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This qualitative study explores the transition experiences of refugees to study online in Dublin City University (DCU). Asylum seekers face financial, structural, cultural and digital equity barriers to access higher education (HE). In response to these barriers to access, DCU became a 'University of Sanctuary' in 2017, offering scholarships to refugees. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews. Four themes were constructed in the data-led thematic analysis: asylum world, belonging to the DCU community, the personal impact of studying and study world. Overall, this study strengthens the idea that access programmes such as the University of Sanctuary scholarships can facilitate participation in HE for refugees, provided that the necessary support to address the financial, structural, cultural and digital equity barriers is in place.

Online education is becoming the norm in higher education. Effective instructional design methods are required to ensure that "ever-connected" students' needs are being met. One potential method is design thinking: an agile methodology that stresses the importance of empathy with the student. The #OpenTeach fully online course was designed using design thinking principles and delivered in Spring 2020. This article reports on a case study which focused on the use of design thinking to design and develop the #OpenTeach course. The five iterative stages of design thinking (empathy, define, ideate, prototype and test) were integrated into the design and development of the course materials. The findings of this study indicate that the use of the design thinking process may be used by instructional designers to achieve empathy with their learners, which will ensure learners successfully engage and achieve the learning objectives of the course.

This qualitative case study examined the effect of a six-week, pre-induction socialization Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), "Head Start Online", on participants' constructions of their expected study experiences in online or part-time higher education. The data analysed in this study were gathered from participant posts in discussion forums. The forums were purposively located within a course designed to provide a supportive resource and interactive platform for these learners during the early stages of the study lifecycle. The key themes constructed through the analytic process were: goals; community & support; balance; and learning. The data revealed that participant constructions of expected higher education experiences reflected the key messages that the course was designed to communicate and reinforce. In addition, the findings illustrate how specific design elements of the Head Start Online MOOC supported the creation of an engaged learning community within course discussion forums.

This case study describes the process that the Humanities Programme Team, in Dublin City University's Open Education Unit, has undertaken with regard to developing a systematic, programme-focused assessment strategy. It charts the development of an Assessment Matrix that facilitated the enhancement of programme coherence in the context of a distributed modular provision model, and facilitated the use of an appropriate range and scaffolding of assessment types in relation to learning outcomes. To conclude, four recommendations on developing a programme-focused assessment strategy are presented: explicitly link assessments to both programme and module learning outcomes; provide adequate supports and resources for those designing and writing assessments; provide those Assessment Writers with appropriate professional development, as well as an opportunity to be part of an assessment writing community; and to embed a programme-focused assessment strategy into a programme's quality assurance processes.