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Higher education institutions are the citadel of knowledge and are heavily involved in formulating building regulations and building infrastructure designs that must conform to the building regulations. The study aims to identify university infrastructures compliant with disabled access from the perspective of the built environment students in Ghanaian universities.

Questionnaire surveys were administered to 500 built environment students across ten technical universities in Ghana with a total population of 3066; 341 were expected based on the formula used. However, upon several reminders, 176 responded. Data collected were analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences.

The findings show that all university facilities are not fully compliant with disabled access. Structures found to be least compliant are the laboratories, canteens, hall of residence, toilet facilities, football fields, places of worship and transport stations. The facilities with high compliance are the administration block, library, hospital building, lecture halls, department offices and ATM areas. The leading causes for this non-compliant are lack of enforcement of the building regulations, low level of disabled students’ enrolment, age of the building, lack of knowledge and poor building designs.

Compliance with disabled access makes universities world class and creates safe learning spaces for individuals with disabilities, enforcing the right to education for all individuals, particularly those with disabilities. Lack of compliance with disabled access will hamper the full utilisation of these facilities, thereby affecting quality education delivery to people with disabilities.

The findings are essential to the Ghanaian built environment, the lives of disabled individuals and universities. The results provide knowledge on areas of improvement for complete access to structures and facilities by disabled individuals.

Online, distance, and eLearning (ODeL) continue to gain recognition as a mandatory component of delivery of education in institutions of higher learning (IHL) around the world following the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19). This paradigm shift is informed by the need to ensure uninterrupted, valuable, and safe learning experiences for learners during the pandemic. However, governments ordered the closure of schools and colleges following the declaration of COVID-19 as a world pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). A report by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization revealed that there was a significant loss of schooling time following the closure of educational facilities which affected over 1.5 billion learners in 194 nations globally. This study explored the use of online approaches to intensify online learning efficacy in IHL. Data collection was conducted using qualitative methods and data analysis done using themes and sub-themes. Findings from this study indicate that students’ engagements on discussion forums are consistent with collaborative learning. Results further support the view that regular, prompt, and meaningful feedback is critical in promoting constructive learning and reflection among students. Based on the findings of this study, practical implications are discussed for stakeholders interested in establishing and strengthening effective delivery of online learning content to enhance students’ learning experiences.

This paper aims to study a change process on a university campus from a pedagogical perspective. The aim of the process, as expressed by facilities management and faculty leadership, was to create campus learning landscapes that promote social encounters and learning between students and researchers, as well as other embedded groups. The paper addresses how pedagogical needs are or should be integrated in the design process.

The data of this case study regarding change on campus consist of semi-structured interviews of information-rich key stakeholders identified using snowball sampling method. The interviews were analysed to find common themes and reference to pedagogical needs and expectations.

Campus usability and reliability are improved when pedagogy informs the design, and needs such as sense of belonging (human) and connectivity (digital) are fulfilled. User-centred design should be followed through during the whole campus change process, and there should be sufficient communications between user groups.

The discussion is based on one case. However, the recommendations are solid and also reflected in other related research literature regarding campus change initiatives.

The paper states recommendations for including pedagogical needs in campus learning landscape change and underlines the role of real user-centred processes in reaching this goal.

The study introduces the concept of campus reliability and highlights a missing link from many campus change cases – pedagogy – which is suggested to be essential in informing campus designs that produce usable and reliable future-ready outcomes.

This study aims to introduce the design and the design process for an innovative sanitary fixture to be used in public facilities for the purpose of ablution. This purpose-made fixture is needed to support the hygienic, safe and comfortable performance of this essential function in public facilities in many parts of the world. The study also clarifies the need for this function and critically reviews current designs to address it.

The study started by critically reviewing the standard built-in models for ablution. It also identified and analyzed new approaches to designing standalone ablution fixtures. The study then specified the characteristics of a better ablution fixture and involved drafting a design based on these characteristics, making a wooden prototype to test the design and receiving users’ feedback. The design was adjusted and tested again for more feedback. Finally, the study resulted in the development of a final design. It used digital fabrication to create the design prototype with improved aesthetics, tested it again and received user feedback.

