Search

This article examines the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA"), specifically the classification of the internet as a Public Accommodation under Title III, in light of the technological advancements since its signing thirty years ago. The profound use of the internet in every sector and its relevance to our day-to-day life requires deeper examination into how the law can remain adaptive, relevant, and purposeful in serving the needs of individuals with disabilities. Furthermore, the COVID- 19 pandemic has highlighted the indubitable impacts of remote learning on students with disabilities and the lack of legal clarity necessary to support adequate governance and compliance. Given these significant structural and environmental changes in higher education, the goal is to reinforce the need for constitutional protection for individuals with disabilities by amending the ADA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents discussion of the discipline and methodology of historical scholarship and education as of 2009 and reflects on possible changes which could occur within the field in the following 40 years. A fictional account of a college student in 2049 is given, noting the central use of virtual networks and Internet technology as the medium for teaching. Comments are given suggesting that colleges could fully digitize and become virtual institutions if trends of 2009 continued and questions are raised regarding the significance of such a trend.

Flipped-classes in higher education are becoming increasingly widespread due to the appeal of replacing passive lectures with active-learning communities of inquiry. This mixed methods research study follows the efforts of a professor who had limited resources as she incorporated the flipped-class design in her introductory accounting class. Class designs (lecture vs flipped-class) were compared using the community of inquiry survey, satisfaction survey, opened-ended comments, and students' final exam scores. The study found the flipped-class design had a significant impact on students' attitudes with higher levels of community of inquiry (CoI) (p = .002), teaching presence (TP) (p = .002), social presence (SP) (p = .002), and improved satisfaction levels (SAT) (p = .003). Open-ended comments resulted in more positive comments in the flipped class design compared to the traditional lecture format (90% vs 37%). The higher levels of CoI predicted students' SAT score (65.4%). The study found no significant changes in students' learning as measured by their final exam or perceptions of cognitive presence (CP). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The central objective of this study is to investigate the extent to which social networking sites can affect learning effectiveness, and to what amount this technology can be used as supplementary elements for existing pedagogy methods prevailing in a developing country. The study used a teaching case research method to investigate the effects of Social Networking Sites (SNS) usage on learning outcomes of students in higher education setting in Pakistan. The central hypothesis developed in this study was that, using social networking sites in higher education enhance students' interest, which ultimately increases their satisfaction and perceived learning performance. These effects are further boosted in the presence of instructor's support. The results confirmed that Social Networking Sites (SNS) hold a place in teaching and learning in higher education. The study provides a way to maximize the impact of the existing technologies, by providing an understanding of how the different technological tools and learning can impeccably be incorporated in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study used nationally representative data and employed multinomial logistic regression to examine the changing profile of online students in American higher education. Although online education continues to become an increasingly mainstream mode of instruction, certain student groups may engage disproportionately with computer-mediated instruction.Weighted descriptive statistics revealed that the proportion of postsecondary students who enrolled in online courses increased from 5.9% in 2000 to 32.1% in 2012, with 23.6% of students enrolled in some online courses and 8.5% of students enrolled in fully online programs. Empirical evidence suggested that student characteristics associated with the highest opportunity costs of engaging with residential education-such as being a full-time employee, parent, or married-were more likely to enroll in some online courses and online-only programs. In addition, economically and socially disadvantaged students were typically less likely to engage with online education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In 2013, there was a shortage of approximately 7.2 million health workers worldwide, which is larger among family physicians than among specialists. eLearning could provide a potential solution to some of these global workforce challenges. However, there is little evidence on factors facilitating or hindering implementation, adoption, use, scalability and sustainability of eLearning. This review aims to synthesise results from qualitative and mixed methods studies to provide insight on factors influencing implementation of eLearning for family medicine specialty education and training. Additionally, this review aims to identify the actions needed to increase effectiveness of eLearning and identify the strategies required to improve eLearning implementation, adoption, use, sustainability and scalability for family medicine speciality education and training. Methods: A systematic search will be conducted across a range of databases for qualitative studies focusing on experiences, barriers, facilitators, and other factors related to the implementation, adoption, use, sustainability and scalability of eLearning for family medicine