Olaf Zawacki-Richter

Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg · Institute of Education, Center for Open Education Research (COER)

A content analysis of abstracts and titles of 3,674 full papers in Computers & Education published between 1976 and 2016 was conducted in order to a) identify and analyze their thematic and conceptual flow, b) how these reflected the evolving technologies and theories and c) how the research topics and concepts semantically related to each other. A...

This article maps out trends in distance education research and scholarship from 35 years of publications in the Distance Education journal. Titles and abstracts of 515 full papers were analyzed using the text-mining tool LeximancerTM to identify and describe themes in distance education research covered by these publications in the journal over th...

This paper presents a review of distance education literature to describe the status thereof and to identify gaps and priority areas in distance education research based on a validated classification of research areas. The articles (N = 695) published in five prominent distance education journals between 2000 and 2008 were reviewed for this study....

This study had three purposes: Firstly, to develop a categorization of research areas in distance education; secondly, to identify the most important research areas in distance education; and thirdly, to identify the most neglected research areas in distance education. Based on a literature review and a Delphi study, three broad levels or perspecti...

Purpose This paper engages Olaf Zawacki-Richter and Insung Jung in a frank and penetrating conversation that seeks to ground, frame, and problematise research in the field conceptualised as “open, distance and digital education” (ODDE). Taking as starting point the recent publication of the landmark Handbook of Open, Distance, and Digital Education...

Why is Openness in Education important, and why is it critically needed at this moment? As manifested in our guiding question, the significance of Openness in Education and its immediate necessity form the heart of this collaborative editorial piece. This rather straightforward, yet nuanced query has sparked this collective endeavour by using indiv...

Why is Openness in Education important, and why is it critically needed at this moment? As manifested in our guiding question, the significance of Openness in Education and its immediate necessity form the heart of this collaborative editorial piece. This rather straightforward, yet nuanced query has sparked this collective endeavour by using indiv...

Der Kommentar versucht eine Betrachtung und Einordnung der Beiträge der vorliegenden Sonderausgabe aus der Perspektive der deutschen Hochschullandschaft. Dabei wird versucht, aktuelle Trends in Deutschland aufzugreifen und auf ähnliche Forschungsprojekte, Fördermaßnahmen und Publikationen hinzuweisen. Diese sind im besten Falle paradigmatisch für a...

This paper reports the global initiatives that advocate and promote open educational resources (OER) and focuses on the main benefits of OER for our global society. Comparing and integrating diverse publications and studies, 40 main benefits of OER can be identified in total, clustered in six categories, namely: character, financial, design, learne...

This study examined African higher education students' digital media use for learning. A total of 64 papers were selected for final synthesis from 1046 publications between 2010 and 2021. The review was dominated by campus-based undergraduate studies in the STEM subjects. The synthesis confirmed a variety of digital media usage; however, learning m...

Due to their dynamic development process, Open Educational Resources (OER) pose a special challenge regarding quality assurance. While there are many approaches to developing procedures for quality assurance, there is still a lack of suitable instruments to measure the quality of OER. Zawacki-Richter and Mayrberger (2017) integrated seven internati...

E-learning has been recognized as the vehicle with the highest potential to improve education systems in African countries if implemented well. However, the sought after improvements are yet to be realized owing to the increasing failure of e-learning initiatives. This study investigated how academics were prepared for online teaching and learning...

Der Beitrag kontrastiert interaktive, adaptive sowie künstlich-intelligente Lernprogramme. Adaptive und KI-basierte Anwendungen erweisen sich in der Entwicklung als aufwändiger und haben sich bis-lang nicht durchsetzen können. Um die Chancen dieser Technologien abzuschätzen, werden ihre Möglichkeiten verglichen. Adaptive Lernprogramme eignen sich v...

This chapter provides a brief overview of the overall structure by the Chief Editors of the Handbook of Open, Distance, and Digital Education (ODDE) published in Springer’s Major Reference Series. The handbook is organized along the lines of the 3M-Framework covering all important issues related to ODDE at the macro- (ODDE systems, theories, and me...

