Analysing teaching presence in an open distance learning context

Abstract

Repositioning itself in the open distance learning sphere, Unisa is designing six signature courses. These courses are created especially for full online delivery, and based on heutagogical principles. As such, they may be regarded as a promising pilot project, paving a new pathway for curriculum and course design at Unisa. It would be accurate to say that the signature curriculum project has been, not only a massive learning journey for the project team, but also serves to pilot a complete paradigm shift in terms of teaching and learning at Unisa. This paper compares one of the signature courses with its print-based counterpart to determine what impact the move from print to online teaching is likely to have on student learning. As direct links have been established between student learning and teaching presence, this paper uses Anderson, Rourke, Garrison and Archer’s (2001) model for assessing teaching presence in the two different modes of the analysed course.