WCOL – Page 4 – Digital Learning Dispatches

This is a brief update on planning for this year’s ICDE World Conference on Online Learning that the NIDL is hosting at the iconic and award winning Convention Centre Dublin (CCD) in November. The Organising Committee is pleased to report that paper submissions are already being submitted through the website, with the deadline in March. The 2017 World Conference in Toronto attracted around 1,400 delegates and we are expecting strong interest and a large number of submissions for this year’s Dublin event.

There are several submission categories including full papers, concise papers, lightening talks and digital posters. Unique digital poster boards will be used for the first time to provide conference delegates with a visually attractive and more interactive experience. The conference will also feature a number of symposia and interactive knowledge fora to help discuss a range of contemporary issues, including:

Policy and Strategy
Open Educational Practices
Minority Heritage Language and Culture
Alternative Micro and Digital Credentials
Refugees, Asylum Seekers and New Immigrants
Online Education for Healthy Living and Well-being
Industry Partnerships for Continuing Professional Development

Another highlight of the World Conference will be the “Great Debate” which is intended to explore tensions between new and emerging models of online learning and the time-honoured egalitarian roots of open, flexible and distance education. There will also be a rich pre-conference workshop programme on Sunday 3^rdNovember at Dublin City University’s St Patrick’s campus, including a Doctoral Research Symposium and special invitation only Leadership Summit.

To answer questions and enhance the success of paper submissions the local organising team in the NIDL at DCU will be offering several webinars over the next few weeks for prospective authors. More precise information about the webinar dates and times will available in the next week or so. In the meantime when preparing your paper submissions, please keep in mind the overarching conference theme, which is “Transforming Lives and Societies”, and the five big questions we seek to explore along with the related sub themes.

Lastly, for regular updates remember to follow the conference on Twitter (@WCOL2019) or our Linkedin account where you can also enter our monthly draw for a free tour of the famous Guinness Storehouse during your visit to Dublin in November. More information about other tour opportunities, the exciting social and cultural programme we are planning, and post-conference events and excursions will follow in future updates.

On Friday the NIDL Research Group met for the first time this year to reflect on our accomplishments over 2017, including more than 100 scholarly outputs, and to share ideas, discuss progress and plan research and development opportunities available to us over 2018, and beyond.

To begin with the Group briefly discussed some of the lessons from the exercise of identifying the top 10 open access journal articles published over 2017, as described in a previous blog post on this topic. The final selection of our 2017 top 10 articles proved useful in promoting internal debate amongst the team over the so-called “best reads” of the year, and the list of open access publications was widely shared globally through a number of communication channels. Given the positive feedback from various sources the Research Group decided to repeat this activity adopting a similar methodology over the course of 2018.

On the theme of supporting research dissemination an update was provided on advance planning for the 2019 ICDE World Conference on Online Learning. A delegation from ICDE will be visiting Dublin in the middle of February 2018 for an extended meeting with our conference team and site visit of the Convention Centre Dublin. Also during this visit we hope the Minister of State for Higher Education will be able to meet with the Organising Committee to hear more about this high-profile conference, especially given the Government’s recent announcements to provide more support for online, flexible life-long learners.

WCOL Promo 2

On the topic of conferences, the NIDL is a strategic sponsor of this year’s OER18 conference in Bristol, as DCU is fully committed to promoting access, equity and social justice through open educational practices. OER18 Indeed, this week DCU will be making an important annoucement about a major new open learning initiative, and related programme of research through the NIDL, which is anchored in our mission of transforming lives and societies. More information to follow about this initiative.

The NIDL has another strategic partnership with the Association of Advanced Computing in Education (AACE) in the United States (US) and the Education Studies Association Ireland (ESAI) to select three Irish research papers for showcasing at this year’s Ed Media and Innovate Learning conference in Amsterdam. If successful, we anticipate this “Country showcase” initiative will become a feature at the annual Ed Media conference, which returns to Amsterdam in 2019.

EdMedia

Although our strong engagement with relevant professional associations is something we highly value, the NIDL team also understands the importance of disseminating research and contributing to new knowledge through more conventional forms of scholarship. Accordingly an update was provided to research group members on the edited book we are hoping to publish through Springer and some of the journal articles already accepted, under review or at various stages of preparation.

2358_037 During the meeting we also discussed the importance of supporting the next generation of researchers in the context of plans for new postgraduate qualification pathways in the general area of Digital Education, including the development of a specialist doctoral track. We believe this initiative through our Institute of Education will help to build a stronger culture of local research in this important and rapidly evolving area.

However, the NIDL also values our strong links to international bodies and we were delighted to hear the news that one of our doctoral students, Elaine Beirne, located in the Ideas Lab has been awarded a prestigious US research fellowship. More information to come once this award is formally announced by the major professional body.

Lastly, the NIDL Research Group discussed the importance of sharing our collective expertise across the team and investing in our own professional development. Therefore, we agreed to establish a series of workshops over the year on research topics of interest. A small working group was formed with a member from each unit of the NIDL to help plan, design and co-opt people to facilitate these workshops.

We look forward to another productive year of research as we will be shortly recruiting for two new Research Assistant positions to help us continue our work on a number of internal and externally funded projects.