computer scientists, is set to radically redefine online learning as we currently know it. with this in mind, prensky provides an easily accessible read that attempts to provide his vision for the future of education. his vision encapsulates a holistic framework and provides support for and advocates the scaffolding of skills necessary for educators to become aware of a changing educational context. the text does this through a diverse and informative collection of complementary chapters, ranging from detailed research-informed essays to short thoughtprovoking pieces that are intended to stimulate reflection and discussion amongst educators. prensky’s purpose in this text remains practical in nature, lifting the proverbial veil for educators to see education from “a different perspective—and, from that new perspective, to arrive on their own at new insights and ideas about what to do differently” (p. 5). this light and refreshing approach broadens your mind and challenges traditionally held convictions of education, asking you to unshackle the obstacles that have perhaps previously stood in the way, in an attempt to entice you into the digital age that your students currently experience. the text is structured in two parts. the first, ‘rethinking education’, provides a frame and background to the text in which prensky outlines the philosophical underpinning to his work, framing the changing nature of education and the resulting position of educational institutions, and clearly placing the ‘digital native’ at the forefront of his design. the second part, ‘21st century learning and technology in the classroom’, provides a more practical approach to what journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(2) 47 educators can do to ensure heightened learning outcomes for their learners in an integrated digital age. from digital natives to digital wisdom is presented in a straightforward and easily readable manner that comprises, in a single volume, prensky’s best-known work. the advantage is that it provides the reader with a suitable foundation of the prenskian philosophy in a single setting. it is tailored for all levels of interested individuals, forming a must-read for those of academic responsibility and senior management, educators, and curriculum designers looking for practical solutions to the challenges of 21st century classrooms (if they still exist!), and students and parents looking for more detailed information about a changing learning environment. prensky lays a foundation to his work through his introductory chapters, where he argues that the problem with the current education system is not how but rather what we teach (see ‘the reformers are leaving our schools in the 20th century’). he has been praised for succinctly criticising current educational reform as simply “rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic” (p. 7), claiming we exist in an environment in which an outdated curriculum fails to prepare individuals for a dynamic and changing professional world. such educational reform is often fuelled by a lack of detailed understanding about educators’ conceptions of learning, where, in many educational contexts, a widening gulf exists between what educators ‘think’ they do and what they ‘actually’ do (see ‘on learning’). this haphazard attempt to reinvigorate the curriculum, coupled with the limited knowledge about educators’ conceptions of what they think they do, has resulted in a disjointed, patchwork approach to educational policy and planning reform. prensky calls for, and goes some way to provide, a workable integrated solution in which technology informs pedagogical design. in his writings (see ‘the role of technology in teaching and the classroom’) he muses on the increasing speed with which educators try to fill the perceived technological void in the curriculum through a saturation of technology without thinking through the pedagogical implications. in fact he goes further, demonstrating that such ill-planned endeavours often result in the technology becoming obsolete before it adds any real value. he advocates that technology should support a pedagogy of “partnering” (p. 32) in which one complements and informs the other. although challenging and provoking at times, the success of this work is truly encapsulated in prensky’s approach to consistently visualise the world from the learner’s perspective. his enthusiastic advocacy for educators to listen to their students’ experience clearly remains at the heart of the text, encapsulated by his statement, “i have come to see clearly that the conclusions about education one draws from this alternative perspective are very different from the ones nearly all educators, politicians and parents are currently drawing” (p. 1). the wealth of practical experience that prensky offers takes the forefront as he provides practical classroom activities and strategies that assist ‘digital natives’ to acquire ‘digital wisdom’ (p. 204) (see, for example, ‘simple changes in current practices may save our schools’, ‘why youtube matters?’ and ‘beyond the lemonade stand’). richly detailed with examples from classroom experience, prensky provides particularly useful chapters on mobile phone technology in the classroom (‘what can you learn from a cellphone? almost anything!’), game simulation and why educationalists should embrace such a phenomenon (‘simulation nation’ and ‘beyond the lemonade stand’). he also posits programming as the ‘true 21st century literacy’! further reinforcing the book’s content, prensky offers reflective questioning at the end of each section in the hope that one will start to actively reflect on and provoke a level of discourse with colleagues. although that might not result in break-through revolutionary strategies, it might just enable a shift in the way we view educational practice. prensky challenges 21st educators to book reviews 48 reboot learning in order to better prepare students for 21st century careers where, often, nothing remains constant. it is testament to prensky’s educational thought leadership that many of these essays and the thoughts they contain, originally written 10 or so years ago, remain current in today’s rapidly evolving technological age. the future of education as portrayed by prensky is one of ‘digital wisdom’, in which digitally enhanced individuals differ from those of today in two key aspects: …he or she accepts digital enhancement as an integral fact of human existence, and he or she is digitally wise, a trait exhibited both in the considered use of enhancements to complement his or her innate abilities and in the way and degree to which he or she uses enhancements to facilitate wiser decision making (p. 204). prensky provides an actionable philosophy that challenges the educator to answer the question: does the key to learning reside not so much in what we experience, but in the personal frame of reference through which we experience it? it remains to be seen whether such digital wisdom will occur and whether we as educators can create a virtual world of learning, dominated by simulation and social networking, that engages the 21st century learner. however, by downloading this text and slowly thumbing through the pages on your ipad or kindle, you might be off to a good start! references lewin, t. (2012, july 17). universities reshaping education on the web. new york times. retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/17/education/consortium-of-colleges-takesonline-education-to-new-level.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/17/education/consortium-of-colleges-takes-online-education-to-new-level.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/17/education/consortium-of-colleges-takes-online-education-to-new-level.html?pagewanted=all microsoft word nichols editorial journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(2) i editorial since undertaking my own masters study with the open university, uk, i have been a strong advocate for the efficacy of distance education. working at open polytechnic is the fulfilment of a desire that can be traced back to completion of my ma in open and distance education, graduating in 2001.1 i have experienced the potential of distance education and have benefited greatly from the opportunities it provides. my phd thesis, progressing less quickly than i had hoped, compares the benefits of distance education with on-campus education in the context of theological education. ‘efficacy’ essentially refers to the effectiveness of something, the capacity of something to provide a desired outcome. it is not uncommon for the efficacy of distance education to be challenged on the grounds that students are isolated during their distance study and are less likely to succeed. such challenges need to be confronted. in the new zealand tertiary education context, where outcomes in the form of education performance indicators evaluate the success of student learning, it is easy to claim that lower results for distance students are a result of their mode of study. the tertiary education commission notes that: the nature of enrolments at a specific itp will influence its performance. for example, parttime and extra-mural students often have work or family commitments and cannot devote as much time and energy to their studies. they may also have different study goals. this is no doubt true. however, distance educators should not be quick to excuse themselves for poor outcomes on the basis of students’ life commitments, or misplaced suggestions that students do not complete because they have met their lifelong learning goals. in my own work (nichols, 2010) i have demonstrated how distance educators can improve practice by taking a ‘spot the leaks’ approach to student completions. the results of such investigations can have a significant influence on education performance. in short, lower-than-average completion statistics represent an opportunity for improved practice, not the discovery of a ceiling to distance education’s suitability. it remains my solid conviction that distance education, done well, provides accessible, effective and transformative education in ways that are scalable and complementary to the demands of everyday life. i am pleased to say that, at open polytechnic at least, we continually challenge our practice toward improvement across all student-serving functions. in the latest (2011) education performance indicator results published by the tertiary education commission, course completions across all levels of study at open polytechnic were at 73%. for levels 7 and 8, course completion reached 83%. these are good results; however, we know that some leaks are still to be spotted. improving distance education practice requires engagement with scholarly discourse. exploring the efficacy of distance education, and learning about the leaks others have spotted and fixed, develops the perspective distance educators need to refine their craft. i am pleased to introduce three articles and three book reviews that will assist readers of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning to think further on their efforts. this issue begins with anderson and simpson’s article “history and heritage in distance education”. the article was requested to remind jofdl readership of the rich history and theory underpinning distance education, and to give two leading authors an opportunity to discuss the ideas that have informed their own approach. it is no surprise to see the work of sören nipper, michael moore, zane burge, borge holmberg, and sir john daniel mentioned—among others. 1 i graduated in my pyjamas, attending the virtual (synchronous) ceremony online. my special moment was at 3am. sadly, my dial-up connection crashed just as i was capped. receiving the entire ceremony on cd-rom later was appreciated! editorial ii anderson and simpson’s bibliography cites many valuable works which any theorist in distance education should be familiar with, and their seven signposts provide ample scope for further research work. our second article, by barbara craig and ken stevens, focuses on teacher education and is drawn from new zealand and canadian research. the reach of distance education into small rural communities, and the investment made in internet connectivity, provide large networks for collaboration. these networks have implications for both schools and teachers, which craig and stevens critique. the authors suggest three implications for teachers and teacher educators. in our final article, namsook jahng considers literature related to small-group (online) communication in tertiary or post-secondary settings. although the study has its limitations, jahng’s critical focus on the literature highlights methodological shortcomings. one of these is the “lack of experimental or quasi-experimental studies” (p.37) in literature, something i noticed myself when preparing the e-primer series synthesising e-learning literature. all studies take place within a rich educational context. unless variables are specifically identified and isolated, generalising from findings (establishing the “causal relationships between variables” mentioned by jahng) cannot be done with confidence. finally, we have three book reviews based on recent works that are likely to be of interest to jofdl readers. i am conscious that the beginning of this editorial reads somewhat like a personal eulogy. in fact it is. this is my last editorial for the journal of open, flexible and distance learning, and so marks the end of 4 years of editorship and co-editorship. the last years have seen the journal expand its editorial advisory board, change its name, move to an open and online format, and publish two issues each year (2011, 2012). ben kehrwald and i have worked hard to achieve these outcomes, and we have had the satisfaction of seeing the journal grow and develop under our co-editorship. working with kate hunt has also been thoroughly enjoyable, and julie mackey (and, before julie, mary simpson) has provided great support as review editor. i resign co-editorship because i sense it is time for a fresh stage of development and leadership for the journal. like each of you, i eagerly await future volumes. it has been a pleasure serving you. mark nichols woburn september, 2012. references nichols, m. (2010). student perceptions of support services and the influence of targeted interventions on retention in distance education. distance education, 31(1), 93–113. doi:10.1080/01587911003725048 microsoft word jdl05maintext1word.doc journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 3 introduction bill anderson, mary simpson massey university palmerston north, new zealand distance learning has moved apace since the last issue of the journal of distance learning, and developments in new zealand reflect that movement. the teaching and e-learning research fund (telrf), the e-learning collaborative development fund (ecdf), and the innovation and development fund (idf) have provided opportunities for those involved in e-learning at the tertiary level to engage in research and development at a level not previously seen in this country. government funding of $68 million has been committed to development aspects over the four years from july 2003 to july 2007. six hundred thousand dollars has been committed to e-learning research in the two rounds of the telrf. these developments are reflected, to some extent, in this issue of the journal. one of the three feature articles in this issue comes from philip roy, who writes about the use of open source software (oss). several open source initiatives have been selected for funding in the ecdf rounds and a community of practitioners is slowly developing around those projects. udas (2004) provides full discussion of the role of oss in the development of e-learning capacity within new zealand, and the most recent issue of the deanz flier (april, 2005; http://deanz.org.nz/ flier/2005-04/) was devoted to this topic. the use of oss is indeed a topic of the moment. roy discusses aspects of oss use that are not so often mentioned and which serve as a counterweight to the, sometimes unbounded, enthusiasm of oss advocates. whatever your reading of roy’s article, it is certain to generate debate. this issue also contains two research briefs from telrf research projects. the projects are from the first telrf round and largely complete as we go to press. the final reports may be available from the ministry of education, along with those of the three other research projects. the projects undertaken are effectively the first major research activities in the area of new zealand’s e-learning capability at tertiary level. as such they deserve a wide readership. we encourage all readers of the journal of distance learning to engage with the reports of these projects. given the relative scarcity of such research within new zealand, we are sure that a close reading of these reports will reveal many additional avenues for further research. there are two further feature articles in this issue. major discusses the extent to which effective teacher education for diversity can occur at a distance using online technologies. two converging factors make this an article worthy of attention. the first is the increasing diversity of the school student population. the second is the increasing number of teachers whose teacher education has been conducted primarily journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 4 online. the extent to which online learning enables self-knowledge and allows careful examination of attitudes and beliefs—both central aspects of teacher education for diversity—is examined carefully in this thoughtful article. the second article, by barbour, draws on a small project he undertook based on the development of web-based courses for secondary students. barbour distils a number of design principles from a series of interviews with designers and teachers of online courses for secondary students. rounding out the articles in this issue are descriptions of two of the projects that were honoured with deanz awards in 2004. both projects demonstrate a central tenet of good distance education practice—matching the mediating technology with the needs and access potential of the students being served. these projects are not “high tech.” they exhibit exemplary practice and demonstrate the systemic nature of effective distance education on which that practice relies. a final section of book reviews completes the issue. the concept of “e-learning” is foundational to every item in this issue. as people involved in distance education for a number of years (starting as distance students in 1972 and 1973), we have engaged in many discussions about the relationship between e-learning and distance education.* they are clearly not the same, yet have a considerable amount in common. boundaries blur when we consider these areas side by side. as a result of this overlap, there are many lessons learned in the field of distance education that apply to e-learning. sound knowledge of distance education practice and familiarity with the research base in that field provide an effective preparation for exploration of e-learning. we look forward to publishing many more articles that acknowledge what is known and use it as a stepping stone to the future. references udas, k. (2004). open source at the core of a national elearning strategy: analysis of developments in new zealand. the observatory on borderless higher education, december. *see m. g. moore and g. kearsley, distance education: a systems view (2005, 2nd ed., p. 2) for a definition of distance education and new zealand ministry of education, interim tertiary e-learning framework (2004, p. 1) for a definition of e-learning. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 95 book review ethical practices and implications in distance learning mary simpson university of otago demiray, u., & sharma, r. (eds.). (2009). ethical practices and implications in distance learning. hershey, pa: information science reference (pp. xxv, 391). more and more institutions are offering some form of open, flexible, or distance learning. it follows that many of these institutions are new to distance delivery and have little experience dealing with the complexities presented by distance delivery. alongside the increase in institutions offering some form of distance delivery, we must place the growth in the use of networked communications technologies. that combination brings new people, new technologies, and new institutions into distance education at a time when a raft of new ethical issues is appearing. experienced or not, all distance educators need to consider ethical issues and their response to them. all distance and online teachers are faced with ethical dilemmas. how often do we, as teachers, stop to consider these dilemmas or even identify them? this book may cause you to take that action. if so, it will achieve a major aim set by the editors and the contributors. ethics, and ethical practices and implications, are an important and often overlooked aspect of our work as distance educators. it is important that we stand back from our practice and reflect on the ethical framework that we and our institutions work from. in doing that we will have to reconsider what we value and why we think distance education is important. i think it is likely that some uncomfortable questions and tensions could arise. the book is a compilation of 21 chapters divided into three themed sections. the first section focuses on context, the second on technology, and the third provides a series of case studies. overall, the book attempts to provide a philosophical base for considering ethical issues and a collective source of wisdom for practitioners to draw on. it is more successful in meeting the second rather than the first of those aims. while i found many individual chapters to be clear and thought-provoking, i found the final chapter—where the editors state they highlight major outcomes of the book—to be muddled. the chapters in section one provide a picture of the current distance-education context that ethical practice sits within. i particularly liked the chapter by beaudoin. his contention that the ethical integrity of any distance education course is 50 percent individual responsibility and 50 percent institutional responsibility highlights, yet again, the need for the design, delivery, and teaching processes of distance education to align, and the need to take time to consider context, values and relationships. it’s an old message, but one that is constantly overlooked. another overlooked issue is also highlighted in the first section of the book. the need for ethical standards has long been identified at international, national, and institutional levels, and yet there is no recognised body to oversee ethical practice in distance delivery. in section two the chapters focus on technology and the ethical issues that technology use brings to the fore. this is a strong section of the book. technology has often been adopted uncritically and we have embraced the use of online learning communities enthusiastically. the ethical guidelines that we do have were usually developed in traditional distance education contexts and often sit uneasily with current technologies. this section of the book will help readers to pause book reviews 96 and think about techno-ethics. the need for discussion and debate to help us develop acceptable practice is highlighted in this section. the third section presents a range of case studies. issues such as academic dishonesty, which we would immediately identify as presenting ethical challenges, are presented alongside ethical issues that are not so commonly recognised—such as ethical online research practices, globalisation, and the resultant multicultural issues. readers will find the case studies illuminating. some cases move the focus from teachers and institutions to students and questions about the effects of online learning on students’ rights and consideration of their view of issues. there are practical suggestions that teachers and institutions may consider worth adopting. this book’s target audience is teachers, administrators, and researchers in distance education. with issues such as the changing nature of the teacher/student communicative relationship, plagiarism, and how best to use and when to introduce new technologies, the broad target audience is understandable but challenging. however, ethical practices and implications have to be thought about and engaged with by all parties involved in distance education delivery. the responsibility for identifying and engaging with ethical issues does not rest with any one group alone. ethical practices and implications in distance learning is published as part of igi global’s information science reference library. it is a valuable, but somewhat flawed addition to the reference library. for me the major flaw is common in books of this type – it tries to do too much. however, because we have little academically sound material that presents and debates ethical issues, the book does make a good contribution. it’s a pity the editors didn’t establish a better framework for the book. a common view of what ethics is and what constitutes an ethical issue would have helped to link the chapters and sections. i was distracted by editing oversights and that irritation extends to a need for better editing support for writers working in a second language. a useful feature of the chapters is that each has a section identifying research that could be undertaken and concludes with an additional reading list. both could be put to good use: one as a starter for a research project, and the other as a starting point for professional reading. the retail cost of this book is approximately $300. that is expensive and means it is unlikely to be on your bookshelf. it should be in your institution’s library and it should be used. ethical practices and implications in distance learning contains material and raises issues that will be new to many people. dip in and out of it and reflect on your ethical practice and that of your institution. the world of distance learning virtual summer school in august and september 1994, the open university of the united kingdom organised a v i r t u a l s u m m e r school (v s s) for its u n d e r g r a d u a t e c o u r s e d309 cognitive psychology. using a computer and modem, students were able to participate from their own homes, to contribute to group discussions, run experiments, obtain one-to-one tuition, listen to lectures, a s k q u e stions, act as subjects in e x p e r i m e n t s , conduct literature searches, browse original journal publications, work in project teams, undertake statistical analyses, submit individual or joint work, and socialise. in brief, students were able to participate in a residential summer school without physical attendance. with respect to the technology used, there were three main categories: communications and group work tools, support and infrastructure software/ha rdware, and academic project software. t he last included a custom-built 'word presentation program' which allowed students to create stimuli for presentation to others and automatically :record reaction times and button presses; a hypercard-based statistics package; macprolog for writing artificial intelligence and c o g n i t i v e s i m u l a t i o n p r o g r a m m e s ; and clarisworks f o r preparing r e p o r t s and presentations, reading articles and doing richer data analyses. students had a three-week warm-up period in o r d e r to b e c o m e familiar w i t h their new equipment, while formal academic activities t o o k p l a c e o v e r the p e r i o d 27 august-9 september 1994. results of formal evaluations are still to be published, but four areas present some challenges, namely, the need for greater b a n d w i t h , g r e a t ly improved computer i communcations interfaces, creating larger workgroups, and improving the ability of tutors to reach more students. internatio.nal council for distance education (icde) t h e second a n n u a l m e e t i n g of the i c d e standing conference of open a n d distance learning institutions (icde scop) took place in saratoga springs, usa, in october 1994. a number of major decisions were reached, among them that the icde general secretariat establish working groups and task forces to implement the action agenda developed at the scop. for 1995 the following working groups and task forces hav:e been identified: 1 working group to analyse the changing learning paradigms and the convergence of distance education and traditional education; to share such analyses with scop member institutions; and based on such analysis, to develop appropriate programmes of research, development and capacity building for icde scop member institutions. t he working group is to aim at providing international leadership and guidance in the process of change the educational systems in the world are going through in this period of time. t he working group is to recommend to icde action a g e n d a s f o r a c h i e v i n g h i g h international and national impact o f its work, such as publications, senior policy seminars for governments, the education and business communities, as well as symposia and expert round tables in order more effectively to build capacity for change. t he membership of this working group will embrace representatives of icde scop member i n s t i t u t i o n s , r e s e a r c h e r s , governments and corporations. t he working group will report to the chair of icde scop and to the a,nnual meetings of icde scop. journal of distance learning, vall, no. 1, 1995 (c) distance education association of new zealand 39 2 task force to develop clear vision statements and criteria concerning the educational uses of technology, and to develop and mai:ntain linkages with corpmate vendors and service providers. 3 task forces on international collaboration, whose purpose is to develop share vision s t a t e m e n t s a n d a c t i o n a g e n d a s on the following critical issues: a n o r t h/south and south/south collaboration b. sustainable development c. international copyright policy d. encourage and facilitate international interinstitutional partnerships e. n e t w o r k i n g of presidents and chief executive o f f i c e r s o f scop member institutions 4 t a s k f o r c e to develop a programme of activities which will benefit school level and vocational education institutions using, or p l a n n i n g to u s e , a m o n g t h e i r d e l i v e r y m e t h o d s o p e n a n d d i s t a n c e l e a r n i n g m o d a l i t i e s , t h e r e b y b r o a d e n i n g the membership base of icde. t his task force should provide a forum for international c o o p e r a t i o n a m o n g schools and school systems in flexible uses of combinations of traditional learning modalities and open and distance learning, and thus provide guidance and capacity building opportunities to the school sector. t h e work of this task force s h o u l d b e l i n k e d to, and take into consideration, the work of particularly working group 1 and task force 2. as part of its mandate, the working group should recommend to icde action agendas for the best possible international impact of its work, such as publications, senior policy seminars for governments, the education and business communities, as well as symposia and expert round tables in order more effectively to help build capacity for change in the school sector. 5 task force to develop quality guidelines and practices for open and distance learning internationally. t he above groups are to report to the chair of icde scop and a shorter meeting of icde scop in connection with the 17th icde world conference on open and distance learning, 2630 june 1995 in birmingham, united kingdom and to the full meeting of icde scop in early 1996. andrea: information on distance education in europe andrea is an e-mail based information service on distance education in europe: it began on 1 september 1994 and is freely open to everyone. andrea is an anacronym for' a network tor distance education reporting on european activities', and is established by nki, one of norway's largest distance teaching institutions, in association, with eden (european distance education network). t he aim of andrea is to distribute information and stimulate communication been distance educators in europe. it will also publish short articles and summaries of research reports. to subscribe to andrea, send a message to listserv@nki.no with the following text subscribe andrea [your namel. to send information to andrea, send as e-mail to andrea@nki .no the tv open learning project 19921993: australia t he open and distance learning agency of australia's odlaa times of november 1994 noted the publication of the final evaluation of the t v open learning project. commissioned by department of employment, education and training. the reportwritten by bruce keepes, ken sinclair; samuel ball, kay harman and jennifer kearns d.s available from the research journal of distance learning, vol1, no.1, 1995 (c) distance education association of new zealand 40 division, faculty of education, university of sydney, nsw 2006. t he report discusses the t v component which became the open learning initiative (later open learning agency o f australia). among other conclusions, the report affirms that tv opening learning did increase access to higher education; that the great majority of students found television a 'valuable help in learning'; and that just under half of all students were interested in being assessed. new p ubli cations in open and distance learning kogan page and the institute of educational t e c h n o l o g y at t h e open u n i v e r s i t y have combined to produce a series of practical books specifically designed to help all those charged with developing open learning resources and centres, or using open learning materials. t he series includes: judith calder: programme evaluation and quality. a comprehensive guide to setting up an evaluation system. topics covered in detail include: evaluationits n a t u r e and p u r p o s e , p r o g r a m m e and curriculum development evaluation at course design, development and presentation stages, and organisational and resource implications. pp. 162, isbn 0 7494 0847 2, 1994. robin mason: using communications media in open and flexible learning. issues covered include: telecommunications media what exactly are they? interaction, collaboration and social presence; implications f o r s t u d e n t s , t e a c h e r s and organisations; advantages and disadvantages of each medium; guidelines for education use; future trends. pp. 144, isbn 0 7494 1149 x, 1994. terry evans: understanding the learners in open and distance education. issues covered include: learners' social and �d u c a t i o n a l b a c k g r o u n d s ; why and how students make decisions t o enrol in their courses; experiences and strategies, coping with the costs of study; learning in gendered worlds; and encounters with those in control. pp. 160, isbn 0 7494 1235 6, 1994. derek rowntree: preparing materials for open, distance and flexible learning. an action guide for teachers and trainers. topics covered in detail include profiling your learners, agreeing aims and objectives; deciding content and sequence; developing examples and activities; making materials-user friendly. pp. 128, isbn 0 7494 1159 7, 1993. alistair morgan: improving yo u r students' learning: reflections on the experience of study. topics covered include: the student experience from foundation course to graduation; how students come to be engaged in study; students' conceptions of learning; how students go about their s t u d i e s ; f a c i l i t a t i n g c h a n g e a n d development; t h e organisational context o f learning. pp.144, isbn 0 7494 0712 3 , 1993. phil r a c e : t h e o p e n l e a r n i n g ha n d b o ok. promoting quality in designing and delivering flexible learning. topics covered include: learning cycles; when to adopt, or adapt, or start from scratch; piloting the best way of guaranteeing quality; tone and style; choosing and using non-print media; feedback: scores and grades are not enough; and turning lecture notes into interactive handouts. pp. 220, i sbn 0 7494 1 1 09 0, 1994 (second edition). open praxis open praxis is the bulletin of the international council for distance education. recent issues contain short but interesting articles by leading figures in the field of distance education. volume 2, 1994 contains a series on technology and distance education. edited on this occasion by tony bates (ex e c u t i v e d i r e c to r, strategic planning, research and information technology joumal of distance leaming, vall, no.1, 1995 (c) distance education association of new zealand 41 at t h e o p e n l e a r n i n g agency, in british columbia), the series includes: terry anderson: using the internet for distance e d u c a t i o n d e l i v e r y and professional development. rory mcgreal: t e l e e d u c a t i o n nb: smart xingfu ding: tony bates: software sharing in a multi­ point environment. economic analysis of the radio and television universities in china. educational multi-media in a networked society. bates concludes that "in the end, the issue is not technology. we already have more technology than we know how to u s e . w ha t n e w technological developments do, though, is provide us with a much wider range of choice of the kind of education and training we can create. open praxis, volume 1, 1995 focuses on conferences, and especially the forthcoming, icde conference, 'one world, many voices', being held in birmingham, england, 23-30 june, 1995. each volume of open praxis includes a section on professional development, the volume 1, 1995 contribution being e n t i t l e d 'are w e learning anything a t conference?' journal of distance learning, vol1, no. 1, 1995 (c) distance education association of new zealand 42 l ouise m o r a n a n d ian mugridge (edit o r s ) , 1 9 93: c o l l aboration in distance collaboration in distance education international case studies. routledge, london and new york, 178pp, nz$169. 95. this book is published at a time when the case for inter-institutional collaboration is very strong. in many western countries governments are now encouraging more young people to enrol in tertiary educational institutions while requiring universities and polytechnics to manage with decreased funding relative to this growth. these changes are taking place at a time w h e n i n f o r m a t i o n and communication technologies are converging and distance education is taking on a new significance for both educational administrators and policy makers. collaboration in distance education is one of the first publications in the new routledge series in distance education and provides educators, managers and policy makers with a v a r i e t y of m a t e r i a l to consider in t h e implementation of formal interinstitutional arrangements. the appearance of a well­ r e s e a r c h e d t e x t on inter-institutional collaboration is very welcome and should find a r e a d y m a r k e t in both developed a n d developing countries. t h i s volume of case studies of collaboration in distance education is largely based on institutions in australia, canada, malaysia and the united states, and, from a practitione r ' s point of view, is long o v e r d u e . however, the complexity of developing collaborative arrangements between educational institutions in the variety of contexts described in this book, underlines the fact that it is not something to be undertaken without considerable planning. moran and mugridge note that collaboration in distance education was the subject of discussion as long ago as 1979 at the tenth anniversary conference of the british open university. collaboration among educational institutions book reviews can be defined as an ' active working partnership s u p p o r t e d by some k i n d of i n s t i t u t i o n a l agreement' based o n formal agreement between two or more organisations. (m. w. neil [ed], 1989: education of adults at a distance. kogan page, london). this is a practice that is becoming increasingly important in distance education as information and communication technologies converge. according to the editors' introduction, inter-institutional collaboration is based on four conditions: first, the desire to make 'better or more extensive or new use of resources that are available within one or more communities; and the opportunity to improve 'the quality of learning materials . . . . [to increase] educational opportunities for a wider student population, and [to ensure] . . . the relevance of studies to student needs'; third, the need to respond to political pressures of various kinds; and the perceived need to guide or initiate changes of various kinds in particular societies. of particular interest to tertiary educational institutions considering collaborative projects is the chapter by jocelyn calvert, terry evans and bruce king on the construction of a master of distance education degree between deakin university in geelong and the university of south australia in adelaide. the authors take the reader through what was obviously a difficult and time-consuming process that required considerable goodwill on the part of both universities. the importance of goodwill and mutual trust cannot be underestimated in the development of successful collaborative ventures such as this; in fact the absence of mutual trust and goodwill is likely to doom any such undertaking from the start. the question may arise in the m i n d s of some r e a d e r s , however, whether t h i s sort of educational programme could be made even stronger by the inclusion of other contributing universities? perhaps the complexities outlined here should preclude suchthoughts. journal of distance learning, vol1, no. 1, 1995 (c) distance education association of new zealand 43 chapters on the 'rise and fall' of the university of mid-america by donald r mcneil and the northern ontario project, contact north, by marion croft provid� the reader with insights into the difficulties of developing teaching ar r a n g e m e n t s a m o n g multiple t e r t i a r y educational institutions, each of which was established to be autonomous. the chapter on contact north outlines a particularly complex c o l l a b o r a t i v e a r r an g e m e n t involving laurentian, lakehead, nippissing and algoma universities and cambrian, confederation, canadore and sault colleges in four widely separated locations; namely sudbury, thunder bay, north bay and sault ste marie. in addition to these institutions these are also participating colleges in timmins and in hearst the need to provide educational opportunities for people in the northern ninety percent of ontario which is inhibited by only ten percent of that province's population, underlines the importance of this sort of interinstitutional collaboration but, at the same time, the difficulty in doing so. while c o l l a b o r a t i o n b e t w e e n two educational institutions requires careful planning and c o n s i d e r a b l e g o o d w i l l on both sides; collaboration among a variety of different types of institutions located over a wide area increases the complexity. many tertiary educational institutions today in both developed and developing countries are either involved in or considering initiating collaborative arrangements with other colleges or univer sities. collaboration in distance education is likely to be of considerable interest to educational administrators preparing to develop collaborative teaching and learning, as well as to teachers and learners themselves. coilaboration between educational institutions has not been the subject of much attention in the research literature until now, but this is likely to change as universities, polytechnics and community colleges consider their futures. it is particularly significant that collaboration between institutions is considered in the context of distance education, although this volume d e s e r v e s a w i d e r a u d i e n c e than the one suggested in its title. as more universities and p o l y t e c h n i c s c o n s i d e r collaborative arrangements in future, the case studies outlined in this volume should find a place in the literature of educational administration and, in so far as they relate to the provision of increased educational opportunities, in the sociology of education. i would like to have seen more in this collection pn t h e application of new interactive technologies t o facilitate t h e c o l l a b o r a t i v e p r o c e s s , a s i a m s u r e t h a t educational administrators will, in many cases, consider this to be the means by which future collaborative arrangements will be developed. moran and mugridge have brought together a very valuable collection of case studies that effectively pioneers a new topic of great significance. the concept of collaboration among u n i v e r s i t i e s , p o l y t e c h n i c s and community �alleges challenges notions of institutional autonomy and even the future of national educational systems. collaboration among educational institutions can take an almost infinite number of forms and it is impossible to capture all of these in a single volume. nevertheless, i would like to have read more about international collaboration as, in the late twentieth century, inter-institutional arrangements increasingly extend well beyond regional and national frontiers moran and mugridge have, h o w e v e r, effectively summarised the main trends in collaboration in distance education: the accommodation of institutional c u l t u r e s . the building of relationships built on trust and the perception of mutual benefits while drawing attention to the importance of the role of governments in the development of such arrangements. as the editors point out in their final chapter, the challenge for today ' s distance education institutions is to build on existing expertise and experience, so that they can lead the rest of higher education into a new era. ken stevens victoria university of wellington journal of distance learning, vall, no. 1, 1995 (c) distance education association of new zealand 44 desmond keegan (editor), 1993: theoretical p r inciples of distance ed ucation. routledge, london and new york, 272pp. , nz$179. 95 it has always been difficult to theorise about d i s t a n c e e d u c a t i o n and with recent developments in communications technology and the adoption of distance education by institutions that until recently were teaching only in traditional face-to-face mode, this is an area of education that is changing rapidly. a book on the theoretical principles of distance e d u c a t i o n , in t h i s case a collection of i n t e r n a t i o n a l essays edited by desmond keegan, the general editor of the new routledge series in distance education, will undoubtedly become an important collection likely to be referred to often by future writers of books, journal articles and conference papers. a particularly useful feature of this collection is its breadth, ranging from the philosophical to the technological. as distance educators come from such a wide variety of intellectual and professional backgrounds, the breadth of the theoretical perspectives presented here is a valuable aspect of the publication. keegan notes in his introduction, that a theory of distance education is something which can eventually be reduced to a phrase, a sentence or a paragraph, and which can provide the touchstone against which decisions about distance education can be taken with confidence. it subsumes all practical research and provides the underpinnings for decision making'. an attractive feature of this book is the way in which the variety of theories of distance education have been organised by the editor, making it likely that this collection will become required reading for many future students. theoretical principles of distance education is organised in five parts: didactic, academic, analytic, philosophical and technological, each of which is intended to provide the reader with an introduction to the 'underpinnings' of an aspect of the theory of distance education. each of these five theoretical areas which underpin distance education contains three essays, most of which are drawn from a variety of international sources, which collectively provide a very comprehensive overview of this rapidly changing field of education. the first three essays on the didactic underpinnings of distance education, by otto peters, michael moore and randy garrison, cover basic concepts of teaching, learning, interaction, feedback and communication these introductory chapters are followed by several chapters on the 'academic underpinnings', particularly the development of distance education courses. chere gibson's chapter 'towards a broader c o n c e ptualiza t i o n of distance education', provides an introduction to ecological systems theory, while louise suave's contribution 'what's behind the development of a c o u r s e on t h e c o n c e p t of d i s t a n c e education?' is a succinct introduction to the distance education as well as to the principles of developing a course to be taught in this mode. these twq contributions approach distance education in different ways and illustrate the range of approaches that can be taken by practitioners. it is particularly appropriate that theoretical principles of distance education has been published at a time when distance education is challenging national educational boundaries, assisted by the convergence of information and communication technologies. as distance education increasingly becomes part of the organisation of institutions that have not in the past provided courses at a distance, this book is likely to have an important educative role in explaining the f o u n d a t i o n s of d i s t a n c e education t o educational administrators and policy makers. the o rganisation of t h e s e theoretical chapters allows the reader t o work selectively through them. i will be suggesting that my students begin with the chapter by the editor, desmond keegan, on the 'reintegration of the teaching acts', even though it appears as chapter seven in this collection. in this chapter keegan outlines the role of the teacher, student and content in distance education and provides a useful framework for their analysis. as many of the readers of theoretical principles of distance education likely to be graduate students, studying distance education from a variety of professional backgrounds the scope of this collection will likely provide them with journal of distance learning, vol1, no. 1, 1995 (c) distance education association of new zealand 45 material that will link distance education with their past and future career orientations. papers by tony bates on 'theory and practice in the use of technology in distance education', and by gary boyd on 'a theory of distance education for the cyberspace era' , are likely to be of interest to virtually all students of distance education t o d a y, a s w e i l a s t o i n s t i t u t i o n s that are considering developing distance education within their traditional face-to-face teaching frameworks. the range of theories of distance education outlined by the authors of the fifteen chapters in this collection is very impressive. michael moore's theory of transactional distance sets out a u s e f u l f r a m e w o r k f o r s t r u c t u r i n g the instructional process in distance education and contains some insights into the selection and the application of communications media. i found the· section of this chapter on the place of the teleconference in distance education particularly useful. this is an aspect of distance education t h a t e v e n t h e n e o p h y t e will likely have experienced before reading this book and moore's chapter is appropriately located early in this collection to provide an introduction to and interesting explanation of an increasingly popular distance education practice. the chapter by o t t o p e t e rs on distance education in a post i n d u s t r i a l s o c i e t y i s particularly relevant t o the direction o f national education systems at the present time. peters, a prominent german educationalist and a leading theoretician of distance education, concludes his essay with three macro perspectives. his outline of the lebenswelt perspective, the ecology perspective and the concept of 'instructional design', provides a way of contextualising distance education as well as for understanding past, present and future directions of the education of students at a distance. i have been looking for a collection of theoretical essays like this for several years to provide my masters students, in distance education with a comprehensive overview of the field. although distance edw£ation his changed considerably over the last decade, many of the essays in this collection will be current for years to come. as keegan points out in his introduction, 'there is nothing as practical as a good theory'. theoretical principles of distance education is valuable contribution to educational scholarship and, in spite of its price, deserves a place in the library of all distance educators. ken stevens victoria university of wellington journal of distance learning, vall, no.1, 1995 (c) distance education association of new zealand 46 microsoft word jdl06maintext1word.doc journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 36 open source software and the new zealand education system: a response to roy richard wyles open polytechnic of new zealand lower hutt, new zealand introduction as the project leader of the new zealand open source virtual learning environment (nzosvle) project, it may appear difficult for me to be dispassionate about the strengths or possible pitfalls and weaknesses of the open source software development paradigm. however, open source is a generic term and does not automatically equate to good software regardless of the philosophical persuasions of proponents. if your purpose is to deploy mission critical application software then there are a number of considerations before embarking on the open source direction. why is the consideration of open source important? software is ubiquitous in twenty-first-century developed societies. software now permeates all aspects of our lives, from farm production and the telephones we use to the education we receive or deliver. equitable access to educational technology is a key issue and open source technology is part of the answer. in 2003 much of the tertiary education sector was without access to a robust, fully featured learning management system (lms). now, every institute of technology and polytechnic in new zealand has a production lms. open standards also underpin equity since no citizen should be forced to use the software of any particular vendor. free vs open richard stallman started the free software foundation (fsf) in the mid-1980s with the gnu project to create an operating system. although the most widely used license in open source software projects is the gnu general public license, there are some important nuances between stallman’s original conception of “free software” and the common notions of what open source stands for. it is reasonable to sum up the split by describing stallman’s position as holding a strong moralistic and political stance relating to the freedom to use, modify, and redistribute software code. the term “open source” began in the late 1990s and was viewed as a more corporate-friendly term to describe a software development methodology. part of the rationale for new terminology is the understandable confusion over the word “free.” “free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. to understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech,” not as in “free beer” (free software foundation, n.d.). the freedom that stallman extols is consistent with the liberty to teach, pursue, and share knowledge common in academia. journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 37 the advances in all of the arts and sciences, indeed, the sum total of human knowledge is the result of the open sharing of ideas, theories, studies and research. yet throughout many school systems, the software in use on computers is closed and locked, making educators partners in the censorship of the foundational information of this new age. (vessels, 2001) the emergence of open source is certainly intertwined with higher education, and it is the tenets of academic freedom that often support the application of, and experimentation with, open source technologies within educational institutions. quality open source now plays a major part in mainstream information technology economic activity and has started to dominate some market areas. anyone who surfs the web will visit sites using open source software since the apache web server dominates the server market. google, amazon, and ebay use open source technologies and global technology corporates such as ibm, sun microsystems, and novell are building successful commercial models around the open source paradigm. much of the success is also obscured by the reality that it is small reusable scripts, compilers, debugging tools, and building blocks that are re-used for bespoke or in-house solutions. in this sense, open source underpins an enormous amount of technology-based economic activity. however, for application software the success of open source still appears confined to relatively few projects. “people think just because it is opensource, the result is going to be automatically better. not true. you have to lead it in the right directions to succeed. open source is not the answer to world hunger” (torvalds, n.d., cited in bezroukov, 1999). there may be more than 130,000 open source projects registered on sourceforge but very few of them are active or will flourish into successful projects (open, but not as usual, 2006). in this harsh darwinian context where only a few survive, what characterises the successful open source projects? this is a difficult question as a successful open source community is as complex as all the human interactions and community dynamics of which it is comprised. it is easy to postulate that no two open source projects are the same. in general, as the research from stürmer (2005) describes, positive preconditions include great initial source code; meeting an identified need, level of innovation, or novelty factor; the programming language used; and visibility and presence on a collaboration platform such as eduforge or sourceforge. the human element cannot be underestimated. leadership skills and behaviours are paramount. the leader needs to not only be a highly skilled developer with a clear vision to attract other skilled contributors, but also must exhibit the personality traits necessary for leading or being the figurehead for an essentially voluntary community. it is small wonder that many open source initiatives fail to reach a critical mass of participation. myths and realities the suggestion that the open source movement is analogous to a utopian society is as erroneous as the rose-tinted notion that most open source software journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 38 is the output of a group of altruistic hobbyist programmers undertaking some niche activity. the motivations of individuals and the structures within open source communities tend to reflect the complexities of any small society or grouping. while the underlying ethos advanced is one of collaboration, the reality in many successful open source projects can be described as a meritocracy centred by a strong-minded but charismatic leader. “open source may sound democratic, but it isn’t. at the linuxworld expo on wednesday, leaders of some of the best-known open source development efforts said they function as dictators” (torvalds, n.d., cited in bezroukov, 1999). the, presumably benevolent, dictatorship that linus torvalds expresses is tempered by the underlying freedom for anyone involved in an open source project to fork the code and start a new community. a project fork is when the community splits and one group takes a copy of the code and develops it in a new direction. therefore, successful open source projects are often characterised by a type of servant-leadership. while assertive, leaders of open source projects necessarily have a high profile within the community and rely on persuasion and their own coding prowess to convince others to follow a particular development roadmap. the community consists of a meritocracy which is fluid in its make-up as interested parties come and go from the project. however, at the heart of seemingly open communities is a small close-knit group of core developers who are trusted with access to the version control system of the codebase. “codebase” is a term that describes the collection of source code used to build a particular software application. weber (2004) likens open source developers to artisans, in contrast to the fordist development methodology typical in commercial software projects. beyond this core, there is a wider community of users which may discover bugs, contribute ideas, swap experiences, ask for help, and of course download software and its updates. a vibrant community of users requires neither funding nor encouragement in their use and support of a project. it is self-interest that drives participation in open source communities. moodle has a large and diverse user community with more than 100,000 registered users on moodle.org, although it is fair to point out that many would have low levels of participation. in larger projects such as moodle, it is atypical for much of the code to be developed by volunteers, rather than employees of companies or educational institutions that see benefits accruing from the project (open but not as usual, 2006). the reality that open source projects may require high-level expertise is a moot point. software development at a higher level, when open or closed, requires expertise and this is often paid for. however, a key benefit of accessible software is that those interested in learning software development can hone their skills. surely, a great way to learn how to write good computer programs is to study what has been written by others, and then perhaps even tinker with improvements even if that means learning through mistakes. selecting an open source lms in hindsight, the selection of moodle by the nz open source vle project now looks relatively simple. as of march 2006, journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 39 moodle has more than 10,000 registered installations worldwide. however, in early 2004 the landscape was different. the initial proposal for funding used moodle as an example of an open source lms and cited its then installation base of 350. the selection process was multi-staged, took several months, and needed to be impartial and robust. the first stage was an initial evaluation using a 22-point likert scale checklist approach under the broad categories of “fitness for purpose,” architecture, usability, standards compliance, cost of ownership, and strength of community. whether or not a project had existing or ongoing funding was not part of the selection process, as this factor on its own has little relationship to quality in the open source development model. the second phase focused on considerations for online pedagogy, particularly on system flexibility and communication tools. this phase leveraged the timely work of britain and liber (2004). at this point we were able to shortlist three lmss and undertake an in-depth technical evaluation. the inherent transparency of open source is of great benefit, as the internal code structures can be closely examined with due focus on security, scalability, and extensibility. the stated goals of the nz open source vle project were to establish an open systems and open standards framework, deliver flexibility that accommodates different pedagogical approaches, reduce barriers to entry and barriers to collaboration, provide a catalyst for innovation, and reduce the total cost of ownership. the nz open source vle project has certainly never implied that the cost of ownership of an open source lms could ever be free. however, we continue to stand by the claim of being able to “dramatically reduce the total cost of e-learning infrastructure at a systemwide level, by reducing the wasteful duplication of infrastructure, licensing fees, and upgrade costs” that was stated in the new zealand open source vle application for funding to the elearning collaborative development fund in 2003. empirical evidence strongly supports the claim. the promise for an economically sustainable ict investment pathway for new zealand education using open source technologies is evident throughout the sector, particularly the institutes of technology and polytechnics where moodle has become the most widely deployed lms during an eighteen-month period. cogent evidence is available by exploring individual cases. in 2003 nelson marlborough institute of technology established a project to select and implement a commercial lms. however, up-front costs of hardware, licence and local technical support proved too great a barrier in difficult financial times and we lacked experience or confidence in utilising open source systems. the advent of the nzosvle project has changed all this. moodle is a highly functional, stable and relatively intuitive lms compared to many of the commercial products. an external service provider now hosts our installation of moodle and the quality of the support available via the nzosvle project and the wider moodle user community has journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 40 been outstanding. rather than pay for expensive hardware and license fees, a greater percentage of available funds have been able to be used to establish an internal support team. (sturrock, 2006) time, effort, and funds will continue to play a major role in the success in developing and using open source technologies, but associated economies from shared infrastructure, services, and zero licensing will become more apparent. rather than the costs being hidden, they become more transparent by being directly related to the services received. risk and reward open source communities do not equate to ideal societies. human foibles are as much on show in open source communities as anywhere else. as such, open source projects do not necessarily mean quality outcomes. often quality correlates with the vision, leadership, and competencies of the project’s figurehead, such as martin dougiamas (moodle) or linus torvalds (linux). there are now frameworks to measure quality in open source projects. the business readiness rating initiative provides an unbiased source for determining whether specific open source software is mature enough to adopt (see http://www.openbrr.org). however, while due care is important, and selection of open source solutions encompasses risk, it is risk worth embracing. risks and benefits go hand in hand, particularly with software. the benefits of getting open source right are enormous, especially for learners of the future. open source helps equitable access to technology. first, it can be contextualised for local conditions thereby enhancing access. secondly, it can be modified to address particular niche needs unserved by commercial operations. thirdly it can dramatically reduce the total cost of ownership. open source is also driving the tenets of interoperability and thereby delivering more choice and, with that, more equitable access. there is an inherent tension for proprietary vendors to move towards open standards of their own volition. finally, open source as a production methodology enables stakeholders to be far more involved and to collaborate, innovate, and contribute to the outputs rather than being passive end-users. the level of participation is a choice each stakeholder makes. references bezroukov, n. (1999). a second look at the cathedral and the bazaar. first monday, 4(12). retrieved april 14, 2006, from http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/ issue4_12/bezroukov/ britain, s., & liber, o. (2004). a framework for the pedagogical evaluation of virtual learning environments. retrieved march 23, 2004, from http://www.jisc. ac.uk/uploaded_documents/ vle%20full%20report%2006.doc free software foundation (n.d.) the free software definition. retrieved april 15, 2006, from http://www.fsf.org/ licensing/essays/free-sw.html open, but not as usual. (2006, march 16). economist. retrieved april 12, 2006, from http://www.economist.com/business/ displaystory.cfm?story_id=5624944 stürmer, m. (2005). open source community building. unpublished master’s thesis. retrieved april 18, 2006, from http:// opensource.mit.edu/papers/sturmer.pdf sturrock, d. (2006). case study: nelson marlborough institute of technology. retrieved april 16, 2006, from http:// journal of distance learning, vol 10, no 1, 2006 © distance education association of new zealand 41 moodlemoot.org.nz/moodle/mod/ resource/view.php?id=7 vessels, t. (2001). why should open source software be used in schools? retrieved april 13, 2006, from http://edgeop.org/grouch/schools.html weber, s. (2004). the success of open source. cambridge, massachusetts: harvard university press. from early 2004, richard wyles has led the new zealand open source virtual learning environment project, involving a consortium of 20 universities, institutes of technology, and polytechnics. his work with the moodle learning management system, eduforge, eprints, and elgg has gained him international recognition in e-learning technology circles. his current focus is on developing a national e-learning network in new zealand. wyles is also a director and co-founder of flexible learning network ltd. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 47 a framework for developing and implementing an online learning community elaine khoo, university of waikato bronwen cowie, university of waikato abstract developing online learning communities is a promising pedagogical approach in online learning contexts for adult tertiary learners, but it is no easy task. understanding how learning communities are formed and evaluating their efficacy in supporting learning involves a complex set of issues that have a bearing on the design and facilitation of successful online learning experiences. this paper describes the development of a framework for understanding and developing an online learning community for adult tertiary learners in a new zealand tertiary institution. in accord with sociocultural views of learning and practices, the framework depicts learning as a mediated, situated, distributed, goaldirected, and participatory activity within a socially and culturally determined learning community. evidence for the value of the framework is grounded in the findings of a case study of a semester-long fully online asynchronous graduate course. the framework informs our understanding of appropriate conditions for the development and conduct of online learning communities. implications are presented for the design and facilitation of learning in such contexts. keywords: adult learners; e-learning; evaluation; online learning communities; research methods; tertiary introduction current research and practice in effective online pedagogy indicate support for the development of online learning communities (olcs) in facilitating teaching–learning in online learning environments (aceto, dondi, & marzotto, 2010; palloff & pratt, 2007). a learning community is a cohesive group of people with a specific focus on learning as transformatory participation (lave & wenger, 1991). in this paper, the term ‘olc’ refers to the desired characteristics of a learning community established through using the internet and web-based technologies. the challenge for educators in developing olcs is that they cannot be coerced or constructed (barab, kling, & gray, 2004). their development relies on the lecturer facilitating the collaborative relationships and critical dialogue required for learning (palloff & pratt, 1999). in order to inform this process, the two purposes of this paper are to: 1. describe the development of a framework for developing an online learning community 2. provide evidence for the value of the framework, based on findings of a semester-long case study of a fully online asynchronous graduate-level course. khoo, e., & cowie, b. 48 specifically, this paper proposes a framework that conceptualises learning as a mediated, situated, distributed, goal-directed, and participatory activity within a learning community. these theoretical ideas are briefly described next, followed by a description of the research context where these ideas emerged and were explored, and the development and findings from the implementation of the framework. implications are outlined for adopting the framework to facilitate teaching–learning experiences and engage students in deeper and more meaningful learning processes. learning as participation in a learning community members of a learning community participate in the community’s valued activities by taking different roles and responsibilities which change over time as their expertise develops (lave & wenger, 1991). seen this way, understanding how learning occurs requires a focus on how learners participate in particular activities and practices, how they appropriate the available tools, artefacts, and social networks, and how they use and value the different discourses in their local setting. an effective learning community depends fundamentally on developing the social and emotional ties between its members, and on fostering interactions that support and develop its members intellectually, socially, and emotionally. adopting this stance for online learning directs attention to how people participate (or not) in online discussions, including the kinds of roles they adopt to accomplish collaborative activities (hrastinski, 2008; zhu, 1996). the nature of interactions occurring in these discussions is thus critical to understanding and supporting the participative learning process of olcs (daniel, schwier, & ross, 2007). in this case, reciprocal online interaction patterns and roles that support participants’ intellectual, social, and emotional transformations are generally taken as evidence of the outcome of participation in an olc (thurston, 2005). in this paper it is proposed that the nature of transformatory participation is framed by and accomplished through four key aspects: participation as mediated action, participation as distributed cognition, participation as situated activity, and participation as goaldirected (khoo, 2010). participation as mediated action from a learning community perspective, human action uses cultural tools and artifacts as mediational means to accomplish a task or objective (wenger, 1998). these cultural tools (physical, technical, psychological, or symbolic) are necessarily situated in the sociocultural context in which they are used. they embody the shared understanding and heritage of a community. the notion of mediated action highlights the role of web-based tools and activities in influencing a learner’s developing understanding. the affordances of web-based technology are fundamental to interaction, and mediate the relationships and intimacy that develop within an online community. participation as situated activity learning and knowledge are situated in the contexts, activities, and culture in which they are used (greeno, collins, & resnick, 1996). the notion of situated activity highlights the role of authentic and relevant activities. these provide a context for meaningful learning experiences whereby members of an olc can work collaboratively with their peers. the affordances offered by authentic situated activity include those that encourage learners to participate and thus contribute to the distribution of cognition in that activity. participation as distributed cognition the concept of distributed cognition acknowledges the social aspects of cognition (salomon, 1993). in an online community, distribution occurs through the affordances and constraints offered by the available web-based technology and resources. as participants communicate, interact, and collaborate, they access the knowledge, understanding, and skills distributed across the group to achieve results that would otherwise be difficult for an individual. in this process, journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 49 some ways of participating are more useful than others in fostering goals that guide students towards becoming responsible active participants. participation as goal-directed all action is goal-directed. classroom learning as goal-directed connotes teaching as structuring goal-directed learning activities and assisting students to achieve those goals through meaningful and productive social interactions (smith, teemant, & pinnegar, 2004). lecturers’ consideration of the goals different activities can support is important when designing activities that are intended to contribute to learner participation in the social process of knowledge construction. research context the research project aimed to enhance online teaching–learning practice and student learning through collaboration between the researcher and an online teacher, adrian. 1 the researcher, who is the first author, was interested in investigating quality online learning contexts. adrian was a senior lecturer in the faculty of education at the university of waikato, new zealand. he was an experienced face-to-face lecturer who, at the time of the data collection, had taught the graduate educational research methods course for almost 10 years. however, he was also a novice online lecturer, having taught the online version of the course just twice before. adrian was frustrated that the asynchronous nature of online communication meant he was unable to engage in dialogue in the way he was accustomed to in face-to-face teaching. challenging students’ thinking was also problematic, because it was easier for students to opt out of participating online. adrian was keen to participate in the research, perceiving it as an opportunity for systematic reflection on, and refinement to, his online teaching practice. he was particularly interested in implementing strategies to prompt more student interaction so that students could better grasp the breadth of the area and obtain a broader notion of research literacy. to assist adrian, the researcher sought to identify a suitable framework to guide the development and implementation of a pedagogical intervention that would improve his online student learning experiences. journeying towards a framework a baseline faculty-wide survey was conducted to ensure the framework was relevant to the study context. the survey ascertained lecturer and student perceptions of online learning and how learning could be successfully facilitated. results were synthesised with the outcomes of a review of pertinent literature to develop a framework that was implemented and evaluated in adrian’s graduate research methods course. a qualitative interpretive methodology underpinned the study research design (maykut & morehouse, 1994). a baseline survey ten online lecturers (four experienced online lecturers and six volunteers) were interviewed. they taught a range of undergraduate and graduate-level courses and had online teaching experience ranging from1 to 15 years. the lecturers assisted in providing access to their students. of the 30 students who responded to the questionnaire, 12 voluntarily participated in a follow-up interview. descriptive statistics was used to analyse trends in the questionnaire data. analysis of the interviews involved careful reading, coding, and categorising of key ideas to identify significant emerging themes. the key themes emerging from the survey were that, firstly, online learning is a social and interactive process best characterised by the notion of a learning community and, secondly, webbased technologies afford and constrain the learning process. furthermore, successful online 1 pseudonyms are used in this study. khoo, e., & cowie, b. 50 student learning could be facilitated through a range of lecturer responsibilities and teaching practices which were associated with four key roles—pedagogical, managerial, social, and technological (khoo, forret, & cowie, 2010). social and interactional processes were highly valued by all participants (as exemplified by jake, a lecturer): online learning gives the opportunity for people to have dialogues with each other which are generative rather than to sit in their own isolated study space and think things through in relation just to a book. half of the lecturers specified that the social learning process inherent in forming a learning community was helpful to students’ constructive and purposeful class interactions. peter explains: i try to encourage them [students] to think about the fact that in any of our online courses we are a learning community and that means we need to be sharing our ideas with one another and agreeing and disagreeing with one another but doing so in a respectful sort of way. in developing a learning community, the role of the web-based technology was thought to be crucial in affording teaching–learning interactions by giving lecturers the accessibility, flexibility, and convenience of teaching online. ralph, a lecturer, exemplified this idea: the ability to teach online gives you the flexibility. you don’t have to front up to a class at ten o’clock on a monday morning, every monday for five weeks but you do have a professional responsibility for ensuring what’s actually happening then. all participants highlighted that useful pedagogical practices for supporting student learning (in line with the four key online lecturer roles) included focusing on making the course goals and purposes explicit, having a clear course structure with clear links between different course components and regular updates for students, providing guidelines for student contributions, modelling productive online communication practices, and providing technical assistance on request. insights from the literature recommendations from the literature generally supported the baseline findings (anderson, 2008; bonk, wisher, & nigrelli, 2004; salmon, 2000). additionally, the literature that relates to the teaching and learning of research-methods courses and adult learners was examined. key insights from this literature were:  the value of using situated, meaningful, and relevant real-world tasks and activities to support students’ learning, including their participation in a community of practice (conceição, 2002; pallas, 2001). such task-based learning activities support learning through collaboration, allow sharing of multiple perspectives, and demonstrate learning in a more tangible and meaningful manner  an emphasis on clarifying and aligning learning goals to pedagogical strategies and assessment activities; using formative assessment strategies, and lecturer modelling of their understanding of research methods to help students see the relevance and allay their misconceptions from the first day of the course (altinay & paraskevas, 2007; benson & blackman, 2003). journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 51 synthesising key findings the key findings from the baseline survey and literature were distilled and integrated into five guiding principles. guiding principle 1 allows that the key affordances of web-based technologies lie in their communicative and interactive potential to pave the way for more egalitarian approaches to teaching and learning. the transparency of the technology adopted is fundamental to this principle. guiding principle 2 espouses that interaction and collaboration on team products within an environment that is safe, inviting, and promotes member trust and respect allows students and lecturers to take full advantage of web-based technology affordances. guiding principle 3 highlights using authentic activities that are situated in real-world contexts and meaningful to learner needs and interests as important for learning. carefully selecting such tasks or activities can afford social and intellectual interactions that support collective or shared learning goals. guiding principle 4 refers to the goals inherent in a learning activity. these goals can foster different kinds of learning interactions and pedagogical strategies within the context of a collaborative learning enterprise. finally, guiding principle 5 specifies the importance of developing a learning community as being essential for fostering more meaningful learning processes. each of the five principles recognises and supports each of the five ideas associated with a sociocultural view of learning espoused earlier in this paper. guiding principle 1 maps the idea of mediated action, guiding principle 2 connects with the idea of distributed cognition, guiding principle 3 recognises the nature of activity as situated, guiding principle 4 relates to the idea of goal directedness, and guiding principle 5 advocates participation in authentic community practices. consequently, these ideas of mediated, situated, distributed, goal-directed, and participatory activity within a socially and culturally determined learning community were adopted as elements of the pedagogical framework used to assist adrian to redesign his course. the framework was then implemented to test its usefulness in supporting student learning. the framework in action educational research methods is a compulsory course in the graduate education programme in the faculty of education. it is usually conducted three times a year—the summer-school semester, semester a and semester b. both the summer school and semester a versions of the course are face-to-face courses, while the semester b version is conducted online. typically 20 students, mostly mid-career professional educators seeking additional postgraduate qualifications, enrol in the course. the course focuses on discussions of mostly qualitative research methodologies and research methods of obtaining data, and includes research quality and ethical issues. it consists of four modules (conceptual issues, data collection methods, multiple research approaches, and design and summary overview) completed over 12 weeks. the modules are built upon one another in a coherent manner to provide students with a holistic view of educational research. each module involved student participation in weekly online activities and discussions which began on a monday morning and ended the following sunday night. using the framework to plan for participation to work with adrian, a collaborative approach was adopted. this approach, the negotiated intervention strategy (jones & simon, 1991), framed and translated the pedagogical framework into teaching strategies (khoo & cowie, accepted for publication). this required the researcher to work collaboratively with adrian to negotiate the design of teaching activities through an iterative process that also responded to issues that emerged in the teaching–learning process. a summary of the intervention teaching activities, as well as the mediating web-based tools adopted in the masters research methods course, is shown in table 1. khoo, e., & cowie, b. 52 table 1 translating the framework into practice framework elements mediating web-based tools examples of intervention teaching strategies participation in a learning community entry and enculturation into the class responsibilities, beliefs and practices online class announcements, online public discussion area, online photos, online class resources  course introductions, ice-breakers, lecturer and student introductions/biography  reminders for students to introduce themselves online and post their photos (especially late enrolments)  prompt feedback to student queries  use of the research overview diagram a for students to link their background experiences and connect to the course work  use of online participation tips b and advice from previous students c to set expectations for new and experienced online students in the class, and to establish norms of conduct  clear course expectations and deadlines  weekly updates/prompts to remind students about the week’s topics and how they are to participate  reminders and models of good online communication, and use of conflict-resolution mechanisms  links to technical and library assistance mediated action selection of tools and activities that afford and mediate interaction and participation online photos, online public and private (portfolios) discussion areas, web links, online portfolios, faq f folder  use of scenarios d and our group response e to generate discussions, foster group accountability, and prompt group positioning of ideas  prompted use of peer feedback in the group discussions  use of the practice and play g area  use of the break time, h can anyone help? i and farewell/moving on j discussion forums  links to technical and library assistance situated activity selection of authentic and relevant tasks that situate activity online announcements, online public discussion area, faq folder, web links  use of scenarios as authentic contexts to depict real-life research issues and foster purposeful collaboration and discussions  just-in-time resources  prompt feedback to student queries  links to technical and library assistance distributed cognition shared spaces for interaction, generating ideas, collaboration and team products online photos, students’ contacts, online announcements, online public discussion area, web links, faq folder  use of scenarios to support authoritative sharing of background experience and ideas for discussion  peer feedback positioned as valid in the group discussions  students present their group’s position with regard to the scenarios in our group response  lecturer mentoring, monitoring, referring, and linking to students’ ideas to affirm their contributions  prompt feedback to student queries  reminders and models of good online communication, and use of conflict-resolution mechanisms  use of the break time, can anyone help? and farewell/moving on discussion forums  links to technical and library assistance goal-directed selection of activities that accomplishes particular goals online public and private (portfolios) discussion areas, online class announcements, online class resources, faq folder, web links  use of different scenarios to generate discussion on various course-related ideas  use of a variety of group and individual tasks in the course discussions and assignments to serve different pedagogical purposes  weekly reminders of the purpose of discussion topics journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 53 note: a the research overview diagram illustrates the key features of educational research as mapped in the course components, and how the different components are relevant to real-life research conduct. b online participation tips contains guidelines for online conduct and communicating. c advice from previous students contains advice from previous students. d scenarios are problem-based cases designed to encourage student participation and engagement with ideas (in their groups), to foster a sense of belonging to a community, create shared knowledge, and achieve course goals. e our group response discussion forum is for student groups to share their final (consensus) position regarding issues raised in the scenarios. f faq is frequently asked questions. g practice and play is an area for students to practice and develop their technical skills in using the web-based tools available in the course. h break time is a student-only discussion forum for students to have informal chats/conversations with their peers. i can anyone help? is a forum for students to ask their peers for help. j farewell/moving on is a forum for students to share highlights of their course experiences, to bring closure at the end of the course. students were sent a course introductory pack 2 weeks before the course started. the online class was made available 1 week before the course start date. students were asked to log on to familiarise themselves with the features of the online class environment and the course structure. they were asked to post a brief introduction and their photograph online, to help class members get to know them before the course started. students were randomly allocated to one of three discussion groups for online course work. no marks were allocated for students’ online contributions but they had to participate online to pass the course. online participation guidelines were provided because the 14 students were from very diverse backgrounds, ages, experiences, and geographical locations, and not all had previously studied online. online class postings were collected as data. student questionnaires and interviews conducted at the end of the semester were used to assess the extent to which the intervention was successful in facilitating meaningful learning experiences. the questionnaires and interviews focused on students’ experience with the course content, structure, and teaching–learning interactions. additionally, daily observations of the teaching–learning processes were conducted throughout the course, and weekly interviews were held with adrian. eleven of the 14 students in the course consented to participate in the research. evaluating participation within the frame the overall findings from implementing the sociocultural framework and associated teaching strategies revealed a transformation in participation as well as a shift in aspects of participants’ intellectual, social, and emotional development as the course progressed. a brief overview of the findings as they relate to the framework is described next, accompanied with supporting participant quotes from the data. detailed aspects of the analysis and findings have been reported elsewhere (see khoo & cowie, 2010). analysis of online posting rates indicated an overall increase in participation over the period of the course. all students participated in the course discussions, with a total of 325 online student contributions. the lecturer made 83 online contributions. the lecturer’s general participation in the course was initially quite high but gradually declined as students took on more active roles and forms of interactions. the findings showed evidence of the value of mediated, situated, and distributed participation and shifts in participant goals. khoo, e., & cowie, b. 54 the value of technology tools in mediating participation the web-based course tools afforded students access across time and space to a wide range of learning opportunities in the course. melody, a student, highlighted how the flexibility of online learning encouraged her participation: i do it [sign online] around the rest of my life like after school at night. i went online most days and i was at least checking what was happening if not putting something on. shania, another student, found the asynchronous nature of online learning allowed helpful access to peer-sharing and idea generation: being able to read other peoples’ contributions was good ... and interesting looking at the other contributions and reading those and thinking ‘no, they are wrong’ or ‘no, you’ve missed the point there’. the value of situated participation a survey on the value of the intervention teaching activities revealed all students thought the scenarios were ‘somewhat useful’ or ‘very useful’ in depicting real-life educational research issues that contributed an authentic context for discussing the course readings. sapphire thought the scenario helped her group to bond more closely and develop a sense of responsibility for one another’s learning: i would say the weekly group scenarios in class [were the most useful] because you felt— not the pressure—but you felt like you had to perform—like you couldn’t have just let the group do it all—you all had to. adrian considered the scenarios effective in encouraging student participation because they were required to negotiate and come to a group consensus about a task for which they might all be expected to be able bring some background knowledge. for example, the topic of scenario two, which was to consider how to determine the extent that internet-based teaching–learning practices are adopted in school, was a controversial topic at the time. another course activity, the collaborative sharing and constructive critique of ideas in preparation of assignments (a1), provided an authentic context (albeit in a different way) of how educational researchers share and communicate their ideas. a student response in the survey regarding a1 was: i felt that this gave an opportunity for all to contribute and to voice what we did not know, as opposed to what we did know. i found that helped a lot. the distribution of authority and responsibility to support participation the course design included a number of strategies to distribute authority and responsibility. one example was the collaborative group activity (a1) that distributed responsibility for task completion and, at the same time, ensured multiplicity of contributions. adrian made special mention of this as fostering both student interaction and accountability: it gave them [students] a better sense of group accountability, a better sense of interacting with others ... and it made them look at each other’s ideas. that was crucial. it made them acknowledge each other as well. so i think there are some powerful lessons to be learnt here. distributed expertise was also revealed in student online postings that indicated their supportive sharing of experiences and course ideas to the discussions: tanya (posting #16, week 4): vance, i felt that your question sequence has a clear flow. very concise. according to cohen (2001) … you can stem each question to questionnaire responses. i like it. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 55 the evolution of participation goals changing participation as a result of an olc was illustrated through student reports of the evolution of their learning goals, from competitive individualistic ones at the onset of the course, to a more collaborative view by the end of it: … but that’s a change of outlook on it—from a collaborative instead of a competitive view. as undergrads we did talk about a lot of stuff but always at the end was the exam, which was totally your own, you were responsible for your own results. this is kind of the other way round. it’s like you are responsible for your own beginning but the group is responsible for your end. i think the attitude to have is that this is an ongoing conversation. it’s a conversation and a discussion where people can contribute and every contribution is valuable to adding to the knowledge. (shania) such transformation from individual to shared purposes at the end of the course is an important characterisation of a learning community. the transformation in participation a transformation in student participation was evidenced through changes in participants’ intellectual, social, and emotional aspects (khoo & forret, in press). melody exemplified this change. her intellectual development was demonstrated through the development of her knowledge of the vocabulary of research methods: i have just never had a huge vocabulary and so it grows as you study, you learn new words ... it got better. melody’s social development was seen from her appreciation for the social and interactional aspects of learning with and through her peers: most of the time, i find it [other contributions] really valuable because they would often bring up points that i didn’t think of. it’s affirming ... sometimes i disagreed with their thinking but it was okay because there was no right or wrong about what we were saying. it’s just that we were thinking of it differently. i just incorporated what everyone said. it’s good to disagree. melody’s experience of an emotional development was evident in her feeling more confident about being involved in discussion on research: the first sort of week or so online, one of the very early contributions [from another student] about ‘what is education?’ was very technical. i couldn't even understand what he was saying and i was thinking ‘oh god, how am i going to do this course?’ then luckily somebody online said basically that she couldn’t even understand what he was saying … that really helped me. discussion a concern raised in the literature is that of how to assist online practitioners to enhance their practice and to design learning environments that respond to students’ ongoing learning needs as espoused through the notion of learning communities. in this paper, we have described an emergent approach to developing a framework for olc facilitation that is relevant and appropriate to the online teaching–learning context. findings from the implementation of the framework in a masters research methods course evidenced the notion of learning as a mediated, situated, distributed, goal-directed, and participatory activity within a socially and culturally determined learning community. student interactions and development with intellectual, social, and emotional foci further support the existence of a learning community within the class (sewell & george, 2008). such an emergent approach in designing and developing online learning environments essentially recognises the sociocultural complexities of khoo, e., & cowie, b. 56 teaching and learning relationships in order to facilitate quality learning experiences (schwen & hara, 2003). although potential pedagogical frameworks could be identified from the general literature to guide the development and implementation of online learning experiences in the study, both the researcher and case-study lecturer were keen to adopt a framework that would be relevant and suited to the teaching-and-learning context of the course. such considerations support the call to regard new zealand’s unique qualities when developing online learning environments and recognise the undue application of educational findings from international forums into local contexts (alton-lee, 2004). the approach undertaken in this study provides some leverage for addressing these concerns. in spite of the value and benefits of adopting the framework and approach described in this study, there were some challenges. the lecturer considered that, at times, the approach was time consuming. working this way has the potential for conflict between the different sub-cultures of students within the community, and for tensions between the shaping of individual member interests and community interests (khoo, 2010). bearing the benefits and potential challenges in mind, adopting the sociocultural framework proposed in this study has a number of implications. first, lecturers need to be clear about their reasons for establishing an olc, and use these reasons to guide their planning so they incorporate pedagogical strategies for communitybuilding. guidelines and rules that specify norms for participation as well as mechanisms for conflict resolution can help all community members to feel included and accepted. second, consideration needs to be given to not only intellectual but also social and emotional processes of student development when designing course teaching and assessment activities and when monitoring how students are participating in a course. this can be challenging, given that course requirements and regulations in tertiary institutions tend to focus on the individual and on the end products of learning. nevertheless, adopting an olc as a pedagogical strategy importantly entails broadening course assessment practices. these need to recognise the intellectual, social, and emotional aspects of learning and the value of the processes involved in shaping individual and group knowledge. third, online lecturers need to create learning environments that foster interaction and collaborative teamwork so that students can capitalise on the diverse expertise of the community. lecturers need to feel comfortable in relinquishing some control of their teaching to students in the learning process. students, on the other hand, need to take on more responsibility for planning their own learning, for negotiating learning goals within a group, and for contributing to and drawing from group resources. fourth, teaching–learning activities and web-based tools need to afford opportunities for interaction, collaboration, and participation. activities that are situated in authentic and meaningful contexts that require students to interact, and allow them to see real-world relevance and application of ideas, are likely to provide these opportunities. designed activities should contribute to the development of a collaborative community and the pursuit of learning outcomes congruent with the goals of the particular course. finally, simply making the technology with all its affordances available to online lecturers and students does not necessarily result in quality learning experiences. promoting successful online learning requires support and initiative at the institutional level to ensure that sufficient time, structures, and incentives are in place for lecturers to develop and maintain olcs. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 57 conclusion while the generalisability of findings from a single case study is somewhat limited, the proposed framework contributes to understanding how to develop olcs from a sociocultural perspective. the framework reconceptualises successful online learning practice as that of active transformatory participation where this is framed and shaped by the use of authentic and relevant tasks to situate 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(1996). meaning negotiation, knowledge construction and mentoring in a distance learning course (eric document 397849). retrieved from http://eric.ed.gov/pdfs/ed397849.pdf biographical notes dr elaine khoo ekhoo@waikato.ac.nz research fellow wilf malcolm institute of educational research (wmier) university of waikato, new zealand dr elaine khoo has research interests in pedagogical strategies in technology-based and technologysupported learning environments. bronwen cowie bcowie@waikato.ac.nz director, wilf malcolm institute of educational research (wmier) university of waikato, new zealand associate professor bronwen cowie has particular interests in assessment for learning, ict in science education, and classroom interactions � this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 new zealand license. khoo, e., & cowie, b. (2010). a framework for developing and implementing an online learning community. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 15(1), 47–59. http://eric.ed.gov/pdfs/ed397849.pdf mailto:ekhoo@waikato.ac.nz mailto:bcowie@waikato.ac.nz http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/nz/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/nz/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/nz/ microsoft word jdl05maintext1word.doc journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 67 reviews brabazon, t. (2002). digital hemlock: internet education and the poisoning of teaching. sydney, australia: university of new south wales press (pp. 224). i admit it—i assumed that brabazon’s book, a critique of “internet education and the poisoning of teaching,” would be sensationalist and ill-informed. on the whole i was incorrect. i’m still committed to the effective use of e-learning in education, but i am now the wiser for having been strapped in place and taught a thing or two by a clear-minded critic of the administrative agendas that still exist in tertiary institutions (and governments) today. far from being a naive technophobe throwing stones from the safety of an ivory tower surrounded by the barbed wire of electronic ignorance, brabazon is an informed, dedicated, and experienced university lecturer who passionately believes in academe and the life-changing potential of real education. her book is hard-hitting, direct, and scathing to those who view online learning as the automatic saviour of a tertiary sector supposedly in crisis, and as a means to making teaching and learning a politically correct partnership between educators and students. brabazon is not alone in her criticism of online education but she is certainly a most militant critic, drawing extensively from her expertise as a lecturer of cultural studies. it is difficult to disagree with her central thesis. e-learning has been heralded as a silver bullet to kill the monster of expensive and inaccessible education. according to brabazon, however, the recoil of the discharge destroys things that make real education so, well, real and multi-sensual. the passion of the informed and paradigm-destroying educator is lost. as a result, brabazon explains, valuable aspects of education have been sacrificed in exchange for virtual benefits. brabazon sees danger in the content transfer mentality that technology is subtly introducing and identifies a disenfranchising of the critical academic in the process. not all of brabazon’s criticism is targeted at online education. her main broadsides are aimed at those who would try to make education more market sensitive, student centred, textbook oriented, vocationally driven, and “revolutionary.” these, she points out, compromise true education which is critical sensitive, academically centred, perspective oriented, understanding driven, and evolutionary. the central thesis is sound but unfortunately brabazon’s critique of online education is neither entirely accurate nor well-balanced. her writing style is well-oiled but many of her arguments, particularly those relating to online pedagogies, are not. the natural progression of e-learning has been away from virtual campuses and online content toward more interpersonal mixed-modalities. still, there are some administrators and decision makers who have not yet grasped brabazon’s core message which makes her work useful to the wider e-learning community. the gems from her work include: journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 68 technology in—and of—itself means very little. it becomes useful when situated in educational theory and a context. therefore, attention is required on the relationship between theory and practice— research and application—in childhood, adolescent and adult education. (p. 69) and again: [in online education] the content of the course is the imperative. the form of lectures is inconvenient, rigid or inefficient. the world wide web [sic] becomes a way to present the content of a course at the convenience of the student. there is little sense of the integral role of format, tone, texture and content of the learning experience. to emphasise content above form is to suggest that format is not actually part of the structure . . . the signifier (form) and the signified (content) are inseparable. (pp. 78–79) brabazon is not a lone voice here. e-learning practitioners who are plugged into education theory (and who are familiar with the emerging principles of e-learning practice) have been self-consciously aware of brabazon’s arguments for some time. it is decision makers and those educators and proponents of e-learning who tend to lack these theoretical foundations who are continuing to compromise teaching and learning in the ways brabazon describes. by way of example, i was recently asked to prepare an editorial on the topic of internet learning and where it might lead. in my article i warned that pedagogy was still paramount and that technology needed to be subservient to it. pedagogy, i wrote, is more important than technology and until this is widely realised we cannot use technology effectively. the editorial was rejected because the readers of this particular journal were interested only in the innovative. ironically, at the time effective pedagogy in online education was quite innovative! while the journey through digital hemlock is a rewarding one, the path is not entirely clear of hazards. the greatest flaws in the book are that brabazon is comparing the ideal university lecturer with mediocre online experience, and she has a very lecture-centric view of education. readers need to keep these in mind as they progress through the pages. consider this: the aim of an education is to unsettle assumed dominant ideologies and initiate cross-cultural communicational skills and metalearning. the foundation of this process is the lecture system. (p. 135) online education is done extremely effectively through such well-regarded institutions as the open university and university of phoenix, who have built their virtual education on a firm foundation of learning theory. my own postgraduate experience was a lifechanging one with many similarities to the vignettes brabazon includes in her book, even though my m.a. was online and delivered entirely at a distance. in her passionate defence of face-to-face teaching, brabazon inadvertently neglects the power of effectively designed and delivered online distance education and implies that the classic lecture represents the pinnacle of teaching. unfortunately these errors have, in my journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 69 opinion, compromised the overall integrity of her work. perhaps the greatest irony of digital hemlock is that brabazon herself models the style of online tutoring that is the antidote to her hemlock. throughout the book there are examples from her own online interactions with students which demonstrate how a brilliant, critical, and inspirational lecturer can have a brilliant, critical, and inspirational online presence. in sum, digital hemlock aims its highcalibre critique at poor online education and the move toward content-based digital education. fortunately e-learning practitioners and proponents have for the most part already moved away from brabazon’s targets, but admittedly some have not. digital hemlock is worth the read. although brabazon is using live ammunition, it is improbable that you will feel the numbing pain of a direct hit. more than likely you will hear a series of distant ricochets. mark nichols massey university college of education palmerston north, new zealand paechter, c., edwards, r., harrison, r., & twining, p. (eds.) (2001). learning, space, and identity. london: paul chapman publishing, in association with the open university (pp. vi, 186). the focus of this book is in the title: the central relationship between learning, space, and identity. the editors and various contributors draw attention in a variety of contexts—some of them autobiographical—to the physical, mental, and emotional experience of learning in particular spaces and situations. a message that comes through clearly in this volume of essays is that, through the widespread availability of new technologies, we have the possibility of becoming disembodied identities online. the authors remind us that, in spite of the technological changes shaping learning, we are all “fundamentally embodied” and this embodiment is reflected in how we learn. accordingly, it is argued, “we need to approach the use of new technologies both with a sense of excitement and with critique.” this collection of essays is about changes in how people learn with reference to new technologies and the educational opportunities that come with them. in the introduction, the editors explain that learning no longer occurs predominantly in educational institutions. it is lifelong and occurs in a wide variety of spaces and locations. the relationship between learning, space, and identity thus has changed. the complexities of this relationship are explored in this very diverse collection of essays which centre on the “information age” and the “explosion of information” available to people with internet access. a central concern guiding the contributors is the effect that information and communication technologies (ict) will have on learning in the twenty-first century. the introduction of new technologies and the possibilities of creating virtual presences in virtual spaces are considered in relation to traditional ideas that learning is something that happens in the mind —something that only happens to embodied learners occupying particular spaces. as embodied learners, it is argued, learning experiences involving mind and body shape who we are. virtual spaces allow powerful alternative journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 70 expressions of identity and may affect how and what we learn. these ideas are explored in an opening essay on identity in the context of the shift from the industrial to the knowledge age. the second essay considers theories of learning—symbol processing and situated cognition—and how these relate to knowledge and to learning situations. in learning to take part in particular social practices, it is claimed, we contribute to the development of the practices. the following chapter provides a personal insight into learning from the perspective of an autistic person, focussing on what it is to be social and to comprehend the realisation that other people have thoughts and feelings and minds beside, in this case, the author. this chapter points to the enormous difficulty of learning when it is difficult to understand social situations and the significance of human speech. another level of learning is explored in a subsequent chapter that introduces a culturally different situation in which the process of teaching and learning music is important for imparting cultural knowledge. the importance of ict is explored in several chapters, including one by seymour papert of mit, on changes in space/time relations on learning and identity. papert outlines his personal development and the ways this brought him to an understanding of the importance of certain ict tools in children’s learning. of interest to many readers will be his observations on the role of computers in classrooms and the ways they can change how children learn. another chapter considers a dimension of school life that has not had a lot of attention—the use of space in primary classrooms. in spite of the widespread introduction of computers to classrooms, the ways space is used in schools has not changed a lot. the need to reconsider the architecture of schools to adapt to new ways of teaching and learning using computers is highlighted as a neglected area of educational reform. one notable chapter addresses claims that online learning can transform education by promoting student-centred communication and collaboration. in an examination of a situation in which sociocultural relationships inhibited the potential for change using ict, it is demonstrated that the use of new technologies, in itself, is not necessarily able to transform ways of learning. this collection of essays examines important relationships between embodied learners and new technologies. it focuses on the physical, mental, and emotional experiences of being a learner in learning spaces that have been made possible through online learning and the advance of the internet. as such, this book will be of interest to students of communication, online learning, and the place of ict in schools. ken stevens memorial university of newfoundland newfoundland, canada perraton, h., & lentell, h. (eds.) (2004). policy for open and distance learning. london: routledgefalmer/ commonwealth of learning (pp. 192). this book’s title has us believe it is about policy matters for open and distant learning. the introduction is about planning. this minor matter signals to the australasian reader that they might be in for a bemusing read. the commonwealth of learning is a highly respected international body sponsored journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 71 by the commonwealth heads of government. despite having chapters contributed by australian authors such as colin latchem and yoni ryan, their experiences in policy practice in open and distance learning play little part in this book. this is not surprising. the views in this book are very english in perspective and, to that extent, this perspective colours the majority of the chapters. the recent (2004) report on borderless education, conducted in conjunction with the commonwealth vice-chancellor’s committee, identified that australasia leads the world in its uptake of open, distant, and e-learning. the english have a different experience, based very much on the work of the university of london, which has been engaged in long-distance education since the 1850s, and the open university (ou) of the united kingdom, which uses primarily correspondence methods to teach its students. the ou (uk) model stands outside traditional university policy and practice in the united kingdom. the recent failure of the u.k.’s e-university, an attempt to establish an alternative approach to teaching and learning, shows that the english views on open and distant learning may not have policies and practices that are appropriate in the twenty-first century. one of the more unusual claims made in the book is, “while open and distance learning may have an indirect role in expanding and strengthening the teaching force, it has not generally been perceived in a way of offering basic education” (p. 10). perhaps the authors might recall that the new zealand and australian correspondence schools have offered “basic” education since 1921 and have engaged in successful teacher education at a distance since at least 1910. the editor eventually mentions new zealand’s correspondence education on page 13. the author, when discussing tertiary level open and distance education, again ignores the antipodean experiences, placing emphasis on the u.k.’s open university. nor does the editor see fit to mention experiences such as the new zealand open polytechnic or tafe open learning in australia. it is not that this review is being hypercritical of the book, but it is flawed in its use of examples by ignoring the obvious, highlighting the marginal, and over-emphasising the experience of the u.k. the section on students in open and distance learning, authored by another u.k. academic, examines a potential range of students in open and distance learning with the claim, “this section looks more closely at britain, a country where distance education is highly developed” (p. 5). one might ask if a country with one open university and no distance learning on a large scale at pre-school, primary, or secondary levels is “highly developed.” a chapter on the asian experience of policy in open and distance education is illuminating. the editor’s introduction points yet again to the ou correspondence model as a filter used to examine non-western educational experience. nevertheless, it should be noted that the section on staffing is a valuable contribution to the book, especially in the light of convergence between classroom-based and more flexible approaches to learning. when discussing “resources” for open learning, the chapter very quickly moves from international declarations to funding sources and thence to planning issues about resource use. not much journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 72 headway is made in policy issues. perhaps the author might have devoted some time to identifying what policies governments adopted and why, and then examined the implications of the policies for resource allocation as determined by a planning process. unfortunately, this is not the case. part three of the book is devoted to process in open and distance learning. here, the well-known and respected authors rumble and latchem examine organisational models. the book is worth acquiring just for this chapter. it notes the inevitability of most traditional tertiary institutions becoming involved in mixedmode provision and that economic and structural issues will vary according to each institutional circumstance. the authors caution against allowing disreputable operators to exploit students, while at the same time recognising the important role open and distance learning plays in giving access for the remote and disadvantaged to educational opportunity. the chapter on the choice of technology, tables 8.1 and 8.2, provides a useful guide on the relative merits of technologies and a hierarchy of use for computers in educational communication. the accompanying cost discussion is valuable for institutional managers who are new to this area of activity. one issue not covered in the chapter is that of “lost opportunity” cost, i.e., what would an institution lose if it did not adopt these technologies. perhaps this is an interesting discussion for another book? in the chapter on globalisation, yoni ryan looks at the question of policy for open and distance learning, especially for developing countries. she addresses the spectre of low-quality provision by proposing the use of the commonwealth of learning or the world bank global learning network as a repository for quality assured learning programmes. this theme is expanded by andrea hope’s consideration of quality assurance, looking particularly at the role played by aggressive organisations seeking to capitalise on educational service delivery to less well off countries. she points, inter alia, to the canadian regulations governing learning technologies being used in distance education. her discussion on student support for distance or virtual students is valuable. this chapter demonstrates a depth of understanding about institutional systems and their weaknesses, which are rarely addressed by internally focused managers. institutions moving towards blended learning and teaching models should be aware of the issues ryan raises. robinson’s chapter on governance, accreditation, and quality assurance in open and distance learning appears to contain an unstated fundamental assumption. it is that open and distance educational provision is so different from face-to-face institutional approaches that very different practices of governance, accreditation, and quality assurance are required. here again, we see the ghost of the open university of the u.k. practitioners from south africa, new zealand, and australia know that open, distance, and flexible learning is deliverable within existing institutional settings and conforming to the same practices and policies. that having been stated, it would be to the advantage of many institutions to adopt the stringent requirements they seek to impose on the distance education ones. consequently, this chapter is informative and a valuable guide on management matters. journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 73 reza’s chapter on the benefits of open and distance learning raises a number of important questions, valid not only in the odl environment, but also in the general educational context. reza links policy to outcomes. this linkage raises a related question: are inputs linked to outputs as strategies are to outcomes? if this relationship holds, it provides valuable insights for researchers examining policy, strategy, and outcomes in education. as reza clearly identifies, improved policymaking requires research about data management, graduate outcomes, completion rates, and what effects these variables have on institutional performance. the chapter by butcher and roberts on costing takes the standard distance or correspondence mode categories for materials development and argues for building a financial planning culture. this approach is common in distance learning, but it might be novel for some face-toface teaching institutions. they might do well to emulate it. lentell’s conclusion to this book identifies critical policy issues for open learning. these are listed as: identifying target populations; choosing a system for development and delivery; technologies; business planning, materials development, student support, recruitment, assessment, quality assurance, assessment, evaluation, and management. each of these issues applies to face-to-face institutions and, to the extent that blended learning is increasing in use, so the rigor and transparency of the open learning models might be applied across many institutions. andrew higgins auckland university of technology auckland, new zealand distance education in the school environment: integrating remote classrooms by video conferencing intro duction over the last few years there has been a growing interest in using modern information and communications technologies to support teaching and learning. in sparsely populated areas (for example, in australia, canada, and the united states) there are traditions in the use of distance education at the school level. in europe, too, there have been many projects involving the use of modern telecommunications in education, with encouraging results. ( veen et al. 1994). a transition from print and postal-based materials traditionally used in distance education with adult learners to the more interactive and technology-based systems has been apparent. modern technology used in school and classroom settings open possibilities for teaching and learning. although there has been discussion about the use of telecommunications in education (for example, mason, 1995), further research in different instructional and institutional settings is still needed. this article is a part of the kilpisjarvi-project, which is being carried out in finland during 1994-1997. in this project two lower secondary level classrooms, one in helsinki and one in kilpisjarvi, have been integrated by video conferencing and audiographics systems. the key term of this study is classroom-focused distance education. it is used to refer to distance education occurring in a school environment as distinct from distance education occurring on higher and adult educational levels. as the frame of reference of this article is quite closely jukka husu department of teacher education university of helsinki helsinki, finland connected to the kilpisjarvi-project, a brief overview of the project is necessary. the local authorities of the village of kilpisjarvi situated in the northwestern, corner of finnish lapland, decided in 1993 to extend the scope of their village school, which had previously catered for pupils in grades 1-6 (primary school), to include the upper level of the comprehensive school (grades 7 -9). this made it possible for the six pupils concerned to stay in the village and live at home instead of attending a boarding school. kilpisjarvi village is isolated, over 110 km away from the nearest village. parents were aware of the educational disadvantages of a small rural school with very few connections to the outer world. as the resources available were limited, it was considered appropriate to initiate a cooperative project in distance education with the university of helsinki. the training school of helsinki university agreed to become the cooperative agent in this venture. this school is one of the two training schools belonging to the department of teacher education, university of helsinki. with modern communication technologies these two classrooms, one in a big urban school, the other in a small rural school over one thousand kilometres away are connected to each other to form one classroom. in the ongoing project, technologies are used to mediate between urban and rural environments and interests. the department of teacher education is interested in research on such cooperative projects and in journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 34 giving teacher trainees experience in distance education as well as creating new teaching/ learning perspectives through the use of advanced communication technologies (salminen, 1995, 1996; salonen and falck, 1996). additionally, the project aims to seek out novel ways of supporting small rural schools and communities (kynaslahti and salminen, 1995; stevens 1995, 1996). the basic approach of this article and its theoretical considerations come mainly from conventional classroom education. the theoretical and practical considerations of the instructional process in general belong to the research pattern primarily used in conventional education. research on classroom focused distance education is based largely on the idea that t h e main difference is the mediated communication between teacher and pupils and between pupils in two different classrooms. this does not presuppose the reconceptualisation of the educational process itself for distance education is regarded as education at a distance. garrison and shale (1990, 31) prefer the latter expression because, according to them, 'the most important feature for characterising distance education is n o t morphology, but how communication between teacher and student is facilitated. because the teacher and student are physically separated, distance education must rely on technology to mediate the communication process.' the theoretical framework, presented in this article, and its practical applications contain features of distance education and virtual class. the study and the project aim to integrate and balance elements from these two families of education into one experiment testing new ideas and technologies in teaching and learning in a school environment. conventional vs. distance e ducation distance education within school settings is still relatively novel. according to keegan (1989, 9), within distance education there is a quite strong tendency to separate two distinct dimensionsconventional group based­ education\ and individually oriented distance education. conventional education is mainly associated with children and adolescents in school settings while distance education is usually associated with adults and their professional training in its various forms. w hereas school education i s mainly compulsory, distance education is primarily based on voluntary principles. keegan (1989, 13) argues that this distinction has led to a crude dichotomy according to which students either attend schooling institutions or they study at a distance. this practical dichotomy has also led to two disciplines in the area of educational sciences, namely education and distance education, which have both shared and distinct interests (garrison, 1993; evans, 199la). although there are differences in practice, evans sees tha,t broadly the discourses of conventional education and distance education overlap to such an extent that one might have expected distance education to be a part of education in general, not a separate discipline of its own. according to him, this development is mainly due to an 'unfounded faith in technology and associated myths and untested assumptions' even if the practices of distance education are essentially ed ucational, rather than technological, in nature (evans,199la, 10). schooling at a distance, however, seems to be of marginal concern within both disciplines, at least in the area of research, even if it has obvious similarities with both distance education and education in general. primary and secondary education are emerging in the studies of distance education together with modern technologies in use (husuet al. 1994;husu, 1995, 1996; postle, 1995; stevens, 1994, 1995, 1996; wibe, 1995). the theoretical and practical distinction between education and distance education is now, at least in some sense, blurred or merged by the stance taken in this study where two separate classrooms are integrated into one instructional process by using video conferencing. at first sight distance education within and between school classrooms seems to be quite an orthodox venture. in what sense can it be? evans (199la, 10) argues that criticism of this journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 35 kind mainly stems from the situation which prevailed in the field of distance education. if distance education had sprung from educa.tion, then distance schooli:p.g would perhaps have been a central theme/ within the discourse of distance education itself. but because of the separate traditions we need to analyse and clarify some of the main concepts of distance education in order to bring these two families of education closer together. in this respect the concept of distance is important. when we talk about distance education we tend to assume that teachers and students are separated geographically and that interaction between them is very restricted. and on the contrary, when we think about the instructional process in the conventional face-to-face classroom, we are tempted to presuppose the close network of sophisticated human interactions in which every one is near and no one is distant. but what does distance mean in these two cases? moore (1993, 22) proposes the concept of transactional distance, distance which is not simply a geographic separation of teachers and students, but a pedagogical concept that describes teacher-learner relationships when both parties are separated by space and/ or by time. distance education has this special characteristic of the separation of teachers and learners and it is believed that it leads to special patterns of teacher and learner behaviours. according to moore (1993, 22), there is a psychological and communications space to be crossed ... and it is this psychological and communications space that is the transactional distance'. psychological and communications spaces vary from learner to learner and from teacher to teacher. this indicates that transactional distance is continuous rather than a discrete variable. rumble (1986) has pointed out that even in conventional face-to-face education there is transactional distance between teachers a n d learn e r s . pupils' experiences of the instructional process often differ quite drastically from teachers' experiences. in other words, in conventional education there is also a psychological space to be crossed. the evidence gathered from the studies of the instructional process (bellack et al. 1966; koskenniemi and komulainen, 1974) points o u t that the intentional communications space is usually taken by the teacher while pupils are mainly responding to teacher initiatives. teachers tend to capture the maiority of the communications space available and leave much less to pupils even if education is characteristically described as an interactional affair between both parties involved. according to modra (1991, 88), the dichotomy between conventional education and distance education is often artificial because it is based on idealised images of both disciplines. in conventional face-to-face education pupils are quite rarely in a sort of pedagogical situation where they can enjoy the balanced and sophisticated lnteractions between their peers and their teachers. instead, teachers seem often to have to cajole passive pupils. in distance education the focus seems to centre on the use of technology. the educational processes of distance education, that is, those connected with the practice of teaching and learning at a distance, are often little discussed. (evans, 1991b, 180). it is as if distance education was just about selecting a body of knowledge and communicating it via one or more technologies. the stance is quite analogous to the often occurring situation in classrooms where the teacher selects a body of knowledge and just delivers it to the class. interaction between teacher and students, and among students, is fundamental both i n conventional face-to-face education .and in distance education. in both cases, the pedagogical approaches taken largely frame and establish that interaction. in this sense, it is the organisation of pedagogy which is the important educational issue for both families of education and the matter of technology2 forms only a part of the context in which distance education, and education in general, takes place (clark, 1983; winn, 1990; campion, 1991). e ducation at a distance the use of distance education has expanded in terms of journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 36 both student and institutional participation. this development has also brought with it various delivery system,s together with miscellaneous teaching methods used within distance education. as a result of these changes it is often quite difficult to differentiate between conventional and distance education. both forms of education have come nearer to each other and this has led to a reconsideration of what distinguishes distance education from other forms of education. the blurring of boundaries between the two has made it more evident that the major and the most common feature in both forms of education is the process of interaction among teacher, students; and subject content. the main difference is that in distance education most interaction between teacher and students is mediated by communication technologies. according to shale and garrison (1990, 31), education and distance (between teacher and student) are concomitant features but it is clear in practice that we are attempting to provide educational opportunities for students who just happen to be physically separated from a teacher (or from other students). the authors argue that the definitions of distance education usually tend to reverse this emphasis and are preoccupied with various features of distance. viewing distance education from the perspective of the technological media used to achieve it obscures the fact that in all instances the goal is education (shale and garrison, 1990, 31). this kind of definition does not necessitate a reconceptualisation of the educational process itself. instead, it emphasises the basic challenge of the educational process, that is, how to facilitate interaction between the teacher and students, and among students. whenever the teacher and students are physically separated distance education must rely on technology to mediate the interaction process between both parties. shale and garrison (1990, 31) stress that considerable attention has been given to the use of technological media while less attention has been paid to the nature of interaction processes and the role of technologies supporting it. it is not the technological solution in itself that can be regarded as education but the educational content and the appropriate didactic use of the medium applied. with the emergence of modern technologies, teachers and students in conventional education find fewer practical and methodological concerns o�er the delivering education at a distance. at the same time the methods of distance education are becoming more like those used in modern conventional group-based education. for example, the technology used in this study, video conferencing, can be viewed as a group method of learning that provides a real-time interaction between the teacher and students in a manner similar to traditional classroom instruction. if one ac�epts the view of distance education as an educational mode, or as a teaching mode, it is relevant to apply to it the problems and possibilities that usually are involved i n conventional teaching have t o b e adapted to educating at a distance. the development of new communications technologies may encourage the merger of distance education with conventional education so that the distinctions between the two become blurred. keegan (1989, 9) warns that this kind of approach can easily lead to seeing distance education as a good thing that alone can contribute to the improvement of conventional education. instead, one would rather see these two forms of education dealing with the same core substance of education, namely with interaction, with appropriate methodologies in different environments. the variation of methods reflects different conceptions of the interaction processes and may offer better understanding of the educational transactions in general. vertecchi (1993, 156-157) argues that distance education can be fitted into schools because the idea of distance education itself presupposes the existence of a 'school', that is an organisation whose explicit purpose is to teach someone who wants to learn. vertecchi's view has an important consequence: distance education cannot offer an exclusive alternative to conventional face-to-face education b y developing systems and methods that would make the institutional education system out-ofjournal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 19'!6 (c) distance education association of new zealand 37 date. on the contrary, vertecchi (1993, 157) argues that distance education can be viewed as a means of diversifying and specialising the conventional educational offering in response to various educational needs. a framewo rk fo r interaction interaction in both conventional and distance education, is fundamental. in the field of distance education hillman et al. (1994) give a comprehensive list of the various definitions that, for example, consider interaction as the 'fundamental element' (shale and garrison, 1990), as the key to the 'effective learning' (keegan ,1990), and as a defining characteristic of education (moore, 1989). in turn, teaching in conventional education is characteristically regarded as interpersonal, interactive activity (anderson and burns, 1989, 9-12). both forms of education are based upon an understanding of the essence of interaction in the instructional process. in its most basic form education is a process of interaction between teacher and students in order to provide the subject content of teaching. these basic elements of the instructional process teacher, students, and subject content can be presented in the form of an interactive framework which holds the various relations between the three elements. these relations in their basic form are described in figure 1. teacher s t u d e n t s figure 1. a framework describing interactions in the instructional process even if the interactive dimensions described in the framework are numerous they do not capture the total complexity of the instructional process. instead, it is supposed that certain interactive dimensions are regarded as essential for the instructional process in general. at first sight the stanc.e taken seems to be quite reductionistic but, according to moore (1989, 100), interaction is a term that 'carries so many meanings as to be almost useless unless specific submeanings can be defined and generally agreed upon.' the dimensions of the interactive frame can be _regarded as a minimum that educators both in conventional and distance education can agree on and perhaps further develop and refine in their teaching. within an interactive framework at least three types of inte-ractions are important, namely teacher-student interactions, student-student interactions, and interactions related to the subject content of teaching (moore, 1989; bellack et al. 1966). in the field of conventional education interactions related to persons in an actual teaching situation, that is teacher-student and student-student interactions, are often emphasised. on the other hand, distance education has 'traditionally' seen the learner­ content interaction as the defining characteristic of education3, perhaps a result of the history of correspondence education. with the emergence of modern telecommunications, real-time and two-way interactions between teachers and students are becoming more common in distance education. together with this practical development theoretical considerations have also become more inclusive regarding conceptions of interaction within distance education. amundsen (1993) has traced the evolution of the theory of distance education and found decreasing emphasis on the notions of distance and separation in favour of various forms of real-time interactions between learners and instructors. in a classroom environment interactions related to the subject content of teaching are more mixed with person-to-person interactions. teacher­ student and student-student interactions occur on two levels: interactions are mainly group­ based, but they can also be individually oriented journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 38 when teacher and student, or student and student, are in one-to-one contact during the instructional process. however, one can argue that these two forms of interactions are not separate but, instead, s imultaneous since individual interactions, both teacher-student and student-student interactions, usually take place in a social presence, and often under the social pressure, of a group of students in a classroom. interaction during the instructional process can be either intentional or unintentional. whenever interaction is connected with some purpose it can be viewed as intentional. teachers' and students' intentional communication is often tied to practical activities both perform during the instructional process. teaching is the activity of teachers and studying is the activity of students. by using the concepts of teaching and studying the instructional process can be understood as active on both sides (kansanen, 1993). these two are linked because it is the teacher's intention to teach which defines the student's situation for his/her studying4. not everything in the instructional process is intentional in the sense of only aiming at pre­ planned goals. the processes of interaction should also allow, according to juler (1990), 'free flowing discourse' among participants. when education is mainly seen as communication ( tiffin and rajasingham, 1995, 19-47) these unstructured elements of teaching and studying become more prominent. the educational definition (anderson and burns, 1989, 7-19), on the other hand, emphasises the intentional character of interaction, according to which, communication is used to promote intended student learning. interaction seems to be important for at least two reasons: first, a certain amount of interaction is necessary so that teachers and students can understand each other and perform their teaching and studying activities. without this basic interactive (mutual) understanding it would be difficult to know whether teaching and studying activities respectively are focusing on the shared aims that both teachers and students intend. seen this way, interaction is a prerequisite for the instructional process in general. second, teaching and studying methods are interactive to varying degrees. they can be interactive in themselves (that is, discussion method) or they can allow interaction to a lesser degree (that is, methods of student's individual studying). \:vagner (1994) has made the same kind of distinction between interaction as an outcome (of the methods used) or interaction as an ever-present attribute (or prerequisite) for the instructional process. both forms of interactions are brought together in the interactive framework used in this study. a netwo rk o f lo cal and mediated in teractions research on classroom focused distance education is based on the notion that the main difference is the mediate& communication between teacher and pupils and between pupils in two different remote classrooms. the approach does not require the reconceptualisa tion of the educational process itself for distance education is regarded as education at a distance (garrison and shale ,1990). in conventional education, students receive instruction through face-to-face interaction with the teacher. in distance education, students receive instruction and interact with the teacher through communications media. the formulatio n provides a rationale for affirming the basic elements of the instructional process in general: teacher, pupils, and subject content as presented in the interactive framework. both in conventional and in distance education the interactions among these three elements can be conceptually and empirically analysed. this means that interaction can be analysed not only from a theoretical and philosophical perspective but also from a functional perspective. according to wagner (1994), the functional perspective is important because different variables of interaction need to be examined empirically in order to assess the impact of interaction in different educational contexts. in this study the addition of a distant classroom to the instructional process changes the scene of instruction: besides the interactions in a local journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 39 classroom the instructional process now also includes the mediated interactions between the teacher and the pupils in a remote classroom and the mediated interactions among the pupils in two different classrooms. the instructional process can be seen as extended for two reasons, the addition of another group of students at a distant place and the inclusion of a new dimension of interactions, which occur simultaneously with the interactions of conventional education. this study focuses on the question of how these two communicational elements local interactions and mediated interactions between two remote classrooms can be handled simultaneously by one teacher. the term 'mediated' refers to the situation where teacher and students in the remote classroom are apart and the interaction between them, and among students in another classroom, must be mediated technologically. because of the importance of interaction in educational processes in general it is necessary to investigate how the mediated forms of interaction can be fitted into the instructional process covering these two classrooms. mediated interactions also differ from interactions taking place in face­ to-face teaching. one feature of a medium is that it mediates and anything that mediates changes what it conveys. in terms of instruction, it is a question of not only transmitting content from teachers to students, but also of establishing an effective two-way communication dynamic between teachers and students. the use of the term 'mediated interactions' instead of ' distance interactions' is intended to emphasise aspects of communications over the matter of physical distance between two classrooms. the theoretical approach of 'education at a distance' (shale and garrison 1990, 33-37), adopted in this study, emphasises the educational aspects of distance education over the aspects of physical distance. accordingly, distance education depends more o n the mediated acts of communication rather than the technologies used (see clark, 1983). the integration of a remote classroom brings new and unique dimensicms, at least in a school environment, to the instructional process. the interactions from and to the distant classroom are mediated by using video conferencing. more authors define distance education by this kind of real-time teaching at a distance to groups of students located in different places. this is made possible by new technologies that permit simultaneous two-way-interaction between teacher and stu ' dents. this kind of group teaching at a distance brings distance education closer to conventional face-to-face teaching. garrison and shale (1989, 3) emphasise the similarities between video conferencing and conventional teaching because, according to them, video conferencing is a 'group method of learning that provides a real-time interaction among all participants in a manner similar to traditional classroom instruction'. according to saba (1989, 33�, interactive systems can achieve virtual contiguity by sight, sound, and by sharing and exchanging teaching/ studying materials and documents. virtual contiguity is not analogous to the normal interactions that take place between the teacher and the students in conventional classroom teaching. the main difference is, according to saba, that voice and sight dialogue are intensified beyond conventional face-to-face communication. what is unique in classroom focused distance education is that the elements of distance education are integrated into the conventional education taking place in classroom settings. the elements of distance, and distance education, form an important part of the instructional process created in this project. according to amundsen (1993, 73), distance itself brings a significant impact to the elements of the instructional process because it has implications for teaching role, teaching methods, students' studying methods, and student expectations. the extent and the meaning of that impact is an important research task on both the theoretical and the empirical level. the mediated interactions of distance education are integrated into the basic elements of conventional education in the local classroom. the study emphasises the educational nature of the instructional process as described. a journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 40 theoretical framework for classroom-focused distance education is presented in figure 2. teacher 0 frame of local interactions iiili frame of mediated interactions figure 2. the instructional process in classroom focussed distance education. the basic elements of the instructional process teacher, students, and subject content are held intact, b u t there are two types of interactions to be handled concurrently by the teacher and by the students. in addition to the local interactions of conventional classroom education the mediated interactions of distance education are occurring simultaneou sly. compared with the interactive framework of conventional education ( f igure 1), the instructional process in classroom focused distance education includes a network of interactions concerning primarily the teacher5 but also the students in both classrooms. the classroom is the area in which teacher and pupils communicate face-to-face. both the teacher 's teaching and students' studying, together with their mutual communication, are happening 'on-site' much as in conventional classroom teaching. however, the teacher is simultaneously connected to an another classroom and his /her teaching is mediated there by video conferencing. as figure 2 shows, the two forms of teaching, local and mediated, are simultaneous versions of the same teaching act. t h e t w o g r o u p s of s t u d e n t s a r e a l s o interacting both within and between groups in both the local and in the remote classroom. in these cases there are two different kinds of student-student interactions, namely student­ student interactions that take place within both groups, and the interactions between groups that are regarded as mediated interactions. t h e s e two f o r m s of s t u d e n t s t u d e n t interaction,s are occurring simultaneously in both classrooms. the interactive network of the remote classroom differs from the interactive network of the local classroom. as figure 2 indicates, the interactive network of the remote classroom is dominated by mediated interactions which connect students both to the teacher and to the students in the local classroom. only student-student interactions within the remote classroom are similar to conventional face-to-face classroom educati"n. however, the situation is different in the local classroom where the teachers' and students' interactive network is dominated by local interactions. the major part of the interactions, that is, teacher-student interactions and interactions among students within the classroom, occur on-site and they are much as in conventional face-to-face classroom education. only student-student interactions between the two classrooms are mediated by their nature. in sum, the instructional process in classroom­ focused distance education includes two classrooms each with a different interactive network. this means that both the teacher and the students have to cope with these two distinct networks of interaction. this kind ofteaching and studying practice emphasises especially the role of the teacher because, according to dillion and gunawardena (1995, 350), the teacher seems to be the main critical factor in the success of distance education. conclusion since it is possible to create new learning environments by using interactive telecommunication technologies, it is important to consider how teachers and students understand the instructional process i n classroom-focused distance education. teachers' and students' experiences provide a personalised context in which both forms of journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 41 interactions are interpreted and further acted on. therefore it is important, both theoretically and practically, to clarify how teachers and students comprehend different qualities in both forms of interactions. the theoretical framework and the practical approach presented in this article aim to outline some essential dimensions of the instructional (especially interactive) process in classroom­ focused distance education (salonen and falck, 1996). it is important to investigate how the setting used influences teachers' pedagogical approaches and furthermore the pedagogical roles of the teachers and the students involved. it is assumed that both teachers' teaching experiences and students' studying experiences are affected by this new learning environment. the new interactive technologies will require further research to develop suitable instructional methods to integrate two classrooms. together. the aim is to seek and to delineate conditions under which classroom-focused distance education can create one virtual classroom from the two classrooms involved. whenever this is, at least partly, reached it will open up new learning perspectives for all participants involved. notes 1. in this article the concept of conventional education is used in order to relate the dominant educational format with the distant education. conventional does not include any value aspects or preferences and conventional education is neither 'good' or 'bad' per se. according to keegan (1989, 13), 'the idea that there is something wrong with conventional education which distance education can correct is a dangerous cul-de-sac for distance educators and should be abandoned.' 2. it should be noted that technology is not restricted to distance education. instead, according to evans (1991b, 180), 'matters of technology involve all but the most simple forms of face-to-face teaching, so that the classroom teacher, for example, draws upon printed materials, audio equipment, computers etc., both directly and indirectly during the course of his/her work. arguably, technology can be seen as the tools which people use to aid their actions ... '. 3. according to moore (1989, 101), 'without it [learner-content interaction] there cannot be education, since it is the process of intellectually interacting with content that results in changes in the learner's understanding, the learner's perspective, or the cognitive structures of the learner's mind.' 4. it is worth noting that both teaching and studying include a wide range of activities that teachers"\and students are allowed to perform. 5. even if the instructional process is intentional on both sides, it is the teacher's intentions that are more important than students' intentions concerning their studying. there are two main reasons for this: 1) during the instructional process it is the teacher who always has the responsibility to steer the process. the teacher also has the kind of legitimated power and authority in his /her actions that the students in classroom do not have. 2) when teaching takes place in the social context of the school institution it is ruled by many contradictionary demands that can be best dealt with by the teacherbecause of his/her legitimated and authorised position. on account of these two reasons the instructional process cannot, nor is it allowed to, be symmetrical between the teacher and students. however, this does not deny that the instructional process between the teacher and students can be as democratic and balanced as possible within these conditions (kansanen, 1993, 54). references amundsen, c. 1993: the evolution of theory in distance education, in keegan, d. (ed.) 61-79. journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 42 anderson, l.w. and burns, r.b. 1989: research in classrooms. the study of teachers, teaching and instruction. pergamon press, oxford", barker, b.o., frisbie, a. g. and patric, k.r. 1989: broadening th� definition of distance education in light of new telecornrnuriications technologies, american journal of distance education 3, 1, 20-29. bellack, a., kliebard, h.m., hyman, r.t. and smith, f.l. 1966: the language of the classroom. teachers collage press, new york. campion, m.g. 1991: critical essay on educational technology in distance education, in evans, t. and king, b. (ed.), 183-203. clark, r.e. 1983: reconsidering research on l e a r n i n g f r o m m e d i a , review of educational research, 53, 445-460. dillon c. and gunawardena, c.n. 1995: a framework for the evaluation of telecornrnications­ based distance education, in sewart, d. (ed.) 348351. evans, t. 1991a: an epistemological orientatation to c r itical reflection in distance· education, in evans, t. and king, b. (eds), 7-18. evans, t. 1991b: technology in distance education: introduction, in evans, t. and king, b. (eds), 179182. evans, t. and king, b (eds), 1991: beyond text: contemporary writing on distance education. deakin university press, geelong. garrison, d.r. and shale, d.g. 1989: mapping the boundaries of distance education: problems in defining the field, in moore, m.g. and clark, g.c. (eds), 1-7. garrison, d.r. 1989: understanding distance education. a framework for the future. routledge, london. garrison, d.r. and shale, d. (eds.). 1990: education at a distance: from issues to practice. robert e. krieger publishing company, malabar, fl. garrison, d.r. 1990: communications technology, ij.1 garrison, d.r. and shale, d. (eds), 41-52. garrison, r. 1993: quality and access is distance education: theoretical considerations, in keegan, d. (ed.), 9-21. h i l l m a n , d . c .a., w illis, d.j. a n d gunawardena, c.n. 1994: learner-interface interaction in distance education: an extension of c o n t e m p o r a r y m o d e l s a n d strategies f o r practioners, american journal o f distance education 8, 2, 30-42. h u s u , j., salm inen, j., fal ck, a.k., k r o nl u n d , t., kynaslah t i , h. a n d meisalo, v. 1994: preliminary aspects of the classroom focussed distance education: the helsinki­ kilpisjiirvi project a case study. university of helsinki. department of teacher education, research report 135, helsinki. (mainly in finnish). husu, j. 1995: the helsinki-kilpisjarvi project: a collaborative action research of distance education in classroom environment, in sewart, d. (ed.) 7-8. juler, p. 1990: promoting interaction; maintaining independence: swallowing the mixture, open learning, j\111e 1990,24-33. kansanen, p. 1993: an outline for a model of teacher's pedagogical thinking. in kansanen, p. (ed.) discussions on some educational issues iv, university of helsinki, department of teacher education, research report 121, helsinki, 51-65. keegan, d. 1989: problems in defining the field of distance education, in moore, m.g. and clark, g.c. (eds.) keegan, d. 1990: foundations of distance education. second edition. routledge, london. keegan, d. (ed.), 1993: theoretical principles of distance education. routledge, london. kosken�.jiemi, m. and komulainen, e. 1974: investigation into the instructional process. report of the dpahelsinki, phase one. university of helsinki. institute of education. research bulletin no. 39, helsinki. kynaslaht i , h. a n d salminen, j. 1 9 9 5 : integration of remote classrooms: technical and local perspectives, in nouveris, f. (ed.) 151-155. mason, r. 1995: synchronous and asynchronous media for distance education, in sewart, d. (ed.) 399-402. meisalo, v. (ed.) 1996. distance education project using video conferencing. university of helsinki. department of teacher education, helsinki. research report (in press). modra, h.m. 1991: on the possibility of dialogue in distance education: a dialogue, in evans, t. and king, b. (eds.) 83-100. moore, m.g. 1989: three types of interaction, in moore, m.g. and clark, g.c. (eds) 100-105. moore, m.g. 1993: theory of trans;3.ctional distance, in keegan, d. (ed.) 22-3,8. nouvens, f. (ed.) 1995: distance educationcrossing f r o n t i e r s . central q u e e n s l a n d u n i v e r s i t y , rockhampton, australia. postle, g. 1995: open learning at the school level: a challenge for mainstream education, in sewart, d. (ed.) 9-12. rumble, g. 1986: the planning and management of distance education. st martins press, new york. saba, f. 1989: integrated telecommunications sy stems and instructional transaction, in moore, m.g. and clark, g.c. (eds) 29-36. salminen, j: 1995: the evaluation of the isdn­ based video conferencing in classroom focused distance education. paper present«;!d at the onjournal of distanc� learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 43 line educa conference, november 1995, berlin, germany. salminen j. 1996: technical applications i_p. the classroom focused dis,tance education, in meisalo, v. (ed.) · salomon, g., perkins, d.n. and globerson, t. 1991: partners in cognition: extending human i n t e l l i g e n c e w i t h intelligent technologies, educational researcher 19, 3, 2-9. salonen, m. and falck, a.k. 1996: aspects of c l a s s r o o m i n t e r a c t i o n in t w o w a y v i d e o conferencing i n meisalo, v. (ed.) sewart, d. (ed.), 1995: one world many voices: quality in open and distance learning, volume 2, icde and the open university, milton keynes. shale, d. and garrison, d.r. 1990: education and communication, in garrison, d.r. and shale, d. (eds) 23-39. stevens, k. 1994: some applications of distance education technologies and pedagogies in rural schools in new zealand, distance education 15, 2, 318-326. st evens, k. 1 9 9 5 : g e o g r ap h i c i s o l a t i o n and technological change. a new vision of teaching and learning in rural schools in new zealand, journal of distance learning 1, 1, 32-38. stevens, k. 1996: mediating local and global knowledge: the emergence of the virtual classroom in finland and new zealand, in meisalo, v. (ed.) tiffin, j. and rajasingham, j_,. 1995: in search of the virtual class: education in an information society. routledge, london. vertecchi, b. 1993: structural analysis of distance education, in keegan, d. (ed.) 152-161. wagner, e.d. 1994: in support of a functional definition of interaction, american journal of distance education 8, 2, 6-29. wibe, j. 1995: distance education for developing teacher competence in the use of information technology, in sewart, d. (ed.) 31-34. v een, w., collins, b., w ries, p. a n d v o gelz a n g , f . ( e d . ) 1994: te l e m a t i c s i n education: t h e european case. academic book centre, de lier. winn, b. 1990: media and instructional methods, in garrison, d.r. and shale, d. (eds) 53-66. jukka husu is a research associate, department of teacher education, university of helsinki, po box 31, 00014 university of helsinki, finland. journal of distance learm\ng, vol2, no.1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 44 moments of truth: managing the face-to-face encounter in distance learning introduction managing distance learning shares many of the features of manging anything. fundamentally the process involves planning, implementation and evaluation. managing a service differs, however, from managing the manufacture of a good or product. when viewed in service management terms, distance education provision, as the following quotation suggests, involves managing 'unique characteristics'. for services the presence of the customer in the process materially alters what is viewed as the product. the unique characteristics of intangibility, perishability, and simultaneous provision and consumption introduce special challenges for service management (fitzsimmons and fitzsimmons, 1994, 33). not only does a service differ from a manufactured good in that it may not be tangible, may not last and cannot therefore be stored or inventoried, but it usually relies on the involvement of the customer. hence, pivotal to the distance education service is the mangement of a variety of interactions between service provider (distance educator) and customer (student). the central goal is to provide effective learning outcomes. it is the human dimension of the service which presents educators with the greatest challenge as they attempt to manage an interface which is potentially volatile and often unpredictable, relying as it does on human involvement for a successful outcome. that is mary cull and robyn walker department of management systems massey university p almerston north new zealand why this encounter of customer and service provider is known as a 'moment of truth' in the service being delivered (normann, 19911; carlzon, 1987). at that point of contact, the service is bei:ag judged as a success or a failure by the students. the traditional focus of the distance education literature is distance and separation rather than close encounters. the emphasis is on the challenge faced by a student working independently and often alone, removed from close proximity to the teacher, a 'noncontiguous education' (rumble, 1989, 28). because of this, distance educators have become accomplished at producing the illusion of closeness while operating under the constraints imposed by distance. literature relating to the educator 's role highlights such subjects as the preparation of course materials, methods of long distance communication, the relative merits of campus courses and the role of face-to-face teaching in distance learning. however, techniques for face to face interaction have been somewhat overlooked in favour of the exploration of distance rather than proximity. in the delivery of the service of distance education the 'moments of truth' are mediated by a diverse range of technology: print, computer, telephone, video, or through an intermediary such as a centralised administration service. as previously mentioned, the benefits and disadvantages of journal of distance learning, vall, no. 1, 1995 (c) distance education association of new zealand 24 many of these media have been well-researched and discussed in the distance education literature. the objective with the use of technology is ofte:!n to replicate the 'human face' aspect of the service which is missing when student and educator are geographically separate. such techniques as holmberg's (1989) print-mediated 'guided didactic conversation' or the linking of students through internet to 'talk' to one another (mercer, 1993), or the sophisticated explorations of new applications for virtual reality technology (hart, 1991) are all way s of creating an illusion of a human encounter. indeed, in service management terms the likelihood of a service failure is considerably less when managed in the 'back office' (lovelock, 1992) via technology away from the 'front stage' where real live human beings interact often without a script. so why do distance educators run the risk of a face-to-face encounter at on-campus courses? what are the advantages of the residential or regional courses? how does the face-to-face encounter fit into the overall service and how best might it be managed to ensure success? the value of the face to face encounter the intention of the regional or residential course is not only to provide extra material, additional support or enhanced understanding but also to relieve the sense of isolation the students feel owing to their geographic remoteness or choice of distance learning mode. while students naturally assess the quality of the course by the course materials, the campus course provides another arena in which to judge service quality. meeting customer expectations in this as in other facets of the course is vital to the student's overall perception of the value of the course. the challenge for distance educators is two-fold: to justify the needs for oncampus activities in their particular disciplines; and to plan those activities so that they are enriching, challenging, motivating and achieve their educational objectives for all their students (warner and wilkinson, 1992, 4). within the distance mode, educators become accustomed to the safety of the geographical remoteness. after extended intervals of technology-mediated interaction (often print) teachers can be reluctant to commit themselves to a campus course, or are shocked to find themselves communicating 'eyeball to eyeball' with their students. this interaction involves a different relationship and different skills. consequently, recognising the crucial importance of a successful encounter is one thing, but ensuring that it happens is another. the 'protagonists' (student and educator) come with their own set of expectations and .fears. how can the needs of each be best met within the encounter? in the first place it is helpful to tease out the dimensi�s of the situation with which we are dealing. then we can suggest a method of managing the service delivery face-to-face. in this paper we advocate team teaching as a means of ensuring that campus courses meet the criteria set down by warner and wilkinson: that they be 'enriching, challenging, motivating and achieve their educational objectives'. but team teaching, we argue, can go beyond the provision of an enhanced learning experience for students to provide a supportive teaching environment for educators. we draw on our own experience and practice to examine and illustrate strategies and techniques for successful interaction. understanding customer expectations understanding customer expectations is a prerequisite for delivering superior service; customers compare perceptions with expectations when judging a firm's service (parasuraman, berry, and zeithamal, 1991, 39). in order to plan for a successful encounter, any organisation offering a service needs to know what their customers expect. it is not enough to think or assume this knowledge. what then does the student expect from the on-campus course? for many students, the campus course is an intense personal experience. it is an expensive journal of distance learning, vol1, no. 1, 1995 (c) distance education association of new zealand 25 exercise in terms of money spent on several levels: for themselves, their employers and their families. this theme of 'financial disadvantage' figured in the responses of five hundred stlj.dents at the university of central queensland in the study carried out by warner and wilkinson (1992). but there is another cost to the student, that of time. the student does not want to feel that his or her time has been wasted, that it has not been accorded the same priority as that of the educational service provider. stealing the customers' time or 'time larceny' (stayt, 1989) can quickly undermine the relationship between student and educator especially if the on-campus course is a compulsory requirement. furthermore, beside the financial and time costs there are certain discomforts which students must endure. they are often housed in relatively spartan accommodation, in a strange town without transport where there are all sorts of limitations being put on their freedom. the classroom or lecture theatre physically confines them for long periods, and the programme is highly scheduled and finely tuned in order to optimise the time use. academic expectations may well include a chance to clarify issues and resolve questions and concerns they have about the course content. they may anticipate personal involvement in the course and wish to make their own contribution. additionally, the on­ campus or regional course provides an alternative forum in which the student is likely to judge the academic and personal credibility of the lecturer (mcilroy and walker, 1992). on an emotional plane, the student may face certain anxieties, mostly relating to the fear of the unknown. the apprehension may relate to such matters as how they will compare with other students in terms of knowledge in the field or prior experience as a student or professional. distance students are used to a relatively secluded study environment and the prospect of a group experience might be daunting. additionally, these students may have chosen distance education for reasons of flexibility and autonomy, preferring self-paced learning. these students prefer to be taught at a distance and, for some, the campus course will be an intrusion into their personal and work life, 'a necessary evil which they have to endure because they wish to study a particular discipline' (warner and wilkinson, 1992,4). these factors, possibly compounded with a past bad experience of either campus courses or of learning generally, can cause a negative predisposition which is in danger of confirmation if the face-to-face encounter is not managed so as to be immediately rewarding. of course, the preconceptions will not all be negative. within any group of people, the expectations will vary and, for many, the apprehension will be mixed with promise. this offers hope tcjhe educator who is also likely to hold preconceptions, expectations, fears, anxieties and misgivings about the challenge that lies ahead. the educator 's qualms are, however, likely to be of a slightly different order. the educator as service provider as in any service, the role of the educator is pivotal to the success of the encounter; there is a clear link between customer satisfaction and service provider satisfaction, that is, unhappy employ ees adversely affect customer perceptions of the service (schlesinger & heskett, 1991). if the teacher is not accustomed to teaching in the face-to-face mode and has not developed the appropriate skills, the very immediacy of the potential encounter can create a sense of foreboding. time is perhaps one of the most influential elements in this anxiety experienced by the educator, both because on-campus course preparation is time-consuming and because the intensity of the programme presupposes considerable time pressures. within a very short period educators must capture the interest and win the support of each individual and the group as a whole if the learning exchange is to be positive and fruitful. they know that their credibility is going to be disproportionately tested against their performance in what they might consider to be a comparatively minor part jo_umal of distance leaming, vall, no. 1, 1995 (c) distance education association of new zealand 26 . of the course. the management of time figures prominently in the literature on the management of a service which in itself is a 'perishable commodity ' (fitzsimmons and fitzsimmons, 1994, 28). failure to manage time can result in loss of quality for the customer and loss of revenue for the organisation. while not usually regarded as a successful businessman, abraham lincoln certainly grasped the essentials of inventory management in the provision of a professional service; 'time and expertise' comprised a lawyer's 'stock in trade' (lovelock,1992, 155). lastly, the educator can be subject to information constraints which limit knowledge of important matters such as the likely number of campus course participants. this affects their confidence, as planning must incorporate considerable flexibility and provide for a range of contingencies. another associated and very real concern for the educator is their feeling of vulnerability. this stems partly from the sheer ratio of student numbers to one teacher, partly from a seasoned belief that there is bound to be at least one individual present in the group who seems intent only on discrediting or undermining the course or its messenger and, as with their student counterparts, partly from the fear of the unknown. all of these considerations serve to heighten the teachers' awareness of their own limitations and to undermine their confidence in their abilities and in the value of the course. even lecturers hardened by regular exposure to large classes of undergraduate students can find the encounter with mature distance students daunting. implementation: adding value to content so the question arises, how can distance educators faced with an on-campus course optimise their skills and address the students' diverse expectations? one way of managing this face-to-face encounter and minimising risk is to implement the teamwork solution, not unfamiliar in distance education where teams, utilised for course development and preparation, have had advantages for staff development (jevons, 1984). both parties' fears can be countered and expectations met through a carefully planned and executed programme which relies on more than one presenter. there are several advantages that team presentation has over individual presentation. not least of these is the pg>tential for sheer variety. visual stimuli and auditory diversity are dem­ anded by today's media-influenced audiences. television has conditioned audiences to expect interactive presentation of news, sports and gameshows by two or more hosts. the use of dual presenters reduces boredom and maintains interest level as the presenters share the spotlight, interacting with each other to add value to the content. similar advantages accrue when two or more presenters interact in an educational context. the variety of presentation style that two or more people can bring heightens involvement and enhances the learning experience. an important additional outcome is that the credibility of the course content is bolstered and students are reassured when the authority of one specialist is supported by another (mcilroy and walker, 1992). on a more pragmatic note, students regard the presence of a course team as 'value for money' a better deal. this notion is reinforced by the fact that the operation runs more smoothly. gaps and hesitations can be dealt with or smoothed over with humour, difficult questions can be better interpreted or even deflected, practical assistance is on hand to deal with handouts, overheads or technology breakdowns. in short, the encounter can be managed to optimise personal satisfaction and the learning outcomes. the value of teamwork for the educat o r contemporary management literature teems with exhortations to practitioners to embrace teamwork as this heading in a recent issue of new zealand business illustrates: 'teams power productivity' ( shannon, 1994). the advantages are spelt out (parker, 1990), the organisational benefits and managerial implications of self-managing work teams are explored (banner, kulisch and peery, 1992). teams play a vital role in implementing quality journal of distance learning, vol1, no. 1, 1995 (c) distance education association of new zealand 27 management programmes (ripley and ripley, 1992). today's manager is exhorted to play the role of coach (stayer, 1990). this team ideology, reflected, or perhaps! grounded, in our cultural pastimes, has long been espoused by education and has subsequently been carried over into other areas of endeavour. however, it would be fair to say that not everyone has jumped on the team bandwagon. sinclair (1992, 611) argues that ' people at work have been ty rannised by a team ideology' and that there are many problems inherent in adopting such a philosophy without an awareness of its shortcomings or critical evaluation of the underlying assumptions. we have applied teamwork when delivering an educational service to distance students. indeed, we have found that there are advantages as well as disadvantages for both the educator and the student. first, in addressing the positives, one of the reasons most commonly advanced in defence of group work versus individual work, is that 'two heads are better than one'. buchholz and roth (1987, 13) have taken this a step further by concentrating on the resultant synergy which can come from people working together. people jointly will achieve greater results than individually when they enter what they have termed the 'zone of inspiration'. as team teachers we have not only experienced the synergy described above but are very aware of many other benefits that accrue from working closely with another person. there is an increased confidence in the thoroughness of course preparation when the details are shared. confidence also results from the knowledge that any weak areas can be covered by the other and that any gaffe or bungle can often be handled by the other person ( 'mary did not mean that your answer was inadequate but that you need to explore it a bit further'). there is also the likelihood that the teaching pace will be monitored ( 'hold on, robyn, i'm not sure that everyone has grasped that concept'). in the same way, any assumptions will be challenged and any oversights remedied. any presenter who has had to face the same group for one or two days will know only too well that at some stage there can be an overwhelming sense of boredom with the sound of his or her own voice. this is usually accompanied by a powerful feeling of aloneness, the 'them and me' syndrome. sometimes this can actually lead to a defensiveness, quite uncalled for, if a s.tudent questions or challenges. working in a team can eradicate or drastically reduce this likelihood. instead, there is a freshness or vitality from. working in a participative and supportive environment. additionally, working in a team reduces the presenter 's awareness of his or her own limitations or the limitations of the course. in the troubleshooter role, fellow team members can assist with any problems or personality clashes by offering advice or by taking responsibility.";for handling them, or by diffusing situations. many of these benefits considerably reduce the teacher 's sense of vulnerability. a more open and relaxed teaching manner usually ensues, considerably increasing the chances of a satisfactory encounter for the student. disadvantages of team teaching nevertheless, the likely advantages of teamwork outlined above can be countered by some potential disadvantages. sinclair (1992, 618) sums up many of these in the following subtitle to a section of her article: 'power, conflict and emotions as subversive forces in work groups'. in other words, team teachers have to address questions of dominance and power plays. an openness to confront assertively is essential if such matters as conflict are to be resolved. if one team member is apathetic or uncooperative or unwilling to take responsibility, then the likelihood of such problems undermining the group effort are high. another probable cause of dissension springs from a lack of confidence on the part of one team member. they may have a sense of exposure, of being defenceless in front of colleagues, or of having any mistakes or errors brought into stark relief by their 'more competent' partner. solitary teaching guarantees that the teacher is protected from the rigour of peer scrutiny. journal of distance learning, vol1, no.1, 1995 (c) distance education association of new zealand 28 conflict needs to be managed if team teachers present contradictory material. while, on the negative side, this can prove an opportunity for a power trip by one person, it can, alternatively, clearly enhance the learning outcome if couched in reasonable terms such as 'mary comes at this from a different perspective to me'. finally, the usual disadvantages attributed to any group decision-making process can apply to team teaching. time is the obvious one. time must be spent in communication and preparation and the institution has to be prepared to resource two or more staff when previously one person would have been considered 'adequate'. similarly, the security induced by team participation might lead to the individuals feeling less personal responsibility for an undesirable outcome. certainly, we do not claim that team teaching is for everyone, nor is it a panacea. an unthinking acceptance of 'teamthink' could clearly result in the difficulties so succinctly outlined by sinclair. a poorly coordinated attempt at team presentation can undermine the perceived quality of the course and exaggerate any shortcomings, even creating problems which would not otherwise exist. we have tried, therefore, to alert the reader to the destructive potential of any such attempt at group work. when it is done well, however, team teaching has substantial advantages for both the learner and the educator, providing an enhanced experience for all. an effectively functioning team will lead to a more energised, more creative and more enriching experience. as any manager knows, planning the teamwork is orte way of ensuring a successful outcome. planning for successful teamwork planning the encounter has worked well for us and helped us refine our working partnership. likely problem areas need to be anticipated so that possible solutions can be considered and planning implemented. in our experience there are two clearly defined areas that need to be addressed: the 'front stage' and the 'back office', mentioned earlier as useful concepts in managing operations in service organisations (fitzsimmons and fitzsimmons, 1994). front stage is visible to the customer and usually involves interaction between service provider and customer (face-to-face teaching), while back office operations are removed from the immediasy of the interpersonal encounter (for example, preparation of course materials). planning for the front stage the face-to-face encounter demands preparation at the interpersonal level as well as delivery of the content. team members need to prepare themselves psy chologically for the shared experience of interacting as a team with the students. educators do not have to like one another, but they do need to respect one another and be prepared to show this to the students. any persqnality differences can be managed by a deliberate focus on the task at hand. creating a shared goal can overcome any likely ego problems. assertive interpersonal skills are essential. there needs to be a preparedness to check out or confront in a non-threatening manner by using 'i' statements and avoiding 'you' blaming statements. affirmation as well as constructive criticism are invaluable when debriefing or evaluating a session. facing the fact that teamwork can raise issues of power means that team members can plan to demonstrate an equal relationship. this is made visible to the students by the simple rule that both or all team members talk authoritatively at the first session. this does not mean that team members are introduced by name only but that they share the spotlight 'front stage' at the outset. if one team member is more extroverted plan for 'off stage' times where the dominant person is moved off the scene and given jobs to do to keep them busy. planning the face-to-face encounter bears some resemblance to choreography. the programme requires detailed planning with realistic time­ frames allotted to everyone and everything. integration must be plan11ed for as team members link any separate sessions to what has preceded and what is to follow. this assumes a working knowledge of the other 's material. joumal of distance leaming, vol1, no. 1, 1995 (c) distance education association of new zealand 29 linking ploys can be as simple as: 'as robyn said before ... '; 'i agree with mary when she said ... '; 'just to add another perspective to what robyn said ... '; 'this may contradict what mary said before'. likewise, students respond well to a foreshadowing of what is to come: 'robyn will look at this later in more detail...'; 'this fits in to what mary will touch on later'. effective team teaching relies on a conscious planning for solidarity. when students direct questions at one person, the other team members can become involved, especially if clarification of the question is needed or help with the answer is required! plan to support the other person visibly by recording main points from a discussion on the whiteboard or assisting with the overhead projector or video. it is very useful to prepare a duet now and then, which may take the form of a poem performed together for light relief. taking responsibility for the direction of the discussion can also reinforce a sense of solidarity: 'are you planning to talk about such and such now or later, mary?'; 'time's up, robyn ... she gets so enthusiastic about theorists'. planning back office operations we have developed practical strategies to enhance the team image even when removed from the face-to-face interaction. any handouts are signed as a team and the order of names is deliberately varied. all course materials are vetted by team members as a quality check. this does not mean reinventing the wheel but that one member can have primary responsibility for a particular task while the other proof reads and makes contributions. by varying the major responsibility for drafting new material the time-consuming aspect involved in writing material together is avoided. the workload (both administration and teaching) needs to be fairly shared otherwise insidious resentment can erode the relationship. team teaching can provide educators with invaluable occasions for staff development if team members use such opportunities to develop their teaching skills by asking for feedback. with the safety net and back-up of another teacher, new techniques can be trialled and evaluated. student feedhack is also, of course, an important way to monitor new teaching techniques. earlier it was mentioned that teamwork can result in a synergy which can be described as a 'zone of inspirati.on' (buchholz and roth, 1987). eight attributes which have stood the test of time and are shared by teams performing in this zone of inspiration have been delineated by buchholz and roth. it is interesting to compare the techniques and strategies we have developed over time and from trial and error with their list: participative leadership; shared responsibility; aligned on purpose; high communication; future focused; focused on task; creative talents; rapid response. conclusjon this paper has accepted that the provision of distance education involves the management of a service comprising 'moments of truth' where the student and educator interact. it is common wisdom that course content cannot stand alone. each learner will interact differently with the material and the means of delivery will inevitably affect the learning experience. similarly, the educator brings to the learning situation a range of skills, strengths and weaknesses. the face-to-face encounter on campus is often an important and sometimes vital component of a distance education course in terms of content, but it also holds the potential to 'make or break' a course in terms of the students' perception of service quality. the management of the face-to-face encounter must be focused on planning, implementation and evaluation. we have argued that team teaching holds the potential to address some of the difficulties inherent in courses which rely on a campus course component. from our own experience as team teachers we have provided some techniques and strategies which we have combined to form the favourable circumstances needed to manage a successful 'moment of truth'. notes 1 normann first used this term in the late 1970s. people often mistakenly attribute it to carlzon who popularised the notion. journal of distance learning, vol1, no.1, 1995 (c) distance education association of new zealand 30 references banner, d.k., kulisch, w.a. and peery, n.s. 1992: self-managing work teams (smw t ) and the human resource function. management decision, 30, 3, 40-45. buchholz, s. and roth, t. 1987: creating the high­ performance team. john wiley & sons, new york. carlzon, j. 1987: the moment of truth. harper & row (australasia) pty ltd, nsw, australia. fitzsimmons, j.a. and fitzsimmons, m.j. 1994: service management for competitive advantage. mcgraw-hill, inc, new york. h a r t , j . j . 1 9 9 1 : lea rning in c y berspa ce­ experimental education in a computer-created virtual environment. paper presented at the distance education association of new zealand seventh annual conference, wellington, june 1991. holmberg, h. 1989: theory and practice of distance education. routledge, london. jevons, f. 1984: distance education in m i x e d institutions: working towards parity. distance education 5, 1, 24-37. lovelock, c. 1992: managing services (2nd ed). prentice-hall international inc, englewood cliffs, new jersey. mcilroy, a. and walker, r. 1992: consumer and staff perceptions of quality in distance education. a paper presented at the australian and new zealand associations of research in education c o nference, d e a k i n university, melbourne, november, 1992. mercer, a. 1993: t he massey university computer m e d i a t e d c o m m unications proje c t . paper presented at the distance education association of new z e a l a n d ninth annual c o nference, palmerston north, june 1993. normann, r. 1991: service management (2nd ed.). john wiley & sons, london. parasuraman, a., berry, l.l and zeithamal, v.a. 1991. understanding customer expectations of service. sloan management review, spring, 39-48. parker, g.m. 1990: team players and teamw ork. jossey-bass, san francisco. ripley, r.e. a,nd ripley, m.j. 1992: empowerment, the c o rne r s t o ne of q u a l it y : e m p o w e r i n g management in innovative organisations in the 1990s. management decision, 30, 4, 20-43. rumble, g. 1989: 'open learning', ' d i s t a n c e learning', a n d the m i s u s e of langua ge. open learning 4, 2, 28-36. sclesinger, l.a. and heskett, j.l. 1991: breaking the cycle of failure in services. sloan management review, spring, 17-28. shannon, p. 1994: teams power productivity. new zealand business, april, 22-25. shostack, l. 1984: designing services that deliver. harvard business review, january-february, 133-139. sinclair, a. 1992: t he ty ranny of a team ideology. organisation studies, 13/4,611-626. stayer, r. 1990: how i learned to let my workers lead. harvard business review, nov-dec., 66-83. stay t, j. 1989: how to succeed through customer service. david bateman, new zealand. warner, l. and w ilkinson, j. 1992: evaluation of on-campus activities in disciplines necessitating compulsory attendance. research in distance education, july, 1992, 2-5. mary cull is a management consultant with tall poppies and company, wellington, new zealand, and robyn walker is a lecturer, department of management systems, massey university, private bag, palmerston north, new zealand. journal of distance learning, vall, no. 1, 1995 (c) distance education association of new zealand 31 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(2) 41 book review learning theory and online technologies vanessa scholes open polytechnic / kuratini tuwhera harasim, l. (2012). learning theory and online technologies. new york/london: routledge (pp. 198). linda harasim is a professor in the school of communication, simon fraser university, vancouver, canada. she has authored or co-authored more than twenty book chapters, many dealing with online learning or online networks. her fifth book spans both topics, mapping the development of some major learning theories against the early use of online technologies in education, and then outlining and illustrating harasim’s own theory of online collaborative learning. the book concentrates on adolescent and especially adult learning. the author’s choice of theories and examples clearly presume an audience rooted in western, non-indigenous education. the use of sweeping generalisations about the backward state of online educational practices may annoy educators currently engaging in innovative online teaching, and potentially alienate educators who are not major users of technology. fortunately, this detracts little from an otherwise solid introductory chapter that offers a useful overview of the book’s structure. in the first half of the book, harasim gives a very good outline of the historical development of some key theories of learning (behaviourism, cognitivism, constructivism), introducing the main ideas by explaining the research of the key founders of each theory. she draws links to the computer-assisted technologies available at the time each theory started to affect education, showing their influence on the use of the technologies. harasim sees the mission of teachers and learners as advancing the conversation of humankind (p.174)—hence her presentation of online technologies in the context of the history of the development of human communication technologies, and the history of the development of theories of learning. however, i think even a brief consideration of contemporary takes on these theories would have added value. in chapter 6 harasim suggests we need a new theory of learning “that can take into account the ubiquity of the internet and the societal shift toward collaborative learning emphasizing the building, rather than the transmission, of knowledge” (p. 80). behaviourism and cognitivism see learning occurring in the transmission of teachers’ ideas to students. constructivism is also found wanting, due to its emphasis on self-focused, rather than socially centred, active learning. harasim’s solution is an online collaborative learning (ocl) theory that emphasises students’ developing skills to collaboratively address and solve real social issues and problems. at the heart of the author’s ocl theory is a three-stage process of collaborative discourse: idea generating—brainstorming, expressing divergent views; idea organising—sifting and evaluating ideas; and intellectual convergence—generating shared understanding or synthesis (this can include agreeing to disagree, or co-production of, for example, solutions, artifacts, articles, theory). harasim distinguishes between cooperative learning, where each student contributes something to a final group product, and collaborative learning, where student groups discuss and work through the process together to reach an outcome. “the process itself is collaborative, not just the product” (p. 92). the teacher’s role is to link students to the knowledge community of their discipline. i wondered here about teachers’ responsibilities—given the interdisciplinary nature of many real problems, and the significance to collaboration of peer expertise and effort, for example. book reviews 42 chapter 7 presents four scenarios of ocl-based application of online technologies for learning. three scenarios cover case studies, student group-led seminars and a collaborative training programme. the fourth scenario also features examples clearly underpinned by ocl, namely multi-user games in which students collaborate to solve problems in a simulated world. however, the examples of immersive simulations, including flight and surgery simulator training, do not appear to require collaboration and seem instead to be underpinned by an objectivist theory of learning such as behaviourism. i would have liked to see harasim consider whether collaborating with a computer program that simulates a person (rather than an avatar controlled by a person), could count as adequate or beneficial for learning under her ocl theory. chapter 8 purportedly features case studies of online non-formal education, but many of these appear to present institutions that offer formal education. the most interesting, to my mind, discusses the measures taken by the international labour organization to meet the needs and preferences of a diverse student base, some of whom had serious issues with internet access. the chapter ends by referring to a large-scale study in which faculty noted some barriers with regard to implementing online learning that could be alleviated at an institutional level. it would have been good to see a more detailed discussion of these issues. harasim emphasises that a theory of learning is based on empirical evidence, and says that ocl theory is based on decades of research and practice from around the world (p. 81); but she does not cite specific empirical studies to support her theory. she does suggest that, compared with earlier theories, “new models of learning are based less on clinical experiment and are more field-oriented” (p. 170), thus supporting my impression that her ocl theory is based on her own (considerable) teaching experience, experimentation and scholarship, and networking with other practitioners. despite at times addressing education practitioners, the book lacks sufficient ‘how to’ guidance for this audience, and is too introductory for researchers. however, it clearly states its intention to be a textbook for education and communication students, and especially educational technology students; and i would recommend it as such. there is a helpful glossary and extensive index, and the smattering of diagrams provides clear and useful overviews of concepts, theories, and states of affairs. each chapter in the body of the book is clearly laid out, from the listing of topics covered in each chapter, through reintroducing key ideas from previous chapters in the context of the new chapter, to the summary of the chapter’s main points at the end. these techniques enable each chapter to be read as a stand-alone piece, which is helpful when assigning chapters as course readings (although if the book is read comprehensively, the repetition can start to grate). finally, the hardcopy uses a small, closely-spaced font that is tiring to read, so interested readers may prefer the e-book version. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(2) 43 book review meaningful learning with technology pinelopi zaka university of canterbury howland, j. l., jonassen, d., & marra r. m. (2012). meaningful learning with technology (4th ed.). columbus, oh: merrill/prentice-hall (pp. xv, 292). despite the growth of the use of information and communication technologies by educational providers around the world and the potential of digital technologies to revolutionise education in the 21st century, icts in the classroom are often used as a way to sustain traditional teaching and learning. with the increased availability of digital devices, open source and easily accessible online tools, it becomes critical to approach the use of new technologies in the classroom from a pedagogical, rather than a technical point of view. in new zealand in particular, the need for teachers’ professional development regarding the pedagogically sound use of technologies in the classroom is even greater with the rollout of ultra fast broadband in schools, which is expected to further encourage the uptake of technology-enhanced teaching and learning with online or blended approaches. meaningful learning with technology has a promising title that directly conveys the book’s focus on the use of technology in the classroom—not as an end in itself, but as a way to promote meaningful learning for students—and it builds the reader’s expectations for a rewarding reading experience. underpinned by constructivist learning theory, the book discusses, in 10 coherently written and structured chapters, the role of technology in fostering meaningful learning through a range of processes. in the preface, the authors provide a comprehensive background on the book’s epistemological underpinnings. meaningful learning is directly linked to knowledge construction, and the need to challenge traditional ideas about education and schooling is discussed briefly. the authors indicate that “[u]sing technologies to engage meaningful learning assumes that our conceptions of education will change, that schools or classrooms (at least those that use technologies in the way that we describe) will rethink the educational process” (p.xii). the main purpose of the book, which is communicated clearly, is to encourage its readers (mainly professionals in school contexts) to change their traditional ideas of education and to understand how technologies can “catalyze that change and support it if it comes” (p.xii). the authors explain briefly how traditional teacher and student roles are challenged, preparing the reader for the conceptual change the book is aiming for. chapter 1 provides a more detailed description of the characteristics of meaningful learning, including active, constructive, collaborative, authentic, and intentional learning. these characteristics are used in the following chapters as a basis to assess meaningful learning through a range of learning processes. the differences between learning from and learning with technology are emphasised, resolving any misconceptions about the role of technology, which is often overstated. the authors acknowledge the potential of ict to support knowledge construction, access to information, authentic, social, and reflective learning. they present the international society for technology in education book reviews 44 (iste), national education technology standards (nets), and the elements of the 21st century skills framework, which were developed to help teachers and other educational stakeholders to enable and assess meaningful learning. in discussing the effectiveness of another framework to assess teaching and learning with technology (the technological pedagogical content knowledge [tpack] model), the authors argue that teaching with technology is another pedagogical approach. on that basis, the authors question whether technological knowledge and pedagogical knowledge should be considered to be two different dimensions. they introduce the ‘learning knowledge’ dimension, explaining that knowledge of what and how students should learn is “the most important factor in deciding what and how you should teach” (p.16). this assumption, which underpins this book, is identified as one of the major differences between this and other books that focus on teaching with technology. chapters 2 to 10 focus on specific learning processes that can be enhanced by using technologies to foster meaningful learning. in particular, the authors describe how technologies can enhance learning through inquiring, experimenting, designing, communicating, community building and collaborating, writing, modelling, and visualising, as well as the role of technology in assessing meaningful learning. the skills that students develop throughout these learning processes with the use of technologies have a central role in each chapter. a wide range of ict tools are introduced and enriched with examples of implementation in primary and secondary classrooms. where relevant, the authors refer to implications of the use of several technologies, further stimulating readers’ reflection on the roles–responsibilities of teachers and students. at the end of each of these chapters there is a list of specific net standards and 21st century skills that can be engaged by the suggested activities. each chapter concludes with a set of questions that enhance the reader’s reflection on the role of the teachers and the implications and effective implementation of technology to enhance specific processes related to meaningful learning. between chapters 2 to 10, i found chapters 5 and 6 very useful and timely, as they explore the social aspects of learning with technology. teachers’ need for adequate professional development regarding the meaningful use of technologies to enhance communication, collaboration, and community building becomes critical at a time when access to web 2.0 tools and social software have changed the way people use the internet, providing increased opportunities for networked learning. in these chapters, the authors emphasise the reasons why technology-enhanced communication and collaboration in today’s schools is important, referring to students’ increased access and engagement with online communication in their everyday lives, and drawing on relevant research. however, the authors’ argument that “k–12 students are an informationinundated generation and are used to communication that is ubiquitous and instantaneous” (p. 92) should be taken cautiously depending on the context, given the differences in students’ access to technology across various countries (shewbridge, ikeda & schleicher, 2006). chapters 5 and 6 both provide examples of a wide range of technologies that can enhance communication and collaboration, especially web 2.0 tools (e.g., discussion boards, instant messaging tools, social presentation tools, podcasts, wikis, social networking tools, online community websites) that can enhance exchange of ideas, journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(2) 45 argumentation, community building, and connections beyond the school walls. the authors share best practices in using some of these tools in ways that enhance meaningful learning, based on relevant research, and provide examples from educational practice, with additional links for further reference. they provide a wide range of ideas for primary and secondary school class projects that use tools such as virtual field trips and multi-school projects through video conference, and collaborative writing with wikis. readers’ reflection on possible implications of online communication and collaboration is further stimulated through discussions on aspects such as licensing issues with content sharing, effective moderation of online discussions, online safety, and information accuracy. looking into the future in the concluding chapter, the authors emphasise the purpose of the book—to provide ways that can engage and support meaningful learning: we have offered examples of how to use technologies to engage meaningful learning. our purpose was not to show you how to use these technologies […]. our goal is that you generalize the ideas we present to your teaching and learning situations, rather than replicate the activity (p. 272). however, they often provide more detailed technical descriptions of the use of specific tools, perhaps in an effort to highlight the ease of use of these tools and to increase teachers’ confidence in using and managing new technologies. i found this at times unnecessary, since the technical use of icts is clearly beyond the scope of the book. the concluding chapter also prompts discussion on the exciting potential of new technologies to enhance community building and collaboration, not only among students, but also among teachers. it provides a list of criteria for meaningful use of technologies, as well as an appendix that includes rubrics to assess the characteristics of meaningful learning (active, constructive, intentional, authentic, and cooperative learning), further stimulating educators’ reflection and providing them with practical tools to plan, implement, and evaluate teaching practice. overall, i found that meaningful learning with technology can increase readers’ understanding of the ways technology can be used to engage and support meaningful learning. it also stimulates further reflection and discussion on the roles and responsibilities of teachers and students, as well as on the role of technology in various learning processes, actively engaging readers in construction of further knowledge individually or collaboratively. the book would be a valuable resource for in-service and pre-service teachers in the primary and secondary education sector if used to inform teachers’ planning, implementation and evaluation of use of technologies in their classes. most importantly, it would contribute to teachers’ capacity building regarding the use of technologies in the classroom, as well as conceptual change towards the role of education and schooling in the 21st century. references shewbridge, c., ikeda, m., & schleicher, a. (2006). are students ready for a technology-rich world?: what pisa studies tell us. paris: oecd. microsoft word jdl05maintext1word.doc journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 58 research reports introduction in mid-2004 the new zealand ministry of education announced the funding of five research projects under the telrf round one. the ministry’s request for proposals indicated that the goal of the first round of research was to establish the current context and future impact of tertiary e-learning on learners, teachers, and providers in new zealand. shortly after the ministry’s announcement, the journal editors asked project leaders if they would be prepared to submit a brief description of the nature of their project and the methodology being used within the research. we are pleased to be able to present accounts from two of those projects in this issue. determination of new zealand tertiary institution e-learning capability: an application of an e-learning maturity model stephen marshall university teaching development centre, victoria university of wellington wellington, new zealand rationale a significant challenge facing most tertiary institutions is identifying organisational strategic and operational priorities for investment in e-learning capability—in short, containing the rising cost of e-learning infrastructure while maximising the educational outcomes for students. this project is engaging in a detailed e-learning capability determination exercise over a number of new zealand tertiary education organisations (teos). this will assess their current strategic and operational capability for delivering and maintaining e-learning in an educationally effective but also organisationally effective manner. this process is intended to validate a framework for conducting such capability determinations and provide a documented standard methodology for determining e-learning strengths and weaknesses institutionally and by sector. use of such a framework and the underlying e-learning maturity model represents a number of significant opportunities for new zealand: 1. firstly, an e-learning process improvement model could provide a road map for higher education institutions looking to improve their e-learning processes. it is clear that a series of signposts or a map that might guide institutional planners in areas of resource allocation and staff and student support has some merit. 2. an accepted framework might also provide academics with the necessary means to encourage greater institutional involvement. the advantage of the journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 59 proposed model is that it presents a high enough overview that it can be usefully understood without a need to examine detailed reports and metrics or be familiar with an extensive pedagogical and technological research literature. 3. support for institutional planning might be enhanced by an institution or unit’s ability to benchmark its current capability, to identify and prioritize necessary improvements in its current practices. the model allows for different technical platforms, organizational models, and pedagogical beliefs. perhaps most importantly, like the software process improvement approaches on which the model is based, this project might form the basis for an ongoing discussion within the e-learning community with a view to identifying the key practices, heuristics, or activities necessary for achieving improvements in e-learning activities. context large sums of money are being invested in expensive systems such as those provided by blackboard (http://www.blackboard.com) which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to license and deploy. despite this investment, uncertainty remains over whether the investment is resulting in improved learning outcomes for students (conole, oliver, & harvey, 2000; taylor 2001). this problem was noted in the new zealand government–funded “highways and pathways” document: in its research to date, the advisory group has found very little evidence of evaluation of strategies that might inform new zealand’s strategic vision [on e-learning]. (e-learning advisory group, 2002, p. 19) more fundamentally, concerns remain among many teachers about the validity and quality of learning possible through on-line provision. these concerns are reinforced by the lack of agreed standards for academic quality and resource development. (e-learning advisory group, 2002, p. 11) in an attempt to move from an area characterised by individual heroics and unsustainable projects driven by passionate teachers, there have been numerous attempts to document “best practice” such as chickering’s seven principles (chickering & ehrmann, 1996), the work of the national learning infrastructure initiative (hagner, 2001), and the benchmarks created for the institute for higher education policy (2000). these heuristics have been complemented by a development of technical standards such as the shareable content object reference model (department of defense, 2001) and the work of the ims global learning consortium (2003). a weakness with these approaches is the focus on the outcomes of individual initiatives rather than a deeper analysis of the institutional context. the problem is the need for a more holistic approach with a focus on best systems rather than on individual practices (hagner, 2001). much of the published e-learning literature has resulted in recommendations for institutions, but identifying limitations with current institutional e-learning practices in an efficient and detailed way remains challenging. such an understanding is needed for institutions to incrementally improve organisational e-learning capability (laurillard, 1997), particularly as institutions will usually need to choose journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 60 from the range of possible areas needing improvement, those that result in the greatest benefits for students and for the institution as a whole. the challenge facing institutions engaged in e-learning is similar to that which faces organisations developing complex software systems and which resulted in the development of process improvement models such as the capability maturity model (paulk, curtis, chrissis, & weber, 1993) and spice (software process improvement and capability determination) (el emam, drouin, & melo, 1998; spice, n.d.). the similarities have led us to apply the same approaches used in the development of the software process improvement models to the development of a potential e-learning process improvement model or emm (marshall & mitchell, 2002; 2003; 2004). the development of the cmm and spice models resulted from extensive consultation and workshopping industry practitioners, to identify the practices that resulted in high-quality software development. these processes were validated and tested extensively through additional pilots and evaluations (el emam, drouin, & melo, 1998). in the case of spice, this work resulted in a model identifying five main areas or process categories; these are used to organise a collection of processes and the practices that contribute to the effective performance of individual processes. table 1 shows the development of related categories for elearning, which are presented elsewhere (marshall & mitchell, 2002; 2003). table 1 emm process categories process category brief description learning processes that directly impact on pedagogical aspects of e-learning development processes surrounding the creation and maintenance of e-learning resources coordination processes surrounding the oversight and management of e-learning evaluation processes surrounding the evaluation and quality control of e-learning through its entire lifecycle organisation processes associated with institutional planning and management the model rates performance of each of the process categories at six levels similar to that used in spice (see table 2 on the following page) and generates an overview of organizational e-learning performance that potentially can inform strategic and operational decisionmaking by management (marshall & mitchell, 2004). journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 61 table 2 levels of process capability e-learning maturity model: levels level focus 5: optimising continual improvement in all aspects of the e-learning process 4: managed ensuring the quality of both the e-learning resources and student learning outcomes 3: defined defined process for development and support of e-learning 2: planned clear and measurable objectives for e-learning projects 1: initial ad-hoc processes 0: not performed not done at all the expectation from the experience of software maturity models (sei, 2004) is that most, if not all, organisations will perform poorly under this model over the majority of areas assessed. this is consistent with the widely held perception that much work remains to be done to improve the quality and effectiveness of e-learning both nationally and internationally. methodology the project is intended to have the following outcomes: 1. a validated model and expanded set of process categories identified through examination of existing e-learning projects in the participating institutions which can form the basis of ongoing research, development, and examination of institutional e-learning capability. 2. a detailed evaluation of e-learning process capability for each participating institution which could be used to guide internal consideration of its e-learning capability. 