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Theory and Practice
of Online Learning

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Editors: Terry Anderson &
Fathi Elloumi
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Theory and Practice
of Online Learning

Editors:
Terry Anderson &
Fathi Elloumi

cde.athabascau.ca/online_book

Athabasca University

C O N T E N T S

Contributing Authors / i
Foreword / ix
Dominique Abrioux
Introduction / xiii
Terry Anderson & Fathi Elloumi

1

Foundations of Educational Theory
for Online Learning / 3
Mohamed Ally

2

Toward a Theory of Online Learning / 33
Terry Anderson

3

Value Chain Analysis: A Strategic
Approach to Online Learning / 61
Fathi Elloumi

4

Developing an Infrastructure
for Online Learning / 97

Alan Davis

5

Technologies of Online Learning
(e-Learning) / 115
Rory McGreal & Michael Elliott

6

Media Characteristics and
Online Learning Technology / 137
Patrick J. Fahy

Part 1 – Role and
Function of Theory in
Online Education
Development and
Delivery

Part 2 – Infrastructure
and Support for Content
Development


7

The Development of Online Courses / 175
Dean Caplan

8

Developing Team Skills and Accomplishing
Team Projects Online / 195
Deborah C. Hurst & Janice Thomas

9

Copyright Issues in Online Courses:
A Moment in Time / 241
Lori-Ann Claerhout

10

Value Added—The Editor in Design and
Development of Online Courses / 259
Jan Thiessen & Vince Ambrock

11

Teaching in an Online Learning
Context / 271
Terry Anderson

12

Call Centers in Distance Education / 295
Andrew Woudstra, Colleen Huber,
& Kerri Michalczuk

13

Supporting Asynchronous Discussions
among Online Learners / 319
Joram Ngwenya, David Annand
& Eric Wang

14

Library Support for Online
Learners: e-Resources, e-Services,
and the Human Factors / 349
Kay Johnson, Houda Trabelsi, & Tony Tin

15

Supporting the Online Learner / 367
Judith A. Hughes

16

The Quality Dilemma in Online
Education / 385
Nancy K. Parker

Part 3 – Design and
Development of Online
Courses

Part 4 – Delivery,

Quality Control, and
Student Support of
Online Courses


8


C O N T R I B U T I N G

A U T H O R S

Mohamed Ally, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Centre for
Distance Education at Athabasca University. He teaches courses in
distance education and is involved with research on improving
design, development, delivery, and support in distance education.
Vincent Ambrock works as a Multimedia Instructional Design
Editor in the Athabasca University School of Business. He holds a
Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree from the University of Alberta
and has worked extensively as an editor and writer on an array of
electronic and print-based publishing projects.
Terry Anderson, Ph.D. (), is a professor and
Canada Research Chair in Distance Education at Athabasca
University, Canada’s Open University. He has published widely in the
area of distance education and educational technology and has
recently co-authored two new books: Anderson and Kanuka, (2002),
eResearch: Methods, Issues and Strategies; and Garrison and
Anderson, (2002), Online Learning in the 21st Century: A Framework for Research and Practice.
David Annand, Ed.D., M.B.A., C.A., is the Director of the School
of Business at Athabasca University. His research interests include

the educational applications of computer-based instruction and
computer-mediated communications to distance learning, and the
effects of online learning on the organization of distance-based
universities.
Dean Caplan is an instructional designer at Bow Valley College in
Calgary, Alberta, with a special interest in the design, development,
usability, and usage of multimedia in computer-mediated communications. He was, until 2002, employed as an instructional designer
at Athabasca University. Mr. Caplan recently designed and oversaw
development of a Web-based course helping older adults learn to
use the Internet.