specialty education and training. Studies will be synthesised by using the framework analysis approach. Discussion: This study will contribute to the evaluation of eLearning implementation, adoption, use, sustainability and scalability for family medicine specialty training and education and the development of eLearning guidelines for postgraduate medical education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the effect of online metacognitive strategies, hypermedia annotations, and motivation on reading comprehension in a Taiwanese hypertext environment. A path analysis model was proposed based on the assumption that if English as a foreign language learners frequently use online metacognitive strategies and hypermedia annotations, then they would increase their learning motivation, which, in turn, would enhance their hypertext comprehension performance. Participants consisted of 37 English majors enrolled at a private university in southern Taiwan. The results revealed that online metacognitive strategies most significantly predicted learning motivation and motivation directly affected hypertext comprehension. However, metacognitive strategies and hypermedia annotations did not directly affect hypertext comprehension. Consistent with expectations, motivation was found to mediate the relation between online metacognitive strategies and hypertext comprehension. On the other hand, the relation between hypermedia annotations and hypertext comprehension mediated by motivation was not obvious. Finally, the implications of these findings for future research are discussed and presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Community of Inquiry framework has been widely supported by research to provide a model of online learning that informs the design and implementation of distance learning courses. However, the relationship between elements of the CoI framework and perceived learning warrants further examination as a predictive model for online graduate student success. A predictive correlational design and hierarchical multiple regression was used to investigate relationships between community of inquiry factors and perceived learning to determine the predictive validity of these variables for students' course points (N = 131), while controlling for demographic and course variables. The results of this study clearly supported the foundational constructs of Community of Inquiry (CoI) theory (Garrison et al., 2000) and the role of perceived learning to predict final course points. The entire predictive model explained 55.6% of the variance in course points. Implications, limitations, and recommendations are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Language teaching cannot be the same as it was thirty, twenty or ten years ago. The powerful information and communication technologies available have opened up new social and educational opportunities, creating new needs and requiring the development of new skill. The paper discuss about "podcast". The term 'podcast' is a portmanteau of the words "pod" and "broadcast" according to wiki, and it refers to the use of an iPod for purposes of recording and broadcasting any material. A podcast is a form of digital media that consists of an episodic series of audio, video, digital radio, PDF, or ePub files subscribed to and downloaded through web syndication or streamed online to a computer or mobile device. Audio has been utilized in higher education for many decades. Additional uses of instructor-created podcasts include lecture summaries or supplemental course information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are an innovation that have attracted public academic attention in recent times, and which have resulted in the evolution of e-learning (electronic learning) and sofar have not achieved their expectations in Higher Education. This is due to the fact that from the outset these courses have faced a number of problems and questions regarding their acceptance, credibility, quality, methods of assessment, learning outcomes and more; which has generated controversy among their opponents, fans and even the creators of MOOCs. This work forms part of a doctoral investigation; in essence these are the results of the preliminary and exploratory stages in the research process, in which projections on the solution of some problems will be included. MOOCs: Their evolution, problems and challenges up to 2015, will surely help to minimize the high dropout rates of students in MOOCs, supported by mobile technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) have become a phenomenon in recent years. The School of Management/City University of Seattle is the first institution that offers online education in Slovakia. In the months of July and August 2013 this school offered two MOOCs to the public, again as the first school in the country. The experience from these MOOCs will be discussed, comparing our experience with foreign studies and - based on empirical research - effective methods of teaching massive open online courses will be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective - This study has the objective of establishing whether the undergraduate students of the Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Jos, have access to and use Internet facilities in the University library. Methods - A survey research design was adopted for this study and questionnaires were used in gathering data. Statistical methods used in the analysis include percentages, frequencies, and Chi-Square test for measuring the association of library visit and use of the Internet. Results - The analysis of the data and findings indicated that there is Internet connectivity in the library. The findings also revealed that few students (15.5%) use the computer and the Internet on a daily basis. The problems of slow Internet connection at peak periods and unsteady power supply were clearly identified. Furthermore, the analysis revealed