IRRODL

Field facilitation is a crucial pedagogical intervention aimed at supporting student learning in resource-constrained open and distance learning environments, particularly in the Global South. This study used second generation activity theory to analyse a field facilitation intervention in an education faculty at a Malawian university, particularly the ways in which student learning and understanding was enabled or undermined while implementing field facilitation. The findings showed that many of the benefits of field facilitation were constrained for a number of reasons related to recruitment and training, pedagogies and understanding of student needs, and the materials and approaches used in field facilitation. For the field facilitation intervention to be fully effective as a means to deepen student learning, it needs to be embedded in the curriculum rather than implemented as an add-on activity, field facilitators need to be fully supported in their role, and the tools and materials available for teaching and tutoring need to be carefully designed within the resource constraints of the learning environment. These findings may inform reflection and further action in similarly resource-constrained contexts that are working to improve the success of open and distance learning.

The rapid growth of online education has brought to the forefront the critical need for designing high-quality online courses that effectively engage learners and facilitate their success in the digital realm. This study explored the key components and practical guidelines for designing high-quality online courses. Qualitative research was conducted through a comprehensive literature review to determine a set of quality guidelines and analysis of existing online courses to assess the application of these guidelines. The study underscored the significance of robust and comprehensive course components in fostering student engagement and learning. It placed particular emphasis on the careful selection and organization of course materials, interactive elements, assessments, and multimedia resources, all of which play a vital role in creating a rich and immersive learning experience. Moreover, in light of the growing number of instructors transitioning to online teaching, the study has provided practical tips and guidelines for instructors. These insights may serve as valuable resources for educators seeking to enhance their instructional design skills and create engaging online learning environments that promote active participation and knowledge retention.

The high cost of commercial textbooks in higher education creates barriers to equitable access to learning materials and negatively impacts student performance. Open educational resources (OER) offer a cost-effective alternative, but their impact on student learning remains a critical question. This study directly compared student outcomes between OER and commercial textbooks in a controlled reciprocal design. Forty undergraduate participants completed reading tasks and knowledge assessments using both textbook types, focusing on topics in DNA structure and function and population ecology. Results showed no significant differences in learning gains between OER and commercial textbooks, consistent with prior research. However, participants spent significantly less time on task when using the shorter, learning objective-aligned OER readings, particularly for jargon-heavy DNA content. These findings highlight the potential of OER to reduce cognitive load and improve efficiency without compromising learning outcomes. Future research should explore the role of textbook alignment, length, and student preparation strategies in optimizing learning with OER, particularly in flipped classroom contexts. This study supports OER adoption as a cost-saving measure that maintains academic integrity while enhancing accessibility and efficiency.

This study examined the reasons for high dropout numbers in programs offered through open and distance education (ODE). A mixed method approach was employed to collect data from a purposive sample of instructors and students at the Open University of Sri Lanka. A total of 38 reasons were revealed, of which aligned with existing dropout models as well as a few country- and institute-specific reasons. Results indicated that internal and external reasons mainly influenced students to drop out; student characteristics and skills also contributed to the students’ decision. The most influential reasons were job and family commitment, workload, time management, and flexibility, indicating that employed students were the more severely affected fraction of the dropout population. The researchers attempted to create a holistic picture of the dropout phenomenon in ODE, providing a foundation for policymakers and educators to implement targeted interventions and individualized support mechanisms to foster student retention.

The growing interest in professional development for teachers via massive open online courses (MOOCs) raises the need for identifying the existing gaps in the literature on the topic. In this literature review, we were able to identify 68 relevant studies. They mostly used mixed methods (57%) and surveys (82%), and only reported descriptive statistics (52%). They also tended to measure participants’ attitudes (41%) and engagement (40%). Based on our findings, we recommend that future researchers consider additional data collection and analysis methods (e.g., clickstream data, objective performance measures) and use correlational, longitudinal, and experimental designs.