i


Lori-Ann Claerhout (), is Copyright
Officer in Educational Media Development at Athabasca University.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts (English) degree from the University of
Calgary, and is currently working toward a Master of Arts
(Humanities Computing and English) degree from the University of
Alberta. Lori-Ann has been active in organizing other copyright
professionals from western and central Canada.
Alan Davis, Ph.D., was Vice-President, Academic, at Athabasca
University from 1996 to 2003, and before that he directed programs
at the BC Open University. His original discipline was Chemistry,
and he received his doctorate from Simon Fraser University in 1980.
He has special interests learning assessment and accreditation, the
management of e-learning, and virtual university consortia. Dr.
Davis is now Vice-President, Academic, at Niagra College.
Fathi Elloumi, Ph.D. (), is an associate
professor of Managerial Accounting at Athabasca University. His

research focuses on corporate governance, and covers all aspects of
effective governance practices. He is also interested in the strategic
and managerial aspects of online learning research from two
perspectives. The first perspective deals with the strategic decisions
of online learning, trying to use the value chain, balanced scorecard,
and performance dashboard frameworks to optimize online
learning decision initiatives and tie them to organizational vision.
The second perspective deals with the operational aspects of online
learning and mainly focuses on the internal processes of the online
learning institution. Subjects such as strategic costing, value chain
analysis, process re-engineering, activity-based management,
continuous improvement, value engineering, and quality control are
the focus of his research program related to online learning.
Patrick J. Fahy, Ph.D. (), is an associate
professor in the Centre for Distance Education (CDE), Athabasca
University. His career has included high school and adult education
teaching, and research from basic literacy to graduate levels, private
sector management and training experience, and private consulting.
Currently, in addition to developing and teaching educational
technology courses in the Master of Distance Education (MDE)

ii


program, Pat coordinates the MDE’s Advanced Graduate Diploma
in Distance Education (Technology) program and the CDE’s annual
Distance Education Technology Symposium. He is Past-President of
the Alberta Distance Education and Training Association (ADETA).
His current research interests include measures of efficiency in
online and technology-based training, and interaction analysis in

online conferencing.
Colleen Huber has worked at Athabasca University since 1994,
when she was the first facilitator in the Call Centre. Since then, she
has moved to the position of Learning Systems Manager where she
is responsible for the systems used to deliver courses and manage
information within the School of Business at Athabasca University.
Now that these systems are available, Colleen spends a great deal of
time presenting them to the Athabasca University community and
running workshops to train staff on their use, as well as presenting
papers and workshops to other educational communities.
Dr. Judith Hughes, Ph.D. (), Vice-President,
Academic, first came to Athabasca University in 1985, when the
University was moved from Edmonton, Alberta, to the town of
Athabasca, 120 km north of Edmonton. Judith’s history is rooted
in adult education, in teaching and research, as well as
administrative positions. She has lived in a variety of places in
Canada, having completed her bachelor’s degree at Carleton
University (Ottawa), her master’s degree at Queen’s University
(Kingston), and her Ph.D. at University of Alberta (Emonton).
At Athabasca University, Dr. Hughes oversees all graduate and
undergraduate academic units within the University, including
academic centres, library, educational media development,
counseling and advising, and other student support units. She
previously served as Vice-President, Students Services, at Athabasca
University for seven years, overseeing the development of student
support resources on the Web.
Dr. Hughes also served as Vice-President, External Relations for
a brief period, when she was responsible for executive communications outside the University, international collaborations,
university development, fundraising, corporate partnerships, etc.

iii


Dr. Hughes’s research interests include the school-to-work nexus,
in which she conducted research at Queen’s University in the 1980s;
access to university education, in which she first undertook research
at the University of Alberta, and in which she continues to work at
Athabasca University; intellectual honesty as institutional culture, in
which she is now working at Athabasca University; and the use of
technology in addressing equality of access to university education,
in which she is conducting research with partners from institutions
such as Indira Gandhi University and the University of the Arctic.
Deborah C. Hurst, Ph.D. (), is an
Associate Professor with the Centre for Innovative Management,
Athabasca University in Alberta, Canada. Her area of specialization
is the study of cultural organization change, with an interest in
knowledge work and development of intellectual capital through
on-going competency development and virtual learning. Her work
is a balance of applied and academic research that draws from a
diverse background in her pursuit of this specialization. Her current
research program is concerned the experiences of contingent
knowledge workers, the development, retention and valuation of
intellectual capital, the use of virtual learning environments to
enhance intellectual capital, transmission and alignment of cultural
values, and the de-institutionalization of the psychological
employment contract. For more information regarding Deborah’s
work or background check the Athabasca University Centre for
Innovative Management Web site.
Kay Johnson (), is Head, Reference and
Circulation Services at the Athabasca University Library. Kay

