How insights from the social sciences, including social psychology and economics, can improve the design of online communities.Online communities are among the most popular destinations on the Internet, but not all online communities are equally successful. For every flourishing Facebook, there is a moribund Friendster—not to mention the scores of smaller social networking sites that never attracted enough members to be viable. This book offers lessons from theory ...

This book seeks to establish an interdisciplinary, applied social scientific model for researchers and students that advocates a cooperative effort between machines and people. After showing that basic research on social processes offers much needed guidance for those creating technology and designing tools for group work, its papers demonstrate the mutual relevance of social science and information system design, and encourage better integration of these disciplines.This comprehen...

Every chapter in the widely distributed first edition has been updated, and four new chapters on current issues such as connectivism and social software innovations have been added. Essays by practitioners and scholars active in the complex, diverse, and rapidly evolving field of distance education blend scholarship and research; practical attention to the details of teaching and learning; and mindful attention to the economics of the business of education.

The book expounds the macro-level relationship between strategy, HRM, and performance, addressing important challenges that have constrained research and practice to date. Adopting a critical perspective, the first challenge is a narrow definition of 'performance' that has been largely driven by a managerialist, profit motive, with little regard for the human element. This book proposes adopting a more balanced approach towards measuring performance, encompassing both organizational financ...

A one-stop knowledge resource, Emerging Technologies in Distance Education showcases the international work of research scholars and innovative distance education practitioners who use emerging interactive technologies for teaching and learning at a distance. This widely anticipated book harnesses the dispersed knowledge of international experts who highlight pedagogical, organizational, cultural, social, and economic factors that influence the adoption and integration of emerging technolo...

This comprehensive resource highlights the most recent practices and trends in blended learning from a global perspective and provides targeted information for specific blended learning situations. You'll find examples of learning options that combine face-to-face instruction with online learning in the workplace, more formal academic settings, and the military. Across these environments, the book focuses on real-world practices and includes contributors from a broad range of fields includ...

Today’s global organizations operate at an extraordinary level of complexity. They not only contend with diverse languages, cultures, and political/legal situations, they must also deal with differences based on national boundaries, organizational size, product and services mix, functional specialization, and customer sets.Going Global offers human resource professionals and I/O psychologists a comprehensive resource for meeting the challenges of the global work environmen...

Organizational Change integrates major empirical, theoretical and conceptual approaches to implementing communication in organizational settings. Laurie Lewis ties together the disparate literatures in management, education, organizational sociology, and communication to explore how the practices and processes of communication work in real-world cases of change implementation.Gives a bold and comprehensive overview of communication research and ideas on change and th...

The first edition of Assessment Clear and Simple quickly became the essential go-to guide for anyone who participates in the assessment process in higher education. With the increased pressure to perform assessment to demonstrate accountability, Assessment Clear and Simple is needed more than ever. This second edition of the classic resource offers a concise, step-by-step guide that helps make assessment simple, cost-efficient, and useful to an institution. It contains effective strategies...

"This book, by Robert Ubell and his excellent team of collaborators, adds an important dimension to effective teaching and learning in online environments. It addresses how interaction and collaboration online can be effectively harnessed in virtual teams. It is an important contribution to the larger field of Internet-based education."—Frank Mayadas, Alfred P. Sloan FoundationHow to create and manage highly successful teams onlineWi...

Should I go to graduate school? How do I choose where to apply? Are my grades and accomplishments good enough to get in? Who should I ask to write recommendation letters for me, and how should I approach these people? How do I write my "personal statement?" When will I hear my fate, and how should I make my final decision? These are just a few of the many questions to which this well-researched, thorough, and extremely user-friendly book offers answers. Students who are contemplating gradu...

Documenting Learning with ePortfoliosDocumenting Learning with ePortfolios provides higher education instructors with a theory-to-practice approach to understanding the pedagogy behind ePortfolios and to helping students use them to record and reflect on their learning in multiple contexts. The authors outline a framework of six critical iterative tasks to undertake when implementing ePortfolios for student success. Filled with real-life models of successf...