VOLUME ONE - Does Distance Education in the Developing Context Need More Research?

The challenges facing the mode in Africa include: the lack of national ODL policies, the reluctance to accept ODL products, paucity in ODL quality assurance frameworks and ODL experts in the area of philosophy, principles and methods, ODL programmes irrelevant to the context, and the low-level usage of ICTs due to a myriad of reasons, among which is shortage of electricity supply (Biao, 2012). [...] Others according to the authors are “remote labs and virtual environments to provide improvements in the field, a more mixed research method (due to the shortcomings of qualitative and quantitative methods), the legality of distance formal education and their standards, and online learning design and the use of learning analytics to create actionable knowledge that can contribute to pedagogical ef. [...] Situated in theoretical and interpretative analysis of connectivism, the Community of Inquiry and Ubuntu, the author argues that despite the advantages of the mode, pedagogical strategies must support the increasing role of technology in teaching and learning within this unfolding landscape. [...] In relation to these, it explores the trends and gaps in student access and success in the utilisation of e-learning resources, open e-learning resources in terms of technology and media, student and staff support and library matters, learning and assessment methods. [...] In Volume 2, the authors in the last three thematic sections relate some regional trends and gaps in distance education research, scholarship in distance education research, and how to build research into practice to improve the quality of the offerings.