received her Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in History from University
of Ottawa and her Master of Library and Information Studies from
McGill University. In addition to providing reference and
instructional services to Athabasca University learners, she has
been actively involved in the development of the digital library at
Athabasca University, and serves as a consultant for the Digital
Reading Room project.
Kerri Michalczuk has been with Athabasca University since 1984.
For the last five years, as Course Production and Delivery Manager,
she has managed the day-to-day operation of the School of Business
iv


tutorial Call Centre—the first point of contact for students registered
in business courses. Kerri also manages the production processes for
developing online and print-based materials, including coordinating
the work of production staff, such as editors, instructional designers,
typesetters, and copyright personnel. Kerri has extensive knowledge
of Athabasca University’s administrative and production systems,
and she sits on many committees that review, plan, and implement
University systems.
Joram Ngwenya, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of Management
Information Systems as Athabasca University. His research interests
include e-learning systems, e-government systems, and group
decision support systems.
Nancy Parker, Ph.D. (), is the Director of
Institutional Studies at Athabasca University and is actively engaged
in a wide range of quality assurance and accreditation activities,
including serving on Alberta Learning’s Performance Measurement
and Management Information Committee, and as Athabasca’s institutional liaison officer to the Middles States Commission on Higher

Education. She has published in the fields of criminal justice history
and institutional research.
Jan Thiessen is a Multimedia Instructional Design Editor in
Athabasca University's School of Business. She received a Bachelor
of Education degree (English) from the University of Alberta, and
Master of Distance Education from Athabasca University. Her
research on faculty attitudes towards interaction in distance
education helps inform her work with course authors and teams,
developing quality distance learning materials and experiences.
Janice Thomas, Ph.D. (), is an Associate
Professor and Program Director for the Executive MBA in Project
Management at the Centre for Innovative Management, Athabasca
University in Alberta, Canada. She is also an adjunct professor in
the University of Calgary joint Engineering and Management
Project Management Specialization, and a visiting professor with
the University of Technology, Sydney, where she supervises Master
and Ph.D. research students. Prior to becoming an academic, Janice
spent ten years as a project manager in the fields of Information
v


Technology and Organizational Change. Janice is now an active
researcher presenting and publishing her research to academic and
practitioner audiences at various sites around the world. Janice's
research interests include organizational change, project management, team building and leadership, complexity theory in relation
to organizations, the professionalization of knowledge workers,
and the impact of codification of knowledge on performance.
Ultimately all of her research is aimed at improving the practice of
project management in organizations. For more information
regarding Janice’s work or background check the Athabasca

University, Centre for Innovative Management Web site.
Tony Tin () is the Electronic Resources
Librarian at Athabasca University Library. Tony holds a B.A. and
M.A. in History from McGill University and a B.Ed. and M.L.S.
from the University of Alberta. He maintains the Athabasca
University Library’s Web site and online resources, and is the
Digital Reading Room project leader.
Houda Trabelsi () is an e-Commerce course
coordinator at Athabasca University. She received a M.Sc. in
business administration from Sherbrooke University and a M.Sc. in
information technology from Moncton University. Her research
interests include electronic commerce, business models, e-learning
strategy, customer relationships management, trust and privacy in
electronic commerce, World Wide Web navigation, and interface
design.
Zengxiang (Eric) Wang, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of finance
at Athabasca University. His research interests are option pricing,
executive compensation, corporate tax planning, and online
financial education.
Andrew Woudstra, Ph.D., Professor, Management Accounting is a
member of the School of Business at Athabasca University where he
has worked for the past 22 years. In addition to his teaching duties,
he has also served the University in various administrative capacities including Centre Chair, Associate Dean, Acting Dean and

vi


Acting Vice President, Finance and Administration. Andrew has
been involved in a number of innovative process changes in the
School of Business, including the development of e-learning and the

School of Business Call Centre, and has published in a variety of
distance education journals and books.

