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Distance education (DE) is neither a new concept nor process. Learning through postal correspondence can be traced back to more than 150 years. The avenues of DE have evolved from postal correspondence, videotaped lessons, electronic communications, to distance teaching higher education institutes. Up until the start of 2020, DE was an educational process of choice or preference. However, when WHO declared COVID-19 as a pandemic in March 2020, DE was no longer an option but rather the only choice and educational avenue for the majority of the universities worldwide; Lebanon is no exception. This chapter considered the case study of DE at Phoenicia University, Lebanon, studying instructors’ attitudes and perceptions about some of the quality attributes of DE such as interactivity, inclusiveness, and immediacy prior to and after their first online semester. A mixed methods approach was adopted, where pre- and post-test surveys were administered with 54 instructors in Spring 2020. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 instructors toward the end of that semester. This study found that the participants held a more positive stance when it came to instructor immediacy following their first online semester. On the contrary, instructors’ attitudes and perceptions toward interactivity and inclusiveness did not significantly change between the pre- and post-test results, maintaining a less favorable stance of DE for these particular attributes in comparison to physical classroom education. The study concluded that overall, participants perceived DE as an efficient approach given the unprecedented crisis; nonetheless, the effectiveness of such an approach was challenged by many obstacles and limitations due to internet connection issues and the unreliable power infrastructure.

Teaching Net Generation accounting students is a challenging experience. They anticipate that technology will be an integral part of the teaching–learning processes that we offer them. This chapter focuses on how to use technology tools to create innovative course materials, delivery methods, and collaborative processes.

The chapter explains how I combined traditional instructional methods and technology-mediated learning (TML) techniques to create a practice–feedback–interaction process for use with two undergraduate auditing courses. I taught the first course (Auditing) during Fall Quarter 2006 and the second course (Advanced Auditing) during Winter Quarter 2007. I taught both courses in a blended instructional format.

This chapter shows how I used the practice–feedback–interaction process with individual and team writing assignments in the two auditing courses. I explain how the TML process works and describe technology tools used at each step of the process. Student comments provide feedback about how they reacted to using the technology-mediated teaching–learning process.

This chapter explores the communicative relationship between students and faculty members through Facebook. Since its inception in 2004, Facebook has become an avenue not only for student–student connections, but increasingly for faculty–student communication. This chapter explores the impact on pedagogy and instruction when faculty members “friend” their students and/or create class groups on Facebook. Emphasis focused on student perceptions of faculty, identity, and disclosure, communication patterns, educational impact, and guidelines for faculty and students communicating through Facebook.

Learner-centered interactions determine the look and feel of online courses, influencing the way learners experience them. In this chapter we investigate considerations related to three types of interactions: learner–content, learner–instructor, and learner–learner. Learners interact with content through the course structure and layout. They also interact with peers who may be cast in the role of community members, there to provide social support, or they may be more prominently cast as information providers and/or collaborators. The learner is at the center of both content and peer interactions. Instructor interactions set expectations for learners and facilitate learner interactions with content and peers. Instructors are instrumental forces in bringing about connections between learners, enabling the social presence necessary for collaboration. Instructor interaction may also be relational, enabling individualized connections between learners and the instructor. Redesign decisions center on creating a course structure that fits the learner and content and results in a satisfying course experience. We use the power of metaphor to bring into focus the most relevant considerations. In the end, we illustrate the redesign of a single course through the lens of three separate metaphors to demonstrate how metaphor shapes the process, bringing together design and interaction decisions to create unique and elegant course designs.

This study aims to propose and test a model that examines the potential connections between two teacher situational variables (teacher immediacy and credibility) and three learner affective factors (motivation, attitudes and communication confidence) and to examine how such associations predict learners’ L2WTC (Foreign/second language willingness to communicate) in a language class via a comprehensive communication model to structurally verify the theoretically based associations among these variables.

In total, 214 females and 198 males took part in the study with age range between 19 and 38 years. Participants filled in a verified, translated Arabic version of the questionnaires using an online questionnaire. Data were gathered using questionnaires and were analyzed using descriptive statistics, confirmatory factor analysis, path analysis and sequential mediation analysis using bootstrapping methods to identify and verify direct and indirect paths in the model.

The initial L2 communication structural model showed acceptable goodness of model fit. Teacher credibility and immediacy behaviors only indirectly predicted L2WTC through the mediation of affective variables. Motivation and communication confidence mediated the relationship between credibility and L2WTC, while the association between immediacy and L2WTC was mediated by communication confidence.

The findings of this study have important pedagogical implications globally for professions related to communication instruction, especially with regard to teacher credibility behaviors and particularly for practitioners and beneficiaries in EFL contexts where learners are widely acknowledged for their unwillingness to communicate in foreign language classes.

