The French National Centre for Distance Education (Centre National d’Enseignement à Distance, CNED) through its École d’ingénierie de la formation à distance (EIFAD), the French academic journal Distance and Mediation of Knowledge (Distances et Médiations des Savoirs, DMS) and the Open University UK are pleased to announce a bilingual French-English conference on the challenges and opportunities of distance education in the time of Covid-19 and its aftermath, Distance education: a brave new world? The conference will take place online on 20 and 21 October 2022.

When the closure of schools and universities was imposed by governments across the globe to curb the pandemic in March 2020, the use of digital tools and platforms became the only way to ensure continuity of teaching and learning. Thus, a form of emergency distance teaching unexpectedly appeared and was imposed on teachers, learners and all the staff who provide pedagogical, pastoral and administrative support, who create content and who manage logistics. This emergency form of distance teaching and hybrid teaching modes are still widespread around the world today. 

This real-time and wide-scale phenomenon has had successes and failures. It has highlighted the diversity of models of distance education and their relative effectiveness, their various affordances and shortcomings, as well as the issue of their sustainability. 

It also seems to have profoundly changed individuals’ perceptions of distance learning within and outside educational institutions, regarding its advantages and disadvantages, its constraints and opportunities. 

In addition, the recent shift to distance education has transformed the issue of the remote mediation of knowledge - previously confined to experts - into a world-wide concern of public interest, widely publicised, discussed and commented on in the press as well as on social media. In some countries, remote or distance education has even become a quest for national prestige, through the promotion of flexible modes of teaching and learning that some other countries’ education systems have not been able to achieve so far. 

Finally, this phenomenon has severely tested the functioning of traditional education systems. It has changed the dynamics between public and private education providers, mainstream platforms and other information and communication tools. It has also accelerated the development of EdTech and strengthened the processes of industrialisation and privatisation of education on an unprecedented scale. 

This conference is organised by two pioneers in the field, the French National Centre for Distance Education and The Open University, on the initiative and with the support of the French academic journal Distances et médiations des savoirs (Distance and mediation of knowledge). 

The aim of the conference is to enable a scientific assessment of what has happened within the different contexts described above. To foster openness and promote rich dialogue, the multi- and interdisciplinary conference will be organised around four key themes: 

The conference welcomes submissions from practitioners, researchers, decision-makers and students. 

The conference aims to attract educators, researchers and teachers who are focused on the pedagogy of distance education and technology-enhanced teaching and learning, students and decision-makers in the field, and, more broadly anyone who has an interest in remote and online learning, particularly within the context of the pandemic. The conference is open to anyone working in institutions of distance education as well as institutions practising hybrid modes of teaching and learning, and to traditional institutions that only delivered face-to-face education until the pandemic and had to unexpectedly move to remote teaching. 

Participants can choose to submit abstracts and give papers either in French or in English. The conference will be fully bilingual. 

Download the call for papers