Impact of Tutor 3Given these unique features, the effectiveness and sustainability of these massive openeducation projects is being called into question. With millions of dollars of foundation,government, institutional, and personal funding supporting the current development, there isgrowing scrutiny over what open educational resources and practices best support this uniqueform of self-directed, non-credit, online, and informal learning (Geser, 2007). A key concern isthe effect of offering open courseware without the tutor support that is typically made availablewithin the traditional learning environment. Beyond access, what is the usefulness of the opencourseware and resources to learners without tutor feedback and guidance? Does the lack of tutor support matter to self-directed learners in an informal non-credit learning setting? Would tutor support impact learner participation within open education courses?As stated, open education represents a unique subset of education. While there is a lack of research specifically addressing the impact of tutor feedback on learner participation in open,self-directed, non-credit, and online courses, there are points of comparison within 3 separateresearch threads, including self-directed learning, learner self-regulation, and open and distancelearning. As there are few examples of intersecting research across these threads, each thread isexplored separately.
Self-Directed Learning
Open education is the ultimate form of self-directed learning. It is learning taken on andcontrolled by the learner for his or her own specific goals, needs, and wants. Over the past 4decades, a vast amount of research has been conducted in the area of adult self-directed learning,including the desired learning and instructional practices to support self-directed learning. In aliterature review of adult education research covering a period of 19 years from 1980 to 1998,about 1 percent of the total articles dealt with self-directed learning, peaking in 1986 at 3 percent,
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