I warmly welcome our readers to a fresh issue of the newly expanded journal, Online Learning (which we are now abbreviating as OLJ). As many of you know we recently merged OLJ with the Journal of Online Teaching and Learning (JOLT), published by the MERLOT organization with which the Online...

As the pivotal role of self-regulation has been widely accepted in online learning literature, much interest is focused on identifying pedagogical strategies to help foster regulatory behaviors in online learners. The authors of this article argue that the learning presence (LP) construct, a recently proposed addition to the Community of...

This research addresses the affordances of using Voki avatars to create a sense of social presence in an asynchronous online writing classroom setting. Digital media afford online educators the opportunity to harness different technologies and new ways of being in a digital classroom that can enhance student engagement in ways...

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether asynchronous video posts and synchronous videoconferencing would create higher levels of teaching and social presence within an online course when compared with the university’s current text-based discussion platform. Undergraduate students in an online teacher education course were randomly assigned to either...

Low retention rates in online freshman-level mathematics courses are a concern, especially at postsecondary institutions that serve academically unprepared students. The purpose of this study was to determine if student performance in an online College Algebra course that relies heavily on text-based multimedia tools can be improved by replacing publisher-generated...

Blended learning options vary and universities are exploring an assortment of instructional combinations, some involving video lectures as a replacement for face-to-face (f2f) lectures. This methodological study investigates the impact of the provision of lecture choice (online or f2f) on overall student achievement and course engagement. This research uses a...

This paper explores how blended learning can enhance learning at the boundary between academia and industry, and make possible the design of a new kind of internship. Boundary theory proposes that socio-cultural discontinuities between different environments create opportunities for learning. Blended learning pedagogy makes it possible to make the boundary...

Written reflections of 113 occupational therapy clinical doctoral students who graduated from an online program between 2007 and 2013 were analyzed for themes which reflected transformative learning and characteristics of curricular design which promoted transformative learning. Qualitative analyses of written reflections were performed. Several themes emerged which are presented using...

In this qualitative study, we examine the experiences of seven tenure-track and non-tenure track current/future online faculty through the conceptual lenses of sense of community (McMillan & Chavis, 1986) and collegiality (Gappa, Austin, & Trice, 2007). We found: (1) participants reported that their sense of community and collegiality around online...

The online classroom is perceived as being a non-threatening, unbiased, safe environment due to the lack of visual cues that normally trigger hidden attitudes and biases. However, it is possible that stereotypical student names often trigger implicit bias in instructors leading to group expectations that can often manifest in a...

This systematic review and synthesis of existing empirical studies examines peer-reviewed research articles published between January 2000 and May 2014 on the use of Internet-mediated discussion board in higher education settings with a specific interest in the participants’ interactions. Forty-two primary studies were examined after a systematic search and full...