"This book familiarizes prospective researchers with processes and topics for conducting research in e-learning, addressing Theoretical Frameworks, Empirical Research Methods and Tutorial, Factors Influencing Student Satisfaction and Learning Outcomes, and Other Applications of Theory and Method"--Provided by publisher.

In the ten years since the inception of the Sloan Consortium, the field of online learning has entered the mainstream of higher education, making online learning a core ingredient of tomorrow¿s educational paradigms. Now that digital natives are coming of age, the blending of on-ground and online education is continuous and unstoppable. Growing demands for wide choice suggest that the blended agenda presses us rapidly into new realms of inquiry. Thus, the title of this collection, the fifth volume in the Sloan-C series on quality, is Elements of Quality Online Education: Into the Mainstream. The 14 peer-reviewed studies in this volume provide guidance for effectively responding to the challenges facing higher education.¿The studies on Student Satisfaction recognize that significant populations remain underserved. Yet asynchronous learning networks (ALNs) are widening access by easing some of the constraints of place-based, synchronous learning, so that many more and many more new kinds of learners can achieve satisfaction and success. ¿The studies on Learning Effectiveness share an emphasis on the ways that ALN exceeds the ¿no significant difference¿ minimum standard for learning outcomes.¿The studies on blending, combining face-to-face and online methods for learning, offer rich possibilities for what many see as the best of both learning modes.¿The studies on assessment go to the core of the Sloan-C quality framework and its emphasis on continuous quality improvement through demonstrating progress towards the overarching goal of affordable access for all in a wide range of disciplines.In our time of ¿profound, rapid, and discontinuous change,¿ these studies envision solutions to the challenges of online, blended and face-to-face education in higher education. Sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the purpose of the Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C) is to help learning organizations continually improve quality, scale, and breadth according to their own distinctive missions, so that education will become a part of everyday life, accessible and affordable for anyone, anywhere, at any time, in a wide variety of disciplines.

Digital and online learning is more prevalent than ever, making multimedia learning a primary objective for many instructors. The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning examines cutting-edge research to guide creative teaching methods in online classrooms and training. Recognized as the field's major reference work, this research-based handbook helps define and shape this area of study. This third edition provides the latest progress report from the world's leading multimedia researchers, with forty-six chapters on how to help people learn from words and pictures, particularly in computer-based environments. The chapters demonstrate what works best and establishes optimized practices. It systematically examines well-researched principles of effective multimedia instruction and pinpoints exactly why certain practices succeed by isolating the boundary conditions. The volume is founded upon research findings in learning theory, giving it an informed perspective in explaining precisely how effective teaching practices achieve their goals or fail to engage.

Students’ Experiences of e-learning in Higher Education helps higher education instructors and university managers understand how e-learning relates to, and can be integrated with, other student experiences of learning. Grounded in relevant international research, the book is distinctive in that it foregrounds students’ experiences of learning, emphasizing the importance of how students interpret the challenges set before them, along with their conceptions of learning and their approaches to learning. The way students interpret task requirements greatly affects learning outcomes, and those interpretations are in turn influenced by how students read the larger environment in which they study. The authors argue that a systemic understanding is necessary for the effective design and management of modern learning environments, whether lectures, seminars, laboratories or private study. This ecological understanding must also acknowledge, though, the agency of learners as active interpreters of their environment and its culture, values and challenges. Students’ Experiences of e-learning in Higher Education reports research outcomes that locate e-learning within the broader ecology of higher education and: Offers a holistic treatment of e-learning in higher education, reflecting the need for integrating e-learning and other aspects of the student learning experience Reports research on students’ experiences with e-learning conducted by authors in the United States, Europe, and Australia Synthesizes key themes in recent international research and summarizes their implications for teachers and managers.

According to UNESCO statistics, 10 million of the world's 600 million students study at a distance. Theoretical Principles of Distance Education seeks to lay solid foundations for the education of these students and for the structures within which they study. As a more industrialised form of education provision, distance education is well adapted to the use of new communication technologies, and brings to education many of the strengths and dangers of post-industrialism. The central focus of the study of distance education is the placing of the student at home or at work and the justification of the abandonment in this form of education of interpersonal, face-to-face communication, previously considered to be a cultural imperative for education in both east and west. This book explores the problems that distance education poses to the theorist, bringing together an international team of distance educators to address these issues for the first time in a systematic way. The team comprises theoreticians, administrators, experts in educational technology and adult education, experts in learning from video machines, from computers and other forms of technology. Contributions from Italy, and Scandinavia contrast with viewpoints provided by scholars from the US, Canada, Australia, and the UK.

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.