ABSTRACT
The higher education (HE) space has been suffering profound changes, most of which related to the potential of the use of technologies to support teaching and learning (T and L) practices (Allen and Seaman 2003). New forms of learning mediated by technology are emerging, promoting exibility and removing the remaining obstacles to the free mobility of the learning process. This mobility mediated by technology can lead to the promotion of internationalization and the exchange of values, knowledge, and cultures, promoting new competences and fostering the emergence of new virtual environments (Daukšienė et al. 2010). These changes, however, are not running at the same pace as the boom of new technologies, brought in by Web 2.0, would suggest. Social networking, social media, social bookmarking, collaborative tools, and instant messaging rapidly changed the habits of Internet users, promoting new trends, practices, and motivations (McGreal and Elliott 2004). The use of the Internet by society rapidly increased with the so-called democratization of the Web (Reilly 2007), but HE practices did not follow this sudden change. The teaching staff have been struggling with enhancing the students’ learning experience using technology mainly because the design of the course, the learning strategies, the learning materials, the monitoring, and the feedback process are not aligned with the demands of learning environments mediated
Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 707 Theoretical Background ................................................................................................................. 708
Foundations of TEL .................................................................................................................. 708 What Is Quality in E-Learning? ................................................................................................709 Why Evaluate? ..........................................................................................................................709
Research Overview ........................................................................................................................ 710 Design of the Reference Framework (Stages 1 and 2) ................................................................... 711 Methodology .................................................................................................................................. 712
