So you want to undertake research in ODL? Start with PREST!

Whenever I’m asked how to get started with research in open and distance learning, I have a one-word answer: PREST. Practitioner Research and Evaluation Skills Training (PREST) is a comprehensive set of resources produced by the Commonwealth of Learning and the International Research Foundation in Open Learning, and it is simply the best there is. Continue reading

More on MOOCs: evaluative research emerging from edX

A team from MIT and Harvard has just published an article in Research and Practice in Assessment, titled Studying Learning in the Worldwide Classroom: Research into edX’s First MOOC. I hope that plenty of people will read it, as it may help to move the sometimes unreasoned and unreasonable discussion (from both sides) of MOOCs onto a more considered level. Continue reading