UNO Office of Distance Education Functions

This document outlines the responsibilities of the UNO Office of Distance Education Functions including: Administrative, Enrollment, Support Services, Academic, Marketing, Technical Infrastructure, and Faculty Support

Great Plains IDEA Student Handbook: South Dakota State University Version

The Great Plains Interactive Distance Education Alliance (IDEA) is a partnership of 20 public university members providing access to the best educational opportunities by collaboratively developing and delivering high-quality online academic programs. Great Plains IDEA is an academic alliance that offers fully-online graduate programs in high demand professional fields. This is the version of the student handbook developed for the South Dakota State University, Master of Science in Sociology

Looking to the future ... Distance Education Issues in Nebraska

The Nebraska Network 21 (NN21) Action Team on Distance Education/Outreach has studied a variety of issues related to distance education in order to better serve the people of Nebraska. Distance education has grown rapidly in Nebraska, but is clearly in its infancy. Many important issues still are being identified and are far from understood. The possibilities of distance education are yet to be fully realized. But in a state with a small, spread-out population such as ours -- perhaps in any state -- it would seem that distance education holds great promise for making many forms of education accessible to all. To further our understanding of the field of distance learning, the Action Team commissioned a series of White Papers on topics significant to distance education in Nebraska. These papers were first presented at a conference in September 1998. Summaries of the papers in this publication are intended to inform policymakers and anyone else interested in distance education about what the study of these topics yielded. These summaries are also designed to stimulate discussion

Open and distance learning in Southern Africa

Contents. Editor's introduction / Tony Dodds (pages vii- xiv) -- 1. An evaluation of the Certificate for Distance Education Practitioners / Evelyn P. Nonyongo and Mary-Emma Kuhn (pages 1-21) -- 2. Developing adult education delivery methods that extend educational opportunities to rural people of north-central Namibia / Haaveshe Nekongo-Nielsen (pages 22-39) -- 3. Increasing access to university education through distance learning in Zambia: the role of ICT / Richard Siaciwena (pages 40-58) -- 4. The operation and development of the teaching/leaming system of the Institute of Distance Education at the University of Swaziland / J.O. Odumbe (pages 59-75) -- 5. A comparative analysis of the academic performance of distance and full-time learners / C M. Magagula and P.A. Ngwenya (pages 76-91) -- 6. Levels of dual-mode status in the same institution: implications for access and the development and use of study materials / Pedro Lusakalalu (pages 92-103) -- 7. What is wrong with lecturing?: a case for, and against lecturing / Stanley Mpofu (pages 104-121) -- 8. Some environmental factors negatively affecting the academic performance of rural distance students of the University of Namibia / H.A. Beukes (pages 122-133) -- 9. Improving the quality of student learning / Delvaline Lucia Mowes (pages 134-160) -- 10. Student profiling in open learning for an effective student counselling model / Johnnie Hay and Paul Beneke (pages 161-180) -- 11. How open is distance learning in Southern Africa?: some personal conclusions and challenges / Tony Dodds (pages 181-189) -- Appendix A. Map of the regional Outreach Centres (page 145) -- Appendix B. Tables 1-15, Notes (pages 146-160) -- Student profiling in open learning for an effective student counselling model / Johnnie Hay and Paul Beneke (pages 161-180) -- How open is distance learning in Southern Africa?: some personal conclusions and challenges (pages 181-186) -- Index (187-189

Assessment innovation in higher education by integrating learning analytics

With the rise of social networking sites and the arrival of an open education era characterized by Massive Open Online Courses MOOCs, learning is undergoing a paradigm shift which requires new assessment strategies. The boundaries between what we know, how we know it and the ways we assess and evaluate knowledge in formal and informal settings are now blurred [1], [2]. In these environments, students often interact with one another to produce and reproduce knowledge and transfer it into a new context to reach a mastery level of learning [3]. The massive amount of data being generated by learners makes it easier to assess performance than ever before [4], [5]. Every learner action is logged and factored in as a source of evidence to contribute to the overall learner assessment both from a summative perspective, and also in a formative way where immediate feedback is actionable. The integration of learning analytics tools and machine learning techniques can facilitate the process of assessment. In this paper we present a case study to show how the integration of learning analytics benefited learners and improved their performance in an online educational course at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, while also holding them accountable for their own learning. The study utilized a survey method for data collection and quantitative and qualitative data analysis to interpret learners’ experiences after taking the course.peer-reviewe

School improvement through government agencies: loose or tight coupling?

In seeking to improve student outcomes, governments may choose to exercise direct control over schools, as in many centralised systems, or to provide frameworks for intermediate bodies to engage in improvement activities. One such body is the National College for School Leadership (NCSL), now the National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) in England. The Department of Education of the South African province of Gauteng (GDE) has also chosen to implement its school improvement programmes partly through two specialist units, the Sci-Bono Discovery Centre, which focuses on maths, science and technology (MST), and the Matthew Goniwe School of Leadership and Governance (MGSLG), which specialises in school leadership, management, governance and teacher development. The purpose of this article is to report on an evaluation of the work of these two bodies, commissioned by the GDE as part of its 20th anniversary commemorations, through an analysis of relevant documents and interviews with 11 key actors in the operation of these specialist bodies. The article adopts loose coupling as its theoretical framework