The syllabus serves as a plan that can be utilized for discussing course (re)design. The Online Community of Inquiry Syllabus Rubric© (OCOISR) was developed for collaborators to review online course plans for continuous improvement. It assesses the potential to engender cognitive presence (CP), social presence (SP), teaching presence (TP), and learner support (LS) in online college courses based on interactive treatments. In one case study, two raters with advanced degrees in instructional design and online teaching experience reviewed 31 online syllabi across disciplines to determine their potential for producing an online community of inquiry. They achieved a good degree of consistency among measurements, intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) = 0.821, p < 0.001, and 95% CI [0.40, 0.932]. Raters found above-average CP, moderate SP, and basic TP. These results mirrored that of the previous case study at a different institution. Other findings included basic educational technology use in both cases. The lead author, serving as the college’s instructional designer, provided course-specific recommendations to instructors based on their syllabi review for action research. This chapter describes the use of the OCOISR© to maximize student–student, student–teacher, and student–content planned engagement for improved online learning experiences.

Evaluation is the process by which we estimate how things should go, explore how things are going, and determine how things went in terms of course redesign. In this chapter, we examine formative and summative methods for assessing student learning and establishing teacher effectiveness and course quality. Evaluation is a subjective, value-laden process. To introduce the rigor needed to make it meaningful, evaluation should be multifaceted, planned in advance, made transparent to learners, and employ valid and reliable methods. Moving courses online presents both opportunities and challenges for evaluation. We explore ways to implement assessment to make full use of the advantages of technology while mitigating the problems associated with online delivery.

The current literature examining the design of effective online learning opportunities recommends an array of best practices but no agreed upon and unifying model. The purpose of this paper is to survey the existing research of effective design models for online learning in an attempt to identify best practices and present a new model.

Through a comprehensive review of the literature, the paper identifies obstacles to developing an effective course design model for asynchronous distance education. Based upon this review, best practices are identified and a design model is recommended.

The research identifies the key components of successful course design methods and ultimately recommends a process that has eight steps which occur in three phases. The first phase, the identification phase, encourages the instructor and/or course design team to identify strategies, objectives, assessments and resources. In the second phase, design, instructors select, organize, adapt and reflect. The final phase is implementation, during which the course is taught.

The recommended design model has implications for practice by providing a clear structure for design activities which are aligned with the best practices identified in the research. Instructors and/or instructional designers creating online learning opportunities now have a coherent model supported by a review of the literature.

While a number of online course design models exist, no one model has emerged as pre‐eminent or most effective and efficient. The model recommended by this paper offers a unified model of courses design that synthesizes the most effective aspects of the extant models.

The purpose of this paper is to present the results of an exploratory study that investigates Portuguese academics’ conceptions concerning the temporal properties of e-learning, in the context of traditional Higher Education Institutions.

Grounded Theory methodology was used to systematically analyse data collected in semi-structured interviews with 62 academics. Data analysis followed the constant comparative method and its three-staged coding approach: open, axial and selective coding. Data collection and analysis developed until theoretical saturation was reached.

Emergent academics’ conceptions concerning the temporal properties of e-learning indicate the existence of unregulated and unaccounted for dynamics, which are a direct consequence of transitioning from campus-based lecturing to teaching online using the affordances of virtual learning environments. This transition produces disruptions to established workload metrics and work patterns, as well as conflicts with dominant modes of instructional delivery that are not synchronised with the demands of online interaction and immediacy.

This paper is valuable to e-learning strategists and administrators. An understanding of the temporal properties of e-learning as perceived by academics provides actionable knowledge that is directly applicable to the design of suitable work arrangements, normative frameworks and e-learning practices that address perceived time-related barriers. To mitigate the time-related conflicts and disruptions identified in the study the authors suggest the establishment of university-wide norms of virtual presence and the implementation of temporal protocols to sustain the productive engagement between instructors and learners.

The purpose of this paper is to test a model in which instructor’s attributes (i.e. personality, age) are specified as social stimuli. Drawing on a constructivist view of learning (Palincsar, 1998) and similarity-attraction paradigm (Byrne, 1971), the authors hypothesize that instructor’s attributes influence learners’ reactions and dictate key attributions for learning: instructor’s competence and goodwill. The authors place these attributions as antecedents of learning results.

In a quasi-experimental design, undergraduate business students (n=133) participated in a training program of managerial skills over a three-week period. Regression and path analyses were utilized in testing the hypothesized model.

Results provide partial support to the hypothesized model and suggest that learning is a social event wherein learners’ attributions play a key role. Results also indicate that learner-instructor similarity in personality is an important antecedent of learners’ social reactions. The authors discuss how instructor’s attributes become social stimuli.

The authors address why the instructor’s personality might be more consequential for learning than his/her demographic attributes. Also, the authors discuss why the manipulation of learners’ attributions might be considered an appropriate pedagogical strategy.

Scholars primarily considered learners’ traits (e.g. IQ) and educational practices (e.g. teaching style) in explaining learning results. This emphasis has neglected analysis of the social role of instructors. This study contributes by examining how instructors induce social reactions on learners with significant repercussions for learning.