3. a summary of e-learning capability across all participating institutions which would provide an initial overview of capability and relative performance on a sector-wide basis (all institutions would be anonymously reported on), suitable for publishing, peer review, and for informing strategic planning at both institutional and sector-wide levels. as we already have a theoretical model, this is being used as the basis of the work. it is important to emphasize that the individual institution reports are confidential and are only going to be reported publicly in a summary form. the intention is to apply the model methodology outlined above and determine whether the theoretical design is both practical and useful, thus validating the approach. the real output is the confidence that the outcomes will provide institutions choosing to use the model to inform their own strategic and operational management of e-learning. journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 62 in order to achieve these outcomes in the limited time available, the project was broken down into three phases: phase 1 (july 2004 to august 2004) • distribution of e-learning processcapability model to interested institutions for consultation and final agreement to participate in project. • development of detailed programme for evidence collection and visits to participating institutions in e-learning process-capability study. phase 2 (september 2004 to january 2005) • collection of evidence of e-learning process-capability from participants. • evaluation of e-learning processcapability evidence collection process. • redevelopment of e-learning processcapability model to reflect feedback and evidence collected. phase 3 (february 2005 to march 2005) • dissemination of validated e-learning process capability model and selfassessment methodology to all new zealand teos. • reporting project outcomes to ministry. a total of twenty-one organisations have been approached to participate in the study. it is expected that detailed reports will be produced for between five and ten of these, covering a range of institutions from small rural polytechnics to wänanga and large urban universities. references chickering, a., & ehrmann, s. (1996). implementing the seven principles: technology as lever. aahe bulletin, october, 3–6. conole, g., oliver, m., & harvey, j. (2000). toolkits as an approach to evaluating and using learning material. proceedings of the seventeenth annual conference of the australasian society for computers in learning in tertiary education, southern cross university, coffs harbour, australia. e-learning advisory group. (2002). highways and pathways: exploring new zealand’s e-learning opportunities. report of the e-learning advisory group, march 2002. el emam, k., drouin, j.-n., & melo, w. (eds.) (1998). spice: the theory and practice of software process improvement and capability determination. los alamitos, california: ieee computer society press. hagner, p. r. (2001). interesting practices and best systems in faculty engagement and support. paper presented at the national learning infrastructure initiative focus session, seattle, washington. ims. (2003). ims global learning consortium. retrieved august 20, 2003, from http://www.imsproject.org institute for higher education policy. (2000). quality on the line: benchmarks for success in internet-based distance education. retrieved august 20, 2003, from http://www.ihep. com/pubs/pdf/quality.pdf laurillard, d. (1997). a systems model of individual learning applied to organisational learning and the he system. paper presented at the applying systems thinking to higher education conference, the open university, milton keynes, united kingdom, july 12, 1997. marshall, s., & mitchell, g. (2002). an e-learning maturity model? in a. williamson, k. gunn, a. young, & t. clear (eds.), proceedings of the nineteenth annual conference of the australian society for computers in learning in tertiary education. auckland, new zealand: australian society for computers in learning in tertiary education. retrieved from http://docushare.unitec.ac.nz/ dscgi/ds.py/get/file-231/173.pdf marshall, s., & mitchell, g. (2003). potential indicators of e-learning process capability. in proceedings of educause in australasia 2003. adelaide: educause. marshall, s., & mitchell, g. (2004). applying spice to e-learning: an e-learning journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 63 maturity model? paper presented at the sixth australasian computing education conference (ace2004), dunedin, new zealand, january 2004. in r. lister, & a. young (eds.), conferences in research and practice in information technology, vol. 30. paulk, m., curtis, b. chrissis, b., & weber, c. v. (1993). capability maturity model: version 1.1. ieee software 10(4), 18–27. sei. (2004). process maturity profile: software cmm 2004 mid-year update. pittsburgh, pennsylvania: software engineering institute, carnegie mellon university. retrieved november 19, 2004, from http://www.sei.cmu.edu/sema/pdf/swcmm/2004aug.pdf spice. (n.d.). software process assessment version 1.00. retrieved december 18, 2002, from http://www.sqi.gu.edu.au/spice/ taylor, j. (n.d.). twenty-nine steps to heaven? strategies for transforming university teaching and learning using multimedia and educational technology. milton keynes, uk: the open university knowledge network. retrieved july 18, 2005, from http://kn.open.ac.uk/public/document. cfm?documentid=3027 u.s. department of defense. (2001). sharable content object model: reference model 1.1. retrieved august 20, 2003, from http://www.adlnet.org/index.cfm? fuseaction=scormabt stephen marshall is the project director for the ecdf project “determination of new zealand tertiary institution on e-learning capability: an application of an e-learning maturity model.” marshall is a senior lecturer in educational technologies and currently acting director of the university teaching development centre at victoria university of wellington. research in progress: learning from adopters and resisters of e-learning in new zealand polytechnics and institutes of technology hugh barr, stephen bright, john clayton, stephen cox, beverley gower, david mitchell waikato institute of technology hamilton, new zealand introduction the exponential growth of e-learning practices in higher education has resulted in an increasing interest in the ways in which faculty members in tertiary institutions perceive e-learning and the ways in which they apply e-learning in their courses. faculty who might be described as “innovators” or “early adopters” have generally embraced e-learning enthusiastically; other faculty remain disengaged or disinterested. disengagement may be due to faculty concerns about access to technology, software, and networks or it may stem from concerns about time allocations and staff support. disinterest may be due to a perceived lack of relevance of e-learning strategies to particular courses, or it may simply reflect faculty members’ dispositions to change, innovation, and adoption. the project briefly described in this paper seeks to determine the causes of disengagement and disinterest in the adoption of e-learning approaches among teaching faculty. an historical overview of flexible learni�g in new zealand from 1990 to the present ideas, policy, and practice why an historical overview of flexible learning? the period discussed is brief and recent, just over a decade, but from the rnid-1980s new zealand education has undergone rapid political and institutional change. through that same period flexible learning has gained currency, providing a loose unity for a cluster of concepts, most of them in use, worded differently but already familiar to distance educators. as happens with such a phrase, new demands have been made on its underlying concepts, and they have become refined and extended as debate has posed questions about their current function and relevance. this overview reports on how various educational ideas, systems, and practices have interacted with each other­ flexible learning, public policy, and the response of new zealand institutions. the flexible learning paradigm the distance education association of new zealand (deanz), through its 1995 annual conference report and articles in the journal of distance learning, is a major source for discovering how flexible learning has don bewley massey university p almerston north, new zealand become established in the language and practice of new zealand educators. the latter have become familiar with terms such as "distance," "open," "lifelong," "recurrent," and "continuing" being used as adjectives for "education," "training," or "learning." they are familiar too with creating and supporting opportunities for out-of-the-classroom learners to use various technologies that range from designer print materials to the latest communication electronics. to deanz reports of what constitutes flexible learning and how it is practised can be added accounts of political encouragement of its key features and its implementation, both in well-established learning institutions (whether committed to distance learning or not) and in new agencies more narrowly focused on particular aspects of flexible delivery. both the 1995 deanz conference proceedings and the journal of distance learning's second issue published bruce king's keynote address, "life, learning and flexible delivery" (1996a, 1996b ). king explained how this concept had been evolving recently in australia as a further challenge to traditionalism in teaching, and he urged conference participants to adopt its fresh perspective. the conference's subthemes journal of distance leaming, vo!s, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 5 (represented by three dozen local papers )--,managing, orgamzmg, and developing; technology that enhances learning; and serving indigenous peoples-suggest that some facets of the term were already under scrutiny. king (1996a) lists quite comprehensively from his australian sources various characteristics of flexible learning. five years later its further development in australia was reviewed in the journal of distance learning (archee & saunders, 2001). summarised and short-listed for the new zealand context, the characteristics identified by king were: • education as a lifelong activity; • flexibility in entry i exit and programme requirements, and in alternative modes of delivery; • learner control of learning procedures; • learning technologies (appropriate for learner and instruction); • learner support systems: access to course information, guidance, services, and resources; • flexible assessment processes, standards, and quality control. king (1996a) had some reservations. he limited flexibility, perhaps unnecessarily, to delivery, and he wondered whether teachers might feel their professional authority was threatened by "learner­ oriented flexible learning." he recognised that individual learning choices succumb to criteria demanded by commerce or professions from teaching agencies as sponsoring clients, and he regretted that financial stringency affects student choices, teaching resources, and criteria of quality. some existing features of flexible learning had only to be sustained and continued in their ongoing development; others have needed more imaginative reconsideration of established practices. so, n�arly a decade after king's (1996a) presentation, what worthwhile progress has been made in new zealand? to answer we must look at how dynamic the new zealand educational context has been, and then assess changes in learning style. government's changing role in education the role of government in new zealand education has changed markedly since the mid-1980s, as snook outlined recently and with some passion in his chapter on ethics and politics (2003). for a half-century education was largely non-party-political. the social philosophy informing it had been characterised by labour in the late 1930s. it was adhered to by successive post-world war ii governments, which relied on hands-off mechanisms of a department of education led by a largely autonomous director-general, a university grants committee (ugc), a national council of adult education (ncae), and similar agencies able to fend off direct cabinet intervention in education affairs. meanwhile party manifestos all uttered similar sentiments. from the mid-1980s, however, both major political parties have markedly differentiated their education policies, resulting in radical changes to the infrastructure of new zealand education. an education ministry, more directly answerable to cabinet, replaced the department of education. schools were transformed by "tomorrow's journal of distance learning, vol 8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 6 schools," ostensibly democratising their management. the abolition of rpost quasi non-governmental organisations (qua'ngos) removed ncae (dakin, 1988) and opened the way for the eventual abolition of the ugc. education at the tertiary level, having emerged relatively unscathed from the worldwide turmoil of participatory democracy in the 1960s, was confronted by economics-based political ideologies; that inter alia subverted the practice of largely subsidised post-secondary fees, challenged the accumulation of government-provided resources, and reconstructed the allocation of research funding, moves summarised as "consumer-driven," "user pays," and "market-oriented." these new policies were shared across much of the political spectrum. ironically-and demanding substantially greater cost­ there was a concurrent political drive for larger participation in post­ secondary education, more widely across the socioeconomic spectrum, to include more maori and pacific island representation, and to ensure that retraining and upskilling were readily available throughout the economy. most recently the new zealand government's response to the rapidity of change in information and communication technologies (ict) has included a commission on elearning, chaired by a distinguished tertiary distance educator but reviewing across the entire educational spectrum. at the tertiary level, a succession of policy reviews, notably an education strategy 2002-2007 (ministry of education, 2002) and the reports of an advisory committee have led to a tertiary education commission whose role it is to manage the enti±e sector of universities, polytechnics, and some private tertiary establishments. these moves are to help implement the government's goal of a "knowledge society," to enablj new zealand to recognise its effectiveness in applied sciences, identify role models among its intellectual achievers, attract new zealand scholars overseas back home, and create a more effective knowledge-based economy. the government has also kept a closer watch on educational practice (french, 1998). in the name of quality control; an educational review office assesses schools and the new zealand qualifications authority (nzqa) scrutinises the curricula and staffing of each new educational venture, whether programme or agency, public or private, particularly those which proliferate degrees. meanwhile the vice­ chancellors' committee, although still claiming autonomy, has had to comply with tight ministerial requirements and pressures (coupled with stringent budgeting) to put the intentions and achievements of each tertiary institution immediately into the public arena where they can be challenged, often by competing non-university agencies. their future autonomy will depend on how the tertiary education commission resets the guidelines. to respond to these changes, educators have had to raise questions about their own professional attitudes and practices. flexible learning, especially its under­ lying concepts, has suggested some queries · and has guided some of the response (higgins, 1998). journal of distance learning, vol 8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 7 flexible zealand learning: new interpretation certain features of king's (1996a) programme for flexible learnillg can be characterised as already well developed in new zealand. others were at best in prototype, awaiting imagination and impetus, while none was entirely new. 1. education as a lifelong activity. the concept of lifelong learnillg-pre-school, through school, formal post-secondary university and polytechnic programmes, and recurring thereafter for vocational or personal reasons-has long had a significant place in new zealand education. schools have acknowledged that their work with children is only part of education, and some have provided for returnillg adults, especially so at the correspondence school. beyond school, post-secondary pre­ service training no longer fulfils the changing requirements of careers. there is evident need for renewed educational opportunities for many men and women to retrieve chances missed at school, for others to reconstruct a life that has gone awry or to disclose untapped talents, or for vocational purposes to undertake further education-second­ chance, upgrading, re-skilling for fresh tasks or career changes-but as adult learners. once the first phase of formal education has been completed, flexibility thereafter becomes a necessary, not merely an attractive, feature. for the half-century preceding this overview period through the national council of adult education, voluntary agencies such as wea, the extension/ continuing education departments of universities, and the regional community colleges of the 1970s and 1980s, adults have increasingly returned to education and many have made it a vital component of their lifestyle. there have been increasing pressures to learn, with industry, business, and the professions being, perceived as major clients of education. however, even without such pressure (and largely without govern­ ment finance), cohorts of learners, parents, multicultural groups, and numerous others tum to continuing learning to suit their particular concerns and lifestyles. among them, the elderly, retired from careers, have established their own modes of learning, often interdependently sharing their own accumulated knowledge. this can be seen in organisations such as universities of the third age (u3as), seniornet, and probus, which support older learners' particular interests, schedules, and resources (social advisory council, 1984). 2. flexibility in entry/exit and programme requirements, and in alternative modes of delivery. king (1996a) acknowledged that considerable flexibility had already been achieved by distance educators-a point as valid in new zealand as in his australian experience-but reminded his audience of room for further progress. entry requirements, rarely stringent after age twenty-one even at new zealand universities, have long been flexible. where prior formal credit was required, a recent beneficial influence of nzqa has been to encourage that prior learnmg be taken into account so that duplication (and student frustration) can be avoided. however, at many institutions nzqa was preaching to the converted and its own standards sometimes seemed inflexible. similarly some qualifications in the past have permitted students to track through a journal of distance learning, vol 8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 8 common programme, exiting at certificate or diploma or degree level, according to their wish. what 1 has improved is scope to resume later and trade-in a lower for a higher qualification without penalty. programme require­ ments have perhaps diversified toward a smorgasbord of credits, including those from a variety of sources. the issue becomes whether a particular institution can validate and approve a student's self-constructed curriculum, while retaining a principled educational rationale for that particular array of courses. fortunately prior guidance has become more readily available to explain where infinite flexibility ceases, as well as where someone's innovative programme deserves approval. however, where rigorous entry requirements were observed, every qualification was long-haul, credit structures left interim credit unrecognised and cross-credit was sparse, and classroom and laboratory attendance was unmitigated, there remained barriers, even though distance education agencies had challenged and often undermined them. open education became a common mantra from the late 1960s for easing some barriers. many barriers still remain, but in universities, polytechnics, and wananga they have become more negotiable; alternative tracks have multiplied and rigid academic ortho­ doxies are treated with suspicion. 3. learner control of learning procedures. in recent years, many institutions have opened their policymaking bodies to more student participation, and student views have fed back into the organisation of teaching and learning. however the differences achieved are surprisingly unremarkable and significant questions ' remain to be asked. has enough diversity in delivery mode and programme format been created to suit a wide enough range of learners' situations? have there been enough opportunities to reach out to hitherto disadvantaged groups in ways that have enabled their effective participation? can the conventional institution-oriented strategy (i.e., recognise a deficiency then provide) be supplemented by one where actual and prospective learners articulate what they need, and institutions follow? new zealand faces challenges that are qualitatively different from their trans­ tasman neighbours'. some of the cultural changes among traditional educators in the traditional schools in both countries are no doubt similar, but new zealand education is confronted by its indigenous maori culture, where there is still much to discover (amaru, rae, & shadbolt, 1995). new zealand has to devise learning styles and learning choices that enable maori to conserve and contribute the values of their heritage culture, but also to integrate that culture with pakeha-derived educational institutions that give new zealanders, whatever their ethnicity, access to a worldwide knowledge culture. whether or not the routes that maori follow will also guide immigrant pacific island families remains speculative; so too is whether any further flexibility is required for the variety of asian immigrants. so far, opportunities for the latter have focused largely on language competency. these issues, although partly shared by australia, were left aside by king (1996a, 1996b ). and where do the wishes not of collectives of enrolled students nor of ethnic communities but of individuals fit in? how much notice can be taken of the personal needs of any particular aspirant learner? can such a person journal of distance learning, vols, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 9 :influence how they are to learn, and will that learnilp.g be publicly recognised? 4. learning technologies (appropriate for learner and instruction). computer­ based :information and communication technologies (ict) have made a quantum leap forward with regard to offer:ing access to knowledge. until the early 1980s, computing seemed an esoteric science. then much wider :interest was aroused. diverse applications, :includ:ing "for education," were envisaged by creators of software, but their models were often traditional :instructional methodologies. very few possessed until recently (with:in the period under review) what one might call educator imag:ination, sensibility about educa­ tional goals and leam:ing processes. that number has grown rapidly as professional educators become adept with the possibilities that new communication technologies offer them (kinshuk, patel, oppermann, & russell, 2001), develop apt materials, and share them promptly (zepke, 1997)-as recent deanz conferences clearly demonstrate and will be further advanced by the jo:int deanz­ commonwealth of leam:ing conference to be held :in new zealand :in 2004. equipment and know-how, formerly available only at teaching :institutions, are now widely accessible and often are owned by individual learners able to initiate their own eleam:ing operations. they expect to f:ind :instruction online, websites dedicated to their interests, "chat" facilities for them and their fellow students, assignment model answers reached by search engines (monitored and traceable by astute computer-literate teachers), and, at more advanced stages, their research materials accessible via the internet from major libraries to their home computer. 5. leamer support systems. most new zealan4 distance educators argue that support systems are as important as production and delivery systems, and for years have created various means of interaction with tutors, local :institutes, and fellow students (cull & walker, 1995; white, 1997). when distance students become independent of the formal structures of traditional schooling­ classrooms, and classes with teachers in immediate authority-there can be a variety of responses. some feel free to seek their own order, some feel deprived of guidance, some are satisfied with occasional provision, most want to feel that they have access to human help if and when they need it, all as much emotional as practical responses (mclachlan-smith, 1998). flexible leam:ing means support tasks are both more and less difficult. diverse delivery systems and schedules :increase logistic problems of when and how contact can be made; however, new communication technologies afford immediacy and accessibility and their own capabilities of :interaction. 6. access to course . information, guidance, services, and resources. the extension of the clientele for tertiary education that has occurred as polytechnics :in particular have burgeoned has meant that the numbers enrolling from sectors of society where tertiary education has been unfamiliar have substantially increased. however for this social change to be effective, newcomers must have adequate foreknowledge of what they are undertaking and receive continuing guidance for their enterprise to be journal of distance learning, vol 8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 10 sustained. information in earlier years may have suited those with a long­ standing expectation of tettiary opportunities. it had needed supplemen­ tation when enrolments increased among "second-chance" students. now a panoply of advertising, marketing, information booklets, websites, and special telephone numbers ensures outreach beyond tertiary education's traditional social groups. of course, the same devices also serve competition among institutions, especially when they add new programmes that themselves challenge established sources of qualifications. 7. flexible assessment processes, standards, and quality control. in some ways this feature of flexible learning extends the issues about learner control raised above. who sets the learner's curriculum, what should be learned, in what sequence, how and by whom assessed, and by what standards formally acknowledged? there is consequent ambivalence. on the one hand, more response is made to learners' views about what satisfies and gratifies their own educational needs. on the other hand, to achieve confidence in new and rapidly expanding institutions offering innovative courses in unconventional ways (and expending public funds to do so), more stringent quality control measures are required (mcilroy, 1997). one of king's (1996a, 1996b) reservations relates to how individual learning choices may succumb to demands put on the teaching institutions by their sponsoring clients­ industry, commerce, various professions, and government itself-for so-called objective standards to be applied in place of professional academic judgements and public repute that governed traditional modes of assessment. institutional responses to flexible learning at the level of individual institutions in new zealand, whether universities, polytechnics/institutes of technology, private post-secondary institutes, various nonformal organisations, professional associations, and others who claim to be stakeholders in the country's educational enterprise, most have responded in their own ways to the general notion of flexible learning and its various characteristics. in the meantime they have had to ensure compliance with the requirements and strategies of central government. a factor which king (1996a) did not include, but which has influenced the positive response of the key distance learning institutions to flexible learning, is leadership. without naming those who have taken the idea forward, it should be noted that new leaders have recently been appointed at the correspondence school, the open polytechnic of new zealand, and massey university, and that other shifts of leadership are occurring elsewhere. during the 1990s polytechnics and private colleges continued to proliferate and universities expanded into outlying campuses. for a while, competition for funds, measured by course enrolments and research capability, dictated how institutions responded to government policy. competition may have energised growth more widely across sectors of society · that were previously under­ represented, but it caused ill will, duplication, and wasteful marketing. some universities, for example waikato, journal of distance learning, vol 8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 11 otago (higgins, 2000; rabel & higgins, 2001), and massey (prebble, 1998), have taken flexible learning to heart. in compliance mode, however, universities have trimmed uneconomic departments and reorganised management structures as demonstrable reform, consequently and perhaps less deliberately altering the balance among academic programmes. does the widespread substitution of asian for european languages signal sensitivity to new markets or covert decolonisation? among polytechnics, some grew in size and status while a few failed to cope, either disappearing or being absorbed by their rivals. many polytechnics and some private institutions were permitted to award degrees, some in already burgeoning disciplines like business, nursing studies, or design, or degrees in new fields such as alternative health. since the new century began, central government has called for reduced competition; educational institutions have answered accordingly with increased rationalisation, cooperation, integration, and mergers. if institutional progress toward those aspects of flexible learning that have been listed above as king's is assessed, the following generalisations might be made: 1. education as a lifelong activity. universities cater more and more for midlife, midcareer students; bachelor's and master's degrees are offered in many forms of distance, block-course, limited-attendance formats. few if any educational programmes confine themselves to school-leavers except some highly technical applied sciences, such as medicine, dentistry, and veterinary science, but even then the increased load for these specialists is shared by support staff for whom courses have multiplied in regional polytechnics. 2. flexibility in entry/exit and programme requirements, and in alternative modes of delivery. barriers have been much reduced for student entry and programmes are much more various, but it is especially university continuing education departments and the distance education enterprises across the educational spectrum, especially the open polytechnic, that have actively engaged in alternative delivery. 3. leamer control of learning procedures. many changes could be justified as flexible responses to what modem-minded students choose. student participation in governance has increased markedly at institutions, but there have been few if any attempts (except perhaps in universities of the third age) to emulate those european universities traditionally governed by students not teachers-although many of them are nowadays controlled by central government funding. all new zealand institutions have become self­ conscious about enrolments among maori and many have developed particular programmes at their behest. alongside them, maori educators-the whanau not the individual student has the initiative-have established independent programmes at various local te wananga o aotearoa with which collaboration is increasingly sought by other tertiary institutions. 4. learning technologies (appropriate for learner and instruction). the major institutions have all developed a computer culture, for research support, for administration, and eventually for teaching, while their students have journal of distance learning, vol 8, no 1, 2004 © distance education association of new zealand 12 become almost universally computer literate. no form of development has excited more interest and divkrsity among education institutions at all levels (stevens, 1995). their courses offer skills at a variety of levels for technical staff and users, software development and hardware engineering, applications in commercial and managerial situations, and wherever else new applications occur (campbell, yates & mcgee, 2001). educational administration depends widely on computers and generates information on websites with email and telephonic access. not so universally has the computer become a resource and . aid to teacillng and learning, but each institution's annual report is almost obliged to report substantial progress toward effective use of eleaming, the more so with the publication of a major government report on that topic. 5. leamer support systems: access to course information, guidance, services, and resources. previously established tertiary institutions budgeted as student information and support services their liaison officer with schools and a health service; otherwise students could seek access to senior staff for course advice. distance learning institutions knew more was ·needed, but the most prominent model, the regional offices and study centres of the uk open university, was hopelessly beyond new zealand budgets. nowadays newspapers happily report comparative expenditures by tertiary institutions on advertising, wondering how such millions can be justified. the correspondence school had a scatter of regional support officers, and its uniqueness, integration with the general school system, and high national reputation have continued to ensure that information about access is readily available. moreover individual care for its children's learning needs has been quintessential to its teacillng methodology. for massey university, a major resource has been the students themselves, organised as an extramural students society (exmss) capable of representing their interests in policy-making bodies, recruiting area communicators to advise fellow students, providing linkage between distressed students and staff, assisting students when they visit campus, and publisillng a newsletter slanted to students' interests. in the general competition for enrolments, research funding, and public goodwill, massey and all other new zealand universities have engaged in marketing strategies that break down barriers which may deter students. apart from diversifying the modes­ conventionally scheduled internal classes, extramural study, block course and weekends in series, franchised courses at regional polytechnics, and other organisation of delivery--expansion onto other campuses has brought access closer to home for many, especially metropolitan, students. among poly­ technics, the vigour of the open polytechnic in marketing its new (and long-established) products and in backing them with quality control (grote, 2000) has provided a pioneering stance. previously its student outreach services depended on the industrial and other organisations whom its courses served. diversifying its programme beyond the reach of those organisations has yielded fresh concepts of regional support (mccahan, 2000) and closer liaison with local polytechnics and some wananga. above all there has been the recognition, permeating published materials and evident in annual reports (the open polytechnic of new zealand, journal of distance learning, vol 8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 13 1994-2002), of the uniqueness of particular , learners, no longer simply classifiabl� by their courses but as individuals, toward whom flexibility in learning should be addressed. 6. flexible assessment processes, standards, and quality control. yet again, the principle of flexibility in assessment has been observed for many years: end-of-year examinations rarely now provide the sole criterion for educational success or failure; longitudinal assessment, sometimes entirely obviating examinations, is not as contentious as it was just three decades ago. however, sufficient public, professional, and academic conservatism persists to affect assessment at certain levels; the price of diversifying qualifications at certificate, diploma, and degree level remains in some instances that there be examinations, open to scrutiny by external assessors. but perhaps the price is simply the time it takes for old-fashioned concepts­ including the hoariest of them, the belief that a substantial proportion of failures is a criterion of high standards!-to fade as those graduates assessed differently prove their worth. meanwhile quality control as a distinctive operation has become more common, especially where an educational institution recognises that in many respects it is a large resource­ consuming (and resource-creating) entity liable to strict public scrutiny; notably both massey university (mcilroy, 1997) and the open polytechnic (grote, 2000) have adopted such mechanisms. where to next? undoubtedly there has been substantial and urgent response to the ideas expounded, some might say reiterated, by king (1996a, 1996b ). the response still continues; the tasks remain for further analysis and action. some impending issues have already been touched on, such as central government's encouragement for tertiary ' institutions to coordinate and rationalise activities that involve wasteful duplication. some other issues arising from competition will be reexamined by the newly appointed tertiary education commission. significant challenges are likely to arise from still headlong developments in information and communication technologies, raising for the individual such questions about knowledge as: how much must i remember? isn't it there in my pocket? we have mainly considered flexibility, particularly in the context of educational policy and implementation. should we be asking more about learning-when is it a process giving access to knowledge, or when is it a synonym for the knowledge achieved at the end of that process? when is it both process and product? missing from king's (1996a, 1996b) manifesto for flexible learning is an international dimension. he considers neither the export of learning (the product) nor its methodology (the process), although australia and new zealand are both involved in that business, whether at home with foreign students or abroad in aid schemes. nor is immigration and multiculturalism part of his agenda. new zealand education is as open to imported learners as it has ever been, and is now less restrictive about the cultural background of its immigrants. what role does flexible learning, especially in distance modes, have when many newcomers must improve their english and, less journal of distance learning, vol 8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 14 consciously perhaps, become aware of the cultural and educational dyna:qric of maoritanga? the language task is one to which technology makes an increasing contribution; the latter, cultural task remains a challenge to any and all flexible learning endeavours in new zealand. as we assess our progress with flexible learning and consider its ongoing challenges, those of us involved in education in new zealand must eventually ask what changes we should expect to our society now that our capacity for learning is markedly increased, and its opportunities are better and ·more widely distributed among our society's members. what fresh attitudes, behaviours, and values may ensue? what does emerging into a knowledge-driven society now demand of the imagination of professional educators? references amaru, l., rae, m., & shadbolt, p. (1995). tangata whenua in distance education: an emerging model for isolated maori secondary students in the correspondence school. journal of distance learning, 1(1), 12-23. archee, r., & saunders, s. (2001). converging modalities for distance education in professional communication: implica­ tions from flexible delivery. journal of distance learning, 6(1), 5-17. campbell, n., yates, r., & mcgee, c. (2001). making a "net" for the net. journal of distance learning, 6(1),18-25. cull, m., & walker, r. (1995). moments of truth: managing the face-to-face encounter in distance learning. journal of distance learning, 1(1), 24-31. dakin, j. c. (1988). focus for lifelong learning: the national council of adult education, 1938-1988. wellington, new zealand: nzcer & ncae. french, s. (1998). recent impacts of copyright law upon distance education. journal of distance learning, 4(1), 3-10. grote, b. (2000). quality assurance in tertiary education: a discussion of current developments and practices. j(jurnal of distance learning, 5(1), 5-17. higgins, a. h. (1998). winds of change and paradigm shifts: correspondence, distance and open learning. journal of distance learning, 4(1), 23-29. higgins, a. h. (2000). report: some outcomes of flexible learning at the university of otago, 1996-1998. journal of distance learning, 5(1), 39-47. king, b. (1996a). life, learning and flexible delivery. flexible learning: proceedings of the 1995 deanz annual conference, auckland, new zealand, 3-8. king, b. (1996b). life, learning and flexible delivery. journal of distance learning, 2(1), 3-13. kinshuk, patel, a., oppermann, r., & russell, d. (2001). role of human teacher in web­ based intelligent tutoring systems. journal of distance learning, 6(1), 26-35. mccahan, r. (2000). how can we help? supporting students in distance tertiary education: an evaluative study. journal of distance learning, 5(1), 27-38. mcilroy, a. (1997). a quality picture: perspectives on a distance learning programme. journal of distance learning, 3(1), 11-18. mclachlan-smith, c. (1998). designing for dialogue at a distance: reflections on how to create and maintain an effective teaching-learning relationship with students. journal of distance learning, 4(1), 11-22. ministry of education, new zealand. (2002). tertiary education strategy 2002/07. wellington, new zealand: author. the open polytechnic of new zealand. (1994-2002). annual reports. lower hutt, new zealand: author. prebble,. t. (1998). a strategy for flexible learning and teaching. unpublished internal planning document, massey university. journal of distance learning, vol 8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 15 rabel, r., & higgins, a. h. (2001). flexible learning for a large undergraduate history paper: implementation and outcomes. journal of distance learning, 6(1), 36-44. snook, i. (2003). the ethical teacher. palmerston north, new zealand: dunmore press. social advisory council, new zealand. (1984). the extra years: some implications for new zealand society of an ageing population. wellington, new zealand: author. stevens, k. (1995). geographic isolation and technological change: a new vision of teaching and learning in rural schools in new zealand. journal of distance learning, 1(1), 32-38. white, c. (1997). eliciting and analysing expectations of novice distance learners. journal of distance learning, 3(1), 2-10. zepke, n. (1997). narrative and constructivism in cyberspace: instruc­ tional design for distance delivery using hypertext on the internet. journal of distance learning, 3(1), 20-28. don bewley, professor emeritus, was director of extramural studies, masset; universih;, from 1967 to 1986, having previously taught courses on the history and philosophy of education, education in developing countries, and distance education. he helped found aspesa (now odlaa) and deanz, represented the new zealand universities on the national council of adult education (1985-1988), and was a frequent consultant on distance education (1981-1987) for unesco's apeid programme. since retirement in 1990, he researches eighteenth-century opera; and as a jp serves as a prison visiting justice. journal of distance learning, vol 8, no 1, 2004 ©distance education association of new zealand 16 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 17(1) 1 otagonet: one region’s model for virtual schooling keryn pratt, centre for distance education and learning technologies, university of otago college of education ken pullar, otagonet abstract virtual schools are increasingly common in new zealand and internationally as schools are challenged to meet the needs of their students. this article presents a description of the distance-learning model used by a group of schools in rural otago for the last decade. the leadership team and roles are described, and the funding model, which is based on reciprocity, is outlined. the most common teaching and learning practices are described, and support mechanisms identified. finally, a summary of the research conducted since otagonet’s inception is presented. this research shows that this model is generally effective for teachers and learners although, as is the case for other models of virtual school, a number of factors affect this. keywords: distance learning; virtual schools; online learning; online teaching; schools sector; secondary; virtual learning; virtual learning network; virtual teaching background schools are increasingly being challenged to rethink the nature of what they do (hipkins, 2004). they are being asked to address the needs of diverse students (alton-lee, 2003) to prepare them for further study in a range of topics, and for work. many of new zealand’s schools face difficulties in increasing the range of subjects available to their senior students. new zealand is a sparsely populated country with, on average, 15.0 people per square kilometre (mckinnon, 2012). because most people live in a small number of large cities, the rural areas are even more sparsely populated. but the population distribution means that new zealand, and particularly rural new zealand, has many small schools. these schools are unable to have specialist teachers in all subject areas, and this has restricted the range of subjects students can study, even before the advent of more recent challenges to provide for their students’ increasingly diverse needs. internationally, it is increasingly common for secondary students to be involved in distance learning. they might replace attending a traditional school (full time) or augment the classes available at their home school by studying at a distance, which is known as taking supplemental classes (archambault, 2011; barbour & plough, 2012; barbour & reeves, 2009; davis et al., 2007; davis & niederhauser, 2005; mupinga, 2005; watson, murin, vashaw, gemin, & rapp, 2012; wicks, 2010). wicks (2010) identified 10 dimensions to describe online programmes, highlighting four as being particularly important. the first of these is the comprehensiveness of the programme, which identifies whether students enrol in the online programme full time, or take the class to supplement those from another school. secondly, programmes also vary in their pratt,k., & pullar, k. 2 reach; for example, they may enrol students from across school districts, states, or countries. thirdly, the delivery mode of programmes also varies, because it involves asynchronous, synchronous or a combination of modes. most programmes in the united states use an asynchronous approach, while canadian programmes are more likely to involve synchronous elements (barbour & reeves, 2009). finally, programmes vary in terms of their type of instruction, which ranges from fully online to blended programmes, and includes elements of online and traditional face-to-face instruction. programmes which use blended instruction would not generally be considered to be distance courses, because participants do not meet the required element of being separated by space (inacol, 2011). in the united states, funding for students taking online courses varies from state to state. fulltime online programmes generally receive between 87% and 100% of the funding a traditional school would receive if that student enrolled with them (inacol, 2013). in a small number of states, funding for students taking supplemental courses also follows them (inacol, 2013) but in the majority, state funding is not available for these students (watson & gemin, 2009), although it is increasing (watson et al., 2012). research into distance education at this level has shown that students have varying levels of success (roblyer, freeman, donaldson, & maddox, 2007), but that it is generally as effective as other forms of teaching and learning (cavanaugh, 2001). it is now accepted as a “legitimate form of schooling in the 21st century” (archambault, 2011, p. 74). a number of factors affect students’ success and experience in these programmes, including factors related to the technology, the teacher, and the student (e.g., see archambault, 2011; barbour & plough, 2009; cavanaugh, 2001; ferdig, cavanaugh, dipietro, black, & dawson, 2009; kapitzke & prendergast, 2005). in new zealand, secondary schools have been augmenting their offerings with distance education provided through te aho o te kura pounamu (the correspondence school, commonly known as te kura) since 1928 (te kura, n.d.). while te kura provides online support and teaching materials, most of its lessons are delivered in a paper-based format, and information is mailed back and forth between the teacher and the student. in 2001, a group of schools in otago identified a need for alternative programmes because staff and students believed students achieved at a lower level in these courses, and enjoyed them less. in line with the literature on distance education, schools identified a need to offer their students supplemental distance programmes that involved higher levels of interactivity and the opportunity for greater relationships (downs & moller, 1999; searle & mandile, 2003; zhao, lei, yan, lai., & tan, 2005). the small numbers of students at many otago schools also meant that specialist teachers did not always have students to teach, which contributed to the difficulty of retaining these specialists within rural communities. after discussion, staff at these schools decided to use their specialist staff to teach their subjects to students in any of the participating schools, thus increasing the options available for students, and enabling staff to teach their specialist subjects. the distances involved meant teachers could not travel from school to school, so it was decided to use video conferencing, along with textand web-based resources, to deliver lessons. while they could have used a fully asynchronous model, staff believed this would retain many of the problems they faced with the print-based correspondence material they were currently using. although cantatech had used audio conferencing to offer distance education since 1994 (langley, 2003), otagonet was the original video-conference cluster in new zealand. the use of video conferencing alongside asynchronous delivery methods is now used throughout new zealand, and 13 active clusters, involving more than 200 schools, tertiary organisations, and private providers, are registered with the virtual learning network (vln) journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 17(1) 3 (http://www.vln.school.nz). these schools and other providers offer classes and extension work to each other’s students. at the time of otagonet’s inception, a number of examples of synchronous video conferencing to deliver lessons were identified (e.g., see bauck, 2001; branch 2001a, 2001b; downs & moller, 1999; salvati, 2001; searle & mandile, 2003). these models commonly involved teachers at one site delivering all or most classes each week to distance sites by video conference. this model, however, was unaffordable for the otagonet schools, resulting in their choice to use a combination of synchronous video conferencing and asynchronous methods. over time, the use of synchronous video conferencing appears to have become less common elsewhere, with webbased technologies taking its place. in addition to this unusual feature of otagonet, the funding and management model is different, as described below. the otagonet model the initial funding for otagonet was largely provided by the original schools and a local funding group, the community trust of otago. the ministry of education and telecom new zealand limited provided additional support. money from these groups was used to provide each school with the essential equipment (a television set, a document camera, and one video-conferencing camera/microphone system), which was housed in a room chosen by the school. as well as providing a room, some schools provided additional peripheral equipment such as a video player, and many of the teachers took their own laptop computers into the room to use in the videoconference session. by 2010, the range of equipment available in each room had increased, with many of the rooms now having additional equipment such as dvd players, and several schools now provide computers or laptops for students. in addition, all teachers have access to a laptop as a result of the digital horizons laptops for teachers scheme, funded by the ministry of education (see pratt, lai, trewern, concannon, & sutton, 2010), which they frequently use during their video-conference sessions. in its first year of offering classes, the otagonet cluster offered 11 courses to 60 students. this number has grown each year and, in 2012, 340 students from 15 schools took one or more of the 26 classes on offer. in addition, with the development of other video-conference networks within new zealand, the number of courses available has increased. while priority is given to students from schools within a cluster, students from other video-conference clusters are able to be involved if there are places left. this process is facilitated by the vln (http://www.vln.school.nz). as well as offering classes to students, the otagonet cluster uses the video-conferencing equipment to offer scholarship mentoring. they also use it to provide a support network for students with special needs and their teachers, and to facilitate formal and informal networks of teachers in these schools. two tertiary institutions are also using the video-conference network to provide opportunities for students in rural areas. previously only students in city schools could pay fees and take classes offered by two local polytechnics, but some of these courses are now available to rural students by way of otagonet. the video-conferencing system allows an unlimited number of remote sites to connect at one time, although how many do so depends largely on the video-conference experience of the teacher. the cameras are voice-activated, so the site where a person is talking is automatically shown. however, when video or computer presentations are shown on the monitor, students in the remote sites are generally not able to see their teacher or classmates at other sites. in most cases, class sizes are small (averaging 10 students) and the majority involve three or four sites, with some linking up to five sites. http://www.vln.school.nz/ pratt,k., & pullar, k. 4 most subjects taught within the otagonet cluster are at the senior secondary level. the courses taught each year depend on whether there are students wishing to take the class and the extent to which schools and teachers are willing to support the subject. over time the number of classes offered at lower levels of school has increased, particularly when individual schools have small numbers of students—these are often in areas such as languages, or for gifted and talented students. staffing teachers who deliver subjects by video conference (known as e-teachers) continue to be employed by their home school, and their video-conference class is incorporated into their teaching load. the e-teachers have varying levels of ict skills and experience and are supported by school coordinators. each school has a coordinator whose role is to work with the teachers and students to ensure that everything runs smoothly. in some cases these coordinators do more than provide an administrative role by working to support students with their course content in addition to providing pastoral support (barbour, davis, & wenmoth, 2013). in addition to the e-teachers and school coordinators, otagonet has four staff members. it has a full-time project leader or e-principal whose role includes leading, visioning, planning and managing projects; working with, encouraging, and mentoring existing and potential e-teachers, coordinators, and principals; and networking with other clusters. he is supported by a 0.2 fulltime equivalent (fte) e-dean, who supports the e-teachers and works with the project leader as part of the leadership team. the e-dean has a particular focus on ensuring the professional growth of e-teachers. the otagonet e-librarian (0.1 fte) provides a service for digital sources and other resources for the e-teachers, and helps to prepare digital resources. the final member of the team is the executive officer, who is responsible for the financial administration of otagonet. she is paid an honorarium rather than being funded on a fte basis. students do not pay for classes through otagonet, and neither do schools, which have already received the funding for that student. instead, they use a model of reciprocity in which they receive classes from, and deliver classes to, each other. each member school contributes 0.1 fte staffing, either by transferring staffing or through a unit or monetary equivalent, as well as delivering one subject. as a school’s involvement grows, such that large numbers of their students are receiving classes from other schools, they are encouraged to offer more subjects. otagonet has received some funding from the government, but this support is usually contestable, and available only for special projects. the funding for leadership and administration comes largely from school funding. the e-teachers and coordinators involved in otagonet receive support in a variety of ways, both from their home school and those involved in otagonet. initially, a video-conference training session was held for those who were going to be involved, and periodic training sessions, both formal and informal, have been ongoing. the teachers receive ongoing support from the leadership team, and attend an annual e-hui, which involves e-teachers and coordinators coming together over a 2-day period to share experiences and learn from one another. in addition, the ministry of education funding for special projects is usually available for professional development. the technical support for the project was initially provided by a teacher with technical expertise who was appointed by otagonet to act in this role. this teacher now provides technical support to a larger group of schools, and continues to provide some technical support to otagonet. dayto-day support, however, is provided within the schools and, to some extent, by the project leader. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 17(1) 5 although professional development and technical support were important, time was the critical support for many teachers. most principals recognised that the teachers involved in this project were going to require extra time while they became more familiar with this way of teaching; however, schools varied in how much time they allocated, and this affected how happy teachers were with their otagonet experience. in general, though, e-teachers get the same time allowance as they would for teaching any other class. while there is no formal policy within new zealand, participating schools agree to otagonet’s protocols that give teachers an appropriate time allowance. teaching approaches as identified previously, otagonet teachers are timetabled for one 50-minute video-conference session each week. classes start on the hour, irrespective of the start times of classes in their home schools. students are expected to be timetabled for their otagonet classes, and to be released from other classes for their video-conference session. teachers use a range of resources including traditional printed resources such as textbooks, and others such as workbooks, write-on workbooks, videos, and websites. they also use email and, in some cases, text messaging, to keep in contact with their students. teachers can also access a learning management system (moodle) and are now moving into a web 2.0 environment, where google apps is the central feature, and other tools are added as they are needed. teachers use these tools to varying degrees, and use is increasing over time. otagonet teachers and students are encouraged to attend two face-to-face day-long meetings in addition to the video-conferencing sessions. the first meeting is held near the start of the school year, in february, and the other in august. these days are a chance for teachers and students to meet each other and enhance their relationships. in addition, they provide opportunities to conduct practical assessments. over time, teachers have adopted a range of approaches to manage their otagonet classes. five general approaches are described here. it should be noted that most teachers use a combination of these approaches throughout the year, depending on the topic, the teacher, and the time of year. video conference only the 50-minute video conference is the only synchronous contact some teachers have with their students. video conference plus face-to-face in some cases, otagonet teachers take advantage of being within driving distance (e.g., 30 minutes) of their students, and augment or replace their scheduled video-conference sessions with face-to-face visits. video conference plus additional sessions several teachers augment their scheduled video-conference sessions with additional sessions. these are usually delivered to a subset of their students, such as individual students or students from only one school. they are often run on a question and answer basis, or are used to go over work with which students are struggling. these sessions may be offered regularly, or added as students need them. video conference to each off-site schools separately sometimes, when teachers are working with students from more than one distance school, they choose to split their scheduled session and deliver to each school separately. pratt,k., & pullar, k. 6 on-site students e-teachers have two approaches to working with those students from their own school who are scheduled to take their otagonet class. in some cases, students join the distance students in the video-conference class and are treated in the same way, with the teacher emailing work back and forth. in other cases, teachers prefer to teach the on-site students separately because they find that they tend to focus solely on the distance students during the weekly video conference, to the exclusion of their onsite students. evaluation of otagonet students’ participation in some form of virtual schooling has been increasing for some time (e.g., see barbour, 2011; barbour & reeves, 2009; cavanaugh, barbour, & clark 2009; watson, gemin, ryan, & wicks, 2009). however, research evaluating this model is less common (barbour, 2011). the research that has been conducted has been generally positive, finding that it is at least as effective as other forms of teaching and learning (e.g., bolstad & lin, 2009; cavanaugh, 2001). barbour (2011) cautioned, however, that the nature of the research being conducted, and of the students whose performance is being reported, is such that is not clear how effective this mode of learning is or whether it is suitable for all students. in particular, he noted that questions are being raised regarding the suitability of this form of learning for rural students. this raises questions regarding the choice of virtual schooling for the otagonet schools. questions regarding the potential effectiveness of this form of learning have been part of otagonet’s history. the community trust of otago, which provided part of the initial funding, did so on the proviso that research be conducted as the project developed. partly due to this requirement, and partly due to recognition that knowledge of what was happening elsewhere would be useful, researchers have been part of the otagonet development since discussions began regarding the form it would take. table 1 summarises this research. table 1 overview of otagonet-related research year focus methods key findings publications 2001–02 overall evaluation of implementation  staff interviews  student surveys and interviews  implementation took time  teachers and students needed to change their approach to teaching and learning  seen as more effective than alternatives lai & pratt, 2004; 2005; 2007; 2009 2004 effective teaching practices  teacher interviews and stimulated recall interviews  student surveys and interviews  previous experiences did not prepare teachers or students for this form of learning  professional development was critical  formed powerful communities of learners walsh-pasco, 2004 2009–10 student support  teacher surveys and interviews  student surveys and interviews  students with diverse skills and abilities could succeed  levels of support varied widely between schools  support appeared to be critical to student success pratt, 2011 pratt & trewern, 2011; pratt, pullar & trewern, 2011 2009–11 effectiveness  grade comparison  most students performed as well or better in their online classes journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 17(1) 7 as this table indicates, the initial research project began in 2001, when discussions began regarding the direction otagonet should take. despite some early setbacks, after 3 years the otagonet model was seen by staff and students as being a more effective model of teaching and learning than the alternatives. students did, however, identify a desire for additional contact time with their teachers. research conducted in 2009 and 2010 focused on the experience of students involved in learning through otagonet, and through other distance delivery modes and vocational schemes. at this time otagonet was in its ninth year of delivering classes using this model, and many students identified this way of learning as simply what was expected in their school. because between 26% and 90% of students at each of the 10 schools were involved in some form of learning other than their traditional face-to-face classes, this is perhaps not surprising. in addition, this research compared students who chose to take otagonet classes with those who had not, based on their self-rated independence, or on their study skills (as measured by the learning and study skills inventory (lassi)—high school version (weinstein & palmer, 1990), finding no significant difference (pratt, 2010). while previous research (e.g., barbour, 2011; barbour & reeves, 2009) seems to suggest that in order to succeed at virtual schooling students needed to be highly motivated and independent learners, this did not seem to be the case with this group of students. while identifying these skills as important, otagonet students with varying levels of academic ability, motivation, and independent study skills were able to succeed, if appropriate support strategies were put in place (pratt & trewern, 2011; pratt et al., 2011). while this research suggests that the otagonet model of virtual schooling can be effective for all students, these measures rely on self-reporting and perceptions of success. given the small numbers of students in each class, and the variability in the academic abilities of the students in different classes and from year to year, it is difficult to determine effectiveness in terms of academic achievement. to provide some evidence of this, the otagonet e-principal has compared students’ performances in their otagonet classes with their performances in their other classes and rated them as performing better, as well, or worse. the rating is based on their performance in the national certificate of educational achievement (ncea), in terms of the number of credits they have achieved, the level at which they have achieved (level 1, 2, or 3), and the overall quality of grade achieved (achieved, merit or excellence). as the following table shows, the majority of students achieved as well or better in their video-conference classes, with only between 17% and 22% of students performing worse. while there are limitations to this approach, it does provide some further information regarding the effectiveness of this form of learning. table 2 students’ performance in their video-conference classes compared to their other classes, in percentages worse as well better 2009 17 58 26 2010 17 52 30 2011 22 39 39 overall, then, it appears that the picture presented by the research conducted on the otagonet group of schools is of a model of teaching and learning that can be effective for rural students with varying levels of pre-existing skills and abilities. pratt,k., & pullar, k. 8 conclusion the otagonet model can be described in terms of wicks’ (2010) dimensions. it is a supplemental programme with a country-wide reach, using both synchronous and asynchronous delivery modes. it is also generally an online programme. however, there are some key variations. although students throughout the country can take otagonet programmes, priority is given to students from the region. in addition, the synchronous elements involve video conferencing rather than web-based synchronous tools. finally, although otagonet is designed as an online or distance programme, there are face-to-face elements, such as the face-to-face days and the teaching approaches taken by individual teachers. in addition, having students take supplemental programmes while remaining enrolled in their own school is unusual, as is the approach to staffing and funding. in general, the otagonet project is seen as a success, and this group now works with many of the clusters around new zealand that have formed since its inception to develop their own models of online learning. as those involved had hoped, senior students are now able to take a wide range of subjects in a more interactive form than was their only previous option, while remaining in their home school. in addition, teachers are now able to teach their specialist subjects without having to leave their home communities. while students have had to adjust to learning in this new format, change has been no less marked for their teachers. it is well recognised in the literature that teaching at a distance requires a change in teaching approach; however, the change required is more significant in this case, where there are restrictions in the time available as well as in the technology. initially, teachers found themselves reverting to an information-transmission model of teaching because they were very conscious of the limited time they had available to work with their students. with experience, however, most teachers adjusted their approach to their video-conference sessions, making them more interactive and using other means to cover the required content. this way of learning has been increasingly accepted by teachers and students, and in some schools has become the norm, rather than the exception. the 14 schools currently involved in otagonet are working on a system of reciprocity that is unlike any found in the literature. however, a commitment from these schools to work collaboratively to improve the opportunities for their students and their specialist teachers means they have responded to their situation in ways that are both innovative and (the research conducted to date seems to suggest) effective. references alton-lee, a. 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(2001). reflections on a 10 year distance learning project: nyclassnet. education, 122(2), 276–282. http://hdl.handle.net/10092/2869 http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/otago-region/page-16 http://www.tlri.org.nz/tlri-research/research-completed/school-sector/school-out-students-experiences-non-traditional http://www.tlri.org.nz/tlri-research/research-completed/school-sector/school-out-students-experiences-non-traditional http://education2x.otago.ac.nz/cinzs/course/view.php?id=9 http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/ict/76598 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 17(1) 11 searle, g., & mandile, f. (2003). the virtual school service dance to a different tune. paper presented at the learning technologies conference 2003, mooloolaba, queensland, australia. retrieved from http://insphigher.com.au/con_tents/wpcontent/uploads/2013/01/conf2003_searle_vssdance.pdf te kura (n.d.). our history. retrieved from http://www.correspondence.school.nz/aboutus/history walsh-pasco, l. (2004). from teletubbies to teleteachers: effective practices in videoconferencing. unpublished manuscript. watson, j., & gemin, b. (2009). funding and policy frameworks for online learning. vienna, va: inacol. watson, j. f., gemin, b., ryan, j., & wicks, m. (2009). keeping pace with k–12 online learning: a review of state-level policy and practice. naperville, il: learning point. watson, j. f., murin, a., vashaw, l., gemin, b., & rapp, c. (2012). keeping pace with k–12 online learning: an annual review of policy and practice. durango, co: evergreen education. weinsten, c. e., & palmer, d. r. (1990.) learning and study strategies inventory: high school version. clearwater, fl: h & h. wicks, m. (2010). a national primer on k–12 online learning (version 2). vienna, va: inacol. zhao, y., lei, j., yan, b., lai, c., & tan, h. s. (2005). what makes the difference? a practical analysis of research on the effectiveness of distance education. teachers college record, 107(8), 1836–1884. biographical notes keryn pratt keryn.pratt@otago.ac.nz keryn is a senior lecturer at the university of otago college of education, where she is also a member of the centre for distance education and learning technologies, located within the college of education. her research areas encompass all aspects of ict and education, although her recent focus has been on distance education at both the university and secondary levels. ken pullar ken@otagonet.school.nz ken is the current project leader of otagonet. he has been involved with otagonet since its inception, first as an e-teacher, and more recently as its leader. as well as working to ensure the success of otagonet and other clusters throughout new zealand, he is involved in a project that relates to the use of a knowledge building approach to learning. � this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. pratt, k., & pullar, k. (2013). otagonet: one region’s model for virtual schooling. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 17(1), [1–11]. http://insphigher.com.au/con_tents/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/conf2003_searle_vssdance.pdf http://insphigher.com.au/con_tents/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/conf2003_searle_vssdance.pdf http://www.correspondence.school.nz/about-us/history http://www.correspondence.school.nz/about-us/history mailto:keryn.pratt@otago.ac.nz mailto:ken@otagonet.school.nz http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 83 the farnet journey: perceptions of māori students engaged in secondary online learning carolyn bennett, virtual learning network michael k. barbour, wayne state university abstract this case study investigated the perceptions of māori students in the virtual learning network of what constituted effective strategies for engaging them in online learning. in the farnet cluster, about 63 students from the four secondary and five area schools access the vln, and approximately 80 percent of those students are of māori descent. data collection included online surveys, semi-structured interviews, and observation of online classrooms. the data suggested there was a variety of delivery models experienced by students, most supported by the learning management system. students identified a range of web 2.0 strategies currently used by their e-teachers, and suggested that additional opportunities to collaborate and communicate would engage them further. based on these findings, we recommend professional development for e-teachers based on learning to use these emerging tools, and better preparation of e-students for working in an online learning environment. keywords: online learning; primary; secondary; māori students; virtual learning network background the virtual learning network (vln) can trace its start to a series of initiatives that were designed to provide greater curricular opportunities for students in rural jurisdictions (wenmoth, 1996). one of the first of these initiatives was the farnet e-learning cluster, a group of secondary and area schools in the northland region of new zealand. like many e-learning clusters, the farnet uses a cooperative model in which a school offers a teacher to teach a single distance education course, and this enables them to enrol students from their own school into distance education courses offered by teachers at other schools. participating schools are required to purchase and maintain the necessary distance education equipment, and are also often asked to contribute to funding the leadership of the e-learning cluster (barbour, 2011a). the actual delivery model that is currently used by the e-learning clusters ranges from a more traditional classroom model where students have a 1-hour videoconferencing (vc) class with the support of hard-copy materials and resources provided by the e-teacher, through to a more interactive model of a 1-hour vc class supported by content and resources provided through a learning management system (lms) (roberts, 2009). the lms provides a platform for a repository for resources that students can access at any time of the day from any internet-enabled computer. the model that is now starting to emerge is a hybrid that combines weekly vc classes and support from the lms materials with a range of web 2.0 tools (and even face-to-face meetings between student and teacher in some instances). unfortunately, there has been little bennett, c., & barbour, m., k. 84 research to investigate this innovative method of educational delivery with primary and secondary students (barbour & reeves, 2009; cavanaugh, barbour & clark, 2009; rice, 2006), and specifically in new zealand (barbour, 2009; 2011b). unlike many of the vln e-learning clusters that exist within new zealand, the farnet cluster has a very high proportion of students of māori descent. this reality provided additional challenges for the farnet cluster, given the importance of relationships for effective teaching and learning with māori students (hawk, cowley, hill, & sutherland, 2002). as such, the purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of māori students in the vln of what constituted effective strategies for engaging them in online learning. in this article we briefly outline what is known about the education of māori students; in particular in relation to the nature of the distance learning environment. we describe the study that was undertaken, and the setting for that study (i.e., the farnet e-learning cluster). next we discuss the e-students’ perceptions of their online learning experience, the tools they used, and the nature of communication and relationships in the online environment. finally, we recommend two specific implications for eteachers and e-principals involved in the distance education of māori students, as well as avenues for future research. literature review it is widely acknowledged through the work of waikato university’s te kotahitanga research project that relationships play an important role in the engagement of students in general. this research identified that relationships are particularly important when working with māori students. the practice of deficit theorising by teachers was also identified in this study as a major impediment to māori students’ educational achievement, as it results in teachers having low expectations of māori students. this in turn creates a downward-spiralling, self-fulfilling prophecy of māori student non-achievement and failure (bishop, berryman, tiakiwai, & richardson, 2003). deficit theorising is best explained as being the practice of blaming the problem on the deficiencies of the victim, and it tends to be acultural in nature. so in the context of a study like the one described here, it is identifying how teachers blame the lack of achievement on the fact that the students are māori, and therefore they have low expectations of those students. in her review of the literature on a variety of e-learning environments, which included web-based and online learning, wright (2010) reported that these environments had the potential to “make peer and collaborative learning opportunities easier . . . [and] appeared to suit many new zealand students, especially māori and pasifika” (p. 19). unfortunately, as tiakiwai and tiakiwai (2010) indicated, the amount of literature that specifically examines various forms of e-learning— including online distance education–—and māori students or māori environments is scarce. one example that does exist is the learning activity management system (lams) bilingual interface used by a group of kura kaupapa schools around the whanganui area. this research found that the learning procedure can be iwi (tribal) specific and kaupapa (theme) specific, as well as grade-level and age specific; and that e-learning could offer the learners an opportunity to personalise and achieve self-growth. ohia (2008) found that both student and teacher were able to structure the programme to suit individual learner needs and personalise individual ethnicity. further, lams needed to be well resourced, and the kaiako (teacher) was required to have sufficient knowledge and skills to ensure the students received the greatest benefits from the programme. essentially, the teacher must be able to use digital tools to interact with the students, in order to understand how they learn best in this distance environment. the le@rning federation’s (tlf) indigenous project plan, which investigated the effects of using tlf’s digital learning materials on indigenous students’ motivation to learn and their engagement in learning, found that using tlf’s learning objects helps these students to learn journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 85 (wallace, 2008). teachers reported that there was an increase in motivation to learn among indigenous students who were using tlf content, and improvements in indigenous students’ engagement in their learning. the author also reported on the relationship between indigenous students’ need for help with tlf content, their evident enjoyment in using tlf content to learn, their poor access to computers and the internet out of school, and their low information communications and technology and literacy proficiency, which presented a significant issue for the jurisdictions to manage. it is not surprising to scholars of primary and secondary distance education and online learning that these digital tools can be used in effective ways to create meaningful relationships between teachers and their students. the online environment provides both teachers and students with the opportunity to learn in a community of learners where the learning experiences can be shared and any learner can become an expert within the group and share knowledge (bereiter, 2002; bereiter & scardamalia, 1989, 1993; scardamalia, 2002; scardamalia, bereiter, mclean, swallow, & woodruff, 1989). this enables both teacher and students, as learners together, to support each other and build those meaningful relationships (walsh-pasco, 2004). teachers need support to promote improved learning experiences and develop relationships, and students need to feel comfortable in the online environment before relationships can be developed (rodriguez, ooms, & montanez, 2008). in online learning, developing new communication strategies for online learners with an emphasis on the written word encourages a deeper level of thinking, particularly through the use of threaded discussions which, according to jusri (2003), can provide more equality between the students and teacher in the online environment. the discussion forums and chat facilities provided in an lms also provide an effective platform for relationships to develop. the role of the teacher as facilitator, to moderate but not necessarily participate in this online relationship, is critical to fostering a positive community environment (elbaum, mcintyre, & smith, 2002). headley (2005) supported the view that the key to successful teaching and learning was relationships. headley further suggested that instructionally relevant contact with instructors and peers is not only desirable, but is probably necessary for creating learning environments that lead to desirable achievement gains and general satisfaction with distance education. developing meaningful relationships therefore requires different strategies. it is crucial for online practitioners to recognise their unique position in enabling student learning in an online course through their facilitation—as opposed to direct instruction—within the online environment (bernard et al., 2004). clearly, the online distance learning environment offers unique opportunities to provide a high level of interaction between teachers and their students, and also the ability to change the structure of the classroom to allow for teachers and their students to be co-learners within this environment. this high level of interaction, along with the ability to develop non-hierarchical interactions between teachers and their students in the online environment, is consistent with providing māori students with the ability to develop the meaningful relationships so critical to their academic success. for these reasons, further examination of online learning strategies to effectively engage māori students is needed. methodology the purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of māori students in the vln of what constituted effective strategies for engaging them in online learning. this general purpose led to two research questions: bennett, c., & barbour, m., k. 86 1. how do māori students experience online distance learning? 2. what tools or teaching strategies do māori students report as being effective for them in the online distance learning environment? the researchers decided a case study was an appropriate methodology to address these research questions (stake, 1995). in this instance, we specifically used an embedded, single-case design where the vln was the context, the farnet e-learning cluster was the case, and each of the māori student participants were the embedded units of analysis (yin, 2003). farnet: the case at the time of this study, there were four secondary schools and five area schools in the farnet e-learning cluster. these nine schools had 63 students who accessed one or more courses through the vln. (not all of these courses were offered by the farnet cluster—in some instances students could enrol in courses offered by another cluster if farnet did not offer that course.) approximately 80 percent of e-students from the farnet cluster were of māori descent. these students were enrolled in 12 different programmes of learning, taught by 12 different e-teachers. twenty-three e-student participants who completed the survey attended eight of the nine schools (i.e., a participation rate of 36.5 percent), with the vast majority of those attending northland college. the majority of participants were year 13 students, of whom 47.8 percent indicated that they were of māori descent. further, 52.2 percent identified themselves as new zealand european, 8.7 percent as pasifika, 8.7 percent as asian, and 4.3 percent selected other (students were able to choose more than one ethnicity). the majority of students, 78.3 percent, were enrolled in only one online class. however, 17.4 percent had two online classes and one student had four. for 17.4 percent of the students, this was their second year as an e-student, while 8.7 percent were experiencing their third year as an e-student. data collection methods there were three methods of data collection: an online survey; a semi-structured interview conducted over the vc system (in person or using skype); and observations of vc sessions involving the e-students who chose to participate in the study. forty e-students were invited to participate in the study, 30 of whom returned their consent forms. twenty-three of those estudents completed the online survey (see appendix a). the online survey elicited e-students’ views on and information about class size and its impact on their learning; the support they received from both their local schools and their e-teacher; the tools—including web 2.0 tools— that their e-teacher used to communicate with them and as a part of their course (and how often that communication occurred); their opinions on the online environment; their work habits and success as online learners compared with traditional classroom learners; and suggestions on how to improve their online learning experience. of the 30 e-students who participated in the study, 10 identified themselves as māori, and we selected those e-students to be interviewed. the purpose of running the semi-structured interviews was to gather more in-depth understanding of how the online classes were run and how web 2.0 tools were used to engage students, especially those students who identified as being of māori descent. interviewing the e-students was important to check their understanding of the questions provided in the online survey and gather more information from their given answers provided in the online survey (eder & fingerson, 2001). during the interviews some of the findings from the online survey were presented and e-students were asked questions about those findings.the interviews also had a set of key questions that were followed in a more openended manner (see appendix b for a copy of the protocol). reflective questioning, which involved three levels of questioning, was used to promote collaborative dialogue with the eteachers and the e-students (barnett & lee, 1994; robertson, 1995; winters, 1998). based on journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 87 this model, the purpose of the first level of questioning was to clarify the details about their online experience. the second level of questioning was used to clarify the purposes or reasons and the intended consequences of a certain action that the interviewee had referred to. finally, the third level of questioning was used by the interviewer to encourage the interviewee to reflect on the consequences of the action that they had taken in response to the second level of questioning. results and discussion there were four reasons for e-students learning through the vln; however, the main reason was that the school did not offer a particular subject. table 1 reasons given for taking an online course reason percentage of student respondents my school does not offer the subject 65.2 my school offers the subject, but i have a timetable clash 8.7 my school offers the subject, but i prefer to do it online – i transferred to the school during the year – the subject or programme of learning is offered only through a tertiary institution 98.7 other 17.4 although the vast majority of e-students were enrolled in their online course because they had no other choice if they wished to take that course, they identified a range of things they liked about learning online:  “you get to work by yourself”  “it is something different than being in a classroom”  “you get to meet new people”  “being able to do work at my own pace”  “you are motivated to do it—you learn something different and use equipment that is making you achieve”  “different way of learning and more focused”  “it’s a different way of learning and you feel more involved”  “the technology—learning when they can fit it in”  “liked most things—got to meet new people and it is a new experience”. conversely, the e-students also identified a smaller number of challenges and things they did not like about learning in an online environment:  “have to be motivated, as there is no teacher chasing you up like in a classroom”  “other teachers at their schools telling them off for missing their class”  “don’t get to be with the teacher one on one”  “sometimes it can be boring”. interestingly, while e-students identified things they did not like about studying an online course, during the interviews they referred to these dislikes as being minor. they also acknowledged that learning online was a new system, and that many of their e-teachers had asked for feedback after bennett, c., & barbour, m., k. 88 each term. some e-students said they felt confident giving feedback to their e-teacher about how to improve the online course experience for the following year. tools used in online learning most of the students responded that they experienced some form of lms use, with 82.6 percent stating that their e-teachers used the lms with them. the majority of e-students working with a lms visited either once a day or five times a week. they indicated that the lms had a range of web 2.0 tools that they enjoyed using, and that helped them to feel engaged. only one e-student acknowledged that they seldom visited the lms. hobgood (2003) found that online learners were often ‘lost’ at the beginning of the year, until they had got used to using the lms. in this study one e-student noted that it wasn’t until term 2 that she was even aware that she could access additional resources from the lms—which underscores the importance of proper preparation of primary and secondary online learners (roblyer, 2005), and the importance of initial orientation to online learning for students (roblyer, davis, mills, marshall, & pape, 2008). students identified a range of web 2.0 tools that e-teachers used to assist them in their learning or they used themselves (see table 2). table 2 web 2.0 tools the students reported using themselves, or that their teachers used web 2.0 tool percentage of student respondents lms 39.1 youtube 34.8 facebook – wiki 21.7 blog 4.3 skype 21.7 google documents 21.7 none of the above 13.0 other 4.3 many of the tools were new to e-students at the beginning of the year, and during the interviews they explained how their e-teachers had talked with them about new tools and slowly introduced those tools throughout the school year. a number of e-students were familiar with working in an online environment outside school time, although these e-students acknowledged that they had learnt to use these tools through experience rather than from advice. the e-students felt it was important for the e-teacher to support them in learning to use the new tools, and suggested that eteachers should talk them through using the tools on a one-on-one basis. they seemed relaxed about this being a new experience for their e-teacher, and felt they were learning together with the tools. according to bolstad and lin (2009) e-students are often not well supported by their schools regardless of the nature of the tools used (i.e., lms or web 2.0 tools). but training students to use the tools they need in order to learn in this environment cannot be the sole responsibility of the e-teacher. personnel at the students’ local schools must also include this kind of material in the initial orientation (roblyer et al., 2005). it was positive to note that the data from this study demonstrated that the majority of e-students felt they were supported in their schools when they experienced problems with the technology. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 89 communication and relationships the e-students were not asked specifically about the importance of building relationships with their e-teacher in the online survey, but when asked how they communicated with their e-teacher and each other in the interviews, the data suggested that this communication also encompassed the relationship they had with their e-teacher. when asked whether they thought their e-teacher treated them differently because they were māori, most e-students responded positively with a comment that implied they weren’t aware that there were any differences in the way e-teachers interacted with them. they did acknowledge that many students in their normal classes were disruptive and therefore prevented them from learning, and they liked their online courses because there weren’t as many classroom management issues. they received most of their work from their e-teacher by email, and this was the main channel of communication between them— they acknowledged that this was quite different from their normal classes. they also felt that they could email their e-teacher at any time if they had a concern. however, as noted by rodriguez et al. (2008), the e-students also indicated that they needed to feel comfortable in the online environment before any of these relationships could be developed. the e-students were clear that the type of relationships they felt they had with their e-teachers were quite different from the kinds of relationships they had developed with their face-to-face teachers. for example, the e-students reported that they felt their relationships with their eteachers had a greater level of equality, as evidenced by the fact that many of them stated that they felt comfortable calling their e-teacher by their christian name. many of the e-students who were interviewed also felt that their e-teacher was far more positive with them, and put in additional effort on their behalf to ensure that they understood the material. the e-students also indicated they believed they had formed very good relationships with their e-teachers, which they considered to be important in terms of their engagement with their learning. these results support the findings of bishop et al. (2003), who stressed the important role positive relationships played in the engagement of māori students. conclusions and implications as this is a case study, we hesitate to generalise the findings beyond the farnet e-learning clusters. we can report that farnet e-students took courses through the vln for a variety of reasons. however, the majority indicated that they took online courses because they were unable to take the course in their local school. the e-students reported that they enjoyed their online courses, and there were only a few things about their online courses that they did not like. it appears that the majority of e-students used the lms extensively, but also used a number of web 2.0 tools—either with their e-teacher or on their own as a part of their online learning. the estudents stated that a relationship with their e-teacher was important to their online learning success (something the research had indicated was of particular importance with māori students), and the majority of students felt they had closer—yet different—relationships with their eteacher than their face-to-face teacher. two main implications for practitioners were generated from this study—one each for e-teachers and e-principals. first, e-teachers of māori students could benefit from being abreast with the research concerning engagement with māori. the data clearly showed that assumptions should not be made about our current generation’s knowledge and/or ability to be effective online learners. further, e-teachers need help to develop these tools and skills. in many instances, the knowledge, skills, and aptitudes that māori students need to be successful in this environment may be different than for other students, so keeping up to date with what is known about effective pedagogical strategies for māori students will allow e-teachers to begin to consider how those best practices translate into the online learning environment. bennett, c., & barbour, m., k. 90 second, as the author/researcher was the e-principal of one of the vln e-learning clusters, the many transcribed hours of e-student voices and the messages that were heard over the year became an exceptionally powerful tool. much of what was learnt guided the way in which the cluster recommended schools prepare and support their e-students, as well as the activities of the cluster to orient their e-students to the online learning environment, and the professional development provided to its e-teachers. therefore, we recommend that all e-principals, eteachers, and schools participating in the vln would benefit from the systematic collection of data—in particular e-student perceptions—to ensure that student needs are being fully met in this innovative new environment. one of the limitations of this study was that the pool of e-students who participated was not as large as we had expected or hoped for. as such, we feel that this study could be replicated in other e-learning clusters, and in this same e-learning cluster, to determine whether our results are consistent with other populations of māori online learners, and whether changes occur over time with māori students in this particular cluster. further, at the time of this study the farnet elearning cluster had a high proportion of māori students as its online learners. a larger and more recent sample from the farnet clusters—as well as samples from other clusters—would allow researchers to explore whether there are any significant differences between the perceptions and needs of māori students and non-māori students who are engaged in learning through the vln. references barbour, m. k. 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(2003). case study research: design and methods (3rd ed.). thousand oaks, ca: sage. biographical notes carolyn bennett carolyn.bennett@farnet.schoolzone.net.nz carolyn bennett is the eprincipal of the farnet and harbournet online communities which provide distance teaching and learning opportunities as part of the new zealand virtual learning network community. she has been involved in traditional education for over 25 years as a teacher and deputy principal, and involved in distance learning for 7 years as a facilitator, online learner, researcher, e-teacher and now leader of these two communities. http://www.ncolr.org/jiol/issues/pdf/7.2.2.pdf mailto:carolyn.bennett@farnet.schoolzone.net.nz journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 93 michael k. barbour mkbarbour@gmail.com michael barbour is an assistant professor at wayne state university, and has been involved with primary and secondary online learning in canada, the united states and new zealand for over a decade as a researcher, teacher, course designer and administrator. michael’s research focuses on the effective design, delivery and support of k-12 online learning, particularly for students located in rural jurisdictions. � this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license bennett, c, & barbour, m. k. (2012). the farnet journey: perceptions of māori students engaged in secondary online learning. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 16(1), [pp. 83–98]. mailto:mkbarbour@gmail.com http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ bennett, c., & barbour, m., k. 94 appendix a: online survey (via surveymonkey) thank you for your participation. thank you for participating in this survey, which hopefully will help future students learning through distance learning and future teachers using e-learning to deliver programmes of learning. your identity will not be given out to anyone and the data will be used in a piece of research i am carrying out to look at effective strategies in engaging māori students on the vln. if you are non-māori, your comments and views will be very much appreciated to support future e-students and e-teachers also. regards, carolyn bennett eprincipalfarnet [questions marked with * were compulsory.] *1. what school are you currently at? te hapua school taipa area school kaitaia college bay of islands college te kura taumata ō panguru kaikohe christian school te kura ō manganuiwae—broadwood area school northland college dargaville high school opononi area school roxburgh area school blue mountain college tamatea high school waitara high school east otago high school other (please specify) *2. what year are you in? year 9 year 10 year 11 year 12 year 13 *3. what nationality (ethnicity) are you? (you can choose more than one.) please add your ethnicity if it is not listed. māori pasifika (please state) new zealand european indian asian other (please specify) *4. what is your gender? male female *5. which years have you learned in an online class? (click all that apply.) this year (2009) last year (2008) 2 years ago (2007) 3 years ago or earlier (2006 and earlier) *6. how many online classes are you taking this year through the vln? 1 2 3 4 more than 4 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 95 *7. what subject or subjects are you taking through online learning this year? accounting agriculture biology chemistry economics equine french german history mathematics media studies psychology physical education physics science statistics & modelling te reo māori tourism young enterprise other (please specify) *8. why are you learning this subject or programme of learning through online learning? my school does not offer the subject. my school offers the subject, but i have a timetable clash. my school offers the subject, but i prefer to do it through vc. i transferred from another school during the year. the subject or programme of learning is only offered through a tertiary institute (university, polytechnic). other (please specify). *9. in your online class, how many students are there in total (including yourself)? 1–2 3–4 5–6 7–8 9–10 11–12 12–13 other (please state) *10. (a) in relation to the above question about how many students are in your class, do you think this is a good number or not to have in an online classroom? please provide a reason for your answer. yes no (b) state why it is or why it is not. *11. do you have someone at your school who you can ask for support if you have any difficulty with the technology or difficulty with the subject? is this person the same for both (the technology and the subject)? yes, if i have difficulty with the technology. no, if i have difficulty with the technology. yes, if i have difficulty with the subject. no, if i have difficulty with the subject. yes, it is the same person. no, it is a different person. comment if you wish to here: *12. do you use a learning management system (lms) as part of your online learning? this is a place where your e-teacher will post work for you to access (e.g., moodle, myclasses, blackboard, knowledgenet). yes no unsure *13. if you do use a lms to support your learning, how often would you visit this online classroom on average each week? once a day once a week once a fortnight seldom never, because the teacher doesn’t have a lms never, because i have never used it or 3–5 times a week or 5–7 times a week you can comment here: bennett, c., & barbour, m., k. 96 *14 what methods has your teacher used to communicate with you during the year? email forum chats skype fax txt message phone cell phone adobe connect video conferencing (other than your regular vc class) the teacher has visited me i have visited the teacher i met the teacher at an e-day state any other ways: *15. what ways have you communicated with any of your fellow e-students in your online class this year? email forum chats skype fax txt message phone cell phone adobe connect video conferencing (other than your regular vc class) the teacher has visited me i have visited the teacher i met the teacher at an e-day i haven’t communicated with any of my fellow e-students *16. in which of the ways listed above do you prefer the teacher to make contact with you (other than your regular vc class)? email forum chats skype fax txt message phone cell phone adobe connect video conferencing (other than your regular vc class) teacher visit visit the teacher through an e-day state any other ways: *17. how does your teacher provide work for you to complete as part of your learning? sends work via email sends work via fax posts work through the mail posts work in an online classroom we have a textbook and workbook other (please state any other ways): *18. (a) in which of the following mediums do you prefer to have your teacher provide you with work. i prefer the most i prefer the least send work via email 1 2 3 4 send work via fax 1 2 3 4 post work through the mail 1 2 3 4 post work in an online classroom 1 2 3 4 provide a textbook and workbook 1 2 3 4 other 1 2 3 4 (b) please provide a reason for your answer: *19. which of the following web 2.0 tools have you used this year as part of your online class? learning management system youtube facebook blog wiki google documents skype none of the above other (please specify any other) journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 16(1) 97 *20. (a) do you feel you have been ‘engaged’ in learning this year in your online class? sometimes most of the times none of the time (b) you might like to add a comment: *21. (a) do you feel you have achieved this year in your online class as well as you would have with a regular teacher? yes no unsure (b) you might like to add a comment: *22. how often has your teacher provided a report for your parents this year? term one term two term three not sure *23. have your parents spoken or met with your online teacher this year? yes in person yes via video conferencing yes via skype yes by cellphone yes through txt messaging no unsure *24. what things do you enjoy and like about being in an online classroom? 25. what things do you not enjoy and dislike about being in an online class? *26. how could an online environment be improved to increase your engagement and enjoyment of the online classroom? *27. what advice would you offer a future e-student considering taking an online class in the future to ensure they are successful in learning? *28. what advice would you offer a future e-teacher considering teaching an online class in the future to ensure they are successful in their teaching and ensure that they effectively engage their students? *29. (a) would you choose to learn through vc again? yes no maybe (b) you might like to add a comment: *30. what further ways could your own school support you during your online learning experience to ensure that you can receive the most out of your online class and perhaps make it more enjoyable and ensure you are more engaged? *31. what further ways could your e-teacher support you during your online learning experience to ensure that you can receive the most out of your online class and perhaps make it more enjoyable and ensure you are more engaged? thank you for your participation. thank you very much for participating in this survey. your comments will be kept confidential in terms of being able to identify who you are. bennett, c., & barbour, m., k. 98 appendix b: semi-structured interview protocol establish the student’s nationality, age, gender, school, course, level of study, whether they use an lms. 1. tell me about your online class that you are studying using video conferencing. 2. why are you taking the class via video conferencing instead of in a face-to-face class? 3. so what happens in a typical week for you around your online class? 4. how does an online class differ from a face-to-face class? 5. what type of web 2.0 tools does your teacher use to support your learning? what sort of web 2.0 tools do you use to support your learning? 6. as a māori student do you feel these web 2.0 tools help you become engaged in your online learning? 7. as a student do you feel these web 2.0 tools help you become engaged in your online learning? 8. do you feel your e-teacher has high expectations of you? 9. what do you like about being an e-student? 10. what do you dislike about being an e-student? 11. what advice do you have for a future e-student and future e-teacher? barbour, m. k., bennett, c. 12 the farnet journey: effective teaching strategies for engaging māori students on the virtual learning network michael barbour, wayne state university carolyn bennett, farnet, vln e-learning cluster abstract the virtual learning network (vln) provides schools, particularly those in rural and remote areas, with the opportunity to cooperate to expand curricular offerings for their students. each school that participates in a vln cluster contributes at least one course delivered by an e-teacher, allowing member schools access to any course offered through the vln that they cannot offer locally. at present, there is no formal national training for the e-teachers, although individual clusters offer a range of training opportunities. this case study focused on the e-teachers’ perceptions of the learning curve required for them to be adequately and effectively prepared to teach in the virtual environment. results indicated that the experiences of e-teachers in this new learning environment were positive, but still embedded in the norm of a school. further, e-teachers desired professional development beyond learning how to use the technology, but wanted more assistance in developing their pedagogy to work in the online environment. it is recommended that vln cluster administration, and the ministry of education, provide a range of professional development opportunities in a variety of formats. the focus of this professional development should move beyond the technological tools and focus on how to use those tools in a virtual learning environment. keywords: online learning; online teaching; māori students; schools sector; secondary; teacher training; virtual learning; virtual learning network; virtual teaching introduction the virtual learning network (vln) began in the mid-1990s in several geographic regions as a way to provide a wider curriculum choice for students in primarily rural jurisdictions. the first of these geographic networks or e-learning clusters was casatech—a regional network in rural canterbury (wenmoth, 1996). this was followed by the introduction of the otagonet e-learning cluster in 2002 (pullar & brennan, 2008), and the farnet e-learning cluster around the same time (bennett & barbour, 2012). these early networks, all of which were funded under different types of regional and national schemes and programmes, formed the basis of what would eventually become the vln—a loose network of cooperating clusters throughout new zealand (barbour, 2011). the online courses are offered in a reciprocal model in which the 12 current clusters work together to share their human resources—namely teachers who deliver online, who are known as e-teachers. each cluster contributes to the vln a programme of learning delivered by an journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 17(1) 13 e-teacher. this sharing allows the member schools to participate in courses that they are unable to deliver. there is no formal training in the developing pedagogy for the e-teachers nationally, although individual clusters offer a range of training opportunities. the formal training received by most e-teachers has been on using video-conferencing technology. as a result there is now a wide range of models of delivery of online classes. this case study examined the preparation and practice of e-teachers, as well as effective strategies for engaging students, particularly māori students. this general purpose led to three research questions: 1. what delivery models are being used to provide classes on the vln? 2. what are the perceptions of e-teachers about the professional development they have received? 