The need for delight in online education materials

With the demand for online learning materials ever increasing and with more content being made open and free, Higher Education Institutes are now in a position to take their robust virtual learning environments and shift focus from content to user. The new objective being to provide a Delightful user experience that will not only surprise and excite but will improve education online

“Stickiness”: Gauging students’ attention to online learning activities

Purpose: Online content developers use the term “stickiness” to refer to the ability of their online service or game to attract and hold the attention of users and create a compelling and magnetic reason for them to return repeatedly (examples include virtual pets and social media). In business circles, the same term connotes the level of consumer loyalty to a particular brand. This paper aims to extend the concept of “stickiness” not only to describe repeat return and commitment to the learning “product”, but also as a measure of the extent to which students are engaged in online learning opportunities. Design/methodology/approach: This paper explores the efficacy of several approaches to the monitoring and measuring of online learning environments, and proposes a framework for assessing the extent to which these environments are compelling, engaging and “sticky”. Findings: In particular, the exploration so far has highlighted the difference between how lecturers have monitored the engagement of students in a face-to-face setting versus the online teaching environment. Practical implications: In the higher education environment where increasingly students are being asked to access learning in the online space, it is vital for teachers to be in a position to monitor and guide students in their engagement with online materials. Originality/value: The mere presence of learning materials online is not sufficient evidence of engagement. This paper offers options for testing specific attention to online materials allowing greater assurance around engagement with relevant and effective online learning activities

A Review and Assessment of Technology and Materials For English Language Teaching and Learning

As an increasing number of materials and language learning resources have become available online, English language learners of any level can easily access an unlimited number of websites and applications at the swipe of a finger. For teachers and students concerned with the quality of these online tools, being directed to websites that are trustworthy and truly educational can become a daunting task. This two-part article aims to support teachers in this challenge. In Section One, titled Website Review and Assessment for Listening Instruction , the results of a review and assessment conducted to determine the quality of readily available online resources and study materials intended for English language teaching and learning are presented. In Section Two, titled Online English Language Course Assessment, a review and assessment of an online language course suitable for either self-study or for use within the context of the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom will be presented

Merlot

MERLOT is a community of educators in higher education who collaborate to develop and disseminate high quality online resources for faculty to incorporate into their courses. This website provides access to online learning materials along with annotations such as peer reviews and assignments. The educational resources are designed primarily for faculty and students of higher education. Users may browse the collection or search for materials using keywords. Members may add materials, comments and assignments to MERLOT. Topics covered in the MERLOT collections include the sciences, education, the arts, and humanities. Educational levels: High school, Undergraduate lower division, Undergraduate upper division

Online Learning and Experimentation via Interactive Learning Resources

Recent trends in online learning like Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and Open Educational Resources (OERs) are changing the landscape in the education sector by allowing learners to self-regulate their learning and providing them with an abundant amount of free learning materials. This paper presents FORGE, a new European initiative for online learning and experimentation via interactive learning resources. FORGE provides learners and educators with access to world- class facilities and high quality learning materials, thus enabling them to carry out experiments on e.g. new Internet protocols. In turn, this supports constructivist and self-regulated learning approaches, through the use of interactive learning resources, such as eBooks

PhotoShape: Photorealistic Materials for Large-Scale Shape Collections

Existing online 3D shape repositories contain thousands of 3D models but lack photorealistic appearance. We present an approach to automatically assign high-quality, realistic appearance models to large scale 3D shape collections. The key idea is to jointly leverage three types of online data -- shape collections, material collections, and photo collections, using the photos as reference to guide assignment of materials to shapes. By generating a large number of synthetic renderings, we train a convolutional neural network to classify materials in real photos, and employ 3D-2D alignment techniques to transfer materials to different parts of each shape model. Our system produces photorealistic, relightable, 3D shapes (PhotoShapes).Comment: To be presented at SIGGRAPH Asia 2018. Project page: https://keunhong.com/publications/photoshape

Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts

This Code of Best Practices provides visual-arts professionals with a set of principles addressing best practices in the fair use of copyrighted materials. It describes how fair use can be invoked and implemented when using copyrighted materials in scholarship, teaching, museums, archives, and in the creation of art.The Code addresses the following five questions:Analytic Writing: When may scholars and other writers about art invoke fair use to quote, excerpt, or reproduce copyrighted works?Teaching about Art: When may teachers invoke fair use in using copyrighted works to support formal instruction in a range of settings, including online and distance teaching?Making Art: Under what circumstances may artists invoke fair use to incorporate copyrighted material into new artworks in any medium?Museum Uses: When may museums and their staffs invoke fair use in using copyrighted works -- including images and text as well as time-based and born-digital material -- when organizing exhibitions, developing educational materials (within the museum and online), publishing catalogues, and other related activities?Online Access to Archival and Special Collections: When may such institutions and their staffs invoke fair use to create digital preservation copies and/or enable digital access to copyrighted materials in their collections

An Evaluation of Faculty use of the Digital Library at Ankara University, Turkey

New consortial buying models have dramatically increased the availability of online resources, particularly journal articles, in the universities and technical institutes of developing countries. The degree of acceptance and pattern of use of such materials is of great interest to library collection development. Ankara University surveyed faculty members regarding their awareness and use of these electronic materials

Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Poetry

Outlines best practices created by the poetry community for using copyrighted materials in parody and satire; "remixed" new works; education; criticism, comment, or illustration; poetry online; and literary performance. Lists principles and limitations