that there is no association between the students' library visits and their use of the Internet for most academic purposes, except for downloading articles. Conclusion - The presence of Internet connectivity in the library, does not translate to meaningful academic behaviour among the students. Therefore, sensitising and training of the students on Internet usage were recommended for better academic performance and life-long learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Web accessibility concerns of building websites that are accessible by all people regardless of their ability or disability. The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) has been established to raise awareness of universal access. WAI develops guidelines which can help to ensure that Web pages are widely accessible. Assistive technology is used to increase, improve, and maintain capabilities of disabled persons to execute tasks that are sometimes difficult or impossible to do without technical aid. Also it helps them achieve their scholar, professional and social activities. This paper exposes an approach to investigate accessible contents of educational websites to ensure and measure its compliance with accessibility standards for visually impaired people. This study focuses on studying existing standards and investigating its applicability on educational institute websites. This will increase accessibility on e-learning materials that are provided by educational institutes. In this paper a sample of websites at selected universities in Jordan are evaluated in terms of accessibility in comparison to some universities websites in England and Arabic region. Results show that accessibility errors of universities websites in Jordan, and Arab region exceed the ones in UK by 13 times, and 5 times consequently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The academy in which we toil is moving rapidly towards a greater role for online delivery of higher education, and both fans and skeptics offer strong reasons to believe this technological shock will have substantial disruptive effects on faculty. How can we as economic educators continue to provide sufficient value-added to justify our role in a world where much of what we now do is effectively being automated and commoditized? In this brave new online world, many successful and resilient faculty will add value (and differentiate their product) not by producing costly and elaborate multimedia lectures in which they become a superstar professor-celebrity, but rather through careful, clever, and innovative choices regarding both the adoption of the online content of other providers and the forms of online interactions they integrate into their course designs. Possible forms of faculty-to-student and student-to-student interactions run the digital gamut from discussion boards and electronic testing to peer assessments, games and simulations, and virtual office hours. This article explores basic descriptive and prescriptive questions economic educators and their administrators are likely to face as the online education tide rises. For example, how much does it cost to develop online content and how much time does it take? What are the key 'ingredients' for a pedagogically sound online course? Throughout, I will draw on both the extant literature as well as my own experience at the University of California, Irvine, where the online evolution is advancing rapidly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When two Silicon Valley start-ups, Coursera and Udacity, embarked in 2012 on a bold effort to supply college-level courses for free over the Internet to learners worldwide, the notion of the Massively Open Online Course (MOOC) captured the nation's attention. Although MOOCs are an interesting experiment with a role to play in the future of higher education, they are a surprisingly small part of the online higher education scene. We believe that online education, at least online education that begins to take full advantage of the interactivity offered by the web, is still in its infancy. We begin by sketching out the several faces of online learning-asynchronous, partially asynchronous, the flipped classroom, and others-as well as how the use of online education differs across the spectrum of higher education. We consider how the growth of online education will affect cost and convenience, student learning, and the role of faculty and administrators. We argue that spread of online education through higher education is likely to be slower than many commenters expect. We hope that online education will bring substantial benefits. But less-attractive outcomes are also possible if, for instance, legislators use the existence of online education as an excuse for sharp cuts in higher education budgets that lead to lower-quality education for many students, at the same time that richer, more-selective schools are using online education as one more weapon in the arms race dynamic that is driving costs higher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Adicciones is the property of Sociedad Cientifica Espanola de Estudios sobre el Alcohol and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Summer administrators are feverishly tasked with developing new and innovative strategies to increase student enrollment. Competing priorities have influenced the increase in online course offerings and, in turn, the need for greater campus utilization. With numerous constraints around college campuses during the summer, there is a need to further stimulate buy-in to create change. This article examines a case study of an initiative spearheaded by the Summer START program at North Carolina State University that achieved this through increased student engagement. The creation of the certificate took the collaboration of numerous offices, and it increased student support programming by 400% during the summer of 2014. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]