What's it really like to learn online?Learning Online: The Student Experience Online learning is ubiquitous for millions of students worldwide, yet our understanding of student experiences in online learning settings is limited. The geographic distance that separates faculty from students in an online environment is its signature feature, but it is also one that risks widening the gulf between teachers and learners. In Learning Online, George Veletsianos argues that in order to critique, understand, and improve online learning, we must examine it through the lens of student experience. Approaching the topic with stories that elicit empathy, compassion, and care, Veletsianos relays the diverse day-to-day experiences of online learners. Each in-depth chapter follows a single learner's experience while focusing on an important or noteworthy aspect of online learning, tackling everything from demographics, attrition, motivation, and loneliness to cheating, openness, flexibility, social media, and digital divides. Veletsianos also draws on these case studies to offer recommendations for the future and lessons learned. The elusive nature of online learners' experiences, the book reveals, is a problem because it prevents us from doing better: from designing more effective online courses, from making evidence-informed decisions about online education, and from coming to our work with the full sense of empathy that our students deserve. Writing in an evocative, accessible, and concise manner, Veletsianos concretely demonstrates why it is so important to pay closer attention to the stories of students—who may have instructive and insightful ideas about the future of education.

This text focuses on higher education from the student perspective. In particular, it examines the change in the UK (and other countries) from an elite model towards the USA model of mass higher education, and shows how this is reflected in student experience: higher education courses are increasingly diverse in content, delivery and location; the student population itself has become more diverse; financial support and employment opportunities have changed; and customer care and a market focus are to the fore.

This book outlines a new student lifecycle framework for practitioners together with working solutions to real problems in the form of exemplar case studies from the UK and internationally.

Bringing together cutting-edge research from over 50 leading international scholars, this forward-looking Research Handbook offers theoretical and empirical insights into the student experience in higher education.

Measuring and Enhancing the Student Experience provides insights on how student experience measures could be used to inform improvements at institutional, course, unit of study and teacher level. The book is based on a decade of research and practitioner views on ways to enhance the design, conduct, analysis, reporting and closing the loop on student feedback data. While the book is largely based on Australian case studies, it provides learning experiences for other countries where student experience measures are used in national and institutional quality assurance. Consisting of 13 chapters, the book includes a wide range of topics including the role and purpose of student feedback, the use of student feedback in staff performance reviews, staff and student engagement, a student feedback and experience framework, the first year experience, use of qualitative data, engaging transnational students in feedback, closing the loop on feedback, student engagement in national quality assurance, use of learning analytics and the future of the student experience. Mahsood Shah is an Associate Professor and Deputy Dean (Learning and Teaching) with School of Business and Law at CQUniversity, Australia. In this role Mahsood is responsible for enhancing the academic quality and standard of courses. Mahsood is also responsible for learning and teaching strategy, governance, effective implementation of policies, and enhancement of learning and teaching outcomes across all campuses. In providing leadership for learning and teaching, Mahsood works with key academic leaders across all campuses to improve learning and teaching outcomes of courses delivered in various modes including face-to-face and online. At CQUniversity, he provides leadership in national and international accreditation of academic courses. Mahsood is also an active researcher. His areas of research include quality in higher education, measurement and enhancement of student experience, student retention and attrition, student engagement in quality assurance, international higher education, widening participation and private higher education. Chenicheri Sid Nair is the incoming Executive Director, Tertiary Education Commission (TEC), Mauritius. Prior to joining TEC, he was Professor, Higher Education Development at the University of Western Australia (UWA), Perth where his work encompassed the improvement of the institutions teaching and learning. Before this appointment to UWA, he was Quality Adviser (Research and Evaluation) in the Centre for Higher Education Quality (CHEQ) at Monash University, Australia. He has an extensive expertise in the area of quality development and evaluation, and he also has considerable editorial experience. Currently, he is Associate Editor of the International Journal of Quality Assurance in Engineering and Technology Education (IJQAETE). He was also a Managing Editor of the Electronic Journal of Science Education (EJSE). Professor Nair is also an international consultant in a number of countries in quality, student voice and evaluations. Provides both practical experience and research findings Presents a diverse range of topics, ranging from broader student experience issues, analysis of government policies in Australia on student experience, the changing context of student evaluations, nonresponse to surveys, staff and student engagement, ideal frameworks for student feedback, and more Contains data taken from the unique Australian experience with changing government policies and reforms relevant to the Asia-Pacific region

This book explores the challenges of improving the student experience in higher education through a ‘third space’ perspective. This key text studies a variety of approaches by drawing on higher education policy, interviews with academics working in third space roles in higher education in the UK, France, Germany, Holland, North America and Italy, as well as auto-ethnographic narratives. The chapters consider key topical areas affecting student experience including academic support, assessment and feedback, creative approaches to pedagogy, approaches to supporting international students and students as partners. This work offers further insights into the way in which the ‘third space’ roles are so important to the functioning of higher education institutions and the ways in which the improvement of the student experience is inexorably intertwined with those in such roles. With evaluative and practice-based insights into embedding institutional changes to improve student outcomes, this book bridges the gap between academia and administration and is ideal reading for anyone interested in improving the student experience within their institution.

Originally published in 1984 The Student Experience of Higher Education provides a detailed analysis of the student experience, based on first hand discussion and observation. Information taken from interviews with a wide variety of students is used to explore the way in which new, overseas, and female physics students in particular experience university education and relates to their reactions to the organised learning which the university provides. The study focuses on an understanding of how various aspects of the official perspectives of academic staff contrive to limit the educational development of the undergraduate. This detailed picture of the university world is in contrast to previous methods of research in this area. By showing the benefits to be derived from an analysis of the experiences of students within one small campus based university this book is related to critical American studies previously unparalleled in the British university research tradition.