3. what web 2.0 tools are e-teachers using in their online classes to engage student learning? given the focus of the study upon the farnet e-learning cluster, a case-study methodology was deemed appropriate to address these research questions. in this article we describe the background of virtual teaching in new zealand, followed by a discussion of our case-study methodology. next, we discuss the four main themes from the findings of our study. finally, we discuss two implications for practitioners, and make two suggestions for future research. literature review the current generation of students is often referred to as ‘the net generation’ and ‘digital natives’, and there is an assumption that they are technologically savvy. however, online learning is still relatively new and most students, regardless of age, do not possess the cultural norms for engaging in online learning. online or virtual teaching requires even the most experienced classroom teacher to make a thoughtful transition to the new environment. learners must be well prepared for entering this environment (davis & roblyer, 2005), and the teacher may have to provide serious support for students as they learn how to learn online. hobgood (2003) identified successful virtual learners as those students who have been fully prepared, and this requires more planning on the part of the teacher than is normally seen in the traditional classroom. jeffares (2008) traced the development of virtual learning in the schools sector in new zealand as growing from a long history of more traditional forms of distance learning. further, she indicated that virtual learning, as it has been operationalised in new zealand for much of the recent decades has focused on the medium of video conferencing. jeffares also believed that video conferencing and virtual learning in new zealand schools had the potential to offer more than simply widening students’ curriculum choices, as was often the rationale or logic behind distance education. finally, she stressed the importance of schools transforming to assimilate or reconcile the traditional teaching model with a teaching model that was more aligned with 21st century learning skills to better meet the changing needs of students. at present, a range of teaching models, including a blend of virtual teaching and opportunities for face-to-face interactions, is being used through the vln as part of the students’ programme. the face-to-face opportunities often occur on an initial ‘e-day’, and in further site visits to their schools during the year (lin & bolstad, 2008; walsh-pasco, 2004). several vln e-learning clusters have organised one or more e-days each term, at which all of the students from an individual cluster come to a single school to meet their e-teacher (jeffares, 2008; walsh-pasco, 2004). these e-days also provide students with an opportunity to meet and get to know their fellow students—these meetings can help to build relationships and a sense of community in their virtual classes (lai & pratt, 2004). research has demonstrated that distance and virtual barbour, m. k., bennett, c. 14 learning puts more responsibility on students to direct their own learning in general, and video conferencing was found to be no exception (lin & bolstad, 2008). students have to be motivated and comfortable with learning independently if they are to be successful in the virtual learning environment (lai & pratt, 2004; walsh-pasco, 2004). because students need more independent learning skills, the onus is also on the virtual teacher to ensure that they take advantage of all of the tools and pedagogical strategies provided in the virtual setting to create a welcoming environment that encourages students to take that responsibility (barbour, 2011). however, recent research into the effectiveness of engaging students through the vln found that many virtual teachers using video conferencing employed more traditional teaching techniques in their virtual classes (lin & bolstad, 2008). the authors suggested that perhaps these virtual teachers were not fully exploiting all the opportunities and potential new learning methods that the virtual medium had to offer. this suggestion was consistent with other research that has found that considerable time and money needs to be invested in providing quality professional development and ongoing support networks for teachers and students who are working in these virtual environments (ohia, 2008; wallace, 2008). while today’s students may use technology extensively, few students know how to use that technology to learn in distance or virtual settings. yet for many students, using technology is the only way to access certain curricular opportunities. unfortunately, many of the teachers engaged in delivering these virtual learning opportunities have similar deficits when it comes to using technology as a teaching tool. clearly there is a need for additional research to better understand the perceptions and needs of virtual teachers in this emerging learning environment. methodology the case study was conducted with the farnet vln e-learning cluster during the 2009 school year (stake, 1995), when more than 80% of the enrolled students identified as māori. at the time of the study, farnet had nine schools, but they did not all have students enrolled in online classes via video conferencing through the vln. a total of 63 students were enrolled in online classes via video conferencing through the vln, and the majority of those were from northland college. these students (referred to as e-students) were enrolled in 12 different programmes of learning taught by 12 different teachers. these teachers were referred to as e-teachers. all of the schools agreed to participate in the study, and so 12 e-teachers were asked to complete an online survey, participate in a semi-structured interview, and provide access to their online classroom. of the 12 e-teachers, only six completed the online survey, four were selected to be interviewed, and seven provided access to their online classes. the online survey elicited e-teachers’ opinions on effective professional development, online class size, building relationships in the online environment, communication methods, web 2.0 tools, student collaboration, e-teacher support, and reflective practice (see appendix a). the semi-structured interviews involved four e-teachers (patton, 2002). the purpose of the interview, as a secondary data collection method, was to gather a more in-depth understanding of how the virtual classes were run and how web 2.0 tools were used to engage e-students, especially those e-students who identified as being of māori descent (see appendix b). the interview protocol also included questions that asked the e-teachers to provide greater detail about some of the findings from the online survey, and some of the findings from a similar study conducted with other e-students (see bennett & barbour, 2012). reflective questioning (using three levels of questioning) was used to promote collaborative dialogue from the e-teachers (barnett & lee, 1994; robertson, 1995; winters, 1998). the first level of questioning was to clarify the details about the interviewees’ online experience, the second level of questioning was journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 17(1) 15 used to clarify the purposes or reasons and the intended consequences of a certain action which the interviewee had referred to, and the third level of questioning was used to encourage the interviewee to reflect on the consequences of the action that they had taken. the interviews were conducted in person, via skype, and using the video-conferencing system. each interview was recorded with audio or video, and then transcribed. participants were given copies of the transcriptions so they had an opportunity to member check the documents before the data was analysed. finally, the online course content was analysed with an observation tool that was developed from the do-it-yourself course design evaluation sheet (ragan, 2009). this evaluation form was used to measure the effectiveness of an online course. multiple methods of collecting data were used to address each of the research questions. according to lawrence-lightfoot and davis (1997), methodological triangulation assists in the analysis phase, particularly by making it easier to discover and verify themes from the different sources of data. the data was analysed using the method outlined by miles and huberman (1994). results and discussion the six e-teachers who completed the online survey (response rate of 50%) represented five schools and one tertiary organisation. one e-teacher identified themselves as being of māori descent, three e-teachers recognised themselves as new zealand european, and two e-teachers indicated “other.” four of the participants were male and two were female. three of the eteachers had taught for 2 to 3 years, one e-teacher had taught for 4 to 5 years, and two e-teachers had taught for more than 5 years. most of the e-teachers taught classes that had 10 to 12 students, and they all indicated that they were aware of the nationalities of their e-students. five of the six e-teachers had a learning management system (lms) to support their teaching, and visited it at least once a day. the general trends from the data, which included the online surveys, interviews, and the review of the asynchronous course content, was organised into four areas: overall perceptions, communications (including web 2.0 tools), relationships, and professional development. overall perceptions e-teachers identified a range of features they liked about teaching in a virtual classroom. table 1 sample of e-teacher responses “interaction with students and giving them responsibility.” “meeting other students and working with them to reach their potential.” “focus is on learning and not classroom management.” “the use of technology.” “the enthusiastic nature of the students.” “making learning activities up as we go, the unpredictability, the freedom to design new curricula, playing with the toys, moodle rocks!” “the flexibility of only being in front of a class one hour out of my week, but the flexibility of working online at times that suit me.” the same e-teachers also identified a range of features they did not like about teaching in a virtual environment. barbour, m. k., bennett, c. 16 table 2 sample of e-teacher responses “sometimes communication is a bit weak, especially between the home school and not being there to help the students in person when they struggle.” “extra workload, students not keeping up with work and not attending classes (not always their fault).” “negative influence of other teachers (based at the e-student’s home school).” “lack of support for the e-students at their own schools.” “the expectation that [video conferencing] replaces [face-to-face] when it is in fact a completely different mode of delivery.” “when technology fails, going back to chalk and talk.” although the e-teachers, both in the online survey and in the interviews, provided a list of things that they did not like about being a virtual teacher, they all acknowledged that the learning experience was new to them and that, as it became more embedded in their schools, the pressure from their colleagues about the job of an virtual teacher being seen as an ‘easy ride’ would disappear. they also felt that many of the other negative sentiments would also decline over time as virtual learning became more common and their own experience with the virtual environment increased. communications the most common way to communicate with e-students was by email, which all of the e-teachers reported using regularly. four of the six e-teachers also indicated that they regularly used video conferencing (outside scheduled video-conference time) to communicate with students, while three indicated that they also communicated with their e-students by fax, text message, and phone. additionally, one e-teacher successfully experimented with skype, through which he provided a very personalised learning programme for his e-student. most of these skype sessions occurred outside normal school hours, at a time agreed by both parties. this method of communication relied upon the e-student having adequate internet access, which was not always the case in the geographic areas represented by the farnet e-learning cluster. the lms was also used extensively. for example, three of the e-teachers reported that they used the discussion forums as a means of communicating regularly with their e-students. five of the six e-teachers indicated that they regularly posted work in the lms, and that this was how teachers preferred their e-students to submit their work (followed by submission through email and the discussion forum). it is interesting that almost all of the e-teachers reported using the lms in some fashion, but only half of them indicated that they used the discussion forum feature. as jusri (2003) described in their own study of virtual learning, teachers identified discussion forums as being effective for developing online community and collaboration, as well as for selfand peer-appraisal. even more interesting was the fact that half of the e-teachers encouraged their students to collaborate and communicate with each other (the results were not collected in a manner that allowed the researchers to determine whether this was the same “half” that indicated they used the discussion forums). as the internet (and, particularly, the world wide web) have evolved, web 2.0 tools have become a common medium for collaboration by both students and teachers. the web 2.0 tools identified by e-teachers in this study as being used in their classes are identified in table 3. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 17(1) 17 table 3 web 2.0 tools used by e-teachers tool number of teachers (n = 6) learning management system 5 youtube 5 wikis 3 skype 2 facebook 1 blog 1 google docs 0 other (please specify) 3 none of the above 1 one of the challenges acknowledged by all of the e-teachers was that they were on a steep learning curve, and that they often used tools based on suggestions by their e-students. interestingly, google docs was not used at the time by any of the e-teachers in this study, although four of the e-teachers noted during the interviews that they had recently identified google docs as having the potential to collaborate with their virtual classes. finally, there was a great deal of variation in the amount of formal reporting by the e-teachers. only three of the six e-teachers indicated that they sent out reports at the end of the first term, four prepared reports during the second term, and five did so during the third term. it is worth noting that all four e-teachers who were interviewed indicated that they believed that reports for the e-students should be prepared each term, including term four. the metasynthesis work conducted by hattie (2009) supports the notion of increasing communication to students in a variety of formats. for example, three of the top ten effect sizes found by hattie focused on communication between student and teacher. on the other hand, only three of the six e-teachers used some form of course evaluation with their e-students at the end of each course to gain their opinions on the design and delivery of their virtual course. however, all of the e-teachers believed that using this form of course evaluation would be a good way to gain valuable feedback on the e-student experience and to assist in their own reflective practice. relationships developing relationships in the virtual class was seen as being important to the e-students’ overall learning experience. these relationships were broken down into two types: student– student relationships and teacher–student relationships. five of the e-teachers judged relationships amongst e-students as being important, but all six e-teachers judged the relationship between e-students and the e-teacher as being important. the work of bishop, berryman, tiakiwai, and richardson (2003), argued the importance of developing strong relationships with students to engage them in learning. these authors were especially aware of the considerations needed for some māori students when their absence from their weekly video-conferencing classes was due to a cultural activity. the interviews pointed to e-teachers’ understanding of the importance of knowing which of their e-students were māori and who could therefore have cultural activities to attend. however, the interview data also suggested that the initial data provided to the e-teacher by the participating school at the beginning of the year often did not provide this valuable information. one e-teacher suggested that there was a danger in having this information, because it might lead them to make assumptions about the e-student—a phenomenon bishop et al described as “deficit theorizing”. barbour, m. k., bennett, c. 18 while the data indicated the importance some e-teachers placed on developing opportunities for e-students to develop relationships with each other, most of them had not provided systematic opportunities for this activity during the previous school year. in addition to relationships between the e-teacher and e-students, and amongst e-students, four of the e-teachers believed that the relationships between e-teachers and their local school coordinators were important. further, three e-teachers reported that they felt the relationship between e-teacher and e-principal was also important. e-teachers expressed a desire to be more aware of who held the position of the local school coordinator, so they could ensure that the e-student was well supported. in most situations, the e-teacher indicated they had either visited the e-students in person in their own school or met them at an e-day at the beginning of the year. interestingly, the e-teacher based with the tertiary provider felt it was very important that he visited e-students regularly during the year to reinforce their learning, and he also regarded the visits as opportunities to further develop the relationship with his e-students. finally, he noted that, based on his own anecdotal evidence, these relationships resulted in many of those e-students who took a virtual course at their local school through video conferencing going on to study full time at his tertiary institution. professional development all six of the e-teachers reported that they had been involved in a wide range of professional learning and development opportunities to support their role. both in the surveys and during the interviews, e-teachers indicated that they had attended conferences, participated in training organised by their e-learning clusters or by asnet, been involved in research and peer support as an e-fellow or involved in the ministry of education e-leadership clustership project, and finally received regular training via video conferencing. overall, the e-teachers felt that the professional learning and development identified was effective, and they especially mentioned training that focused on the pedagogy (rather than using the equipment). the e-teachers also indicated that they believe that receiving their training through video conferencing was very effective, as it reduced the time involved in travel to the training. the data also suggested that e-teachers felt it was of paramount importance for all e-teachers to start the year with a 2-day e-hui, which many clusters ran either at the end of the previous year or at the beginning of the year (and often at both times). the e-hui was viewed as the most effective professional development, at least in terms of networking with other practitioners and community building. e-teachers had a sense of coming to share their experiences—both good and bad—and they could also challenge those teachers who had been doing the same thing year after year without embracing the teaching opportunities provided by web 2.0 and other online tools. finally, the data indicated the need for further professional learning and development opportunities, but that all of the e-teachers felt they were well past the stage of simply learning how to use the equipment and technology. all e-teachers reported that they had received a range of opportunities for this kind of professional learning and development—some paid for by the cluster or individual school and some paid through information communication technology professional development funding. all of the e-teachers had also experienced some form of online professional development, and they each felt this was often the most effective form of professional development because it was specific to their needs, required no travel, and saved on human resource time. overall, the data suggested that e-teachers believed they required ongoing professional development opportunities, both in face-to-face and online formats, to develop their pedagogy of virtual teaching. observing good practice amongst practitioners and being part of online communities of practice have been identified as effective ways to develop a virtual teacher’s understanding and to support their own practice. rodriguez, ooms, and montanez (2008) found that teachers needed support to promote improved learning experiences and to develop relationships. time was identified as the greatest barrier to achieving these goals. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 17(1) 19 it should also be noted that there is a growing literature base arguing that professional development for teachers in the virtual learning environment is more important than for those in the face-to-face environment (although most of this literature is from scholars based in north america). roblyer and mckenzie (2000), who were among the first of these scholars, argued that while many of the factors that make a successful virtual teacher were similar for any successful teacher, teaching in a virtual environment requires several skills that are unique to that environment—and in many instances these unique skills are tied to the ever-changing nature of the tools used by virtual teachers (kaseman & kaseman, 2000). for example, easton (2003) indicated that virtual teachers needed more advanced skills in managing instructional activities and assessments, and stronger engagement skills because interactions with students are separated by both time and space. recognising that virtual teaching requires additional professional development, the government of nova scotia and the nova scotia teachers union even included a requirement for higher levels of professional development for virtual teachers than face-to-face teachers as a part of their collective agreement in that canadian province (barbour & adelstein, 2013). the data in this study underscores many of these themes found in north america. conclusions and implications the e-teachers enjoyed their virtual teaching experiences, although they also indicated that they still faced challenges teaching in this new and innovative mode. as a part of their virtual teaching, e-teachers used a variety of methods to communicate with their e-students (and to encourage the students to communicate with each other). the primary method that was used was email, and almost all of the e-teachers indicated they felt they still underused many methods of communication (particularly web 2.0 tools). communication was regarded as being particularly important to the e-teachers because they felt it was critical for them to establish strong relationships with their e-students. further, e-teachers believed relationships with their māori students were especially important. because many of the tools available were underused, e-teachers were quite interested in professional development opportunities. to these e-teachers, effective professional development began with initial face-to-face sessions at the beginning of the school year, followed by distance opportunities (such as those provided through the videoconferencing system). finally, e-teachers found professional development that focused on pedagogy, rather than the tools, to be most effective. there are two main implications for practice. first, it would benefit any e-learning clusters to ensure that a range of professional development opportunities are available to their e-teachers. this professional development should be provided not just at the beginning or end of the school year, but consistently throughout the school year. further, e-learning clusters and individual schools participating in the vln should seek funding to provide the opportunity for e-teachers to attend conferences such as ulearn and learning@schools to further their professional training. this funding should be provided on condition that those e-teachers provide a workshop and support for other e-teachers and school-based teachers when they return. teachers also identified the need to share their experiences with others, which could be provided by developing and joining online communities of practice. finally, there are also two main suggestions for future research. first, due to one of the researchers’ knowledge of the models available, selection of the e-teachers for the interviews and the online courses observed was based on knowledge that they were offering an effective virtual classroom. researchers conducting future studies would need to include both those e-teachers and courses that were perceived to be effective, and those that are perceived as not being as enjoyable or effective to provide a balance and more accurate picture of existing virtual teaching models. second, although one of the researchers was the e-principal for this particular cluster, a great deal of information was learned from this study (and another that focused on student barbour, m. k., bennett, c. 20 perceptions [see bennett & barbour, 2012]). it is recommended that the administration of any of the e-learning clusters should undertake systematic examination of the perceptions of the estudents, e-teachers, and e-deans to gain their opinions on what is working and where there are still challenges within the system. each of these groups provides different and varying perspectives (all of which also differ from the cluster’s administration) that could provide valuable guidance for the future development of the e-learning cluster. references barbour, m. k. (2011). primary and secondary e-learning: examining the process of achieving maturity. christchurch, new zealand: distance education association of new zealand. retrieved from http://www.vln.school.nz/mod/file/download.php?file_guid=114023 barbour, m. k., & adelstein, d. (2013). voracious appetite of online teaching: examining labour issues related to k–12 online learning. vancouver, bc: british columbia teachers federation. retrieved from http://www.bctf.ca/uploadedfiles/public/issues/technology/voraciousappetite.pdf barnett, b. g., & lee, g. v. (1994). using reflective questioning to promote collaborative dialogue. journal of staff development, 15(1), 16–21. bennett, c., & barbour, m. k. (2012). the farnet journey: perceptions of māori students engaged in secondary online learning. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 16(1). retrieved from http://journals.akoaotearoa.ac.nz/index.php/jofdl/article/view/105 bishop, r., berryman, m., tiakiwai s., & richardson, c. (2003). te kōtahitanga phase 1: the experiences of year 9 and 10 māori students in mainstream classrooms. wellington, new zealand: ministry of education. retrieved from http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/series/9977/5375 davis, n. e., & roblyer, m. d. (2005). preparing teachers for the “schools that technology built”: evaluation of a program to train teachers for virtual schooling. journal of research on technology in education, 37(4), 399–409. easton, s. (2003). clarifying the instructor’s role in online distance learning. communications education, 52(2), 87–105. hattie, j. (2009). visible learning: a synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses related to achievement. new york: routledge. hobgood, b. (2003). becoming an online teacher. chapel hill, nc: learnnc. retrieved from http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/665 jeffares, r. (2008). video conferencing in distance learning: a new zealand schools’ perspective. (unpublished paper). massey university, palmerston north, new zealand. jusri, d. (2003). significance of online teaching vs. face-to-face: similarities and differences. in a. rossett (ed.), proceedings of world conference on e-learning in corporate, government, healthcare, and higher education 2003 (pp. 1044–1047). chesapeake, va: association for the advancement of computing in education. kaseman, l., & kaseman, s. (2000, november–december). how will virtual schools effect homeschooling? home education magazine, 16–19. retrieved from http://homeedmag.com/hem/176/ndtch.html http://www.vln.school.nz/mod/file/download.php?file_guid=114023 http://www.bctf.ca/uploadedfiles/public/issues/technology/voraciousappetite.pdf http://journals.akoaotearoa.ac.nz/index.php/jofdl/article/view/105 http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/series/9977/5375 http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/665 http://homeedmag.com/hem/176/ndtch.html journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 17(1) 21 lai, k. w., & pratt, k. (2004). e-learning initiative: evaluation of the otagonet project. a paper submitted to the community trust of otago, dunedin, new zealand. lawrence-lightfoot, s., & davis, j. h. (1997). the art and science of portraiture. san francisco, ca: jossey-bass. lin, m., & bolstad, r. (2008). students’ experiences of learning in virtual classrooms: findings from the online student survey. wellington, new zealand: new zealand council for educational research. miles, m. b., & huberman, a. m. (1994). qualitative data analysis (2nd ed). newbury park, ca: sage. ohia, r. (2008). the lams bilingual interface trial (bif). wellington, new zealand: ministry of education. patton, m. q. (2002). qualitative research and evaluation methods (3rd ed.). thousand oaks, ca: sage. pullar, k., & brennan c. (2008). personalising learning for secondary students working in a blended (distance/face to face/vocational) learning environment. computers in new zealand schools, 20(2), 6–16. ragan, l. (2009). do-it-yourself course design evaluation. boston, ma: centre for innovative course design. retrieved from http://www.edtech.neu.edu robertson, j. m. (1995) principals’ partnership: an action research study on professional development of new zealand school leaders. (unpublished master’s thesis). university of waikato, hamilton, new zealand. roblyer, m. d., & mckenzie, b. (2000). distant but not out-of-touch: what makes an effective distance learning instructor? learning and leading with technology, 27(6), 50–53. rodriguez, m. c., ooms, a., & montanez, m. (2008). students’ perceptions of online-learning quality given comfort, motivation, satisfaction, and experience. journal of interactive online learning, 7(2). retrieved from http://www.ncolr.org/jiol/issues/showissue.cfm?volid=7&issueid=23 stake, r. (1995). the art of case study research: perspectives on practice. thousand oaks, ca: sage. wallace, m. (2008). effects of the le@rning federation’s curriculum content on indigenous students’ motivation to learn and their engagement in learning. melbourne australia: national digital learning resources network. walsh-pasco, l. (2004). from teletubbies to teleteachers: effective practice in video conference teaching. a paper submitted to the ministry of education e-learning unit, e-fellowship initiative, wellington, new zealand. wenmoth, d. (1996). learning in the distributed classroom. set research information for teachers, 2(4), 1–4. winters, s. (1998). developing classroom management styles in secondary schools. (unpublished master’s thesis). university of waikato, hamilton. http://www.edtech.neu.edu/ http://www.ncolr.org/jiol/issues/showissue.cfm?volid=7&issueid=23 barbour, m. k., bennett, c. 22 biographical notes michael barbour mkbarbour@gmail.com michael barbour is an assistant professor at wayne state university, and has been involved with primary and secondary online learning in canada, the united states, and new zealand for over a decade as a researcher, teacher, course designer and administrator. michael’s research focuses on the effective design, delivery and support of k–12 online learning, particularly for students located in rural jurisdictions. carolyn bennett carolyn.bennett@farnet.schoolzone.net.nz carolyn bennett is the eprincipal of the farnet and harbournet online communities which provide distance teaching and learning opportunities as part of the new zealand virtual learning network community. she has been involved in traditional education for over 25 years as a teacher and deputy principal, and has been involved in distance learning for 7 years as a facilitator, online learner, researcher, e-teacher and now leader of these two communities. � this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. barbour, m. k., & bennett, c. (2013). the farnet journey: effective strategies for engaging māori students on the virtual learning network. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 17(1), [12–23]. mailto:mkbarbour@gmail.com mailto:carolyn.bennett@farnet.schoolzone.net.nz http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 17(1) 23 appendix a 1. what national (ethnicity) are you? you can choose more than one. please add your ethnicity if it is not listed. new zealand european māori pasifika (please state) indian asian other (please specify) 2. what is your gender? male female 3. how many years have you been teaching through the vln? appendix b 1. establish the teacher’s nationality, gender, school/cluster, course and level they teach, no. of classes they teach, whether they use a lms, how long they have been teaching, how many students are in their class. 2. tell me about any professional development opportunities you have received on teaching online or e-learning. 3. how effective has this professional development opportunity been in assisting you in your online teaching? 4. what type of professional development opportunities could assist you in the future? 5. what things do you do differently in an online class than in a face–to-face one? 6. can you discuss the importance of relationships with your students, between students and with the coordinator? 7. are you aware of any māori students in your class and, if so, do you treat them any differently? 8. do you have higher expectations of your e-students than of those in your face–to-face class? 9. how have you encouraged students to collaborate in your online class? 10. can you tell me about how you run your online class? 11. what advice do you have for a future e-teacher? 12. what advice do you have for a future e-student? owen, h. 46 interview with eddie reisch hazel owen, ethos consultancy nz keywords: e-learning; blended learning; vln; virtual schooling introduction eddie reisch is currently working as a policy advisor for te reo māori operational policy within the student achievement group with the ministry of education in new zealand, where he has implemented and led a range of e-learning initiatives and developments, particularly the virtual learning network (vln). he is regarded as one of the leading innovators in the area of blended learning in k–12, and during his 30 years in education he has applied an unwavering belief that all learners can be the best they can when empowered to collaborate, make choices, be creative, and learn from their mistakes. eddie was interviewed by hazel owen, director of ethos consultancy nz on 10 january 2013. interview hazel owen: there are numerous terms used to describe e-learning, and they are sometimes used interchangeably. what terminology do you prefer to use, and why? eddie reisch: to be honest, i get really annoyed these days by the terms ‘distance’, ‘online’, and ‘virtual’ education and learning—we do not need a proliferation of terms any more. in education, we have spoken for years—since the internet was conceived—about merging the terms that apply to face-to-face learning and online learning. if we are truly experiencing a paradigm shift in education and learning then we need to start talking just about ‘learning’. for the purposes of this interview, i will refer to a blended learning communities approach. with this in mind i will describe what i feel is the approach and then attempt to answer your questions in that light. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 17(1) 47 i have developed a diagram that captures what i feel the blended learning community approach to be. figure 1 blended learning community approach when we consider the learner as the centre of our focus and approach, who is in turn learning within the context of a knowledge-building ropu/group, then the teacher moves from being the director of learning to having the role of guide and mentor. the teacher no longer develops and implements the learning environment and approaches; this, in turn, empowers the learners to build knowledge. this approach embraces the active participation of all those who surround the learner. the work environment is shifting and you only need to look at the music and paper industries to get a feel for what is happening and the difference in approach that is needed for a 21st century learner. however, we are not just preparing our learners and students for the work force—there are elements of social and community needs that need to be met, and associated skills that need to be developed. there is another important element missing for learners/students. in my opinion, we are so busy developing learning environments for education from a school or kura perspective that we have not bothered to join the learners within their world. they are already developing blended learning approaches with facebook, flickr, and by texting—why are we so arrogant to think that our design and approaches are best? hazel owen: how did you become interested in, and get involved in, virtual learning, or should i say, blended learning communities? eddie reisch: i became interested in technology, computers, applications and the internet back in the early 1990s, inspired by my children who were then 10 and 8 years old. they were using technology in relation to their learning, as well as gaming and having fun. i personally loved learning the new apps and playing with different ways of doing things online. i created my first owen, h. 48 website in navigator gold. wow! what fun. i did see the potential that computers and the online environment could have on learning back then, but in hindsight, it was a very fuzzy view. i guess the real answer to ‘how did i get interested and involved in virtual learning?’ in a more deep, meaningful, and structured way was through the correspondence school in the early 21st century—2001 approximately. i was developing an online technology programme for years 9 and 10 and derek wenmoth was setting up an e-section of which i became the ict facilitator. wonderful and challenging experiences were just about to begin in earnest. i believe we referred to it as like being on a combination of shifting sand and a roller coaster, and it hasn’t stopped since then! sometimes i would like to go back under the blankets and hide, but on the flip side, it’s way too much fun. since that time, some of the initiatives that i have been involved with have been with the correspondence school and, later, developing the vln on behalf of the ministry of education. i continued to focus on developing a blended learning community approach that included the virtual learning network, the virtual professional learning development programme, english language learning in new zealand schools [ellinz], and the māori medium blended learning community approach. hazel owen: one of the main initiatives that you have been involved in at the ministry of education relates to the virtual learning network. can you describe for us what the vln is, and how and why the vln was started? eddie reisch: i’ll start with how the vln website was established. the initial people involved were derek, myself and chris allott-mcphee (better known as cam). the vln was originally conceived, and development mentoring while at the correspondence school was by derek wenmoth, in 2002—credit where credit is due. alongside the idea of a brokerage website for the vln we also developed the learning communities online handbook. both of these developments were done in collaboration with the sector. the idea was to develop something that would help schools and kura broker programmes of learning across new zealand, initially for the secondary school sector. so the brokerage site was designed to provide a portal to foster collaboration and the bartering of programmes as well as developing equity of access and communities of practice. an additional benefit would be to devolve the central provisioning of programmes and to enable schools and kura to own and develop their own relevant programmes, informed by local knowledge. the first site was designed by the three of us and built by me in dreamweaver. that was a mission considering my spelling is at best described as challenging! hazel owen: what elements do you feel the group who developed the vln initiative put in place that account for the ongoing steady growth? eddie reisch: the first vital element was to focus on community collaboration. the vln was built around the community of people representing the schools and kura and their needs, who were in turn represented by e-principals. from the start, we held monthly online meetings to discuss what was needed and this community involvement ensured a sense of ownership. we journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 17(1) 49 were all intimately involved in the development of the vln, and i believe that this ensured growth, sustainability and scalability. element two was the e-principals building meaningful rich relationships with their own schools and kura—so regional knowledge and people were keys to success. alongside this was the development of national relationships between e-principals, which helped them understand and appreciate learners’ backgrounds and their needs across the very different regions across new zealand. another vital element was the support provided by the ministry of education. hazel owen: what challenges have been faced by those involved in the initiative to implement virtual schooling in new zealand? eddie reisch: there were lots of challenges, but also lots of opportunities, and wow! the ride has always been interesting and varied. some of the challenges revolved around the fact that the technology layer operated as a vehicle for a paradigm shift in education, and a central question was how to use it effectively to bring about change. one challenge, for example, was demonstrating inclusive practice that adapts to fit the student rather than making the student adapt to fit the school or kura. there were also issues around the cost of and access to bandwidth, applications, services, and digital devices. the lack of applications that are managed and owned by learners was a problem, although this situation is changing. however, even when they own a device, at present the students tend to rely on accessing the teacherand educational institution-controlled online environments. on the positive side, the vln communities such as the vln primary and ellinz programmes have set up environments for students that are run and managed by them to support each other and new students in the programmes. an additional challenge for the māori medium and pasifika sectors is the lack of applications that have been developed for their needs in the form of language packs and applications that recognise macrons etc. ongoing concerns continue around the number of, and access to, assistive technologies for learners with special education needs. across institutions, policies needed to be developed, and practical challenges such as timetabling addressed and, of course, there was the ongoing hurdle of funding. because of the shift away from traditional approaches into the online environs, it was necessary to provide opportunities for robust professional development, and to recognise and grow leadership. hazel owen: you mentioned the vln primary programme—i understand that over the last 2–3 years the vln approach has been offered across the primary sector. could you tell us a bit more about how this was initiated and how the students, parents, and schools have reacted to the opportunity? owen, h. 50 eddie reisch: there was a requirement by the ministry of education to offer a language learning opportunity to junior learners. however, many of new zealand’s primary and intermediate schools and kura had no access to language teachers, or had access to only one language if they had a language teacher in their community, and students were missing out. after discussions with people in the vln communities, and with assistance from the ministry of education, we 1 decided to target languages as a programme of work. the idea was to offer language options online. the choice of languages would initially be limited, but the aim was to gradually increase the pool of teachers and range of languages from which students could select, no matter where they were located in new zealand. to date this programme has been an outstanding success as far as participation and collaboration are concerned, and the family and whānau reaction has been extremely positive because this initiative has allowed their children to learn a variety of languages. this programme has developed and students can now choose from chinese, german, french, japanese, spanish, and te reo māori, as well as astronomy, extension maths, and writing. one exciting development is rosmini college year-12 students teaching health to 5 and 6 year olds online. hazel owen: what are some of the lessons you’ve learned from the vln? eddie reisch: there are a number of lessons to be learnt, but isn’t that always the way when you are breaking new ground? i’d say that the key lessons are: develop, build, reflect and tweak in collaboration with the users…especially the students…and the feedback they provide, because the end recipient of this work must be the priority in the design. this goes hand in hand with embracing positively things that didn’t go so well, and learning for future designs. it is essential to provide support for the learners, teachers, leaders and community, in particular in the form of pastoral support for students. teachers also need to model the way students might learn in a blended community, and tailor sessions and activities to reflect their individual pace of understanding. three things to remember that will stand you in good stead are: one, be patient—good things take time; two, learn from your mistakes; and three, work collaboratively. hazel owen: does your experience with the vln suggest frameworks that are relevant to understanding online education in the school sector? and what do you think are the main differences in fostering blended learning communities in k–12 compared with higher education? eddie reisch: new zealand is unique in the sense that the te marautanga o aotearoa and the new zealand curriculum are not prescribed for schools and kura, so there is real flexibility in what can be achieved for learners. this flexibility aligns nicely with the government’s 1 i must thank rachel roberts for her dedication and passion in developing and implementing this exciting programme of work. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 17(1) 51 overarching goal to build an education system that equips new zealanders with 21st century skills through the increased use of e-learning in schools. the e-learning action plan, enabling the 21st century learner, was developed to outline the key outcomes and actions for e-learning in the new zealand schools sector for 2006–2010. this action plan outlined goals and a direction for e-learning in schools and how it directly contributes to the outcomes of the schooling strategy. it also identified how school-focused initiatives fit in with, and support, the wider range of digital and information communication technology strategies being co-ordinated and supported by the government. when you look at higher education, i don’t know that it does differ that much to tell the truth. both are financially and politically driven, and both aim to help students develop skills that will enable them to thrive in a rapidly changing ‘connected’ world. from a practical point of view some differences might include agency, for example. in higher education students are expected to be way more self-directed, will register themselves, and often are expected to set up their own accounts. in k–12 environments the accounts are usually set up for the students, sometimes with the requirement of collecting parental consent, and this has big implications for the administrative workload for schools. there are then associated policies around who should have … or needs … access to the data that is collected. in higher education, usually the data is accessible to the student, lecturer, and the institution. in schools, sometimes the student may not have access to all of their data, but their teachers and the school will, and parents and whanau as well. hazel owen: learning in blended learning communities isn’t necessarily suitable for every student. which students excel in these environments? and what traits do you feel learners…and teachers…need to have to get the most out of the approaches used in the vln? eddie reisch: i feel the way some virtual learning approaches are currently designed there are things that will suit certain characteristics of learners. however i don’t believe there are any learners who will not benefit from a blended learning community approach. this sort of blended approach will ensure that learners who require different percentages of synchronous and asynchronous support (the asynchronous includes face to face) have their needs met so that they can achieve what they want to achieve. the focus is clearly on the learner. it helps when learners are open to change and willing to work collaboratively and share, because this helps them to maximise the opportunities to co-construct meaning with other students. hazel owen: what advice do you have for teachers who would like to teach within a blended learning community? eddie reisch: the technology layer offers so many opportunities beyond using technology as an information source. it provides collaborative spaces that can break down the classroom walls as we know them. teachers should embrace the changing paradigm and look for opportunities to fill the gaps for the learners they are involved with. this means that teachers themselves need to be willing to share, co-construct, co-mentor, and co-assess. opportunities to develop the necessary skills and shifts in practice include becoming active…or maybe taking a course…in a blended owen, h. 52 environment. also, teachers could join an online community of practice with an interest in education, go online and experience the variety of spaces and learning opportunities that are out there, make things, reflect, make mistakes, tweak, and evaluate…just to name a few. my advice is for teachers to empower their students—to listen to them, and encourage them to drive the learning. building in choice should include the creation of networks that include a variety of teachers, other learners, and people and experts from local and global communities so that students have access to knowledge-building opportunities that no one person (usually a teacher) can provide. hazel owen: what advice do you have for schools that would like to embrace a virtual learning approach? eddie reisch: fundamentally, schools and kura need to realise the impact that the digital world is going to have on education and businesses alike. they need to embrace that change and look for the opportunities to help learners be flexible, and to learn how to learn, not what to learn. the blended learning community approach has an all-inclusive learning approach built in—it acts as a framework for change and a shift in practice. hazel owen: what advice do you have for others who would like to assume leadership positions in the field of virtual learning? eddie reisch: we are in a new and brave world and there are some fantastic opportunities to really change the way we learn, and to learn ‘just in time’ not ‘just in case’. my advice for people who would like to take on leadership positions is to be brave and to lead, not manage. there are likely to be challenges along the way, especially because the development of blended learning communities can be a difficult concept to describe and understand. leaders will need to be skilled reflective practitioners who are able to listen to the students and work alongside them. they will also need to work across and with communities—not just those geographically located nearby but to also use the technologies to develop blended professional learning communities of their own. hazel owen: what’s your vision for the future of the vln in new zealand? and beyond? eddie reisch: wow! here is a real opportunity for me to wag my tail. this, i feel, is the best approach within the constraints of our present education system and i am hoping the vln will morph into a blended learning community approach sooner rather than later. the vision is (and this links to my opening comments in this interview) to combine e-learning and face to face to become ‘learning’. if you look at the comments and the diagram (fig 1) above in connection with the blended learning community approach, these are the first stages of what is happening now in the projects and programmes that i have been involved with. i think the key statement is that the learners will work as a knowledge-building community of practice. they will be interacting with and supported by people, organisations, and experts who will play an active participatory role in their learning. participation will in turn be valued and recognised in the gathering of the data, and the data must show shifts in learning. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 17(1) 53 hazel owen: given the expansion of the vln in new zealand, the roll-out of ultra-fast broadband, and the development of the network 4 learning, what do you see as the government’s role in virtual learning? eddie reisch: a blended learning community approach needs competition, collaboration and many other elements to make it work. vision, leadership, policy, and funding are key factors, but they must be developed with and alongside the sector. therefore, the government needs to work in collaboration with the sector and i do believe that is happening now. there is a need to understand the fact that competition definitely has a place in the education sector, but it must be in the right place to be really effective. i would hope that one day education becomes an all-of-government decision-making process. hazel owen: as a final question, what else do you want to achieve both personally and professionally in the field of blended learning communities? eddie reisch: i guess like everybody else, i just really want to make a difference. i do believe that i am really privileged to have worked with some real leaders—notably derek wenmoth and kiritina johnstone—over the last 13 years. as managers these two have been awesome, and because of their leadership and vision [they] have enabled me to do my work with trust and friendship, along with really good advice and encouragement. as far as other people that have really impacted me, truly there are so many in the virtual learning network community and beyond i would struggle to mention them all. sorry guys. i do take my hat off to you all and thank you so much for making me who and what i am. personally i want to make sure my mokopuna (grandkids) get the benefit of me being active in their education through a blended approach. it would also be nice if my contribution to their learning is recognised in the system of education, as well as in the social and community aspect. professionally…well, i don't see any real difference between this and my personal desires and plans. hazel owen: the initiatives you have described and been involved with certainly have the potential to pave the way for others who wish to adopt and adapt a blended learning community approach, both in schools and for professional development. thank you very much for your time, eddie. eddie reisch: i think this article could be seen as a conflict of interest with my position at the ministry so i want to make it clear these are my opinions—not those of the ministry or the government of the day. i don’t feel comfortable not being able to speak my mind and as the vln was started many years before i went to the ministry, i am prepared to take whatever consequences may come from this article. owen, h. 54 biographical notes hazel owen info@ethosconsultancynz.com hazel owen is an education consultant who has a keen interest in all aspects of e-learning where the focus is on ways to scaffold and empower learners. in particular, she is interested in (and has conducted research into) how creative, blended approaches to professional learning and development can create opportunities for contextualised applied learning, peer critique, encouraging reflective practice, and sharing experiences—the combination of which translate into an improved learning experience for students. � this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. owen, h. (2013). interview with eddie reisch. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 17(1), [46–54.]. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ microsoft word jdl05maintext1word.doc journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 37 e-lectures within an integrated multimedia course design koenraad kuiper, colin mcmurtrie, gregor ronald university of canterbury christchurch, new zealand introduction myth has it that once upon a time lecturers in universities read their lectures from handwritten manuscripts which were dusty with age. students scribbled these lectures down in the lecture halls as best they might in a bizarre mimicking of the medieval scriptorium. later the blackboard was available for the lecturer to jot down enigmatic words like goethe, empiricism, the enlightenment, and mass with the double ss underlined. some lectures used the new technology of textbooks. then came the overhead transparency with its wonder of coloured pens. there is another myth: that new technology will make the face-to-face teacher obsolete, that you will get a better education watching a professor at harvard who is a leading luminary give great lectures while you attend the lecture live in real time on the web. when radio arrived, when television arrived, and when computer-aided instruction became possible, similar claims were made. these are significant myths in that they constitute a part of popular culture and are thus difficult to influence. they are consequently significant in that they influence public opinion and, through it, political opinion and public policy. neither set of myths is supported by the actual business of teaching and learning. dusty old professors could be brilliant, inspiring teachers and many were first rate at constructing a curriculum that met the objectives they had for a class. sitting in front of a monitor watching someone far away can also be boring. live and in real time is not actually live at all. however there is no doubt that new technologies can significantly aid student learning provided that their use is sensitively tailored to students’ learning needs, provided that these needs are not seen as students’ expressed needs but their real needs. frequently only the teacher knows what those are, since the teacher knows the contents of the course, where the learning problems are, and how they need to be addressed. in this paper we describe an attempt to use available technologies in an integrated way to make a number of learning pathways available to students. we will discuss the way in which course objectives must be carefully examined for the appropriateness of particular pedagogies. electronic and other resources before outlining how electronic resources have been put to use in the two courses that are the case studies of this report, it is important to see what place such resources play alongside all the other resources that exist. we have suggested earlier that journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 38 a careful analysis of new and old technologies is essential if they are to play their appropriate part in educational delivery. furthermore changes of educational technology are not new, as we suggested earlier, nor is the claim that new technologies will replace earlier ones. again, that being so, the realistic analysis of the potential of new technologies is essential. here we will report on the use of web-based resources for teaching, all of which exist alongside and are parasitic on existing technologies. as shown in table 1, each web-based technology that we will look at in more detail later has advantages and disadvantages. none replaces any of the others. each supplements the others providing additional learning opportunities. table 1 learning resources and presentation pathways way to learn medium 1 medium 2 medium 3 web-based medium lectures attending a live lecture in a lecture theatre hearing the lecture audio on cassette in the library hearing the lecture as part of a video online lecturer’s notes seeing on overhead projector seeing copies in library on short-term loan downloadable file on a server lecturer’s powerpoint presentations seeing on overhead projector seeing as presentations from laptop and projector in lecture theatre seeing as part of a video and in downloadable form course handouts paper copy in lectures downloadable form in-class tests in lecture theatre on paper trial versions for selftesting self-administered quizzes practical exercises in lectures in tutorials using textbook self-administered quizzes asking questions before, after, and during lectures in office hours through e-mail discussions in the student caf in tutorials online textbook reading on your own first-year linguistics courses at university of canterbury linguistics at the university of canterbury is taught in two one-semester courses. both courses are taken as standalone ones and as avenues to further study. the first is an introduction to linguistics using english as the language of exemplification. that being the case, the course is cross-listed as an english-language course attracting a significant proportion of non-native speaker students. it also attracts students who are studying other languages, as well as students taking the course for general interest. the course content consists of three sections looking respectively at english words, english journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 39 sounds, and english sentences. the approach is partly expository and partly analytic. students must acquire a pre-theoretical conceptual understanding of how languages work and the terminology that goes with the study of languages. they must also learn analytic techniques such as phonetic transcription and grammatical analysis. most students have done no linguistic study previously. the course is the prerequisite course for all subsequent linguistic study in the linguistics programme. the second course follows on in the second half of the academic year. it deals with how languages operate in a social environment. the first half of the course looks at the individual as a social being operating with language. it examines, for example, how humans use linguistic politeness techniques. the second half looks at language in nation-states. it begins with a study of five different countries and their language history and policies and then turns to issues such as linguistic human rights in a nationstate. the objectives of this course are educative in a broad sense and partly attitudinal. it aims to make students more aware of and open to seeing the language issues they themselves face as individuals and as citizens of a nationstate. the course provides a background for those who are going on to study sociolinguistics at higher levels. the webct project the webct project for these two courses began in 2003 as a result of an initiative by the first author. lectures for ling101 and ling102 had previously been recorded and the cassette tapes placed on reserve in the library along with the paper versions of the overhead transparencies used in the lecture theatre. it seemed likely that a better way could be found by recording the lectures, saving them as mp3s, and making them available on the web. it also appeared likely that a way might be found of using powerpoint presentations and saving the audio as a voiceover for the recording. the first author approached the it department and subsequent investigation by the second author suggested that snapzpro for the macintosh, a screen capture utility, might serve the purpose. this technique was trialled in the second semester course with the help of technicians from the it department including specialists in webct, streaming video technology, and av. numerous failures of one kind and another led to the evolution of viable techniques. by the end of the semester a number of quicktime movies had been made and placed on a streaming video server, and student reaction was sought to determine how students felt about this technology. they were enthusiastic. the aim of this part of the project was to replace the library recordings and text with integrated audio and video movies. the advantages were clear. students could access the movies on the campus network more than one at a time and at any time that they could get on-campus access to the network. access was therefore more flexible and audio and video were better integrated since students needed previously to integrate the overheads and sound themselves. using quicktime was also better for selective use of the recording, since the slider that enabled one to move through the movie always showed the current powerpoint slide, thus serving as an index. so a student who might wish to see only a table that had been missed and hear the associated talk, rather than having to use the fast forward and reverse buttons on a cassette recorder until the desired section of talk was journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 40 found, could skip through the quicktime movie using the powerpoint slide as index. the movies also allowed students repeated access to the lecture expositions. they allowed students who had been ill to hear the lectures afterwards. they were available for revision. however, students might also want the written notes and so the powerpoint files themselves were placed on webct to allow students to download these. most students have done so and printed them often using the form that allows notes to be written alongside. the result is that students attend to the lecture rather than their note taking and lectures have been more interactive. most students have also read the notes beforehand and therefore the lecture can provide more detail and support for the major points made on the powerpoints. since webct was to be the significant technology for the course, the first author also created some 30 quizzes to provide online tutorials for students. these give instant feedback on student understanding of terminology, concepts, and capacity in the required analytic techniques. they are an extra. ten faceto-face tutorials are also provided, as are in-lecture class exercises and exercises in the text part-authored by the first author of this paper. students were asked to provide feedback to the lecturer on the quizzes, and numerous corrections and improvements were made as a result of students using the quizzes and e-mailing the lecturer. as a result the front end of the site has icons for the normal course outline while the course content icon contains all the powerpoints in order as the topics are presented. each is listed under the topic in the lecture schedule. selective release makes only the current set of topics available at the beginning of a section break. the movies are playable from a further icon which shows the date of each lecture rather than the topic since a lecture topic can overlap dates and often a topic will be finished in the middle of a lecture period and the next topic will be commenced. quizzes are available from another icon. these are also selectively released to coincide with the period after the topic had been dealt with in class, so students could only try their skills in areas they had already covered in the lectures. at the end of the 2004 academic year, a grant was obtained for increasing the question pool for each quiz and providing feedback on all the incorrect answers to aid learning. in this way the quizzes will operate as a mastery learning opportunity. many students are clearly attracted by this opportunity. usage of the site for ling101 was very high. it seemed as if it would be an adjunct initially, but in the first two months many students had more than 30 hits on the site and some as high as 200. it was notable that many of those with the higher access rates had nonpakeha names suggesting that non-native speakers found the webct resources particularly useful. student results were also interesting. ling101 has previously had a bimodal distribution with a strong peak at the top of the mark distribution and a somewhat smaller one in the fail range suggesting, rightly, that ling101 is a mastery type course. those who get it do well; those who don’t, don’t. however, in 2004, the distribution was trimodal with the same peaks as normal but with a further peak in the b range, suggesting that the journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 41 online resources may have pulled some of the students who would previously have failed into a respectable pass. the tests and examination were identical in character and format to those in past years. it remains to be seen if this alteration to the distribution maintains itself in future years. a grant was also obtained in 2003 for work on a further technique to be implemented for the ling102 course. since that course is interested in individuals and their social circumstances, the first author decided to use folk linguistic intuitions as a starting point for many of the topics. mastery quizzes could not play such a central role since the course material was not so much to be mastered as understood and contemplated. so a survey technique was developed, again using webct, where students were asked their opinions on various matters relating to language and their views were fed back to the class. the survey tool provided by webct was used to gauge student opinion on issues relevant to the course. for example, students were asked to rank suburbs of christchurch in terms of the quality of the english spoken there. not surprisingly, the evaluation they gave correlated positively with mean house prices, showing that the students who live in christchurch have well-developed folk awareness of socioeconomic variables and these are correlated with standards relating to language use. lectures then focussed on the evidence for standards and correctness. we now turn to the technical backdrop for the courses described above. webct as an e-learning host the university of canterbury uses webct campus edition v4.0. most lecturers begin by using webct as a delivery vehicle for syllabus and calendar and for copies of lecture notes or other written materials. as staff become comfortable with the medium and its capabilities, they often begin to experiment with the many other interactive learning tools that webct offers. the most popular of these are discussions, assessment (quizzes, tests, assignments), and multimedia presentations. webct’s role in the presentation of multimedia varies, according to the size of the files involved. small video and audio clips and pictures, up to around 200 or 300kb in size, are treated just like any other file type. staff upload the files to the webct server, then add a link to these which students click to view the object. if a multimedia file is larger than 300kb, the download time becomes problematic, and larger files also put pressure on the students’ limited disk allocation. a further factor is that the entire file must be downloaded before it can be viewed, which leaves students staring at a download screen just when their interest has been aroused. this is a disruption to the learning process, so once file sizes become large other alternatives are employed. streaming video differs from standard video clips in that the server sends the picture in small packets, so the replay can begin as soon as the first packets have arrived. if the viewer jumps to the middle of the movie, the server just sends packets from the middle; access to any part of the stream is very rapid, while keeping network traffic at very low levels. work on streaming video began in late 2002, and delivery of streaming video began in early 2003. journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 42 at the same time, the third author was experimenting with camtasia (http:// www.techsmith.com/). this software captures the computer screen, or designated parts of a screen, along with voice narration. in the linguistics courses, powerpoint slides and voiceovers are captured during lectures. the final video, with title slides and other enhancements, can be saved in many formats. the preferred format is macromedia flash, which produces a web page containing a flash animation, which is very economical in size. webct acts as the gatekeeper to control access to a powerful macintosh server, running quicktime video streaming software, on which the videos are stored. this guarantees that only students enrolled in the course can view the material. in webct no ongoing work is required as the store of lectures grows; all that the lecturer does is to create one link to the html index file on the macintosh at the start of the semester. this link opens the index page on the streaming server, and students click the lecture they want to view. to the students, this process is seamless; the video clip starts playing within the webct frame, so students have no idea they are viewing material on another server. the video server is not open to the internet outside the campus network, primarily for security reasons. in addition, the video stream requires a fast connection to deliver the pictures without halting and jerking. video compression could be increased even further, but this would compromise the on-campus viewing quality. however, the webct server is available offcampus, so all other aspects of the webct course are available any time, any place. surveys and server logs show that students really do value the ability to do their work at some very odd times, which is an endorsement of this addition to flexible learning. the streaming video server apple’s quicktime streaming server (qtss) technology is used to host all streamed video content. currently hundreds of hours of video content is hosted for 21 degree-related courses. this video content is accessed thousands of times per week and is almost constantly in use 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. the type of content includes videotaped lectures, legacy educational material imported from vhs tape, quicktime movies of powerpoint presentations created using screencapture software, videotaped free-to-air television broadcasts, and mock radio broadcast material created by journalism students. in the case of videotaped lectures, our current work flow has a turnaround time of approximately one day, from the time of filming to the time the content is available on the streaming server. turnaround time for the other content varies, depending upon the postproduction work needed, but in the case of powerpoint presentations material can be ready to host within hours. all content is made available through web pages that are linked back to the relevant webct course material. we have specifically chosen real time streaming protocol (rtsp) streaming as the mode of delivery, as opposed to the more traditional download-and-play, because it provides a level of protection against illicit use of the material. with an rtsp stream, as with a downloaded movie, the content can be viewed ondemand and the user can jump both forward and backward within the movie. journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 43 however, the web browser plug-in does not cache the content in a usable form, so it is not possible for the user to keep the content and use it in a way the lecturer did not intend, e.g., by selling it to a third party. costs and benefits the high usage figures for the site are indicative of its having a high acceptability rate. educationally, the benefits are relatively easy to enumerate. students appear more involved and motivated by having the extra resources available to them. this shows in their survey assessment of the two case study courses and the lecturer. the lecturer has had the highest student evaluations he has ever had (4.8/5 and 4.9/5 on the university of canterbury’s standard survey) and very positive comments about the innovations. the increase in these scores seems to have had more to do with the webct resources than any major changes in the lectures or course content. the change in the pass distribution for ling101 is an indicator of success. fifteen students from ling101 went directly into the second year class after only one semester at university. they coped well with the considerably higher level of work in that class. long-term it is more difficult to assess what the benefits for students will be. it may be presumed that the richer array of learning opportunities will lead to better retention of the conceptual content and skills acquired, but it is not yet possible to assess that. the amount of extra work required to construct these resources is considerable. somewhere around one to two hours is required to construct each quiz. correction of errors on a sporadic basis does not seem time-consuming but probably is. building the question database up to the point where there are enough questions in it to make the random selection of questions in each quiz taxing enough is also time consuming. initially only 10 or fewer questions were constructed for each quiz. the aim is to have 30 available for selection. furthermore, with all the multi-choice questions, feedback on the incorrect options will also take time and effort. that said, however, once these additions are complete, the resource should be reasonably durable. basic linguistics courses all seem to need the kinds of competencies that the quizzes attempt to create. the quicktime movies (powerpoint slides and voiceover) are not expensive to produce. a laptop is needed to drive the presentation and the software to record them is not expensive. a pa system or conference recorder is needed to feed the audio back into the laptop and a radio microphone can feed the speaker’s voice into the recording system. dubbing takes about 15 minutes after the lecture and post-production takes about another 10 minutes. all going well, the lecture can be up on the server half an hour after it was given. a different approach used at the university of canterbury involves lectures being filmed on digital videotape by a cameraman at the back of the lecture. here the video is not of what is on the screen in the lecture theatre so much as of the lecturer at the front of the class as seen by someone sitting near the back of the class. the first author, having seen the full lecture recording technique, decided the voiceover technique was likely to have more immediacy for students and thus to be more effective as an adjunct source of exposition. costs of journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 44 the full movie-making technique are also higher. they include the cost of the cameraman and post-production by av staff. the immediacy of the voiceover technique is also lost since the movie presents a distant person rather than a voice alone. however, many things can go wrong with the voiceover technique. the set-up and checking routine at the beginning of the class takes a good five minutes and the opportunities for forgetting something essential or not plugging it in are not to be underestimated, particularly at a time when one is also readying oneself for a class. leaving one step out means no movie. furthermore, there are no error messages and if one forgets something, then it is only later that this is evident. sometimes the recording appears to crash under its own steam. the files are large. it is not surprising that there is the occasional crash. limitations there are courses for which the outlined resource strategy would not work nearly so well. in the second year syntax class taught by the first author, a great deal of time is spent drawing diagrams on an overhead projector. no doubt with a drawing tablet these drawings might be made into quicktime movies but the chances are that they would look messy. unless there was intelligent software behind the process, straightening out the lines and doing optical character recognition on the lettering, the movies might be more of a hindrance than a help. in this second year class, students also spend time in class doing exercises. a movie would need editing to cut such episodes but they are an essential element of the course and so students would need to be under no illusion that they had missed essential parts of the course if they attended only to the movies. that is not to say that technological innovation may not allow these problems to be overcome in future. it should be clear that these technologies have advantages. they also have disadvantages pedagogically. there is no technology like a book. ling101 has a text and the web is not a substitute for it. it has a lecturer who, when he lectures, is genuinely live as opposed to technologically live. a movie of a person is not the same as a person, just as a live musical performance is not the same as the best cd recording of that performance. tutorials with a live tutor provide learning opportunities with a feedback that cannot be given by a mechanical contrivance. even e-mail feedback is not as immediate as a present human can provide. the live tutorial is thus superior in some respects to the learning opportunities that be gained from online quizzes. the point to be taken is that each technology has its own character and the best learning environment is gained from exploiting each for what it best offers. possible future developments the first author hopes to make a full cd version of all the ling101 lectures once teething troubles are overcome and a full set of lectures can be recorded. this will have the advantage that students who are not able to gain access to the broadband campus network can also use this resource. if the quizzes can also be provided on this medium then they will present an integrated extramural package when used with the text. intellectual property issues will have to be dealt with. as web-based technologies improve, they can be exploited for the benefit of students. they will not replace other journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 45 technologies. no previous technology has. nor are they cheaper. education doesn’t come cheap. in that it is like heart bypass surgery. techniques may improve but the human input must always be there. if it isn’t, worthwhile learning is not as likely to happen. professor koenraad kuiper is a member of the department of linguistics at the university of canterbury. he has published extensively on the theory of the lexicon and in literary theory. he teaches several linguistics courses at the undergraduate level and is also engaged in post-graduate teaching. colin mcmurtrie is an it consultant with the information technology department at the university of canterbury. his work focuses on supporting the university’s macintosh users. gregor ronald is an it consultant with the information technology department at the university of canterbury. he provides support for the use of webct within the university. the world of distance learning technology seminar on november 28 this year, deanz is hosting a national seminar in wellington, and members will receive an invitation. the theme is technology and the learner. those of us working in open learning are well aware of the implications of the use of technology and of rapid technological progress: today's pilot scheme is outdated before the evaluation has even begun, and great concerns over costs of development and of equity of access for the learner, to name just a few. this seminar will look at open learning schemes which are employing communications are reaching and enhancing their technology. there will be a chance to see what successful schemes are operating, to talk to the people involved, to discuss successes and problems, and to try a hands on approach with experienced practitioners to provide guidance. many tertiary providers are unaware of any background students may have had already in educational technology in schools before they reach the tertiary environment. consequently, the first plenary session will deal with 'the challenge of the sophisticated learner'. that theme will be picked up several times during the day, as will the other major theme, through technology to the learner. there is no lack of information about the latest advances in educational technology, and its possibilities. what deanz will be providing is reflective practice: 'praxis' a look at what is really happening for the learner, and for the practitioner, rather than what technology tells us could happen in an ideal world, with an equally ideal budget! the emphasis will be on sharing successful experiences. there will be fifty places at the seminar. we expect competition for places, but right of first refusal will be given to current deanz members. unit standards at last year's biennial deanz conference, the executive was given a clear message by members by members that a qualification in open/ distance learning was a priority. since then, a number of deanz executive and ordinary members have been involved in the development of open/ distance learning unit standards. the scoping committee consisted of russell woolcock of nzqa, denise hansen and myself from the deanz executive, sally rawnsley from the correspondence school, claire mclachlan-smith from massey university, kathy broadley from astu, martin maclean from the open polytechnic and gwen gawith from auckland college of education, all happily deanz members anyway. at first, the emphasis was on standards for the deliverer, but it soon became obvious that without standards for the learner as well, the development would have little meaning. unit standards for learners? we hear much about adapting to individual learning styles and flexible delivery methods, but the truth is that many learners have developed ineffectual learning styles and can be helped to improve their ability to learn, and to take better advantage of the opportunities inherent in lifelong learning. as well, open learning, in empowering the learner, offers particular challenges for that same learner, to help them to become truly independent and selfmotivated, rather than teacher/lecturer dependent. it may well be that deliverers themselves would find the learner unit standards challenging! journal of distance learning, vol 2, no. i, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 56 the unit standards identified by the scoping group are as follows: leamer skills: identify own odl needs and opportunities manage own learning in the odl environment use technology in the odl environment apply information skills to achieve learning outcomes provider skills: apply principles of learning in the odl environment apply principles of odl provision develop open and distance learning materials and resources design open and distance learning materials/ resources support open and distance learning through the use of learning technologies facilitate open and distance learning support open and distance learners the current developments have been taken before the adult education and advisory group, which has endorsed them. deanz was selected as the representative group to speak to the units, and i attended the advisory group meeting in may for this purpose. the deanz wish to see a qualification in distance/open learning was communicated to the group. the next step, following this important endorsement, is to see whether nzqa allocates funds for the purpose of further developing the unit standards identified by the scoping group. if so, there will be further consultation with the wider deanz community. glenise dreaver president, deanz interactive television pilot project the correspondence school (new zealand) is implementing a new zealand ministry of education contract to trial interactive television as a means of introducing foreign language teaching and technology education to 100 schools throughqut new zealand. the contract was signed in june 1995 and broadcasts began in april 1996. the objectives of the pilot are as follows: • support the work of teachers and enhance educational opportunities and outcomes, particularly in languages and technology, through the broadcast via television of interactive learning programmes to selected schools; • provide professional development programmes for teachers to complement the student learning programmes; • facilitate the teaching of languages, particularly to rural schools and for year 7-10 pupils who may not have a specialist language teacher; • explore the impact of television in enhancing learning and teacher development; • provide technical information and indicative costings for producing, transmitting and receiving learning programmes via television. to achieve these objectives, the correspondence school established a core project team to administer the project, establish a tv network, and produce tv programmes and support materials. the key elements of the project are: • the establishment of the tv network: originally the ministry envisaged a satellite network but this proved to be too costly and unworkable. the network comprises 20 satellite sites in remote areas and 80 uhf sites using sky tv. the correspondence school's main subcontractor arranged the installation of the dishes and related technology at the schools, the tail link and uplink, the earth station, the uhf partnership with sky and transponder time, in other words, a complete turnkey solution. • the selection and partnering of schools: one hundred schools primary, intermediate and secondary..,.. were selected, provided with receiving technology, and agreed to implement the intention of the project. journal of distance learning, vol 2, no.1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 57 • the upgrade of the correspondence school's television technology and studio facilities: though improved, funding limited the extent of the upgrade. • planning and developing programmes: using the correspondence school's expertise and overseas material, programme schedules and plans have been developed in spanish, maori, japanese and technology aimed at year 7 to 10 pupils. the language programmes assume pupils are beginners. • selecting and training presenters and production staff: the entire project team is drawn from the correspondence school's staff. after auditions and selection, training was provided by our own broadcasting staff and outside experts. • developing support materials: printed teacher resources and student materials to use during and between broadcasts have been developed and provided to all participating schools. all project elements have presented a challenge. the technology and delivery strategies are new to the correspondence school and the task of informing school partners how to use the programmes has been a major exercise. a significant teaching challenge has been to develop a range of interactive strategies so that learners are engaged in the learning activities. by various means, but mainly through the partnership of tv presenter and classroom teacher, we. have sought to overcome the one way communication usually associated with broadcast technologies for distance education. the project is being evaluated by an independent contractor and the correspondence school. further information may be obtained from alan dodds, associate director /itv project manager, correspondence school, private bag 39-992, wellington, new zealand. tel: 64-4-474-4329 fax: 64-4-499-4717. the international course an open and distance learning the open university's institute of educational technology is offering an intensive four week training course from 9 september to 4 october 1996. the topics include: • planning an open and distance learning system: the external environment, resources and constraijlts • determining the learner profile • establishing a student database • working in course teams: benefits and costs • producing learning materials • selecting appropriate media • using up-to-the-minute information technology • assessing the quality and effectiveness of odl materials • designing and format open learning texts • establishing student support systems: tuition and counselling • setting up on-line tutoring • establishing student assessment systems • evaluating the system you design these topics will be dealt with in core sessions, with time for group work, questions and discussion. a personal programme is interwoven with the core. participants will be taught and guided by leading experts and be assigned a personal tutor. the course is part of let's programme of professional development in educational technology for open and distance learning (pdet). the fee is £4529 (inclusive of uk value added tax), and includes £3269 for tuition and £1260 for accommodation. applications close 1 july 1996. for further information contact kay pole, course director, open university, institute of educational technology, milton keynes mk7 6aa, tel. 00441908 65263; fax 0044 1908 653744; e-mail k.pole @ open.ac.uk journal of distance learning, vol 2, no.1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 58 educational techno logy 2000 the commonwealth of learning, together with intertrade lanka management (pvt) ltd and the asian mass communication research and information centre, is organising an international exhibition and conference on distance education technologies. educational technology 2000: global visions for open learning will take place in the sri lanka exhibition and convention centre, colombo, sri lanka, from 23-27 july 1996. the main objectives of et 2000 are to: • create a forum at which a dialogue can occur between the educational community and the medial technology industries; • provide an opportunity for the educational community to articulate their needs to the industry in an effort to seek appropriate media/technology solutions; • provide the industry with an opportunity to demonstrate the capabilities of a full range of existing and emerging media and technologies which have the potential to address the needs of the education community; and • demonstrate the potential interface between software and hardware. the daily agenda incorporates guided tours of the exhibition. further information may be had from dr abdul khan, acting head, communications and informa tion technologies division, commonwealth of learning, box 10428, vancouver, british columbia, canada v7y 1k4, tel: 001 604 775 8200; fax 001 604 775 8210; email info@col.org. educational technology 2000: creating a global vision for open and distance learning this conference, to be held in singapore from 15-17 august 1996, is being organised by the commonwealth of learning and the asian mass communications research and information centre. the main objectives of et2000 are to provide: 1. a forum for dialogue between the educational community and the educational medial technology industry. 2. an opportunity for the educational community to articulate their needs to the industry in an effort to seek appropriate medial technology solutions. 3. an opportunity for industry to demonstrate the capabilities of a full-range of existing and emerging educational media and technology. 4. demonstrations of practical applications and case studies from all educational sectors. with respect to technology, the conference will focus on multimedia, mixed media, satellite broadcasting, teleconferencing, and computer mediated communication and, with respect to education, higher education, non-formal ed uca tion, business and industry, technical! vocational education, primary and secondary education, and continuing professional education. the conference will feature exhibits from the communications and information technology industries specialising in educational technologies as well as software and course developers. further details are available from the commonwealth of learning, vancouver bc, canada, fax 001 604 775-8210. european distance education network 1996 conference eden held a successful conference in tallinn (1994) on "human resources, human potential, human development the role of distance education' and in oslo (1995) on the 'open classroom' which concentrated particularly on the school sector df distance education. the 1996 conference will be held inpoitiers, from 8-10 july, and will seek to build on recent work and consolidate the network activities and cooperation in all areas of professionally oriented educational training, in particular training for small to medium enterprises, professional organisations and journal of distance learning, vol 2, no. i, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 59 associations with responsibility for the personal development of youth, women and the elderly. the conference themes are: 1. technology: the information society • education multimedia and multimedia potential • integrating technology and multimedia vehicles • technology transfer • technology for academic advantage • internet and education 2. professionally oriented education/training • training the professionals: open space for education • odl for industry and business • re-engineering of education and vocational training methods • the learner experience 3. education and training • organisational environment • academic recognition • user methodologies • credit transfer 4. school level: open classroom • home learners • european dimension in school education • edutainment: software designed for education entertainment • teacher training for using the technology • school networks further details may be obtained from the eden secretariat, box 92, milton keynes mk7 6dx, united kingdom. code of ethics for researchers in distance education the open and distance learning association of australia is considering the introduction of a voluntary code of ethics for odlaa merl}.bers. terry evans of deakin university has prepared a draft for consideration and it is published in the odlaa times, vol. 3 no.4, november 1995. the 18th icde world conference 1997 the 18th icde world conference the new learning environment: a global perspective will be held in the united states of america, hosted by the pennsylvania state university, from 2-6 june 1997. four themes have been established: the changing technological environment; the new educational paradigm; technology, education and sustainable development; and opportunities for international cooperation. within each of these themes, papers will be considered in the following interest areas: • primary through secondary school applications • technology applications and emerging technologies • research and evaluation in distance and open learning • distance education in developing countries • organisational issues: faculty, infrastructure, institutional and regulatory policies • pedagogical issues • promotion and marketing strategies • partnerships and alliances • workplace training and education • student/learner support for newcomers to distance education, sessions will be offered on: • institutional models for open and distance education • approaches to instructional and programme designs • open and distance education in primary through secondary education systems • introducing open and distance learning in conventional institutions • principles of good practice for faculty, programmes and institutions • technology applications and pedagogical issues the internet and distance education deos-l recently carried a discussion of the use of the internet for the delivery of distance education. a growing number of universities in particular are using the internet and www sites for teaching a growing range of courses, for example, the university of massachusetts dartmouth; university of tennessee chatanooga; morehead state university, kentucky; and the university of sheffield journal of distance learning, vol 2, no. i, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 60 (centre for psychotherapeutic studies). the ed ucational technologies unit of the university of geneva (switzerland) offers a postgraduate diploma in e~ucational technologies, using the internet for e-mail, meetings and discussion groups, and document delivery: it is accessible at http:/ / tecfa. unige.ch/ tecfa.html. the university of texas lists many courses available on the internet: it offers links to many courses and www pages the url is http:/ / www.utexas.edu/world/lecture. the literature in this area is not yet extensive, but useful introductory texts are: l.m. hassim (editor), 1990: on line education: perspectives on a new environment. praeger, new york. r. mason and a. kay (editors), 1989: mindweave: communication, computers and distance education. pergamon press. andrea volume 3, november 1,1996 the latest issue of andrea (a network for distance education reporting from european activities) reports that all the papers presented at the open classroom 95 conference in oslo are available at http://www.sds.no/nks/ openclass95 / meny.html. the papers include the opening speech by the norwegian minister of education, gudmund hernes and plenary presentations by wim veen, utrecht university, sandra h welch, pbs, bernard morva and anne-marie degardin, cned, and margaret gamlin, new zealand correspondence school. you will also find 35 papers from parallel sessions on the five main themes of the conference: policy and planning opportunities and challenges from specific technologies distance learning for various audiences impacts of distance learning new partnerships journal of distance learning, vol 2, no. i, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 61 t angata whenua in distance education: an emerging !model for isolated maori secondary students in the correspondence school introduction the philosophy and the practice of distance education offer to individual learners flexibility and personal autonomy within the western academic tradition. these assumptions of learner autonomy and independence have influenced the design of learning materials, their delivery and their structured interactions into a framework which is appropriate to majority colonising populations rather than to indigenous minorities in countries such as canada and new zealand. the framework depends on quiet and private study spaces, telephone and other technological access, and the concept of individual acquisition of knowledge in a market-oriented economy. a current challenge to distance education institutions is to find a mode of delivery, other than traditional home study, which meets the identified preference of minority groups to work in a collaborative mode. the alberta (canada) experience for minority groups is one of providing a local classroom and a community -based tutor who assists with interpretation and explanation of course context, establishes a pacing schedule for groups of students, and provides extra tuition outside school hours. personalising the delivery of home study packages, through emphasising a localised interactive dialogue, is reported to have reduced student dropout and absenteeism and to have produced more articulate and vocal students (goulet and spronk, 1988). in new zealand there is similar recognition that the needs of maori learners are different to those lois amaru, mary rae, and peter shadbolt correspondence school wellington of non-maori and that the current educational disadvantage of the maori minority in a predominantly western educational tradition needs to be rectified. t h i s applies to conventional and to distance education, in both of which the 'previous government policies of assimilation into mainstream education have resulted in low education performance for the maori minority. it is now recognised that targeted intervention through affirmative action is an important factor in changing maori education performance and subsequent participation of maori in the workplace. the creation of the ministry of maori development (te puni kokiri) is recognition by the state that valid and creative maori traditions can generate initiatives to ensure and strengthen a people's identity and economic survival. the maori people want interaction between themselves and the government, which will benefit people collectively and will have people as the most important element. the ministry of maori development has parallels with the ministry of northern development in ontario, in that it seeks to recognise and identify educational needs through consultation and innovative local initiatives, and to support these with state money designated for programme development. in order to redesign delivery methods into a form appropriate and acceptable to the minority groups, the appropriate l.nitial step i s consultation with local communities. in new zealand, as in ontario and alberta (roberts, croft and derks,1988; goulet and spronk, 1988) journal of distance learning, vol1, no.1, 1995 (c) distance education association of new zealand 12 , a suitable model involves the appointment of a local tutor i supervisor, and the arrangement of suitable accommodation in the cotnmunity which then enables students to meet and work as a group. the emerging challenge, however, is to examine and adapt the format, content and delivery of course packages which were designed for individual rather than classroom delivery (goulet and spronk, 1988). content is culture bound: revision needs therefore to recognise and value the culture and knowledge of both the indigenous minorities and the predominant non-indigenous groups. course development can be a joint process between teachers and the leaders of indigenous political and administrative service groups, local and national. the consultative framework is one which first facilitates local delivery and then asks teachers to examine the assumptions behind subject disciplines and distance education pedagogy. one such assumption is individualised as opposed to a collaborative learning style. a challenge currently facing the correspondence school is progression from the use of instructional design based on generally accepted pedagogical principles of distance education and of individual delivery, on which courses and teacher-learner interactivity have been so far based, to design materials through interaction between course developers and groups o f indigenous students and their community, in order to incorporate minority curriculum for local corr1munity delivery. if education is viewed by the government as a means of shaping a productive and integrated society in new zealand, then the government will wish to increase access to education, by encouraging consultation and subsequent adaptation to suit a range of learners and learning styles. the correspondence school has begun this consultation, and this paper concludes with description and discussion of two learning centres recently established out of such consultation to cater for isolated maori secondary students within their communities. ng.a lwi maori and ne w ze aland educ ation maori are approximately 13 percent of the total new zealand population. a high proportion of maori population is in the younger age groups, the median age for maori being 20.5 years compared to non-maori median age o01.3 years ( 1991). in 1994, maori constituted 12 percent the national secondary school population, but constituted 9significant 2 8 percent of the correspondence school's fulltime secondary students; 22.5 percent of these maori students were enrolled for reasorts of geographical isolation whereas the comparative figure for non-maori students was 16.6 percent. maori are .the tangata whenua, the original people of the land. the new zealand maori population has been characterised by rural urban migration since the early 1960s, but a significant proportion has either remained on ancestral ftunily lands or, in the 1980s and 1990s, has returned to the land. the ty pical rural settlement is a small village based round a marae and a meeting house. retention on and return to the land have been paralleled, in both rural and urban settings, by a resurgence in the use of te reo, the maori language, their valued taonga (treasure). nga kohanga reo, (language nests), developed in the 1980s, recognised the need to preserve the maori language. native speakers of maori, mostly elderly people, especially women, are used to immerse children under five in the language. some of these young maori speakers were then catered for in maori medium primary schools (kura kaupapa) and the earliest of them have, in the 1990s, reached secondary schools. some of the more isolated of these adolescents are now enrolled in the secondary section of the correspondence school. national educational characteristics and student performance for maori students show a dismal picture, but not quite as gloomy as that for the correspondence school's maori students. the school's track record for isolated rural maori students to this point is not impressive. generally this student group has been characterised by non-start, slow and low work returns, lack of educational achievement, early school leaving, and non-participation in school events. educational problems have included journal of distance learning, vall, no.1, 1995 (c) distance education association of new zealand 13 limited subject choices, low reading and comprehension levels, and limited success in national qualifications. maori students typically left the school for urlemployment rather than for employment or further training. students 'at risk' in education are those who for a number of reasons are unable to make the most of what the education system has to offer (o'rourke, 1994). t h e maori students at the correspondence school can be described as being at risk. the treaty of w aitangi current national education policy development seeks to promote the government goal of an inclusive society. a dimension unique to new zealand is recognition of the partnership agreement of the treaty of waitangi of 1840, between a representative of the british crown and representatives of the chiefs of the iwi or tribes of the tangata whenua, the maori acknowledged as the first people of the land. there has been therefore since 1989 increased implementation in all sectors of education of programmes in the maori language and in a maori environment nga kohanga reo, the language nests of the early childhood sector; kura kaupapa maori schools with a maori purpose and ethos; and wananga houses of learning at the tertiary level. managers of all mainstream institutions are required to consult with the maori community, and in the case of schools, must develop policies and practices that reflect new zealand's cultural diversity and the unique place of the maori culture (section 63, education act 1989.) in developing its charter in 1990 the correspondence school's board of trustees, in consultation with its parent community, completed a range of guideline statements, some common to the total enrolment, and others specific to maori students. these are summarised in figure 1. t h e s e charter goals and objectives were translated into specific objectives for the board of trustees' strategic plan. they were to: • set up te hautanga-a-rohe (advisory iwi group) to help to identify educational needs among maori people; support maori students in their correspondence school studies and in the recognition of their maori identity; identify iwi resources which could be used to help correspondence school maori student. • survey maori students and the provision of courses, resources, teaching and support for them. • meet with te hautanga-a-rohe and establish the most effective ways in which the group could assist the board a n d the correspondence school's maori community. • endeavour to obtain the special funding allocations for maori that were provided to other schpols, but from which the correspondence school was excluded. • promote marae-based secondary learning centres which would service the needs of secondary students, particularly at form 5, 6 and 7 levels. once this phase has been completed, the board of trustees plans to increase its support for maori students by identifying maori students through the emolment form, and providing area/ district support. in addition, there is a recognised need to tap for support into established local patterns and social conventions and ensure there is, support for maori students by maori, and that networks were set up with the support of te hautanga-a-rohe, for example, a one-to-one buddy system for full­ time students, teleconferencing through a subject and form teacher support system, and visiting by regional representatives with a te hautanga-a­ rohe member. other options that have been developed include attaching maori teachers to catchment areas and school groups with many maori students, and arranging for maori staff to visit maori full time students at home in liaising with regional representative. these specific objectives and plans reflect the vision statement, of the strategic plan which journal of distance learning, vol1, no. 1, 1995 (c) distance education association of new zealand 14 goal objective 1 curriculum to enhar:ce children's learning. 