Knowledge Creation and Sharing with Web 2.0 Tools for Teaching and Learning Roles in So-called University 2.0

AbstractUniversities have long been accepted as major social and cultural institutions. They have been taken those responsibilities for centuries by doing research, teaching, learning and publishing in a scholarly manner. These institutions serve developments in various organisational forms such as ‘brick and mortar (traditional campus base)’, ‘click (distance-online)’, and ‘brick and click (traditional campus base with distance-online)’ types.This study aims to search new opportunities and developments brought by Web 2.0 (Social Web) technologies into university's teaching and learning roles. These innovative communication platforms encourage people to share their thoughts and experiences to collaborate thorough the interactive Social Media. Knowledge as an organizational strategic asset is distributed and created by new way of interactions within groups. Therefore universities can use Web 2.0 services in accordance with their organisational missions and strategies

Editorial

This issue of Higher Learning Research Communications (HLRC) marks the beginning of our third year of publication.We are very excited about the continued opportunity of publishing high quality academic research in the area of higher education policies and practices.During this third year, several new initiatives will be launched, including the publication of selected conference proceedings (Volume 3, No 4) and the launch of a new series (coming in 2014) highlighting the people that have dedicated their life to Higher Education.Please look for additional information in our social media pages through Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.On this issue, our authors focus on the importance and relevance that online and digital means play in reformatting, attracting, retaining, and supporting students in higher education.Invited authors highlight how the digital era has transformed higher education in several areas, including academic publishing and day-to-day teaching and learning.Rogerio Meneghini discusses SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library of Science) and its relevance in supporting open access scientific journals.The role of the SciELO index is discussed within the context of Latin American countries, with a particular focus on Brazil.Melanie Winter and Frank McCluskey write about the digital university, and the relevance of designing the online classroom experience to support the instructional design and pedagogical aims of the course.Following the theme set by the invited pieces, authors address a diversity of topics on how online teaching and learning has impacted higher education in recent years.Burkholder, Lenio, Holland, Seidman, Neal, Middlebrook, and Jobe discuss the efforts of a distance education institution to support student retention by developing an institutional culture of retention and persistence.In a case-study piece, Kruse, Bonura, James, and Potler detail the online community strategies used by a distance learning institution to successfully support the accreditation reaffirmation process.Finally, Carver and Todd analyze the student perceptions of content mastery for online courses that were redesigned to support student engagement.Throughout the papers on this issue, the authors introduce thought pieces, case- studies, and research results highlighting how the internet technology and media has impacted and transformed the teaching and learning process.They also highlight how online tools can benefit and improve the higher education community, touching multiple aspects of our every day experiences, from accreditation, publishing, teaching, learning, and retention

Book Reviews

Reviews of: Daniel, J.S. (1996). Mega-Universities and Knowledge Media - Technology Strategies for Higher Education. London: Kogan Page Hobbs, V. M & Christianson , J. S. (1997). Virtual Classrooms- Educational Opportunity Through Two-Way Interactive Television. Lancaster Pennsylvannia & Basel, Switzerland: Technomic Publishing Co. Forsyth, I. (1996). Teaching and Learning Materials on the Internet. London: Kogan Page. Collis, B. (1996). Tele-learning in a Digital World - T he Future of Distance Learning. London: International Thompson Computer Press. Melton, R. F. (1997). Objectives, Competences & Learning Outcomes: Developing Instructional Materials in Open and Distance Learning. London: Kogan Page

Openness and education: a beginner’s guide

While recent high-profile developments such as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have placed renewed emphasis on the idea of openness in education, different notions of open in relation to education can be found dating back to the 1960s. This document builds on recent research undertaken to trace this history, acknowledging that there is no single root of ‘open’ in this context, but to map the different ways of thinking about open education that have come to bear on the field we see today. Mapping of themes across time aims to provides those new to the field with a useful overview of the history and introduction to the concept of openness, and ways to explore the literature further. Each section of this document will summarise the nature of one of the themes, and its relationship to the broader network. Additionally, the document provides an annotated bibliography, through summaries of five of the most influential publications across a range of perspectives in each theme

Case Studies on Institutional Open Approaches: The Open University

Interpreting openness has been part of The Open University’s mission since its foundation in 1969. As a distance teaching university it has always developed extensive educational resources for its students and occasionally for a wider audience but the emergence of open educational resources (OER) has challenged the ways in which it both develops and uses such teaching materials, in particular an over-reliance on in-house authoring and embedded third party materials and income from sales and licensing of such content. As educational resources are integral to the university’s teaching and business model a large scale, institution-wide, action research project aligned to University strategic objectives was established to examine the potential impact of OER in those models (with funding support from a US Foundation). Extensive research and evaluation activities plus widespread staff acceptance and experience in the use of OER in various parts of their work has enabled a gradual bottom-up adoption and planned top-down embedding of OER and other aspects of openness into most facets of University work after five years, including a defined open media policy

Digital resilience in higher education

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

Mapping the open education landscape: citation network analysis of historical open and distance education research

The term open education has recently been used to refer to topics such as Open Educational Resources (OERs) and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Historically its roots lie in civil approaches to education and open universities, but this research is rarely referenced or acknowledged in current interpretations. In this article the antecedents of the modern open educational movement are examined, as the basis for connecting the various strands of research. Using a citation analysis method the key references are extracted and their relationships mapped. This work reveals eight distinct sub-topics within the broad open education area, with relatively little overlap. The implications for this are discussed and methods of improving inter-topic research are proposed

Higher education course content: paper-based, online or hybrid course delivery?

[Abstract]: The emergence of the Internet has made many institutions involved in the delivery of distance education programs re-evaluate the course delivery framework. A variety of models and techniques co-exist in an often uneasy alliance at many such institutions. These range from the traditional distance learning model, which remains paper-based, to the purely online model. Recently, hybrid models have emerged which apparently attempt to forge elements taken from several models into a unified whole. Many of these hybrid models seek to eliminate paper-based materials from the tuition process. While many arguments are put forward about the efficacy of purely electronic delivery mechanisms, cost containment is often the driving motivation. This study explores student perceptions of the various delivery mechanisms for distance learning materials. In particular, it seeks to determine what value students place on paper-based delivery mechanisms. The study surveys a group of undergraduate students and a group of graduate students enrolled in the Faculty of Business at a large regional Australian university