The incisive developments during the COVID-19 pandemic have made the importance of online learning for education in the digital age evident, and it is unlikely that this wheel will be turned back in the foreseeable future (Brown, 2021). First experiences show, for instance, that online learning can support the development of digital education and t...

This chapter provides a brief overview of the overall structure by the Chief Editors of the Handbook of Open, Distance, and Digital Education (ODDE) published in Springer’s Major Reference Series. The handbook is organized along the lines of the 3M-Framework covering all important issues related to ODDE at the macro- (ODDE systems, theories, and me...

This chapter sets out to explore the research field of open, distance, and digital education (ODDE) building upon the 3 M-Framework developed in the context of distance education along three broad lines of research: ODDE systems and theories (global macro-level); management, organization, and technology (institutional meso-level); and teaching and...

The lack of transparency of the quality of Open Educational Resources (OER) is often seen as a barrier to the wider adoption, use, sharing, and further development of OER in the practice of teaching and learning in ODDE. Following the UNESCO Recommendation on OER, this chapter starts providing an overview of quality assurance systems from an intern...

Der Beitrag diskutiert zwei Biografien nicht-traditionell Studierender, die den Hochschulzugang über das Ablegen einer Zulassungsprüfung erhalten haben. Zur Rekonstruktion der Motivstrukturen und der weiterführenden biografischen Verläufe nach dem Studium wurden narrative Interviews mit der Objektiven Hermeneutik ausgewertet. Beide Fälle stehen für...

Included studies for Learning with Digital Media in a Digitally Challenged Context: A Systematic Review about Higher Education Students in Africa

Die Zeitschrift für Hochschulentwicklung hat einen langen und interessanten Werdegang. In diesem Artikel wollen wir diesen beschreiben und einer Analyse unterwerfen, um die Entwicklung über die Zeit darzustellen. Es wird gezeigt, wie sich Themen und Schwerpunkte verlagern und mit der Hochschul-Praxis einhergehen. Um die Vergleichbarkeit und den Imp...

Alongside the growing demand for doctoral degrees, there has been an increasing number of online doctoral programmes and online doctoral students enrolled across the globe. While the importance of mediating roles that communication technology plays in online doctoral education has been extensively documented, a comprehensive account of how and for...

Artificial intelligence in education (AIEd) is a fast-growing field of research. In a systematic review of the AIEd literature, Zawacki-Richter et al. (2019) noted that very few papers discussed ethical considerations or were led by authors from education. Therefore, the present study aims to explore the possible future of AIEd from the perspective...

This paper aims to identify dominant discourses of distance education that emerged in Korean society before, during, and after the COVID-19 outbreak in January 2019. To achieve the aim, the authors have conducted a Topic Modeling analysis of 8,865 news articles published by 54 South Korean media outlets between 2019 and 2021. As a result, five key...

This paper reports on a systematic review of artificial intelligence applications in education (AIEd) with a special focus on automated essay scoring (AES) systems. AES systems may provide enormous time-savings, especially for large-scale distance teaching institutions with massive numbers of students, by reducing marking and freeing up teachers’ r...

https://edtechbooks.org/oer_around_the_world

The Center for Open Education Research (COER) is an international research consortium, that was established in 2018 in order to increase international collaborative research projects, furthering innovation and understanding in open education, educational technology, lifelong learning, and international education. This book provides a cross-country...

This paper reports on an evaluation of the online training activities of the International Training Centre of the International Labour Organization (ITCILO) in Turin (Italy). The purpose of this evaluation is to assess the design, implementation and quality of training activities of ITCILO that were delivered in an online distance learning mode sin...

Open Educational Resources (OER) in higher education cannot be put into practice without considering institutional contexts, which differ not only globally but also within the same country. Each institutional context provides educators with opportunities or limitations where Open Educational Practices (OEP) and OER for teaching and learning are inv...

This chapter sets out to explore the research field of open, distance, and digital education (ODDE) building upon the 3 M-Framework developed in the context of distance education along three broad lines of research: ODDE systems and theories (global macro-level); management, organization, and technology (institutional meso-level); and teaching and...

