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Higher education institutions (HEIs) frequently overlook the importance of encouraging creative thinking in students. A review of the prevailing practices in a fully online tertiary distance education (DE) institution revealed a lack of learning activities that foster creativity. The study aims to find out whether the creative collaborative group project is a feasible, effective and acceptable learning activity for fostering creativity in students of a fully online graduate-level DE course.

Seven groups of five to six graduate students each had five weeks to conceptualize, prepare and deliver a creative collaborative group project on lifelong learning using key concepts learned from the course.

All groups submitted well-crafted creative projects within the given time frame. Reflections on their experience positively correlated with known outcomes associated with creative skills. Students valued the experience and had a better understanding of the concepts. These support the feasibility, effectiveness and acceptability of the project for fostering creativity in a fully online DE institution.

The feasibility, effectiveness and acceptability may vary in different contexts; future iterations in the same and/or other courses are recommended.

The creative collaborative group project is a feasible, effective and acceptable strategy for fostering creativity in online distance education.

Creativity can be enhanced through appropriate online collaborative learning activities.

The study adds to the body of literature on the use of creative collaborative group projects to foster creativity in HEIs.

Quality assurance (QA) in open and distance learning (ODL) has always become universal concerns of stakeholders. The quality of ODL has been confronted with challenges in terms of the diversity of inputs, processes, the complex supply chain management of ODL and recent paradigm shift into online learning. Assuring the quality of ODL are daunting tasks at individual, institution and system levels. Completed before the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, this study aims to better understand the implementation of QA system in three Asian open universities (OUs), namely University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU), Universitas Terbuka (UT), Indonesia and Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU), Pakistan.

A qualitative method was employed involving analysis of documents of the three Asian OUs and focus group discussions and interviews with management and staff. Data collected were then analyzed to draw conclusions and possible recommendations.

Findings of this study presented good practices, challenges and rooms for improvement of the QA system in the three Asian OUs. Focusing on students and stakeholders in their QA effort, this study has revealed that quality begins with inner self and is multidimensional. QA is principally viewed as continuous improvement, as mechanism and assessment and as effort at exceeding expectations of students and stakeholders. The recent challenge for QA is to embrace a delicate process of ODL transformation into online digital system. The recent COVID-19 outbreak has further implications and challenged QA implementation in ODL in higher education into the next level of complexity.

This study revealed the diversities in how OUs met the societal needs of their respective stakeholders and addressed the challenges ahead for QA in ODL.

These findings were expected to enhance the understanding of the theory and practice of QA in ODL and to contribute to quality improvement of ODL programs.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of QR codes as mobile learning tools and examine factors that impact on their usefulness, acceptability and feasibility in assisting the nurses’ learning.

Study participants consisted of 14 regular, full-time, board-certified LR nurses. Over a two-week period, participants used specially generated QR codes to access a mobile website, connect to physicians’ telephone numbers and access alphanumeric text information. Research data in the form of observations and insights on their experience in using the QR codes were collected from participants through individual, face-to-face, semi-structured interviews.

Findings revealed that QR codes encoded with text information, telephone numbers and URL links to the mobile website all demonstrated a high level of functionality, usability and usefulness. The majority of the participants liked the experience of using the QR codes, citing ease of use of the QR codes; a high level of satisfaction in the kind and amount of supplementary medical information accessed; and the favorable effect the QR codes had on their personal learning.

The study focused on the evaluation of usefulness, acceptability and feasibility due to the limited time available for the conduct of the study.

These findings support the acceptability and feasibility of using QR codes as mobile learning tools in the labor room.

It shows the QR codes’ potential for use in a workplace environment in the context of just-in-time learning and continuing nursing education.

The current literature on the use of QR codes in medical and nursing education is limited.