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The purpose of this paper is to present the design of a context‐aware service for synchronous support in web‐based educational systems.

The proposed service supports synchronous interaction among tutors and students, based on their current context, thus increasing the communication channels, the reasoning and the exchanging of ideas.

The proposed service introduced here gives additional value to distance learning educational systems, as it transforms the web from a medium primarily used for asynchronous communication into a synchronous one.

As educational institutes move their content online and open universities support lessons through the internet, services like the proposed one are of general value.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic brought about rapid changes in higher education (HE) pedagogies, with universities adding online options to their core face to face offering. The use of technology to facilitate learning has been a mainstay in traditional distance education settings. The paper aims to understand student and teacher experience of synchronous online learning in HE to develop practice and assist those newly coming to online teaching.

The authors conducted a ‘rapid review’ of articles related to this topic over the last 21 years. Thematic analysis of the 61 studies identified for inclusion were; Use of technology, planned pedagogy, comparison of synchronous and asynchronous learning, relationships online, teacher and student attitudes, COVID-19 reflections.

This study’s findings show many studies examined the transition from classroom to online learning, rather than the experience of being online. Building a community of learning, with interaction between all parties, was central to success in the development of an approach to online synchronous teaching.

Few of the early papers included here expressly explored student and teacher experiences of synchronous learning. Instead, they broadly discussed blended learning, or compared functionality and effectiveness of online teaching, with traditional in person or offline/asynchronous alternatives. An additional drawback was that educators were frequently involved in studies which investigated the experiences of their own students.

This study is one of the few to focus on the experience of staff and students in the online synchronous environment. The results show there is scope to achieve improvement in online learning, through research focussed on how students, lecturers and institutional administrators adapt to the new normal.

The purpose of this paper is to describe synchronous, remote tutoring for the Deaf STEM Community Alliance's virtual academic community (VAC). The alliance addresses critical barriers for students who are deaf or hard of hearing (D/HH) in postsecondary science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors.

A mixed-method approach (qualitative content analysis and descriptive statistics) documents project activities.

Google+ Hangouts was used for remote tutoring. Participants completed 57 tutoring sessions. Participants found tutoring beneficial, especially for its convenience. Technical assistance and feedback systems were created to support participants. Grade point averages (GPA) and retention remained stable.

Research on this project continues. Small sample size is a limitation of the study. Ongoing research investigates how remote technology and social media impact learning for students who are D/HH.

Scholarship on social media for educational purposes is minimal. While specifics of particular social media platforms vary, recruitment, technical assistance, and establishing feedback mechanisms are common issues for VACs. Outcomes from this study will be used to improve this VAC and create documentation for replication.

The Deaf STEM Community Alliance provides supportive resources to underrepresented students in STEM majors. Improved GPA and retention in STEM majors will generate more individuals qualified for STEM careers. Research on VACs creates opportunities to understand how technology and networked communities change knowledge and learning.

The Deaf STEM Community Alliance is a unique project for postsecondary students in STEM fields who are D/HH. The information is valuable to educators interested in using social media for instruction.

As online academic programs and online student populations continue to grow, it is important to consider the population of graduate-level students and what support they need from the university in order to be engaged and successful. This chapter will provide a review of the theory and research to show that there is a need for academic support for graduate-level students while also discussing how institutions have worked to create meaningful connections for students. Drawing on Astin’s theory of student involvement, this chapter will discuss three ways that the University Academic Success Programs department at Arizona State University has worked to address that need and provide academic support to online graduate students: online graduate writing centers, online dissertation writing camps, and employment of online graduate students. Using interview examples from former student tutors, this chapter will show how these opportunities helped online graduate students feel valued, supported, and connected to the institution. This chapter will conclude by addressing limitations, areas for program growth and future research, and recommendations for practitioners to apply in their own institutions.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the development and assessment of learning support environments for academic writing that utilize ICT, such as e-learning and online tutoring, in Japanese higher education. First, the authors introduce the design of an e-learning writing program for the Japanese language and assess whether the program is an effective learning support tool for undergraduates. Second, the authors analyze and assess online tutoring support for academic writing and clarify the merits and disadvantages of online and offline tutoring at writing centers, then suggest instructional strategies by analyzing the writing tutoring process.

