Joint Editor Alison Fields bids farewell after over a decade in the Editorial Team. This issue shares five articles related to online and virtual education. They explore facets of learning experience, highlighting benefits and challenges, and influencing factors for both students and teachers across educational levels and geographic locations, including New Zealand, Brazil, and South Africa. Key conclusions include that, in New Zealand primary schools, blended learning was considered more important than fully online approaches. For adult disabled learners in open distance and flexible learning (ODFL) contexts, the biggest positive difference is attributed to the disability confidence of staff. Research on a systems thinking MOOC found that participants were primarily seasoned educators and mid-career professionals and, despite some AI use, their learning was very effective. When designing blended learning to foster digital information literacy, conclusions draw attention to the importance of leveraging online qualities, integrating contextualised learning, incorporating culturally responsive practices, and offering diverse options. Finally, a study on higher education facilitators during the COVID-19 pandemic revealed the critical role of self-efficacy in coping with challenges, but also highlighted that emotional exhaustion was a significant factor for all participants.

This editorial addresses persistent and emerging themes in open, flexible, and distance learning. Despite technological advances, many challenges remain perennial. Key issues include the educational design skills gap, in which higher education professionals often lack pedagogical expertise; language and terminology inconsistencies, which hinder effective communication; and the balance of autonomy and support in flexible learning environments which is crucial, as is discerning the value of new technologies. Other themes requiring ongoing research effort include socio-economic disparities that affect access to education, and the rise of AI which necessitates a re-evaluation of assessment strategies. All of these issues will undoubtedly affect faculty development and student engagement, both of which are critical for success. Institutional sustainability and cultural shifts towards flexible learning are also essential for long-term implementation at scale. Continued research and reflection on these themes are vital to enhance the effectiveness and inclusivity of flexible learning practices.

Following the widespread adoption of distance and flexible learning techniques during the COVID-19 pandemic, some aspects of open, flexible, and distance learning were incorporated into mainstream teaching. This brings the long history of distance learning from the fringe into the daylight of modern mainstream education. In acknowledgement of this change, this special issue of the journal looks back at the history and development of distance learning from the pages of the journal. Also included, for the first time, is a history of distance learning in New Zealand entwined with its professional association—the Flexible Learning Association of New Zealand (FLANZ), formerly the Distance Education Association of New Zealand (DEANZ). Seven reprinted articles covering aspects of the history of distance learning complete the issue.

This editorial provides insights into the processes of scholarly publishing, at a time of handover to a new editorial team, to publicise evidence of quality processes and leadership. Publishing trends are also briefly identified. The issue also publishes the first set of papers that have been further developed from the research stream of the 2014 biennial conference of The New Zealand Association for Open, Flexible and Distance Learning (DEANZ). We are happy to be able to include papers that represent the wide area of open, flexible, and distance learning supported by our Aotearoa New Zealand association. We start with a paper on using learning management systems to support personalised learning in primary schools, and this is followed by papers situated in the tertiary sector on software literacy in a university’s programmes, embedded librarians in the tertiary sector, and research into social work. The final paper provides a literature review on the highly topical subject of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). The editorial puts the papers into current contexts globally and within the region to inform the field worldwide.

Post-pandemic trends can be seen in journals in two ways: readership and research. This editorial looks at both, beginning with a report on the readership statistics of the Journal over the past 12 months, followed by identification of readership preference, with a list of the most frequently accessed items in the Journal in 2022. A steadily higher journal readership has continued after the sudden growth in demand for information in open, flexible, and distance learning during the pandemic. This is followed with a list of papers in this fulsome issue, showing movement away from experiences in the sudden and enforced shift to online and distance learning, to the emerging era of changing perspectives and broader reflections.

The longevity of educational delivery using Open Educational Resources (OER) and Open Education Practices (OEP) highlights the ongoing importance of open resources. Open Educational Resources are teaching and learning materials that are created and licensed as either in the public domain or as free, able to be shared, and able to be modified. During the massive uptake of online learning practices during the COVID-19 pandemic, the uptake of OER resources and practices showed only modest growth. Now that the pressure for delivering Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) is off, it’s time to look again at OER as a cost-effective and sustainable way to resource and deliver education practices. McGreal, Macintosh, and Lane continue the OER story from previous articles in this journal, looking specifically at OER-based online micro-courses supporting the UNESCO Strategic Development Goal 4: Education for All. The issue is rounded off with four articles highlighting other areas of flexible learning including learning support, learning satisfaction, learner retention, and learner experience.

Associate Editor Maggie Hartnett says farewell while casting an eye over the achievements of the Journal of Open, Flexible and Distance Learning in the past 8 years. This issue presents four articles providing a rounded view of managing and improving emergency remote teaching (ERT) in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The first two articles focus on the experience of teachers in ERT; one provides empirical research; and one is a position piece on the uptake and value of learning management systems (LMSs) for delivering this remote teaching. These practical and timely articles provide research and thought of substance as the pandemic continues.

