http://www.eurodl.org/ ISSN 1027-5207 2013-04-24T02:02:02Z 568 Brynjar Foss, Bjørg F. Oftedal, Atle Løkken http://www.eurodl.org/?article=568 2013-04-24T12:39:00Z Electronically supported learning has increasingly been introduced and accepted into the academic community over recent decades, and a variety of new digital learning tools have been developed to serve students both for distance education and on-campus blended learning. 566 Erica Smith, Ben Greatrex, Michelle Taylor, Ieva Stupans http://www.eurodl.org/?article=566 2013-04-12T22:42:00Z The study of chemistry is central within science and other associated degrees. At the University of New England in Armidale academics need to provide chemistry teaching in both a distance and the traditional on-campus mode within science and other degrees. This study explores the contribution that the adoption of Adobe Connect technology can make to support of students and enhancement of their learning. The preliminary response from students has been unequivocally positive with an increased confidence around unit materials gauged by improved student learning outcomes and unsolicited positive comments. 563 Christina Angelaki, Ilias Mavroidis http://www.eurodl.org/?article=563 2013-04-12T21:20:00Z The aim of this work is to examine the role of communication and social presence in distance learning environments and their impact on the emotions of adult learners. A study was conducted at the Hellenic Open University (HOU), using a questionnaire that was completed by 94 undergraduate and postgraduate students. More than 94 % of the students felt the need to communicate with their instructor and fellow students, but less actually did. More than 50 % of the students experienced both positive and negative emotions, while women were more prone to negative feelings. Negative emotions motivated students mainly to contact the tutor, while both negative and positive emotions motivated them to contact their fellow students. After communication, the majority of students felt positive emotions more intensely and negative ones less intensely, due to support and encouragement that they received from their tutor and fellow students. More than 80 % of the participants considered social presence as an important element of communication during their course, related to positive emotions. Regardless of the level of the course, age and marital status, quality student–tutor and student-student communication in the Hellenic Open University has an important effect on students’ emotional well being. 561 Gurmit Singh http://www.eurodl.org/?article=561 2013-03-21T12:55:00Z Effective professional distance education is urgently needed to develop a well-trained workforce and improve impact on healthcare. However, distance education initiatives have had mixed results in improving practice. Often, successful implementation fails to leverage insights on the social and emergent nature of learning in networks. 559 Martin Weller, Terry Anderson http://www.eurodl.org/?article=559 2013-03-21T20:21:00Z Higher education institutions face a number of opportunities and challenges as the result of the digital revolution. The institutions perform a number of scholarship functions which can be affected by new technologies, and the desire is to retain these functions where appropriate, whilst the form they take may change. Much of the reaction to technological change comes from those with a vested interest in either wholesale change or maintaining the status quo. Taking the resilience metaphor from ecology, the authors propose a framework for analysing an institution’s ability to adapt to digital challenges. This framework is examined at two institutions (the UK Open University and Canada’s Athabasca University) using two current digital challenges, namely Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and Open Access publishing. 557 Mohammad Issack Santally, Alain Senteni http://www.eurodl.org/?article=557 2013-03-21T12:46:00Z Personalisation of e-learning environments is an interesting research area in which the learning experience of learners is generally believed to be improved when his or her personal learning preferences are taken into account. One such learning preference is the V-A-K instrument that classifies learners as visual, auditory or kinaesthetic. In this research, the outcomes of an experiment are described after students in the second year of university were exposed to a unit that was redesigned to fit in the V-A-K learning styles. It was found that the was no performance improvement when the students were exposed to that specific personalised learning environment and it was surprisingly noted from the statistical evidence that they underperformed in general both with respect to their previous performances and their performances in the same course but for a different unit that served as a control. The personalisation framework used an adaptive method to generate learning paths for each student and it was found that the method performed satisfactorily in its selection process. The findings of this research adds to the existing body of discourse and consolidates the belief that learning styles as determined by self-assessment instruments do not necessarily improve performances. On the other hand, it brings an interesting observation with respect to e-learning environments and the use of multimedia. A pedagogical method of instructional design that brings a sound balance in the use of different elements can indeed be of universal application and each and every learner will find his or her space in it. Indeed working towards more flexibility and adaptability of the environment might be a better approach rather than to work on the adaptivity of the environment. 554 Mihai Paunescu http://www.eurodl.org/?article=554 2013-03-07T12:49:00Z This article sets to explore the attitudes of higher education students enrolled in a political science programme at Master level towards e-learning facilitated by the introduction of a Moodle platform. The students have been surveyed at the end of public management course in the first semester of the programme asking them to evaluate both the contents (resources) available on the virtual learning environment, as well as the type of activities and the general interaction with technology. The objectives of our survey were twofold: first to carry a thorough evaluation of the course in order to collect evidence for further improvement, but also, more importantly, to unravel the established patterns of students’ learning and their attitudes towards a set of technology facilitated type of learning activities. We conclude that the implementation of a VLE is definitely not likely to immediately change existing learning/teaching practice. It is seen mainly as a support and complementing activity of face-to-face course deliveries, but does not yet change the pedagogical underpinnings of the learning practices. On the other hand, a thorough evaluation of students’ attitudes towards technology-enabled learning is crucial for consistently planning course designs and for embedding a quality culture at course level. 551 José B. C. Tomaz, Henk T. van der Molen, Sílvia Mamede http://www.eurodl.org/?article=551 2013-03-07T19:51:00Z Over the past decade Problem-based Learning (PBL) and distance education have been combined as educational approaches in higher education. This combination has been called distributed PBL (dPBL). However, more research is needed to obtain more evidence and deeper insight in how to design and implement dPBL. The present study aims at describing the design and the evaluation results of a competence-based, problem-based, web-based curriculum for training family doctors in Brazil. It focuses on a post graduate course “Clinical approaches for elderly people with dementia” offered by the School of Public Health of Ceará, Brazil. The course is 120 hours long and is available through the Learning Management System Moodle. It was offered to two classes of 30 participants. A self-administered questionnaire with closed and open questions was filled in by the participants of the two classes. The questions included various aspects such as the quality of teaching materials, the adequacy of the chosen educational approach, the technologies used for information and communication technology, the performance of the tutors and the satisfaction of participants. In general, the results indicated that the competence-based approach for curriculum design was adequate for our proposal and the course was highly rated by respondents. 547 Ron Mahieu, Simon Wolming http://www.eurodl.org/?article=547 2013-03-07T20:59:00Z Due to societal changes there is a growing need for distant and adult learning. The reason to participate in education and the choices that students make may differ. In this study the factors age, gender, rate of studies and parenthood have been analysed in order to see how these relate to different motivational factors for choosing a web-based course. The data has been based on a questionnaire, covering 1270 beginner students in the spring semester of 2011 and contains their background characteristics and items focusing on their motives. These could be categorized into four different motives: (1) Format, (2) Content, (3) Economic, and (4) Curiosity. The results showed that Format was regarded as the most important factor for choosing an Internet-based course, followed by Content, Curiosity and the Economic factor. Furthermore, group differences were investigated with respect to age, gender, parenthood and rate of study. The findings show that distant education fulfils an important function for mature students, women and students with children. These groups presumably consider the flexibility that web-based courses provide advantageous. Family situations or working-life obligations may contribute to this. Changes in people’s working lives are likely to continue, which presumably increases the demand for flexible learning situations. 546 Georgia Liarakou, Eleni Sakka, Costas Gavrilakis, Costas Tsolakidis http://www.eurodl.org/?article=546 2012-12-11T15:36:00Z