RESUMO
Educational research is reflective of the nature and structure of national and regional education systems and their historical evolution. Educational technology research, as an area within educational research, reflects this case particularly prominently. Although individual countries and regions have varying research traditions, the publication of research in English as the scientific lingua franca can lead to missing nuances in terminology, which is often not reflected upon. Despite this, the exploration of research from different countries can still uncover diverse topical clusters. This study aims to identify the research topics in educational technology research in three countries (Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom), each with their own research traditions, through the terms used. To this end, a bibliometric analysis of 3034 article abstracts and keywords from 29 English-language Web of Science journals in the field of education and educational research was conducted, with a focus on educational technology. In addition, the quantitative findings are comparatively analysed by considering the corresponding cultural clusters. Main findings include diverse research foci in the three countries, also showing that distinct research traditions are still present, despite using English as lingua franca. Therefore, research articles written in English by non-English authors often do not reflect the same meanings in each country, despite using the same words. The conclusions reflect upon the need to establish ways of understanding the traditions behind those research articles and build collaborative systems to illustrate nuances in this research.
RESUMO
By the end of 2020, over 16,300 Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) from 950 universities worldwide had enrolled over 180 million students. Interest in MOOCs has been matched by significant research on the topic, including a considerable number of reviews. This study uses Machine Learning techniques and human expert supervision to generate a comprehensive systematic literature mapping review that overcomes some limitations of the traditional ones and provides a broader overview of the content and main topics studied in the specialized literature devoted to MOOCs. The sample consisted of 6320 publications automatically classified within six research topics, denominated by human experts: institutional approach, pedagogical approach, evaluation, analytics, participation, and educational resources. The content analysis of the topics identified was conducted using visual network analysis, which supported the identification of different thematic sub-clusters and endorsed the classification. Results from the review show that the lowest production of MOOC papers is within the topics of the pedagogical approach and educational resources. In contrast, participation and evaluation are the most frequent ones. In addition, the most cited papers are on the topics of analytics and resources, being the pedagogical approach and the institutional approach the less cited. This highlights the need for more MOOC research from a pedagogical perspective and calls upon the presence of educators.
RESUMO
This paper explores faculty's perspectives and use of open educational resources (OER) and their repositories across different countries by conducting a multiple case study to find similarities and differences between academics' awareness, perceptions and use of OER, as well as examining related aspects of institutional policy and quality that may influence individual views. Data were collected through nine expert reports on each country studied (Australia, Canada, China, Germany, Japan, South Africa, South Korea, Spain and Turkey) and were analyzed through qualitative content analysis using thematic coding. Findings show the impact on individual OER adoption with regard to the individual control of diverse factors by faculty members; of institutional policies and quality measures on the externally determined factors (by the institution); and of institutional professional development and provision of incentives in more internally determined factors (by the faculty members themselves). These findings carry implications for higher education institutions around the world in their attempt to boost OER adoption by faculty members.
RESUMO
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic that spread globally in 2020, higher education courses were subsequently offered in fully remote, online formats. A plethora of primary studies began investigating a range of topics exploring teaching and learning in higher education, particularly during the initial semester. In order to provide an overview and initial understanding of this emerging research field, a systematic mapping review was conducted that collates and describes the characteristics of 282 primary empirical studies. Findings reveal that research was carried out mostly descriptively and cross-sectionally, focusing predominantly on undergraduate students and their perceptions of teaching and learning during the pandemic. Studies originate from a broad range of countries, are overwhelmingly published open access, and largely focused on the fields of Health & Welfare and Natural Sciences, Mathematics & Statistics. Educational technology used for emergency remote teaching are most often synchronous collaborative tools, used in combination with text-based tools. The findings are discussed against pre-pandemic research on educational technology use in higher education teaching and learning, and perspectives for further research are provided. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s41239-021-00282-x.
