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‘I like the fact that it's simple; I like the fact that it's not too complicated, and I think that whoever developed it, developed it with the people in mind’. Blended learning master's student talking about Solent Online Learning.The authors carried out an extended project aimed at making effective use of the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) for the delivery of high-quality online distance and blended learning. This was in response to a greater demand for such courses through the emergence of a new constituency of learner, principally professional learners, those already in employment but seeking to improve their level of qualification and employability through the study of flexibly delivered credit bearing courses. The growth of this constituency can be seen very much as a response to the changes to the funding structure in the higher education sector in the UK. To this end, the authors worked within a team that developed an approach to effective course design, the Solent Online Learning Standard, and then a new methodology for collaborating with academic staff in the development and delivery of such courses. In order to best facilitate this, the team also created a new instance of its institutional VLE, called Solent Online Learning and tailored more to the needs of these new professional learners.

Online feminist activism has opened a different path for ordinary Iranians who are not necessarily versed in post-revolutionary discourses on feminism and political activism, nor are familiar with the names and past achievements of Iranian women’s activist pioneers since the birth of the Islamic Republic in 1979. Social media has helped to tease apart government statecraft that continually touts and reemphasizes Islamic values, at the same time providing a platform for a feminist consciousness that more recently has passionately supported individual rights, especially the right to privacy. This chapter delves into this move toward a more individualized form of dissent, surveying the generational, ideological, and technological divides that have emerged among Iranian women’s activists following popular uprisings that have been happening domestically since 2009.