editorial

Greetings Dear readers of TOJDE, TOJDE is appeared on your screen now as Volume 9, Number: 3. This is the third issue of the year 2008. In this issue is published 1 Note for Editor, 15 articles, already 2 book reviews and this time 27 authors from 11 different countries are placed. These published articles are from Australia, Germany, Greece, India, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Romania, SriLanka, Turkey and USA. Notes for Editor is arrived to TOJDE from Nigeria and written by E. C. IBARA. In his paper examines the processes leading to administration of face-to-face examination in distance education with focus on the National Open University of Nigeria. It highlighted some procedures such as test development, test administration and post test administration/award procedures. Quality management initiatives provide a feasible path for incorporating distance training, whether via the Internet, audio conferencing, video conferencing, or postal delivering methods. The first article of this issue is coming from USA, from Rachel D. ECHARD and Zane L. BERGE, on “Quality Management Builds Solid Etraining”. Their paper will explore the manifestations of quality management processes on sustaining distance training in a business environment. The Second article is “Conducting A Trial of Web Conferencing Software: Why, How, And Perceptions From The Coalface”, written by Shirley REUSHLE and Birgit LOCH from The University of Southern Queensland, Australia. This paper reports on the trial of web conferencing software conducted at a regional Australian university with a significant distance population. The paper shares preliminary findings, the views of participants and recommendations for future activity. To design and conduct the trial, an action research method was chosen because it is participative and grounded in experience, reflecting the context and objectives of the trial. The third article is from India. The third one is on “Distance Education In The Age Of Globalization: An Overwhelming Desire Towards Blended Learning”, written by Satya Sundar SETHY, Indira Gandhi National Open University. The aim of this paper is to discuss the nature and status of distance education in the age of globalization, i.e. how best it fits for the present educational scenario. In this connection, it is discussing how Blended Learning (hence after, BL) is one among the other learning strategies mostly helpful for the learners. The fourth article arrived from Anadolu University, Turkey on “The Validity And Reliability Studies of The Computer Anxiety Scale on Educational Administrators (CAS-EA)” an written by Esmehan Agaoglu and her team. This study aims at investigating the validity and reliability studies of the “Computer Anxiety Scale”. And the “Computer Anxiety Scale of Educational Administrators” (CAS-EA) was developed as a result. The fifth article from Greece, on “The Organisation of A Distance Postgraduate Dance Programme And The Participation of Students Specialising in Dance”, written by Dimitris GOULIMARIS, Maria KOUTSOUBA and Yiannis GIOSOS. The aim of their study is to research the factors which constitute the behaviour of students participating in distance postgraduate programmes of studies in dance and to detect any difference in their behaviour that stems from characteristics such as gender and previous dance experience. The sample of the study consisted of 71 male and female students who had chosen to specialise in Greek traditional dance in three Departments of Physical Education of Greece, where the specific specialisation is offered. From the results of the study, it is observed that there is a moderately positive tendency to participate in a postgraduate programme of studies in dance. The sixth article which is entitled as “Reasons For Student Discontinuation in Engineering Degree Courses Offered At A Distance”, sent and written by S. Anbahan ARIADURAI and Rajalingam MANOHANTHAN from The Open University of Sri Lanka, SRI LANKA. Their paper investigates the reasons for low completion rates in the faculty and suggests ways and means to overcome this problem. The study concludes that increasing student numbers will not necessarily increase percentage of students completing the programme though the number of students completing is increased. It is found that students offering courses for the first time in the system of distance education in their academic career perform poorer because they are not conversant with distance education techniques. It is recommended that the Faculty must offer an orientation programme on distance education to all the students enrolling for the first time, before they commence their regular programmes. The seventh article is came from Turkey on “An Online Social Constructivist Tool: A Secondary School Experience In The Developing World”, written by Ayse KOK. She mentioned in her paper that with the rapid advances in technology, several online learning tools come onto the stage. Being an online learning delivery tool to support a full range of teaching and learning activities conducted by educational institutions Moodle facilitates online content creation and collaboration by entailing various social and communication tools that support teacher-student, student-student, and teacher-teacher interactions. This paper presents the "Moodling"(Moodle, 2005) experience within a secondary school in a developing country, namely Turkey. Based on a focus discussion group with the foreign language teachers, the author depicts the critical points that need to be taken into consideration so that an effective collaborative online platform for both teachers and students to learn together can exist The 8th article is arrived to us from again Pakistan. The article which is entitled “Suitability of AIOU Television And Its Impact on Students’ Achievements”, which is written by Syed Abdul SIRAJ, Department of Mass Communication of Allama Iqbal Open University, Islamabad, PAKISTAN. This paper presents and concluded No strong relationship was found between Learning from TV and academic achievement in the AIOU situation. Use of television in the AIOU Situation will be more effective if transmission day, time and duration are adjusted according to the students’ demand and when students’ assignments are based on both textbook and TV programs. Next and the ninth article article is written by Selahattin GONEN and Bulent BASARAN from Diyarbakir University, Turkey. Their paper is entitled as “The New Method Of Problem Solving in Physics Education By Using Scorm-Compliant Content Package”. Their study two basic purposes are presented. First, taking effective feedbacks in the electronic learning environment about the learning level of students at the problem solving which are told in physics lessons and laboratories. Second, providing a possibility for students to repeat the subjects and solved problems by watching and listening, which are told in lessons and laboratories, whenever or wherever they want. For this purpose, in the first step, the problems solved in classroom and laboratories about physics and subject expressions are