2 local cur�iculum • to maximise the learning advantages of distance education for each student. • to enhance learning by providing support for students and their parents i caregivers i, whanau i supervisors. • to assist students to acquire skills, knowledge and experiences that will help them make the transition into schools and into life beyond school. • to provide quality courses, resources, teaching and support to individual students so that they progress and achieve good standards. 3 community • to enhance learning by establishing a partnership with partnership the school's community and to be responsive to its educational needs and wishes. 4 equity • to enhance learning by ensuring that the curriculum is . . . non radst and that any dis�vantages experienced at the school by students, parents or staff members because of ... ethnic ... background is acknowledged and addressed. • to enhance learning by ensuring that the school's policies and practices seek to achieve equitable outcomes for students ... irrespective of their ... ethnic ... back-ground. 5 treaty of • to fulfil the intent of the treaty of waitangi by valuing waitangi and reflecting new zealand's dual cultural heritage. • every year prepare policies which will ... make equitable provisions in the curriculum for the instructional needs of maori children ... recognise maori values in the provision of resources and facilities within the school. figure 1. charter of the board of trustees of the correspondence school affirms that the correspondence school is a place where people come first; the unique position of maori in new zealand society is recognised and supported; the pluralist and multicultural nature of our society i s acknowledged and respected; staff are valued and treated in a fair and equitable way; and where everyone works to achieve this vision. culturally appropriate course development and teaching programmes at all levels,' and 'continued development and delivery in partnership with maori communities of appropriate learning initiatives' (strategic plan, board of trustees, 1993). in the action plan these priorities are expanded to include priorities and responsibilities in a 1994 -1998 timeframe (figure 2). the school's priorities include one for maori development, with the objective of providing leadership in maori education by honouring obligations under the treaty of waitangi. this is to be achieved through 'continued progressive implementation of te reo (language) and tikanga maori (cultural traditions) resources, the board, in both its charter and the priorities of its strategic plan, undertook modification and delivery of curriculum resources in a way which would recognise the cultural needs of maori students. journal of distance learning, vol1, no. 1, 1995 (c) distance education association of new zealand 15 provide leadership in partnership initiatives to enhance maori ttducation, e.g. secondary learning centres analyse whether correspon­ dence school maori expenditure is appropriate and sufficient. seek maori advice and involvement through • te hautanga-a-rohe and the maori department • maori participation in decision making bodies • national maori organisations develop maori primary school resources update maori curriculum and resources booklet. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * director, principals, head of department maori dir ector, executive manager operations board chairperson, director, principals, head of department maori primary principal, ' manager resource planning and develop­ ment, head of department maori manager resource planning and develop­ ment, head of department maori figure 2. board of trustees' action plan implementation of the action plan implementation of the expression of intent in the charter and the board of trustees strategic plan requires a concerted effort from school staff. in june 1994 a discussion group was initiated. in order to obtain a cross-school view, membership included the · principals for the early childhood, primary and secondary schools, the head of department and senior teacher from the maori teaching department, the heads of special education and student support, and the school's statistician. initial discussion focused on what the group knew or did not know about maori students and appropriate research questions were then developed. the school's computerised database w a s u s e d to provide information on characteristics of 1993 maori students such as age group, reasons for enrolment, length of enrolment, gender, courses taken, work returns, examination results, geographical location and post-school destinations. enrolment data for the fulltime secondary school showed that 28 percent of its students, were maori. maori students were disproportionately represented in dysfunctional enrolment categories (close to 50 percent of the total maori students were enrolled by the children and young persons' service, or for reasons of pregnancy, school suspension or on psychological grounds); 22.5 percent of maori students were enrolled as geographically remote students who were concentrated in the rural districts of gisborne, rotorua, waikato, taranaki/wanganui, hawkes bay, and north auckland. national education statistics for maori secondary students were echoed by correspondence school journal of distance learning, vol1, no. 1, 1995 (c) distance education association of new zealand 16 . maori students. the majority of maori students enrolled in years 1-3 of their secondary education remained for less than a year and returned little or no work during their enrolment. a small minority left the school for tertiary education and training, and a quarter were withdrawn for no work return or for loss of contact. generally awards in new zealand qualifications authority qualifications were not impressive and few students entered. maori girls chose subjects at fifth and sixth form which limited their educational performance and future choices. some target areas emerged from this information: 1. getting started: a significant proportion of maori students (one fifth) did not start work after their enrolment. 2. subjec t choice: maori girls reflected the national trend in choosing form 5 subjects which gave a reduced subject choice in form 6, thus restricting their opportunities for further study and employment. 3. study persistence: students leave school early, are enrolled for less than six months and have a nil or low work achievement while enrolled. 4. qualifications at withdrawal: four out of five correspondence school maori students leave school with no qualification. 5. transition to tertiary education training: very few maori students leave school to enter employment or further training and education. 6. location: the highest concentrations of rural maori students are in gisborne, rotorua, waikato, taranaki, wanganui, hawkes bay, and the far north. 7. placement in specialised secondary groups: the school's tinakori group works with students who at enrolment are identified as low or under achievers; 50 percent of 1994 tinakori students are maori. the discussion group then developed its tentative action plan: 1 i courses and resources i • ensure that courses are suitable for maori students (i.e. are relevant, accessible, etc.) action investigate course return data re ' search successful courses. consider alternative methods of course delivery " encourage a planned and systematic approach to including a maori perspective in all courses. action develop a school-wide plan. develop a process for sections and departments for consultation with the maori department. • revi�w the teaching of te reo throughout the school. action prepare a discussion paper for te hautanga-a-rohe. review current provision at primary and early childhood level. 2 i student support i " develop policies that encourage maori students to achieve success in their learning. action conduct research to identify factors that promote success. liaise with maori communities and te hautanga-a-rohe. • extend the learning centre model in rural communities. action explore means of providing funding to support this. • continue to develop partnership with trusts and other providers in urban centres. action develop a policy statement. • improve procedures to encourage an earlier start and increased work returns from maori students. action review induction, placement and support procedures for maori journal of distance learning, vall, n o . 1 , 1995 (c) distance education association o f new zealand 17 students. review course guidance and pathway information given to maori students. ', i • increase parents' awa-reness in the importance of supporting their child with their education. 3 i regional support i • promote improved home school liaison and regional support to assist maori parent supervisors. action consult maori parents, te hautanga a-rohe, the maori department on the establishment of regional networks for maori parents. • develop appropriate support materials. 4 i research i • provide resources to enable research to be carried o u t into identifying factors associated with the educational performance of maori students. action develop a research brief. 5 i maori staff i • recruit more maori teachers at all levels. action review policies for appointment and equal employment opportunities. 6 bicultural perspective in the correspondence school • establish principles and guidelines for incorporating bicultural perspectives within the school. a c t ion provide staff training on treaty obligations. professional development plan for 1995. 7 i further education/career aspirations i • encourage career aspirations and planning for continuing education and training. action review transition provision and the availability of scholarships for maori students. this action plan, together with background material and questions, was then presented for discussion at a joint meeting of the study group, the board of trustees and te hautanga-a-rohe. discussion and planning are ongoing. the fir s'i' tri al projec t: secondary learning centres evolving research, comment, consultation and policy development have been paralleled by action on two projects . ... t h e first, the development of two secondary learning centres described below, has similarities to the alberta experience in that a local classroom and a community based tutor supervisor are provided. similar effects to the alberta experience are noted in the evaluation reports, notably greater participation and success in curricular are extra-curricular areas. the centres have been set up in two isolated rural communities for maori secondary students. the aim was to test a new model for student support at secondary level (period of trial august 1993 -august 1994). two objectives were specified, namely, to improve the educational performance of the rural maori students involved, and to trial a different method of providing student support at secondary level. the centres were established at matahiwi (w hanganui river valley ) and ruatahuna. it has been accepted practice in both communities for students to leave their community and board when starting their secondary education. however it was common for boarding arrangements to break down with the result that students returned home and enrolled with the correspondence school. suspension, pregnancy, lack of financial resources have also been some of the reasons for emolling with the correspondence school, but homesickness was probably the major factor. figure 3 sets out the structure of the centres. te puni kokiri and the correspondence school shared the cost of two supervisor salaries, while a small grant towards operating costs was provided by te puni kokiri. journal of distance learning, vol1, no. 1, 1995 (c) distance education association of new zealand 18 w ith respect to evaluation, the partners involved in the project established a baseline, against which the success of the initiative could be measured, byl producing entry reports. the correspondence. school report measured the success of students enrolled with the correspondence school prior to the establishment of the centres. a final report evaluated how well the centres met the objectives of the trial. the project was a response to the expressed desire of maori parents to do something tangible to help their children. they wanted help to set up a learning environment which was both supportive and included a maori kaupapa. the board of trustees agreed to the request and a partner for the trial project was found in te puni kokiri (ministry of maori development). a joint decision was made to extend the trial project, matahiwi, by offering a learning centre to the tuhoe people in the isolated community of ruatahuna. the offer was accepted. the involvement of the correspondence school in such a project enabled the students to access comprehensive curriculum and teaching programmes. the school also provided quality teaching input and both student and staff support. in each case, a partnership between the parents, te puni kokiri and the correspondence school provided a number of opportunities and advantages in meeting the needs of the students. these include opportunities to provide students enrolled with the correspondence school with culturally appropriate supervision beneficial in terms of the students' educational progress; to strengthen links between parents, students and the whanau; for students to access learning in an environment under the guidance of family, whanau �d elders as well as correspondence school staff; for students to work at their own level and pace in each course; for students to experience success with their studies and the sense of achievement derived from this will funders (te puni kokiri) and the correspondence school to pay for: • supervisor salary • operational costs • the parent committee secondary learning centre the correspondence provides: paid supervisor supervises the work school provides: • day to day management of a group of secondary students • programme support • support for the supervisor attending the centre on a daily basis. • staff support (regional • te reo � representative and • tikanga maori � individual programmes for students form teacher) include: • training for supervisor • academic studies • administrative support •te reo (salary payments, • tikanga maori financial returns, etc.) • social, sporting, cultural activities � te puni kokiri provides: • evaluation of the pilot project • contract for parent committee figure 3. structure of a secondary learning centre journal of distance learning, vall, no. 1, 1995 (c) distance education association of new zealand 19 develop positive student attitudes and work habits; for students to learn in a supportive environment which will help them to' take responsibility for their own learning, to develop self discipline and to learn independent study skills; for maori staff from the correspondence school and members of the correspondence school te hautanga-a-rohe to liaise with and support both staff and students in the secondary learning centre; and provide a comprehensive programme that includes cultural, sporting and group learning activities. getting started there were initial concerns about numbers likely to attend the centres, but by the time the centres opened, there were sufficient students for each to operate. as the term drew to a close in 1993, it was apparent that numbers likely to attend the centres in 1994 would rise considerably, and this has proved to be the case. ruatahuna had 26 attending and matahiwi had nine in 1994. this rapid growth indicates the support the two communities have given to the centres, and as such is a measure of success. on the other hand the numbers attending have put a severe strain on accommodation, resources and time available for individual supervision. entry reports the data collected for the correspondence school entry report clearly illustrated the problems faced by maori secondary students living in isolated communities. the entry report showed that most students worked on a reduced course; did not return work regularly, did not participate in correspondence school activities, and dropped out early. it should also be stated that many of these students also had problems in conventional schooling. final evaluation t h e information collected for the final evaluation report provided a clear indication that the secondary learning centre model works. t h e centre has given rural maori secondary students working through distance education the support they need to be successful in their studies. the outcomes were a higher standard of work, regular return of work from students, improvement in test grades, work return from students who have previously shown little interest in schooling, individual responses, student questioning, asking for help, students initiating phone calls to their wellington-based form teachers, additional subjects added to courses, enhanced self-esteem and confidence ,a more positive attitude from the student, participation in transition activities, gaining transition certificates, attending at link transition courses, and beneficial behavioural outcomes for students as weh as educational benefits when studying on courses at their level. analysis of the information collected indicates that there are difficulties in providing for large numbers of students at a centre. the supervisor of a centre is not a trained teacher. the role of the supervisor is not the same as that of a teacher. stu<;\ent courses and the associated teaching is supplied by correspondence school staff. the task of the supervisor is to provide a good learning environment, ensure that the students complete the work sent by the correspondence school, provide one to one attention where a student has a problem, give praise and help when required, keep the teachers in wellington informed on progress and report any problem and provide opportunities for a range of extra-curricular activities. the more students at a centre, the more demanding the task of supervision becomes. this is especially so when the group attending includes students with special learning needs. prior to the establishment of the learning centres, students from the whanganui river valley and ruatahuna did not participate in school activities. this changed and students attended the following events: • school days, weekends and camps organised by regional representatives in co-operation with parents, and with support from school staff. the organised events give opportunities for social interactions and group learning experiences. • transi tion education organised by four transition tea�hers who serve geographic areas in new zealand and organise transition journal of distance learning, vol1, no. 1, 1995 (c) distance education association of new zealand 20 and work experience courses in various centres. they also place students on link courses at polytechnics in their areas or with the open polytechnic of new zealand, or with local course providers while the student continues at the correspondence school. • parents' conference a week-long, annual event held in wellington with programmes provided for students and parents. learning centres: a theoretical perspecfive tate (1992) provides a useful analysis for locating learning centres within a general theory of distance education. the secondary learning centre does not fit his first model (model a) which involves isolated students learning independently, using educational materials provided by an institution, with varying degrees of feedback from the student, and supplementary teaching by teachers at the institution. model a distance education institution student nor does it fully fit the model (model b) which introduces an intermediary or teacher supervisor as a necessary element for successful distance education with young children, or people who are illiterate or unschooled. in this model the supervisor, organises the students, materials and environment; reads, shows or plays resources such as print materials, tapes, radio, tv and tells students what to do; tutors; assesses student progress, and judges when to move on; and provides feedback to students. the supervisor may need to be trained in such things as the basics of mathematics learning or teaching reading. in the correspondence school this model is found at early childhood and primary level. model b distance education institution intermediary a third model (model c) introduces the idea of a partial intermediary, who provides organisation, encouragement and supplementary teaching, based in student centres where students work with resources and in groups, and get some counselling and support. students gain support from each other througlt working together in groups. model c local or regional student study centre t his delivery model is appropriate to the secondary learning centres. however, the context in which the centres operate adds another dimension to the model. model c on its own allows for a blending of what are usually seen as opposites in the delivery of education. distance education face to face education independent, working in group situation individual study the setting in which the centres operate allows for a unique mix of two quite different educational strands: distance education the communities education provided from outside -personal, social, cultural the community knowledge, values, attitudes the centres have the potential to allow two contrasting views to blend and coexist: modern western traditional indigenous concepts and concepts and processes based on group and processes community � ' journal of distance learning, vol1, no. 1, 1995 (c) distance education association of new zealand 21 the most import aspect of this initiative is its potential to develop into something unique in maori education. the people of matahiwihave spoken of the possibility of establishing a whare wananga based on the success of this trial project. the ruatahuna learning centre is a means for the disadvantaged to access education so (the centre) should not be confined to correspondence studies but embrace outpost tertiary level courses, and adult education and rural education assistance programmes (te puni kokiri, report) the second tri al project culturally appropri ate org anis ational development tikanga is defined as a process that governs appropriate conduct and dictates correct situational behaviour. consultation by management of the correspondence school has enabled the incorporation of tikanga into school procedures such as powhiri and karakia and into development of school policies. such policies now provide for the use of maori advisers in course development and editing. there is recognition of a consultant role for maori staff throughout the school on maori issues and they are included in a range of committees dealing with school policy and implementation issues. t h e extended family relationship given expression in the formation of secondary learning centres has now been complemented by the establishment of a board of trustees advisory iwi group, te hautanga-a-rohe. it has been accepted that there is a progression possible from the current use of instructional design based on individual delivery to one which attempts to incorporate an inclusive or diverse minority curricul urn, through interaction between an indigenous people and course developers of the western tradition that has predominated. conclusion this paper has demonstrated that the distance education delivery practice which offers the learner personal autonomy in the western academic tradition can be modified for delivery to tangata whenua, the people of the land. the expansion of formal and non­ formal curricul urn, and increased and improving student involvement in the secondary learning centres at matahiwi and ruatahuna, are initial evidence of the potential of a successful collaborative delivery model. the challenge to examine and adapt the format, content and delivery of course packages to recognise both majority and minority culture, has been met initially through the school's adoption of maori protocols. the board of trustees in partnership with the iwi advisory group, te hautanga-a-rohe and through pqtctice and discussion, is demonstrating a willingness to develop further the partnership between maori and non-maori. references amaru, l. and taylor, j. 1993: arotake o te tari maori i te kura-a-tuhi. review of maori education at t he correspondence school. the correspondence school (in mimeo). bishop, d. et al. 1994. maori in education. education trends report 21 october, ministry of education, wellington. carkeek, l., davies, l. and irwin, k. 1994: what happens to maori girls at school. summary report. chester, d. 1994: report on visit to matahiwi secondary learning centre, 19 october, 1994. the correspondence school (in mimeo). davies, l. and nicholl, k. 1994: te maori i rota i nga mahi whakaakoranga, maori in education, a statistical profile . wellington. dollimore, a: a statistical background on maori s t u d e n t s of the c o r r e s p o n d e n c e s c h o o l . t he correspondence school (in mimeo). goulet, j.g. and sp ronk, b. 1988: partnership with aboriginal peoples: some implications for distance educators. developing distance education, icde, oslo. kruger, t. 1994: evaluation report 2, ruatahuna learning centre ,10 july 1994. te pmri kokiri (in mirneo). maniapoto, j. and associates, 1994: t he matahiwi secondary school learning centre, manutukutuku programme. te puni kokiri (in mimeo) . . journal of distance learning, vall, no. 1, 1995 (c) distance education association of new zealand 22 . ministry of education, 1993 : statistical profile of maori students across the curriculum. wellington. ministry of education, 1993: t he ten poij;lt plan for maori education. 1wellington. ministry of education, 1994: maori language factor funding (in mimeo). mohi, b. and taylor, j. 1990: whakatirotiro o te tari maori i te kura-atuhi. review of maori education at the correspondence school, november 1990. the correspondence school (in mimeo). od dson, l., ross, l. and spronk, b. 1991: turning barriers into bridg es: meeting the need for aboriginal health administration in western canada. in tait, a. 1991. o'rourke, m. 1994: education gazette, 1 november. rae, m. 1994: charter commitments and goals in relation to fulltime secondary maori students. the correspondence school (in mimeo). rae, m. 1994: policy dilemmas for the correspondence school in new zealand. the correspondence school (in mimeo). rae, m. 1992: s t u d e n t support in a refl e c t i v e organisation. the correspondence school (in mimeo). shadbolt, p. 1994: correspondence school secondary learning centres, final report. the correspondence school (in mimeo). shadbolt, p. and ford, k. .1994: partnerships: ko koe ki tena ko ahau ki tenei kiwai o te kete . icde, wellington. shad bolt, p : maori students study grou p a suggested action plan. the correspondence school (in mimeo) .• tait, a. editor, 1991: t he student, community, and curriculum. international perspectives on open and distance learning. icde, cambridge. the correspondence school board of trustees, 1993: strategic plan. treaty of waitangi 1840 . lois amaru is head of the miior i teac h i n g department, mary rae i s principal secondary, and peter sha�bolt is assistant principal (primary) and head of special education, correspondence school, private bag, wellington. journal of distance learning, vol1, no. 1, 1995 (c) distance education association of new zealand 23 khoo, e., hight, c., cowie, b., torrens, r., ferrarelli, l. software literacy and student learning in the tertiary environment: powerpoint and beyond elaine khoo, faculty of education, university of waikato, new zealand craig hight, faculty of arts and social sciences, university of waikato, new zealand bronwen cowie, faculty of education, university of waikato, new zealand rob torrens, faculty of science and engineering, university of waikato, new zealand lisabeth ferrarelli, faculty of education, university of waikato, new zealand abstract in this paper, we explore the relationship between student success in acquiring software literacy and students’ broader engagement and understanding of knowledge across different disciplines. we report on the first phase of a project that examines software literacies associated with microsoft powerpoint as a common software package encountered and used by most students at tertiary level. student data was collected through an online survey and focus-group interviews. one hundred and seventy-nine first-year engineering and media studies students from a new zealand university responded to the survey. a majority of students considered themselves to be confident and comfortable in engaging with new technologies, had access to mobile-based technologies or laptops, and relied on this hardware and related software for electronic forms of communication and information access in their university courses. on the whole, students expressed a preference for informal strategies (including trial and error) when learning about powerpoint, expected it to be used in their university coursework, and could identify its related affordances and constraints, and how those affected their learning. despite their familiarity with powerpoint, students fell short in their ability to critique the ways the software shaped their understanding of disciplinary knowledge. implications are discussed in terms of university teaching, including the nature of support services. keywords: ict; software literacy; powerpoint; presentation software; teaching and learning; university students 30 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) introduction software is not neutral. it comes with social and cultural assumptions that afford particular actions while constraining others. software is designed for particular purposes and embeds particular values in its affordances such that particular ways of thinking and acting are more likely than others. this perspective underpins the conceptualisation of our research project, which explores how tertiary students develop the understanding and skills they need in order to use software as forms of software literacy. in this paper, we first describe key ideas from the field of software studies which underpin the motivation of our study—we then focus on themes emerging from the literature on lecturer and student adoption of a specific software package—microsoft powerpoint (ppt)—which is commonly used in tertiary settings. this is followed by a description of our research that focuses on how first-year undergraduate students from two different disciplines encounter and engage with ppt in a new zealand tertiary institution. we then report on the initial findings emerging from our study. the paper ends with a discussion of what the findings might mean for the teaching and learning of disciplines in which software is a focus—including the nature of relevant support service provision in tertiary teaching and learning contexts. emerging ideas from software studies software studies, a comparatively new field of enquiry championed by manovich and others (fuller, 2008; johnson, 1997; manovich, 2013), propose that ‘software’, which encompasses many forms of computer programming, is the dominant cultural technology of our time. a core premise of software studies is the need to recognise the role of software in shaping the nature of our institutions and our everyday lives, and for software users to develop a more critical awareness of how software operates to both ‘empower and discipline’ us (kitchin & dodge, 2011, pp. 10–11). empirical research into how software is understood, interpreted, and ‘performed’ by individuals and groups within a tertiary education context where software is taught and learned is only just emerging. concepts such as computer literacy, information literacy, digital literacy, digital information literacy (and related terms) that differentiate between distinct literacies relevant to specific digital technologies have been well discussed. however, these concepts do not go far enough—they do not focus on lecturer and student critique of particular software in terms of its affordances and constraints, and how these affordances and constraints shape the way knowledge within a discipline is presented and communicated to affect student learning. for example, a key study led recently by the new zealand ministry of education identified digital information literacy as students’ ability to access and evaluate electronic information in order to critically manipulate and use such information for their learning purposes in recognition of the broader social and cultural contexts within which the information is situated (hegarty et al., 2010). the authors of the study provided a progression for the development of digital literacy skills, but they did not examine the nature of student critique and decision making about which tools might best serve their purpose. developing the ability to critique is an essential characteristic of a 21stcentury learner (gilbert, 2005). from our observation and experience, we hypothesise that, although useful, such characterisation of digital information literacy does not go far enough in identifying, describing, and supporting the ways students learn how to use software. students might not realise, the full implications of the affordances and constraints offered through particular software. to date, no studies that we know of raise the role of student understanding of how software and its affordances influence knowledge generation and critique. many studies have been conducted on information literacy and on ways of mastering software (underwood, 2009) but the role of software itself tends to be 31 khoo, e., hight, c., cowie, b., torrens, r., ferrarelli, l. taken for granted and has not been questioned. software studies is only emerging as a field of study (fuller, 2008; hawk, rieder, & oviedo, 2008). for the purposes of pursuing our interest in this area we have defined the notion of software literacy as understanding, applying, problem solving, and critiquing software in pursuit of particular learning and professional goals. it relies on a combination of general competency with software and technologies, and the ability to undertake more independent (even informal) learning of discipline-specific programmes as and when required (hight, khoo, cowie, & torrens, 2013). our notion of software literacy is grounded in a practice-based schema which aims to distinguish a novice user from an expert user by proposing a progressive transition from novice to expert-like understanding, capabilities, and qualities (jones, 2008; livingstone, et al., 2014). we view software literacy as encompassing three specific levels of capabilities: 1. a basic functional skill level that allows the use of a particular application to complete a specific set of tasks 2. an ability to independently problem-solve when using an application for familiar tasks (including the ability to identify and activate resources to help resolve any difficulties) 3. the ability to critique the application, recognise its strengths and weaknesses, and apply a similar analysis to software designed for similar purposes (users at this level can make an informed selection from software applications and are empowered when learning new software) most people develop proficiency with common software packages informally, as part of everyday engagement (bulfin & koutsogiannis, 2012; hague & logan, 2009). informal learning practices have been shown to increase learners’ sense of agency and, subsequently, to have the potential to make learning a richer and more fulfilling experience (furlong & davies, 2012). to begin to understand software literacy and how it develops, our initial investigations of software literacy focused on ms powerpoint (ppt). this application is not consistently a focus for instruction, but is widely used in lectures across the disciplines in tertiary settings. powerpoint and tertiary teaching powerpoint was initially designed as a corporate presentation tool. this corporate use contrasts with the current view that teaching and learning is best understood as a social practice supported by interaction and dialogue rather than simply presenting information to students. as such, a teacher is both limited and supported by the design decisions embedded in this software (adams, 2006). research indicates a wide understanding of the key affordances of ppt in teaching to: • link to external (including multimedia) sources • employ interactive dynamic features such as branches, hidden slides, and action buttons • retain keyboard control of presentations so users can respond to the audience while presenting (cyphert, 2007) • display ideas in a hierarchical, albeit linear, manner (adams, 2006). however, concerns have also been raised over: • the way ppt encourages a fragmentation of information and knowledge, and how this may negatively affect student literacy and thinking (craig & amernic, 2006; tufte, 2006) • limits to the amount of content that can be conveyed per slide, reducing the analytical quality of the information and evidence presented (cooper, 2009; tufte, 2006) 32 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) • the homogenising effect of bullet points, and their distortion of any hierarchical or critical conceptual relationships between ideas (tufte, 2006; vallance & towndrow, 2007) • the tendency towards pre-planned monologues rather than dialogue, leading to teachercentred pedagogy that results in audience/student passivity (kinchin, chadha, & kokotailo, 2008; pros, tarrida, martin, & amores, 2013) • a reinforcement of student perceptions that they can perform well in exams by studying only the ppt slides, and drops in student attendance in lectures when ppt handouts are available online (gier & kreiner, 2009). there is clear evidence that when lecturers fail to employ interactive and student-centred strategies when using ppt, student learning outcomes reveal no significant difference between students who are taught with ppt and those taught without ppt (can, karaca, akyel, & demirci, 2012; pros et al., 2013). on the other hand, more active and student-centred learning in ppt-supported lectures has been shown to be beneficial. for example, gier and kreiner (2009) demonstrated that using content-based questions (where educators pose questions in the ppt slides several times throughout a lesson) leads to substantially higher quiz scores and exam marks. their work highlights the value of integrating more active teaching and learning techniques in ppt-based lectures. alongside this evidence, an emerging body of literature gives credence to the notion of teachers actively performing and communicating ideas by using body language and gestures (alibali & nathan, 2012). for example, pozzer-ardenghi and roth (2007) explored evidence of science teachers performing in the classroom, arguing that teachers need to convey the concepts they teach by drawing on multiple and different forms of resources such as talk, non-verbal body language (gestures, body movement, facial expression) and material resources to facilitate students making sense of science ideas in lectures. these findings fit with the assertion by endicott (as cited by cyphert, 2007) that presentations do not need to be determined by the tools used. they are informed by the clarity of a story, the passion in the presenter’s voice, and the importance of the subject to the audience. powerpoint and tertiary student learning our analysis of recent research in the area of powerpoint and tertiary student learning suggests that students’ perspectives on ppt show a lack of software literacy (in the terms we have outlined). students perceive ppt to be a helpful cognitive tool with electronic files and slide printouts useful for review, and assume the content embedded in slides to be the most important (adams, 2006). despite students being certain that they were more accomplished learners with ppt, their performance on tests did not necessarily change when lecturers used the software (susskind, 2004). engineering students in o’dwyer’s (2008) study suggested ppt-based lectures were more interesting and provided greater support for their learning, although they recommended a combination of ppt and whiteboard use. rosenthal et al. (2003) found students responded positively to the multimedia affordances in ppt. similarly, craig and amernic (2006) report that students like to learn with ppt and believe that such presentations are amusing, improve clarity, and reinforce subject matter. in contrast, armitage (2009) found students could struggle to know whether to focus their attention on the slide content, the lecturer’s words, or their own notes. students expressed concern about the pacing of slide presentations, the density of slide content, and the lack of natural breaks in ppt-based lectures. research context this section examines how students become aware of and develop software literacy understanding and skills about ppt. it reports on the initial findings from our 2-year research project (2013–2014) in a tertiary institution in new zealand. the study, which is funded by the 33 khoo, e., hight, c., cowie, b., torrens, r., ferrarelli, l. new zealand teaching and learning research initiative (tlri) (khoo, hight, torrens, & cowie, 2013), aims to unpack student assumptions, experience, and critique about software. a qualitative interpretive methodology was adopted to frame the collection and analysis of the data collected in the study (maykut & morehouse, 1994). two very diverse disciplines of study—engineering and media studies—were selected for study. first-year undergraduate courses in both disciplines are characterised by high enrolments of students (180 and 104 students respectively) with diverse backgrounds, but the courses differ in terms of disciplinary foci and professional pathways. data was collected through an online student survey (179 respondents) and student focus groups (36 participants). the project received human ethical approval and all participants were voluntary. analysis of the data was underpinned by sociocultural theory, which directed attention to interactions between people, the tools they use to achieve particular purposes, and the settings in which the interactions occur (cole & engëstrom, 1993; wertsch, 1998). the survey data was analysed to understand the overall broad patterns of the students’ general access to technologies, the ways students acquired ppt skills, what they see as its strengths and limitations, and their approaches and follow-up work in relation to ppt lectures and notes. the focus-group interviews were transcribed and read carefully several times before the common key ideas from each transcript were coded into themes. the thematic analysis of the interview data involved inductive reasoning (braun & clarke, 2006) in which specific interesting observations and ideas are identified and then developed into general patterns or themes (patton, 2002). such inductive reasoning is consistent with qualitative interpretive methodologies and sociocultural perspectives that emphasise the value of participants’ social realities and the way a tool’s affordances can mediate how learners think, speak, and act. analyses of both data sources were further integrated to develop overall key themes emerging from each case study (merriam, 2001). findings in this section, we report first on key findings in relation to students’ general competence with technologies and software, and then on their assumptions, experience, and views of ppt. students’ general orientation to and competence with technologies when asked about their general views towards adopting new technologies, 16% of the students reported they loved new technologies and considered they would be amongst the first to experiment with them, 30% liked new technologies and would use them before most people do, 42% would use new technologies when most people they know do and, finally, 10% of students considered themselves to usually be late adopters of new technologies (see figure 1). only 2% of students were sceptical of new technologies and resisted using them unless they had to. these results illustrate that just under half (46%) of the students considered themselves to be early or quite early adopters of new technologies, with another 42% using new technologies as they became mainstream. this suggests that a majority of students were both confident and comfortable when experimenting with new technologies. 34 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) figure 1 student views towards adopting new technologies next, when asked to report on the technologies to which they had exclusive access for learning, students indicated that the top five technologies were internet-enabled laptop (120 students, 75%), followed by smartphone with internet connection and photo-capture capability (106 students, 68%), laptop without internet connection (90 students, 62%), mobile phone without internet connection (non-smartphone) (67 students, 46%) and, finally, a desktop computer with internet connection (33 students, 22%). additional qualitative responses in the survey highlighted student access to tablet technologies, e-books, kindles, and ipod touches. in addition to access to general technologies, students reported that the software they used daily was email (124 students, 77%), internet search engines (121 students, 75%), text messaging (103 students, 64%), social networking sites such as facebook and bebo (84 students, 52%), and video-sharing websites such as youtube (67 students, 41%).1 finally, when asked to indicate their competence with a range of commonly used software, students reported that the top five types of software they could use and extend to a range of tasks (implying they were comfortable and had expert-like abilities and confidence to use these types of software) were web browsers (69%, 112 students), email (57%, 93 students), word processing (56%, 90 students), digital music service (44%, 71 students), and presentation software (30%, 48 students). the findings confirmed that students were generally confident in their engagement with technologies and software. most students had access to mobile-based technologies or laptops, and reported being competent with software that relates to online forms of communication and information searching (web browser and email categories) or, particularly, those applications and platforms they had to use to accomplish their academic coursework. 1 only the top five types of software are reported. 35 khoo, e., hight, c., cowie, b., torrens, r., ferrarelli, l. student assumptions, experience and view of powerpoint student survey responses revealed that 41% considered they had the basic skills needed for ppt use, 19% thought they could troubleshoot problems while using ppt, and 30% thought they could apply ppt functions to a wide range of tasks (see figure 2). only 7% considered they would need some help with most tasks, and 4% of students had never used presentation software. in terms of our theorised development of software literacy, those with basic skills could be considered to be at the first level, those who could troubleshoot were at the mid-level, and those who saw wider applications were approaching the third and highest level. these student responses confirm a basic assumption of our research, which is that the ubiquity of ppt means it is both widely known and used with various levels of expertise amongst the tertiary student population we sampled. figure 2 student-reported competence with using powerpoint we were particularly interested in how students learned how to use ppt. anecdotal evidence had suggested such applications are rarely a focus for direct instruction. we provided students with a list of strategies and asked them to indicate which they had used to learn how to use powerpoint, and the extent to which these strategies had been useful to them in their learning. the strategies on the list were commonly adopted by users learning about new software—such as attending a course or workshop; reading a paper-based manual or step-by-step instruction booklet; going online or referring to the internet for step-by step instructions or video tutorials (e.g., on youtube); watching someone use the software (face to face); discovering through trial-and-error or practice; joining an internet forum (e.g., a discussion forum to ask other users for help); asking a friend or peer; and, finally, asking a knowledgeable person, teacher, or expert. students reported drawing mostly from informal learning resources when acquiring basic skills to use ppt (i.e., the first level in our software literacy scheme). when asked to identify “useful”, “very useful”, and “extremely useful” strategies for learning, trial and error and asking an expert emerged as the preferred options (both were selected by 87% of students), followed by asking a friend (85%), or watching someone use the application (82%). interestingly, these strategies (as 36 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) with the trend in the reported overall strategies data) constitute the more informal ways of learning about new software compared with more formal strategies such as attending a workshop to learn about ppt (42%), or reading a paper manual (33%). the focus-group interviews complemented these survey findings in that students reported a preference for strategies such as trial and error or discovery, and accessing youtube video tutorials and google to watch or ask about specific questions about ppt functionality. sample student quotes related to these findings were: i didn’t learn ppt [because i’m homeschooled] so basically i just clicked around and just figured it out.2 i did a lot of online tutorial as well. if there was something that i saw that i wanted to create, i just google search tutorial for such and such, then i do a tutorial and work through it and learn that way. some of them are youtube …. its got tutorials on how to use or create different elements. if there is something i want to do, i learn how to do it. same with ppt, you know—you can go on google and say how to do a proper power point, and there's heaps of information out there… common across these main reported strategies is the idea that students take the initiative and agency when learning about ppt. given our earlier findings, it comes as no surprise that a majority of students reported being confident and comfortable to engage and experiment with new technologies. this naturally translated into students drawing from informal learning strategies and taking a more active role in learning basic software skills. powerpoint’s affordances and constraints for presenters and audience when asked their views on the opportunities that ppt affords for presenters, students identified that the software allowed the embedding of multimedia resources in a presentation (88%) and built-in templates helped to structure and organise ideas (86%). they suggested that information can easily be condensed into slides (81%). three supporting student comments elaborate on these ideas: you can make neat presentations for a number of different tasks whether for a speech or formal gathering or alternatively, take advantage of it when it is used during a lecture. it is more appealing than text on paper and the ability to add in different media such as film clips makes it more entertaining. it organises topics in a concise manner to show which ones have the most priority helping to convey information in the best possible way. you can break up information and present it in an organised way that can combine image. students highlighted that, from an audience’s perspective, using bullet points in a ppt presentation allows audience members to pay attention to key points (87%). most students thought that ppt supports guided note-taking (83%) and the provision of more focused lecture presentations (78%). focus-group interviewees explained these ideas as follows: ppt bullet points provide a reference point which can be expanded on, slides are visually easy to follow and save writing time, embedded multimedia resources can be an appealing and meaningful prompt for learning; presentations are easily customisable; and all material is self-contained within a ppt file—making it easy to access and revisit. three representative student quotes illustrate these ideas: 2 all student comments are reproduced as written in the responses to the survey. 37 khoo, e., hight, c., cowie, b., torrens, r., ferrarelli, l. [ppt is] useful as it shows bullet points of info worth noting down in a lecture. it’s [ppt bullet points] quite helpful during lectures as it stops the lecturer going off topic and makes note taking easier. [ppt] can clearly convey relevant information. can easily be shared and accessed. is not too flashy as to distract from relevant information. world standard. the survey included items based on the limitations of ppt derived from the literature. these included: the brevity of information on each slide (68%), ppt files not containing enough detail for students to understand a lecture (65%) and a tendency for presenters to move too quickly through presentations (63%). the focus-group data also highlighted frustrations with ppt layout or templates used repetitively; ppt used as a ‘fixed script’ for a lecture; text-laden slides presented too quickly for their content to be processed; and inappropriate visuals. four representative student quotes expand on these ideas: [slides in ppt don’t] make good notes, not detailed enough and sometimes can be disjointed in lectures. also lack of a bigger picture sometimes, as they [slides in ppt] just flow from one idea to the next, without acknowledgment of any form of a hierarchy or directory. too many word on slides makes it hard to read or take in. [a lecturer] … can flick through too fast, harder to take notes “death by powerpoint” everyone uses it, and it’s very similar. not 3d or exciting. microsoft is capable of more like the “metro” design. they should remake ppt to be exciting. student assumptions and experience with powerpoint-based lectures when asked about their assumptions and the role of ppt notes in their learning, students in the focus-group interviews reported that they expected their lecturer to use ppt notes and to make these handouts available to them. having access to the ppt notes reassures students that they are not missing out on their learning of coursework. they also perceive their lecturers to be wasting time if they are writing on the board instead of giving ppt lectures. three different student quotes unpacked these themes: …say in your first year all your subjects are ppt, and in your second year there’s one subject that does partial ppts and then the rest doesn’t [use ppt] you might not take the stuff that’s written up on the board [per se] or just said aloud seriously, you might not take notes and you might forget about it and it may be important stuff that is simply not put on that ppt slide. the ppt slides are the best point of reference for what you're doing…as much as you need the talking, you need the ppt slides. especially putting them up on moodle, that's my first point of study is looking at what was going on and then finding out more if i didn't understand it. you take a look at bullet point [on the ppt slides in the lectures], we don’t have to write down because we can get it in moodle. i write down what [the lecturer] says and then it gives you a really good starting point so if you don’t entirely understand you have something to move forward on. for me that’s really helpful. very few students discussed how ppt shaped their disciplinary knowledge, but four focus-group participants alluded to this possibility by explaining that learning through ppt lecture notes is 38 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) like learning via ‘factoids’, and complained of a wider decomposing of information. this was encapsulated in the following representative student quote: in ppt, you see a lot of factoids put on the screen rather than actual information. one of the things i noticed the other students were saying that they liked the bullet points. society as a whole seemed to be heading towards factoid based learning rather than actual learning…but from what i have seen the flip side to that is that people only look at the bullet points and not pushing their own researching it further, looking into it deeper. because there is not enough information in the bullet points to know everything you need to know about that point. its really really helpful as a starting point but its not even close enough. this quote conveyed a common student (mis)assumption that the ppt bullet points in (and on their own) adequately reflect the extent of the knowledge presented in a lecture. some students believe that little work is needed to extend them further. student use of powerpoint notes for revision, and strategies for extending their notes a majority of students reported using ppt notes when revising for their course (77%), while another 56% of these students reported doing extra study to add to their ppt notes so they could better understand the lecture content. these students supplemented the ppts by making their own notes (61%), attending the lecture lab or tutorials (61%), or reading the course textbook (60%). a representative student quote alluded to these ideas: it’s also good to learn from a ppt slide because you can […] once again if the lectures slides are up you can have the lecture slides, you can have the notes on what they’re saying…you can write what you’re hearing as well, so then everything’s all together, in one document, done. then you can just go back to that one document instead of flicking through several pages of your books then getting the lecture slides student perceptions of lecturer practices in powerpoint-supported lectures when asked their views on lecturers’ best practices when using ppt in lectures, students raised key ideas which included: lecturer ability to combine their ppt lectures with practical demonstrations to help students make real-life connections in their learning; ensuring slide layouts are simple and clear; structuring information and ideas into meaningful chunks and sequential order; using additional and creative resources to supplement bullet points (video, audio, images, photographs, diagrams); and using non-verbal cues and gestures to cue ideas, images, and bullet points. three student quotes illustrate these ideas: one of my lecturers also when she’s talking about something, she’ll have an exercise and then on ppt she can just type in and write up the stuff she’s doing and show us how she’s doing it as well. the combination of it all sort of works together. there was good flow, it was quite easy to read. it seemed nicely laid out. good use of font. it [lecturer body language, gestures, voice tone/pitch]…definitely helps you connect the information to what you can see that it’s important but at the same time if you’re using something like [panopto] where it’s just the screen, the intonation of the voice is really important, in some ways more than the gestures to fit with the power point. on the other hand, students reported lecturers’ worst practices for ppt use to be: visual pollution; reading from or talking through slides without engaging students; having inappropriately sized text which is difficult to read; and skipping through slides so quickly that students are unable to follow the ideas. four different representative student quotes point to these findings: 39 khoo, e., hight, c., cowie, b., torrens, r., ferrarelli, l. …big impact font and default word art that detracts from the point completely because it’s just so colourful and stupid. reading the slides [won’t be] much of a help if the lecturer wasn’t talking [and explaining] at the same time. so you can’t just put the slides on and read it. and the slides are there, and we did do a couple of equations and there is a lot of information in there, but that’s information overload. like, you can’t take all that in, it’s just too much. some people mustn’t [have] looked at what they are presenting on a big screen because some things if you are sitting at the back of the class you can’t read on the screen. student judgements concerning lecturer use of ppt in lectures allude to the need for lecturers to be cognisant of the way they design their slides to convey ideas (presentation of ideas) and the way they talk about and expand on those ideas in the slides (performing to unpack ideas) to teach and communicate their disciplinary knowledge. in general, these findings indicate that students think they have a good level of experience and expertise with ppt use—such that they are in a position to judge lecturers’ practices in ppt-supported lecturers. that is, they can make assumptions about which slide design and presentation techniques are considered to be the most appropriate practices for teaching and learning in tertiary settings. discussion and conclusion student tertiary learning experiences are clearly embedded within software infrastructures, platforms and applications. because they have easy access to hardware, students can draw on this software to meet their learning needs. students were generally confident and comfortable in engaging with new technologies, and reported being confident and competent in undertaking more active and independent (even informal) actions when learning new software (including ms ppt). others have found similar evidence of student agency and independent learning through informal approaches facilitated by digital technologies and social media (furlong & davies, 2012). the ideas raised in the literature indicate that lecturers and students are generally aware of ppt, have the basic skills to use the application, and are able to troubleshoot and refine their practice over time to serve teaching and learning goals. these findings confirm the existence of the first two levels of our software literacy framework. however, despite an awareness of the affordances of ppt, it appears users still lack the ability to critique software or to give considered thought to how it shapes and communicates disciplinary knowledge (the third level of our framework). students in our study reported a range of expertise in using ppt and could identify key affordances and constraints relevant to their learning. they passed judgement on teacher practices that were useful (or not) in ppt-based lectures, and highlighted the need for teachers to consider and draw from a range of appropriate presentation techniques such as the need for structure in ppt slides and the value of multimodal resources. they also identified performance techniques (such as the way lecturers talk, gesture, and move) as helping them to focus on, and make meaningful connections between, the information on the ppt slides and important ideas within a discipline. such practices have been identified as useful in previous research (pozzerardenghi & roth, 2007). overall, the findings thus far highlight student understanding and experience at the first two levels of our software literacy framework—students consider they have the basic skills and are able to troubleshoot and suggest solutions to problematic situations. additionally, the students in our study generally expected that ppt would be used in their lectures and that they would have access to ppt handouts—echoing findings from other studies (clark, 2008). just over half of students purported to make the effort to extend on their ppt handouts. as in gier and kreiner (2009), there was common student (mis)assumption that 40 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) studying solely from the ppt handouts would suffice. there was a lack of awareness and understanding of how commonly available software (such as ppt) shapes and constrains the way disciplinary knowledge is presented and communicated. this worrying observation confirms a relative lack of student critique at the third level of our software literacy framework. implications we now propose some implications for practice as a result of our findings. firstly, if students are operating with relatively uncritical understanding of software (including ppt), lecturers need to be aware of this and work to challenge their students through their teaching practice. lecturers themselves therefore need to be more critically literate about software, and should consider more carefully how they use software to communicate disciplinary knowledge. there are clear benefits to be derived from moving beyond default affordances of ppt (bullet points, linear lecture structures, ambiguous hierarchy of concepts and so on), and paying close attention to both the presentation and performance of ppt slides by, for example, augmenting slide content with discussion, prompts for interaction, and reinforcing a hierarchy of key concepts. these findings can inform tertiary staff development sessions so that the lecturer’s attention can be directed to the role played by software such as ppt in shaping and framing what and how they teach, and how their students learn. secondly, there is a case to be made for students to be encouraged to move beyond a reliance on ppt content for study, and to consider the role it plays in shaping the ways disciplinary knowledge is communicated and performed in tertiary learning contexts. we consider software literacy at the third level to be fundamental to effective participation in an increasingly softwaresaturated culture and society. consequently, we favour a more formal acknowledgement of (and focus on) lecturer and student software literacy by tertiary institutions. the second phase of our project will focus on teaching and learning contexts with disciplinaryspecific software learning in media studies (e.g., adobe photoshop, final cut pro), and engineering (solidworks) to explore the effect of more direct instruction on student software literacy development and disciplinary understanding. acknowledgements the authors gratefully acknowledge funding support from the teaching and learning research initiative, new zealand council for educational research, wellington, new zealand. references adams, c. 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(2007). towards the ‘informed use’ of information and communication technology in education: a response to adams’ “powerpoint, habits of mind, and classroom culture”. journal of curriculum studies, 39(2), 219–227. wertsch, j. v. (1998). mind as action. new york: oxford university press. biographical notes elaine khoo ekhoo@waikato.ac.nz dr elaine khoo is a research fellow at the wilf malcolm institute of educational research (wmier) at the university of waikato. elaine’s research interests include information and communication technology (ict) supported learning environments, e-learning/online learning with a particular interest in online learning communities, participatory learning cultures and collaborative research contexts. craig hight hight@waikato.ac.nz dr craig hight is an associate professor in screen and media studies at the university of waikato. his current research focuses on the relationships between digital media technologies and documentary practice, and particularly the variety of factors shaping online documentary cultures. bronwen cowie bcowie@waikato.ac.nz dr bronwen cowie is professor and director of the wilf malcolm institute of educational research (wmier) at the university of waikato. bronwen has research interests in assessment for learning, ict in science education, and classroom interactions. rob torrens torrens@waikato.ac.nz dr rob torrens is a lecturer at the university of waikato where he coordinates two first-year engineering papers and lectures in higher level materials papers. his engineering education interests focus on transition from high school; the first-year experience; and improving student engagement and performance. 44 http://publications.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?resid=41343 mailto:ekhoo@waikato.ac.nz mailto:bcowie@waikato.ac.nz journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) lisabeth ferrarelli ld76@waikato.students.ac.nz lisabeth ferrarelli is currently completing her masters in education at the university of waikato. her present research focuses on online scaffolding in a fully online educational leadership course. lisabeth’s research interests encompass online teaching and learning, creativity, and theory of complexity. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. khoo, e., hight, c., cowie,b., torrens. r., & ferrarelli, l. (2014). software literacy and student learning in the tertiary environment: powerpoint and beyond. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 18(1), [30–45]. 45 mailto:ld76@waikato.students.ac.nz http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) using a learning management system to personalise learning for primary school students bronwyn edmunds, freemans bay school maggie hartnett, massey university abstract this paper reports on one aspect of a descriptive multiple-case study which set out to explore the role of a learning management system (lms) in personalising learning for students from the perspective of three teachers in one primary school in new zealand. the intention was to provide insight into the role the lms could play in classrooms when personalising learning. the research project involved gathering multiple sources of data from interviews and observations, and documentary information from the lms. the findings suggest that the lms has the potential to be a key part of a primary classroom environment when it is built on components that personalise learning. for the teachers in this project, one salient component of personalised learning involved ensuring learning was based on assessment for learning pedagogy and the use of the lms as a tool to support learning. the findings highlighted the interconnected nature of personalised learning pedagogy, the lms and classroom practice. keywords: personalising learning; personalised learning environments; personalisation; assessment for learning; learning management system; primary classrooms; elementary school; blended online learning; formative assessment introduction personalised learning, digital technologies, and learning management systems (lmss) are currently hot topics in the schooling sector. personalised learning has recently gained momentum because significant advances in digital technology over the past decade have opened up new opportunities through the creation of customised e-learning environments (demski, 2012). an lms can personalise learning by encouraging teaching approaches that hold the student at the centre of the learning process (seiler, as cited in interface magazine, 2009). these processes are underpinned by assessment for learning (afl) principles and encourage collaboration, while also taking advantage of evolving digital technologies (ministry of education, 2012). however, there is little research about how the lms has been used in schools (watson & watson, 2007), especially primary schools. literature review researchers and policy makers (west-burnham, 2010; wolf, 2010) argue that personalising learning is a key strategy for improving student engagement and academic achievement. while some researchers (abbey & baylis, 2011) consider personalised learning to be evolving despite 11 edmunds, b., & hartnett, m. evidence for its overall success, others (keamy, nicholas, mahar, & herrick, 2007; wilmot, 2006) argue that there is substantial evidence of success in a variety of contexts. meanwhile, some (conole, 2010) claim that the key to effective personalisation of learning is to use digital technologies. personalising learning the precise terminology—personalised learning, personalising learning, or personalisation— causes confusion because there are numerous terms used in the literature (bray & mcclaskey, 2013; underwood et al., 2007) with only slight variations in their definitions. the most common element of a ‘personalised learning’ definition refers to an education system that focuses on learning which is tailored to the needs, attitudes, and interests of every learner. the learner is at the heart of the process and, accordingly, the corresponding education system supports the growth of the whole child, ensuring that every student achieves their highest possible standard (west-burnham, 2010; wolf, 2010). milibrand (2004, p. 8), refers to personalised learning as “high expectations of every child, given practical form by high quality teaching based on a sound knowledge and understanding of each child’s needs”. this appears to be a widely accepted definition (besley & sokoloff, 2004; wilmot, 2006 ). however, hargreaves (2004) cautions educators to be open to a changing definition of personalised learning as it becomes increasingly woven into practice. personalised learning is not the same as free-for-all learning (where pupils are left to their own devices) or individualised learning (where students are separated to learn on their own (treadwell, 2008). bray and mcclaskey (2013) explain how the differences between personalisation, differentiation, and individualisation lie in who is in control of the learning. the key difference is that the student drives the learning when it is personalised, whereas the teacher drives the learning when it is differentiated or individualised. components and features of personalised learning research that explores personalised learning highlights a number of components and related features. five core components common to the essence of personalised learning have emerged from the literature (abbey & baylis, 2011; august et al., 2007; besley & sokoloff, 2004; bevanbrown, mcgee, ward, & macintyre, 2011; hargreaves, 2004; keamy, et al., 2007; treadwell, 2008; west-burnham, 2010; wilmot, 2006; wolf, 2010). these components comprise afl, curriculum entitlement and choice, effective teaching and learning, strong partnerships, and schools as learning organisations. this article focuses specifically on the ‘assessment for learning’ component of personalising learning, as it relates to the lms. assessment for learning, sometimes referred to as formative assessment, is the teaching and learning process that is based on interpreting evidence for use by learners and their teachers to decide where the learners are in their learning, where they need to go, and how best to get there (assessment reform group, 2002). at its most fundamental level, afl encompasses studentfocused learning, use of rich evidence and dialogue, identification of learning needs by student and teacher, goals and next steps set by student and teacher, learning and progress that are jointly planned and monitored, effective grouping, differentiated instruction, insightful reflection (i.e., justify, answer, explain), and effective feedback to learners. personalised learning: a catalyst for reform the concept of personalised learning has been slowly evolving and gathering momentum since it emerged in the late 1980s (abbey & baylis, 2011). teachers and schools have attempted to design their teaching to meet the needs of students with varying degrees of success (green, facer, rudd, dillon, & humphreys, 2005; wolf, 2010). however, personalised learning as a 12 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) catalyst for system-wide reform is a new concept (keamy et al., 2007) spurred on by the role digital technologies could potentially play (conole, 2010). a number of education systems around the world acknowledge the potential of personalised learning. this is evident in government reports, curriculum documents and policy programmes in australia (ministerial council on education employment training and youth affairs, 1999), england (united kingdom department for education, 2013), the united states of america (association for supervision and curriculum development, 2007), canada (ministry of education, british columbia, 2013) and new zealand (bolstad et al., 2012). personalised learning in new zealand is in a state of flux. it gained some ground as a way to lift student achievement (maharey, 2006) and a recent investigation into personalised learning practices in new zealand schools (bevanbrown et al., 2011) found that most schools recognised it as valuable, and described many ways to personalise learning effectively. however, wide variations in the depth of understanding of how to personalise learning were evident. personalising learning and digital technology recent advances in digital technologies have provided new tools for teachers and students to use to personalise learning (demski, 2012; watson & watson, 2007). one rationale for using digital technologies to personalise learning is that students are already creating personalised learning environments outside school and they should have the same opportunities at school. these digital tools support afl principles, enabling teachers to identify and manage the needs of many students, tailor content and resources for individual students, and access a large variety of interventions, content, resources, and learning opportunities (abbey & baylis, 2011). learners who use technology have greater choice and control over their learning and can adapt the pace and depth of their study (becta, 2008). some educators (green et al., 2005) even argue that personalised learning cannot happen effectively without the right technological tools. one digital technology presented as a tool to personalise learning is an lms (watson & watson, 2007. learning management systems there are a variety of terms and associated acronyms to describe related, but conceptually different, e-learning platforms (piña, 2013; watson & watson, 2007). for the purposes of this investigation, an lms is an umbrella term used to describe one centralised cloud-based or server-based software program (piña, 2013) that has the core purpose of enabling learning and teaching (piña, 2013; watson & watson, 2007). simply put, the lms is an online program with a variety of features that support teaching and learning. current research on learning management systems while lmss have reached a high level of adoption in many countries, they are most prevalent in higher education institutions (piña, 2013). currently, there is a lack of research on lmss in primary-school and pedagogical contexts. of the school-related research that is available (bergen, french, & hawkins, 2012; snodin, 2013), findings have shown how instructional and student-learning practices change as a result of the opportunities provided in an lms. in a richer learning environment, teachers can take on a more facilitative role. an lms can be used to assess traditional skills in new ways (johannesen, 2013), with teachers supporting formative assessment practices such as the use of digital portfolios to support self-assessment and selfregulation. in a primary school context, underwood et al. (2007) found that an lms could be used appropriately to support personalised learning if it was used in the classroom. in terms of afl (the component of personalised learning that is the focus here), some researchers (bergen et al., 2012; johannesen, 2013) have shown that an lms has the potential to support afl practices and, indirectly, personalised learning. the most salient afl principles are the ability to receive feedback and feed-forward (benson, 2012; snodin, 2013) and the potential 13 edmunds, b., & hartnett, m. for the lms to be a medium in which students can assess, reflect, and/or monitor their learning (bergen et al., 2012; johannesen, 2013). the lms opens up opportunities to enhance teachers’ perspectives about students (benson, 2012). additionally, the lms can bring parents, students, and teachers together in the assessment process (johannesen, 2013). notwithstanding the above, watson and watson (2007) argue that there is a shortage of research on lms use in the compulsory schooling sector and they highlight the need for more large-scale classroom-based studies on implementing the lms. the study this paper uses the dataset of a larger study (edmunds, 2013) that explored the use of an lms in a primary school, describing its role in personalised learning for students. results presented and discussed here focus only on those data that related to the afl component of the personalising learning framework (see edmunds, 2013). case study case-study methodology enables researchers to gain a deep understanding of a situation and its meaning from those involved (merriam, 2009), especially when describing ‘how’ or ‘why’ something takes place (yin, 2013). a multiple-case-design approach was deemed suitable in this situation because an interpretation based on evidence from several cases can be more compelling than results based on a single instance (yin, 2013). the unit of analysis in this project was the individual teachers who were personalising learning for their students. the questions guiding the investigation are: • what does personalising learning, specifically afl, look like in a primary classroom with a learning management system as a core component? • how are the teachers using a learning management system to personalise learning, specifically afl? procedures ethical approval to undertake the study was gained before starting. purposeful sampling (merriam, 2009) was used to select suitable potential schools and interested participants. criteria which guided site and participant selection are summarised in table 1. table 1 the criteria which guided site and participant selection criteria for selecting potential school sites criteria for selecting participants • is a primary school • uses the new zealand curriculum to inform teaching and learning • uses the lms to support learning • is acknowledged by the ‘wider’ education community as an effective user of an lms to support learning • is highly regarded by the lms provider. • is a classroom teacher • uses the school lms (knowledgenet) as part of their teaching and learning programme • represents one year grouping (one participant from each year) • is a lead teacher within the school (on the ict/ e-learning team; facilitator of the elearning inquiry quality learning circles) • has presented at conferences data collection procedures comprised interviews, observations, and documentary information from the lms, which included students’ online work, teacher–student online conversations, and lessons and resources set up by the teacher. two semi-structured interviews were conducted with each teacher. the first took place early in the investigation and the second was towards the end 14 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) of the research period. three observations, spread throughout the project, took place in each teacher’s classroom. collection of lms data occurred in 1-week blocks that coincided with each observation. consent to observe the children and collect their work from the lms was gained before the start of the data collection. data collection began at the end of may 2013 and ran until mid-september 2013. [editor’s note: the new zealand school year starts in february and ends in december.] because this was a multiple-case study there were two stages of analysis: the within-case analysis and the cross-case analysis. each teacher was first analysed as an individual and comprehensive case, and this was followed by cross-case analysis. the data analysis phase commenced with open coding (merriam, 2009) within the interview and observation transcripts. sections of the coded data from the interviews and observation transcripts were then categorised according to the personalising learning framework (plf) (edmunds, 2013), which listed components and specific features of personalised learning synthesised by the researcher during the literature review. interview and observational codes that did not fit into the pre-established components on the plf were noted and classified together as new themes emerged. for each week of the observations, the data evident in the lms was also noted and categorised according to the plf. this information was then compared with data from interviews and observations for cross-checking and triangulation. context and participants sunshine school (a pseudonym), which was used as the research site, is a medium-sized decile-6 primary school in inner-city auckland, new zealand. there are approximately 420 students from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, organised into four family or school teams: whānau1 one for children from new entrants to year 2; whānau two for years 3 and 4; whānau three for children in years 5 and 6; and whānau four, the school’s māori language and culture immersion unit for years 1 to 6. all classrooms have interactive whiteboards (iwb), i-pads, a range of laptops, and access to digital cameras. the lms used at sunshine is knowledgenet. chris, yvonne, and lucie (pseudonyms) were the teacher participants in the research investigation. all of the students in the three teachers’ classes were also invited to participate in the research project. in total, 88 of a possible 128 students chose to participate. at the time of the study, chris was a year 5 and 6 teacher who had been teaching for 3 years, all in the current school. she was an e-learning co-leader and taught in a single classroom in the year of the research. of a possible 25 students in this class, 18 chose to be participants in the project. lucie was a year 3 and 4 teacher and the leader of literacy in the year 3 and 4 whānau team. she had been teaching for 10 years. this was lucie’s fifth year at this school. lucie taught in a collaborative environment with another teacher, with both responsible for the teaching and learning in the two classes. of a possible 52 students in these classes, 36 chose to participate in the project. yvonne was a year 1 and 2 teacher and the leader of art and the new entrants to year 2 whānau team. she was in her 19th year of teaching. she had been teaching at this school for 15 years, and full time for 7 years. yvonne taught in a collaborative environment with one other teacher. of a possible 51 students in this group, 34 students chose to participate. 1 māori word for family. māori are the indigenous people of aotearoa new zealand. 15 edmunds, b., & hartnett, m. results the cross-case findings are presented here as they relate to afl as one aspect of personalised learning. six of the principles of afl (introduced earlier) became apparent in the findings across the teacher participants. using evidence to identify needs identifying student needs enabled the teachers to know what their students needed to learn to address their learning need. for example, yvonne “assess[ed] and observe[d] the children”, identifying their strengths and weaknesses (interview 2). lucie described how this worked for her in reading. she spoke about how she had “chosen inference and predicting” as student goals in reading as she “found at the end of testing last term that there was a real need for the same sort of skills … and so that’s why i made it a focus” (interview 2). all three teachers used information posted by students in the lms to gain additional insight into what they had learned and what they needed to learn next. teachers used the student response to their goals and/or asked specific questions in the lms to gain information about student needs. figure 1 shows responses to a question about prediction. figure 1 student response to teacher’s question, posted in the lms chris and yvonne were also taking steps to involve students more in the process. for example, during writing, chris worked with students as they assessed samples of their instructional writing against their writing goals, reflecting on progress and identifying their next steps for learning. communicating student needs all three teachers communicated student needs as student goals and success criteria, posting these goals into the lms for students and parents (see figure 2). chris explained, “the goals would be something like, ‘we are learning how to solve percentage problems’ … and then there would be seven steps, like ‘i cans’ under that. like there is a walht2 and there is obviously the success criteria which are ‘i cans’ ” (interview 1). 2 we are learning how to: this is the learning intention for a lesson or series of lessons. it is a statement that describes clearly what the teacher wants the students to know, understand, and be able to do as a result of learning and teaching. 16 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) figure 2 student learning goal and success criteria observed in the lms yvonne and chris also supported students to place their learning goals in the lms. for instance, yvonne was observed working with a group of students to enter their goals and success criteria into the lms (observation 2). in contrast, lucie entered the goals for her students and had them review them as part of the learning process. lucie explained that when students entered their goals it was “taking up just a lot of teacher time and we didn’t really see the value in it”. lucie acknowledged that “ideally they [learning goals] would be, with afl pedagogy, more studentdirected” (interview 1). this suggests that lucie was yet to make the connection between the importance of students being involved in the process of learning and entering their own learning goals in the lms as a specific feature of personalised learning. differentiated instruction to meet student needs all three teachers grouped students according to their identified needs and designed learning experiences to meet these needs. chris explained how the learning goals informed most of the learning that happened in class, as “typically we will learn the stuff in our goal” (interview 1). lucie emphasised how “we are looking at those goals and talking about those goals every day and thinking about the success and how we’re going to achieve those goals” (interview 2). each teacher worked with different groups of learners throughout the sessions, and the work focused on a specific learning intention. the learning goals also informed most of the learning that happened in the lms. chris designed the lms so “the learning journey is linked to the learning journal which is linked to the learning links” (interview 1), with these links “based on our goal and based on our learning” (interview 2). in interview 1, lucie outlined how she created “learning links for each of the groups” in the lms where they “have their learning intention for that week, and then they might have three different hyperlinks that they can go into, and they can practice that skill … they choose what they want to do”. in contrast, yvonne had a learning links page set up in the lms for literacy which was “based on their ability groups and they have got links set up according to their needs. so, for example … one group’s learning phonics. so i have a link to a phonic song for them to practice and listen to” (interview 1). however, this page did not change over the duration of the lms observations (july through august) indicating that it was not adjusted to meet the changing needs of students. lucie and chris also had a number of learning links pages set up in their class areas of the lms for reading, writing, and maths. most of these pages had a learning intention and success criteria at the top of the page, followed by an activity. chris used the comment feature to ask some questions that the students were required to answer. lucie explained that the learning links 17 edmunds, b., & hartnett, m. changed “depending on whether they have achieved the learning intention” (interview 1). figure 3 is an example of a learning links activity in lucie’s class area. figure 3 learning links activity for a reading group in lucie’s class area ongoing monitoring to inform planning the teachers monitored student learning, modifying their classroom programme to reflect what they had learned about student needs. lucie explained this: there’s continual check-in through that goal to see how you’re going or through that learning intention … i have found from initially what you think … is going to be their goal, when you get into it you might actually need to go backwards in order to go forwards, or sideways in order to go forwards. (interview 2) the teachers often ended their group sessions with a form of reflection to gain insight into the students’ learning. the lms tools were used to help teachers to gain insight into what was happening for the students. yvonne explained: you have got your weekly reflection, your learning journal, your goals and all of that evidence … [and you] see their comments and understand what they have learnt. and then for me to look at my planning and go, ‘ok, this group of children needs that learning intention, or needs more work on that area’. so i can pick that group of children up. in a sense that is personalising their learning from what they tell me. (interview 1) lucie (interview 2) and chris (interview 2) also explained how they tried to use entries and information in the lms to inform their planning to cater for the students’ learning needs. the lms tools the teachers used included learning reflections (chris, lucie, and yvonne), learning 18 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) links questions (chris, lucie) and learning journals (chris, lucie, and yvonne). the extent and the way each tool was used varied between teachers. each teacher posted reflective questions to the learning reflections section in the lms to get a glimpse into how students were progressing with different aspects of their learning. learning reflections included a series of questions which students responded to and were designed to “get them thinking about what they are actually doing” (chris, interview 2). figure 4 shows the art week reflection posted by lucie. yvonne also found it beneficial that everyone could see what they had learned in the lms, including tricky collaborative work, and that parents could observe it too. figure 4 art week reflective questions posed by the teacher, and a student response insight into student learning was also gained from the learning links area in the lms. chris spoke about how she was now making reflections more focused, especially in the lms, so she could base the workshops “on what we can see as weaknesses or what they’ve [students] identified as weaknesses” (interview 2). chris asked a series of questions based on a persuasive writing online activity (see figure 5) which gave her insight into how the students had understood these concepts. the responses are shown in figure 6. 19 edmunds, b., & hartnett, m. figure 5 learning links activity on persuasive writing placed in the lms by chris 20 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) figure 6 learning links activity and responses in the lms from students to a group writing activity chris and yvonne also used learning journals in the lms. chris explained that learning journals were “basically a place where students can post evidence, like pieces of work, or videos of themselves, reflections, different things … in reading, writing and maths” (interview 1). for chris, these were linked to “their learning intention for the week. and basically, that’s typically linked to the goal”. yvonne used learning journals for students to share their writing: “where children go in, type their writing … if they are not finished they can continue working at home” (interview 1). effective feedback and feed-forward all teachers spoke of the importance of effective feedback and feed-forward to support personalised learning. the lms provided an opportunity for students and chris to comment on learning that was posted. in interview 2, chris told how “commenting on peers’ work” was often an activity on the class contract and that she “tend[ed] to do it throughout the week and then go in little snippets”. all of the comments related to learning. figure 7 is an example of comments by chris and a student on another student’s play. figure 7 comments by chris and a student on another student’s play one way of providing feedback, yvonne explained, was “one-to-one conferencing … we looked at the comments [in the lms] … how can you make your paragraph stronger? your ideas 21 edmunds, b., & hartnett, m. stronger?” (interview 2). in the lms, yvonne talked about how learning journals are a great place for students to get feedback: “i read the journals, i comment on it and they make improvements in their writing” which meant that “children are empowered to write more. there is lots of different feedback given to them, so it’s not just a teacher”. (interview 1) while teachers valued feedback and feed-forward, it was spasmodic in practice. students reflecting on learning all of the teachers ensured that students reflected on their goals at the end of the term. yvonne described how “it should look like what they have achieved or partly achieved in that goal and what they still need to work on for that goal” (interview 1). they work this out “by looking at evidence” from their learning journal (in the lms), workbooks, class modelling book, and “snapshot and video record the evidence” (interview 1). each teacher modelled some aspect of goal reflection before the students moved it to the lms. for example, in observation 1 yvonne worked with a writing group, “learning to assess and reflect on our report writing”. she modelled the process on the iwb, taking the students slowly through the process of marking on a report writing assessment sheet and then seeing what they needed to work on next time. a pdf of this sheet, which included the teacher’s marking, was then uploaded to each student’s writing goal in the lms. this is shown in figure 8. figure 8 term 2 writing assessment sheet uploaded into the lms for a student in yvonne’s class lucie supported students to reflect on how they had progressed towards their goal once they had achieved it, which was usually at the end of the term. reflecting on learning showed that they “understand it and can talk about it and can do it” (interview 2). there were 51 student comments in the lms in the key week that they met individually with lucie. the writing goals were written comments with a pdf example of their work, as shown in figure 9. 22 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) figure 9 writing goal evidence, and student and teacher comments the lms also provided students with a variety of ways to communicate their learning. they were able to use audio, video, or type functions to respond to questions, post reflections and upload evidence. yvonne said that her students mostly “choose to use video and they talk about their learning, they record it. so they do it all by themselves” (interview 1). discussion analysing the approaches teachers used to scaffold their classroom programme, and the way they structured the lms, indicate that teachers favoured afl principles as a key way to personalise learning for students, both in the classroom and in the lms. each teacher spoke about the role afl played in enabling them to identify the learning needs of each student to guide the design of learning experiences. six principles of afl emerged in the findings for each of the teachers: (a) using evidence to identify needs, (b) communicating student needs, (c) differentiating instruction to meet student needs, (d) using ongoing monitoring to inform planning, (e) providing effective feedback and feed-forward, and (f) enabling student reflection on learning. the degree to which these were evident varied amongst the teachers. using evidence to identify needs all three teachers used a variety of assessment practices and evidence to identify learning needs. both formal and informal assessments were used by the teachers, including evidence gathered from the lms learning reflections, learning links, and uploaded evidence of learning. previous research (hargreaves, 2004; maharey, 2006) has highlighted that afl is a key approach for personalised learning as it enables the use of evidence and dialogue to identify strengths and weaknesses of every student. the findings presented here reflect this and the role played by the lms. once teachers had identified the needs of the students by using a variety of 23 edmunds, b., & hartnett, m. formal and informal assessments, they communicated these needs to students and caregivers via the lms. communicating student needs each teacher communicated student needs as student goals and success criteria, and posted these goals in the lms. this practice aligns with the views of other researchers besley &sokoloff, 2004) who argue that personalised learning relies on students knowing their learning goals and what to do to get there. negotiating goals with students and involving them in the process is also seen as important (ruddick, brown, & hendy,2006; west-burnham, 2010). once student needs had been identified and communicated, they were used to provide the foundation of learning experiences in the classroom and the lms. differentiated instruction to meet student needs the teachers grouped students according to their identified needs, and then designed learning experiences to meet these needs. the teachers managed this through small-group sessions and by designing learning activities in the lms that linked to their learning. additionally, the teachers ensured that they spent some time each session checking in with individual students. making the learning fit the learner—not the learner fit the learning—is essential to personalised learning (wilmot, 2006). using knowledge about what a student needs to learn, ‘feeds-forward’ to help the student learn more productively (west-burnham, 2010). it also contributes to the process of student learning by enabling the teacher to adjust teaching and planning for learning progression. this approach corresponds with research which suggests that effective grouping, with flexible and in-class groupings, is the best way to ensure effective learning (dfes, 2008). this appeared to be the case for these three teachers, who were using differentiated instruction to meet student needs both in the classroom and in the lms. as part of the cycle of teaching and learning, the teachers continually monitored student progress and gained insight into the learning process. they modified learning experiences to meet the changing needs of students. ongoing monitoring to inform planning while addressing student needs via their goals, the three teachers also monitored student learning, modifying their classroom programme to reflect what they had learned about student needs. the lms tools were used to assist teachers in gaining insight into what students required. this approach corresponds with other research (august, et al., 2007) which found that any strategy to personalise learning must focus on improving the consistency of high quality teaching to meet student needs by building on a student’s prior learning. one way to do this was through regular monitoring to plan next steps. bergen et al. (2012) also found that lmss help teachers to develop opportunities for student assessment. this was the case for these three teachers, who were using alternative forms of assessment within the lms. effective feedback and feed-forward the teachers spoke of the importance of effective feedback and feed-forward to support personalised learning. they spoke of the additional opportunities afforded by the lms to provide students with effective feedback and feed-forward from teachers, peers, and caregivers. the importance of effective feedback and feed-forward is supported by bergen et al. (2012) who reported that an lms opens up new ways of interaction, enabling students to know where they are at, their next learning steps, and how to get there. 24 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) nevertheless, a conflict was evident between what the teachers valued and spoke about in the interviews, and the evidence in the lms at the time of the observations. across the observation periods, minimal feedback and feed-forward was seen, indicating that it was rarely used throughout the process. students were also afforded the ability to give feedback to other students, yet this was not common in practice. insights into why this was the case were not specifically addressed in the research. students reflecting on learning the teachers encouraged students to reflect on their learning throughout the learning process as a way to monitor student learning, modifying their classroom programme to reflect what they had learned about student needs. the ways in which students reflected on the goals varied between classes but included, at a minimum, some evidence of learning in the form of videos, pdf scans, or photos. in addition, each of the teachers responded to student goals. providing opportunities for reflection also enabled student voice to be heard. teachers in this study provided opportunities in the classroom and in the lms for students to express their opinions about, and to share, their learning. rudduck et al. (2006) also reported that listening to student voice enables students to feel valued and empowered—an important feature of personalised learning. conclusion as a small-scale qualitative study, the intention of this research was not to generalise the findings to other contexts, nor to make general statements about the nature of personalised learning. notwithstanding these limitations, the key finding from this research is that an lms has the potential to be a key aspect of a classroom environment that is built on the components of personalised learning, particularly in supporting afl principles. in the research described here, personalised learning involved learning built on afl pedagogy and a highly structured approach to learning and teaching that places the needs of students at the centre of learning. specifically, in terms of afl, the lms and classroom practice centred on using evidence to identify needs, communicating student needs, differentiating instruction to meet student needs, providing effective feedback and feed-forward, and enabling student reflection on learning. the key message from this research is that the teachers saw the lms as a tool for learning and the way that it was used generally aligned with the pedagogy that was being used in the classroom. because afl was the scaffold upon which classroom learning was designed, it was also the framework within which the lms was designed and used. ultimately, the lms was used as a tool to address the learning needs of students and, in so doing, supported both afl pedagogy and personalised learning for students. personalised learning has the potential to transform education and is being promoted as an essential component of future-oriented teaching and learning. digital technologies, such as an lms, have potential too—the potential to bring parents into the learning process, to hear student voice, and to harness new ways of learning. for that potential to be achieved, more needs to be known and understood about how digital technologies can support and enhance personalised learning principles. this research represents an important step in that process. 25 edmunds, b., & hartnett, m. acknowledgements this research was supported by a grant from the graduate research fund from the institute of education, massey university, which was awarded to bronwyn edmunds in 2013. both authors wish to acknowledge the valuable feedback received at the deanz2014 conference on an earlier version of this paper. references abbey, n., & baylis, a. 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(2013). case study research: design and methods (5th ed.). los angeles: sage. biographical notes bronwyn edmunds med brone@freemansbay.school.nz bronwyn is a teacher in freemans bay school, new zealand, where she works with teachers and students, helping them to use ict to support the teaching and learning process embedded in effective teaching theory. she is passionate about the potential of effective learning to ignite and engage students and develop skills and values to be lifelong learners. she enjoys sharing her skills and knowledge with others in ways that are easily transferable into the classroom. 28 http://www.minedu.govt.nz/nzeducation/educationpolicies/schools/initiatives/managedlearningenvironments.aspx http://www.minedu.govt.nz/nzeducation/educationpolicies/schools/initiatives/managedlearningenvironments.aspx http://www.ttrb3.org.uk/personalised-learning-and-pupil-voice-the-east-sussex-project/ http://www.ttrb3.org.uk/personalised-learning-and-pupil-voice-the-east-sussex-project/ http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110130111510/http:/research.becta.org.uk/index.php?section=rh&catcode=_re_rp_02&rid=14202 http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110130111510/http:/research.becta.org.uk/index.php?section=rh&catcode=_re_rp_02&rid=14202 http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/teachingandlearning/curriculum/nationalcurriculum2014 http://dera.ioe.ac.uk/2127/1/download%3fid%3d17239%26filename%3dleadership-for-personalising-learning.pdf http://dera.ioe.ac.uk/2127/1/download%3fid%3d17239%26filename%3dleadership-for-personalising-learning.pdf mailto:brone@freemansbay.school.nz journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) maggie hartnett phd m.hartnett@massey.ac.nz maggie is a lecturer in the institute of education at massey university, new zealand, where she teaches in the areas of e-learning and digital technologies. her research interests include motivation and engagement in digital environments, teaching and learning with digital technologies, electronic portfolios, support for digital learners, digital places, and spaces of learning. maggie is also an associate editor of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. edmunds, b., & hartnett, m. (2014). using a learning management system to personalise learning for primary school students. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 18(1), [11–29]. 