EADTU 2017 Conference - Selected Papers

In this collection, four papers were selected for further development and publication. In A Learning Design Methodology for Developing Short Learning Programmes in Further and Continuing Education, Lillian Buus details the collaborative design process in place in Denmark, with teachers working alongside learning designers to produce modules. The paper by Miguel Santamaría Lancho and colleagues provides interesting results in the use of a Latent Semantic Analysis-based automatic assessment tool at UNED (Spanish National Distance Education University). The students theme is also the focus of the paper by Angeles Sánchez-Elvira Paniagua and Ormond Simpson which provides an overview of the Student Support area of the EMPOWER project over the past two years. This aims to empower students to become life-long self-directed learners in open, online and blended-learning environments. Finally, Hewson addresses an often overlooked aspect of education, namely the emotional engagement by examining feelings and perceptions on online courses and their learning context. By using a market research methodology this unusual approach emphasises that distance students operate in a complex environment and study is often not their priority.