transferred to digital environment and e-learning materials are developed. In the second step, these materials are converted to standard SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) package and integrated to Course Management System (CMS). The tenth article is also from Germany and written by Wolfram LAASER, FernUniversität in Hagen. Paper is titled as “Economics of Distance Education Reconsidered”. The economic viability of e-learning projects will be questioned with more scrutiny than in earlier periods. Therefore it seems to be a good opportunity to see what can be learned from past experience in costing distance learning projects and what aspects are added by current attempts to measure economic efficiency. After reviewing early research about costing distance learning some more recent approaches will be discussed, such as eLearning ROI-calculators and the concept of total cost of ownership. Furthermore some microeconomic effects referring to localization of distance learning courses are outlined. Finally several unsolved issues in costing distance education are summarized. The eleventh article arrived from Nigeria, which is titled as “Designing E-Education Supports in E-Health Based Systems”, written by Ikhu-Omoregbe, NICHOLAS. This paper presents the experience gained in designing mobile health care applications is used to proffer e-Education functionalities in the design of healthcare systems to enhance their acceptance in the medical domain. The application discussed, uses the Unified Modelling Language, mobile, and Java-based technologies for its development. The application provides a real-time access to medical information at the points of health-care delivery within health care centres. Continuing education centers mainly organize activities for the society in the fields that have gained importance on the improvement of individuals with a view of career building, improving professional knowledge and skills, achieving new skills and supplying individual development needs. Such centers have been established within universities through the principle of making continuing education accessible to everyone as a starting point for a lifelong learning process. These centers which aim at providing continuing education, implement more flexible programs compared to those executed at higher education institutions. Next article is which numbered as 12, from Turkey. Article is entitled as “Structure and Functions of the Continuing Education Centers at Turkish Universities”, written by Mehmet Metin ARSLAN, from Kirikkale University. In this study, the structure and functions of Continuing Education Centers at Turkish Universities are investigated. The scope of the study includes all the centers that have web pages established under state and public universities in Turkey.The thirteenth article is again from Anadolu University, Turkey. Article is titled as “Designing Motivational Learning Systems in Distance Education”, written by Jale BALABAN-SALI. In her article, the empirical studies related with this subject and the suggestions for presenting more effective motivational instructional designs in distance learning are summarized. The fourteenth article is written by Laura ASANDULUI and Ciprian CEOBANU from Al. I. Cuza University, ROMANIA on “E-Learning in Romanian Higher Education: A study case”. Acording to them in Romania, issues connected to eLearning are comparatively little known, as there are no relevant studies regarding the present situation of eLearning use or of the ways of increasing the level of use of Information and Communication Technologies along with an increase in the efficiency of higher education. The purpose of their study is to explore the level of dissemination of eLearning in the Romanian higher education, regarding both awareness about eLearning as a model and actual participation in such courses, to assess the respondents’ opinion on eLearning, to analyze the perspectives of using e-learning, and the students’ opinions concerning e-learning in comparison with traditional educational model. The paper reports the results of a research that was conducted in Iasi, at the "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" University. Through the application of appropriate statistical methods, the research’ aim was to describe and assess to what extent computers are used for learning of the students in order to highlight any important differences in terms of gender, specialty, and the preferred form of learning for postgraduate courses. New technologies have an important effect on changing higher education. Using technology also has effect on improving learning and teaching in education and especially higher education. Now some universities and institutes use these technologies to apply virtual and distance education but there are another approaches to use them. Weblog is one of them. Weblogs can be used in conventional universities along side the traditional classroom. The fifteenth and last paper is from Iran on “Weblog as A Learning Tool In Higher Education”, written by Yousef NAMWAR And Azam RASTGOO, Islamic Azad University. This paper review the importance and advantages and results of using weblog in universities by surveying the projects and researches that conducted in this subject all over the world. Using weblog because of easy to learn and apply is growing up every day. And this is a good opportunity to develop using weblogs in traditional universities. Weblog provide a good opportunity for collaborative learning and communication between students and teachers even among the students. This approach is based on constructivism theory. Knowledge rather than being transmitted through instruction is constructed or created by learners as they build their own cognitive structures. Teacher’s role is not giving the information to students but is guiding them during the instruction. Usage of the weblog helps to this aim. Results of research have shown that using weblog help users to develop literacy skills, critical thinking skills, knowledge construction ability, cooperative learning, academic development and etc..In the other sections are again in the same format as usual as TOJDE’s presenting style. News and some announcements are placed in this issue too.Dear readers, you can reach us online either directly at http://tojde.anadolu.edu.tr or by visiting Anadolu University homepage at http://www.anadolu.edu.tr from English version, clicking on Scientific Research button and than go to the Referred Journals. To receive further information and to send your recommendations and remarks, or to submit articles for consideration, please contact TOJDE Secretariat at the below address or e-mail us to tojde@anadolu.edu.tr Hope to stay in touch and meeting in our next Issue on 1st of October 2008.Cordially,Prof. Dr. Ugur Demiray Editor-in-Chief Anadolu University Yunusemre Campus 26470-Eskisehir TURKEY Tel: +90 222 335 0581 ext. 2521 or Direct: +90 222 ... GSM: +90 542 232 21 167 Fax: +90 222 320 4520 or Emails: udemiray@anadolu.edu.tr or ugdemiray@hotmail.comURL: http://home.anadolu.edu.tr/~udemiray URL: http://tojde.anadolu.edu.t