The 2019 UNESCO recommendation on Open Educational Resources (OER) encourages member states to monitor policies and mechanisms in OER across the world. In higher education, there are many initiatives and policies around OER. This contribution gives insights into the current situation concerning OER policy documents that are of national or instituti...

Open Educational Resources (OER) stellen aufgrund ihres dynamischen Entwicklungsprozesses eine besondere Herausforderung für die Qualitätssicherung dar. Während es viele Ansätze gibt, Verfahren zur Qualitätssicherung zu entwickeln, fehlt es noch an geeigneten Instrumenten zur Messung der Qualität von OER. Zawacki-Richter und Mayrberger (2017) hab...

This paper explores faculty’s perspectives and use of open educational resources (OER) and their repositories across diferent countries by conducting a multiple case study to fnd similarities and diferences between academics’ awareness, perceptions and use of OER, as well as examining related aspects of institutional policy and quality that may inf...

The lack of transparency of the quality of Open Educational Resources (OER) is often seen as a barrier to the wider adoption, use, sharing, and further development of OER in the practice of teaching and learning in ODDE. Following the UNESCO Recommendation on OER, this chapter starts providing an overview of quality assurance systems from an intern...

Digital media and educational technologies have the potential to support an increasing internationalization of education, connecting students across borders and in international classrooms. However, practitioners and scholars need to further discuss the adaptation of online learning pedagogies to cultural contexts students operate in. Focusing on t...

Research indicates that academic procrastination is a common attitude among learners, and that it generally has a negative correlation with academic performance. The present quantitative causal-comparative study aims to determine the cause of differences, in terms of procrastination tendency, in academic performance among online learners. The study...

Responding to the lack of longitudinal analyses on media usage in higher education, this study explores the changes of higher education students’ access to and use of technology for learning in 2012, 2015 and 2018. Using an online questionnaire, a total of 5,572 German higher education students participated. Via descriptive and inferential analysis...

本文阐述高等教育背景下开放教育的内容。文章首先介绍开放教育的起源及其理论基础，随后根据远程开放学习研究的宏观、中观和微观层次框架讨论远程开放学习、开放教育实践、开放学术、开放教育资源、慕课、先前学习认定、学习者特征和开放教育国际化等主题的内容。最后从宏观、中观和微观层面提出今后的研究方向。

The field of distance education (DE) is dynamic and constantly evolving; it reflects and adapts according to changes in socio-cultural, demographic, political, and technological domains. Thus, there is a need to understand past and present activities in the field, in order to better inform future research. The main purpose of this study was to exam...

This paper presents a review of distance education literature published in the Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education (TOJDE) to describe the status thereof and to identify gaps and priority areas in distance education research based on a validated classification of research areas. The articles (N=784) published between 2000 and 2015 were rev...

Zusammenfassung Der vorliegende Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit den Publikationen, die in der Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft ( ZfE ) in den Jahren 1998–2017 veröffentlicht wurden. Angesichts der Veränderungen in der erziehungswissenschaftlichen Forschungslandschaft in der jüngeren Vergangenheit untersuchen wir, inwiefern sich eine veränderte S...

This case study looks at the effects of the Covid‐19 pandemic on teaching and learning at universities in Germany. It examines the question of whether the current practice of Emergency Remote Teaching in the online term 2020 will lead to an acceleration of the digitalization of teaching and learning, and on what we can build upon in this developmen...

The term Open Educational Resources (OER) is buzzword in education systems around the world and their potential has even been highlighted with the pandemic crisis as an aid in education systems. However, it is still far from reaching the promises that were envisaged for them. This is especially true for Germany, where challenges have been identifie...

The term Open Educational Resources (OER) is buzzword in education systems around the world and their potential has even been highlighted with the pandemic crisis as an aid in education systems. However, it is still far from reaching the promises that were envisaged for them. This is especially true for Germany, where challenges have been identifie...

