IRRODL Volume 15, Number 4

Abstract

Editorial -Volume 15, Issue Number 4Nn OnlineCourses Rory McGreal Co-Editor, IRRODLWelcome to the first fall edition of IRRODL. This edition can be divided into two sections; the first is pedagogical and aimed at practitioners. It contains papers researching interaction, focusing on social and collaborative learning, synchronous and asynchronous activities, roleplaying, crowdteaching, grouping, and the effects of learning styles. The second section is aimed at distance education administrators and program directors. It contains papers on management, elearning design, and rating teachers, followed by investigations into student performance in MOOCs and the analysis of data for assessing multiliteracies and student needs. Section 1: Pedagogical papersTwo papers investigate social networking, one by open educational practitioners and the other by students.The first paper (Schreurs et al.) focuses on the activities of open educational practitioners, describing how their participation is supported in the context of online collaborations. The paper is rather long, but it was felt that the interview quotations were highly relevant and of interest to distance learning professionals. The views of students on their social networking experience in a learning management system is the subject of Özmen and Atici's qualitative research paper. Using semistructured interviews, the researchers investigate the use of social networking and the students' attitudes towards the experience. Action research is used by Koechli and Glynn to describe the development of a roleplaying website called Lake Devo as an example of an online role-play environment.The effects of the audio and visual presentations including avatars were the subject of their study, which involved surveying the students and debriefing them at the conclusion of the activities. The last two pedagogical oriented papers look at crowdsourcing and learning styles.Recker, Yuan, and Ye investigate the employment of high quality web-based content by teachers as part of a crowdsourcing community. The study examines their usage activities and analyzes their characteristics, concluding that they are engaged in "crowdteaching". In a comparative study, Çakıroğlu examines the relationships among learning styles, study habits, and learning performances in a computer science course. Section 2: Administration papersUsing Moore's theory of transactional distance and social cognitive theoretical framework, Jowallah evaluates the strategies implemented to support the research activities of postgraduate students in the University of the West Indies Open Campus.This study included the role of teaching/learning spaces, scheduling, and seminars.Examining multiple articles and texts, Hillen and Landis investigate what kinds of pedagogy, instructional design models, or didactical models are established andproposed for e-learning design in the US and Europe. They study the different educational philosophies, specific theories about learning, and e-learning design.In their study, Prasad and Usag...