Online Distance Education: Towards a Research Agenda offers a systematic overview of the major issues, trends, and areas of priority in online distance education research. In each chapter, an international expert or team of experts provides an overview of one timely issue in online distance education, summarizing major research on the topic, discussing theoretical insights that guide the research, posing questions and directions for future research, and discussing the implications for distance education practice as a whole. Intended as a primary reference and guide for distance educators, researchers, and policymakers, Online Distance Education addresses aspects of distance education practice that have often been marginalized, including issues of cost and economics, concerns surrounding social justice, cultural bias, the need for faculty professional development, and the management and growth of learner communities. At once soundly empirical and thoughtfully reflective, yet also forward-looking and open to new approaches to online and distance teaching, this text is a solid resource for researchers in a rapidly expanding discipline.

Supporting Students for Success in Online and Distance Learning, Third Edition, provides a comprehensive overview of student support both on and off campus. While online and distance learning are the world’s fastest growing areas of educational development, they have a fundamental weakness—their graduation rates, which can be lower than 20 percent. In this powerful new edition, Ormond Simpson builds on a rich history of research in distance and e-learning to show how retention rates can be improved through tested support methods, often at a net financial profit to the institutions involved. By comparing the evidence as well as the cost-effectiveness of various support tactics, this book describes how to promote student success and encourage skill-development from a number of different perspectives: definitions and purpose, theory and psychology, ethics, costs and benefits, activities, sources, media, proactive and reactive, assessment and feedback, staff development, writing support into course materials, research, quality assurance and institutional structures. This concise, practical guide is informal and jargon-free, yet its approach to evidence is rigorous, making it invaluable reading for all those interested in recruiting and teaching diverse students for successful online and distance learning.

Online and Distance Social Work Education: Current Practice and Future Trends provides a comprehensive presentation on the evolution, current status and future direction of distance learning and online education in the social work profession. Documenting the current state-of-the-art, this book demonstrates the power of distance learning and online technology and addresses future trends in web-based social work education. Written by widely recognized experts, the chapters represent an authoritative statement of the present state-of-the-art in the application of technology to contemporary social work education. The insights of these experts will be of great interest to students and faculty in the 798 accredited social work programs in the United States. They are creating a revolution in the profession which will forever change the nature of education for professional practice. Authored by widely recognized educators on the cutting edge of technological innovation, this text will be relevant to social work students and educators in baccalaureate, masters and doctoral programs in the USA and internationally. The chapters in this book were originally published in the Journal of Teaching in Social Work.

"This comprehensive, six-volume collection addresses all aspects of online and distance learning, including information communication technologies applied to education, virtual classrooms, pedagogical systems, Web-based learning, library information systems, virtual universities, and more. It enables libraries to provide a foundational reference to meet the information needs of researchers, educators, practitioners, administrators, and other stakeholders in online and distance learning"--Provided by publisher.

A Guide to Administering Online Learning provides an overview of tasks to be accomplished in order to direct dynamic online initiatives. Experienced distance learning teachers and administrators share their insights regarding what must be done to administer effective online learning.

Teaching and Learning at a Distance is written for introductory distance education courses for preservice or in-service teachers, and for training programs that discuss teaching distant learners or managing distance education systems. This text provides readers with the basic information needed to be knowledgeable distance educators and leaders of distance education programs. The teacher or trainer who uses this book will be able to design courses, evaluate programs, and identify issues and trends affecting the field. In this text we take the following themes: The first theme is the definition of distance education. Before we started writing the first edition of Teaching and Learning at a Distance we carefully reviewed the literature to determine the definition that would be at the foundation of our writing. This definition is based on the work of Desmond Keegan, but is unique to this book and has been adopted by the Association for Educational Communications and Technology and by the Encyclopedia Britannica. The second theme of the book is the importance of research to the development of effective courses and programs offered at a distance. The best practices presented in Teaching and Learning at a Distance are validated by scientific evidence. Certainly there are “rules of thumb,” but we have always attempted to only include recommendations that can be supported by research. The third theme of Teaching and Learning at a Distance is derived from Richard Clark’s famous quote published in the Review of Educational Research asserting that media are mere vehicles that do not directly influence achievement. Clark’s controversial work is discussed in the book, but is also fundamental to the book’s advocacy for distance education—in other words, we authors do not make the claim that education delivered at a distance is inherently better than other ways people learn. Distance delivered instruction is not a magical approach that makes learners achieve more. Equivalency theory is the fourth theme of the book. Here we present the concept that instruction should be provided to learners that is equivalent rather than identical to what might be delivered in a traditional environment. Equivalency theory helps the instructional designer approach the development of instruction for each learner without attempting to duplicate what happens in a face-to-face classroom. The final theme for Teaching and Learning at a Distance is the idea that the book should be comprehensive—that it should cover as much of the various ways instruction is made available to distant learners as is possible. It can serve as a stand-alone source of information.

As more postsecondary faculty become engaged in designing online learning environments, research conducted on distance education program quality becomes increasingly important. Measurements in Distance Education is a concise, well-organized guide to some of the many instruments, scales, and methods that have been created to assess distance education environments, learners, and teachers. Entries are organized according to the qualities these measures attempt to gauge—such as engagement and information retention—and provide summaries of each instrument, usage information, the history of its development, and validation, including any reported psychometric properties. Offering more than 50 different surveys, tests, and other metrics, this book is an essential reference for anyone interested in understanding distance education assessment.