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In distance education, a separation of roles between course design teams and student support teams are still characteristic of many specialized institutions. However, the role of the tutor has evolved considerably along with technological developments and the improvement of the quality of distance courses and student success requires a certain degree of cooperation between course design teams and tutors. The aim of this research is to describe the role of tutors as perceived by the different actors of the institution and to determine the state of cooperation between the course design teams and the student support teams. It is theoretically grounded in the social exchange theory and in the interprofessional cooperation model of St-Arnaud. An essentially qualitative case study was conducted based on individual and group interviews with four pedagogical advisors, six tutors and two administrative officers. The findings highlight significant differences between the role actually performed by tutors and the official role assigned to them. Regarding the nature of the interprofessional relation between tutors and course designers, the most frequent situation corresponds to a pression structure, but when the tutors play a role in the design process, the relationship tends to evolve towards a cooperation structure. Several measures have been implemented by the institution to encourage co-operation between these two groups of professionals and to increase the recognition of tutors contributions, but several challenges remain, notably with regard to the implementation of evaluation grids developed in a competency-based approach.

With the rising popularity of Open and Distance Learning (ODL) and the significant development of interactive media, it is important to be concerned about the situation of tutors. This exploratory research focuses on multiple case studies and aims to answer the following question: How are the tutors’ employment and work defined, based on the respondents’ perceptions, from four institutions offering distance learning? Individual interviews were conducted with 44 ODL practitioners. The results show that the status of the tutors is precarious, since, in most cases, they can not do this work full-time and they have no guarantee that their contract will be renewed from one semester to another. Working from home, their remuneration is paid by the act (for each corrected work, for each e-mail sent, etc.), per student or, per course. They say they are underpaid for their work, which is relatively invisible. They must follow the guidelines provided by the design teams, without prior consultation. Communication with the design teams is often bad, each working independently of others. Being shown little consideration for their experience, they do not feel recognized for the work they do which generates a lot of frustration and demotivation. Although the skills expected of tutors are constantly increasing, tutors are not trained to deal with this situation. This article sheds light on the situation of ODL tutors who, it seems, occupy a rather uncomfortable position.

The authors describe the theoretical and methodological approaches they use in their research when studying the phenomena of engagement and persistence in distance learning settings. This paper is organized into three sections corresponding to three different perspectives on engagement: a section about student engagement in distance learning and MOOCs; a section about engagement in serious game; and a section about engagement in learning communities and in computer-supported (distance) collaborative learning. Each section provides a definition of engagement, identifies factors of engagement and describes existing measures of engagement. This paper ends with a synthesis of theses perspectives and opens up with new research questions.

Since isolation is the cause of many cases of dropout in distance training (Bernard et al., 2004; Elliott et al., 2005), we attempted to enhance the perception of transactional presence. This term describes the extent to which a student in distance training perceives teacher, peer and educational institution availabilities, and the extent to which the student feels connected to them (Shin, 2002). In two self-paced distance education courses (n=225), we experimented with the use of Web conferencing and social software. According to design-based research methodology, where researchers work actively with field practitioners to improve approaches for all iterations, we introduce the educational interventions implemented in this second iteration in connection with these collaborative 2.0 tools. The results show that from the start of this research Web conferencing had the greatest impact on the transactional presence, especially in this second iteration by way of recording the meetings in the classes where each student progresses at their own pace. These results lead us to redefine the concept of isolation and to find ways to diminish feelings of isolation in distance training education.