The authors adopted e-learning goals to assess its effectiveness. The authors asked the participants questions they could answer from five-point scales, conducted a paired t-test, and included a free description-type questionnaire. Then, to assess online tutoring, the 12 students took pre- and post-test questionnaires, after which the authors conducted a Wilcoxon signed rank test. In addition, the authors carried out a Kruskal–Wallis rank sum test in order to confirm differences in satisfaction level and the effectiveness of face-to-face tutoring and online tutoring.

By analyzing the pre- and post-test results, the t-test confirmed that the students found the e-learning system to be effective for nurturing academic literacy. This means the system is appropriate as a support tool for nurturing academic writing, especially writing knowledge and rules, and university must provide a comprehensive learning support environment including e-learning. Next, the authors found no statistically significant difference between face-to-face and online tutoring, although some problems with the writing process remained. So online tutoring has opportunity to promote autonomous learning. The research results make it clear that because of writing centers’ potential and their effectiveness in utilizing ICT tools.

Research findings about academic writing are to improve the tutoring process and writing strategies, such as the use of ICT for academic writing support like e-learning, online tutoring, do not exist. To provide learning opportunity to learners and promote autonomous learning, e-learning and online tutoring are important. For the reasons noted above, it is necessary to provide an alternative writing support environment to students in Japan. Therefore, the authors report on and assess the development of learning support environments for e-learning programs and online tutoring for academic writing at the undergraduate level in Japan.

This research aims to study the students' perspectives on synchronous and asynchronous learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Both synchronous and asynchronous learning approaches used in online education have positive and negative outcomes. Hence, the aim is to study online education's positive and negative consequences, reflecting sync and async approaches. This research followed a mixed research approach. The key stakeholders of this research are the Indian educational institutions and students.

This research collected data from the students undergoing synchronous and asynchronous learning amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic. The data were collected (N = 655) from various students taking online classes during the pandemic. A questionnaire survey was distributed to the students through online platforms to collect the data. In this research, the authors have collected data using simple random sampling, and the same has been used for data analysis using SPSS version 26. The collected data were exposed to a factor analysis using a principal component analysis technique to reduce the vast dimensions.

The study findings show that synchronous learning is sometimes stressful, placing more responsibility on students mainly because of the increased screen time. At the same time, asynchronous learning allows the students to self-explore and research the topics assigned to them. Students also felt that asynchronous activities create a burden because of many written assignments to be submitted within a short period. Overall, the COVID-19 pandemic has been challenging for the students and the teachers. However, teachers have helped students to learn through digital platforms. The majority of the respondents opined that technological disruptions and death in the family circle had been significant reasons for not concentrating during online classes. However, the combination of synchronous and asynchronous learning has led to a balanced education.

Higher education has undergone multiple transformations in a short period (from March 2020, 2021 and beyond). Educational institutions underwent a rapid transition in remote teaching and learning in the initial stages. As time progressed, educational institutions did course navigation where they relooked into their course plans, syllabus and brought a structural change to match the pandemic requirements. Meanwhile, educational institutions slowly equipped themselves with infrastructure facilities to bring academic integrity. At present, educational institutions are ready to face the new normality without disrupting services to society.

Educational institutions create intellectual capital, which is important for the development of the economy. In the light of COVID-19, there are new methods and approaches newly introduced or old methods and approaches, which are reimplemented, and these approaches always work for the benefit of the student community.

The authors collected data during the COVID-19 pandemic; it helped capture the students' experience about synchronous and asynchronous learning. Students and faculty members are newly exposed to synchronous and asynchronous learning, and hence, it is essential to determine the outcome that will help many stakeholders.

This paper presents a part of our research work that places an emphasis on Tracking Data Analysis and Visualization (TrAVis) tools, a web‐based system, designed to enhance online tutoring and learning activities, supported by computer‐mediated communication (CMC) tools. TrAVis is particularly dedicated to assist both tutors and students in the task of exploiting tracking data of communication activities throughout the learning process. This paper focuses on the technical aspects of TrAVis, the visualization of students' tracking data and the experiment we have conducted in an authentic learning situation.