Quality MOOCs (massive open online courses) ensure open learning under the top-down guidance of established criteria and standards. With an evaluative approach, course providers can use the guiding frameworks in designing and refining courses while fostering students’ targeted open learning competency. This study explores the openness embedded into MOOC course design and the anticipated core competency, gathering insights from interviews with in-service teachers preparing MOOC lessons. The findings suggest that teachers’ evaluative approach remains necessary in its cyclical practice, using prior experience as the primary foundation while also referencing national and international frameworks for course refinement. However, the teachers’ observed high reliance on early experience has resulted in an unstable foundation, where only a bottom-up experiential perspective is adopted, instead of an ideal balance with the top-down standards. From the teachers’ perspective, task completion is prioritized as the only primary learning outcome, despite open learning providing students with extensive opportunities to extend beyond in-class task challenges. Future studies should address this unbalanced perspective with a more diverse respondent pool and continue efforts to triangulate data through mixed-method approaches.

This study investigated the relationship among e-learning readiness, learning engagement, and learning performance of preservice teachers in HyFlex learning environments. To identify the causal relationship, data collected from 776 preservice teachers at four universities in the Philippines were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results indicated that e-learning readiness and learning engagement are significantly related to students’ perceived learning performance. In addition, e-learning readiness mediates the relationship between learning engagement and learning performance. Given that the educational landscape has been transcending conventional delivery methods and now includes the HyFlex modality, education designers and learning facilitators must create dynamic and holistic learning delivery to enhance students’ e-learning readiness and learning engagement. Moreover, a student’s learning engagement may not be sufficient to predict the learning outcomes solely without the help of e-learning readiness in HyFlex learning environments. Findings shed light on which e-learning readiness construct is paramount for effective HyFlex learning environment design in education.

Online learning in civic education (OLCE) has been going on since the 2000s. It has become an increasingly interesting topic in light of recent technological advances and emergencies, and it contributes to improving the quality of learning processes and outcomes. This study aimed to track the publication trends of OLCE in the Scopus database (2005–2024). The method used was bibliometric, with VOSviewer software analysis. The investigation found 123 documents, half of which were articles, and the rest distributed among conference papers, book chapters, conference reviews, books, and notes. These publications were written by 320 authors from 39 different countries and used nearly 800 keywords. The number of OLCE publications increased significantly in 2021 and reached its highest peak in 2024. VOSviewer analysis showed that civic education was connected to the keywords “online learning” and “e-learning” in the case of large nodes and close distances. However, other strategic keywords, such as “MOOC,” “digital citizenship,” “artificial intelligence,” and “social media” were detected in small nodes and far distances. The keyword “global citizenship education” was not directly connected; even “ChatGPT,” the most influential OpenAI today, was not seen at all. This could mean that the development of several strategic keywords would make for a potential research study in future. This research provides new insights for researchers and institutions involved in OLCE publication mapping for future development.

When students enter higher education, self-regulated learning (SRL) involving goal setting, planning, monitoring, and reflection is crucial for academic success. This study systematically reviews SRL strategies, supporting technologies, and their impacts, especially with the shift to online learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Following Kitchenham’s guidelines, 121 articles from ScienceDirect and Scopus were reviewed. Key SRL strategies include goal setting, cognitive and metacognitive processes, time management, self-reflection, help-seeking, and monitoring. Technologies such as learning management systems (LMS), massive open online courses (MOOCs), artificial intelligence (AI), collaborative platforms, and learning analytics support SRL by providing personalized feedback and facilitating autonomous learning. Benefits include improved performance, motivation, and engagement, while challenges involve limited access to digital resources, technical issues, resistance to change, and inadequate instructor training. Addressing these barriers is essential for optimizing SRL implementation, guiding future research and educational practice.