Bereits seit über einem halben Jahrhundert wird zur Entwicklung von Künstlicher Intelligenz (KI) geforscht und entwickelt. Durch die weltweite Vernetzung und Verfügbarkeit von Daten („big data“) und eine entsprechende Rechenkapazität der Computer sind heute Anwendungen und Methoden möglich geworden, die in den letzten Jahren verstärkt auch im Konte...

This paper explores elements of open education within the context of higher education. After an introduction to the origins of open education and its theoretical foundations, the topics of open and distance learning, international education issues in open education, open educational practices and scholarship, open educational resources, MOOCs, prio...

Systematic Reviews und Metaanalysen gewinnen in den Bildungswissenschaft en zunehmend an Bedeutung. Mit dieser Entwicklung einher geht die Frage nach der Allgemeingültigkeit der Ergebnisse. Ein Grund hierfür kann ein wechselseitiger Scientist- Practitioner Gap sein. In dieser Studie stellen wir die Ergebnisse einer kontextuellen Validierung mit E-L...

This paper reports on the first stage of an international comparative study for the project "Digital educational architectures: Open learning resources in distributed learning infrastructures-EduArc", funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. This study reviews the situation of digital educational resources (or (O)ER) framed...

This article looks at the effects of the corona pandemic on teaching and learning at universities in Germany. It examines the question of whether the current practice of Emergency Remote Teaching in the online term 2020 will lead to an acceleration of the digitalization of teaching and learning, and on what we can build upon in this development. In...

Collaborative online learning in higher education through such as discussion boards, blogs and social network technologies can increase knowledge exchange across large student cohorts, independent of time, across borders and at lower cost. With a surge of internationalization of education the question arises whether and how collaborative online lea...

This paper presents a review of distance education literature published in the Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education (TOJDE) to describe the status thereof and to identify gaps and priority areas in distance education research based on a validated classification of research areas. The articles (N = 784) published between 2000 and 2015 were r...

多种国际报告显示教育人工智能是当前教育技术新兴领域之一。虽然教育人工智能已有约三十年 的历史，但是目前教育工作者仍然不清楚如何更大规模地发挥其在教学上的优势，也不清楚现实中它 可能以何种方式对高等教育教与学产生有意义的影响。本文旨在通过系统综述呈现人工智能在高等教 育的应用研究概况。本研究最初检索到2007—2018 年间发表的2,656 篇论文，根据明确的收录和排除 标准，最后采用146 篇论文作为综合分析的文献。描述性结果显示，此类论文多数涉及计算机科学、 科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM） 学科，定量研究方法是实证研究最常用的方法。对研究结果进行 综合分析显示，教育人工智能在学习支持服务和教学以及行政管理服务方面的应用可以归为四类：① 特征分析和预测；②考核和评价；③自适应系统和个性化...

摘要：多种国际报告显示教育人工智能是当前教育技术新兴领域之一。虽然教育人工智能已有约三十年的历史,但是目前教育工作者仍然不清楚如何更大规模地发挥其在教学上的优势,也不清楚现实中它可能以何种方式对高等教育教与学产生有意义的影响。本文旨在通过系统综述呈现人工智能在高等教育的应用研究概况。本研究最初检索到2007—2018年间发表的2,656篇论文,根据明确的收录和排除标准,最后采用146篇论文作为综合分析的文献。描述性结果显示,此类论文多数涉及计算机科学、科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)学科,定量研究方法是实证研究最常用的方法。对研究结果进行综合分析显示,教育人工智能在学习支持服务和教学以及行政管理服务方面的应用可以归为四类:(1)特征分析和预测;(2)考核和评价;(3)自适应系统和个性化;(...

Developing, sustaining, and improving student engagement is of vital importance to higher education instructors. Educational technology has been linked to student engagement, and preservice and in-service teachers need to develop information communication and technology (ICT) skills and knowledge to apply them in the classroom as well as to develop...

Understanding how educational technology can enhance student engagement is becoming increasingly necessary in higher education, and particularly so in arts and humanities, given the communicative nature of courses. This narrative systematic review synthesises 42 peer-reviewed arts and humanities articles published between 2007-2016, indexed in four...