vii


viii


F O R E W O R D
Dominique Abrioux

During the last ten years, the Internet and the Wide World Web have
fundamentally altered the practice of distance teaching and learning.
Nowhere is this fact more evident than in the transformation
undergone by single-mode distance universities as they seek to apply
the benefits of emerging information communication technology
(ICT) infrastructure to their core business, with a view to improving
the quality and cost-effectiveness of the learning experience afforded
their students.
By the mid 1990s, Canada’s Open University®, Athabasca
University, was ripe for change.1 Not only was the technological
world that had hitherto enabled distance education undergoing
radical and rapid change, but so too was the University’s political
environment, as debt reduction and elimination became the rallying
cries of provincial public policy. Moreover, Athabasca University,
Alberta’s fourth public university, had under-performed during the
ten previous years, as evidenced by the fact that in 1994-1995 it
suffered from the highest government grant per full-load-equivalent
student, the highest tuition fee level amongst the province’s public

universities, and a dismally low graduation rate. Concerned with
this state of affairs, the Government of Alberta announced that it
would reduce Athabasca University’s base budget by 31 per cent
over three years (ten per cent more than the reduction applied to
the other universities), and that it expected significant increases in
enrolment and cost effectiveness.
Today, this institution has risen to the challenge and serves some
30,000 students per year (a threefold increase over 1995), has more
than tripled its graduation rate, commands the lowest tuition fees
and per full-load-equivalent student base grant in the province,
and, most importantly, enjoys the highest ratings among sister
institutions in the biannual, provincially administered learner satisfaction surveys of university graduates.
Several complementary factors have combined to bring about
this dramatic change in Athabasca University’s institutional
performance, but none is more important than the move towards
the online delivery of its programs and courses. The direction had
been prepared for in the early 1990s as Athabasca University

ix

1
A complete case study
of Athabasca University is
available at the Web site
below. Retrieved January
19, 2004, from http://
www.unesco.org/iiep/vir
tualuniversity/index.html

2
(1996, January). Strategic
University Plan (pp. 5-6).
Retrieved January 19,
2004, from http://www
.athabascau.ca/html/info/
sup/sup.htm

developed and then launched (1994) its first two Masters level
programs (Master of Business Administration and Master of
Distance Education), both online degrees and global innovations.
The Strategic University Plan of 1996-1999 assigned primary
importance to embracing the electronic environment through:
• the transition from predominantly print-based curricula
presented in electronic format, print format or both,
depending on the appropriateness of the medium
• the dramatic expansion of computer-mediated
communication systems to facilitate the electronic
distribution of course materials produced in-house
• e-mail correspondence between students and staff (including
mailing of assignments)
• computer-conferencing among students and between
students and academic staff
• the provision of library, registry, and other student support
services
• access to electronic data bases
• electronic formative and summative evaluation
• the exploitation of distributed learning systems (e.g., the
World Wide Web)
• the provision of assistance to students learning to use

systems2

This book, authored principally by current and past staff
members integral to the implementation of this strategic vision,
presents individual practitioners’ views of the principal pedagogical
and course management opportunities and challenges raised by the
move to an online environment. Although grounded in a discussion
of online learning theory (itself presented and developed by
academics who are engaged daily in developing and delivering
electronic courses), it does not seek to be either a complete guide to
online course development and delivery, or an all-inclusive account
of how they are practiced at Athabasca University. Rather, each
chapter synthesizes, from a practitioner view, one component piece
of a complex system.
One of the main advantages of digital content is the ease with
which it can be adapted and customized. Nowhere is this more true

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Theory and Practice of Online Learning


than in its application to online education in general, and at
Athabasca University in particular, where three complementary
values characterize the organization’s different approaches to how
work is organized and how learning paths for students are
facilitated: customization, openness, and flexibility.
Consequently, and notwithstanding the inevitable standardization around such key issues as quality control, copyright,
materials production, library, and non-academic support services
(all of which are discussed in this book), considerable variation in

