Our qualitative study explored transition in seven Canadian universities—early providers of distance education that transitioned to online learning between 2002 and 2017. We interviewed 16 individuals who were involved in the design, planning, or implementation of online learning. Participants reported their universities experienced significant impacts on organizational structure and roles. Many saw an increased focus on learning and teaching. Access, revenue generation, and technology were identified as drivers of online learning; traditional learning and teaching practices were shifting; challenges experienced included resistance to change and lack of dedicated resources; and effective, visionary leadership was seen to be critically important. We propose that the roots of today’s challenges and opportunities in online learning may be found in the experiences of distance educators who were early adopters.

This study presents original research findings of a qualitative study of Qatar's international higher-education branch-campus model, which in 2016 hosted 11 international branch campuses, among the most of any country then. Few studies have examined the rationales, goals, and challenges of the branch-campus model from a host country's perspective. This paper asks two central questions: 1) Why did Qatar partner with six North American universities to establish six international branch campuses between 2001and 2008 and 2) what were the challenges during the early years of operations from the Qatari and branchcampus leadership perspectives? This study's primary data-collection method was face-toface, open-ended interviews. I interviewed 18 participants in Qatar and recruited based on potential participants' positions relative to the establishment, oversight, and governance of the six branch campuses. I also included executives and directors from the government of Qatar, Qatar Foundation, and leadership of the six branch campuses. I used extant documents, such as annual reports, strategic plans, government reports, speeches, and popular-media articles as additional data sources. Findings included rationales and goals related to pedagogy, sociocultural development, societal engagement, development of research capacity, and Qatar's status as a leader and driver of change in the Arab Gulf region and beyond. Challenges included sociocultural issues, tensions between the international branch-campus leaderships and their home institutions, and conflicting expectations between the branch campuses and Qatar Foundation. These findings include in-depth and new insights into host-country goals and aspirations, and challenges experienced by U.S. and host-country partners, and how these challenges have been addressed.

This qualitative study sampled 30 university websites across Canada to identify which Canadian universities offer ePortfolio activities to students and faculty members. The researchers from Athabasca University identified eight institutions as offering ePortfolio activities and aimed to explore how faculty or instructors of such ePortfolio activities were selected and what professional development (PD) opportunities were available to them. The study included 11 participants from the eight Canadian universities identified during our search of university websites mentioning ePortfolios. Through a descriptive and interpretive process in a series of 60–90-minute interviews with faculty, educational developers, and instructional designers at the identified universities, the four researchers explored the type of professional development offered to faculty members who are involved or will be involved in ePortfolio use and program integration. The main focus of their interviews was on 1) the nature and type of development offered; 2) how it has been organized; 3) to what extent it has been effective; 4) how faculty members are chosen to teach ePortfolio courses; 5) what lessons have been learned about these factors; and 6) what recommendations are offered or proposed by PD developers, facilitators, and faculty participants. Given that the use of ePortfolios is a rapidly emerging pedagogy in higher education, it is not surprising, perhaps, that faculty development has not kept pace with the practice of ePortfolio introduction. Preliminary results have revealed variations of ePortfolio use (or lack thereof) in higher education. The findings have also revealed the need for a Canadian ePortfolio community to enable practitioners, proponents, and researchers to build on each other’s knowledge, share experiences, and engage in the dissemination of open education resources housed in ePortfolio projects.

N ursing practice is guided by nursing ethics, which influences educator practice. Nursing ethical principles align with critical and open pedagogy. Critical pedagogy with its social justice (SJ) lens can address sociocultural barriers (SCBs) by revealing structures and practices that disadvantage students. 1 Open pedagogy increases educational accessibility through student-centered and power-balanced practices.Critical and open pedagogy removes SCBs in higher education (HE). 2,3 This literature review aligns and connects the Canada and US nursing codes of ethics with critical and open pedagogy in nursing education.

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