Professor Airina Volungevičienė is well known across Europe and beyond for her work in distance learning and teaching, and her commitment to technology enhanced learning. She is past president of EDEN, current Management Board member of EDEN Digital Learning Europe, the chair of the board of the Lithuanian Distance and eLearning Association and Director of the Institute of Innovative Studies at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania.
Professor Phillip Dawson is an international expert in online assessment and the flipped classroom, with a broad interest in online education. He is Associate Director, Centre For Research In Assessment And Digital Learning (CRADLE) with Deakin University in Australia. After this episode you’ll be inspired to check out his work.
Hew, K. F., Bai, S., Huang, W., Dawson, P., Du, J., Huang, G., Jia, C., & Thankrit, K. (2021). On the use of flipped classroom across various disciplines: Insights from a second-order meta-analysis. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 37(2), 132–151. https://doi.org/10.14742/ajet.6475
Dawson, P., Henderson, M., Mahoney, P., Phillips, M., Ryan, T., Boud, D. & Molloy, E. (2019). What makes for effective feedback: staff and student perspectives. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 44(1), 25-36. DOI: 10.1080/02602938.2018.1467877
Dr Tony Mays joined COL as Education Specialist: Open Schooling in February 2019. Throughout his career, Tony has been involved with the strategic leadership and operational management of distance education with extensive experience in sub-Saharan Africa. He previously served as Manager of the Unit for Distance Education, Faculty of Education, University of Pretoria and before that as a Senior Programme Specialist at Saide.
Mays. T., & Singh, R.K. (Eds.) (2020). Addressing the learning needs of out-of-school children and youths through the expansion of Open Schooling. Commonwealth of Learning: http://oasis.col.org/handle/11599/3731
Mays T. (2021). Teaching the Teachers. In: Burgos D., Tlili A., Tabacco A. (Eds.) Radical solutions for education in a crisis context. Lecture notes in educational technology. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7869-4_11
Mays, T. (2020). Open Educational Resources in South Africa. In: Huang, R., Liu, D., Tlili, A., Gao, Y., & Koper, R. (2020). Current State of Open Educational Resources in the “Belt and Road” Countries. Springer Singapore. https://books.google.ca/books?id=nM_YDwAAQBAJ
Dr George Veletsianos is Professor in the School of Education and Technology at Royal Roads University, Canada. He holds the Canada Research Chair in Innovative Learning and Technology and the Commonwealth of Learning Chair in Flexible Learning. George talks about his history and research in online education, and his ongoing challenges to the false dichotomy of online and in-person learning.
Professor Sarah Guri-Rosenblit is an active scholar. She has published multiple books and over 100 articles concerned with distance and online education – which, she has famously established, are not the same thing. Professor Guri-Rosenblit is Professor in the department of Education and Psychology with the Open University of Israel. Until October 2019 she served as Vice-President for Academic Affairs, prior to which she was Dean of Academic Development and Learning Technologies (2012-2017). Throughout her academic career, Professor Guri-Rosenblit has participated in many international forums, task committees, and collaborative research projects, such as the Scientific Committee of Europe and North America of the UNESCO Forum for Higher Education, Research and Knowledge (2003-2009); the Fulbright New Century Scholars (2005-2006); evaluation teams of the Higher Education and Social Change of the European Science Foundation (2007-2012) and the Bellagio Conference Center of Rockefeller (since 2007); Bologna Experts (2011-2014); the University of the Future Network (since 2016); and PhD Symposium Experts of EDEN (since 2019).
Guri-Rosenblit, S. (1999). Distance and Campus Universities: Tensions and Interactions: A Comparative Study of Five Countries. Oxford: Pergamon Press & International Association of Universities. (290 pp.)
Guri-Rosenblit, S. (2010). Digital Technologies in Higher Education: Sweeping Expectations and Actual Effects. New York: Nova Science Publishers, (178 pp.)
Guri-Rosenblit, S. (2019). Open Universities: Innovative Past, Challenging Present and Prospective Future, International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 20 (4), 179-194. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v20i4.4034
Professor Moeketsi Letseka is the UNESCO Chair of Open and Distance Learning at Unisa in South Africa. His is an inspiring journey of extending the reach of education in post-apartheid South Africa, where online learning assists in providing opportunity – at scale. Equity, access and equality are all part of the context, calling for creative and informed solutions.