A survey of users showed that they found the innovative fixture more comfortable and safer than the commonly used built-in models. The main concern was the potential for water to splash on clothes from the high faucet.

In addition to showing an innovative design for a purpose-made sanitary fixture for ablution, the study makes the reader aware of the various challenges of providing a hygienic, safe and comfortable facility for users to perform this function. This is very useful for the many designers and facility managers who deal with the issue.

The purpose of this study is to explore educational policy directions in the Maldives to continue learning in public schools during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and identify policy changes that could improve the preparedness of the schools for future pandemics.

This qualitative study is descriptive in nature with an analytical methodology of document and interview data analysis. The purposively selected participants for the interviews included senior officials of the Ministry of Education, school leaders and teachers of public schools in the Maldives.

This study identified significant policy changes for public schools in the Maldives during the COVID-19 pandemic. These were early response and timely policy directions to continue education during the COVID-19 pandemic. Another finding was the effective change communication of the educational policies for its implementation. Following the policy changes, the teachers were trained for online teaching, hence increasing their competency in information and communications technology. As a result, this led to resilient teachers who were determined to provide education through the challenging times of the pandemic. Hence, it is evident that the school system of the Maldives will emerge stronger beyond COVID-19.

The education policy changes for public schools in the Maldives during the global COVID-19 pandemic have merits for education practices beyond the pandemic.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a design of online-merge-offline (OMO) classroom for open education with design principles related to practical issues of teachers’ teaching, students’ learning and schools’ management.

Three stages were covered: drafted an OMO classroom framework, built a sample classroom and explored end-users’ experience. First, authors searched for and reviewed previous studies and related cases to draft an OMO framework. Second, a classroom, consisted of wireless devices, cloud-based services, Internet of Things terminals, ergonomics furniture, and comprehensive data management and analysis services, was built in Shanghai Open University. Third, invited 11 students’, 18 teachers’ and 9 school managers’ perspectives were collected and analysed by surveys and interviews.

All student participants responded positively in terms of learning experience in the classroom. They not only engaged in classroom activities such, but also accessed needed learning materials and interacted with teachers and peers anytime anywhere via mobile devices. Similarly, most teachers (90 per cent) made positive responses because of flexibility of teaching strategies and learning activities and expressed willingness to use the classroom in the future (94.4 per cent). In addition, more than 78 per cent of managers positively commented on the design of classroom, interaction effects and effective management. Visualised data allowed them to timely monitor status of facilities, comprehensively understand users’ behaviour and issues, make necessary decision with scientific evidence.

The framework and classroom not only provide teachers, students, school managers and researcher with a better understanding of innovative open education, but also indicate the key role of objective-oriented and data-driven issues for further work.

To meet needs of teachers, students, managers and researchers in today’s open education, an OMO classroom was built in Shanghai Open University based on the proposed Objective-Oriented Pedagogy-Space-Technology (OPST) framework. The framework provides readers (especially teachers and administrators of open-education institutes, staff of information centres and ed-tech researchers) with a better understanding of innovative instruction and effective management, and the originally designed classroom can be a practical and illuminating example.

The recognition of practice in online instruction is still subject to interpretation and different approaches as a result of the rapid changes in technology and its effect on society. The purpose of this paper is to address these differences through a synthesis that can be easily accessed and consulted by educators in the field of e-learning.

This paper reviews different examples of rubrics and instruments in higher education to propose a more comprehensive rubric that constitutes a synthesis of how some institutions in HE approach best practice in this field.

The proposed comprehensive rubric emanating from the synthesis of different approaches supports the development, remixing, sharing and integration of online modules and courses by providing a single reference point with as wide a range as possible of potential pedagogical tools, facilities and approaches to e-learning.

It is not within the scope of this paper to review quality assurance processes and administrative components, but to propose a rubric for course design and self-review of faculty and higher education institutions for a better alignment with what is regarded as current standard best practice.

Instructional designers in e-learning have a new comprehensive rubric that can consult at design stage.

Different approaches towards what is called “good practice” are brought together and analysed to provide a synthesis and a single source that can be consulted by practitioners in the field of e-learning.