ODL (Open and Distance Learning)

Open and Distance Learning (ODL) is a general term for the use of telecommunication to provide or enhance learning. Around the world, the academic community is discovering and exploring the Internet, teleconferencing, and related means to achieve an extended classroom or learning experience. Students in Russia are earning degrees from a university in Australia. Primary and secondary-grade students are exchanging e-mail across continents as a supplement to their formal studies. Students and teachers at all levels are taking part in teleconferences and forming associations that would have been unlikely five years ago. A number of world conferences have been held on ODL and many experimental projects are underway.

A few of the many educational organizations involved with ODL include:

·         The University of Bergen in Bergen, Norway, which offers its own ODL Resource Page

·         The Open University at the Institute for Educational Technology in the United Kingdom

·         The Virtual Classroom at the New Jersey Institute of Technology

2) Object Description Language (ODL) is a simple language for defining data structures that is used in the United States by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Several somewhat similar languages have been created by other organizations for defining program or data objects. These include an Object Design Language and an Object Definition Language.

Open Learning

Open Learning’s aim is to inspire, motivate and empower through education. We believe that learning can and should be enjoyable, ongoing, and above all effective. Transformative education enhances people’s abilities, promotes dynamic communication, and fosters a lifelong love of learning. We’re committed to creating fun and interactive communities and want our learning vision to spread far beyond educational institutions, branching into boardrooms, offices, team sports, group work, and right through to retirement. We believe that you should never stop learning, and we want to share our passion for accessible education.

What Is a MOOC?

A massive open online course (MOOC) is a model for delivering learning content online to any person who wants to take a course, with no limit on attendance. As new digital forms of formal and informal learning proliferate, there is an increasing need to better understand how people in different regions of the world are implementing massive open online courses (MOOCs) and other forms of open educational resources (OERs). Educators, researchers, politicians, and numerous other stakeholders want to grasp what the outcomes of these initiatives are and how they can be improved. Ongoing e-learning developments related to both technology and pedagogy have pushed institutions and organizations to grapple with issues of accreditation, credentialing, quality standards, innovative assessment, and learner motivation and attrition, among other areas of concern.

In response, MOOCs and Open Education Around the World explores and illuminates unique implementations of MOOCs and open education across regions and nations. The book also focuses on the various opportunities as well as the dilemmas presented in this rapidly evolving age of technology-enabled learning. What are the different delivery formats, interaction possibilities, assessment schemes, and business models? What are the key controversies or issues that must be discussed and addressed? This edited collection explains MOOCs and open education trends and issues in a variety of contexts, shares key research findings, and provides practical suggestions and recommendations for the near future. The MOOCs and Open Education special issue of the International Journal on E-Learning (IJEL) is now published! It was edited by Mimi Miyoung Lee, Curtis J. Bonk, Thomas H. Reynolds, and Thomas C. Reeves (2015).

In April of 2001, the president of MIT, Charles Vest, announced the establishment of a project for placing MIT course contents on the Web for free access by anyone with an Internet connection. In effect, this announcement started the OpenCourseWare (OCW) movement. Since that time, open educational resources (OER) and more recently massive open online courses (MOOCs) have proliferated. A flurry of research reports, books, programs, announcements, debates, and conferences related to MOOCs and open education have encouraged educators to reflect on how these new forms of educational delivery might enhance or even transform education. As part of this global movement, the four editors of this special issue, Mimi Lee, Curt Bonk, Tom Reynolds, and Tom Reeves, organized a one-day preconference symposium on this topic at the International E-Learn Conference in Las Vegas in October 2013. One direct result of that event is this special issue of the International Journal on E-Learning (IJEL), which contains highly informative and important papers related to the present and future of MOOCs and Open Education around the globe.