The pandemic transformed higher education, making it clear that the future of education lies in the use of technology. Recognizing this development, this study examined the blended learning experiences of students and teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic in order to propose targeted strategies for the evolving “phygital” (physical + digital) university ecosystem. Drawing on existing literature, it explores three critical dimensions of the educational experience: technology, the teaching-learning process, and social interaction. Following a transcendental phenomenological approach, the study used a convenience sample of 10 students and 10 teachers, selected based on the saturation criterion. Using Leximancer software for text analysis, in-depth interviews with a representative sample of students and teachers were conducted. The findings exposed significant challenges faced during the pandemic, including a lack of digital tool proficiency among users, inadequate engagement with online content, organisational hurdles, increased workload, diminished personal interactions, and emerging mental health concerns among students. These insights underscore the urgency of crafting tailored strategies to enhance the phygital learning environment, focusing on improving infrastructure and providing comprehensive training to both students and educators.

This paper documents biases in the creation of knowledge through underrepresentation of diverse populations and population groups in the way research is conducted and published, and subsequently, in the way educational resources are developed and delivered. Research that incorporates the experience of distributed population groups will have greater local applicability, and knowledge published and disseminated in ways that make it available to distributed populations will increase likelihood that the research findings will be incorporated into policy and action across the population. The incorporation of knowledge gained from distributed population groups into the educational experience will enrich it and, like the knowledge, make it more relevant to the whole population. We explore the potential for distributing knowledge creation to contribute in these ways and what changes are required in the way that higher education is organised to maximise distributed knowledge creation, including collaborative co-creation of knowledge and a collaborative capacity-building programme to ensure its sustainability. We propose that the principles described for a distributed university, where education is disseminated largely online through regional hubs to correct local and global inequalities in access, would be suitable to support the development of structures for distributing knowledge creation. Appropriate governance structures should be developed, of which co-creation of knowledge would be an essential component.

The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning (IRRODL) published its first issue in 2000. This paper provides an overview of the journal’s development over its 25-year history using bibliometric indicators. We analyzed IRRODL’s performance relative to other journals in the field and have highlighted key contributing countries, institutions, and authors based on the Scopus database. Our approach used various bibliometric techniques, including the number of articles and citations, cites per paper, and the h-index. The findings reveal that IRRODL is a leading journal in open and distributed learning, attracting a diverse group of authors from institutions and countries worldwide. Currently, Athabasca University is by far the most productive university, and the United States and Canada are the most productive countries appearing in the journal. However, the journal is very diverse with publications from all over the world.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 300,000 students in Peru dropped out of the school system. Most of the students were rural Indigenous students. A lack of infrastructure and connectivity, as well as a lack of contextualized and appropriate educational resources, made it virtually impossible for rural students to engage in formal learning. The pandemic has made clear the need and viability for distributed e-learning in rural communities. However, creating e-learning content that is contextualized to support vulnerable students’ learning has been a challenge. Little to no research has discussed how to contextualize e-learning to address both its promises and challenges. In this research note, we discuss an initiative to bring together advances in contextualized learning and e-learning to address problems with access to quality materials and curriculum in rural Peruvian schools. We highlight how interdisciplinary collaborations can support innovations and improve educational access for low-income students from remote regions through distributed learning. While research have found significant promise in contextualized education, the processes of engaging in contextualized digital learning and in low-income communities have proven difficult to implement. We discuss the concepts, research base, processes, and technology required to address these needs, as well as the curricular and pedagogical approach we take in this initiative.

Since its founding in 2000 by Athabasca University, the International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning (IRRODL) has emerged as a leading platform for the dissemination of scholarly work in open and distributed learning. This article revisits IRRODL’s foundational goals, the institutional support that facilitated its creation, and its evolution over 25 years. Through this retrospective, we celebrate the journal’s achievements and examine its future as a freely accessible repository of information and knowledge for practitioners and researchers in open and distributed learning.

Literature inclusion and exclusion (E/I) criteria are a fundamental selection methodology in different applications. Mainly, the E/I criteria are identified and chosen with respect to the question for which the manuscript itself is produced, thus allowing the selection of the literature. This procedure is not always related to the economic availability of independent subjects (e.g., researchers, authors, students) or even institutions in low-income areas or with little willingness to cover the use of paid materials. The proposed criterion (free-full-text-or-next) aims to support independent subjects (without affiliations) or subjects belonging to economically disadvantaged areas.