operational and educational course development and delivery
models is evident across the University’s different academic centers.
Just as the University supports several learning management systems
(see Chapter 4), so too are there various, recognized approaches
within Athabasca University to the management and administration
of teaching and learning processes. As such, the models and cases
presented in this study should be considered as examples of what
has worked well given one organization’s particular culture, not as
prescriptive descriptions of the only way of engaging in effective
online education.
There is, however, one common trait that both defines Athabasca
University’s flexible undergraduate learning model and informs
most of this book’s content. At the undergraduate level, all five
hundred plus courses are delivered in individualized distance
learning mode: students start on the first day of any month, progress
at their own pace, and submit assignments and sit examinations at
times determined by themselves. This flexibility presents tremendous advantages to adult learners who generally also face the
demands of both employment and family responsibilities, but it
poses particular challenges when administering, designing, or
delivering distance education courses. While most of the online
advances outlined in this book will often have parallel applications
in cohort-based e-classes, the distinction between individualized and
group-based distance education is one that the reader is advised to
keep in mind.
In keeping with its mission as an open university, Athabasca
University is delighted to provide this book under an open source
license, thereby removing financial barriers to its accessibility. As
its President, I take pride in what our collective staff has
accomplished and recognize the particular contribution that this
book’s authors are making to the global extension of our mission.

Foreword

xi


xii

Theory and Practice of Online Learning


I N T R O D U C T I O N
Terry Anderson & Fathi Elloumi

The Online Learning Series is a collection of works by practitioners
and scholars actively working in the field of distance education.
The text has been written at a time when the field is undergoing
fundamental change. Although not an old discipline by academic
standards, distance education practice and theory has evolved
through five generations in its 150 years of existence (Taylor,
2001). For most of this time, distance education was an individual
pursuit defined by infrequent postal communication between
student and teacher. The last half of the twentieth century witnessed rapid developments and the emergence of three additional
generations, one supported by the mass media of television and
radio, another by the synchronous tools of video and audio teleconferencing, and yet another based on computer conferencing.
The first part of the twenty-first century has produced the first
visions of a fifth generation—based on autonomous agents and
intelligent, database-assisted learning—that we refer to as the
educational Semantic Web. Note that each of these generations has
followed more quickly upon its predecessor than the previous ones.
Moreover, none of these generations has completely displaced

previous ones, so that we are left with diverse yet viable systems of
distance education that use all five generations in combination.
Thus, the field can accurately be described as complex, diverse, and
rapidly evolving.
However, acknowledging complexity does not excuse inaction.
Distance educators, students, administrators, and parents are daily
forced to make choices regarding the pedagogical, economic,
systemic, and political characteristics of the distance education
systems within which they participate. To provide information,
knowledge, and, we hope, a measure of wisdom, the authors of this
text have shared their expertise, their vision, their concerns, and
their solutions to distance education practice in these disruptive
times. Each chapter is written as a jumping-off point for further
reflection, for discussion, and, most importantly, for action. Never
in the history of life on our planet has the need for informed and
wisdom-filled action been greater than it is today. We are convinced

xiii


that education—in its many forms—is the most hopeful antidote to
the errors of greed, of ignorance, and of life-threatening aggression
that menace our civilization and our planet.
Distance education is a discipline that subsumes the knowledge
and practice of pedagogy, of psychology and sociology, of
economics and business, of production and technology. We attempt
to address each of these perspectives through the words of those
trained to view their work through a particular disciplinary lens.
Thus, each of the chapters represents the specialized expertise of
individual authors who address that component piece of the whole

with which they have a unique familiarity. This expertise is defined
by a disciplinary background, a set of formal training skills, and a
practice within a component of the distance education system. It is
hardly surprising, then, that some of the chapters are more academic than others, reflecting the author’s primary role as scholar,
while others are grounded in the more practical application focus
of their authors.
In sum, the book is neither an academic tome, nor a prescriptive
“how to” guide. Like a university itself, the book represents a
blending of scholarship and of research, practical attention to the
details of teaching and of provision for learning opportunity,
dissemination of research results, and mindful attention to the
economics of the business of education.
In many ways the chapters represent the best of what makes for
a university community. The word “university” comes from the
Latin universitas (totality or wholeness), which itself contains two
simpler roots, unus (one or singular) and versere (to turn). Thus, a
university reflects a singleness or sense of all encompassing wholeness, implying a study of all that is relevant and an acceptance of
all types of pursuit of knowledge. The word also retains the sense
of evolution and growth implied by the action embedded in the
verb “to turn.” As we enter the twenty-first century, the world is in
the midst of a great turning as we adopt and adapt to the technological capabilities that allow information and communication to
be distributed anywhere/anytime.
The ubiquity and multiplicity of human and agent communication, coupled with tremendous increases in information
production and retrieval, are the most compelling characteristics of
the Net-based culture and economy in which we now function. The
famous quote from Oracle Corporation, “The Net changes
xiv