29 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ microsoft word jdl05maintext1word.doc journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 15 teacher education for cultural diversity: online and at a distance jae major christchurch college of education christchurch, new zealand introduction it is widely acknowledged internationally that student populations in english-speaking contexts are becoming more culturally and linguistically diverse, while teacher populations remain largely white, middle-class, and monolingual (chisholm, 1994; santoro & allard, 2003; terrill & mark, 2000; villegas & lucas, 2002). the situation in new zealand is similar, with an increasingly diverse population being projected in terms of ethnicity. statistics new zealand (http://www.stats.govt.nz) projects that by 2021 the percentage of new zealanders who identify with ethnicities other than european will be more than 30 percent. in the compulsory education sector, the number of students from migrant and refugee families has increased significantly in the past fifteen years, as has the number of international fee-paying students. however, ministry of education data indicate only slow growth in the level of ethnic diversity in pre-service teacher education students over the ten years from 1991 to 2001. students who identify as european still make up around 75 percent of prospective teachers in the compulsory sector (smith, 2004). the potential mismatch between the student population and the teacher population, in terms of identities and experiences, is cause for concern as it raises questions about the ability of teachers to effectively relate to and meet the needs of students who are not like them (ladson-billings, 1999; santoro & allard, 2003). teacher education institutions are expected to prepare teachers for the diversity (cultural, linguistic, socioeconomic, ability) they will encounter in modern classrooms. faced with a student teacher population that largely represents the dominant cultural and socioeconomic group, and has limited exposure to cultural or linguistic diversity, how best to achieve the goal of preparation for diversity is a question that continues to challenge teacher education providers. in commenting on teacher expertise in working with children who have english as an additional language in new zealand schools, franken and mccomish (2003, p.136) conclude, “there is a need for a great deal more teacher and school expertise in all aspects of promoting second language development, and bilingual development.” this suggests that many beginning teachers may graduate with insufficient understandings about the particular needs of linguistically and culturally diverse children, and with limited skills to address those needs. recent initiatives in initial teacher education have seen some institutions providing qualifications by distance. the deregulation in the mid-1990s of tertiary journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 16 education generally, and of teacher education in particular, provided opportunities for tertiary institutions to broaden their student base. one market that was largely untapped in teacher education was students who were unable or unwilling to move to main centres to access teacher education programmes. in response there was a move by some teacher education providers to develop distance programmes to reach these students (see for example delany & wenmoth, 2003). distance education has traditionally been print based, with study guides designed to emulate a conversation between tutor and student—a “tutorial in print” (rowntree, 1999). the advent of the internet and associated online technologies has changed the face of communication and distance education forever. synchronous (online chat) and asynchronous (e-mail, online discussion forums) forms of communication offer unprecedented opportunities for distance students to share in the types of interactions previously only available in face-to face encounters. as a result there has been significant growth in the number of distance courses utilising online technologies to enhance student learning (for example campbell, mcgee, & yates, 2000). at the christchurch college of education school of primary teacher education, teaching for diversity and online technologies come together in a course called language and culture in the classroom (ml232) in the graduate diploma of teaching and learning (gdiptchln) programme. ml232 is a 20-hour, semester-long, compulsory course for students who enter primary teacher education with a degree. since 2001 the course has been delivered online for distance students in an attempt to utilise and integrate new technology, and skills in using this technology, into the course. in addition it provides an opportunity to bring distance students together in a discussion forum where they can co-construct their understandings, and share ideas and experiences related to the course content, with the guidance of a lecturer. this paper discusses the extent to which effective teacher education for diversity can occur at a distance using online technologies. it explores the use of the online discussion forum to teach a multicultural education course in a distance, initial teacher education course. data from an in-depth evaluative survey completed by students in the first year of online teaching (2001), subsequent feedback from students, their online discussions, my experience of teaching the course online for four years, and available literature inform the ideas presented. the paper begins with a brief outline of online technologies in distance education, followed by an introduction to the characteristics of teacher education for diversity. finally, the two are drawn together in a discussion about the effect of online technologies on student interaction and learning in multicultural education courses generally and ml232 in particular. online technologies in distance education mclachlansmith (1998) suggests that dialogue between teacher and student is an essential element of distance education. in the past the challenge in distance education was to find ways to achieve dialogue within media that did not allow for any form of direct and timely interaction. the internet has rendered this challenge largely irrelevant, adding a new communicative dimension to the journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 17 distance teaching and learning experience and enabling dialogue in unprecedented ways. a range of terms is used to refer to online communication in education, including: e-learning, computer mediated communication (cmc), online learning, asynchronous learning, web-based instruction, and computer conferencing. in this paper e-learning and online learning are used interchangeably to refer to asynchronous, discussion-based teaching and learning using internet online technologies. those who manage online discussions are referred to as e-moderators. there can be no doubt about the potential advantages of online technologies for establishing learning communities and interactive opportunities not previously available to distance students. in fact the electronic medium of online discussion can even offer elements that face-to-face discussion cannot, with its potential for “sustained group discussion” which explores multiple themes simultaneously (tolley, 2000). the successes that many educators experience with mixed media programmes challenge assumptions that face-to-face teaching and learning is better than alternative methods (campbell, et al., 2000). asynchronous discussions have come to form the mainstay of many online education programmes, and the literature identifies a number of significant characteristics of online teaching and learning (for example bonk, wisher, & lee, 2003; salmon, 2000). one key characteristic relates to the change in pedagogy implied by and required for successful e-learning and e-teaching. essentially online discussions can facilitate collaborative knowledge building, in line with constructivist pedagogy, although, as nunan (1999, p.71) points out, “there is nothing inherent in the media offered by [web-based instruction] that takes it in this direction.” while nunan focused on the use of synchronous chat in his study, the point is also pertinent to asynchronous interaction. despite nunan’s reservations, it is generally agreed that e-learning tools can provide access to materials and activities that fit a range of learning preferences and create opportunities for learners to construct knowledge and exercise greater control over their learning (bonk, et al., 2003; collis & moonen, 2001; tolley, 2000). it is often the case that the balance of control of online discussion shifts from teacher to students over the duration of the course, and the competent e-moderator will plan for this to occur. the other side to this change in pedagogy is the roles that are opened up for teachers to adopt. these have been identified as ranging from social and technical to organisational and pedagogical (berge, 1995). a growing literature has sprung up offering advice and guidance to those who wish to teach via online discussions (see for example bonk, et al., 2003; ko & rossen, 2004; salmon, 2000). online learning has important equity implications. while it can exclude those who do not have access to the technology required for participation, it also has the capacity to provide greater access to discussion for a greater number of students (chen & hung, 2002). asynchronous interaction offers significant potential for inclusion and participation across time and space. participants can contribute in their own time and a better representation of views is possible (chen & hung, 2002). there is also evidence that participants from language backgrounds other than english journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 18 find it easier to have a voice in online discussion compared to face-to-face (kamhi-stein, 2000; merryfield, 2001). teacher education for diversity a range of phrases is employed to refer to teacher education programmes that aim to develop attitudes and skills in teaching culturally and linguistically diverse populations, including: “preparing teachers for diverse student populations” (ladsonbillings, 1999), “preparing teachers for multicultural classrooms” (chisholm, 1994), “educating teachers for cultural and linguistic diversity” (parla, 1994), and, more generically, multicultural teacher education. in this paper the phrase teacher education for diversity is used to refer to such programmes. in choosing this phrase, it is acknowledged that diversity itself is a contested term because of its focus on difference and differentiation. using diversity as the basis for courses about multi culturalism is problematic because it does not question the taken-for-granted assumptions about the dominant culture as the neutral standpoint from which diversity is defined and discussed. in the context of this paper, diverse is used to refer to cultural and linguistic difference, while acknowledging that this may potentially reinforce notions of the majority culture as the norm from which diversity is categorised. nevertheless, diversity is the most useful term in this context as it accurately describes the notion that there is a difference or gap between the identities and experiences of many (majority culture) teachers and those of the (minority culture) students they teach. recent research exploring effective teacher education for diversity suggests a number of essential elements to develop student teachers’ attitudes towards, beliefs and knowledge about, and skills in addressing the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse children (jenks, lee, & kanpol, 2001; terrill & mark, 2000; villegas & lucas, 2002). a number of dimensions, characteristics, elements, or models that typify effective teacher education for diversity are offered in the literature. what follows is a discussion of the main themes to emerge. a core characteristic of effective teacher education for diversity is the development of sociocultural consciousness (villegas & lucas, 2002). this begins with an examination of one’s own sociocultural identities and the various groups to which one belongs. exploring and understanding one’s own cultural, linguistic, and ethnic identities before examining others’ is considered a vital starting point for multicultural education programmes. villegas & lucas (2002) suggest an “autobiographical exploration, reflection, and critical self-analysis” (p.22), while marilyn cochran-smith (2000) is convinced it is vital for teacher education to incorporate accounts about race and racism that “get personal.” she focuses strongly on using students’ experiences rather than multicultural content knowledge as a starting point for exploring issues of diversity (cochran-smith, 2000). an aim of some programmes is to destabilise students’ sense of themselves as the norm, as a means of drawing attention to inequitable structures and practices in education (ladson-billings, 1999). zeichner, et al. (1998) suggest that self-knowledge should be followed by an examination of one’s own attitudes and beliefs about “others,” and how these might impact on teaching and learning. journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 19 it is considered important for prospective teachers to know about diverse children and their families, or at least to know how to learn about them—their backgrounds, experiences, and expectations (chisholm, 1994; parla, 1994; villegas & lucas, 2002). an important aspect of this is ensuring that students do not essentialise or stereotype children or ethnic groups, but understand the individual differences that exist within any group (villegas & lucas, 2002; zeichner, et al., 1998). teachers must also know how to use this knowledge to plan, implement, and evaluate relevant instruction (zeichner, et al., 1998). constructivist pedagogy is promoted as highly appropriate for culturally responsive teaching, but is something that student teachers must experience in their own learning if it is to be understood and adopted into their teaching (villegas & lucas, 2002). in addition, an understanding of intercultural communication strategies will increase cultural competency (chisholm, 1994), as will learning about different forms of classroom interaction and organisational structures and how they impact on learning (bishop, 2003). one way of developing this knowledge is via field experiences, where student teachers engage with children or adults from diverse backgrounds. these are frequently identified as a vital component of teacher education for diversity (parla, 1994; terrill & mark, 2000; zeichner, et al., 1998). it is widely agreed, “teachers need face-to-face experiential learning with people different from themselves if they are to develop cross-cultural skills, knowledge, and competence” (merryfield, 2003, p.1). the power of field experiences to challenge and change student teachers’ perceptions and understandings is described in a number of studies (see cabello & burstein, 1995; deering & stauntz, 1995; wiest, 1998; wiggins & follo, 1999). increasingly the internet is being seen as a tool for intercultural projects aimed at building cultural sensitivity and awareness where direct contact with culturally and linguistically diverse groups is not possible. student teachers must understand teaching as contextualised in a particular cultural and sociopolitical milieu based on relations of power and privilege. it is not therefore a neutral activity, but intellectual and political, requiring critical thinking and a commitment to change in order to challenge inequities (cochran-smith, 2000; villegas & lucas, 2002). zeichner, et al. (1998) suggest that power sharing must be modelled by teacher educators to foster collaborative, cooperative, and partnership-based teaching and learning. online teacher education for diversity ml232, language and culture in the classroom, uses online discussion as a central means of engaging students with course content. the course is constructed around six topics and the students are provided with a comprehensive set of readings and guide questions for each topic. the themes and key ideas are developed using threaded discussion forums on the college’s web-based platform. the students are grouped into clusters of 12 to 15, and each group has its own discussion area within the course site. access to each group area is restricted by password to members of that group only. students are expected to read the course material and respond to key questions posed in a starting thread by the lecturer. required participation is built into the course assessment and students must post one original comment about each journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 20 topic and one response to someone else’s post. at the end of the course students write a reflective essay describing their new learning and understandings and the implications of these for their own teaching. an early task in ml232 requires students to write a description of their own culture and the forces that have shaped it. this is posted as a home page on the course site. the task stimulates the students’ reflective processes in considering their own identities, while also exposing them to a range of others’ views and experiences. this opportunity to understand where others come from, and are coming from, performs an important function in breaking the ice and starting the process of developing a cohesive community of learners for the duration of the course. it is a recommended first step in managing an online course (ko & rossen, 2004; salmon, 2000). students report a high level of enjoyment of this task and appreciate the insights they gain into their own and others’ cultures, values, and beliefs. one of the interesting aspects this task reveals is the fact that there is often quite a high level of diversity within this particular student cohort. while the student teacher population generally is predominantly monocultural and monolingual, those enrolled in the graduate diploma programme tend to be more diverse. distance students are on average older than on-campus students, and most have rich life experiences which they readily share with the group. their home page stories reveal that many have travelled extensively and often have lived in other countries. they experience diversity within their families through partners and other relatives. often groups have one or two people who are bilingual, and who may have grown up in other parts of the world. the stories the students share online are eagerly received by others, and they provide access to diversity (schoorman, 2002) and an opportunity to hear multiple voices and perspectives (kamhi-stein, 2000; merryfield, 2001) which would not otherwise be available. for example: usually it does not take a very long time to pick up phrases or being able to have simple conversations, but to be able to express your feelings, have a political discussion or just being quick enough, that the joke is not always on you, seems to take forever. cummins (2000) estimation is between 5 to 7 years. . . . reflecting back on my experience, i found it very hard, that i never could present my true self, express my passion about things, saying the right thing at the right time, being deeply involved in a “heavy” conversation and just having the feeling that a lot of people underestimate you, because of your limited ability to express yourself. (student post, 2004) for most of us that migrate to new zealand with no english background, we have that keenness to learn, and wanting to be a part of that society, at the same time, afraid to take that risk in case we mispronounce a word, afraid of being laughed at and being teased by others. (student post, 2004) my own use of language may cause some difficulties for nesb children because i am not a kiwi and i will probably bring some [-----] aspects to my way of doing and expressing journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 21 issues in the classroom. one example of this would be that i cannot understand all the jokes made by kiwis and they do not at all times understand my jokes because they are related to my culture. at the same time i believe i have an advantage of being unambiguous about my expectations because i have the need to be clear about what i expect in the classroom environment. (student post, 2004) a fundamental aim in teacher education for diversity is developing cultural understandings and positive attitudes towards diversity. this is difficult to achieve via print-based materials alone. the discussion forums for distance students are an opportunity for interaction that enhances the development of these elements. student comments evaluating ml232 support the notion that online interaction enhances their learning experience: “the discussion helped me a lot to learn and think about others’ ideas;” “the interaction made it personal;” “the diversity of opinions/ ideas that were generated by the readings were a great source of inspiration and helped stimulate discussion.” while they may not be a substitute for face-to-face interactions and experiences, “online technologies are important tools for teacher educators who value cross-cultural experiences, skills, and knowledge in local, national and global contexts” (merryfield, 2003, p. 2). online interaction is qualitatively different to face-to-face communication. in a face-to-face classroom, students have immediate access to the discussion and use a range of nonverbal cues both to provide and to gain meaning. this is not the case with online discussion. in my experience, some students struggle with the different style of interaction required in this context. some worry about misinterpretations due to the lack of paralinguistic cues (facial expression, tone of voice, and so on) in online communication. on the other hand, there may be advantages as, instead of responding to the physical presence of others, students “pay more attention to the content of the message” (lai, 1996, cited in merryfield, 2001, p. 295) without being distracted by the addition of extraneous visual information. the type of language used online also differs from that of face-to-face discussions. it falls somewhere between speaking and writing and has been referred as “written speech” (coghlan, 2001). it is less formal than writing, but more formal than speaking. in ml232 online discussions, students tend to mix more formal discussions of course readings with informal storytelling from their own experiences. as the e-moderator, i model my expectations adopting a conversational tone and retaining a high level of accuracy. the online environment offers opportunities to experience participation and interaction patterns that challenge traditional styles of teaching at tertiary level. kamhi-stein (2000), for example, found that the traditional “initiationresponse-evaluation” (ire) participation pattern common in face-to-face interactions between teachers and students was significantly less apparent in her web-based masters’ level tesol teacher education course. e-learning appears to encourage students to take greater responsibility for initiating and managing dialogues for various purposes (to relate experiences, make connections, reflect on content [kamhi-stein, 2000]), and to take on different roles and voices within journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 22 discussions (student, teacher, peer, specialist, informant [lamy & goodfellow, 1999]). this suggests that online discussions have the capability to promote a more egalitarian learning community where students can learn from each other as much as from the teacher. the lack of hierarchy common in the multidirectional communication (schoorman, 2002) of online forums can be disconcerting to teachers who wish to keep control of the discussion. in my experience a “light touch” (as one of my students described it) is important. student feedback indicates a preference for allowing discussions not dominated by too much lecturer interference with more informed opinions. on the other hand, students value supportive, encouraging, and pertinent comments that promote thinking and discussion, and they appreciate guidance via questions. in addition to the different interactive patterns in an online environment, there is evidence that the nature of the discussion is also different. merryfield (2001, 2003) reports online discussions that were perceived as more reflective, open, frank, and less inhibited than in face-to-face contexts. multicultural education encompasses a number of sensitive and controversial issues, such as racism and bilingual education, which some students find challenging to discuss face-to-face. the asynchronous and distant nature of online communication encourages some students to say things they would not otherwise, because they cannot see the reactions of others (kamhi-stein, 2000; merryfield, 2003). in addition, students have time to reflect because there is no pressure to perform on cue (kamhi-stein, 2000). student feedback indicates that not being put on the spot or having to voice opinions in front of a group is an advantage of e-learning. furthermore, students can revisit discussion threads because they have a permanence that spoken language does not. this, coupled with the public nature of the discussion, may encourage all participants (including course leaders) to take more care in the way points are made and cases are argued. the time lag inherent in asynchronous discussion also benefits participants for whom english is an additional language, who may struggle to keep up with spoken discourse. merryfield (2003) further suggests that online discussion encourages participants to think more deeply about course content, and reports seeing “more complex thinking about course content in threaded discussions than i believe is ever possible in an oral whole class discussion in a conventional classroom” (p. 9). learning is facilitated by having time to consult references, reflect, compose, edit contributions, and interact over several days or weeks. the reading material for ml232 provides a knowledge base on which the online discussion centres. in my experience distance students engage with course materials to a greater extent than oncampus students, and their online discussions reflect this. they use their personal experiences and stories to help make links between theory and practice, and demonstrate sound understandings of course content. for example: it is interesting to read that you were contemplating learning te reo maori when you first came to new zealand, and how people reacted to this. i too have heard many people make similar comments, especially “don't bother, it’s only spoken in nz”, and “why”. some people make these comments without journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 23 really understanding the value of learning another language and the cultural aspects that go with it. i believe it is their loss and our gain when we do finally understand and take on board a new language (even a small amount of a new language). the opposite can also occur, that is, people assume you know a language because you have the right skin colour, lived there, or family connections. throughout my senior college years and while studying maori at university (which i withdrew from after 6 months), many people (including teachers and lecturers) presumed i could speak maori due to my ethnic background and skin colouring. some people were plain rude about it. i now wish that i had continued my study in this area but at the time could not handle the stress and lack of my cultural identity. this experience will also stay with me, and now i feel empathy with others who also struggle with a loss of their culture and language. hopefully this will transfer into my future classroom if and when i have any nesb learners. (student post) relating stories from their own experiences that illustrate a key concept or principle personalises course content and also creates a more powerful connection for other students. online discussion forums are one of the few ways that distance students can gain a sense of connection with others, through collaboration and co-construction of understandings (nunan, 1999). a further example of the way in which online discussion gives access to a wide range of experiences is in the stories that students share from their practicum placements. in ml232 direct experiences with children and families from diverse backgrounds are not a planned element of the programme. however, many students experience diversity on their two five-week practicum placements. a practicum falls in the middle of the ml232 course and subsequent online discussions reflect the students’ experiences. for example: on practice i had 3 nesb [nonenglish speaking background] boys. it can sometimes be very hard to tell whether they do not understand the concept/information or whether they misunderstand my instructions on how to do the task. (student post, 2004) i had the opportunity to put some of these ideas into practice on my last pp. bearing in mind what we’d been learning on this course i taught a unit i designed myself on kiwi culture to a year 8 class in which there was a high proportion of esol students. . . . it was great fun, and i would definitely do it again with a class, preferably very early on in the year, because some of these children really had their eyes opened about each other. (student post, 2004) other students are able to learn, albeit vicariously, from the challenges and successes experienced on practicum by their classmates. students make connections between ideas in the course readings and their own teaching experiences. once again the online discussion facilitates this in a way that otherwise would not be possible. despite the positive aspects of online technologies, there are some criticisms. journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 24 some students find asynchronous, online discussions can be disjointed and lack spontaneity. the gap between posting an idea and getting a response can be frustrating and disheartening. for some, online interaction is perceived as being “a much less meaningful way to interact across cultures . . . than face to face interaction” (merryfield, 2001, p. 295). on the other hand, others find intercultural communication easier in writing than face-to-face (schoorman, 2002). despite online technologies promoting frank and open discussion, they are also perceived as a barrier to really getting to know others, and online relationships are perceived as incomplete without a face-to-face meeting (merryfield, 2001). the graduate students enrolled in ml232 do meet together at residential schools twice a year, and so have the advantage of putting a face and personality to the name in the online discussion. this seems to enhance the development of community, enabling discussion to focus quickly on course content rather than needing to spend time on social elements. there are two further difficulties with online discussions that are worth mentioning. the one that draws the most comment (in course evaluations and the literature) is the time-consuming nature of online interaction. it takes considerably more time to read discussion threads and construct responses than to interact in a one-hour class discussion. the literacy requirements of online courses make them heavily weighted towards students who are confident and competent in written english and in using online technologies. to take full advantage of the flexibility and convenience identified as a key positive element of e-learning, courses must be carefully constructed with realistic requirements and expectations, and students must be well organised to keep up with the discussion. for course instructors, too, time can be an issue. the second difficulty is with the technology itself. the fast pace of development in online technologies makes it difficult to keep up with in terms of the computer specifications and type of internet connection required in order to work effectively online. technical glitches are a major source of frustration for many participants in online courses, which is why the online activity in ml232 has been restricted to simple threaded discussions. these do not take up too much space and load relatively quickly. they are straightforward to use, and posts can be written offline in a word document for later cutting and pasting. effective e-moderation entails supporting students through difficulties and passing on tips and suggestions for managing the process of online communication. conclusion in this paper i have suggested that an initial teacher education course in teaching for diversity, which incorporates online discussion forums, can effectively create a community of learners and enhance the learning experience for distance students. the unique opportunities provided by e-learning to interact, critique ideas, reflect, share stories, explore strategies, and build relationships cannot be underestimated in preparing students for teaching in diverse contexts. online discussion stimulates interaction that is student-centred and qualitatively different to face-to-face contexts. students are able to engage with course content at a deep level and to make connections between theory and practice in the stories they tell in response to course readings and topics. while face to-face collaborative work and practical experiences with diverse people may also journal of distance learning, vol 9, no 1, 2005 © distance education association of new zealand 25 be necessary “if teachers are to develop intercultural competence in working with others” (merryfield, 2003, p. 14), the incorporation of online discussion into multicultural education courses significantly improves the likelihood of distance students acquiring knowledge, skills, and attitudes to meet the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse children in new zealand schools. references berge, z. l. 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(2003). troubling identities: teacher education students’ construction of class and ethnicity. paper presented to nzare/aare national conference, auckland, new zealand, december 2003. schoorman, d. (2002). increasing critical multicultural understanding via technology: “teachable moments” in a university-school partnership project. journal of teacher education, 53(4), 356–369. smith, h. a. (2005). “it all depends”: attitudes of teacher educators towards language diversity in aotearoa new zealand schools. in s. may, m. franken, & r. barnard, (eds.) (2005), led2003: refereed conference proceedings of the first international conference on language, education and diversity. hamilton, new zealand: wilf malcolm institute of educational research, university of waikato. terrill, m. m., & mark, d. h. l. (2000). preservice teachers’ expectations for schools with children of colour and second-language learners. journal of teacher education, 51(2), 149–155. tolley, s. (2000). how electronic conferencing affects the way we teach. open learning, 15(3), 253–265. villegas, a. m., & lucas, t. (2002). preparing culturally responsive teachers: rethinking curriculum. journal of teacher education, 53(1), 20–32. wiest, l. r. (1998). using immersion experiences to shake up preservice teachers’ views about cultural differences. journal of teacher education, 49(5), 358–365. wiggins, r. a., & follo, e. j. (1999). development of knowledge, attitudes, and commitment to teach diverse student populations. journal of teacher education, 50(2), 94–105. zeichner, k., grant, c., gay, g., gillette, m., valli, l., & villegas, a. m. (1998). a research informed vision of good practice in multicultural education: design principles. theory into practice, 37(2), 163–172. jae major is a senior lecturer at the christchurch college of education. she lectures in the area of multiculturalism in education and teaching english to speakers of other languages. major is an active member of tesolanz (teachers of english to speakers of other languages aotearoa new zealand). desmond keegan (editor), 1994: otto peters on distance education the industralisation of teaching and learning. routledge, london and new york, nz$194.95. this is a book for the serious student of distance education, a collection of mostly theoretical essays by the german educationalist otto peters. desmond keegan's edited collection of peters' work brings to the english speaking world an important figure in the world of distance education who has much to offer in terms of both theory and practice. the essays collected here range from 1965 to 1993 and effectively span the history of distance education and provide the reader with an overview of the important issues in its development. one of the main reasons for reading this book is for the insights it provides into the major issues that have always faced those who teach and learn at a distance. in his introduction to this collection of essays, desmond keegan notes that'for over 20 years professor otto peters' research on distance education has been extensively cited and referred to by writers in english. his work sets out fundamental landmarks in this field of study that require consideration in any scholarly treatment of the subject or in any course on distance education.' this collection of peters' essays on distance education is in four parts. the first part of the collection is labelled 'data collection' and covers the earliest period of peters' work covering the notions of distance education by correspondence schools, university-level distance education and, of particular interest to the many universities at the present time considering adding a distance education dimension to their teaching, a chapter on models of univer sity-level distance education. although written in 1971, the chapter on models of university-level distance education introduces what at the time must have been a new notion a 'technological model of distance education', a 'model' with which readers today book reviews will be very familiar. this part of the book is of historical interest and provides a snapshot of the way that the field has changed over the last thirty years. the second part of the book contains three essays under .the heading 'analysis', one of which, 'distance education and industrial production', appeared in english in an earlier collection (d. sewart, d. keegan' and b . holmberg, distance education: international perspectives, 1983. this is an important essay and one with whic\1. some readers will be frun_iliar. it provides a good introduction into the nature of distance education as seen by otto peters: distance education can be defined as the most industrial form of teaching and learning. this definition points to a general characteristic of the new form of teaching and learning, it illuminates its structural peculiarity, and separates it sharply from all conventional forms of face-to-face instruction. it applies to all forms of distance education as it can be more or less industrialised just like the production process. peters' views of the nature of distance education are summarised in the subtitle of this book, 'the industrialisation of teaching andlearning'. in a later essay (1989) called 'the iceberg has not yet melted further reflections on the concept of industrialisation and distance teaching', peters notes that there has been a number of misunderstandings about the concept of industrialisation and distance teaching and in responding to these, he has adopted the metaphor of the iceberg for three reasons: first: icebergs break away from their original surroundings and often drift into new areas where they do not normally journal of distance learning, vol2, no.1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 62 belong. the use of characteristics relating to the industrial process in explaining the teaching-learning process in distance study was certainly new and unheard of and in the minds of some not even appropriate or desirable. second: icebergs are often seen as a danger . . . people have strong reservations as they feel that something entirely unfamiliar and dangerous has entered education. third: icebergs change their appearance and become smaller. he proceeds to explain a number of 'misunderstandings' of his concept of industrialisation based on the metaphor of icebergs. the final two essays in this collection, 'understanding distance education' (1990) and 'distance education in post-industrial society' (1993), provide the reader with a contemporary analysis of the direction of this aspect of education. the 1990 essay considers the various meanings of distance education at the present time. i find this interesting as for some time now i have had the feeling that the term 'distance education' does not accurately reflect the reality of those who teach and learn at a distance in the late twentieth century. peters provides a range of ways of considering what it is that distance educators and distance learners are really �ngaged in the late twentieth century, including open learning, home study, guided self study, study without leaving production and, interestingly, the russian term ' zaochny' meaning 'distance' in distance education. according to peters this term means, in russian, 'without eye contact' thereby implying 'the decisive criterion according to which distance education can be distinguished from conventional teaching and learning.' so far this term has not yet found its way into discourse in e ngli s h-language discussion of distance education. not all english-speaking readers will be comforhible with the ways in which distance education have been conceptualised in this collection. however, it is a collection of essays that is of interest on several levels: for insight into the development of distance education itself, for an evaluation of a variety of major issues that still confront those who teach and learn at a distance and for peters' perspectives of the theory and practice of distance education in industriali�ed europe. of particular interest to me is the insight that peters provides in this collection into distance education in the former soviet union as well as in his native germany. in spite of its high price, this is a collection of essays that should have a place in the library of any distance teaching institution. it is a useful collection of largely theoretical essays by an important and, in the context of europe, an influential figure. otto peters on distance education will have particular value i n any consideration of educational policy in which distance education is to play a part. as distance education becomes increasingly mainstreamed in educational institutions, the thesis of this book -the industrialisation of teaching and learning -is likely to be debated in future. ken stevens victoria university of wellington borge holmberg, 1995: theory and practice of distance education (second edition). routledge (routledge studies in distance education), london, xi, 246pp, nz$95.00. this second edition of a well known foundation text in distance education which was originally published in 1989 is another addition to the new routledge studies in distance education series edited by desmond keegan. the routledge series is growing steadily and, with the addition of high quality volumes like this one, seems set to become the premier collection of writings in the field. as increasing numbers of traditional tertiary education institutions consider the possibilities of distance education for the delivery of their courses, comprehensive theoretical and methodological studies on the subject like holmberg's should find a ready place. journal of distance lel,lrning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 63 ho�mberg takes the reader through distance education in eleven chapters, beginning with a chapter on 'today' s overall picture of distance education'. beginnil)lg with the concept of distance education itself, holmberg ·outlines how the field has evolved, identifies major international distance education institutions and provides a section on 'the presumed potential of distance education.' the development of open learning_ in australia is unfortunately only covered in two sentences which does not really convey an adequate picture of the significant changes that are taking place in that country at the present time in terms of the national and the international delivery of education at a distance. this section points out some of the characteristics of distance education students and provides the reader with a broad overview of some of the major considerations of learning at a distance. a brief chapter gives a background to the study of distance education in psychological terms, focusing on issues relating to teaching and learning. holmberg is very thorough in covering a wide number of considerations in the process of course planning: presenting distance education materials, conducting tutorials at a distance, preparing materials that are appropriate to a student's learning level, developing study guides, guiding choice of media for distance education courses and presenting material in appropriate ways including g,onsiderations _of style, matter, layout, language, illustrations and oral and video presentation. much of the material in the first part of this book on course design ·should be of interest to the increasing numbers of professionals who are considering developing courses in distance education mode. the latter part of the book covers such issues as the organisation and administration of distance education, the services required, administering course development, managing student teacher interaction and the distribution of course · materials. i found the chapter on 'theoretical approaches to distance education and their practical consequences' of particular interest. this is a section that i anticipate will generate discussion by other writers on distance education. to date there has not been a lot of attention by scholars of the calibre of holmberg to the theoretical aspects of teaching and learning at a distance. holmberg brings to the theoretical section of this book a considerable range of educational theory for examination from which he hp.s worked toward his own theory of learning and teaching in distance education, followed by a series of hypotheses derived .about distance learning and distance teaching. there is perhaps a challenge implicit in these hypotheses to other scholars of distance education to test. this second edition of a successful distance education text by one of the leading figures in this field will be welcomed by many people. it is a comprehensive and extremely well­ organised anal,fsis of an aspect of education that is both complex and changing rapidly. it is, however, essentially a reference book for the distance education professional. i find theory and practice in distance education valuable as a broad overview of the field, something that few people could successfully undertake, but also for the theoretical, methodological, organisational and evaluation aspects of teaching and learning at a distance that it provides. it is a book that is and will remain a cornerstone in any collection of distance education materials. finally, it must be pointed out that theory and practice in distance education contains a particularly comprehensive list of references, which, in addition to the considerable range of material in this volume, provides a useful guide to scholarly writings in a field that is not yet well endowed with collections such as this one. ken stevens victoria university of wellington j. tiffen and l. rajasingham, 1995: in search of the virtual class-e ducation in an information society. routledge, london, xviii, 204pp. nz $56.00. the authors acknowledge that this is likely to be a controversial book. personally, i found journal of distance leqrning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 64 reading it an interesting and informative experience in which many familiar but, for me, imprecise concepts and technologies associated with modern communications were clarified. on another level, this book has considerable value for the insights it provides in terms of how information and communications technologies are likely to develop during the next decade and the implications they will have for education. for these reasons the book should be read by as many people involved in education as possible. tiffin and rajasingham provide the lay reader who has little background in communications theory or technology with simple and well­ illustrated explanations of terms and concepts that most of us use in our daily lives without having precise understandings of all of them. many people today are likely to have some familiarity with such concepts as virtual reality, artificial intelligence, isdn, computer assisted instruction, teleconferencing, e-mail and hypermedia without being able to explain exactly what they mean. the book explains these and many other modern communication concepts and technologies and, in my case, introduced me to some that until reading in search of the virtual class were far from well understood: nanotechnology, televirtuality and cyberspace. while many readers will, like me, improve their understanding of developments in communications through reading in search of the virtual class, the book is really a journey in itself about education in an information society. the reader is invited to consider the example of shirley, clad in a datasuit, being educated in a virtual classroom. the story of shirley's education is returned to in places throughout the book and for parents and educators, she raises the question of how far from present reality her learning experiences really are. in search of the virtual class takes the reader from the virtual class as it exists with today's communications technologies to the virtual class of tomorrow. the virtual class of today is largely defined by computer and telecommunications technologies which have been the basis of such applications as audioconferencing and computer-managed instruction. these are forms of virtual classes, the authors argue, in that they are classes without the reality of the classroom. according to tiffin and rajasingham a classroom is: a communication system that makes it possible for a group of people to come together to talk about something they want to learn, and look at pictures and diagrams and text that help them understand. in a conventional classroom this is made possible by the walls which provide protection from outside noise and interference so that everybody inside the classroom can hear and see one another and can also see, on a whiteboard or blackboard, words, diagrams and pictures about what is being learned. the question is, can information technology provide an alternative communications system for learning that is at least as effective? tiffin and rajasingham point out that the idea of a virtual class is that everyone can talk and be heard and be identified and everyone can see the same words, diagrams and pictures, at the same time. this calls for the use of telecommunications and computers. in the virtual class of tomorrow, the new technology of virtual reality (vr) is outlined and explained. this technology 'seeks to create the effect of actually being inside a simulated reality.' vr as a computer technology can be linked to telecommunications systems: one person sits in front of a screen and puts on a pair of glasses and a glove. this makes it possible for them to interact in a virtual room with another person who is sitting in front of a screen in another place who has the same equipment. they are linked by telecommunications. they see each other apparently sitting around a table in a conference room. they are actually looking at computer graphic images of each other, but the image is three-dimensional and their faces move as they speak they can also use their gloved hand to manipulate virtual objects within the virtual room or to change the virtual journal of distance learning, vol2, no. 1, 1996 (c) distance education association of new zealand 65 jdl 0201 1996 reviews.pdf reviewsinsert journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) empowering teachers? an exploratory study of personnel practices in virtual charter schools in the united states dennis beck, university of arkansas robert maranto, university of arkansas abstract virtual charter schools have the potential to transform teacher personnel management. however, there is currently little evidence that they are doing so. this study examined how 89 teachers at two virtual charter schools perceived school personnel practices and leadership. survey analysis indicated that teachers perceived personnel practices as resembling those of their previous ‘brick and mortar’ public schools. the results also showed that these teachers had a more positive view of school leaders and the school climate than they had at their previous schools. implications are discussed in light of teacher education and personnel management literature. additional research is recommended, as is development of the preparation of school administrators to include online, flexible, and distance learning, and related innovative leadership practices. keywords: virtual school; school administration; personnel management introduction virtual schooling and online distance education are seen by some as having the potential to fundamentally restructure schooling by eliminating many of the usual constraints of time and distance (moe & chubb, 2009). in virtual schools, teachers instruct students online through a combination of synchronous and asynchronous technologies. these enable a single instructor to teach students who may be hundreds or thousands of miles away, and enables students to take courses that are not available in their locales. because most virtual courses are digitally recorded, students can replay episodes to improve their understanding of the content. virtual schooling demands much of instructors, who may simultaneously teach a class, email questions to individual students to increase their attention, and keep up with backchannel chat. these recordings and online opportunities may also enable administrators to view and evaluate teacher performance in an unobtrusive manner at a time and place of their choice. in short, virtual schooling offers the potential to redesign aspects of educational administration as well as instruction. the redesign of instruction has been described by many authors. for example, roberts (2009) and pratt and pullar (2013) describe practice in new zealand, while moe and chubb (2009) provide a collection of case studies and empirical research on practice in the united states. 59 beck, d., & maranto, r. in a north american context, innovative virtual schools have been pioneered by charter schools. these charter schools are public schools, in that they are authorised by public bodies, funded by the state, and must accept all students who apply (holding a lottery to select students when there are too many applications). but charter schools also resemble private schools in that they are choice-based, with funding depending on the number of students who choose the school. they also resemble private schools in that they are largely autonomous and are not required to comply with most regulations regarding personnel and curriculum (molnar et al., 2013). (molnar et al. are based at the national education policy center, a left-of-centre think tank at the university of colorado boulder. it is dedicated to producing and disseminating high-quality, peer-reviewed research to inform education policy discussions). the charter schools’ independence from the local education authorities, and the fact that each school serves only the parents who choose that school, has led many charter schools to ignore the constraints of the traditional school models which dominate primary and secondary education in the united states, as described by tyack and cuban (1995) in their classic historical treatment. the concept of ‘real’ or ‘normal schooling’ can also be found in the case studies of other nations (e.g., ng & chan, 2008; glenn & de groof, 2012). many charter schools in the united states were started by neoliberal founders who pursued a related educational reform agenda. the beginnings of these charter schools in the united states is in contrast to older schools with their own charter in australasia, which were set up to offer correspondence study, such as new zealand’s te aho o te kura ponamu (previously the correspondence school) (barbour & pratt, 2013). critics believe that primary and secondary virtual schooling cannot match the face-to-face relationships and effective pedagogies of traditional schools. further, they fear that online schools will practice selective admission policies and that, if for profit, such schools will prefer profit over student and faculty needs. indeed, critics fear that virtual charter schools, in particular, typify reforms seeking to make schools more like commercial businesses (for commentary, see ravitch, 2010; for social-justice-based scholarship, see works within kovacs, 2011). taken as a whole, the research on student achievement in american virtual schools shows mixed to negative results (molnar et al., 2013), though there is some evidence that virtual charter schools serve disproportionate numbers of children who have had serious academic or emotional problems in traditional public schools, and thus may have academic disadvantages that are not easily captured by statistical controls (beck, maranto, & lo, 2014; beck, egalite, & maranto, 2014). little is known about the management practices in these innovative conditions. this study fills a gap by accessing the views of teachers regarding virtual management practices. the growth of primary and secondary virtual schooling despite mixed academic results, primary and secondary virtual schooling continues to grow in north america. restricting our discussion to full-time enrolment in virtual charter schools, we note that christensen, horn, and johnson (2008) projected that, by 2019, 50% of all high school courses will be delivered online. vander ark (2012) makes similar claims. these predictions are supported by regular reports regarding the growth of primary and secondary online learning enrolments, which has been the topic of annual reports in north america (e.g., watson, murin, vashaw, gemin, & rapp, 2012 from the evergreen group) and the nmc horizon report (johnson, adams, & cummins, 2012) from the new media consortium. here it is useful to note that the christiansen et al. work is written from a neo-liberal business perspective and vander ark is a former traditional public school administrator who later worked for the bill and melinda gates foundation. the evergreen group and the new media consortium are pro-hightechnology groups that receive funding from a variety of sources. 60 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) much of south asia has yet to harness the full potential of technology for creating, constructing, capturing, managing, and sharing information and knowledge in primary and secondary education (bacsich, pepler, phillips, öström, & reynolds, 2011). many nations have developed policies to support virtual school development, but their access to technology is extremely limited (information and communication technology for education in india and south asia, 2010). new zealand and australia stand apart in their development of virtual schooling, including their nationwide schools that were established primarily with correspondence mode. in addition, in new zealand individual courses have been offered across mainly rural ‘brick and mortar’ schools, taking advantage of synchronous audio and video telecommunications technology (roberts, 2009; anderson & simpson, 2012). the virtual learning network (vln) in new zealand is “… a network of school clusters and educational institutions who collaborate to provide access to a broad range of curriculum and learning opportunities for students through online learning.” (about the virtual learning network community, 2014). founded in the mid1990s, the vln included geographic clusters such as cantanet (wenmoth, 1996), the otagonet e-learning cluster (pullar & brennan, 2008; pratt & pullar, 2013), and the farnet e-learning cluster (barbour & bennett, 2013; bennett & barbour, 2012). recently, otagonet and cantanet have combined to offer courses more widely under the name of netnz (http://pol.vln.school.nz/cluster/view/21/netnz). online and synchronous conference-based instruction is also growing in other parts of the pacific; for example, there is an initiative in the cook islands with expanding online access (twining & davis, 2015, in press). teacher performance: an educational lynchpin a key part of any schooling, including virtual schooling, is teacher quality. as a range of north american studies suggest, teacher quality is the single biggest school-level variable predicting student success. for example, in a highly rigorous quantitative study, hanushek (1992) found that, after controlling for student characteristics, a student assigned a top 25th-percentile teacher will gain a mean of a year in measured reading skill than they would from a teacher in the bottom 25th percentile. more recent studies by different researchers have tended to confirm hanushek’s work. further evidence suggests that teacher quality is real; it does not simply reflect class composition (for a summary, see winters, 2012). for these reasons educational policy at the federal level in the united states has emphasised improving teacher quality (brill, 2011; maranto & mcshane, 2012). similarly, the ministry of education in new zealand has recently introduced exemplary postgraduate initial teacher education programmes to improve teacher quality and address the needs of ‘priority learners’ (lind, 2013). internationally, public schools are increasingly empowering administrators and teachers to make site-level decisions rather than simply following directives from central authorities. this reflects increased understanding of information asymmetries; that is, those at the school level are more likely to understand what needs to be done to best serve children. (see ng & chan, 2008, for examples from singapore and hong kong; lo & gu, 2008, for examples from taiwan and south korea; and maranto & shuls, 2011, for a united states case study). despite the push by policy makers to improve teacher quality, public schools in the united states have traditionally done little to mentor and evaluate teachers, as educational leadership scholar popham (2013) notes. schools have rarely used material incentives to encourage teacher improvement or to retain the best teachers (ritter & barnett, 2013). virtual schools may have the potential to do better. dipietro, ferdig, black, and preston (2008) examined teacher quality through a qualitative study of 16 american virtual school teachers in the state of michigan. michigan virtual school is technically not a charter school, but like most charters it is a not-forprofit school of choice. their results emphasise the importance of self, peer, and mentor evaluations as a best practice for primary and secondary virtual school teachers. 61 http://pol.vln.school.nz/cluster/view/21/netnz beck, d., & maranto, r. the importance of teacher education for teacher quality an international review of professional development is provided as an output from the systematic review at international and national levels of fully virtual schools and colleges (visced research project; davis, 2012). the differing media opportunities in virtual schooling highlight specific skills needed by teachers (e.g., synchronous vs. asynchronous technologies). for example, classes in the largely synchronous vln in new zealand need teachers who are trained in facilitating live student interactions (anderson & simpson, 2012), whereas the largely asynchronous modes of most virtual schooling in other contexts need a somewhat different skill set. the importance of on the job training and mentoring in schools is widely recognised and there have been a few programmes of preservice/initial teacher education that have included virtual schools in their field experience or practicum, but more are needed (davis & ferdig, 2009; kennedy & archambeaut, 2012). administrators have a major influence on teachers’ continuing professional development (davis, 2012). they can also influence teacher quality through personnel practices such as support for course and teacher professional development, merit pay, tenure, and teacher evaluation. unfortunately, administrator education programmes continue, by and large, to ignore the need to prepare administrators for virtual positions (lafrance & beck, 2014). virtual charter schools have the independence to explore new modes of personnel management, but little is known of the practices in these newly emerged schools. that is the focus of this paper. a potential solution to increasing teacher quality through innovative personnel practices: the virtual charter school virtual charter schools have the potential to help manage and address personnel practice problems. according to the nation’s report card (an annual united states government report on educational progress, a charter school is: a publicly funded school that … has been granted a charter exempting it from selected state or local rules and regulations. a charter school may be newly created, or it may previously have been a public or private school; it is typically governed by a group or organization (e.g., a group of educators, a corporation, or a university) under a contract or charter with the state. in return for funding and autonomy, the charter school must meet accountability standards. a school’s charter is reviewed (typically every 3 to 5 years) and can be revoked if guidelines on curriculum and management are not followed or the standards are not met. (http://nationsreportcard.gov/glossary.asp#c) for the charter school to be considered virtual, they usually need to offer at least 50% of their curriculum online. in the authors’ view, virtual charter schools have the potential to eliminate localised teacher shortages by employing teachers from any location, to teach children from any location, as is currently done by networked schools in new zealand and the nationwide te kura. finally, because they are typically independent from school districts and are exempt from certain rules, virtual charters could have the freedom to invent new and more professional (and less hierarchical) models for personnel practices that influence teacher management and leadership, as has already happened in some parts of the private sector (see moe & chubb, 2009; vander ark 2012) and in government (lind & otenyo, 2011). a range of evidence on personnel practices suggests that many traditional public schools treat teachers as “tall children”, and do not consider how educational personnel practices can negatively influence teacher quality (see ingersoll, 2003). by their very nature, virtual charter schools should have more leeway in reinventing personnel practices to the advantage of teachers. 62 http://nationsreportcard.gov/glossary.asp%23c journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) but do they? this study examined the personnel practices of virtual charter schools to see if these schools have significantly changed personnel practices that may influence teaching and learning. theoretical orientation in the authors’ view, teacher opinions of administrators’ personnel practices may be considered, integrated, and synthesised to increase effective social constructivist practices in education, drawing on the theory of social constructivism described by vygotsky (1978). an important aspect of social constructivism for teachers and administrators in virtual charter schools is the sharing of artifacts and shared meanings. when teachers and administrators are immersed in a school culture, they are constantly learning about how to be a part of that culture on many levels. through this process, virtual charter school leaders and teachers may create and maintain innovative personnel practices that have direct and indirect influences on teacher quality. personnel practices are developed through a process of testing ideas, synthesising the ideas of others, and making coherent, persuasive arguments. this study explores whether virtual schools are socially constructing new practices or whether, like many brick-and-mortar schools, such processes are at times short-circuited through the implementation of personnel practices in a topdown, authoritarian context. this need to explore transformative practices is argued because schooling that is mediated through digital technologies (including learning management systems) could free teachers to concentrate on building relationships with their students, leaving the most mundane aspects of their work—from taking roll to basic tutoring—to software (parish, 2013; vander ark, 2012; moe & chubb, 2009). teachers would gain the increased flexibility (such as working from home) that is afforded by technological innovations. further, as information technology workers, teachers would have greater influence and respect within the workplace. the social-justiceoriented perspectives (e.g., works within rofes & stulberg, 2004) argue that because of their independence, small size, and potentially progressive orientation, charter schools (including virtual schools) have the potential to personalise and de-bureaucratise traditional hierarchical relationships between school leaders, teachers, and students. vander ark (2012) proposes that virtual charter schools generally have the potential to re-personalise the role of the teacher in both pedagogical and personnel practices, empowering teachers with new tools to serve children and parents. on the other hand, as noted above, de-personalised educational bureaucracies (ingersoll, 2003) and, increasingly, corporations (see works within kovacs, 2011) may standardise and commodify in-school relationships. the absence of traditional collective bargaining and bureaucratic protections in the virtual sector, particularly the virtual charter sector, has the potential to disempower teachers while potentially increasing the influence of for-profit objectives and unpredictable market forces (ravitch, 2010; works within kovacs, 2011). methodology the purpose of this study is to examine the personnel practices of virtual charter schools through the eyes of virtual charter teachers to see if these schools have significantly reinvented personnel practices that could influence teaching and learning. a survey was used to explore how teachers at two virtual charters differed in their perceptions of personnel practices at their current schools compared to their previous brick-and-mortar public schools. the study aimed to find out how the teachers perceived themselves, their administrators, their peers, and their students. we also sought to understand the meanings they gave to their actions, and the issues that concerned them. 63 beck, d., & maranto, r. an exploratory research design was chosen because of the relative newness of the field and the lack of research on teachers’ perceptions of their virtual school leaders’ personnel practices. questions were designed for teachers who were employed at a virtual charter school. dillman’s tailored method design (2011) was used to construct a survey instrument (see appendix a). the survey questions were derived from and validated by prior research on the personnel practices of traditional public schools (chubb & moe, 1990) and charter schools (maranto, milliman, hess, & gresham, 2001), as well as one study comparing the two sectors (podgursky & ballou, 2001). the survey included likert scale items (1–5, strongly disagree to strongly agree) in this analysis to measure teacher evaluations of a variety of personnel policies, school climate, and school leadership practices. before they were used, the surveys were sent to two expert reviewers—a survey methodologist and an educational statistics faculty member at the authors’ universities. based on the experts’ suggestions, the items were revised for consistency of terminology, specificity of questions and responses, and additional items that should be included. an online survey tool, qualtrics, was used to administer the survey. this research was approved under the authors’ university’s institutional review board. although created for use in the united states, these instruments have potential for application in other contexts with appropriate modification to reflect cultural and linguistic differences. for this study, 12 survey items were analysed. sample and analyses while the expert review was being conducted, the researchers contacted administrators at all 13 virtual charter schools in a single american state, asking permission to survey their teachers. pennsylvania was the state selected because it has 13 virtual charter schools serving 32,322 students in the primary and secondary grades (watson et al., 2012) and virtual schooling is currently dominated by virtual charters. two schools responded, from which the researchers created a database of teachers’ names, titles, and email addresses. once compiled, the list of contacts comprised 140 possible respondents. implementing dillman’s tailored method design (2011) for deployment, the researchers sent out notification emails to the potential respondents. the purpose of this initial email was to refine the list by removing incorrect email addresses and to allow potential respondents to notify the researcher of others who could better describe programme plans. one week later, the survey link was sent out. the researchers followed up with three subsequent email reminders. the internet-based survey was open during june 2013. data received from the surveys were analysed using spss 20. data were analysed using descriptive statistics and independent sample t test for closed items. after it was determined that there were no differences between the two schools, a one sample t test was used to analyse the data. descriptive statistics were used to quantitatively describe the main features of the data sample, while the t test was used to estimate relationships among pertinent variables. one hundred and forty teachers were sampled to give 89 respondents, which was a useful 64% response rate. however, this paper restricts analysis to the 62 teachers who reported having previous teaching experience in traditional public schools. table 1 provides a description of the 62 teachers in the study. 64 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) table 1 descriptive statistics of the teachers in this study (n = 62) category n gender male 12 female 49 age 21–30 23 31–40 23 41–50 7 51–62 7 race white 59 hispanic 1 college major education 42 other 18 college origin one of the 3 flagship state universities 15 regional/state college/university 16 small liberal arts college 13 private university 11 out of state 7 teacher training conventional programme 55 alternative certification 7 although the evidence is drawn from two virtual schools, an extremely low response rate from one of the schools limited the data that was available to investigate differences between the schools. as a result, all of the teacher responses were combined to investigate the difference between teachers’ perceptions of the personnel practices of the leaders in their previous school and the leaders in their current school. however, because it is limited to teachers in two virtual schools in one state the evidence must be treated with caution. in addition, teachers’ self-reported survey data is likely to be limited by participant biases such as selective memory, telescoping, attribution, and exaggeration. results results for how teachers rated their current and previous schools on personnel-related issues are reported in table 2. the teachers’ ratings of their previous schools on personnel-related issues were subtracted from how the teachers rated their current school on personnel-related issues. the resulting mean differences were used to conduct a one sample t test to evaluate whether the means were significantly different from those of their previous school. the first four categories (bolded in table 2) have medium or large effect sizes worthy of further review. virtual school teachers in these schools appeared to trust their current head administrator better than those in their previous, brick-and-mortar school (large effect size, r = .51). the mean difference of .60 (sd = 1.03) was significantly different (t(54) = 4.32, p = .0001) using a one sample t test conducted to evaluate whether the means for “i trust my head administrator” were significantly different from that of their previous school. 65 beck, d., & maranto, r. the teachers also perceived that their colleagues shared their beliefs and values about the mission of the virtual school more than those at their previous school (large effect size, r = .51). the mean difference of -.69 (sd = .90) was significantly different, t(54) = -5.69, p = .0001. virtual school teachers in these two schools rated their current school better than their previous, brick-and-mortar school on how the leadership consults with teachers regarding matters that affect the school (medium effect size). the mean difference of .67 (sd = 1.32) was significantly different (t(54) = 3.78, p = .0004). teachers in these schools rated their current school better than their previous, brick-and-mortar school on whether their administrator had helped improve their teaching (medium effect size). the mean difference of .47 (sd = 1.09) was significantly different (t(54) = 3.23, p = .002). table 2 results of one-sample t test and descriptive statistics for current virtual school vs. previous public school (items with a medium or large effect size are in bold) category xmx sxd n 95% ci for mean difference t df the leadership consults with teachers regarding matters that affect the school .67 1.32 54 .32, 1.03 3.78*** 54 my administrator has helped improve my teaching .47 1.09 54 .18, .77 3.23*** 54 i trust my head administrator .60 1.03 54 .32, .88 4.32*** 54 my colleagues share my beliefs and values about the mission of the school -.69 .90 54 .93, .45 5.69*** 54 too many teachers use their classes as a “soap box” for their point of view .33 1.19 54 .01, .65 2.04** 54 i look forward to each working day at this school .49 1.12 54 .19, .79 3.25*** 54 many of the children at this school are just not capable of learning the material .06 .97 54 -.21, .32 .42 54 schools should not be judged on students’ test score gains -.02 .93 54 -.27, .23 -.15 54 there is nothing a teacher can do if a students’ family is not supportive -.15 .76 54 -.35, .06 -1.43 54 the personnel rules at this school are clear .11 .46 54 -.02, .23 1.77* 54 the personnel rules at this school reward teacher effectiveness .06 .65 54 -.12, .23 .62 54 the administration maintains an atmosphere where the rules and the authority of adults are respected. .07 1.02 54 -.20, .35 .53 54 * p < .10. ** p < .05. *** p < .01 discussion before discussing the implications directly, it is important to recall the context in which this study has been placed: it is an era of bold, largely unfounded promises regarding primary and secondary virtual schooling’s impact on areas ranging from student performance to teacher quality. primary and secondary virtual schooling in the united states has been proclaimed to be a way of addressing the needs of those seeking to overcome geographic constraints, and to assure the public that students anywhere can take a wide range of courses. it is also seen as providing a haven for students who are being bullied or are physically ill, accommodating the difficult 66 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) schedules of students who are themselves parents, and perhaps offering appropriate accommodation for some special education students who need more time on task (moe & chubb, 2009; vander ark, 2012). however, results from this study on how teachers’ rated their current virtual school versus their previous brick-and-mortar public school fell far short of these expectations. it appears that innovations in the mode of learning and teaching might not be spreading into administration and opportunities for professional development support. for example, although these teachers’ rated their virtual charter administrators higher on (a) how the leadership consults with teachers regarding matters that affect the school, (b) how their administrators helped to improve their teaching, and (c) how much teachers trust their head administrator, they did not rate the rules as different. this appears to indicate that, although virtual charter schools hire leaders who inspire trust and are good at implementing personal interaction with teachers in their schools, these leaders either cannot or do not introduce significant innovations in personnel management rules in terms of rules that are clear and reward teacher effectiveness, nor do they provide an atmosphere where the rules and the authority of all the adults within the school are respected. this seems to confirm other research on primary and secondary personnel management that indicates that personnel management rules that influence teacher management and leadership are largely hierarchical (moe & chubb, 2009; vander ark, 2012; lind & otenyo, 2011). in effect, teachers appear to be experiencing administrators who lead by applying ‘old-school’ hierarchical rules. personnel management also touches on how teachers perceive their peers and their work. this study showed that teachers perceived that their virtual charter colleagues shared more of their beliefs and values about the mission of the school. they also looked forward to each working day more in their current virtual charter school than in their previous school. empirical research shows that a positive attitude toward work is predictive of teacher self-efficacy (skaalvik & skaalvik, 2010; muijs & reynolds, 2002; fuchs, fuchs, & bishop, 1992; guskey, 1988), which has been related to teacher quality (see case study by maranto, 2014; empirical work by woolfolk & hoy, 1990). it also makes sense that working with like-minded colleagues would contribute to higher teacher self-efficacy and quality (chubb & moe, 1990). therefore, it appears that the increased interactions with, and trust in, their administrators, as well as ownership of their school’s personnel practices, may be connected with teachers possessing higher selfefficacy and quality of instruction. another area of teacher perceptions not affected by their administrators’ personnel practices was how the teachers viewed students. they were uniformly in agreement that all students at their current and previous schools are capable of learning, that schools should not be judged on students’ test score gains, and that teachers can make a difference in students’ lives even when family support is not present. there was no significant difference between the virtual and previous schools. this may suggest that current teacher education programmes provide a broadbased education that covers these topics, and that virtual charter school teachers consider themselves to be teachers foremost, integrating their virtual responsibilities with those they have as a teacher in general. few educators become familiar with the potential innovations that virtual charter schools may offer in the areas of teacher identification, teacher selection, initial teacher training, and ongoing professional development (barbour, kinsella, wicks, & toker, 2009). informal interviews with the leaders of both schools indicated that, while both held an advanced educational leadership/administration degree from a traditional university, their training did not include any training or induction relating to leadership of a virtual school. this was not surprising, given lafrance and beck’s (2014) research showing that a very small percentage of educational leadership programmess accredited by ncate (a united states higher education organisation that offers accreditation to high quality teacher, specialist, and administrator preparation) offer 67 beck, d., & maranto, r. any virtual school training for pre-service administrators. it may also reflect the small number of programmes that offer field experiences for pre-service teachers in primary and secondary virtual schools (davis & ferdig, 2009; kennedy & archambeaut, 2012). conclusions and recommendations in summary, the findings in this study that indicate teachers with experience in both virtual charter and traditional public schools tend to rate the virtual charters more positively on empowering and respecting teachers, and on developing a student-centred school culture. there is potential for more innovative personal practices, but little evidence of social constructivist practices were found. the limitations of the sample suggest a need for caution in generalising from these results and a need for further research. based on this exploratory research, we recommend extensive research into the personnel practices of virtual school leaders and their impact on and perceptions by teachers. additionally, we recommend that administrator education programmes implement innovative strategies to cover virtual schooling such as those described for initial and preservice teacher education (compton, davis, & mackey, 2009) and ongoing professional development (davis, 2012), possibly drawing upon the virtual professional learning and development programme in new zealand (owen, 2011; 2012). programmes could consider drawing from advanced programmes like university of kentucky center for advanced studies in technology leadership in education (http://schooltechleadership.org/) that include the growing primary and secondary virtual school population and the need to educate future administrators for these schools. they are also recommended to consider drawing from the work of smith (2009), who indicated the benefits of teachers becoming online learners before they become online instructors; and from the work of anderson and simpson (2012), who advocate for online teacher training tailored to specific regional and national contexts. online learning and teaching experience for pre-service administrators could surely also aid their preparation to lead a virtual school. ferdig, cavanaugh, dipietro, black, and dawson (2009) explored best practices in virtual teaching and this research is also recommended for administrators. an attempt to synthesise the best practices and standards for leading virtual schools could help pre-service administrator education programmes to better prepare their students to lead virtual schools. finally, examination of experimental teacher education models focused on the preparation and professional development of virtual school teachers (e.g., dawson, dana, wolkenhauer, & krell, 2013; kennedy, cavanaugh, & dawson, 2013) is also recommended to support the development of a professional development programme to better prepare virtual school leaders. as noted in the introduction, virtual schooling offers the potential to redesign aspects of educational administration and instruction in ways that can empower teachers and their leaders. virtual schooling demands much of teachers, who may simultaneously teach a class, email questions to individual students to increase their attention, and keep up with backchannel chat. recordings and other online opportunities enable administrators to view and evaluate teacher performance in an unobtrusive manner at a time and place of their choice. these and other innovations also extend to 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(1990). motivation and efficacy in education: research and new directions. journal of educational psychology, 82(1), 81–91. 72 http://kpk12.com/cms/wp-content/uploads/keepingpace2012.pdf http://kpk12.com/cms/wp-content/uploads/keepingpace2012.pdf javascript:__dolinkpostback('','ss%7e%7ear%20%22woolfolk%2c%20anita%20e%2e%22%7c%7csl%7e%7erl',''); javascript:__dolinkpostback('','mdb%7e%7epdh%7c%7cjdb%7e%7epdhjnh%7c%7css%7e%7ejn%20%22journal%20of%20educational%20psychology%22%7c%7csl%7e%7ejh',''); journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) biographical notes dennis beck debeck@uark.edu dennis is an assistant professor of educational technology at the university of arkansas, united states. his research focuses on the impact of online technologies on vulnerable populations. in this vein, he has studied special education parent and student satisfaction with cyber schooling, as well as the impact of homework on student achievement and student and parent satisfaction in cyber schools. he has published in several venues, including computers & education, american journal of distance education, educational administration quarterly, and the journal of educational research. robert maranto rmaranto@uark.edu robert is the 21st century chair in leadership at the department of education reform at the university of arkansas, united states, and editor of the journal of school choice. he serves on the board of achievement house cyber charter school. with others, he has published more than 70 refereed publications and 11 scholarly books which have sold dozens of copies, including president obama and education reform. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. beck, d., & maranto, r. (2014). empowering teachers? an exploratory study of personnel practices in virtual charter schools in the united states. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 18(2), [59–81]. 73 mailto:debeck@uark.edu mailto:rmaranto@uark.edu http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ beck, d., & maranto, r. appendix a:teachers at cyber charter schools survey q2 your college major? [select all that apply.] (recoded into q37-48) o economics (1) o education (2) o history (3) o philosophy (4) o political science (5) o pre-law (6) o psychology (7) o sociology (8) o computer science/information technology (9) o math/physics (10) o biology/life sciences (11) o other (write in) (12) ____________________ q3 including the current school year, for how long have you been a teacher? years 1 or less (1) more than 1 but less than 3 (2) from 3 to 6 (3) more than 6 but less than 10 (4) 10 to 15 (5) over 15 (6) at this school (1)       total as online teacher (2)       total years teaching (3)       q4 did you receive your teacher training through: o conventional school of education at a college or university (1) o alternative certification program (2) q5 where did you earn your bachelor’s degree? o one of the three flagship state universities (temple, penn state – university park, university of pittsburgh) (1) o regional state college/university (2) o small liberal arts college (3) o private university (4) o out of state (write in) (5) ____________________ 74 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) q6 teachers at my school can earn tenure. o yes (1) o no (2) answer if teachers at my school can earn tenure. yes is selected q7 i have earned tenure at my current school. o yes (1) o no (2) answer if teachers at my school can earn tenure. yes is selected q8 how long does it take to earn tenure on average? . (1) q9 teachers at my school can earn merit pay. o yes (1) o no (2) answer if teachers at my school can earn merit pay. yes is selected q10 i have earned merit pay awards at my current school. o yes (1) o no (2) answer if teachers at my school can earn merit pay. yes is selected q11 what was the amount of merit pay, as a percentage of your pay? o < 5% (1) o 5-10% (2) o 10-20% (3) o >20% (4) 75 beck, d., & maranto, r. q12 rate the following criteria used to determine regular pay at your school (1 = unimportant to 5 = very important). 1 (1) 2 (2) 3 (3) 4 (4) 5 (5) graduate degrees (1)      student evaluations (2)      experience/longevity at this school (3)      principal evaluations (4)      student learning outcomes (5)      availability of other employment options (6)      non-work related factors (7)      certification by national board for professional teaching standards (8)      certification for online teaching (i.e. inacol, quality matters, flvs, etc.) (9)      experience teaching in a cyber school (10)      teamwork (11)      non-work related factors (12)      76 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) answer if teachers at my school can earn tenure. yes is selected q13 rate the following criteria used to determine tenure at your school (1 = unimportant to 5 = very important) 1 (1) 2 (2) 3 (3) 4 (4) 5 (5) graduate degrees (1)      student evaluations (2)      experience/longevity at this school (3)      principal evaluations (4)      student learning outcomes (5)      availability of other employment options (6)      non-work related factors (7)      certification by national board for professional teaching standards (8)      certification for online teaching (i.e. inacol, quality matters, flvs, etc.) (9)      experience teaching in a cyber school (10)      teamwork (11)      non-work related factors (12)      q15 what percentage of your teaching day are you: ______ centrally located in one location during work time. (1) ______ geographically dispersed during work time (i.e. work at home). (2) 77 beck, d., & maranto, r. q16 do your administrators monitor teachers’ online courses: o in real time (1) o by recording (2) o both (3) o my administrators do not monitor my online courses (4) q17 how often do your administrators monitor your teaching? o more than weekly (1) o weekly (2) o monthly (3) o quarterly (4) o annually (5) o rarely or never (6) q18 administrators who monitor teaching provide: o immediate, detailed feedback (1) o occasional feedback (2) o annual or semi-annual feedback (3) o little or no feedback (4) q19 is your supervisor in a different building location from where you usually work? o yes (1) o no (2) q20 what technologies do you use to interact with your supervisor? [check all that apply] (recoded into q49-56) o email (1) o telephone (2) o video chat (e.g. google hangout, skype, etc.) (3) o synchronous classrooms (e.g. adobe connect, blackboard, etc.) (4) o blog (5) o twitter (6) o facebook (7) o other (8) ____________________ q21 have you taught elsewhere? o yes (1) o no (2) 78 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) answer if have you taught elsewhere? yes is selected q22 was it at a: (check all that apply) (recoded into q57-61) o traditional, brick and mortar public school (1) o online cyber school (2) o brick and mortar charter (3) o other (4) ____________________ o online private school (5) o brick and mortar private school (6) q24 please answer the following questions for your school, but rate other schools only if you have taught elsewhere. sd = strongly disagree d = disagree n = neither agree nor disagree a = agree sa = strongly agree current school other schools sd (1) d (2) n (3) a (4) sa (5) sd (1) d (2) n (3) a (4) sa (5) the leadership consults with teachers regarding matters that affect the school. (1)           my administrator has helped improve my teaching. (2)           my colleagues share my beliefs and values about the mission of the school. (3)           too many teachers use their classes as a “soap box” for their point of view. (4)           i trust my head administrator. (5)           i look forward to each working day at this school. (6)           the personnel rules at this school are clear. (7)           the personnel rules at this school reward teacher effectiveness. (8)           79 beck, d., & maranto, r. many of the children at this school are just not capable of learning the material. (9)           schools should not be judged on students’ test score gains. (10)           there is nothing a teacher can do if the family is not supportive. (11)           the administration maintains an atmosphere where the rules and the authority of adults are respected. (12)           q25 are you considering leaving your school? o yes (1) o no (2) answer if are you considering leaving your school? yes is selected q26 please list your reasons for considering leaving. q27 name of the school you work at: q35 demographics q28 gender: o male (1) o female (2) q29 age: q30 do you consider yourself: o asian/pacific islander (1) o black or african american (2) o hispanic (3) o white (4) o other (5) ____________________ q31 are you a member of the american federation of teachers, national education association, or an affiliated organization? o yes (1) o no (2) q32 generally speaking, do you usually think of yourself as: o strong republican (1) o republican (2) o moderate republican (3) 80 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(2) o independent (4) o moderate democrat (5) o democrat (6) o strong democrat (7) o libertarian (8) o socialist (9) o other (10) ____________________ q33 what is your religious practice? o atheist (1) o agnostic (2) o protestant (3) o catholic (4) o buddhist (5) o hindu (6) o muslim (7) o other (8) ____________________ q34 religious beliefs strongly disagree (1) disagree (2) neither agree nor disagree (3) agree (4) strongly agree (5) my religious convictions guide my life. (1)      school encourages me to practice faith. (2)      school gives opportunities to express faith. (3)      i agree with the major teachings of my religion. (4)      81 beck, d., & maranto, r. 82 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 17(1) 41 book review elearnings: implementing a national strategy for ict in education, 1998–2010 darren sudlow cantanet ham, v., & wenmoth, d. (eds.). (2010). elearnings: implementing a national strategy for ict in education, 1998–2010. core education, christchurch (pp. 203). elearnings: implementing a national strategy for ict in education, 1998–2010 outlines the implementation and subsequent impact of the national information communications and technology (ict) in education strategy in new zealand, 1998–2010, from the perspective of the stakeholders. in essence, it is a collection of stories told by a wide cross-section of educators (e.g., principals, ministry staff, teachers, facilitators) who detail their involvement in this implementation. elearnings is, therefore, of most interest to those same people involved in e-learning today. those involved in implementing strategies for developing virtual learning at any level (i.e., fully online or blended) will find little of direct relevance (i.e., only one or two articles directly address the issue of virtual learning), but will still find much that applies in that context. the book is divided into seven distinct sections, each of which tells the story of ict implementation in new zealand from a particular perspective. the first section details this history at a system-wide level with chapters from trevor mallard (then minister of education) and carol moffat, who led the coordination of the strategy for the ministry. this is followed by a chapter from laurence zwimpfer, who provides a perspective on the technological infrastructure that was developed to support this strategy. many teachers (online or in the classroom) might be tempted to skip this section in search of more relevant classroom examples, but that would be a mistake. while this section is not directly relevant to practice, these articles do provide a context for understanding our current challenges—how to shift teacher practice and how to ensure that the use of e-learning is less about technology and more about learning. stepping back and viewing this from a system-wide level is vital for anyone involved in education, and virtual learning is no different. the message of investing in human capital is told passionately by carol moffat and is well worth reading for that reason. the next section deals with capability building and, specifically, the professional development of teachers, mainly from the context of the ministry-funded ict professional development (ictpd) clusters. a series of chapters gives an interesting range of perspectives on professional development that can be dipped into at any level. of particular interest to a teacher working in a virtual environment is the article by allanah king. king gives an insight into the journey from using a more traditional teacher-directed approach to becoming a facilitator of learning. king herself admitted that her approach was all about “...teaching children how to remember things” (p. 82), but over the course of the first ictpd contract and beyond, she developed a shift in practice to reflect the needs of the learners rather than herself. through blogging and connecting with others on the web she found a whole new world of professional learning that she could dip into when needed. it clearly illustrates the need for teachers to reach out beyond their own physical or virtual classroom to develop their practice, and how the web can become a key enabler of this. the section on developing digital context and communities is of direct interest to those working in a virtual learning environment, because rachel roberts details the rise of the virtual learning network, “...a network of school clusters and educational institutions, which collaborate to book reviews 42 provide access to a broad range of curriculum and learning opportunities for students through online learning” (p. 145). the story of the growth of this network to one that has spread throughout rural new zealand is one of innovation driven by need. while there is little direct reference to teaching practice, the enduring message is one that really underpins this book as a whole—the strength of communities of schools and what can be achieved when they work together. mark treadwell’s chapter, “personalised learning: the quiet revolution of learning management systems” might be of interest because of the proliferation of learning management systems (lms) in new zealand and their perceived role in ‘virtualising’ schooling. treadwell gives a unique rationale for their use, built on the lms as both aggregator and enabler of personalised learning. a number of shorter articles make up a collection entitled “improving student learning and engagement,” which focuses on practitioner research. one worthwhile example is dorothy burt’s account of the rise of the manaiakalani cluster. burt describes how pt england primary school’s context helped to drive innovative practice across the school and then into the development of the manaiakalani cluster. the staff at this decile one school in auckland realised that they weren’t harnessing the talents of their children, resulting in widespread disengagement from learning. through a systematic process of reflection and planning, they developed a pedagogical model that harnessed ict to enable learners to express themselves. there was an emphasis on students as creators of content, using cutting-edge technology and the web to develop an authentic audience. this was scaled into a project involving seven schools, known as the manaiakalani cluster, which continues to be a beacon story in new zealand today. burt extols the virtues of collaboration and clustering of schools which is so prevalent in many of the stories in this book, but it is also interesting to note how the school has virtualised much of what they do. the book ends with a typically engaging article from derek wenmoth, who focuses on future trends, challenges, and opportunities. wenmoth examines how the web will become an enabler of networked schooling in which schools move beyond simply being ‘connected’ by the technology, to being a network that is a functioning community. within this community the role of virtual learning is paramount in connecting the learner with a broad range of opportunities, whether from other schools, educational institutions, ‘experts’, or other learners. for the educator who is interested in practical ideas for implementing virtual approaches— whether fully online or ‘blended’—there will be little of direct value in elearnings. there are glimmers of practice sprinkled throughout the various chapters, especially those written from a teacher’s or facilitator’s perspective, but that is not the purpose of this book. its purpose is to tell a story and it does this very well. teachers at any level will find some stories that resonate with their own experience and they will therefore find reading it an excellent reflective exercise. it is extremely strong on stories relating to teachers’ professional learning, so is a worthwhile read for a teacher working in a virtual environment. teaching online brings a unique set of challenges and it is important that teachers don’t work in isolation. we have enough individual silos in traditional schools without replicating them online. the web has the power to connect people, so working online should provide more (not fewer) opportunities to collaborate and connect with others. there are very strong, well-told messages in this book about the strength of communities of practice, school clustering, and developing professional networks that teachers need to be familiar with. there is also a sense of the ‘can do’ attitude of many teachers who have seized the initiative to become learners and leaders. we need more of these teachers and, while i doubt whether a single book will change anyone’s thinking overnight, it useful to expose more to these ideas. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 17(1) 43 as with any book that has numerous contributors, some chapters are better than others. this variability is almost unavoidable, but thought has also gone into how it is organised so readers can skim through to find the stories that interest them. it also means the odd flat chapter (and there are one or two in the last section) does not affect the overall quality of the book. this flexibility is a real strength and will allow a prospective buyer to weigh up the relevance of the contents. overall, elearnings: implementing a national strategy for ict in education, 1998–2010 is a very worthwhile read for teachers involved in virtual education at any level. although very few of the stories are directly relevant to those working online, in a new zealand context most of these teachers are very much based in a traditional school setting and this is where the stories will resonate. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 1 being together: factors that unintentionally undermine motivation in co-located online learning environments maggie hartnett, massey university alison st. george, massey university jon dron, athabasca university abstract this paper reports on one aspect of a larger case study that explores the nature of motivation to learn in an online distance environment. the study adopts self-determination theory (sdt) as a theoretical framework and focuses particularly on the underlying concepts of autonomy and competence. these are used to investigate ways in which certain situational factors, that fail to accommodate the specific autonomy and competence needs of co-located learners, can undermine perceptions of personal agency and efficacy. this, in turn, has a detrimental effect on self-determined types of motivation including intrinsic motivation. results from one collaborative group of learners, situated in a co-located blended learning context, are presented here. they suggest that the differing circumstances of students need to be accommodated to foster autonomous types of motivation among learners. keywords: blended learning; distance education; e-learning; motivation; online learning; selfdetermination theory; problem-based learning (pbl) introduction the characteristics of independence, self-direction, and intrinsic motivation have long been associated with distance learners (garrison, 1997; moore, 1989). recently, intrinsic motivation has been identified as an important characteristic of online learners (shroff, vogel, coombes, & lee, 2007; styer, 2007). findings from comparative studies between online and on-campus students (huett, kalinowski, moller, & huett, 2008; rovai, ponton, wighting, & baker, 2007; shroff & vogel, 2009; wighting, liu, & rovai, 2008) also suggest that online students are more intrinsically motivated than their on-campus counterparts at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. but as martens, gulikers, and bastiaens (2004) argue, online learners are often required to be more intrinsically motivated because the learning environment typically relies on intrinsic motivation and the associated characteristics of curiosity and self-regulation to engage learners. in fact, the technology itself is viewed by some as inherently motivating because it provides a number of qualities that are recognised as important for fostering intrinsic motivation: challenge, curiosity, novelty, and fantasy (lepper & malone, 1987; malone, 1981). the novelty factor tends to wear off as users become accustomed to the technology (keller & suzuki, 2004) and intrinsic motivation can wane. frustration with technical problems can also reduce intrinsic motivation. hartnett, m., st. george, a., & dron, j. 2 while the intrinsic motivation of learners is an important consideration, contemporary research studies exploring motivation in these environments is limited in both number and scope (artino, 2008; bekele, 2010; jones & issroff, 2007). moreover, the majority of existing studies have adopted either a behaviourist approach that focuses on the environment (e.g., chanlin, 2009; keller & suzuki, 2004), or a cognitive perspective that concentrates on the characteristics of the learner (e.g., bures, abrami, & amundsen, 2000; wighting et al., 2008; yukselturk & bulut, 2007). both overlook the complex, dynamic, and situated nature of motivation to learn (brophy, 2010; turner & patrick, 2008). the few studies that have adopted a contemporary view (e.g., shroff et al., 2007; xie, debacker, & ferguson, 2006) have tended to explore a somewhat limited range of social and contextual motivational influences. taken together, these issues highlight the need to explore motivation from a contemporary situated perspective, in ‗real-life‘ online distance settings that include consideration of a broad range of environmental influences. motivation and self-determination theory (sdt) schunk, pintrich, and meece (2008) define motivation as ―the process whereby goal-directed activity is instigated and sustained‖ (p.4). current theories link motivation to individuals‘ cognitive and affective processes such as thoughts, beliefs, and goals (brophy, 2010). they also emphasise the situated, dynamic relationship between the learner and the learning environment (turner & patrick, 2008). research investigations that explore motivation in online learning environments have adopted a variety of motivation models to support their research (artino, 2008; bures, amundsen, & abrami, 2002; xie et al., 2006; yukselturk & bulut, 2007). of these, intrinsic motivation theory has often been used to explore students‘ reasons for engagement in online environments (e.g. shroff & vogel, 2009; xie et al., 2006). an influential theory that explicates intrinsic–extrinsic motivation, and one that has provided the foundation for several studies, is self-determination theory (sdt, deci & ryan, 1985). this contemporary theory of situated motivation is built on the fundamental premise of learner autonomy. it argues that all humans have an intrinsic need to be self-determining or autonomous, as well as competent and connected, in relation to their environment. connell (1990) defines the need for autonomy as ―the experience of choice in the initiation, maintenance and regulation of activity and the experience of connectedness between one‘s actions and personal goals and values‖ (pp.62-63). when autonomous, students attribute their actions to an internal locus of causality, and experience a sense of freedom and choice over their actions. competence is defined as ―the need to experience oneself as capable of producing desired outcomes and avoiding negative outcomes‖ (connell & wellborn, 1991, p. 51). relatedness ―encompasses the need to feel securely connected to the social surround and the need to experience oneself as worthy and capable of … respect‖ (connell & wellborn, 1991, pp. 51-52). according to sdt, if the environment supports a learner‘s autonomy, competence, and relatedness needs, then more autonomous types of motivation (with intrinsic motivation being the best example) are fostered (ryan & deci, 2000a). when intrinsically motivated, outside incentives are not required because the reward is inherent in the activity itself (ryan & deci, 2000b). in contrast, students who are extrinsically motivated undertake activities for reasons that lie outside the activity (ryan & deci, 2000a); for example, achieving high grades, evading negative consequences, or because the activity has utility value such as passing a course in order to earn a qualification, or learning a skill perceived as important for a future career. extrinsic motivation processes are explained in terms of external regulation because the reasons for undertaking the task are outside the individual. however, the extent to which an activity is perceived as externally controlled can vary and, therefore, there are different types of extrinsic journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 3 motivation. self-determination theory conceptualises a continuum of regulation that includes amotivation (lack of motivation) at one end, through to intrinsic motivation at the other, with different types of extrinsic motivation sitting in between (see ryan & deci, 2000a for a diagrammatic representation of the continuum). the various types of extrinsic motivation emphasise a shift in the extent to which externally motivated behaviour is autonomously determined. they range from externally controlled behaviour with little or no self-determination, to more internal control and self-regulation—where a learner engages in an activity because it is important to their sense of self. according to the taxonomy, amotivated individuals lack motivation or intention to act. this may be because of a feeling of incompetence or low self-efficacy (bandura, 1997), a perception that what they do will not affect the outcome (peterson, maier, & seligman, 1993), or placing low value on the task being undertaken (brophy, 2008). beyond this, extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation have often been treated as a dichotomy, especially in earlier research (see schunk et al., 2008). along the continuum of human motivation, however, four patterns of extrinsic motivation are identified. external regulation is the type of extrinsic motivation most often contrasted with intrinsic motivation, where individuals respond to threats of punishment or the offer of rewards, and tend to be compliant as a result. introjection is seen in students who engage in a task because they feel they should due to the expectations of others, and feel guilty if they do not. even though the feelings are internal, the student is not self-determining because they are controlled by their perceptions of how others might see them. identification is associated with individuals who engage in the task because the results of performing that task may have personal value to them. regulation is internal in the sense that the individual has chosen the goal, or identifies with it and is aware of its importance. but the motivational pattern is still considered extrinsic because it is the utility value (a means to an end), personal importance, and/or relevance of the task rather than interest and enjoyment in the task itself that determines the behaviour (brophy, 2008). the final and most autonomous type of extrinsic motivation is integration, where learners engage in the activity because of its significance to their sense of self. both identified and integrated types of motivation share some of the qualities of intrinsic motivation (reeve, deci, & ryan, 2004; ryan & deci, 2000a) and have similar consequences for learning and motivation. this has important implications as it highlights how educators can support motivation to learn by assisting learners to appreciate the importance and value of learning activities even when they are not intrinsically interesting. self-determination theory and motivation in online learning online motivation studies that have adopted sdt as the theoretical framework are starting to appear (chen & jang, 2010; martens et al., 2004; rovai et al., 2007; shroff et al., 2007; shroff, vogel, & coombes, 2008; xie et al., 2006). however, one notable limitation of these studies has been the tendency to focus only on intrinsic motivation (e.g., martens et al., 2004; xie et al., 2006). in doing so, the power of the model to explore a broader range of motivation, particularly more autonomous types of extrinsic motivation, has been neglected. this exclusive focus on intrinsic motivation has also resulted in a tendency by some to characterise online learners as intrinsically motivated (rovai et al., 2007; styer, 2007). this paper presents findings of one aspect of a larger study (hartnett, 2010) that explored the motivation of pre-service teachers undertaking an online distance learning course. selfdetermination theory underpinned the investigation that explored how a broad range of social and contextual factors dynamically influenced motivation to learn by either supporting or hartnett, m., st. george, a., & dron, j. 4 undermining students‘ perceptions of autonomy and competence. results presented here from one group of learners, situated within a co-located, distance online learning context, address the question: in what ways do social and contextual factors undermine learner autonomy and competence when unique circumstances are not taken into account? research method this investigation used case-study methodology to explore the complex phenomenon of motivation in a manageable way with a view to advancing understanding (yin, 2009). while qualitative methods and data were central to the exploratory nature of this study, quantitative analyses were also used to complement and extend the range of evidence (gillham, 2000). one aspect of a larger case study (hartnett, 2010) situated within the context of a pre-service teacher education programme within a new zealand tertiary institution is reported here. students in this programme were preparing to teach in new zealand primary (i.e., elementary) schools. the course in which the case study was situated was considered to be online because students were expected to undertake all coursework via the internet. students received some additional print material (a study guide) and digital resources (a cd-rom) at the beginning of the semester. the online learning platform used was the webct learning management system. context and participants the case study was positioned within a compulsory integrated science and technology course. teaching staff consisted of a course coordinator with science expertise and a tutor with technology expertise. the tutor was responsible for the majority of the teaching in the online environment. the boundary for the case study centred on a problem-based learning (pbl) assignment and its associated online activities. problem-based learning is an instructional approach built on authentic, ill-structured problems which are complex in nature (sonmez & lee, 2003). this activity was undertaken over a 6-week period in which students were required to work collaboratively in small groups. all participants had some prior experience of distance online learning. they were also familiar with working with other online students on group assignments. participants were recruited from the semester one (february–june) 2008 online distance offering of the course. respondents (12 in the full case study) were predominantly female and ranged in age from 24 to 55, with 92% in the over-30 age group. all participants were geographically distant from the main university campus where the lecturers were located and were required to complete all coursework via webct. data gathered from one student group (one male and two females) who formed part of the case study is the main focus here, and comparisons are made with the other participants where appropriate. this group was of interest as they were different from other geographically dispersed participants because of their co-location at a satellite campus of the university. this made it possible to meet face to face if they wished. within the case study, it emerged that being together had an important influence on the motivation and online learning experiences of these students. procedures ethical consent to undertake the study was gained prior to data collection. data collection procedures comprised online questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, archived online data (including online asynchronous discussion transcripts and usage statistics), achievement data and course resources. motivation was measured using the self-report situational motivational scale (sims) developed by guay, vallerand, and blanchard (2000). it operationalises the sdt continuum described earlier, assessing situational intrinsic motivation, extrinsic forms of motivation (identified journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 5 regulation, external regulation) and amotivation. a likert scale, ranging from 1 to 7, measures each motivation sub-type. subscale scores for each participant were then used to calculate a single motivation score called the self-determination index (sdi). this follows the weighted calculation described and used in previous research (ratelle, baldwin, & vallerand, 2005; vallerand & ratelle, 2002). this calculation gives greater weight to the motivation types at each end of the scale (i.e., amotivation and intrinsic motivation). overall sdi scores can range from a minimum of -72 to a maximum of +72. subscale scores were also retained for analysis because the sdi score (an indicator of overall motivation) may not account for participants‘ endorsement of more than one type of motivation for engaging in an activity (vallerand, pelletier, & koestner, 2008). in the following section, descriptive statistics are reported for motivation subscale and sdi data for co-located and distance participants and comprised medians (mdn) and interquartile ranges (iqr). mann-whitney u two-tailed tests of significance (cohen & lea, 2003) were also carried out to explore whether the participant motivation subscales scores were significantly different between the online co-located and online distance groups. non-parametric statistical calculations were performed because of the small sample size, the inclusion of ordinal scores in the sims motivation scale, and because normality could not be assumed in the underlying population (siegel & castellan, 1988). pseudonyms are used when quoting students. results situational motivation scale (sims) responses and self-determination index (sdi) scores for colocated participants are summarised in table 1. a positive sdi score indicates that, overall, more self-determined forms of motivation outweigh more externally regulated types of motivation. a negative sdi indicates an overall experience of less self-determined motivational types (vallerand et al., 2008; vallerand & ratelle, 2002). table 1 co-located participants’ sims and sdi scores pseudonym amotivation external regulation identified regulation intrinsic motivation sdi score nadia 27* 28 4 4 -70 tim 24 24 14 16 -26 ursula 13 28 19 14 -7 * subscale scores can range from a minimum of 4 to a maximum of 28. the group of co-located participants comprised mature-aged students who described themselves as committed learners and viewed academic success as personally important, suggesting that they often experience more autonomous motivation in learning contexts: …my group members … they‘re very diligent people. … all three of us are high achievers. (nadia – interview q4) however, all three co-located students had negative sdi scores (see table 1) resulting from high amotivation and external regulation scores. comparisons of median subscale and sdi scores with the online distance participant group (see table 2) indicate that the co-located group reported higher median levels of less self-determined types of motivation (i.e., amotivation and external regulation). hartnett, m., st. george, a., & dron, j. 6 table 2 sims and sdi medians and interquartile ranges for online co-located and distance participants participants amotivation external regulation identified regulation intrinsic motivation sdi score online co-located mdn 24 28 14 14 -26 iqr 7 2 7.5 6 31.5 online distance mdn 5 16 22 19 30 iqr 12 12 2 5 46 statistical comparisons showed a significant difference between the amotivation scores reported by co-located and distance students (u = 3.0 (2-tailed), p = 0.05, effect size (r) = -0.57). comparisons between the remaining subscale scores as well as sdi scores for the two groups showed no significant differences. although external regulation scores were not significantly different between the two groups, there was a noticeably smaller variation among the scores reported by the co-located participants (see table 2). this indicates that they more consistently perceived certain aspects of the learning environment as beyond their control. this, together with the difference in reported amotivation scores, suggests that the co-located participants perceived that certain factors within the environment more consistently undermined their motivation when compared with the distance participants. in order to untangle the multiple influences that combined in complex ways to undermine the colocated students‘ motivation, the sdt concepts of autonomy and competence (deci & ryan, 1985) are used to organise the findings and subsequent discussion. while a range of factors were identified as influential in undermining (as well as supporting) the needs of all participants in the wider study, the results reported here focus on contrasting those highly salient to this group because of their different circumstances (i.e., being co-located at the satellite campus) with the online distance participants. few factors emerged as undermining the co-located students‘ perceptions of their relatedness needs being met. indeed, being together, along with their respect and support for each other, appeared to mitigate somewhat the factors that contributed to undermine their autonomy and competence needs. this enabled them to successfully complete the assignment. factors that undermined the autonomy of both co-located and fully distance students when learners‘ autonomy needs are unfulfilled, the perception that one‘s actions are initiated and regulated by outside forces are prominent (reeve, ryan, deci, & jang, 2008). from the data there emerged a number of important themes that contributed to the undermining of all participants‘ needs for autonomy, including the co-located students. high workload perceptions that a high workload undermined the autonomy of all participants emerged as a salient theme. participants felt that the size and corresponding time and effort required to complete the task were considerable, and had the effect of students feeling ‗consumed‘ by the pbl process. nadia‘s and tim‘s comments that it ―took a lot of time and effort to complete‖ (nadia – questionnaire q29) and ―became almost all-consuming‖ (tim – interview q1) are representative of comments made throughout the interviews by co-located participants and were reflected online distance participants. