Making connections: new book addresses practice and theory of online and distance education

The Centre for Online and Distance Education, at the University of London, draws together expert researchers and practitioners in online education and is releasing a new book, Online and Distance Education for a Connected World, which explores the practice and theory of online and distance education.

The number of students worldwide learning at a distance and learning online has increased dramatically in recent years and will continue to grow as demand for higher education competes with physical campus spaces. The rising popularity of remote learning is fuelled by better technology, demographic changes, greater efficiency, and a change in lifestyles and opportunities following the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Contributors to Online and Distance Learning for a Connected World explore important principles and highlight successful practices in areas including strategy, course design and pedagogy, online assessment, open education, inclusive practice, research, and enabling student voices.

Lead Editor, Director of Academic Practice in Distance Education, and Director of the Centre, Dr Linda Amrane-Cooper says:

‘Our book explores the potential, and challenges, of remote and online learning, and provides current and future leaders and practitioners with a practical, productive, practice- and theory-informed account of the present and likely future states of online and distance higher education worldwide’.

Professor Allison Littlejohn, Director of the UCL Knowledge Lab, Institute of Education and Society, UCL, London, UK, has pointed out that:

“This timely book examines the student benefits of Online and Distance Education and how these can be fostered for students at all types of universities, questioning whether and how benefits can be planned, sustained and researched. The arguments move beyond conventional debates around the flexibility online education offers students in terms of place, space and time to study to consider and question novel ways of interacting afforded by the digital, new ways of knowing, as well as future forms of assessment.” 

Published and freely available on 27 March 2023, Online and Distance Education for a Connected World will be launched at the seventeenth annual Centre for Online and Distance Education conference on Research in Distance Education (RIDE) on 28 March. Places are still available to attend the conference, either on a physical or virtual basis.

Online and Distance Education for a Connected World, published by UCL Press, on 27 March 2023 and is available free as an open access PDF. Paperback copies are £35.00, hardback £55.00.