Theory and Practice of Online Learning

everything,” applies directly to the formal provision of education.
Institutions that formerly relied on students gathering in campusbased classrooms are suddenly able (and many seem eager) to offer
their programming on the Internet. Similarly, institutions
accustomed to large-scale distance delivery via print or television
are now being asked to provide more flexible, interactive, and
responsive Net-based alternatives. Each of the chapters in the book
reflects the often disruptive effect of the Net on particular
components of a distance education system.

Open Source Licensing
This book is written by authors from a single university—
Athabasca University—which has branded itself “Canada’s Open
University.” As an open university, we are pleased to be the first
such institution to provide a text such as this one as an open and
free gift to others. The book is published under a Creative
Commons license (see ) to allow for
free use by all, yet the copyright is retained by the University (see
the copyright page for license details). This open-source license
format was chosen for a number of reasons. First, it is true to the
original spirit of the university, and especially of an open university.
We believe that knowledge is meant to be shared, and further, that
such sharing does not diminish its value to its creator. Thomas
Jefferson eloquently expressed these ideas in 1813 when he wrote
He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself
without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine,
receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely
spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and
mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition,
seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by

nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all
space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the
air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being,
incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. (1854,
pp. 180-181)

Introduction

xv


As you will see from the quotations and references that augment
the text in most chapters, we have learned much from the works of
others, and thus feel bound to return this gift of knowledge to the
wider community.
Second, we believe that education is one of the few sustainable
means to equip humans around the globe with the skills and
resources to confront the challenges of ignorance, poverty, war, and
environmental degradation. Distance education is perhaps the most
powerful means of extending this resource and making it accessible
to all. Thus, we contribute to the elimination of human suffering by
making as freely available as we can the knowledge that we have
gained developing distance education alternatives.
Third, the Creative Commons license provides our book as a
form of “gift culture.” Gift giving has been a component of many
cultures; witness, for example, the famed Potlatch ceremonies of
Canadian West Coast First Nations peoples. More recently, gift
giving has been a major motivation of hackers developing many of
the most widely used products on the Internet (Raymond, 2001).
Distributing this text as an open source gift serves many of the

same functions gift giving has done through millennia. The gift
weaves bonds within our community and empowers those who
benefit from it to create new knowledge that they can then share
with others and with ourselves. Interestingly, new recent research
on neuro-economics is showing that freely giving and sharing is a
behavior that has had important survival functions for humans
groups since earliest times (Grimes, 2003). David Bollier (2002)
argues that gift cultures are surprisingly resilient and effective at
creating and distributing goods, while protecting both long-term
capacity for sustained production and growing cultural assets.
Bollier also decries the private plunder of our common wealth, and
discusses the obligation that those employed in the public sector
have to ensure that the results of publicly funded efforts are not
exploited for personal gain.
Open source gifts also provide those from wealthy countries
with some small way to redress many economic inequalities and to
share more equitably the gifts we receive from our planet home. We
hope especially that this text will be incorporated into the syllabi of
the growing number of programs of distance education study that
are being offered by both campus and distance education
universities throughout the world. In the words of Sir John Daniel,
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Theory and Practice of Online Learning


former Vice Chancellor of the Open University of the United
Kingdom, sharing offers a viable means to “increase the quality
and quantity of electronic courseware as materials are refined,
versioned and adapted to academics around the world and made