Digital technology has become a central aspect of higher education, inherently affecting all aspects of the student experience. It has also been linked to an increase in behavioural, affective and cognitive student engagement, the facilitation of which is a central concern of educators. In order to delineate the complex nexus of technology and stud...

本文对《英国教育技术期刊》1970 年至2018 年第3 期刊发的1,777 篇研究论文的标题和摘要进行 内容分析，反思过去50 年教育技术研究。本研究采用Leximancer 这种文本挖掘工具分析每一个10 年 所出现的主要概念和主题，并把它们与《计算机与教育》和《英国教育技术期刊》同期被引率最高的 文章的主要概念和主题进行比较。过去50 年《英国教育技术期刊》常见主题包括远程教育教与学的发 展、教学设计的出现、实践者与学习设计者之间的误解、职前和在职教师教育以及教育工作者和学生 接受技术的问题（使用技术的信心、教育工作者和学生的技术技能和机构没有提供培训和融合所需的 空间和时间等方面的支持）。本文还针对今后的研究提出建议，包括研究教育工作者专业发展的其他 模式和进一步探索理论与政策的作用...

This is the review protocol for the ActiveLearn systematic review, investigating student engagement and educational technology in higher education.

As they attempt to address many of the issues confronting higher education today – from continuously rising educational costs to changing demographics and increasing market competition – universities across the world are turning to innovative approaches for incorporating openness into their institutional strategies, through the use of open educatio...

Drawing on an example of a large systematic review that was conducted on the use of educational technology and student engagement in higher education, we provide practical insights into how we proceeded throughout the review phases. Readers and researchers embarking on a systematic review themselves might find the contents of this chapter useful, i...

Nach einer einführenden Betrachtung der strukturellen Ähnlichkeiten zwischen Fernstudium und wissenschaftlicher Weiterbildung, wird das Fernstudium kurz in seine historische Entwicklung bis hin zum Online Lernen eingeordnet. Hierbei ist mit der Digitalisierung des Lernens und Lehrens eine Konvergenz mediengestützter Bildungsangebote des ursprünglic...

This is the raw Excel spreadsheet for the Education articles, included in the ActiveLearn systematic review. Included is information about the study design, educational technology used, and student engagement facets present.

This is a .ris file of all articles in the field of Education, included in the ActiveLearn systematic review.

This is the .ris file for the entire ActiveLearn systematic review corpus (n = 232 articles).

This is the .ris file for the articles in the field of Arts & Humanities, included in the ActiveLearn systematic review.

This is the raw Excel spreadsheet for the Arts & Humanities articles, included in the ActiveLearn systematic review. Included is information about the study design, educational technology used, and student engagement facets present.

Open Educational Resources (OER) have the potential to support increased higher education access at a lower cost to rural, remote, lower-socio economic students, alongside lifelong learners and time-poor workers who require upskilling (Bossu & Meier, 2018; Orr, Rimini, & van Damme, 2015). The German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has fun...

On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the journal Distance Education (DE), this study explores the position of this journal in a network of open and distance education, educational technology and learning design publications. A citation network analysis was undertaken to explore the scholarly communication network of distance education, using...

In this open access edited volume, international researchers of the field describe and discuss the systematic review method in its application to research in education. Alongside fundamental methodical considerations, reflections and practice examples are included and provide an introduction and overview on systematic reviews in education research....

According to various international reports, Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIEd) is one of the currently emerging fields in educational technology. Whilst it has been around for about 30 years, it is still unclear for educators how to make pedagogical advantage of it on a broader scale, and how it can actually impact meaningfully on teaching...

References included in a systematic review on artificial intelligence in higher education

This study explored how academics in a Ghanaian university conceptualized and engaged with OER through a qualitative approach (in-depth interviews). “Access” emerged as the most dominant theme in how OER was conceptualized. Academics regarded OER positively; emphasizing its role in reducing the knowledge imbalances between the Global North and Glob...

In order to disseminate the findings and recommendations from their studies, researchers publish papers in scientific journals in their subject area. Research communities thus emerge as a result of the communication between authors who cite other relevant papers. This study focuses on the relationships between Spanish and English research communiti...