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 7 high-stakes assessment coupled with perceptions of high workload, the pressure of assessment was highly salient during the pbl task because it was worth 60% of the entire course mark. this pressure not only had a detrimental effect on perceptions of enjoyment of the experience —thereby undermining intrinsic motivation—it also promoted anxiety, leading to the moderate-to-high reported external regulation and amotivation scores: … the fact that 60% of the mark came from … one assignment and if you missed the mark on that then you are you‘re lost, you failed … and to me that‘s really tough ... and that worried me. (ursula – interview q20) while the perception of high-stakes assessment did not always translate to high-reported amotivation and external regulation scores among the distance group, these participants were also aware of this issue: i mean this one was 60%. it is a huge amount of marks that you can either lose or get. (distance student10 – interview q4) time constraints the combination of perceptions of high workload and the salience of assessment contributed to the emergence of the third important theme: perceptions of time constraints. the common observation ―that the timeframe was very short and we were scrambling to get the project completed to our satisfaction‖ (distance student 11 – questionnaire q26) left many participants (from both co-located and distance groups) feeling that much of the learning process was beyond their control; that is, externally regulated. one consequence of the perceived high workload, high-stakes nature of the activity, and limited time to complete it, was the perception that choice was limited: but the time constraints … you can look at the marking schedules so you know what you need to get out at the end so you‘re making decisions based on that and that starts to limit your choice. (tim – interview q8) learning activity—technology mismatch perceptions of being time poor resulted, in turn, in the time-consuming nature of the asynchronous communication medium becoming more apparent to all participants. among the collaborative groups working on their pbl assignments, communication via the webct discussion board was perceived as ―very time consuming‖ (tim – questionnaire q25) and ―slowed down the communication‖ (ursula – interview q2) particularly in terms of the ―endless hours [spent] typing questions‖ (distance student 11 – questionnaire q30). delays were also experienced in the communication process ―when it came time to … make a group decision on things. sometimes this ended up taking several days just to decide‖ (distance student 9 – questionnaire q25). the net result of these multiple external pressures saw learners turning to synchronous forms of communication in an attempt to autonomously regulate their own learning process. for example, one fully online participant kept in touch with her group via phone: i much prefer the phone. … we discovered that that worked really, really well for us. (distance student 1 – interview q11) for the co-located group, synchronous communication this meant meeting face-to-face ―after class or before class or between classes‖ (ursula – interview q2). the group viewed this as a positive thing: ―i think we had the advantage here that at least we can do some stuff face to face‖ (tim – interview q3). hartnett, m., st. george, a., & dron, j. 8 although meeting face to face was helpful in some ways, it increased the burden on the mixedmode students who were required to also participate in online discussion. this extra workload enhanced a perception among the group that the chosen technology did not provide a suitable environment in which to undertake the pbl activity. in particular, the requirement to collaborate via the asynchronous discussion board contributed greatly to the perception that the technology did not fit the required activity (i.e., technology/task mismatch). webct does not complement this course. i strongly believe that this type of ‗hands on‘ practical course should be taught face to face. (nadia – questionnaire q25) so what was different for the co-located group? while the factors discussed above were highlighted by all participants as contributing to the undermining of motivation, two additional contextual features emerged as highly salient to the co-located participants because of their unique circumstances. course expectations perceived as controlling course expectations required students to communicate with each other online, assisted by the instructors. the immediacy of face-to-face communication (noted above) allowed the co-located group to regulate the ongoing decision-making processes characteristic of pbl. consequently, the expectation that required them to be online, and visibly discussing their ideas, without regard to their situation, engendered a sense of compulsion that undermined their autonomy needs. when you‘re doing an online course and you‘re doing it with people that you talk to every day, webct is a handicap. well not a handicap, it‘s a nuisance because you have to be seen to be using webct. there doesn‘t seem to be a(n) … understanding of the fact that we were working, we had to be seen to be working … we were expected to be putting something on, on a regular basis which was a nuisance from our point of view. (ursula – interview q10) not having a genuine need to enter into online discussions with each other, coupled with feedback from teaching staff that decreased over time (a feature of the pbl approach), meant that the requirement to interact online to ‗show‘ progress contributed to students‘ high reported external regulation scores: we just put it online for the sake of the lecturers so they knew what was going on because … they expected to see what was happening. (nadia – interview q2) once again, the lack of alignment between the learning activity and technology used is apparent here. furthermore, the lack of accommodation of these students‘ unique circumstances (i.e., their ability to meet in person) made this mismatch even more prominent and contributed to a lack of control as well as an increased workload. learning design that gradually reduced instructor input the pbl approach adopted in this course required students to gradually take ownership of their own learning, with the instructor becoming more of a facilitator or guide as the ‗problem‘ progressed (torp & sage, 2002). the instructors used the asynchronous discussions to provide input (both qualitative and quantitative), particularly in the early stages of the process when significant guidance and scaffolding were needed. instructor input was then gradually reduced as learners clarified their approach and direction. before they started the task students were made aware that there would be a gradual reduction of guidance and feedback. the unique situation of the co-located group meant that the only useful purpose served by communicating online was the opportunity to interact with lecturers in order to accurately appraise their level of competency and progress. but because the level of lecturer-initiated feedback dropped off as time went on, they saw little point in continuing with what they felt was journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 9 an ineffective form of communication, and they shifted toward face-to-face meetings. this dropoff in asynchronous discussion is clearly demonstrated in figure 1, which shows how the colocated group members‘ decrease in median postings mirrored that of the instructors. figure 1 shows that lecturers posted 8 of the 10 messages to the co-located group in the first 2 weeks of the pbl activity, further supporting the perceptions of the group members that lecturerinitiated contact dropped off after the first 2 weeks. figure 1: number of messages posted by co-located participants, distance participants and lecturers figure 1 number of messages posted by co-located participants, distance participants, and lecturers * median number of messages posted † total number of messages posted to co-located group perceptions that communicating via webct served no useful purpose because it was not meeting their competence needs comes through strongly in statements from these group members: we did feel that webct would be a useful tool to allow lecturers to observe our process and thinking, but when we became aware of the limited involvement and feedback from lecturers, we migrated toward what we felt were more efficient forms of communication. (tim – questionnaire q25) i mean we had no contact from owen or dan [the lecturers] from about the second week into it. so if we were off track, we didn‘t really have any way of knowing. so that was the hard part. (ursula – interview q20) while a similar kind of decrease occurred in the median number of postings by the lecturers to the distance participant group (see figure 1), this was not mirrored by the distance students themselves. in fact, the median number of messages posted by distance students continued to increase until week 5, when a marked drop occurred as students worked toward assignment completion. these differences in online behaviour suggest that distance participants saw a purpose in communicating this way, whereas the co-located students did not. † * * * hartnett, m., st. george, a., & dron, j. 10 discussion proponents argue that pbl fosters intrinsic motivation within learners because they are free to pursue what is interesting and relevant to them (hmelo-silver, nagarajan, & derry, 2006). however, the devil is in the detail. if insufficient scaffolding is provided, learners may feel lost and unsupported. the scaffolding can be a part of the structure and content, or provided through dialogue—for those working remotely, the latter worked fairly well. however, for co-located students who took alternative routes to communicate, this support was reduced. analysis of the co-located students‘ sims data (see table 1) showed moderate-to-high external regulation and amotivation scores (less self-determined types of motivation) and moderate-tolow level of more autonomous types of motivation (including intrinsic motivation). these were among the highest amotivation and external regulation scores reported by participants as a whole, as evidenced by the high median subscale scores when compared with the distance group (see table 2). in other words, the co-located students primarily experienced less autonomous forms of motivation, suggesting that certain situational factors contributed to undermine their autonomy and competence needs. as with the distance students, the co-located students perceived that the pbl assignment involved a high workload. the pressure of workload was further exacerbated by the high-stakes nature of the task (60% of the overall course mark). together, these influences were experienced as external pressures that contributed to the high external regulation scores reported by these participants. possible reasons for the perceptions of high workload may be found in the practicalities of undertaking a pbl activity in an online environment. that is, the requirement for regular, ongoing communication and decision-making among group members contributed to the workload when it had to be done both online and face to face. alternatively, lack of necessary prior knowledge and experience associated with pbl as described in the larger study (see hartnett, 2010) may have also contributed to learners‘ perceptions of high workload (kember, 2004). the combination of high workload and salience of assessment resulted in perceptions of time constraints that left the co-located students (as well as several of the distance participants) feeling that much of the learning process was beyond their control (i.e., externally regulated). the impact of time pressures due to external factors on student motivation (reeve et al., 2004) and decisions to persist or drop out (kuh, 2003) are well documented. time constraints have also been linked to decreasing intrinsic motivation of online learners (cheung, hew, & ling ng, 2008; xie et al., 2006), level of involvement in asynchronous discussions (anderson, 2006; anderson & simpson, 2004), students‘ decisions to persist or not with online courses (jones & issroff, 2007; willging & johnson, 2004) and reduced personal control (garrison & baynton, 1987). these pressures, in turn, highlighted the constraining nature of the asynchronous communication medium. in other words, asynchronous communication was perceived as not being well suited to the frequent, ongoing, collaborative, decision-making processes characteristic of pbl (i.e., task/technology mismatch), an effect exacerbated by face-to-face meetings that highlighted its weaknesses. the net result of these multiple pressures saw the co-located group reducing online asynchronous communication to speed up group processes in order to meet externally imposed deadlines. the expectation that required them to be visible online and discussing their ideas in an asynchronous environment therefore engendered a sense of compulsion that undermined their autonomy needs. instructors provided some input in asynchronous discussions—this input was gradually reduced as a feature of the pbl approach. however, given the unique situation of the co-located students, journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 11 the only useful purpose served by communicating asynchronously online was that it provided opportunities to receive guidance and feedback from the instructors to enable students to accurately judge their level of competency and progress. when the co-located students perceived that the involvement and feedback from lecturers decreased, they shifted to face-to-face discussions and their online communication dropped off. in other words, perceptions of a reduction in competence feedback (i.e., information about being ‗on track‘) meant the co-located group saw little purpose in continuing with asynchronous communication. previous research has also identified the importance of learners having an authentic reason to communicate online with their peers, both in terms of engagement (jones & issroff, 2007; rovai, 2007) and motivation (xie et al., 2006). furthermore, requirements to interact online imposed by lecturers having a detrimental effect on personal agency (anderson, 2006), and an asynchronous discussion format disrupting problem-based and problem-solving discussions (anderson & simpson, 2004; kortemeyer, 2006), have been noted elsewhere. collectively, these influences were experienced as external pressures that contributed to the high external regulation and amotivation scores reported by these participants. this is consistent with other research studies that have shown that external events that do not fit the needs of learners can have a detrimental effect on perceived autonomy and competence and therefore selfdetermined types of motivation (reeve, 2002; reeve et al., 2004). several of the factors discussed here (i.e., high-stakes assessment, high workload, time constraints and technology/task mismatch), were also reported by fully distance students as detrimental to autonomy, in particular. however, course expectations that required asynchronous discussion among group members and the gradual reduction of instructor input (a feature of the pbl approach) did not have the same degree of salience. this suggests that fully distance students saw a clear need to engage with each other online, whereas co-located students did not. for fully distance students the online technologies aligned reasonably well with the processes and pedagogies used, whereas for co-located students, the technologies and pedagogies were mismatched. we should emphasise that this was a small, qualitative study and that caution should be observed when drawing strong conclusions and generalisations. it is quite possible that the fact that the students in question had chosen to be co-located while those studying fully at a distance had chosen otherwise indicates differences in motivation that would have a large effect on our results. this aligns with our conclusion that motivation is situation-dependent. when considering the many factors that affect student motivation it is not possible, or desirable, to consider any factors in isolation. the combination of methods, processes, electronic and other technologies, along with the contexts, needs and interactions of students, create an individual learning context. amongst other things, this highlights that, contrary to clark (1991), pedagogy alone is not the determining factor in the success of an educational endeavour, and technology does make a big difference. in this study, the identical pedagogy and learning design had notably different effects for students in different situations using similar technologies. the interesting issue is how it made a difference in this study. a good part of the reason for the differences we observed lay in the fact that the learning design was augmented by the students to fit their perceived needs. while they may have initiated the face-to-face interaction themselves, the overall requirement to post online was perceived as controlling and unnecessary. in almost all educational contexts this adjustment by students is not only desirable but almost inevitable: learning does not happen in the design but in the application of that design. so, no matter how carefully we may design the lessons, we have to remember that it will only be part of the whole learning process. student learning is not the same thing as teaching students. in this hartnett, m., st. george, a., & dron, j. 12 case, being together allowed these students to augment the planned process and, in doing so, unintentionally undermined their motivation for the activity. this suggests the need, when designing and implementing a course, to be aware of what else students are doing within the learning context and, if necessary, to adapt the teaching approach accordingly. conclusion using self-determination theory, a contemporary theory of motivation, it was shown how certain contextual influences beyond the control of one group of co-located learners had an unfavourable influence on their motivation to learn. lack of consideration of their unique situational circumstances unintentionally undermined autonomy and competence needs and contributed to some of the highest reported amotivation and external regulation scores among the entire participant group. in other words, motivation to learn was situation-dependent and influenced by online teaching practices and the design of the learning activity. in particular, the 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(2007). predictors for student success in an online course. educational technology & society, 10(2), 71-83. retrieved from http://www.ifets.info/ biographical notes maggie hartnett phd m.hartnett@massey.ac.nz school of curriculum & pedagogy massey university maggie is a lecturer in the school of curriculum and pedagogy at massey university, teaching in the areas of e-learning and educational psychology. her research interests include motivation in e-learning environments, online teaching practices, electronic portfolios, and learner support for online and blended learning. alison st. george phd a.m.stgeorge@massey.ac.nz school of curriculum and pedagogy massey university alison is a senior lecturer in the school of curriculum and pedagogy at massey university. her research interests include motivation, cognition, learning, and teaching. jon dron phd jond@athabascau.ca school of computing and information systems athabasca university jon is an associate professor at athabasca university in the school of computing and information systems. his research interests include network-based learning, cross-cultural collaboration, learning communities, adaptivity, educational systems and complexity, and metadata. � this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 new zealand license. hartnett, m., st. george, a., & dron, j. (2010). being together: factors that unintentionally undermine motivation. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 15(1), 1–16. http://www.ifets.info/ mailto:m.hartnett@massey.ac.nz mailto:a.m.stgeorge@massey.ac.nz mailto:jond@athabascau.ca http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/nz/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/nz/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/nz/ geographic isolation and technological change: a new vision of teaching and learn­ ing in rural schools in new zealand1 introduction small rural schools2 in new zealand face three challenges at the present time: a challenge to prove that they are as educationally viable as big schools, to prove that they can provide access to post-secondary school educational and vocational opportunities to the extent expected of large urban schools, and to prove that their continued existence can be justified. while many small schools in rural areas of new zealand are currently under threat of closure because of their declining enrolments, some of the most innovative and exciting developments in the application of information and communication technologies to education are, at the present time, being developed within them. at a time when many small rural schools in new zealand are struggling to survive, some of these institutions are pioneering new ways of teaching and learning using new communication and information technologies. these developments suggest that it may now be appropriate to reconsider the importance of school size (b ray, 1987) as well as the significance of the location of a learning institution. there has been a trend in many western countries of consolidating small schools, particularly those located in rural areas, and transporting students to a single large institution from their homes by bus or private vehicle (baker and andrews, 1991). economies of scale suggest that it is more appropriate to concentrate students in larger and larger . ken stevens department of education victoria university of wellington wellington new zealand institutions and to close small schools if they cannot be amalgamated. these practices do not fully acknowledge new educational possibilities based on developments in information and communication technologies (d'cruz, 1990; fasano et a/1987), nor do they take into account recent innovations in some small rural schools in joining electronic networks which greatly expand the educational scope of a learning institution (mander, 1993). while it cannot be argued that all small schools should be kept operating regardless of cost or local need, there is a case to be made for reconsidering the closure of many of them because of the negative implications of such action for rural economic development. rural communities without viable schools quickly become unattractive places in which to live. the closure of rural schools can ultimately have a negative impact on a national economy that is based on primary production, as well as on rural social structures in terms of the consequent out migration of human resources. if it is accepted that schools are integral to the maintenance of rural social life and that their development is an investment in the rural economy, consolidation and closure of centres of learning in remote3 parts of the country must be considered in national rather than regional terms (parker et al, 1989). the application of new information and communication technologies that is taking place in some small rural schools in new zealand has implications for all educational institutions, journal of distance learning, vall, no.1, 1995 (c) distance education association of new zealand 32 large and small, rural and urban (barker, 1988; buckrell et al, 1992). there are particular implications in the introduction of information technologies in classrooms for the professional development of teachers (gilmore, 1994). the development of inter-institutional teaching and learning, collaborative decision-making, the integration of information and communication technologies across the curriculum, self­ managed teaching and learning and the development of regional, national and, possibly, international educational networks within rural new zealand provide many possibilities and, form a model for the future organisation of other sectors of teaching and learning throughout the country. through the application of contemporary information and communication technologies a growing number of small rural schools today can provide students with learning environments that are at least equal to those of large urban schools. the changes that are taking place in some small rural schools now require educationalists to acknowledge that the location of a school is of little significance to align educational planning with developments in information and communication technologies (stevens and tate, 1993) and to reconsider what is meant by 'small' and 'large' schools. the future of many small schools will be determined by the extent to which they apply new information and communication technologies to teaching and learning. small schools that are extensively networked with other schools nationally and internationally are much more difficult to close on educational or economic grounds. the educational application of information and communication technologies provides ways of extending small schools by linking them to many other institutions and, in effect, making them large schools. it is becoming increasingly difficult to argue that a school is large or small in terms of the number of students that attend it in person. a school may appear small in terms of the number of buildings that it has and the number of students who attend it in person, while, in educational terms, it may be large if the scope of its curriculum and the number of students in other places that it teaches electronically by lh1.king teachers, computers and telephones is considered. conversely, a school that is large in terms of the number of buildings that it appears to consist of and the number of students who attend in person, may, actually, be a smaller school than its counterpart in a rural area with few students attending in person, but which is linked nationally and internationally to other schools, polytechnics, museums and libraries. the test of whether a school ( more accurately described now as a learning centre) is large or small will inevitably become the extent to which it is networked with other places of learning. a large learning centre will have an open administrative and academic structure that enables it t o provide as well as receive educational material from other places, while a small school will have an administrative and academic structure that is closed to the educational world beyond its gates. a learning centre, regardless of the number of students who attend it in person, that is not open in terms of being part of educational networks within which its students and teachers participate, must increasingly be considered a small and closed institution. the quality of learning centres in future will be in part be determined by the flexibility and adaptability of their educational programmes for learners at both the local and non-local level. this is often more difficult to achieve in educational institutions that have many students and teachers in daily attendance, cumbersome bureaucracies, hierarchical management and, in many cases, discipline issues generated by the concentration of uninterested students in closed learning environments. small rural learning centres and dis tance education some small rural learning centres in new zealand are more national in their orientation to education than their urban counterparts and, in this sense, are actually 'big schools'. the next step for these rapidly evolving institutions is to extend the regional and national learning networks that have been recently established to provide journal of distance learning, vol1, n o . 1, 1995 ( c ) distance education association of n e w zealand 33 teachers and learners with access to classrooms internationally. learning centres that ' are networking with one another by using computers and other communication and information technologies as integral parts of the day to day life of both teachers and learners are, simultaneously, preparing y oung people for changing commercial and industrial environments. by integrating information and communication technologies in classrooms and by applying these to the development of educational networks, schools can provide students and teachers with access to industrial and commercial environments. links with industry, commerce and, in particular, polytechnics, considerably extend the scope of learning centres (stevens, 1994; stevens and bridgeman, 1994). there are many implications in school networking for extending adult education opportunities in small communities and for rural economic development in new zealand. the use of communication and information technologies in any educational institution, particularly in geographically isolated learning centres, provide students with new and usually more open personal horizons. rural students in australia, for example, have been found to be less likely to become computer scientists or architects than their urban peers (stevens,1993; turney et al, 1980). this may be an outcome of being educated in small and closed learning environments. interactive audio and video conferencing may change this situation as young people in non-metropolitan australia and new zealand participate and perhaps collaborate in more open learning environments. teachers in small rural schools often have to advance professionally more rapidly than those in larger institutions with heads of departments to make both pedagogical and organisational decisions for them (stevens, 1991b). in geographically isolated learning centres there has traditionally been a difficulty for teachers in having to make organisational, pedagogical and technological decisions in the absence of advice from the senior professional people who are available in large, urban institutions. there are many implications for the professional development of teachers in the networking of small learning centres, particularly in the development of good management practices. the close alignment of school and classroom management has always been a feature of small school organisation. there is a range of issues to be considered in the organisation of classrooms and learning centres with the advent of inter-school networking, as well as a need for research in this area. the division between management and pedagogy in many new zealand educational institutions can perhaps be overcome through judicious application of time, resources and careful planning, using educational networks. management and pedagogy have always been closely interrelated in small rural schools where both have usually been the responsibility of the same person. small learning centres and global networks in 1995 telephone lines combined with computer technology permit audio, audiographics and videoconferencing to b e conducted from desktop or notebook computers (tiffin et al, 1992). using this technology, teachers and students can be in any location as long as they can reach one another through a telephone line and a modem attached to their respective personal computers. interactive forms of communication technology combine to provide new classroom possibilities for teachers and for learners in which location is of considerably reduced significance. there are particular implications in these practices for the sole teacher in a small rural learning centre with, perhaps, a dozen learners attending in person, ranging from new entrants to senior primary school students. the possibilities of the teacher combining intensive face-to-face instruction for some students while others in the same room are linked to learning centres in distant places, undertaking different tasks, are becoming increasingly obvious (renwick, 1993). the new zealand correspondence school has for many years played a major role in this collaborative form of teaching in many schools and is internationally acknowledged as a leader in this aspect of teaching and learning. journal of distance learning, vol1, no. 1, 1995 (c) distance education association of new zealand 34 there are also implications for urban secondary learning centres in situations in which only a few students may wish to study a subject such as the korean language and which is not, therefore, viable in economic terms. by accessing classes from another place, in this case perhaps from the new zealand correspondence school or, possibly, from an australian network, students can learn a subject that would otherwise not be available to them. for the urban or the r u r a l student in these circumstances, the location of their learning centres is irrelevant as long as it is reasonably close to their homes. what is important is the access that the learning centres have to computers, modems, telephones and other technologies combined with the knowledge of how to gain access to the class that students wish to join. today, regardless of location, students can increasingly access what they want in the curriculum and thereby gain the knowledge that they feel is appropriate to their vocational and educational aspirations. · the new zealand telelearning network (nztln) is likely to play a major part in this development (telecom new zealand, 1992). while new communication technologies can provide a variety of w a y s of accessing knowledge and giving geographically isolated people educational and vocational opportunities, it is acknowledged that face-to­ face instruction remains a very important aspect of learning. it is likely, however, that teachers and learners will interact in different ways in fufure and each may have slightly different roles. in gaining access t-o more personalised and individualised instruction, students in urban as well as rural networked learning centres will require the attention of teachers, and, in particular, guidance in crossing new national, international as well as intellectual boundaries. students may, possibly, be advantaged in this new educational process if they can participate in networks from small, familiar and intimate learning environments rather than in learning centres with high daily attendances (the traditional 'big school') in which teachers are often busy with administrative matters, including discipline. in rural areas where a full time teacher is no longer employed, some specialised teacher expertise may be accessed at a distance by students, c;lssisted by a rostered parent or teacher aide. another solution may be the appointment of itinerant teachers to assist students in a number of rural learning centres. these are •issues that require urgent consideration and research to guide future policy development. with the increasing availability of information and communication technologies, it is questionable why large numbers of students need to be concentrated in a single institution. while there are obvious social and developmental reasons for y oung people meeting and socialising during their formative years, the learning basis for this is becoming increasingly difficult to justify. new information and communication technologies provide a measure of flexibility that has yet to be realised in the organisation of education on a daily or yearly basis in the lives of most students. as school learning becomes increasingly networked as technology becomes more available and familiar and institutions teach to and from one another, it may be more appropriate to create more small, open learning centres rather than concentrate resources into large, closed institutions that have to devote large amounts of time to internal administration. many small rural schools are currently considered to be uneconomic, the main reason being the salary of at least one full time teacher for perhaps eleven or twelve students who attend on a daily basis. in addition to the salary of the teacher, there are often additional salary costs in the form of part time and occasional assistance to either support the teacher or replace him or her when attending courses elsewhere or when ill. in addition to the salary of a teacher, there are overheads to be met in small as well as large schools and h e r e economies o f scale are a major consideration: electricity, telephone, heating costs as well as the cost of maintenance of school buildings. if young people are not educated in their own neighbourhoods or districts, they have to be transported to-another centre. this process leads journal of distance learning, vol1, no. 1, 1995 (c) distance education association of new zealand 35 to ,the creation of ever larger schools and the concentration of educational resources in fewer places. it may be appropriate now to reconsider the costs of small1 schools in relation to networking and the changing role of the teacher in the development of increasingly electronic classrooms. a n ew vision for t e aching and l e a rning in rur al schools t h e introduction o f distance education to conventional classrooms involves a paradigm shift whereby teachers and learners have their roles and positions in relation to one another redefined. the advent of school networking will require reconsideration of the ways in which schools, as we presently know them, are organised to become learning centres within educational networks. the model of school organisation as we know it is about to be challenged by the introduction of new communication technologies, some small rural schools in new zealand are at present in the forefront of this change. teachers will have to consider a range of new professional demands as they make new organisational and pedagogical decisions. perhaps what will be most challenging for the teaching profession is the fact that their decisions, and the outcomes of them, will become much more public as they are examined within learning networks. for some teachers, new communication technologies will be liberating in that they will have their skills and knowledge exposed to the educc�.tional world and they may, in some cases, acquire enlarged classes as more and more students want to learn from them. new communication technologies may provide excellent teachers with the recognition and the public acknowledgment that they have always deserved but never attained. the introduction of new communication technologies can make the task of learning a bigger challenge for both student and teacher as communication technologies facilitate the expansion of intellectual horizons for ail. this is almost inevitably going to mean that students will have to consult teachers to an increasing extent about their learning needs, while teachers will have to work ever more closely with students to shape the increasing availability of courses from educational networks to student learning styles and vocational aspirations. teaching and learning may become, as a result, a more cooperative and collaborative aspect of education. as well as providing the opportunity for increased interdependence of teacher and student, the advent of networked learning centres provides opportunities for both teacher and student to work more independently of one another for part of a school day than is possible in traditional classrooms. it could perhaps be argued that all teaching and learning are already a form of distance education in that students and teachers use books and references that are usually produced in other plac�s by unknown people. recently there has been increased political awareness of the implications of distance education for new zealanders (new zealand labour party, 1993; new zealand national party, 1993). distance education today enables students, both urban and rural, to access educational services from multiple sites through networks. distance education itself is in the process of undergoing a paradigm shift from a closed to an open model as learners are able to access information from many places within the course of a single lesson. while there will always be an important place for national institutions like the correspondence school, particularly in the provision of instructional design expertise and learning materials, increasingly, distance education will become more open as it becomes networked. it is perhaps appropriate to consider the small rural classroom as a model for the future organisation of learning centres. within a single small rural classroom there are likely to be multiple learning needs. learners have different learning styles, different levels of interest in what is being taught and different ambitions in terms of the application of what is presented by teachers. above all, learners have different levels of aptitude for particular subjects in the curriculum and, unlike other educational institutions, students can range widely in age and educationaljevel. the teacher is charged journal of distance learning, vol1, no.1, 1995 (c) distance education association of new zealand 36 with teaching all members of such a diverse class at the same time, requiring considerable organisational and pedagogical skill� it is not necessarily appropriate for all these learners to participate in a lesson at same the time; for some it will be too easy and for others too difficult. in such a classroom, it may be appropriate for some students to take time out to learn in their own ways for some of the time, without even leaving the classroom if they have access to a computer that is attached to a network. it is possible for this diverse grouping of students to be together in a single classroom at the same time and participate in a range of other classrooms, some of which may not necessarily be located in the student's own town, district or even country. as distance education shifts from a delivery system that is closed and centralised to one that is open and more of a multipoint access bank of information, learning can be increasingly individualised and the location of the student's home and learning centre reduces in importance. some teachers of students in geographically isolated classrooms, currently known as rural one teacher schools, realise the potential of using networks in providing appropriate education for young people from other centres .while giving others intensive personal instruction. concentrating students in large classes in large learning centres for all of a school day is not necessarily the most appropriate form of educational administration. small and intimate learning centres that provide the student with professional advice and technical and intellectual assistance in learning from a range of other places is an attractive alternative. lt may be appropriate to reassess the organisational and pedagogical skills of successful teachers in small schools to provide insights into the educational future which will be based, inevitably, on networked learning centres. conclusion with the developments that are rapidly taking place in information and communication technologies and their application to teaching and learning, rural as well as d-istance education may now be redundant concepts (stevens,1991a). the size of a school and its location will decrease in significance as new technologies encourage the development of nation�l and international learning networks. through the development of networked learning centres, small schools can meet the three challenges at present facing them: the challenge•to their educational viability, the challenge of providing equality of access to post secondary school educational and vocational opportunities as expected of large urban institutions, as well as the challenge to their own continued existence4• it is appropriate now to consider matching changes in information and communication technologies with educational planning and policy by developing networked learning centres for all new zealanders, regardless of where thl'!y live. unless this happens, new zealand educationalists may soon face a new challenge in the form of increased provision of education in this country from overseas educational networks. notes 1 an earlier version of this paper was prepared for the rural education reference group, november 1994 2 the ministry of education has classified small schools as those schools having a roll of 150 or under as at 1 july. 3 remote schools have been defined by the ministry of education as being at least 30 km from a centre with the most recent census determined population of at least 2000. 4 it would be useful to reconsider macaskill (1991) at this point in the history of new zealand's rural education. references baker, r. and andrews, j. 1991: parental reasons for sending children to a rural day and boarding school. education in rural australia, 1, 1, 21 25. barker, b.o. 1988: satellite tv programs for rural and small schools. the rural educator 10, 1, 1-4. bray, m. (1987): are small schools the answer? cost e f f e c t i v e s t r a t e g i e s f o r r u r a l s c h o o l provision. commonwealth secretariat publications, london. journal of distance learning, vall, no.1, 1995 (c) distance education association of new zealand 37 buckrell, p. et al, 1992: the use of telecommumcations technologies for the enhancement of educational services. department of the prime minister and cabinet, wellington, �onsultel associates limited. d'cruz, j.v. 1990: technology and education: a study of policy and practice in rural schools, (second edition). ministry of education, melbourne. fasano, c., hall, n. and cook, j. 1 987: information technology and the provision of educational services in rural new south wales. unpublished interim case study report prepared for the commonwealth schools commission, canberra. gilmore , a.m. 1994: information technology in the classroom: an evaluation of professional development for teachers. new zealand journal of educational studies 29 1, 21-36. macaskill, s. 1991: report of the economic and educational viability of small schools review. ministry of education, wellington. mander t. 1993: summary report of the canterbury area schools' association distance education project (casa tech). unpublished. new zealand labour party, 1993: education our children, our future. new zealand labour party. new zealand national party, 1993: policy 1993the most highly skilled nation in the world. new zealand national party, wellington. parker, e. b., hudson, h.e., dillman ,d.a. and roscoe, a.d. 1989: rural a m e r ic a in t h e information age: telecommunications policy f o r rural development. the aspen institute and university press of america, lanham, md. renwick, w. 1993: the future of face-to-face and distance teaching in post secondary education, the impact of information and communication technologies on post-secondary education. ceri/oecd, paris. scriven, b., lundin, r. and ryan, y. editors, 1993: distance education for the twentyfirst century. i c d e and the qu eensland university of technology, oslo and brisbane. stevens, k.j. 1991a: recent developments in rural and distance education in new zealand and their implications. new zealand a nnual r eview o f education, 1, 160-172. stevens, k.j. 1991b: professional development for rural teachers through distance education. paper presented at the distance education association of new zealand am1ual conference, wellington. stevens, k.j. 1993: the place of distance education networks in th<:? vocational choice processes of geographically isolated students. in, scriven, b., lundin, r., and ryan, y., editors. stevens, k.j. and tate, 0. 1993: the changing nature of distance education in new zealand: some strategic implications. new zealand annual review of education, 3, 319-334. stevens, k.j. 1994: some applications of distance education technologies and pedagogies in rural schools in new zealand. distance education, 15, 2, 318-326. stevens, k.j. and bridgeman, n. 1994: the beginnings of rural school networking in new zealand: sofme educational and policy issues. paper presented at the rural datafication conference, mitmeapolis, appalachia educational laboratory rural education and small schools rc019695, reprinted in resources in education, january 1995, (in press). telecom new zealand, 1992: new zealand telelearning network. telecom corporation of new zealand, wellington. tiffin, j., rajasingham, l. and pennings, a. 1992: the telelearning handbook. wordsworth ltd, wellington. turney, c., sinclair, k.e. and cairns, l.g. 1980: isolated schools teaching, learning and the transition to work. sydney university press, sydney. ken stevens is senior lecturer, department of education, victoria university of wellington, box 600, wellington. journal of distance learning, vol1, no.1, 1995 (c) distance education association of new zealand 38 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 75 tracing international differences in online learning development: an examination of government policies in new zealand allison powell, international association for k-12 online learning michael barbour, wayne state university abstract in 2006 the north american council for online learning surveyed the activity and policy relating to primary and secondary e-learning, which they defined as online learning, in a selection of countries. they found most were embracing e-learning delivery of education as a central strategy for enabling reform, modernising schools, and increasing access to highquality education. while north american countries appeared to be using the internet as a medium to provide distance education at the secondary level longer than most countries, the lack of a guiding vision has created uneven opportunities for students depending on which state or province they live in. in new zealand, the government has sought to provide a vision or guiding framework for the development of e-learning. in this article we trace that vision by describing three policy documents released by the new zealand government over the past decade, and how that vision for e-learning has allowed increased development of primary and secondary online learning. keywords: distance education; e-learning; k–12; north america; policy introduction e-learning is a powerful instructional strategy because it transcends the boundaries of traditional classroom instruction. in fact, it creates virtual schools that allow learning to occur at the student’s initiative—any time, any place. e-learning also holds promise for promoting equity by providing students with access to courses that otherwise might not be available, such as accelerated courses in remote rural areas (blomeyer, 2002, p. 1). e-learning offers opportunities and possibilities unknown to educators over a decade ago. ―elearning has the capacity to grow, and the early results demonstrate the benefits of students and parents being given the choice of a variety of learning options, from fully online courses at a distance, to classroom-based courses, with blended learning options in between‖ (watson, gemin & ryan, 2008, p. 10). in 2006, the international association for k–12 for online learning 1 (international association for k–12 for online learning [inacol], 2009) surveyed several 1 while inacol is an international organisation, the term k–12 is commonly used in north america to refer to the primary and secondary school sector. powell, a., & barbour, m. k. 76 countries and highlighted the most up-to-date information about ―current initiatives, funding, student populations, content development and quality control, professional development, and current trends and obstacles‖ (powell & patrick, 2006, p. 3) in the area of primary and secondary e-learning. one of the findings of this international survey was that, when it comes to secondary e-learning, different countries have taken a variety of approaches ranging from a total lack of policy, or actions that actually hinder the development of e-learning, to specific national visions to promote e-learning. in this article, we briefly define and operationalise the term e-learning as online learning. then we examine the international context of primary and secondary online learning with a focus on canada and the united states—two countries where there has been significant growth but an absence of policy. next, we provide a lengthy discussion of a series of reports from new zealand that set an ambitious goal for developing secondary online learning. the contrast between the north american examples and the policies pursued by new zealand provide an interesting juxtaposition for models of how to develop primary and secondary online learning. e-learning: defined and operationalised the term e-learning has been used in many contexts to refer to or mean different things. for example, in the blomeyer (2002) quotation at the beginning of this article, blomeyer used the term e-learning to refer to online learning. he was specifically referring to the virtual school movement in the united states, where a virtual school is defined as ―a state approved and/or regionally accredited [organisation] that offers secondary credit courses through distance learning methods that include internet-based delivery‖ (clark, 2000, p. i). while the evolution of virtual schooling in the united states has expanded beyond the secondary environment to include students in all parts of the school sector (watson, murin, vashaw, gemin, & rapp, 2010), the term e-learning is generally used as a synonym to online learning. in fact, in north america it is quite common for e-learning to describe online learning, computer-based training (cbt), webbased learning, distributed learning, and/or electronically enabled distance learning (cramer, krasinski, crutchfield, sackmary, & scalia, 2000). however, we understand that, outside of north america, the term e-learning tends to be broader than simply an online form of distance education. for example, within the new zealand context wright (2010) conducted a literature review focused on e-learning and its potential for new zealand schools that included literature relating to web 2.0 and other web-based tools, gaming, virtual worlds, and mobile devices—to name a few of the topics beyond online distance education. this expanded view of e-learning was consistent with the ministry’s own understanding, ―learning and teaching that is facilitated by or supported through the smart use of information and communication technologies [ict]‖ (ministry of education, 2006a, p. 2). this broader view is also consistent with other recent examinations of the impact of many of elearning initiatives within new zealand (e.g., ham & wenmoth, 2010; lai, 2005). for the purposes of this article, we acknowledge that the e-learning policy and direction outlined by the new zealand ministry of education is intended to include all forms of ict-supported teaching and learning. however, we will examine these policies through the lens of their potential to support the development of primary and secondary online learning, and contrast that with the policy—or lack thereof—to support or hinder the development of online learning in other jurisdictions. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 77 a selected international overview of primary and secondary online learning in 2006 the north american council for online learning (nacol) 2 sought to survey the activity and policy relating to primary and secondary online learning in countries around the world. the organisation contacted ministries of education and other key stakeholders in over 100 countries to learn more about how others were implementing these new technologies in learning. the survey was completed by 15 different countries (powell & patrick, 2006). the data indicated that countries were embracing online delivery of education as a central strategy for enabling reform, modernising schools, and increasing access to a world-class education. for example, china had digitised their entire primary and secondary curriculum and was working to train master teachers to teach online so that they could scale high-quality education through e-learning to 100 million students over the next 10 years. singapore shut down their physical schools for 1 week each year to engage students in an e-learning week. mexico had also digitised their entire primary and secondary curriculum and trained teachers in their universities to teach online. india was working on developing an internationally benchmarked, digital, primary, and secondary curriculum through the educomp project, a private–public partnership. at the same time, the indian government was to developing a $10 laptop to aid in the new distribution model for education that was technologically driven. finally, south korea had introduced a national virtual school that offered online courses as a way to equal the playing field for students who were unable to afford private tutoring. all of these examples represented change models driven by blended and virtual learning as a key strategy for global education reform and modernisation. two countries with relatively long histories of primary and secondary online learning are canada and the united states. both countries also have a more substantial literature base that traces their development and current status, at least compared with most nations. both countries are also two of the few jurisdictions where primary and secondary online learning has been organised into formal school units that operate alongside traditional schools (barbour, 2009). the following sub-sections briefly describe the development of online learning in these two countries, and how the presence or absence of policy has affected that development. canada while education in canada is in provincial and territorial jurisdiction, the federal government does fund some initiatives, particularly those related to implementing technology. the federal government has provided funding for internet access to schools and the general public, creating a national high-speed network, and increasing technology use for all students (ertl & plante, 2004; plante & beattie, 2004). additionally, the ministries of education in each province and territory formed the council of ministers of education canada (cmec) to collaborate on matters of common interest in education policy. each of the provinces and territories has made progress in implementing online learning, whether in the form of a province-wide distance education programme or through district and private school initiatives. but although provincial and territorial cooperation exists through the cmec, a national plan for online learning has not been developed (powell & patrick, 2006). over the past 3 years, the state of the nation: k–12 online learning in canada report has indicated british columbia (bc) was the only province ―where the government has created a specific regime to govern the operation of distance education‖ (barbour & stewart, 2008, p. 5). the other provinces 2 now known as inacol. powell, a., & barbour, m. k. 78 and territories regulate distance learning programmes in much the same way as they do the regular brick and mortar schools (i.e., there is no separate policy or regulations for distance education programmes). the first online or virtual schools were in bc around 1993 (dallas, 1999), followed by ontario and manitoba in 1995–1996 through a variety of district and school-based programmes (barker & wendel, 2001; barker, wendall, & richmond, 1999; haughey & fenwick, 1996). at present, bc has enrolled the most students in online learning through a variety of initiatives (with over 71,000 or roughly 10% of the k–12 student population enrolled in one or more distance education courses), while every canadian province and territory had some form of distance education for primary and secondary students (barbour, 2010). of the countries that participated in inacol’s international survey, canada was the only country where online learning was developed across the entire country, and where education funding and regulations were provided at the provincial/state level rather than federal level. because of the inconsistency in policies for online learning it is difficult to determine the size and scope of implementation across the country. barbour (2010) estimated it to be between 150,000–175,000 students, or 2.9–3.4% of all primary and secondary students enrolled in one or more distance education courses. bc was the only province to have created policy for the delivery of online learning (or, as they termed it, distributed learning) within the schools’ sector and this policy regime could be used as a model for the rest of canada and other countries with similar structures. school districts in bc must sign a contract with the ministry of education to operate a distributed programme. after the agreement has been signed, the distributed schools operate under their own set of policies. these programmes are not limited to the traditional calendar year, and students from other districts within the province are allowed to enrol in other distributed learning programmes within the province as long as they are not taking a seat away from a student located within the home district. another innovative aspect of the province’s policy is that the per-pupil funding follows the student, based on how they choose to complete their coursework. for example, ―if a student is enrolled in six courses in their brick-and-mortar school and two courses in their district’s distributed learning programme, then the school would receive six-eighths of the fte [full-time enrolment] and the distributed learning programme would receive two-eighths of that fte‖ (barbour & stewart, 2008, p. 27). bc is one of 13 examples (i.e., one per province and territory) that could have been used. however, it was the only jurisdiction that had established specific policy relating to the delivery of online learning to the schools sector—which may explain why the proportion of students engaged in online learning was three to four times higher than the national average (and represented between one third to one half of all primary and secondary students engaged nationwide). simply put, bc was an example of a jurisdiction where policy supported the expansion of online learning opportunities for students, rather than trying to limit them. united states of america since 1996, primary and secondary online learning has grown at an average rate of 30% annually across the united states (inacol, 2009) and, according to picciano and seaman (2009), the overall number of primary and secondary students engaged in online courses in 2007–2008 was estimated at 1,030,000 (or approximately 1% of all students). like canada’s e-learning initiatives, online learning in the united states is implemented at state level. according to the 2010 keeping pace with k–12 online learning annual report, 48 states have significant supplemental e-learning programmes, or significant full-time programmes (in which students take most or all of their courses online), or both (watson et al., 2010). online learning in the united states has been implemented through a variety of organisational structures to provide opportunities for a number of students with different needs. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 79 according to providers of online learning opportunities in the united states, e-learning gives students access to a variety of online courses and services through online and blended learning, including advanced placement and international baccalaureate courses; dual enrolment courses in partnership with higher education institutions; expanded options for core courses in mathematics, science, and foreign languages; and remediation and/or credit recovery for struggling students who may need multiple pathways to personalise instruction. other opportunities give students the ability to enrol in online courses and schools because they need to secure employment, have special needs, or lack access to courses in their district (e.g., they are in rural communities). other reasons for enrolling for online courses include teen pregnancy, the need to travel (military families, athletes, actors, etc.), or being homebound because of medical issues. however, according to the national center for educational statistics’ (nces) report distance education in elementary and secondary public school districts the number one reason, as cited by 80% of k–12 school districts, for offering courses at a distance was ―the course was otherwise unavailable‖(nces, 2005). four states even require students to complete an online course as part of their high-school graduation requirements, based on a belief that this will prepare them for lifelong learning opportunities. according to a synthesis of new research in k–12 online learning, the primary reason that school districts offer online courses is to expand options and provide equal opportunities for students (smith, clark, & blomeyer, 2005). however, initiatives to train pre-service and inservice teachers to teach online, and to use and create digital resources in both their face-to-face and online courses, are lacking in the united states. a small number of universities provide certificate programmes, while an even more limited number have systematic initiatives to address this method of educational delivery. for example, the georgia state department of education has taken the lead and created an online teaching endorsement for their teacher certificate (deubel, 2008). further, the florida virtual school has entered into partnerships with several universities to allow teacher-education programmes to offer online student teaching opportunities. however, the majority of e-learning programmes and schools in the united states are required to provide their own training for teachers, thus duplicating resources within states and making this one of the largest barriers in expanding e-learning opportunities (barbour, kinsella, wicks, & toker, 2010). as evidenced by the lack of tertiary preparation for teachers to facilitate online learning opportunities, which is simply one example, the growth of primary and secondary online learning in the united states has occurred largely in the absence of formal government policy. in fact, the annual keeping pace with k–12 online learning report regularly documents government policies that are designed to hinder or limit the growth of primary and secondary online learning. however, even with the absence of policy to support its growth—or in some cases policies designed to do exactly the opposite—primary and secondary online learning is flourishing in many different contexts in the united states. e-learning in new zealand the foundations for online distance education in new zealand were laid well before the use of the internet was even considered. the development of the correspondence school in 1922 provided a model for how primary and secondary schooling could be delivered at a distance (te aho o te kura pounamu – the correspondence school, 2011). more recently, the development of the canterbury area schools’ association technology (casatech) project in 1993 was a precursor to the e-learning clusters that currently operate under the umbrella of the virtual learning network (vln) (wenmoth, 1996). the online distance education offered by the vln clusters is delivered through the combination of a synchronous virtual conference lesson and powell, a., & barbour, m. k. 80 asynchronous content and activities housed in a learning management system (lai & pratt, 2010; roberts, 2009). at present 18 geographic e-learning clusters provide some form of online distance education to students at half of the area and secondary schools in new zealand as a part of the vln (roberts, 2010). over the past decade e-learning or the use of information and communication technologies in education has been a priority of the new zealand ministry of education. one of the ways this has been evidenced was through the release of three key documents to implement their information and communications technologies (ict) and e-learning strategies: the digital strategy 2.0 (ministry of economic development, 2006); ict strategic framework for education (ministry of education, 2006a); and enabling the 21st century learner: an elearning action plan for schools 2006–2010 (ministry of education, 2006b). the national digital strategy was developed by several sectors of the new zealand government to form ―a strategy about how a digital future for all new zealanders will be created, using the power of information and communications technology to enhance all aspects of our lives‖ (ministry of education, 2009, ¶ 1). their goal for education in this strategy is to ―improve learner achievement in an innovative education sector, fully connected and supported by the smart use of ict‖ (ministry of education, 2006a, p. 2). since then, the ministry has developed an infrastructure for education with the goal of providing students, teachers, and administrators with access to digital content and opportunities to support high-quality learning opportunities for both teachers and students. the following sub-sections examine these three key policy documents through the lens of how they have promoted or allowed for the development of the kind of online distance education offered by the vln. our discussion of these documents will focus on their goals and how that direction provides a framework for the development and growth of online distance education programmes and opportunities. 3 digital strategy 2.0 new zealanders sometimes think of their country as ―small, remote, and sometimes irrelevant‖ (ministry of economic development, 2006, p. 4), an interesting complex that has pushed the country to be creative and innovative—even leaders—in using digital technology. the government’s vision for the country’s future was that ―new zealanders should be leaders in the digital world and use digital technologies, skills and opportunities to contribute to a prosperous, sustainable and vibrant society‖ (p. 2). the government’s desire is to connect to the rest of the world, spread awareness of the potential for these new technologies, and bring everyone in the country on their journey—including students and teachers. ―people are the bedrock of digital strategy 2.0. new technologies foster innovation, but it is people—entrepreneurs, researchers, creatives and people working to make a difference in communities—who are the real source of creativity‖ (p. 7). the government’s role in the strategy was to provide the infrastructure to enable creativity, innovation, and collaboration to move the country forward as an international leader in our new digital world by creating high-value content for themselves and to export in the areas of e-learning, e-health and online gaming to enhance productivity and global competiveness. the plan, which was designed to create a prosperous, sustainable, and vibrant society, was broken down into sections on becoming smarter through digital means to improve the economy, the environment, and their communities and culture. the government planned to invest $500 3 for a thorough consideration of the effectiveness of these visions, and the programmes designed to implement them, we recommend ham and wenmoth (2010). journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 81 million and the private sector an additional $2.5 billion over the next 5 years (i.e., 2007–2012) to ensure open, fibre, or equivalent high-bandwidth networks would be installed in all government, business, and educational institutions by 2012, and an additional ―$160 million [was to] be invested in broadband across the health and education sectors … [so that] by 2012 all educational institutions will have access to a high-speed national education network, transforming the way our children learn‖ (p. 9). at present, the government appears to be well underway in their investment into the next generation of connectivity (see ministry of economic development, 2010). education was a priority in the original strategy. investments in professional development and content creation were implemented, as well as investment in the initial infrastructure. ―high quality information will be stored digitally and shared safely and securely across the sector, giving educators and learners better access to digital content, resources and services‖ in a safe and secure environment (ministry of economic development, 2006, p. 16). teachers were trained in the pedagogy of teaching online and the ability to create and use digital resources in their classrooms. content was also created and digitised to use throughout the nation’s schools. this education network allowed schools and educators to share resources with each other, whether they were related to the content or to a specific student in a seamless system. through this new education network, the government made it their goal to prepare all students for the 21st century workforce. the ministry set two targets for education in the digital strategy: 1) ―by 2012, the fill rate for ict related jobs increases to 75 per cent‖ (in 2007 it was 53%); and 2) ―by 2012, there has been a 100 per cent increase in the number of graduates entering digital careers‖ (p. 36). the strategy not only provided students with access to digital resources throughout their education, but also aimed to ensure that students would gain digital literacy, internet safety and technical ict skills. similarly, it was a goal of the strategy to ensure that teachers would engender students to be creative and provide them with the skills to work together in groups. in order for students to become productive in the 21st century workforce, the government was working to implement professional standards and international benchmarks for ict qualifications with local computer societies to allow teachers and students to better understand which skills they needed to master in order to be successful in this new workforce. digital technology guidelines for years 11–13 were also being developed to ensure students leave school with the technology skills to enter into an ict-related career (ministry of economic development, 2006). with these newly acquired skills, the department of labour could help recruit these students into digital careers. ict strategic framework for education the ict strategic framework for education followed digital strategy 2.0. the framework was designed to ―provide the mechanism to guide and co-ordinate ict investment towards the government’s vision of improved education and outcomes‖ (ministry of education, 2006a, p. 3). the ict strategic framework for education aimed to create: 1. a more learner-centred education system transcending organisational boundaries. 2. more informed decision making within the education sector by learners, teachers, parents, communities, public, businesses, researchers, policy makers, and administrators. 3. increased ease and opportunity of access and reduced compliance costs for all participants. 4. increased confidence, capability and capacity from the use of ict by all participants in the education sector. 5. greater opportunities for the generation, application and sharing of new ideas and technologies. 6. more effective and efficient investment in ict by education sector government agencies (p. 2). the ministry hoped to achieve these goals in a variety of ways. the first was to develop a more learner-centred environment that focuses on the outcomes and the learner, instead of solely on powell, a., & barbour, m. k. 82 the technology. the second was to create an easy-to-access-and-navigate system that allowed learners to communicate with each other on both a local and national scale. the third was to focus on coherence through open standards rather than standardisation and on a user-focused approach to implementing the technology. the final way was to establish and maintain an environment that supported and nurtured a collaborative and innovative culture where students were encouraged to be creative and share their ideas with each other. the ministry had developed a detailed strategy, focused on the learning, for how they would approach these goals. the ministry wanted to move away from the industrial age or collective approach. this new approach considered numerous elements to ensure each student was successful, as shown in figure 1 below. figure 1 learner-centred approach (ministry of education, 2006a, p. 7) 4 this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 3.0 unported license. collaboration between all of these groups and sectors would help reach the government’s goals as well as provide a more personalised educational experience for each student. this model had also created a path to implement e-learning in new zealand’s schools. e-learning action plan the digital strategy 2.0 and framework for ict in education documents provided an overall framework and goals for the nation, whereas the e-learning action plan outlined a more detailed plan for implementing the technology. in enabling the 21st century learner: an e-learning action plan for schools 2006–2010, the government developed ―the foundation for effective elearning practices to be integrated into new zealand educational practices‖ (powell & patrick, 4 the ict strategic framework for education was developed by the education sector standing committee. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 83 2006, p. 15). the goal was simply to make e-learning seamless within the traditional school and the traditional classroom. the action plan built on the strategic framework’s focus of learner-centered education for students through e-learning. ―e-learning has the potential to transform the way we learn. it’s about exploiting technologies and using ict effectively across the curriculum to connect schools and communities and to support evidence-based decision making and practices in schools‖ (ministry of education, 2006b, p. 3). the report described the goals specifically for e-learning, along with projects, tools, and resources that would be developed to support e-learning from 2006–2010. the priorities included:  all students experience effective teaching;  children’s learning is nurtured by families and whanau;  evidence-based practices are used by all involved in schooling (p. 4). through e-learning, these priorities would help ―provide accessible, relevant, and high-quality learning opportunities so that every student is better able to achieve their full potential‖ (p. 4). the schools’ e-learning action plan chart (see p. 5 of enabling the 21st century learner) provided a roadmap for how the country planned to implement e-learning in the schools. prior action plans helped lay the foundation for the implementation of e-learning and online learning throughout the country. the previous plans provided for teacher professional development, collecting and/or creating digital resources for teachers to use in their classrooms, procuring and deploying the technological infrastructure, and integrating technology into the culture of schools (ministry of education, 2006b). from 1998 to 2006 these foundations were laid, allowing for a more learner-centered education for each child. the technology infrastructure had been built, and during this time-frame schools found ―a particular strength [had] been a focus on increasing the capability and confidence of teachers to use ict to support student learning‖ (p. 6). ict was now a part of the school culture and was seen as an integral part of a teacher’s professional practice. however, these new practices were not fully embedded in all teachers’ lessons and practice. the goal of the new e-learning plan was to make that systemic transition. the government was researching and evaluating the best and most effective ict teaching practices to adopt throughout the school system. these investigations focused their change and innovation in schools on ―a bottom-up model with support and guidance from the centre‖ (p. 7). it was hoped that this model would encourage teachers to reflect and collaborate within their community of peers. through this new e-learning action plan, the ministry planned to keep teachers updated on the most effective e-learning teaching practices using the ict tools themselves to model best practices. using this new communication model, the ministry would provide technology for students, teachers, and the community to develop communities of practice and e-learning environments for collaboration to improve teaching practices and student learning using a variety of resources. throughout these new systems, teachers would have the opportunity to work with students, administrators, and other teachers to learn new technologies and to support one another in order to advance e-learning opportunities. to achieve effectiveness, the ministry provided teachers with professional development to create new blended and e-learning environments, and on how to use the customised ict tools to create these environments effectively and efficiently. with the new tools and professional development from the ministry, teachers were able to build partnerships around the country and to streamline communication and learning in order to provide a customised learning experience for each student (ministry of education, 2006b). powell, a., & barbour, m. k. 84 school administrators and school boards of trustees were also assigned specific actions and outcomes in the e-learning plan in order to support teachers and students in e-teaching and learning. their role was to provide leadership and insight to expand options for students and teachers through ict. school administrators and community leaders were seen as key in the implementation of e-learning environments in their schools. through their leadership the provision of training, tools, and support for their teachers, all essential to the success and effectiveness of the programmes, would be ensured. additionally, while ―schools use their existing and operational funding to provide online learning for students, however there [was] specific funding provided by the government available for e-learning‖ (powell & patrick, 2006, p. 15). school leaders could access these additional funds to pilot new projects and initiatives if they had the vision to expand opportunities for students through e-learning. research and development of effective practices and technologies was the final item discussed in new zealand’s e-learning action plan. ―as new technologies and media expand rapidly in students’ lives outside the classroom and schools adopt new technologies and services, educators also need to stay abreast of the evidence on how to maximise these opportunities for learning in the classroom‖ (ministry of education, 2006b, p. 17). however, as barbour (2009) argued, elearning innovation and practice are outpacing the availability of useful research. the government recognised this reality and encouraged their teachers and administrators to be innovative, but to also be reflective about the effectiveness of those innovations and to share their findings with others in their professional communities. the ministry’s investment in the professional development of their teachers also needed to be evaluated to understand how it could be improved. ―this [required] the ongoing development and implementation of appropriate monitoring, assessment, and evaluation methodologies and tools that will enable educators to modify and improve their current practice and to design new directions for e-learning‖ (ministry of education, 2006b, p. 18). this evaluation process was to be accomplished through evaluating current e-learning initiatives throughout the country and, on an international level, to inform ongoing e-learning policies and initiatives. online learning and these key policy documents as we indicated earlier, our intent was not to evaluate the effectiveness of these policies against their ability to foster primary and secondary online learning programmes in new zealand. our intent was to describe how these three policy documents provided a framework that created an environment that encouraged the development of these kinds of initiatives. we believe it should be transparent to the reader that a friendly e-learning environment has fostered the vln online learning initiatives. it was an environment in which teachers felt comfortable with the introduction and use of technology into the classroom, and teachers felt comfortable with the potential of technology to expand students’ curricular capabilities. it was also an environment in which administrators felt comfortable with creating open school concepts (stevens, 1992; 1999; 2000; 2001; 2003; stevens & moffatt, 2003), and that allowed for the provision of online distance education to expand students’ curricular opportunities. the changing attitudes and aptitudes of teachers, and the changing beliefs held by administrators (both of which have been fostered by the political climate) created by these key policy documents have allowed the developments seen in the vln throughout new zealand. while our intent is not to assess the actual effect of this environment, it is worth noting that over the past decade the vln e-learning clusters have grown from two in 2001 (i.e., the canterbury technology schools project [or cantatech] and otagonet [pullar & brennan, 2008]) to 18 clusters today. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 85 conclusions and implications online learning at the secondary level, and even at the primary level, is occurring around the world. in some jurisdictions, online learning is used as a way to provide educational opportunities to students who would not normally have access to a formal education experience. in other instances online learning is used to level the playing field between those who have the economic means to provide a high-quality education and those who don’t. finally, there are also cases where online learning is used as for emergency preparedness. two of the first jurisdictions to begin using the internet as a means to deliver distance education to secondary students were canada and the united states, where secondary online learning has largely developed as separate school entities that operate in conjunction—and sometimes in competition—with traditional schools. in north america, the first secondary online learning schools or virtual schools developed in canada. while the federal government has been actively involved in providing technology infrastructure and connectivity to schools across the country, education falls under provincial jurisdiction. as such, online learning has developed in a unique manner in each province and territory. in some jurisdictions, the provincial or territorial government has sought to create a regulatory regime that would foster the growth of secondary online learning. however, some jurisdictions have simply failed to recognise online learning separately in their educational policy. similar situations exist in the united states, where education is controlled at the local level. some states have created regulatory regimes that cultivate the development of both supplemental and full-time online learning opportunities—at both the primary and secondary levels, going so far as to require students to have e-learning experiences in order to graduate from secondary school, and allowing teachers to gain teacher certification specialisations in teaching in online learning environments. yet, as in canada, the development of primary and secondary online learning has been uneven—with some states having much more favourable policy and, as a result, much greater development. unlike the canadian and american examples, where primary and secondary online learning has developed in an uneven manner—and often in the absence of government policy and formal support—in new zealand the ministry laid the foundation and created a framework for implementing e-learning solutions, such as online learning. most recently, this foundation began with the digital strategy 2.0, which was designed to provide the infrastructure to allow new zealand to become leaders in a digital world in all aspects of society—from business to health care, and from leisure to education. this was followed by the ict strategic framework for education, which had a specific focus on the education system and a goal to integrate the use of technology into the education system and to use that technology as a way to transfer to the teaching and learning experience. finally, enabling 21st century learner: an e-learning action plan for schools 2006–2010 was designed to extend technology integration in the classroom to using technology to deliver education, both to students who were physically present in the school (i.e., in a blended fashion) and also students who were not in the school (i.e., in an online fashion). assessing the effectiveness of each of these visions and the level of fidelity each achieved is beyond the scope of this article (see ham & wenmoth, 2010). the purpose of this article was to trace how the various government initiatives over the past decade have encouraged the development of primary and secondary online learning. it is our conclusion that new zealand has made great progress in implementing online learning at the secondary and, more recently, primary levels—and this progress has been facilitated by the government’s policies related to e-learning. with 18 secondary e-learning clusters in operation—some for a decade or more—and the recent introduction of the vln’s primary initiative, the development of online learning in new zealand followed in the wake of these visionary policy documents. yet there is still little powell, a., & barbour, m. k. 86 empirical research beyond the ministry’s own reports and e-learning plans. there is therefore a need for further exploration of the success of these government initiatives in fostering the development of primary and secondary online learning, including identification of specific examples of the effective design, delivery, and support provided to successful online learning programmes. these exemplars would provide a model that could be used by schools with less maturity in online learning initiatives (possibility as lessons for other kinds of e-learning initiatives), and serve as an example of how to implement primary and secondary online learning in other countries. references barbour, m. k. 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(2008). keeping pace with k–12 online learning: a review of state-level policy and practice. evergreen, co: evergreen associates. retrieved from http://www.learningpt.org/pdfs/tech/keeping_pace2.pdf http://www.inacol.org/research/docs/internationalsurveyresultssummaries.pdf http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/survey/pdf/k-12_online_learning_2008.pdf http://www.ncrel.org/tech/synthesis/synthesis.pdf http://www.correspondence.school.nz/about-us/history http://www.learningpt.org/pdfs/tech/keeping_pace2.pdf journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 15(1) 89 watson, j., murin, a., vashaw, l., gemin, b., & rapp, c. (2010). keeping pace with k–12 online learning: an annual review of policy and practice. evergreen, co: evergreen education group. retrieved from http://www.kpk12.com/wpcontent/uploads/keepingpacek12_2010.pdf wenmoth, d. (1996). learning in the distributed classroom. set research information for teachers, 2(4). 1–4. wright, n. (2010). e-learning and implications for new zealand schools: a literature review. wellington, new zealand: ministry of education. biographical notes allison powell apowell@inacol.org allison powell is the vice president – state and district services for the international association for k– 12 online learning (inacol). before taking up her position at inacol, she taught in face to face and online k–8 environments, and helped build the clark county school district virtual high school. allison received her doctorate in educational technology from pepperdine university. michael barbour mkbarbour@gmail.com michael barbour is an assistant professor in instructional technology and educational evaluation and research at wayne state university. he has been a k–12 online learning researcher, teacher, course designer, and administrator in several countries for over a decade. michael researches the effective design, delivery, and support of k–12 online learning. � this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 new zealand license. powell, a., & barbour, m. k. (2011). tracing international differences in online learning development: an examination of government policies in new zealand. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 15(1), 75–89. http://www.kpk12.com/wp-content/uploads/keepingpacek12_2010.pdf http://www.kpk12.com/wp-content/uploads/keepingpacek12_2010.pdf mailto:apowell@inacol.org mailto:mkbarbour@gmail.com http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/nz/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/nz/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/nz/ journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 17(1) i editorial primary and secondary distance education: expanding the knowledge base in the schools sector the use of distance education at the primary and secondary levels began in new zealand around 1922 with the introduction of the correspondence school (barbour, 2011a). the roots of webbased or online distance education in the schools sector trace back to 1993, and have been firmly entrenched in the nation’s schools sector since 2002 (davis, 2010). with the implementation of the rural broadband initiative and ultra fast broadband in schools programmes, there is an opportunity to develop research-based initiatives to leverage the learning potential provided by this increased connectivity. however, to date there has been little published research on the use of distance education in the primary and secondary environment in new zealand. for example, barbour (2011b) examined 262 articles from the main distance education journals for australia, canada, new zealand, and the united states (including the journal of flexible, open, and distance learning) from 2006 to 2010 and found only one of the 262 articles related to distance education in the schools sector in new zealand. further, during this 5-year period only three of the 21 articles published by the journal of flexible, open, and distance learning related to primary and secondary distance education in any country. unfortunately, this lack of coverage in the academic literature is not consistent with the level of activity that is actually occurring. at present, the correspondence school (now te aho o te kura ponamu, or te kura) is making the transition from a primarily correspondence model to incorporating more and more online delivery of their curriculum. the e-learning clusters of the virtual learning network (vln) are maturing, becoming sustainable, and expanding in their traditional rural areas, while the development of urban-based clusters and loops are starting to occur. over the past 2 years a cluster focused specifically on providing distance education to primary students has been established. at the same time, the number of tertiary institutions providing distance education opportunities for secondary students is also increasing. there are many different and diverse models of distance education delivery happening in the schools sector, much of which is going unnoticed by the larger distance education community. this special issue begins to address the lack of research into schools sector distance education. the first article in this special issue, from keryn pratt and ken pullar, focuses on otagonet— one of the early vln e-learning clusters. in this article, the authors explore the organisational model used by otagonet, and evaluate promising practices for teaching and learning that have developed in the cluster. the transition teachers experienced from traditional transmission models to more interactive models of teaching (a transition that others have noted and have even reported spilling over into the teachers’ face-to-face instruction [lowes, 2005]), is highlighted. the second article in this special issue explores teaching at another of the early vln e-learning clusters, farnet. michael barbour and carolyn bennett examine teacher perceptions of promising practices for teaching in the vln environment. their research also reveals that these farnet teachers were particularly concerned about both the content and the delivery model of the professional development provided to vln teachers. similar results were found with virtual school teachers in the united states, where rice and dawley (2007) found that these individuals were under-trained and desired a focus on pedagogical issues. while these first two articles focus on the notion of “connected schools” in rural jurisdictions of new zealand, the final article in this special issue provides an example of a “networked school” in an urban area (wenmoth, 2010). pinelopi zaka explores the concept of blended learning in a secondary school, and how blended learning can help to change the ecosystem of a school. in her piece, which is consistent with the first two articles, zaka notes the importance of the teacher, editorial ii and the critical role that teachers play in positively affecting the climate of a school and adoption of a new form of educational delivery. this special issue also features two book reviews. the first is by darren sudlow, director of elearning for the cantanet elearning cluster (the first of the vln e-learning clusters). sudlow reviews e-learnings: implementing a national strategy for ict in education, 1998–2010, which is edited by vince ham and derek wenmoth of core education. this book examines numerous government initiatives and the effect those projects had on the delivery of education in new zealand. the second book review, by david adelstein, explores the lessons that those teaching online can learn from kerry rice’s making the move to k–12 online teaching: research-based strategies and practices. the special issue concludes with an interview with eddie reisch, conducted by hazel owens (director of ethos consultancy nz). reisch has been involved with virtual learning in new zealand for approximately two decades. owens’ interview with reisch explores a variety of national e-learning initiatives, and the direct effect that they have had on virtual learning. finally, we would like to conclude our editorial with a profound thank-you to mark nichols and ben kehrwald for their willingness to publish this special issue, and much gratitude to kate hunt for her editorial support throughout the process. michael barbour, wayne state university keryn pratt, university of otago references barbour, m. k. (2011a). primary and secondary e-learning: examining the process of achieving maturity. christchurch, new zealand: distance education association of new zealand. retrieved from http://www.vln.school.nz/mod/file/download.php?file_guid=114023 barbour, m. k. (2011b). the promise and the reality: exploring virtual schooling in rural jurisdictions. education in rural australia, 21(1), 1–20. davis, n. e. (2010). cinzs goes into virtual schooling. computers in new zealand schools: learning, teaching, technology, 22(1–2). retrieved from http://education2x.otago.ac.nz/cinzs/mod/resource/view.php?id=87 lowes, s. (2005). online teaching and classroom change: the impact of virtual high school on its teachers and their schools. naperville, il: learning point associates. retrieved from http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/publications/lowes_final.pdf rice, k., & dawley, l. (2007). going virtual: the status of professional development for k–12 online teachers. vienna, va: north american council for online learning. retrieved from http://edtech.boisestate.edu/goingvirtual/goingvirtual.htm wenmoth, d. (2010). the future: trends, challenges and opportunities. in v. ham & d. wenmoth (eds.), e-learnings: implementing a national strategy project for ict in education, 1998–2010. (pp. 196–203). christchurch, new zealand: core education. http://www.vln.school.nz/mod/file/download.php?file_guid=114023 http://education2x.otago.ac.nz/cinzs/mod/resource/view.php?id=87 http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/publications/lowes_final.pdf http://edtech.boisestate.edu/goingvirtual/goingvirtual.htm zaka, p. 24 a case study of blended teaching and learning in a new zealand secondary school, using an ecological framework pinelopi zaka, university of canterbury, e-learning lab abstract this paper reports on the findings of a case study that investigated how blended teaching and learning was implemented in a new zealand secondary school. an ecological perspective was taken to clarify the complexity of blended teaching and learning implementation by researching the roles of students, teachers, school leaders and other educational stakeholders, in and beyond the school. an ecological framework was developed that gives rise to several recommendations for individuals and groups within the three levels of the school’s multilevel ecology: the classroom, the school, and the wider ecosystem in which the school is located. keywords: e-learning; blended learning; school education introduction schools all around the world are increasingly using blended approaches that combine online and face-to-face teaching and learning (horn & staker, 2011). in new zealand, where school and home access to ultra-fast broadband (ufb) keeps increasing with the government’s ufb and ultra-fast broadband in schools (ufbis) initiative, schools have the opportunity to benefit from a range of blended learning opportunities. students in over 250 schools across the country can enrol in distance courses that are enabled by the virtual learning network (vln), in addition to the face-to-face courses that their schools offer (barbour, davis, & wenmoth, 2011; bolstad & lin, 2009). students in these courses experience blended distance learning because their vln courses combine online distance learning through video conference (vc) with their e-teacher, and asynchronous online learning at their school (or home) with the support of an onsite facilitator who is often called the e-dean. this type of learning fits with horn and staker’s (2011) description of the online lab model, where students, in addition to their face-to-face courses, can enrol in courses where they are taught entirely online by an online teacher, with the onsite assistance of an adult facilitator. at the same time, another blended approach has been developing in new zealand. in this approach, teachers implement online content to enhance their face-to-face classes, enabling students to experience blended web-enhanced learning. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 17(1) 25 research on blended teaching and learning research indicates that blended approaches involve a range of advantages for students including, but not limited to, increased flexibility (pratt & trewern, 2011; parkes, zaka, & davis, 2011), student engagement and motivation (barbour & reeves, 2009; wang & reeves, 2006), development of independent learning (bolstad & lin, 2009; parkes et al., 2011) and new ict skills (o’dwyer, carey, & kleiman, 2007; tunison & noonan, 2001). most importantly, e-learning, including blended approaches, is regarded as a means for educational reform, modernisation of schools, and increased access to a world-class education (powell & barbour, 2011). however, the effective implementation of blended approaches is a complex process, especially when aiming for educational change rather than supplementing traditional practices (davis, 2008). research indicates that some of the main challenges that emerge are linked to students and their readiness to learn in a blended environment (wright, 2010; bolstad & lin, 2009; o’dwyer et al., 2007), teachers and their commitment and capability to effectively teach through blended approaches (frailich, kesner, & hofstein, 2007; mupinga, 2005; parkes et al., 2011), and school leaders and their provision of adequate support to teachers and students (lee, 2006; parkes et al., 2011; stevens, 2011). given the growth of blended teaching and learning in new zealand and internationally (horn & staker, 2011) and the complexity of educational change as a result of information and communication technologies (ict), it is apparent that there is a need for further research on the use of blended approaches in schools and the implications for key stakeholders to inform professional and organisational development. in new zealand in particular, further research is needed at a time when the government is implementing ufbis, and the need to increase flexible learning opportunities becomes more and more important, especially in light of disruptions caused by natural hazards in the last 3 years (i.e. canterbury earthquakes, 2010–2011) (parkes et al., 2011). methodology in 2011 a case study was carried out to provide a rich and in-depth description of the use of blended teaching and learning in one new zealand secondary school. case studies allow for collection of rich descriptive data that are highly relevant to reality, therefore providing “a natural basis for generalization” (cohen, manion, & morrison, 2007, p. 256). the case study, which was part of the author’s master of education research (zaka, 2012), aimed to answer the main question: how is blended teaching and learning implemented in a rural new zealand secondary school? this question included four sub-questions (see appendix 1). in this article, in addition to the main question, the focus is on the fourth sub-question: what are the implications of implementing blended teaching and learning for students, teachers, school leaders and other educational stakeholders? before this case study, a pilot study was carried out in a new zealand urban high school (see parkes et al., 2011). the pilot study provided advance evidence of potential challenges during the research process and enabled the researcher to test the appropriateness of the data collection methods (teijlingen & hundley, 2002). informed by the case study designs described by yin (1994), the research investigated blended teaching and learning at one high-decile rural secondary school (years 7–13; approximately 750 students; 60 teaching staff) (main case). this school was one of the early adopters of blended approaches within its e-learning cluster, cantanet. the school’s vision was to enable students to become engaged and independent learners. using blended teaching and learning in the form of zaka, p. 26 blended web-enhanced or blended distance approaches was seen as a way to achieve this vision. within this main case there is also an embedded case of a class in which blended approaches were used. table 1 provides an overview of the research participants and their key characteristics. table 1 participants and their key characteristics participant key characteristics cantanet eprincipal  a strong supporter of blended approaches and networked learning, supported by the development of a regional ict pd cluster and its blp, in collaboration with westnet and the university of canterbury.  based at this school as a teacher, teaching through the vln. school principal  encouraging teacher experimentation with a variety of online tools, acknowledging the potential of blended approaches to enhance the school’s vision for engaged and independent student learning.  member of the rural e-learning cluster committee. teacher 1  teaching level 3 physics through blended distance approaches.  school’s e-dean.  one of the first teachers to teach through the vln in this school. teacher 2  blended distance course e-teacher and blended web-enhanced course teacher. the year of the study was her second year of teaching a blended distance course for year 11 french language students. teacher 3  planning to teach a blended web-enhanced course the following year for the first time in his senior technology class. teacher 4  blended web-enhanced course teacher, implementing a variety of online tools in her year 8 class, including e-portfolios, which she implemented for the first time in the year of the study. teacher 5  blended web-enhanced course teacher, implementing a variety of online tools in her year 7 face-to-face class for the third year, including e-portfolios, wikis and other web 2.0 tools. teacher 6  blended web-enhanced course teacher, using a variety of online tools in his year 9 form and science class, including e-portfolios, moodle and other web 2.0 tools.  early adopter of blended approaches in the school, involved in professional development offered by the regional ict pd cluster. students 1–6  mixed abilities and skills.  access to computers and internet from home, sharing a family computer, mainly used for social networking with friends, entertainment and homework.  using e-portfolios for the first time in the year 9 form and science class. have used other online tools in other classes. data collection methods involved: 1. an interview with the e-principal of the school’s e-learning cluster, cantanet 2. two interviews with the school principal 3. individual interviews with six teachers who are using blended approaches in their classes journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 17(1) 27 4. observations in the blended web-enhanced class of the embedded case 5. group interviews with six students from the same class 6. review of documents and web resources. grounded theory (strauss & corbin, 1990, p. 273) was used for the primary data analysis. data were analysed using codes and themes, and continuous interrogation was applied to include alternative interpretations and linkages (coffey & atkinson, 1996). after the primary analysis, davis’s (2008) ecological framework of change with digital technologies was used for secondary data analysis. embedding findings of the grounded analysis in this framework enabled the development of a new framework to discuss blended teaching and learning at the school and its implications for students, teachers, school leaders, and other educational stakeholders. as with any other case study, the findings of this research are grounded in the specific case and therefore have limited generalisability. however, a rich description of the selected case is attempted to enable the reader to generalise for similar contexts. key findings advantages and challenges blended teaching and learning, either in the form of blended web-enhanced or blended distance courses, involved a range of advantages. opportunities for independent learning blended approaches encouraged student-centred learning. as a result, the students developed independent learning skills that depended on their confidence, maturity, and available support. i have noticed an increase of independence when they are working…i don’t have to give them specific instructions of what to do. (teacher 6) …it is teaching them to manage themselves, clearly much more than a face-to-face class does. (teacher 2) students’ development of new ict skills the students developed new ict skills because they explored a variety of new tools in their classes. some students taught these skills to their parents who were less familiar with computer use. it was six months later and they still remembered how to get in [their e-portfolio] and ‘blog’ their learning, how to upload their assignments and all those things. (teacher 5) what was challenging for me at the beginning was learning how to work on the computers and how to put photos on there…it’s easy for me to do this now. (student 6) increased flexibility and student choice flexibility was enhanced for the students because they had extended learning opportunities beyond school hours. this was particularly important when access to the school was limited. it’s worked quite well. [during the 2011 snowstorms when the school was closed] a few that were keen obviously thought about it, got bored, got online and started doing their learning from home. (teacher 5) student choice was one of the most significant advantages of offering a blended programme that included blended distance courses in addition to face-to-face ones. at the time of the study, approximately ten students from the school were enrolled in blended distance courses, mainly as a result of timetable clashes with face-to-face courses offered at the school. zaka, p. 28 my year 11 is actually a video conference class, so i have students from other schools and also two students from this school. (teacher 2) more opportunities for interaction students in blended web-enhanced courses had more opportunities to interact online or face-toface with one another. some students also benefitted from face-to-face collaboration, while supporting or receiving support from other students in their class. some teacher participants mentioned that some students were developing useful online collaboration and communication skills. you got a web chat in the bottom [of your e-portfolio], you can always ask questions. (student 4) the students did enjoy looking at others’ e-portfolios and there was some good constructive feedback given by the students to each other. (teacher 6) increased student engagement and motivation student engagement and motivation increased for a range of reasons, such as the opportunity to work independently, use multimedia, learn new ict skills, or showcase their work to others, including their parents. …they knew that if they did a really good piece of work, then that piece of work goes on the [class e-portfolio] page. (teacher 4) i like it because it gives me time to do my own stuff. (student 3) encouraging parental involvement some students’ actions in teaching their parents the new ict skills they were developing at school resulted in parents being more involved in their learning. parental involvement also increased because parents could easily access examples of students’ work online. the internet allows greater connections with parents, the teacher, the school, the students— they see what is going on and evidence of learning getting involved. (e-principal) i’ve recently set up my own pages for parents. i was really surprised how well parents have responded to that. (teacher 4) using blended approaches also raised several challenges. limited access issues student access to adequate resources at home was a challenge, mainly due to the slow speed of their home internet connection. the school was already responsive to increased resource demands, but as the number of teachers experimenting with blended approaches increased, some teacher participants expressed concern about the current resources and their access to them. kids are on dial up…the difference between dial up and broadband isn’t just the speed, it’s the way that you use things. (teacher 6) i need to be able to make sure i’ve got access to the resources, to the computers when i need it. there will be other people needing them… (teacher 3) students’ low readiness for blended learning students’ low readiness to learn in a blended environment was an important challenge, especially in terms of learning independently and confidently, and effectively interacting online, as well as understanding the usefulness of the implemented practices. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 17(1) 29 that will depend on the individual, how well they can do this and manage themselves …there are students who can do that, but there are students who struggle with that. (teacher 3) they just don’t talk to each other [online] that much really (teacher 1) capacity building among teachers the potential to build capacity among teachers was a challenge at the school, especially in terms of using teaching in a blended environment with adequate pedagogical foundations. this challenge encompassed increased time demands, some teachers’ attitudes towards blended teaching and learning, and pedagogical approaches that needed to change to teach in a blended environment. it’s good to have the e-portfolio pages with the kids…but are they going to be able to continue next year? it depends on who the teacher is. (teacher 4) i think that i kind of found my personal approach and techniques in my face-to-face class, but i don’t feel that i’m still that comfortable with the video conference. (teacher 2) parental support despite increased parental involvement in student learning as a result of blended approaches, some teachers experienced limited support from parents. teachers explained that this issue often occurred because of parents’ limited knowledge of how blended approaches could support student learning. a lot of parents contacted me thinking [students’ online activities] are games. (teacher 4) [my parents] don’t like the fact that it’s all going on to computers. because if your computer breaks down or something, everything is gone. (student 2) usability of tools most participants noted that, despite the affordances of blended learning, some usability challenges prevent them from effectively using online tools. this also challenged the goal of seamless blend of online tools with face-to-face teaching and learning. there is a huge amount [online tools] can do, but the different tools don’t necessarily interact that well together. (school principal) [one student] said “facebook is way easier than this [e-portfolio]”. made me think that he was probably right. (teacher 6) an ecological perspective taking an ecological perspective, davis (2008) presented a framework that shows the many varieties of stakeholders and their organisations that hold important roles in the process of change with ict in schools. teachers “are the keystone species in the educational ecologies of the twenty-first century world” (davis, 2008, p. 517), but the whole school ecology (including individual teachers, students and school leaders) is also affected by a range of external organisations (professional, bureaucratic, political, commercial/open educational resources [oer]). embedding the findings of this study in davis’ (2008) ecological framework illustrates the complexity of educational change with blended approaches and the multiple connected threads affecting and being affected by the process of change. figure 1 presents a view of the school ecology and the multiple organisations and stakeholders that affect/are affected by the development of blended teaching and learning at the school. the framework is also informed by zaka, p. 30 fullan and stiegelbauer’s (1991) model on the meaning of educational change that acknowledges multiple change agents. figure 1 davis, eickelman, and zaka (in press), adapted from zaka (2012) © 2012 google inc. all rights reserved. mahara logo © catalyst it ltd. (new zealand) the class in which blended teaching and learning is implemented is at the centre of the figure. the students and the teacher (or e-teacher, in the case of courses through the vln) are in the centre, affecting/being affected by the implementation of blended approaches. this class is positioned within the rural secondary school, where there are additional teachers/e-teachers (one of whom is also the e-dean) the school principal, as well as parents/community, who also have an effect on the development of blended approaches at the school. the school is placed in a wider context, where professional organisations, such as the rural e-learning cluster, the regional ict pd cluster, and the vln and its community of schools are also part of the school’s ecology. bureaucratic organisations (such as the ministry of education), political organisations (such as the new zealand government), and commercial/oer organisations also affect the school’s ecology. the ways in which organisations and stakeholders are interrelated is now described, beginning from the class and then moving out towards stakeholders and organisations in the outer ecosystems in which the school is located. the student the findings in this study suggest that blended approaches had a direct effect on students’ learning experiences, because they benefited from a range of advantages (as presented earlier) such as opportunities for independent learning, increased engagement and motivation, flexibility and student choice. in addition to being affected by blended approaches, students also had an effect on the uptake and effectiveness of blended teaching and learning. fullan and stiegelbauer (1991) argue that students are members of the school as an organisation and are therefore important stakeholders in the change process. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 17(1) 31 students’ attitudes and expectations to use blended learning in their classes contributed to the development of blended teaching and learning at the school. as the school principal explained: …they’ll talk to their friends, the friends talk to the teacher, the parents talk to them. so you build up kind of a ‘moral pressure’ almost to make changes and to get things happening. (school principal) the students’ role was also important in encouraging parental involvement in their learning. some students’ actions in teaching their parents new ict skills led to involving the parents more in their learning. however, there was not enough evidence to further indicate students’ effect on parental involvement. student readiness to learn in a blended environment also had a direct effect on the implementation of blended approaches, as discussed earlier. such difficulties mainly related to the students’ low confidence in learning independently during their self-study, either at school or from home. for example, one of the students commented: i always double-check with the teacher…because you may understand it but not be sure if that’s the right task—that’s probably the problem that i get sometimes. (student 5) this not only illustrates the importance of the effect of individual students on how blended teaching and learning is implemented, but also indicates the direct implications for teachers and parents who need to provide students with adequate support, as discussed in the following section. the teacher the teacher, the keystone species in the education ecosystem (zhao & frank, 2003; davis, 2008), has one of the most important roles in change with blended approaches because “educational change depends on what teachers do and think” (fullan & stiegelbauer, 1991, p. 117). the teachers in this study enriched their teaching with a variety of resources, depending on their confidence to experiment with blended approaches. teachers’ use of online tools varied from incorporating simple web 2.0 tools in their face-to-face classes, to implementing digital portfolios, online learning environments, and vc tools. some teacher participants and students shared their concerns about other teachers’ involvement with blended approaches, as the adoption of blended teaching and learning was not yet widespread. for example: it would be great if i could pass this [year 7] class to a class in year 8 where they would have such an ict-rich environment. (teacher 5) blended teaching changed the role of teachers, who were encouraged to move away from their traditional role towards facilitating student-centred learning. as the school principal explained, the degree of change depended on teachers’ attitudes and their curriculum area, confirming that teachers are not only affected, but also have an effect on change with blended approaches. you are trying to change peoples’ ways of doing things and…teachers are remarkably resilient as a group to big changes. (school principal) teachers needed to be adequately prepared to effectively support students who were learning in a blended environment. however, teacher participants explained that capacity building, including learning how to effectively implement blended approaches and supporting students, was one of their biggest challenges. for example, teacher participants commented that they were willing to walk the extra mile, but some also shared their concerns about the need for effective professional development in conjunction with increased time demands and busy workloads. of course, this zaka, p. 32 further affects the decisions of school leaders and other educational stakeholders who have to address teachers’ increased need for professional development, as discussed later. teachers were encouraged to engage in self-directed professional development, often led by themselves in communities of practice. they formed formal or informal interest groups and worked together to develop their knowledge and skills, sharing their experiences and suggestions. for example: we do have three teachers here that are teaching through vc, so we talk to each other. i know for example our e-dean is always more than happy to help. (teacher 2) the attitudes and willingness of the teaching staff to engage in this form of professional development affected their and other teachers’ capacity building. for example, teacher 6 shared the enthusiasm and knowledge he was developing through the regional blp with other staff at the school and with colleagues from other schools involved in the regional blp. the school principal explained that: …the things that [teacher 6] is picking up and learning and developing with the blended learning, sort of come through with his enthusiasm and his support for people implementing lmss like moodle. (school principal) of course, the role of school leadership in encouraging a supportive culture is essential, as discussed in the following section. the school principal outside the classroom, fullan and stiegelbauer (1991) argue that educational change depends not only on teachers’ attitudes and practices, but also on the school leadership team. based on his experience with different schools across the cluster, the e-principal of cantanet commented that, regardless of what teachers do, school leadership is essential in supporting teachers and stimulating change with blended approaches. he explained that school principals’ attitudes towards change varied in schools across the cluster. we might have teachers doing innovative things but without leadership [there will not be change]—and that’s where the main challenge is. (e-principal) in this school, the principal had a very positive attitude to blended teaching and learning, acknowledging the importance of effective pedagogy rather than the use of ict as an end in itself. our focus is not that various ict and online tools are the answer, but they are just a tool. at the base you still need to have good teaching. (school principal) the principal encouraged experimentation with new tools depending on teachers’ and students’ needs, and encouraged teachers to create their own professional development groups (e.g. moodle professional development [pd] group, e-portfolio pd group). …all the teachers have a key goal that they choose themselves…we haven’t at this point put any restrictions. (school principal) the school principal also acknowledged the importance of sharing skills and knowledge, not only among teachers at the same school, but also among teachers from different schools. he supported the school’s involvement in the regional ict pd cluster and the blp, and the school’s active participation in the contributing school’s ict pd cluster and its digital citizenship project. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 17(1) 33 the role of the school leadership was also very important in providing teachers and students with adequate infrastructure to support blended teaching and learning. as discussed earlier, the school was already responsive to increased resource demands and was planning to further improve the available infrastructure. the school also planned to move towards a bring your own device (byod) policy to make the blend of online and face-to-face teaching more seamless. of course, the availability of resources at the school also depended on other factors (e.g. internet speed, cost of resources, funding), as discussed later. the parents/community fullan and stiegelbauer (1991) argue that, although parents/community are important stakeholders affecting educational reform, their role “has been both sadly neglected and underestimated” (p. 246). in this study, the school principal explained that there is often a driver from parents who, when they have seen the benefits of blended learning in one class, expect their children to experience blended learning in more classes. however, based on his observations in schools across the cluster, the e-principal commented parents often slow down the rate of change to using blended approaches because it does not correspond with their expectations of schooling: there’s also parents’ expectations of school and what it is like, it’s their own experience of it, so there’s a real challenge there as well. (e-principal) some teacher participants confirmed that some parents’ traditional views of education prevented them from understanding the rationale behind implementing blended approaches. this had implications for students, who needed support from their parents at home as well as access to adequate infrastructure. i’ve got about five students in my class at the moment who are not allowed to use the computers at home, because their parents fear that they use them too much. (teacher 5) however, the e-principal talked about the potential of blended approaches to change parents’ attitudes by strengthening home–school connections and parental involvement. although this was not reported by the majority of teacher participants, teacher 4 confirmed: i’ve recently set up my own pages for parents. i was really surprised how well parents have responded to that. (teacher 4) the parental role was also important in ensuring that students had adequate access to computers and internet from home. most students had access to only dial-up internet and, because they were living in a rural area, it may not have been possible to provide students with high internet speed. this illustrates the further implications for other key organisations, as discussed in the following section. professional, bureaucratic, commercial and political organisations outside the school context, professional organisations in the school’s district and wider region (such as the rural e-learning cluster [cantanet], the regional ict pd cluster, and the contributing schools’ ict pd cluster), affected the development of blended teaching and learning at the school. the e-principal talked about cantanet’s approach and vision to change school structures with blended approaches and to encourage personalised and networked learning. the cluster has employed several approaches to support this vision and effect on teachers’ and school leaders’ attitudes, including the development of the regional ict pd cluster in collaboration with westnet and the university of canterbury, involving more than 30 schools in the region, providing professional development through the blp. the school principal shared that: zaka, p. 34 the impact [of the blp] has been more related to the fact that the teacher who was doing it also serves as an ict expert at the school. (school principal) the school was also involved in the contributing schools’ ict pd cluster, where teachers and school leaders from the involved schools collaborated and supported one another to implement blended approaches, while also aiming to develop a digital citizenship curriculum for the students in primary and secondary schools in the area. the ict pd initiative was funded by the new zealand ministry of education, a bureaucratic organisation. the initiative enables schools across the country to connect, share and develop teachers’ and school leaders’ professional learning. however, both the e-principal and the school principal commented that the year after this study would be the last year of funding from the ministry of education for the ict pd clusters. the e-principal expressed his concerns: the challenge will be when that funding finishes—how can we continue that? because resourcing and funding are always the big problems and challenges with schools. (e-principal) the school’s involvement in the vln, also managed by the new zealand ministry of education, changed the way students learned by providing them with opportunities to enrol in blended distance courses, in addition to face-to-face courses at their school, at the same time encouraging teachers to experiment with new tools in their face-to-face courses. for example, many teachers from the school engaged in professional development on using moodle in the face-to-face classroom. this training was developed as a result of the school’s involvement in the vln. the effect of commercial/oer organisations was also evident in this study, because the availability of tools affected participants’ attitudes and practices. the school principal explained that teachers were experimenting with tools in their classes as more became available, developing their skills and confidence at the same time. some of these tools encouraged the use of student-centred approaches in the class, which had a direct effect on teachers’ pedagogy, while others encouraged the strengthening of home–school relationships (e.g. vln e-portfolio by mahara), improvement of students’ quality of work (e.g. various web 2.0 tools, such as voicethread, animoto) as well as connectedness and collaboration between schools (e.g. regional cluster’s moodle, vln portfolio by mahara). participants talked about the importance of increasing the ease of use and compatibility of online tools, indicating further implications for commercial/oer organisations in improving these aspects: i am looking forward to a time when the usability is easy, the reliability to pull together different things and they work together quite nicely. (school principal) the effect of commercial/oer organisations was also evident considering the costs incurred by schools to provide adequate access to resources. the cost of updating and sustaining the infrastructure was mentioned by the school principal as a factor affecting change. he contended that, as portable devices become more affordable, it will be easier for the school to encourage students to bring their own digital devices to class. finally, most adult participants talked about the challenge of limited access to the internet, either at school or from home, as a consequence of being in a rural area. participants in this study expect that the new zealand government’s ufb initiative will address this issue, indicating the important role of political organisations in the process of change: once we all get to fibre and start giving some capacity building in terms of the online side of things, i think that will make real change. (e-principal) journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 17(1) 35 conclusions and recommendations this case study illustrates the complexity of educational change with blended teaching and learning that involves many contributing factors, in and beyond the school. the role of the teacher as the keystone species in the educational ecosystem is acknowledged (zhao & frank, 2003; davis, 2008), but the study also identifies the roles of other stakeholders such as school leaders, students, parents/community and individuals involved in professional, bureaucratic, commercial/oer and political organisations. the findings correspond with existing research literature and give rise to several recommendations that can inform professional and organisational development. three main categories are used to group these recommendations, addressing individuals in the classroom, the school, and the wider ecosystem in which schools are embedded. however, given the methodological limitations of this case study, researching only one school and individuals from within the specific context, the following recommendations need to be taken cautiously. the classroom in the classroom context, it is important to develop effective partnerships among teachers, students, and parents. key recommendations towards achieving this goal include: gradual student transition from traditional to independent learning although blended learning encouraged students to learn independently, their low readiness to learn in a blended environment was a significant challenge that was found in this case study and also confirmed by other relevant research (e.g. bolstad & lin, 2009; parkes et al., 2011). the teacher’s role, or the role of an onsite facilitator, is very important in effectively supporting students to overcome such challenges (parkes et al., 2011; pratt & trewern, 2011; stevens, 2011). teachers/onsite facilitators may need to provide more direct support at the beginning and then gradually increase learner control (depending on students’ skills and confidence) therefore allowing students to gradually become more familiar with independent learning. clear explanation of learning goals and objectives student challenges in learning independently, their increased need for more guidance and their difficulties in understanding the usefulness of some implemented practices, were not unexpected in this study. students often face difficulties in using ict educationally, as reported by the literature (e.g wright, 2010; parkes et al., 2011). the need for student input has been a key recommendation of studies researching student engagement with ict at school (e.g. spires, lee & turner, 2008). therefore, ensuring that students have a clear understanding of the learning goals, while at the same time encouraging them to take part in the process of goal setting, is recommended to inform teachers’ practices and pedagogy and to enable them to provide students with adequate support. interactive parent–teacher communication parents’ attitudes affected teachers’ decisions about blended teaching and learning, as found in this study and also confirmed by the literature (e.g. wellington, 2005; luckin et al., 2009), indicating the need for parent–teacher communication. this can be achieved by sharing student learning through online tools that also provide parents with opportunities for input, in order to increase their involvement in student learning (grant, 2009). this will enhance parents’ understanding of the usefulness of the implemented practices, enabling them to provide adequate support to teachers and students. at the same time teachers will be more aware of the implications that blended learning involves for parents to inform the planning of their implemented approaches. zaka, p. 36 the school for these partnerships to work in the class, it is also necessary to have a supportive culture within the school itself. this culture includes the following elements. in-school professional development teachers’ capacity-building challenges, including increased demands on their time, their attitudes towards blended approaches, and their pedagogical approaches were evident in this study and were also confirmed by the literature (e.g. parkes et al., 2011; ward, 2008). not all teachers in the school were willing to walk the extra mile and experiment with new approaches, but for the teachers who were already using or were interested in blended teaching, engaging in professional development at the school enabled them to support one another and share their ideas and concerns. providing teachers with in-school professional development opportunities can contribute to teachers’ capacity-building regarding blended teaching, but may also enable collective professional growth at the school through communities of practice (lai, pratt, anderson, & stigter, 2006). teacher choice, balanced with adequate guidance the opportunities for teachers to experiment with new tools and engage in professional development—depending on their own needs and confidence—were important for their capacity building. that the role of the school principal is pivotal in encouraging this culture is also confirmed by relevant literature (e.g. zhao & frank, 2003; davis et al., in press). findings in this research and other studies also indicate that teachers often need extra support when they start to experiment with new tools (frailich et al., 2007; lee, 2006). enabling teacher choice, balanced with adequate guidance, encourages experimentation with new approaches, but at the same time it points teachers in the right direction for further support, depending on their needs and confidence. access to adequate infrastructure at the school teacher participants talked about the challenges of having access to adequate infrastructure at the school owing to increased resource demands from other teachers. this is a common challenge also reported by other studies (e.g. bingimlas, 2009). for some students in this study, using the available resources at the school was their only option when engaging in blended learning, because they have limited access to resources at home. as lee (2006) argues, adequate access to hardware and software is essential for effective implementation of blended teaching and learning in schools. providing teachers and students with adequate access to resources at school is therefore necessary to enable more seamless implementation of blended teaching and learning. the wider ecosystem in which schools are located in order for schools to effectively provide the above-mentioned support, there needs to be a supportive culture from organisations beyond the school itself. for example, professional, bureaucratic, political and commercial/oer organisations can provide/implement: opportunities for out-of-school professional development although most schools encourage in-school professional development, few take the next step and support teacher engagement in networks outside the school walls (riel, 2009). in this study, opportunities for professional development beyond the school contributed to teachers’ capacitybuilding and the growth of blended learning at the school, and enhanced the school’s collaboration with other schools. given the benefits of collaboration in online communities of practice (lai et al., 2006) professional organisations such as universities and e-learning clusters are recommended to provide/continue providing professional development and support that is customised to differing school needs, while at the same time encouraging teachers, e-deans, and school leaders from different schools to work together online, regardless of their location. journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 17(1) 37 financial support and visionary policies initiatives funded by the ministry of education (e.g., funding for ict pd clusters) contributed to teachers’ capacity-building and to the growth of blended teaching and learning at the school— this agrees with findings from relevant research (powell & barbour, 2011). participants also expect that blended approaches will further develop with the roll-out of ufbis, funded by the new zealand government. bureaucratic and political organisations are recommended to provide/continue to provide financial support and to implement visionary policies regarding e-learning, targeting professional organisations and the wider educational context and considering the needs of schools. capacity-building among schools and the development of a common vision towards teaching and learning in the 21st century can therefore be enhanced. affordable, reliable tools, incorporating 21st-century learning affordances the school principal explained that the availability and cost of tools affects teachers’ decisions about blended approaches, and on school-wide decisions that relate to blended learning. the online tools used by teachers and students incorporated several affordances and constraints which facilitated or prevented teachers from effectively implementing blended teaching and learning. gilbert (2007) acknowledges the potential of ict to change education by enabling collaboration, multi-media literacy, and active knowledge building. it is therefore important that commercial organisations/oer continue to develop affordable, reliable and easy-to-use tools that are compatible in and across schools in new zealand, and to consider the needs of today’s schools and teachers’ level of confidence. acknowledgements the author wishes to thank her master of education research supervisors, professor niki davis and nick dabner for their valuable support, encouragement and useful critiques of this research. the contributions of the e-principal of cantanet, and the school—including its leadership, the teachers and students—are also greatly appreciated. this research is part of the ongoing work of the university of canterbury e-learning lab. references barbour, m., davis, n. e., & wenmoth, d. 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(2003, nov–dec). teacher practice and the integration of ict: why aren’t our secondary school teachers using computers in their classrooms? paper presented at the 2003 joint nzare/aare conference ‘educational research, risks, and dilemmas’, auckland. wellington, j. (2005). has ict come of age? recurring debates on the role in education, 1982– 2004. research in science & technological education, 23(1), 25–39. wright, n. (2010). e-learning and implications for new zealand schools: a literature review. wellington, new zealand: ministry of education. retrieved from http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/ict/77614. yin, r. (1994). case study research: design and methods. (2nd ed.). thousand oaks, ca: sage. zhao, y., & frank, k. a. (2003). factors affecting technology uses in schools: an ecological perspective. american educational research journal, 40(4), 807–840. zaka, p. a. (2012). blended teaching and learning in a new zealand rural secondary school: using an ecological framework. unpublished master’s thesis, university of canterbury, christchurch, new zealand. http://edusummit.nl/archive/resultssummit/interviews/riel http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/ict/77614 zaka, p. 40 appendix 1 research questions (as designed for the author’s master of education research) main question: how is blended teaching and learning implemented in a rural new zealand secondary school? sub-questions: 1. how do school leaders experience the implementation of blended teaching and learning at the school? 2. how do teachers experience the implementation of blended teaching and learning at the school and what are their practices with blended teaching in their classes? 3. what are the practices in one blended class and how do the teacher and the students experience blended teaching and learning in the same class? 4. what are the implications of implementing blended teaching and learning for students, teachers, school leaders, and other educational stakeholders? biographical notes pinelopi zaka pinelopi.zaka@gmail.com pinelopi zaka is a primary-trained teacher, specialising in e-learning and digital technologies in education and science education. her research interests include blended school education, educational change with digital technologies, and e-learning in science teaching and learning. she is a science educator at science alive – the new zealand science centre, and a project assistant at the university of canterbury e-learning lab. � this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. zaka, p. (2013). a case study of blended teaching and learning in a new zealand secondary school, using an ecological framework. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 17(1), [24–40]. mailto:pinelopi.zaka@gmail.com http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ fields, a. engaging learner support: an investigation of faculty—library collaboration to provide live coursespecific learner support in the online classroom environment alison fields, open polytechnic of new zealand abstract collaboration between faculty and learner support can create seamless services for e-learners. providing access to learning materials and activities with co-located tailored learner support creates an environment in which e-learners can easily access everything they need for an enhanced, supported, and more focused learning experience. the emerging practice of embedding live librarians in online tertiary classrooms provides a new avenue for such learner support, and forms a natural extension of the library links and resources which are routinely found on online campuses, library websites, and some online course pages. embedded librarians can actively direct students to tailored library resources and tutorials and assist students directly, often in a library discussion forum, with their specific information and referencing questions. this paper reports on research into the nature and effectiveness of using embedded librarians in online classrooms in new zealand, and takes a multi-faceted view of this emerging practice. findings illustrate the benefits of this new form of e-learner support and identify potential pitfalls through increasing engagement with relevant and pertinent information resources to support their learning. keywords: e-learning; online classroom; embedded librarians; online library services; learner support introduction student engagement with learner support is needed in online education as much as it is in other forms of educational delivery. placing support in the environment in which students actively learn—specifically inside the online classroom—is one such tactic for increasing students’ engagement with learning support and bringing it to the students at their point of need. a more supported and focused learning experience can be delivered to students by combining or co-locating learner support with the learning materials and activities in a course of study. thorpe (2002) identified that “[l]earner support in odl refers to the meeting of needs that all learners have because they are central to high quality learning—guidance about course choice, preparatory diagnosis, study skills, access to group learning in seminars and tutorials, and so on” (p. 107). in this context, one aspect of learner support is the provision of library services to online and distance learning (odl) students. that provision is the focus of this paper. 46 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) a librarian is defined as “a professionally trained person responsible for the care of a library and its contents, including the selection, processing, and organization of materials and the delivery of information, instruction, and loan services to meet the needs of its users” (reitz, 2013). current literature indicates librarians are no longer confined to the library and traditional library services, but are increasingly being strategically placed as participants in online courses where interaction with students is more immediate and tailored to individual needs (brindley, walti, & zawackirichter, 2004; florea, 2008; guillot, stahr, & meeker, 2010). there are now also instances where librarians are not only helping to support learners in the online classroom, they are also collaborating with faculty for content suggestions, course assignments, and course design (westpawl, 2012). the term ‘embedded librarian’ was coined only a decade ago, with dewey being credited with first using the term in her seminal 2004 article where she states that “[o]vert purposefulness makes embedding an appropriate definition of the most comprehensive collaborations for librarians in the higher education community” (dewey, 2004, p. 6). the practice of embedding librarians directly into various work units and operational groups in business organisations is now reasonably established (shumaker, 2011). in online courses, an embedded librarian becomes an integral part of the online teaching space in which student learning happens (xiao, 2012). this allows librarians to meet online students at their point of need. an embedded librarian who is included as a participant of an online course can deliver both standard library services and those that are tailored to the particular classroom and the students within it. embedded librarians can actively direct the students to tailored library resources and tutorials that are suitable for their studies. they can also assist individual students, often in library discussion forums, with specific information and referencing questions. this paper reports on current research in the area of embedded librarianship. the purpose of this research is to understand how this new embedded librarian model of learner support works, particularly in the new zealand online learning environment. this research will allow opportunities specific to the presence of embedded librarians in the online tertiary classroom to be more readily and purposefully used, and help us to maximise the value of this form of learner support. it also aims to identify where we can make gains for increasing engagement with learner support in the online tertiary environment. literature review this literature review is an outline of previous research in the field of learner support and embedded librarianship. while the field of learner support is well-established and developed, the nexus of these two fields is at present relatively small because the phenomenon of embedded librarians within online education is a recent innovation. learner support in tertiary education, it is recognised that not all learners will necessarily undertake or complete all of the tasks and activities they need for successful learning. they might need some support to complete some learning experiences and to gain skills for independent and lifelong learning (mcloughlin, 2002; laurillard, 2002). learner support in campus-based tertiary education has traditionally referred to services that are available to manage “personal difficulties which grow too great for the student to handle alone” (thorpe, 2002, p. 107), and includes other services (such as academic advice and study skills) that apply to the wider student body (thorpe, 2002). in online education, however, the support needs of students can encompass a wider range, and they might need traditional as well as new learner support. learner support in the online environment focuses more specifically on complementing and enhancing the learning experience, and may include support outside the online classroom (such as academic advice, 47 fields, a. study skills, information literacy, research advice, and guidance on accessing and making good use of services provided by the educational institution), support in the online classroom (such as learning materials, faculty or tutors, librarians and library services), and support for communicating in the distance and online environment (such as support for media and technology) (keegan, 1996; mcloughlin, 2002; thorpe, 2002). embedded librarians the expansion of library and information services beyond the traditional library setting was identified by smith and sutton (2010), who state: “the classic notion of the library as a repository for materials must be superseded by the philosophy of the library as an active partner in the information experience” (p. 92). this change of perspectives is indicative of library services moving out of the library and into the spaces where students are, to provide assistance at the point of need and to bring more holistic library services into the learning experiences of tertiary students. in addition to dewey’s (2004) definition of embedded librarians, a more recent definition comes from outspoken embedded-librarian proponent david shumaker, who describes the change in focus for librarians entering the online classroom as “shifting the model from transactional to high trust collaboration, and shared responsibility for outcomes” (shumaker & talley, 2009, p. 9). shumaker therefore signals the change from external support on demand to proactive support from within the students’ core learning environment. embedded librarians in online tertiary education are often described in terms of their tasks and their roles, such as working closely over extended periods of time with non-library groups by joining a semesterlong course, maintaining an ongoing presence in online courses, participating in broad curriculum planning efforts, or joining the staff of academic departments, clinic settings, or performing groups (kvenild & calkins, 2011). while the literature on embedded librarians in online tertiary classrooms has been relatively small to date, this type of literature is growing as the uptake of online delivery of courses at the tertiary level expands. xiao (2012) notes this ‘surge’ in the literature and identifies ways in which librarians are providing distance or online services, including facilitating access to the library’s electronic resources, online research guides, virtual reference services, discussion boards, and embeddedness in faculty-led online courses. although a growing number of case studies of online classrooms using embedded librarians are reported in the literature (e.g., leonard & mccaffrey, 2014; chisholm & lamond, 2012; hawes, 2011; matthew & schroeder, 2006), there are only a few empirical studies of the usage and effects of embedded librarians (bennett & simning, 2010; barnard & weaver, 2011; kumar, edwards, & ochoa, 2010) and there are even fewer studies of the perceptions of faculty, librarians, or students in this context (carrico & neff, 2012; edwards, kumar & ochoa, 2010; yousef, 2010). to date, no studies have been identified that consider the viewpoints of all three groups together, or the nature of the relationships between them. this indicates a gap in the literature in this area. the new zealand context and experience of embedded librarians although references to embedded librarians in new zealand are few, they have appeared more regularly in the literature in very recent years. one of the first to appear describes the work of librarians embedded in 40 online postgraduate courses at massey university’s college of education (chisholm & lamond, 2012). findings include the need for faculty endorsement and collaboration, together with careful selection and placement of library resources in the online environment, for this practice to work effectively. another study describes the online embedded librarian programme at the open polytechnic of new zealand, in which librarians perform a combination of reference work, user education, and placing of learning objects—all set within a partnership with faculty (fields & clarke, 2014). again, the importance of faculty–librarian collaboration for the successful delivery and uptake of this form of learner support is acknowledged. 48 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) in an article that looks at embedding librarians in face-to-face teaching programmes, librarians brebner and reid (2012) outline their experience of delivering information literacy programmes in two different subject areas at auckland university. their work was readily accepted in law— the law librarians teach undergraduate zero-credit legal research courses and provide more general support for law students in other courses. in contrast, the fine arts and art history faculty showed less enthusiasm for embedded library services because they perceived less relevance for information literacy in a discipline that focuses not so much on the written word as on visual orientation (brebner & reid, 2012). there is a growing acknowledgement that the methods and level of collaboration between faculty and librarians is influenced by the nature of the subject (brebner & reid, 2012; krkosa, andrews, & morris-knower, 2011; matthew & schroeder, 2006; mounce, 2010) and, as a result, approaches tailored to each discipline may be warranted (brebner & reid, 2012). in summary, the literature demonstrates an acceptance that library ‘embeddedness’ in the student learning space of the online classroom is a welcome addition for effective learning. in addition, partnership and collaboration between faculty and librarians is cited as necessary to maximise the value of this form of learner support. more importantly, three further areas for consideration have been identified. firstly, because the practice of embedding librarians is a relatively recent development in this new environment, there are specific opportunities to identify and exploit. such opportunities can be found in the education environment, but others may be identified by examining the roles of librarians who are fully embedded in business and corporate teams beyond academia (shumaker & talley, 2009). secondly, relationships (including creating and managing expectations and perceptions) are vital for understanding and successfully delivering embedded library and information services. these relationships require real and ongoing communication to be built and maintained, and warrant further exploration (carrico & neff, 2012; hoffman, 2011; shumaker, 2011; yousef, 2010). thirdly, different approaches may need to be taken for considering student–faculty-embedded librarian relationships and embedded library services in different disciplines so they cater for these classes, and to deliver the services in the most appropriate ways. disciplines have different information needs and different approaches to searching for and using information (brebner & reid, 2012; brower, 2011; krkosa, andrews & morris-knower, 2011; mounce, 2010). methods a multi-faceted approach was taken to data collection. first, an overview of the academic literature and current professional discussions on the use of embedded librarians gave the context and underlying understanding of this new form of learner support. this overview was followed by a case study of the practice of embedded librarians at the open polytechnic of new zealand. a variety of data-gathering methods was designed to produce a fuller picture of this new practice. aspects that may be particular to any of the groups of participants may be more fully explored using a combination of methods. additional new zealand tertiary education providers will be researched in future to gain an overall picture of this new practice in the new zealand context. although the literature has a global focus, this research is set largely within the context of new zealand and focuses only on tertiary education institutes, so these two parameters form the initial limits of the study. literature review the review of the literature (outlined above) placed embedded librarians in the broad context of learner support and operation specifically in the environment of the online classroom at tertiary level. the review was conducted across an international range of peer-review journals and 49 fields, a. conference websites in both education and library science. from new zealand, the reported literature included both peer-review and non-peer review journals and conference presentations in education and library science. more general journal databases with high new zealand content were also considered to gain a fuller picture of the local understanding and use of this new practice. although descriptions of embedded librarian practice have not generally predated dewey’s seminal 2004 work, key articles concerning learner support were drawn from a much longer time period. professional mailing lists and blogs to supplement the formal literature, a scan of major professional mailing lists was also conducted. this scan focused on mailing lists concerned with online education, online learner support, and distance library services. discussions relating to embedded librarians featured sporadically in some, but others provided a good deal of information, and showed the concerns and practices of those working in this area. the most relevant and fruitful of these mailing lists were nz-libs (discussion of library and information services in new zealand) and dls-l@ala.org (discussion list for members of acrl’s distance learning section). a few professional blogs, including shumaker’s embedded librarian, were identified and scanned to glean further revelations of the current professional concerns and directions of this relatively new learner support service. interviews with faculty and embedded librarians at a new zealand tertiary institution in 2013, a number of semi-structured interviews were conducted with faculty and embedded librarians at the open polytechnic of new zealand to seek their understanding and experience of the embedded librarian service. these interviews were conducted in collaboration with the open polytechnic’s library manager. respondents gave helpful and often frank replies, discussed the benefits and drawbacks of embedded learner support, and identified areas for future research. results and discussion results that emerged from the gathered information and data fall into several categories—some results bridge categories, and others have a more specific focus. these categories include the express need for learner support at the point of learning or the point of students’ need; the importance of faculty–librarian collaboration for successful results; the increasing range of roles that librarians can take to complement learning already taking place in the online classroom; the importance of developing and maintaining relationships between all parties in the online classroom; and some practical difficulties and sticking points which have been encountered in the online classroom. these results are outlined and discussed below, together with a discussion of the importance of each in this emerging field. the express need for learner support at the point of learning the theory on learning support is well documented in the literature, and there are arguments for providing skills and support ahead of time (just in case) as well as at the point of learning or the point of need (just in time). one point that came clearly out of the professional mailing lists and blogs is that, in the online learning environment, students are seeking assistance from traditional library sites and links in far smaller numbers, and are spending more time on their course pages and less on other online pages on their institution’s site. a burgeoning debate in the american library association’s distance library services mailing list began by identifying this trend with a plea for ideas to address the challenging situation: 50 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) as much i as love creating online [information literacy] tutorials, i am at the point where i know that the no. of tutorials are [sic] getting unwieldy and the tutorials are in silos. i have an info literacy page [url removed], but i know that students are not accessing this page. does anyone have ideas for moving this info into places where students can access it. a few of these tutorials have made their way onto subject guides. virtually any of these tutorials could be put on each subject guide, but the pages would get cluttered. have any of you been successful at promoting your information literacy tutorials to your students. is there a better way to present the information than collecting the links to various pages/videos on one page? (allen, 2014) a flurry of responses followed, all confirming the issue and identifying tactics that have been successful in other institutions. these tactics included working with faculty to embed the tutorials in courses, or assigning them as homework; organising the tutorials around subject themes and placing them strategically in courses just before assignments are set; and placing the tutorials under new names and in new places in the course. an example of this last tactic was a reply describing “similar tactics by embedding in libanswers—our subterfuge reference engine under the help button”. this posting carried on to identify associated student behaviour: “it gets about 25k hits a month. not sure of impact on our info lit resources, but those trend about 5,000 views a month” (stielow, 2014b). this strategy showed the effect of carefully placing the resources where the students are likely to search (i.e., within their own courses), and identifying them less directly as library resources and assistance and more as general assistance and answers that aid the student in their learning. the art of ‘packaging and selling’ appeared to be crucial in delivering learning support that students will readily access and use. it is also recognised that with access to the web and a variety of search engines, students do not always view the library as the first port of call for locating information assistance, and that this can be best overcome by placing pertinent assistance within the curriculum (stielow, 2014a). this research identified that this form of learner support would not be equally relevant in all online tertiary courses. students of some programmes of study, such as arts and law, are traditionally heavy library users because these subjects are based on the written word and information is vital to their study. others, in the pure sciences and mathematical fields, have a different experience. one statistics lecturer interviewed on this topic of library resources, assistance, and learning support identified: as a numerically based course, students are not encouraged to use other resources. statistics books often tackle topics in different ways and it is confusing for students if they move away from the materials provided. (fields & clarke, 2014, p. 74). students in some of these fields might still need learner support at the point of learning, but in a more tailored and specific form for their particular requirements and those of the subject area. faculty–library collaboration needed for success library support cannot be provided as a tailored service to students without some collaboration with faculty. the need for faculty to be willing to allow embedded librarians into their online teaching spaces to provide assistance and information resources within the place of learning has already been identified above. in addition to this access, faculty endorsement of the embedded librarian’s services sanctions the students to make wider use of this assistance and promotes it as a useful addition to the course by supporting the learning process (rodrigues, 2014). the nature of the learning support that is given, and its relevance to the course in which it is delivered, stems from the individual requirements of the subject area and the assessed work to be 51 fields, a. undertaken in the classroom. without faculty collaboration, embedded librarians can find it difficult to tailor their support services to individual classrooms—this, in turn, reduces the uptake and effectiveness of these services (shumaker, 2011). the efficacy of this form of learner support appears to depend on strong collaboration between faculty and embedded librarians. collaboration between faculty and embedded librarians can also be effective in course design. because librarians deal with information seeking, information use, and information resources, they can also assist faculty in the course design process. courses that require students to use information literacy skills tend to also boost their critical thinking skills which, in turn, promote lifelong learning (west-pawl, 2012). collaboration between faculty and librarians in the course design process can help to create good delivery and assessment of subject content with the addition of information skills for a more comprehensive learning experience. roles for librarians that complement the online classroom a number of librarians’ roles complement the teaching and learning that takes place in the online classroom. these roles include providing links and direction to resources and tutorials which will lead to skills and information that students need to effectively conduct and enhance their learning (shumaker, 2011). these links and resources can often be identified before the class starts, and messages can be prepared ahead of time to deliver this information to students. some standard library responses to probable questions can be prepared ahead of time, based on patterns of questions raised in previous course offerings. a more personalised reference service may also arise in some of the interactions between embedded librarians and students. students have the opportunity to ask some quite specific questions, and some of these might apply to individual students rather than the class as a whole. although responses to these questions represent a more individualised service, they can raise awareness of course topics or peripheral subjects for other students as well as directly assisting the student who asks the question (fields & clarke, 2014). a balance between widely applicable reference services, more individualised reference services, and other library or information support to students might need to be made. another area in which embedded librarians might be able to assist is with the correct formatting of references and questions of writing style. adherence to formal style guides and referencing systems often concerns students, and by using librarians to answer questions of formal referencing, faculty can be kept free for questions of content and subject. one faculty member identified the best thing about having an embedded librarian as: knowing that you’ve got back-up, especially for the technical questions. for example, apa and referencing questions, using the databases and helping students find information. (fields & clarke, 2014, p. 73) this strategy can work effectively, and perhaps works best when librarians are embedded in the class rather than being at another site where students may be less likely to encounter them. when these discussions take place in the online classroom there is the added benefit of them being available to other students who can ‘lurk’ or ‘listen in’ on these online conversations. tailored library and learner support are therefore brought into an environment in which many students can benefit from the interactions of embedded librarians with a few of their classmates without having to make any more interactions. the importance of building relationships fostering good relationships amongst all classroom participants is important. faculty–librarian relationships have already been discussed in terms of collaboration, but they also have a wider aspect outside the classroom. relationships between faculty and their embedded librarians can 52 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) often have other class-related benefits, including the procurement of information not otherwise gained by the faculty. an example of this came to the fore in an interview with a member of faculty: i was contacted by my embedded librarian who told me that holds on a particular book … suddenly increased and that he knew some students would not get a chance to view the book prior to the assessment it was being used for falling due … he suggested alternative texts and made online copies available, then gave the new list to me and i gave it to my class. it makes everyone look good! (fields & clarke, 2014, p. 73). this building of trust and sharing of expertise complements the roles of faculty and the embedded librarian, and adds value to the provision of quality learning. in addition to this team approach to providing information to students, embedded librarians can also assist faculty outside the classroom. roles in this context might include providing updates on texts and articles in the relevant field, identifying updated course readings and new editions of works for acquisition, developing and updating courses and their supporting materials, and searching for information to support faculty research. these are all roles currently undertaken by many subject specialist librarians or liaison librarians, and these skills make these particular librarians suitable candidates to also work as embedded librarians. in this role they can gain a fuller insight into the nature and extent of faculty’s information requirements. the other relationship that brings benefits is that between the embedded librarian and the student. the placement of an embedded librarian in the online classroom gives students another person to contact for information pertinent to their learning, and positive experiences with a librarian in this setting often facilitate further contact with other library services. this will, in turn, result in more learning support being given to those students who seek it. there are also benefits to both the librarian and future students. working directly with students in individual classes increases the librarian’s understanding of students’ specific needs and attitudes, allowing the librarian to anticipate the needs of future classes. donaldson and valenti (2014) have identified “when students conceive questions but are reluctant to ask, embedded librarians can identify some common questions and promote clarity by providing the answers that will help students to succeed in their efforts to navigate library resources” (p. 31). proactive packaging of information for student consumption becomes more relevant and targeted as the embedded librarian understands the needs of particular classes in relation to their skills and their subject material, so increasing the vitality and relevance of the embedded librarian service. practical difficulties none of the workings and benefits outlined above come without practical issues, and these need to be identified and considered in the process of delivering a practical, scalable, and worthwhile library learner support service. difficulties fall into three main categories: the specific needs of students and subject areas (which are different in each online classroom), the management of good relationships between all of the participants in the online classroom (which is not always easy), and the technical constraints of working in an online environment. no one-size-fits-all approach to providing effective library learner support can be delivered into online classrooms at different levels and in different subjects. the nature of students’ information literacy and their information needs range widely due to factors that include students’ prior knowledge of information-seeking tactics, the particular requirements of the subject area being studied, and the focus of the assignments set by faculty. a tailored approach for each class results in the most effective delivery of this form of learner support. providing this support requires additional time, resources, and effort. 53 fields, a. managing good relationships in the online classroom is vital, and has been discussed in more detail above. in addition to this, some system constraints and technical issues might need to be considered. when interviewed about their appraisal of the success or not of the online discussions between the students and the embedded librarian, one faculty member remarked: i’d question the pedagogy of the forum process. there’s a large class [around 140 students] and a lot of posting… the expert’s post—i.e. librarian or tutor—gets lost in the noise or comes in the middle of a whole lot of other postings. (fields & clarke, 2014, pp. 73–74) this issue of ‘noise’ is particularly troublesome in classes that are run asynchronously and/or delivered to students in different time zones. these difficulties arise when students are unable to discern the postings that are relevant for their own needs, or when information overload deters them from finding the relevant posts or continuing to use the discussion forums at all. there is also a risk of making it too easy for students to post their questions without considering possible answers and working through a process to determine an answer before they see the expert’s post. faculty and embedded librarians need to strike a balance in their postings: to answer useful questions, divert or otherwise deal with unhelpful questions or comments, and answer students’ questions in a timely fashion without building an expectation of instant answers to easy questions. one possible way to overcome some of these issues is for embedded librarians to gain formal skills in online education or e-learning so they can engage with appropriate pedagogy. this brings the embedded librarian closer to the role of a teaching assistant, because they can complement faculty’s teaching by supporting students in their information seeking and use. conclusions embedded librarians are proving to be a workable and valuable addition in the provision of tailored learner support for students in a growing number of online classrooms around the world. locating these embedded librarians to provide learning support within the online classroom rather than outside it can help raise student engagement, thereby increasing the effectiveness of the library service and the number of students it reaches successfully. using embedded librarians is not without a few possible downsides and practical issues, but the benefits appear to far outweigh the drawbacks, and careful handling of the roles and relationships between embedded librarians and students can contribute to positive outcomes for student academic success. there is an evidenced need for further study into this growing area of direct learner support inside the online classroom. three aspects identified in the literature as requiring further exploration are: identifying and exploiting new opportunities for providing effective learner support; managing relationships in the online classroom to make the best use of services and synergies; and tailoring learner support approaches and services to meet the specific needs of individual subject and discipline areas, class levels, course requirements, and student capabilities. each of these three aspects may lead to fruitful efforts in maximising the learner support benefits of using embedded librarians. the author plans further research to identify and quantify some of these issues by conducting case studies across multiple online classrooms in additional new zealand tertiary education institutions. 54 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) references allen, s. 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(2012). collaborating for student success: a model for librarian embedding in faculty blackboard courses. libraries in the digital age (lida) proceedings, 12. retrieved from http://ozk.unizd.hr/proceedings/index.php/lida2012/article/view/2/8 yin, r. (2009). case study research: design and methods (4th ed.). (applied social research methods vol. 5). thousand oaks, ca: sage. yousef, a. (2010). faculty attitudes toward collaboration with librarians. library philosophy and practice, paper 512. retrieved from http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/512 biographical notes alison fields alison.fields@openpolytechnic.ac.nz alison is a senior lecturer at the open polytechnic of new zealand where she teaches information and library studies. she also sits on the professional registration board of library and information association of new zealand aotearoa (lianza). her research areas encompass e-learning, library services and continuing professional development. she is currently enrolled in edd studies at the university of otago under supervisors wing lai and keryn pratt. alison is also an associate editor of the journal of open, flexible and distance learning. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. fields, a. (2014). engaging learner support: an investigation of faculty–library collaboration to provide live course-specific learner support in the online classroom environment. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 18(1), [46–57]. 57 http://hq.sla.org/pdfs/embeddedlibrarianshipfinalrptrev.pdf mailto:alison.fields@openpolytechnic.ac.nz http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) the disruptive potential of the massive open online course: a literature review jean jacoby, massey university, new zealand abstract the massive open online course (mooc) is a rapidly evolving phenomenon which has stimulated discussion in universities around the world. a central theme of these discussions, and much of the published literature on the phenomenon, is the potential of the mooc to disrupt the way universities do business. the aim of this narrative literature review is to clarify disruptive innovation theory, and to examine the influence of moocs on higher education. evidence from this review suggests that although moocs might have had a significant effect on a range of issues (including definitions of completion pedagogical approaches, delivery methods, certification, and business models), more systematic research is needed to evaluate the level, extent, and permanence of any disruption that may occur. keywords: moocs; massive open online courses; disruptive innovation theory; higher education trends and forecasts; online education introduction massive open online courses (moocs) first appeared on the horizon of higher education in 2008, with the launch of connectivism and connective knowledge (cck08) facilitated by george siemens and stephen downes (downes, 2008). however, a number of open online courses were available before this date (rodriguez, 2012). the term ‘mooc’ is generally attributed to david cormier, and was used by both siemens and cormier to describe an online course with large enrolments that was open not only in terms of enrolment, but also in terms of content, design, points of access, ways of application, and definitions of success (weller, siemens, & cormier, 2012). in the years following cck08, a number of moocs, which became known as cmoocs, were based on this connectivist philosophy. they included cck09, personal learning environments, networks and knowledge (plenk2010) and edumooc in 2011 (rodriguez, 2012). a watershed occurred in 2011 with the launch of cs221: introduction to artificial intelligence, facilitated by sebastian thrun. this online course, which was a simultaneously run online version of thrun’s conventional stanford face-to-face class, attracted online enrolments of over 160,000 students. of these online students, 20,000 completed the course. in addition, of the 200 students enrolled in the conventional class, only 30 were attending lectures by the end of the course, with the rest opting to use the online resources instead (thrun, 2012). this mooc 73 jacoby, j. format, based on a more traditional didactic or transmission model of teaching, later became known as the xmooc, a term that refers to the nature of the content, which ‘extends’ a traditional curriculum (downes, 2013). the large numbers of enrolments on cs221 and two subsequent stanford moocs (machine learning and introduction to databases), the effect of the online offering on thrun’s classroom students, and the feedback from the online students, attracted the attention of academics, educators, and university business and policy managers (rodriguez, 2012). thrun himself was so convinced of the potential of moocs that he resigned his stanford tenure to form the startup mooc provider, udacity (thrun, 2012). interest in moocs escalated so quickly that the new york times declared 2012 ‘the year of the mooc’ (boyd & kasraie, 2013). both udacity and a second startup, coursera (also formed by ex-stanford professors), were started with venture capital. in the same year, edx, a self-funded non-profit provider, was formed by harvard and the massachusetts institute of technology. since then, a number of universities around the world have entered into partnerships with these or other, newer consortia (the attack of the moocs, 2013). the mooc phenomenon has been a topic of frequent debate, not only in academia, but also in the mainstream press and in social media, and a number of issues are being discussed. key aspects include the impact of moocs on university teaching practice, quality assurance, accreditation, and business models; mooc types and taxonomies; the concept of openness; definitions of success and completion; and the role and development of learning analytics. common to all of these issues is a discussion of the potential of the mooc to disrupt the way higher education is organised and delivered. this narrative literature review is presented in four parts. firstly, a brief discussion outlines the challenges posed by conducting a literature review in a rapidly evolving research area that is still in its infancy. secondly, the nature of disruptive innovation theory and the differing perspectives and approaches to disruptive innovation is briefly discussed. thirdly, the key issues and theories surrounding moocs are reviewed. the debates within each of these issues will be outlined and their contribution to the disruption potential of the mooc is explored. finally, the influence of moocs in the new zealand context will be evaluated. the challenge of reviewing the mooc literature the short period since the first emergence of the phenomenon in 2008, and (more particularly) since the advent of the first truly ‘massive’ xmoocs in 2011, means there is a relatively small body of substantive literature on cmoocs, and even less on xmoocs. in addition, whilst there is a recognised, authoritative core group of authors (in particular, downes, cormier, siemens, weller, & kop) researching and writing in the area of cmoocs, it is difficult to identify any authors of similar authority researching the xmooc. research into the mooc phenomenon is predominantly qualitative: case-study and narrative research seems to predominate. in addition, the open nature, high enrolments, and low participation and completion rates of moocs make it difficult to identify and track participants to gather reliable long-term data. consequently, there is little research (beyond individual reflection) available on participants’ experience. as more research from a wider range of contexts and using a wider range of methodologies becomes available, better triangulation of data will create a more reliable picture of the emergent phenomenon. in early october 2013 a google scholar search for peer-reviewed articles with the term ‘mooc’ or the phrase ‘massive open online course’ in the title returned approximately 200 results (citations and non-english language results were excluded). the same search of peer-reviewed 74 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) academic journals in the discover database yielded 31 results. by contrast, a similar search on google itself, which included sources that were neither conventionally academic nor peerreviewed, returned over 20 000 results. the small quantity of systematic scholarly writing and the contrastingly enormous amount of non-academic, frequently promotional, writing on the topic poses significant challenges to the researcher (daniel, 2012), and informed the choice of a narrative approach to this literature review. in addition to the dearth of the academic research, there is also considerable variation in the quality of the research, as people use niche publications to publish mooc-related research. this variety in quality of research was evident in the literature gathered for this review. one author fails to distinguish between the mooc and the mooc provider, and describes the approach of the xmooc as ‘connectivist’ (flynn, 2013). others produce ‘puff’ pieces with little academic underpinning—such as skiba (2012), who pronounces definitively that moocs “are definitely a disruptive innovation” without providing any evidence or references to support the assertion (p. 417). the increased blurring of the lines between traditional academic and non-academic sources of information poses a challenge to many academics, and some may question the quality of research distributed in non-traditional ways (guy, 2012; weller, 2011). several key authors in the field (including downes, cormier, & siemens) embrace openness of information as a key principle for the dissemination of their research and use blogs and social media such twitter and youtube to share their theory and research. as a result, some of the sources cited in this literature review are not conventional scholarly sources. however, care has been taken to ensure that any such sources used in this review are primary sources, produced by highly regarded and credible experts in their field, who are speaking to, and frequently commented on by, audiences of their peers. consequently, it is argued that these sources are suitable for inclusion in an academic literature review. irrespective of the origin of articles, the term ‘disruptive innovation’ is frequently associated with moocs (cooper, 2013; disalvio, 2012; kolowich, 2013; skiba, 2012). understanding the nature of disruptive innovation theory is central to evaluating the potential of the mooc to disrupt higher education. the nature of disruption theory disruptive innovation theory was first proposed by christensen in 1997, and then modified by him in a series of subsequent publications between 2003 and 2004 (schmidt & druehl, 2008). the theory originates in business research, and is used to explain the process whereby technological innovation allows sectors of business or industry to transform from being complicated, exclusive, and expensive to being simple, accessible, and affordable (christensen, horn, caldera, & soares, 2011). in the process, a product or model initially rejected by the main customer base is later embraced by them (schmidt & druehl, 2008). according to christensen, there are two key enablers required for disruption to occur. firstly, there must be a technology enabler that makes the innovation available to people previously not served by the industry. secondly, the business model must change. to be truly disruptive, a new model must be developed. christensen argues that disruption does not occur if an existing model co-opts an innovation to ensure its own continuation (christensen et al., 2011). considerable debate exists within disruption theory. some authors distinguish between disruptive innovations, which are innovations that enter the market at the low end and diffuse upwards (such as toyota disrupting the united states auto-manufacturing industry in the 1960s when it entered the market with small, cheap cars), and sustaining innovations (such as ipads) which, 75 jacoby, j. although equally disruptive, enter the market at the high end and diffuse downwards (schmidt & druehl, 2008). others distinguish between disruptive business model innovations and disruptive product or technology innovations (markides, 2006). whilst a detailed discussion of these debates might appear to be beyond the scope of this literature review, one of the main areas of discussion about moocs focuses on the potential of the mooc to disrupt the teaching approaches (conole, 2013; cooper, 2013; disalvio, 2012; kolowich, 2013) and business models (marshall, 2013; rodriguez, 2012; yuan & powell, 2013) of higher education institutions. understanding the process and implications of disruption will be essential for university administrators and policy makers. key issues this section explores three key issues of the mooc debate. the literature relating to mooc taxonomies and theoretical underpinnings will be discussed. different interpretations of ‘openness’ will be explored as part of this discussion. the literature exploring the impact of moocs on teaching and learning, business models and accreditation will be reviewed, and the potential of these for disruption evaluated. mooc taxonomies and theoretical foundations moocs are usually categorised in two main groups: cmoocs (connectivist moocs), which are based on principles of connectivism, openness, and participatory teaching; and xmoocs (extended moocs), which tend to focus on pre-set course content with a more behaviourist approach to teaching (conole, 2013; downes, 2013). other taxonomies which have been proposed, but are not yet widely adopted, will be outlined later in this section. the first cmooc is generally regarded to be cck08, which was launched in september 2008 and was designed according to connectivist principles. these principles state that learning is an immersive process that takes place in the creation, formation, and removal of connections (downes, 2012) between individuals and groups, rather than within individuals alone. early cmoocs used the internet and online technologies to increase access to information and reduce content whilst increasing the role of learning through connection (weller, siemens, & cormier, 2012). a number of online courses existed before cck08. however, downes and weller both argue that the transformation from online course to mooc took place when they used the affordances of the web to create an effective distributed system based on the principles of autonomy, diversity, openness, and interactivity (downes, 2012; weller, siemens, & cormier, 2012). downes proposes two things that separate the cmooc from earlier online courses. firstly, distributed technology means that there is not a central cmooc site—the course takes place across a network of differently connected sites and services. secondly, distributed knowledge means that participants create and learn in a system in which knowledge flows via a series of connected networks both to and from the individual, rather than being taught one fact after another (downes, 2012). openness openness is a critical factor in the cmooc. although the subject of openness is a research topic in itself, it is worth noting briefly as it is a key point of difference between the cmooc and the xmooc. proponents of the cmooc discuss openness in broad categories, including transparency of design, content, and curriculum; open delivery; and ways of access and application (weller, siemens, & cormier, 2012). these authors also present a strong case for open definitions of success and completion, arguing that success can simply be defined as a point 76 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) at which a participant has gained what they wanted from the course, and completion can be measured by assessments designed by the participants themselves, rather than by the completion of a specific number of tasks or enrolment for a specific period of time (weller, siemens, & cormier, 2012). this argument for open assessment has the potential to be particularly disruptive for universities, where assessment is traditionally strictly regulated and monitored, and programme funding can depend on pass rates. downes (2012) explores three categories of openness: content, instruction, and assessment. open content refers to information that is freely shared through peer-to-peer networks, rather than through conventional publication and copyright. information is not regarded as a commodity. open instruction refers not only to completely open access to the course, but also to learning activities designed by the learners themselves. open assessment refers to task suggestions and rubrics that are published without restrictions on use or copyright, so they are available for any external agency that wishes to use them to credential students seeking credit. no single method of assessment is defined by the course itself (downes, 2012). the democratisation of education that takes place in the cmooc has the potential to be enormously disruptive to higher education. changing the models of access and decommercialising knowledge means that the cmooc meets christensen et al.’s (2011) disruption criteria by transforming the expensive and inaccessible higher education sector into one that is open, accessible, and affordable. the fact that these qualities align with those of the open education resources (oer) movement that is gaining momentum at some universities such as the university of otago, adds strength to the disruptive potential of the cmooc. the rush by the global tertiary sector to deliver moocs, and the mass of industry opinion pieces and grey literature available on the subject, suggests that the principles of open content, instruction, and assessment have caused the higher education sector to re-evaluate both processes and products in ways that had not previously been considered. there is, however, one key area in which the cmooc could be argued to fail to meet the criteria of a disruptive innovation: simplicity. christensen et al. (2011) argue that simplicity is a critical element of a disruptive innovation. one of the criticisms levelled at the cmooc is the complexity of the unstructured networks that develop, and the challenges that this poses, especially for novice learners. these learners may find the range of topics, platforms, conversations, and assessment options distracting, and may require more careful scaffolding (kop, fournier, & sui fai mak, 2011). it should be noted that rodriguez identifies two forms of cmooc (rodriguez, 2012). he describes these as format a courses (such as cck08), which are conducted on a range of sites and networks as determined by the participants, and format b courses (such as edumooc). format b is a more centralised version of the cmooc as the course is conducted from a single web or wiki page. although these format b cmoocs still generate a large network, it could be argued that the simpler format makes these cmoocs more likely to meet christensen et al.’s (2011) criteria of a disruptive innovation. unlike the cmooc, the xmooc evolved almost by accident when sebastian thrun’s online version of a stanford course, which had an expected enrolment of 500, attracted over 160,000 participants. possibly because of its slightly unplanned origins and the fact that thrun’s area of speciality is artificial intelligence, the xmooc is significantly more techno-centric in its design, structure and philosophy. thrun (2012) acknowledges that the unexpected interest in the course meant that he had to find quick, techno-centric solutions to meet the demand. the solution involved videos of experts explaining a concept, followed by a quiz to test the participant’s understanding. thrun describes this as flipping the way they taught in order to “empower students to learn new skills” (thrun, 2012). this reviewer, however, would argue that the flipped classroom concept involves more than an online version of the transmission model. 77 jacoby, j. the xmooc model is behaviourist and cognitivist in approach (conole, 2013; kop, 2011). participants receive knowledge via prepared modules (video tutorials, quizzes, etc.) developed by experts in the field. although large peer-to-peer teaching groups develop spontaneously on many xmoocs, the course design itself is individualist (conole, 2013). thrun’s basic model has served as the template for a number of subsequent moocs run by udacity, as well as other organisations such as coursera and edx. critics of the model argue that it simply replicates traditional didactic university teaching; the only difference being the automation of teaching and testing. siemens argues that the xmooc “duplicates the structural constraints of classroom” and, in so doing, produces learners designed for the current education structures and exclusive models of expertise (weller, siemens, & cormier, 2012). this would suggest that, rather than disrupting the existing model of higher education, the mooc has been co-opted to ensure its continuance. unlike the cmooc’s broad definition of openness, many of the providers of xmoocs have much more restrictive terms. rodriguez (2013) identifies some key differences in the xmooc terms of use: custom copyright licences that prevent sharing, remixing, or reuse; and the explicit prevention of mooc-wrapping (the institutional reuse of a mooc as part of that institution’s for-credit programme) (coursera, 2013; edx, 2013). in addition, rodriguez notes that the xmooc design model means that neither instruction nor assessment is open. instruction is by “world class professors” (coursera, 2013) and assessment is only through stipulated tasks credited (at a cost to the participant) by the providing institution (coursera, 2013; rodriguez, 2013). although the two categories discussed above still predominate in the literature, proposals for more detailed categorisation have started to emerge in the literature as the mooc phenomenon evolves. holotescu, grosseck, and cretu (2013) propose a third mooc type, the pmooc, which is projector task-based. the authors cite the online learning design studio (olds) mooc which was run in 2013 as an example of this mooc type. however, although this mooc did have an identified outcome (the project) and thus was not completely open in the ways described by siemens and downes above, the approach to teaching and learning remained strongly connectivist (cross, 2013). clarke (2013) goes even further, proposing eight types of moocs based on pedagogical approach and learning functionality. although this taxonomy is proposed in a blog post, it is subsequently cited in two highly credible publications (conole, 2013; mackness, waite, roberts, & lovegrove, 2013). however, the original blog post provides no supporting literature or research, and a search of the author’s credentials suggests commercial as well as academic interests. hence, whilst the taxonomy is worth noting, more evidence is needed before clarke’s proposal can be fully evaluated. in the most recent addition to the taxonomy discussion, conole (2013) argues that, instead of attempting to assign distinct categories, moocs should be measured against twelve dimensions: the degree of openness, the scale of participation (massification), the amount of use of multimedia, the amount of communication, the extent to which collaboration is included, the type of learner pathway (from learner centred to teacher-centred and highly structured), the level of quality assurance, the extent to which reflection is encouraged, the level of assessment, how informal or formal it is, autonomy, and diversity.” (conole, 2013, p. 11) conole’s proposed dimensions have yet to be evaluated in the literature. however, they are particularly useful when considering the increasing number of moocs that incorporate aspects of both cmooc and xmooc, described as hybrid moocs by waite, mackness, and roberts (2013). 78 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) the impact of moocs on teaching and learning a discussion of teaching and learning in any mooc should recognise that neat definitions may be undermined by what happens on the course itself. stewart (2013) notes that no matter what the design ethos of the mooc, the online interaction of large numbers of people has what she calls a “trojan horse effect” (stewart, 2013, p. 229) on the development of digital literacies. whether this happens by design in a cmooc, or by accident in the large-scale forum discussions that characterise many xmoocs is, she argues, less important than the fact that it does happen. this argument suggests that, no matter whether the mooc is behaviourist/cognitivist in approach, the increasing numbers of digitally literate participants will nevertheless create a distributed, participatory, and inclusive (connectivist) environment. stewart goes further, arguing that despite any course design intention, the massive nature of the mooc means that it is simply impossible for the focus to remain on the course facilitator. this decentralisation of the teacher’s role as expert may lead to participants recognising their own expertise and shifting toward a more networked approach to learning (stewart, 2013). if this happens, the potential of the mooc to disrupt higher education is much greater. cormier expresses concerns about the effect of features such as automated exercise generation or assessment developing in response to massification. he describes these features as ‘robograde’ (weller, siemens, & cormier, 2012). however, others are attracted to the potential such technologies offer for subjects such as computer modelling and mathematics (sadigh, seshia, & gupta, 2012), where repetition is central to improving skills. sadigh et al. (2012) also acknowledge the potential of technological solutions to provide customised feedback for students. others argue that what is being described as customised feedback is nothing of the sort, because automated or computer-generated feedback is not individualised and offers no encouragement or support (bates, 2012; pisutova, 2012). the potential of the mooc to disrupt teaching in higher education will depend, to some extent, on which side of this particular discussion proves to be more important. the open nature of moocs could offer some unique opportunities for pedagogical change. sharples et al. (2012) note the influence of a lack of course fees on pedagogy, arguing that this changes the contract between learner and provider, and creates space for experimentation and innovation. in addition, the online ‘cloud’-based nature of moocs means that institutions can experiment with strategies without disrupting their existing courses (marshall, 2013). using open education resources in moocs could also create a wider pool of education resources, and the exposure to teachers from different institutions can provide students with access to better teaching (daniel, 2012). there seems to be little doubt that the cmooc model has a transformative effect on both learning and teaching, because participants adapt to and interact within a complex network (waite, et al., 2013; weller, 2011). however, some argue that despite their providers’ marketing, xmoocs do not represent innovation at all, but instead make use of an outdated transmission model of teaching and automated, computer-marked assessment (bates, 2012). one of the major marketing approaches used by the xmooc providers is the potential of the mooc to transform learning by providing students in developing countries with access to higher education (koller, 2012). however, whilst access to the mooc and the information it contains might be open, students who seek certification for completion have to pay for it. in addition, very few moocs are currently recognised for credit by the offering institutions (coursera, 2013; edx, 2013; pisutova, 2012). some critics of the mooc also cite the very low participation and completion rates as evidence that they are not fulfilling their potential to improve access to disadvantaged students (rodriguez, 2012; waite, mackness, & roberts, 2013). in addition to these concerns, siemens also raises the issue that the xmooc transmission model of teaching represents a form of knowledge colonisation. he notes that universities in many developing 79 jacoby, j. countries are joining mooc consortia and operating within imposed structures, missing the opportunity to create their own innovation structures (weller, siemens, & cormier, 2012). at the time of writing this review, there is a scarcity of published scholarly literature documenting the experiences of students who participate in moocs. however, zutshi, o’hare, and rodafinos’s (2013) analysis of blog postings by mooc participants shows that students have mixed responses to their mooc experience, and they suggest that managing the workload is one of the biggest challenges for students. this finding is supported by mazoue (2013), who suggests that the mooc format favours the more advanced student over the novice. the impact of moocs on university business models the widespread coverage of moocs and the enthusiasm with which universities around the world are entering into agreements with moocs belies the important fact that there appears to be little clarity about how the mooc will earn money (dellarocas & van alstyne, 2013) and no consistency in the business approach. (edx is a non-profit organisation funded by contributions from the member institutions; coursera and udacity are both for-profit organisations founded with venture capital.) although there is not yet a confirmed business model, proposals for earning income include advertising, selling student information to employers, payment for assessment or certification, payment for access to discussion forums, and course fees (yuan & powell, 2013). marshall (2013) uses porter’s five forces model to evaluate the potential of the mooc to change the way universities conduct business. the model looks at the threat of new market entrants, substitute products or services, rivalry among competitors, and the bargaining powers of suppliers and buyers to an established market. viewed against this model, it is clear that the mooc has a high potential to influence the business of higher education. coursera and udacity are relatively new entrants to the higher education market and, judging by their enrolments, they offer an attractive substitute product that is easier to access than the existing higher education model. however, despite the significant rivalry within the competitive higher education market, the speed with which many institutions have joined together to establish mooc consortia indicates a degree of collaboration (marshall, 2013) which may undermine the potential of the mooc to change the university business model. there may be little competitive edge to be gained when everyone is doing the same thing. ‘buyers’ (in the university context these are students) and ‘suppliers’ have significant bargaining power in the modern business model of the university. the power of the supplier might not be fully recognised by many institutions, but vendors such as blackboard, google, and pearson are essential to the operation of many universities (marshall, 2013). although their role in moocs is still developing, their interest is clear. pearson has already partnered with both edx and udacity to support the assessment processes of moocs (guthrie, burritt, & evans, 2013). google collaborated with edx to produce the experimental platform, course builder, in 2012, and entered into a partnership with udacity to form the open education alliance, with the aim of increasing technology education (open education alliance, 2013). on september 10, 2013, google also announced the launch of mooc.org (google, 2013). the ramifications of this development remain to be seen, but it is unlikely that the results of for-profit companies of this scale entering the higher education market will go unnoticed. their increasingly active involvement in the online learning environment significantly increases the risk of knowledge colonisation (weller, siemens, & cormier, 2012) referred to earlier, and the potential for disruption is significant. 80 journal of open, flexible, and distance learning, 18(1) the impact of moocs in the new zealand context new zealand tertiary providers have been active in the open online course environment for a number of years. although data mining with weka is recognised as the first new zealand mooc (university of waikato, 2013), otago polytechnic has been involved with open online courses that follow the cmooc format, most notably facilitating online communities (foc), since 2008 (blackall, 2008). the first formal new zealand mooc partnership was massey university’s collaboration with australian provider open2study, which was announced in july 2013 (massey university, 2013). this was followed in october by the announcement of auckland university’s collaboration with futurelearn (university of auckland, 2013). the rationales for involvement in moocs vary from the desire to explore the opportunities for innovation and develop collaborative relationships (massey university, 2013) to the apparently more commercial recognition of the opportunity to increase the reach of the university (university of auckland, 2013). clearly, the very recent entry and small number of courses offered means that it is still too early to draw conclusions about the long-term influence of moocs on new zealand institutions. conclusion the mooc phenomenon is still in its early stages. it is still evolving, and the body of literature is growing rapidly, making it difficult to definitively evaluate the disruptive potential of the massive open online course. if one accepts christensen’s theory of disruptive innovation, it seems that the only way to respond to a disruption is to accept and adapt to a new way of doing things (christensen et al., 2011). whilst christensen argues convincingly of the disruptive potential of online learning, a purist interpretation of his theory would suggest that the xmooc, at least, is not a disruptive phenomenon at all. christensen et al. (2011) argue that a truly disruptive innovation is not assimilated by the existing players in the market. however, the xmooc has been adopted in various forms by a number of universities around the world, including several in new zealand. whilst the long-term consequences and success of the adoption needs to be evaluated, the fact that universities are attempting to assimilate the model suggests that the phenomenon is not truly disruptive. markides (2006), however, would challenge this argument, citing examples of apparently disruptive innovations (such as internet banking) which have had a significant effect on an industry without completely replacing it. he goes even further—proposing that, when faced with a potentially disruptive innovation, the incumbent should not attempt to replicate or fight the innovation. instead, existing industries should focus on what they are good at and guide the innovation into the wider market. whichever argument proves correct, it is clear that the impact on higher education of the mooc, in all its incarnations, will be significant. the phenomenon has forced teachers, administrators, and policy makers to evaluate a range of issues, from definitions of completion and success to pedagogical approaches, delivery methods, and certification. more systematic research over the next few years will create a clearer picture of the level, extent, and permanence of any disruption that may occur. 81 jacoby, j. references the attack of the moocs. 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(2012). moocs: an interview with dave cormier and george siemens [video file]. retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=uuyxgjhjz2s-b5dhdvpkmuw&v=l1g4sublnbo&feature=player_embedded yuan, l., & powell, s. (2013). moocs and open education: implications for higher education. retrieved from http://www.smarthighered.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/moocs-andopen-education.pdf zutshi, s., o’hare, s., & rodafinos, a. (2013). experiences in moocs: the perspective of students. american journal of distance education, 27(4), 218–227. biographical notes jean jacoby j.m.jacoby@massey.ac.nz jean is a teaching and online consultant at the manawatu centre for teaching and learning of massey university. her research interests include online materials design and delivery, and the design of teaching for academics’ professional development. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivs 3.0 unported license. jacoby, j. (2014). the disruptive potential of the massive open online course: a literature review. journal of open, flexible and distance learning, 18(1), [73–85.]. 85 http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=uuyxgjhjz2s-b5dhdvpkmu-w&v=l1g4sublnbo&feature=player_embedded http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=uuyxgjhjz2s-b5dhdvpkmu-w&v=l1g4sublnbo&feature=player_embedded http://www.smarthighered.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/moocs-and-open-education.pdf http://www.smarthighered.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/moocs-and-open-education.pdf mailto:j.m.jacoby@massey.ac.nz http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/