freely available in these new formats” (2001 p. viii). We believe that
the free sharing of course content is a powerful tool to encourage
the growth of public education institutions. We also think that such
sharing will not result in a net value loss for the delivering
institution. Rather, its reputation will be enhanced and its saleable
services will increase in value.
Fourth, providing this book as open source frees us from
potentially acrimonious debates over ownership, return for value,
and distribution of any profit. Educational books rarely make large
profits for their authors, and most of us have personally witnessed
the old aphorism that “acrimony in academic arguments runs so
high because the stakes are so low.” Open source licensing allows
us to go beyond financial arguments that are likely to have little
consequence in any case.
Finally, we hope that open sourcing this book will allow it be
more widely distributed and read. Through this dissemination, the
ideas proposed will be exposed to critical dialogue and reflection.
We hope that much of this commentary will make its way back to
the authors or flow into the discussion forums associated with the
text’s Web site. Through review within the community of practice,
ideas are honed, developed, and sometimes even refuted. Such
discourse not only improves the field as a whole, but also directly
benefits our work at Athabasca University, and thus handsomely
repays our efforts.
In summary, we license the use of this book to all—not so much
with a sense of naïve idealism, but with a realism that has been
developed through our life work—to increase access to and opportunity for all to quality learning opportunities.

Introduction

xvii


Book Organization and Introduction to the Chapters
In the following pages, we briefly review the main themes covered
in this book and its chapters. We used the value chain of online
learning framework to help organize our themes and chapters. The
value chain framework is an approach for breaking down the
sequence (chain) of an organization’s functions into the strategically relevant activities through which utility is added to its
offerings and services. The components of an online learning organization’s value chain are depicted in the following figure.
Inbound
logistics

Operations

Outbound
logistics

Delivery,
collaborations,
and marketing

Service

Inbound logistics involves preparations for course development,
including curriculum planning and related activities. Operations
involve the actual process of course development, including writing,
multimedia creation, editing, formatting, graphic design, printing,
and Web publishing. Outbound logistics concerns the packaging
and storage of courses, and the process of mailing, e-mailing, or

otherwise delivering the material to the students. The delivery,
collaborations, and marketing value chain involves a series of value
adding activities, such as student registration through a Web portal;
course delivery; the preparation of brochures, advertising materials,
and the university calendar; developing a branding strategy for the
online learning offerings; and establishing strategic partnerships and
alliances. The service value chain provides online support (technical
and academic) to learners, including counseling, tutoring, marking
of assignments and examinations, delivery and invigilation of examinations, and maintenance of student records. It also includes
learner self-service through Web sites and Web portals. For a more
detailed discussion of the online learning value chain, refer to
Chapter 3 in this volume.
Using a value chain perspective to understand how we have
organized the themes in this book will help the reader focus on the
strategic activities of the online learning institution. Part 1 provides
a foundation to educational theory for online learning, to prepare
the ground for discussing the different components of the online

xviii

Theory and Practice of Online Learning


learning
logistics,
logistics,
learners.
volume.

value chain in Parts 2-4. Part 2 deals with inbound

Part 3 with production and with aspects of outbound
and Part 4 with delivery, marketing, and service to
The following figure illustrates the organization of this

CHAPTERS

1

2

3

PART 1:
Role and Function of
Theory in Online
Education Development
and Delivery

4

5

6

PART 2:
Infrastructure
and Support
for Content
Development

Inbound
logistics

7

8

9

10

PART 3:
Design and
Development
of Online
Courses

Operations

Outbound
logistics

11

12

13

14

15

16

PART 4:
Delivery, Quality
Control, and Student
Support of
Online Courses

Delivery,
collaborations,
and marketing

Service

“Part 1: Role and Function of Theory in Online Education
Development and Delivery” provides the theoretical foundations
for this volume. Chapter 1 presents the foundation of education
theory for online learning. It opens the debate by discussing the
contributions of behaviorist, cognitivist, and constructivist theories
to the design of online materials, noting that behaviorist strategies
can be used to teach the facts (what), cognitivist strategies the
principles and processes (how), and constructivist strategies the
real-life and personal applications and contextual learning. The
chapter mentions a shift toward constructive learning, in which
learners are given the opportunity to construct their own meaning
from the information presented during online sessions. Learning
objects will be used to promote flexibility and reuse of online
Introduction

xix