Information communication technologies and distance education in Sri Lanka: a case study of two universities

Sri Lanka's participation rates in higher education are low and have risen only slightly in the last few decades; the number of places for higher education in the state university system only caters for around 3% of the university entrant age cohort. The literature reveals that the highly competitive global knowledge economy increasingly favours workers with high levels of education who are also lifelong learners. This lack of access to higher education for a sizable proportion of the labour force is identified as a severe impediment to Sri Lanka‟s competitiveness in the global knowledge economy. The literature also suggests that Information and Communication Technologies are increasingly relied upon in many contexts in order to deliver flexible learning, to cater especially for the needs of lifelong learners in today‟s higher educational landscape. The government of Sri Lanka invested heavily in ICTs for distance education during the period 2003-2009 in a bid to increase access to higher education; but there has been little research into the impact of this. To address this lack, this study investigated the impact of ICTs on distance education in Sri Lanka with respect to increasing access to higher education. In order to achieve this aim, the research focused on Sri Lanka‟s effort from three perspectives: policy perspective, implementation perspective and user perspective. A multiple case study research using an ethnographic approach was conducted to observe Orange Valley University‟s and Yellow Fields University‟s (pseudonymous) implementation of distance education programmes using questionnaires, qualitative interviewing and document analysis. In total, data for the analysis was collected from 129 questionnaires, 33 individual interviews and 2 group interviews. The research revealed that ICTs have indeed increased opportunities for higher education; but mainly for people of affluent families from the Western Province. Issues identified were categorized under the themes: quality assurance, location, language, digital literacies and access to resources. Recommendations were offered to tackle the identified issues in accordance with the study findings. The study also revealed the strong presence of a multifaceted digital divide in the country. In conclusion, this research has shown that iii although ICT-enabled distance education has the potential to increase access to higher education the present implementation of the system in Sri Lanka has been less than successful.

Entertainment education theory and practice in HIV/AIDS communication: a South Africa / United Kingdom comparison

Within development communication, gaps remain in theory and practice: communication innovations are taking place which either do not incorporate theory or fail to challenge the assumptions of development communication and HIV/AIDS theory. This can lead to the implementation of unsuccessful interventions that lack theoretical frameworks or to uninformed practice, making it difficult to replicate. Further, research has demonstrated that Entertainment Education (EE) interventions have a measurable impact on behaviour in areas such as HIV/AIDS prevention. Given the transitions in EE practice and evidence of its impact, EE theory and practice can contribute insight into these challenges. A pilot study investigated these dilemmas within the context of the monitoring and evaluation of development communication. Framing this discussion is the concept of South-North dialogue, using comparative analysis of EE interventions to distil lessons through contrasting experiences in two diverse settings. It holds as a principle that lessons from the experience of EE in the Southern context can inform lessons for the North. Further, comparison of the case studies can generate insights for the broader development communication field. We present four case studies, informed by key informant interviews, of EE interventions in the UK and South Africa. We address how communication is defined in planning, implementation and evaluation, highlighting how it often misses the importance of 'listening'. The case studies show that HIV/AIDS communication, and development communication more broadly, has not internalised ideas of evaluation and listening in communication. Successes in the case studies can be partially attributed to responsiveness and context-specificity rather than following rigid planning templates, such as those found in some development communication literature. This indicates the importance of flexibility and responsiveness to context for both development communication and HIV/AIDS communication.

MOOCs: a systematic study of the published literature 2008-2012

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are a recent addition to the range of online learning options. Since 2008, MOOCs have been run by a variety of public and elite universities, especially in North America. Many academics have taken interest in MOOCs recognising the potential to deliver education around the globe on an unprecedented scale; some of these academics are taking a research-oriented perspective and academic papers describing their research are starting to appear in the traditional media of peer reviewed publications. This paper presents a systematic review of the published MOOC literature (2008-2012): Forty-five peer reviewed papers are identified through journals, database searches, searching the Web, and chaining from known sources to form the base for this review. We believe this is the first effort to systematically review literature relating to MOOCs, a fairly recent but massively popular phenomenon with a global reach. The review categorises the literature into eight different areas of interest, introductory, concept, case studies, educational theory, technology, participant focussed, provider focussed, and other, while also providing quantitative analysis of publications according to publication type, year of publication, and contributors. Future research directions guided by gaps in the literature are explored.

HMEF: framework to evaluate merging of Higher Education Institutions – application of Enterprise Architecture

Mergers of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are organisational processes requiring tremendous amount of resources, in terms of time, work, and money. A number of mergers have been seen on previous years and more are to come. Several studies on mergers have been conducted, revealing some crucial factors that affect the success of mergers. Based on literature review on these studies, factors are: the initiator of merger, a reason for merger, geographical distance of merging institutions, organisational culture, the extend of overlapping course portfolio, and Quality Assurance Systems (QASs). Usually these kind of factors are not considered on mergers, but focus is on financial matters. In this paper, a framework (HMEF) for evaluating merging of HEIs is introduced. HMEF is based on Enterprise Architecture (EA), focusing on factors found to be affecting the success of mergers. By using HMEF, HEIs can focus on matters that crucial for merging.

Ethics education in management accounting studies: evidence from business schools in Ghana

Management accounting in recent times, and perhaps rightly so, has begun to gain recognition as a profession separate and complimentary to financial accounting. Evidence exists to suggest that management accountants are exposed to a unique set of ethical challenges within industry and that a significant high number of management accountants have engaged in unethical practices in performing their jobs. For the accounting profession as a whole, the growing number of corporate failures has created a credibility crisis that requires a deliberate intervention to mitigate. If this is not addressed sooner, the accounting profession stands the risk of losing relevance. Scholarship on ethical issues in accounting practice have either focused mostly on financial accounting or have sought to combine ethical issues for financial and management accounting. Various arguments have been made in recent times of the need to treat ethical issues in behavioural studies as context-specific and therefore separate ethical considerations in management accounting from financial accounting. This study adopts an approach, following various literature, that effective ethics education can help practitioners deal appropriately with ethical issues at the work place, and explores students’ and faculty members’perceptions on current practices in ethics education. As expected, faculty and students differ significantly on a wide range of issues on ethics education in management accounting. Based on the insights provided from this study, appropriate recommendations have been made to improve ethics education in management accounting.

Entrepreneurial dynamics and higher education institutions in the post-communist world

This study draws on the institutional and regional entrepreneurship literature to develop a conceptual framework that analyses the impact of higher education institutions on entrepreneurial dynamics. It is used to examine the cities of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) during the period 1995–2008. Extending the multi-pillar institutional concept, it is found that higher education institutions play a prominent role in fostering entrepreneurial dynamics in CIS cities through multiple channels, including human capital development, cultivating a positive attitude towards entrepreneurship, affecting the perceptions of the knowledge and skills needed to start up a successful business, and knowledge spillovers.