Dr Venkataraman Balaji is Vice-President of the Commonwealth of Learning. Balaji’s work in improving access to educational opportunities through straightforward interventions, and the subsequent impact on many tens of thousands of lives, gives his activities a contemporary significance.
Ally, M., Balaji, V., Abdelbaki, A., & Cheng, R. (2017). Use of Tablet Computers to Improve Access to Education in a Remote Location. Journal of Learning for Development , 4(2). Retrieved from https://jl4d.org/index.php/ejl4d/article/view/219
Chan Mow, I. T., Temese, E., Mose, M. N., Patu, T., Mauai, E., Sinclair, I., Lafaele, F., Namulauulu, J., Tanielu, M., Wong Soon, A., & Chan, V. (2017). An Evaluation of the Usefulness and Ease of Use of the Aptus within the Samoan Education Context. Journal of Learning for Development , 4(3). Retrieved from https://jl4d.org/index.php/ejl4d/article/view/192
Moloo, R., Prabhakar, T.V., Balaji, V., &Khedo, K. (2018). Successful Delivery of a MOOC via Basic Mobile Phones: A Case Study of Mobile Learning in India for Increasing Awareness of Science-Based Production Practices Among Semi-skilled Horticultural Farmers. Peer-reviewed Pre-print of book chapter: http://oasis.col.org/handle/11599/2934
Patru, M., & Balaji, V. (Eds.) (2016). Making Sense of MOOCs: A Guide for Policy-Makers in Developing Countries. UNESCO and Commonwealth of Learning. http://oasis.col.org/handle/11599/2356
Prabhakar, T.V., Balaji, V., & Revathy, K.T. (2018). mooKIT – A MOOC Platform for Developing Countries. Pre-print of published article in the proceedings of the 2018 International Conference on Multidisciplinary Research (MyRes). http://oasis.col.org/handle/11599/3047
Dr Mohsen Keshavarz is Director of the Virtual Education Center of Torbat Heydariyeh University of Medical Sciences. He has a PhD in the area of virtual education planning and is an energetic advocate of distance learning in his home country of Iran, having translated Tony Bates’s book Teaching in a digital age to Persian in addition to several other projects, some with international collaborators.
Keshavarz, M., & Ghoneim, A. (2021). Preparing Educators to Teach in a Digital Age. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 22(1), 221-242. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v22i1.4910
Professor Asha Kanwar is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Commonwealth of Learning. She is a well-known international conference speaker, a champion of learning for sustainable development and inspires many around the globe through her publications and advocacy.
Instructional design is foundational to effective online education. In this episode Dr Afsaneh Sharif, researcher, consultant, instructional designer, e-learning specialist, faculty liaison and project manager with the University of British Columbia, shares insight from her 20+ years of practice and scholarship.
Sharaiti, B., Kanji, Z., Soheilipour, S., Patrick, L., & Sharif, A. (2021). Enhancing Learning in an Online Oral Epidemiology and Statistics Course: A Mixed Methods Approach to Assessing Outcomes. Can J Dent Hyg 2021;55(1): 17-29. Available at: https://files.cdha.ca/profession/journal/2739.pdf
Sharif, A., & Magrill, B. (2015). Discussion forums in MOOCs. International Journal of Learning, Teaching and Educational Research, 12(1). Available at: http://ijlter.org/index.php/ijlter/article/view/368
McCracken, J., Cho, S., Sharif, A., Wilson, B., & Miller, J. (2012). Principled Assessment Strategy Design for Online Courses and Programs. Electronic Journal of E-learning, 10(1), 107-119. Available at: http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ969449
Sharif, A., Welsh, A., Myers, J., Wilson, B., Chan, J., Cho, S., & Miller, J. (2019). Faculty Liaisons: an embedded approach for enriching teaching and learning in higher education. International Journal for Academic Development, 24:3, 260-271, DOI: 10.1080/1360144X.2019.1584898
Quality Assurance in E-Learning Program. In Gisbert, M. and Bullen, M. (2015). Teaching and Learning in Digital Worlds: Strategies and Issues in Higher Education. Ed. Marfil & Publications URV.
