Distance Learning, mLearning, Digital Education, Technology

There has been a significant rise in the facilitation of online learning. It is estimated that 5.8 million students are enrolled in online courses, which represents a 263% increase over a period of twelve years1. Further 77% of institutions have acknowledged that online learning is crucial to their long-term strategy. Meghan Bogardus Cortez, an associate editor with EdTech: Focus on Higher Education, highlights the need for quality to expand with the increase in online learning2.

Various endeavours and initiatives have been established such as scorecards3 and rubrics4, to evaluate the quality of online learning and provide guidance in the development and enhancement of online learning environments. Professional associations, such as the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ASCILITE) have a major role to play in regard to assuring the quality of online learning in higher education.

This ASCILITE initiative, which is currently referred to by its working title as TELAS (Technology Enhanced Learning Accreditation Scheme), seeks to introduce an internationally benchmarked accreditation scheme that will assess, assure, certify and recognize the quality of online learning.

This paper focuses on learning practices in higher education in relation to a digital participatory culture. Using key principles of critical education, the research set out to explore higher education students’ sense of agency online – or lack of it –as part of their formal learning practices. The research found that although students were proficient Web users, they did not exercise their learner agency beyond what they assumed to be expected of them, thus evidencing the stability of their learning habits in relation to the learning conventions associated with the academic field. Perhaps more surprisingly, however, is students’ perception of the Web not only as a space of student participation, but also as a space of student surveillance. Such perceptions constitute real obstacles to meaningful participation as a form of learning.