"The six-step guide to library worker engagement." Journal of the Australian Library and Information Association, 71(2), pp. 181–182

The challenges of supporting learners at a distance are enduring. But the nature of these challenges is changing, and this change has been particularly notable since the beginning of the pandemic and the rapid worldwide move to distance and online learning. A brief look is taken at the evolving nature of the distance-student experience under the theme of “Time is the new distance”. This is complemented with four papers in this issue, each of which is concerned with an aspect of meeting the challenges of supporting distance learners. Hartline et al. draw attention to the importance of the teacher’s presence in decreasing student anxiety. Forbes explores the effectiveness of asynchronous communication as an effective learner support. Cameron et al. share a national perspective from a wider international study, concluding that clear communication by institutions and other authorities can reduce uncertainty for students and is necessary to mitigate the negative effects of future disruptions to study. And finally, Adebisi and Olatunji round off the set of articles with findings that the key psychosocial experience of students revolves around the flexibility and cost of distance learning, work–life pressures, and the availability of faculty.

This issue of the Journal of Open, Flexible and Distance Learning (JOFDL) contains an invited piece from a well-known author in the field. The intention is to include an invited piece in subsequent issues. This contribution from Rick Shearer focuses on theory in open, flexible, and distance education. The choice of topic is timely given the experiences of emergency remote teaching (ERT) by teachers and academics over the last 18 months, and the prevailing view that online learning and teaching and ERT are equivalent. In addition to the invited article, this issue has four articles—a descriptive piece and three articles from presentations at the recent FLANZ 2021 Conference.

According to Stats NZ, there are about 1,260,000 working women in New Zealand, which accounts for 25.2% of the total population of the country (Stats NZ, 2019).In the last five years, the numbers of working women in New Zealand has been steadily

This issue of the Journal uses the metaphor of raranga te kete aronui (weaving the basket of the pursuit of knowledge) as it continues the conversation of developing areas of open, flexible, and distance learning (OFDL). It comes at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted traditional face-to-face teaching in classrooms on a global scale, and the value of open, flexible, and distance learning has become starkly apparent. This issue has five articles which contribute to the ongoing knowledge presented in this issue. There are two articles based on educational theory: Higgins explores the theoretical history of OFDL, and the work of Nichols et al. is based on Mezirow’s 10 stages of transformative learning. Three research articles provide insight into a range of specific areas: Sime et al. use networked learning theory to investigate the design of a social exploration MOOC, Irons and Hartnett present exploratory research into the teaching of computational thinking in junior classrooms in New Zealand, and Nyugen describes the design and development of qualifications in early childhood education and care to meet a demand for New Zealand home-based early childhood educators to be qualified. These are all contributions to our weaving and filling of te kete aronui.

Welcome to the September 2020 issue of the Journal of the Australian Library and Information Association (JALIA). The main contents of the journal this month are select papers from the Fifteenth Au...

Digital inclusion—having what we need to participate in, contribute to, and succeed in the digital world—is becoming a priority for individuals, groups, and governments around the world. Not having the necessary motivation, access, skills, and trust to engage with all things digital can result in both individuals and groups being digitally excluded. In this Editorial we look at what is encompassed by digital inclusion, who is most likely to be excluded, and the New Zealand government’s recent publication of the Digital Inclusion Blueprint. Following this discussion, the papers included in this issue are introduced.

JOFDL is supporting the education community worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic by making available a collection of high impact, previously-published articles on online and eLearning in a single issue. This resource adds to the online teaching and learning ideas, inspiration, information and application for educators in these unprecedented times.

Embedded librarians working in online classrooms present a new avenue of learner support direct to students in the space where they learn. The development of embedded librarian practice has evolved since 2004 and is becoming commonplace in online tertiary classrooms, but what is not yet so common is theory underlying this new practice. A multiple case study of embedded librarians in online tertiary classrooms in New Zealand was conducted to identify what makes this practice effective in providing support. Six factors were identified as contributing to effectiveness: relationality, immediacy, relevancy, interactivity, parity and faculty–librarian collaboration. The Embedded Librarian Support model was derived from, and is presented as the culmination of, the findings of this research.

Pausing to take stock of progress on a journey can achieve many things, including identifying how far you’ve come, which way you’ve come, and which way you want to go. A statement of impact for the Journal of Open, Flexible and Distance Learning (JOFDL) has been prepared, taking stock of the Journal at the current time in its journey. This statement identifies the Journal and its impact in terms of reach, use, and contribution to global academic research and publishing. The Editorial is rounded off with an overview of the articles in this issue.