A mixture of iterative and participative approaches has been adopted for the design of TrAVis. Different versions of TrAVis were built during the progress of our research. The major changes in each build have particularly involved the conceptual design of data indicators of students' activities and the visualization techniques of the data indicators. Both case studies and experiments have been made to evaluate TrAVis.

This paper demonstrates how TrAVis provides a new experience in visualizing and analyzing students' tracking data. While it shows the originality and novelty of the system, it also reveals the potential benefits of TrAVis to both tutors and students in their online tutoring and learning activities.

The result from the experiment is not sufficient to evaluate some specific aspects of TrAVis. As a matter of fact, the lack of user's feedback did not enable us to justify whether or not the proposed data indicators would be actually used by the users.

The data indicators shown in this paper are computed based on the real needs of the participants in the learning process. Online questionnaires were used and face‐to‐face interviews have been made to study the needs of the users throughout this research work.

One of the particularities of this research is the proposed system, TrAVis, objectively designed to better support the tutors in the tasks of monitoring and evaluating students on CMC tools. Plus, TrAVis is distinguished from the existing systems by its capacity in computing substantial data indicators, allowing the tutors to efficiently visualize and analyze both the process and the product of students' activities.

The purpose of this paper is to report on a study into how a three‐dimensional (3D) virtual world (Second Life) can facilitate socialisation and team working among students working on a team project at a distance. This models the situation in many commercial sectors where work is increasingly being conducted across time zones and between multiple teams. Collaboration in these geographically distributed teams is virtual rather than through face‐to‐face interactions. The paper investigates how a virtual world such as Second Life compares to other collaboration tools such as instant messaging or Skype; and the challenges that students experience in becoming acquainted with and working in Second Life.

The paper has employed a qualitative research methodology involving data collection through group interviews, epistolary (email) interviews and semi‐structured individual interviews. The data have been analysed by applying the inductive analysis technique.

The analysis is presented through answers to questions which educators may have about the effectiveness of virtual worlds in supporting collaboration in virtual teams.

The paper highlights the pedagogical role of 3D virtual worlds in supporting communication, team working and community building. The methodology will be of interest to researchers in the area of virtual worlds as there is little guidance in the literature about how to evaluate student experiences of these environments.

The research reported in this paper is timely and significant in view of current business scenarios such as the challenges of a globally distributed work‐place, the need to offer training to develop employees' skills of working in distributed environments and to meet changing market needs. Furthermore, the research will support the development of a coordinated response to the Leitch review of skills in the UK, which identified issues of resource‐intensive travel, global warming and the need for businesses to be seen as “green” for customer attraction and retention.

The paper discusses the role of 3D virtual worlds in supporting student team projects involving students who are geographically dispersed. The sense of visual presence and of place in a 3D world can make socialising in a virtual world, a more “human” experience than in 2D environments such as web sites, e‐mail, wikis and blogs, and even phone or video‐conferencing. The research reported in this paper could enhance uptake of 3D virtual worlds by organisations facing the challenges of facilitating socialisation and knowledge sharing in a distributed workforce.

In this chapter, we discuss how to use technology to enhance teacher education through the discussion of teacher education programs at two Maryland universities. University of Maryland University College, a public university, was founded to address the needs of the military overseas following the end of World War II, as an offshoot of the University of Maryland College Park. It has become the largest primarily online public, not for profit, university in the United States. Its Master of Arts in teaching program was reinstituted in 2009, after a several year hiatus. The second university, Bowie State University (BSU), is a more traditional, historically black university (HBCU) founded as a teacher education institution in the 1800s and has been training teachers ever since. Both institutions of higher education are part of the University System of Maryland and the teacher education programs are certified by the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE). These two universities were selected to highlight how different types of universities are implementing technology into their teacher education programs. The distinction illustrates a fully online teacher education program and a fully face-to-face teacher education program and the nuances between the two. These distinctions offer a broader view of how technology is used to enhance teacher education and to offer equal opportunity to students who want to become teachers. The chapter focuses on the uses of technology for the instruction of teacher candidates’ field experiences and internships. Technology enhancements provided in teacher preparation courses for student academic instruction and university faculty and school personnel training in the use of technology and Web 2.0 tools are discussed.