Absolute pitch (AP) enables its possessors to identify musical notes and keys by qualities of tone height and tone chroma. With advancing age, an unknown proportion of AP possessors perceives changes in these qualities, usually described as in the sharp direction and to the extent of a semitone or tone. The phenomenon is identified here as absolute pitch shift (APS). Using a cellphone-based tone generator, the writer conducted an N = 1 examination of the APS in his central musical range. The shift was greater at the centre of the range than at its extremes, causing him to perceive incoming tones as 1 to 4 semitones sharper than his recall of them in the A = 440 cps (concert pitch range). The report focusses on the comparative flatness of his AP memories of the tones, expressed with greater precision in cycles per second than by the names commonly given to their physical versions. The altered pitch perceptions are considered due to changes at the basilar membrane level in older individuals, and are labelled here as basilar AP. The internal pitch template’s role in memorising tone frequencies in the inner ear is labelled cortical AP. Implications are considered for further studies of AP and APS latency.

Musicologists and philosophers have commonly attributed distinctive qualities to individual musical pitches, and absolute pitch (AP) possessors recognize and recall notes and keys with immediacy and accuracy, leaving little doubt that they are aware of such characteristics. Bachem proposed that these distinct tonal qualities underlie the rapid and accurate judgments that he identified as genuine AP, and he defined the qualities as tone chroma (TC). The TCs of notes and keys, and of notes separated by a musical octave (pitch class) are frequently expressed in visual terms, and studies of synaesthesia, the association of intersensory stimuli, provide clues to the systematic variation of TC qualities. The historical literature relating to note and key characteristics is commonly overlooked in the study of AP, however, and the article seeks to address this problem. Long-standing conclusions are reviewed, leading to the hypothesis that TC sensitivity can derive from an awareness of variations in the acoustical beats that occur in the tuning of instruments to equal temperament and which are perceived with particular clarity in organ tuning. This acoustical hypothesis is supported by modern neuroscientific findings and was predicted by theoretical observations in the literature as long ago as three centuries. In a follow-up article, Thurlow and Baggaley discuss the role of synaesthesia-type judgments in musical skills not previously regarded as absolute: for example, a perfect touch capacity observed in keyboard players.

The previous article in this series reviewed the historical and modern academic literature concerning the distinctive characteristics of individual musical notes and keys. It stressed Bachem’s definition of tone chroma (TC) as the quality that allows notes/keys to be identified instantly and accurately by musicians possessing the type of absolute pitch (AP) that Bachem described as genuine. TC qualities were shown to vary in the same systematic manner as the second-order acoustical beats predicted to accumulate during the tuning of instruments to equal temperament. This article offers further evidence for the connection between TC and acoustical sensitivity, as indicated by an examination of paracusis musicalis (PM), the shifting of the pitch sense with age to a level sharper or flatter than its original level. It is also noted that AP judgments have been shown to be based on kinaesthetic and tactile sensations, which perform the same cueing functions as auditory TC, and that types of AP judgment may, therefore, exist not typically identified as absolute: for example, an absolute or perfect touch capacity observed in keyboard players. Evidence of this capacity supports the theory of instrument-specific AP.

This invited editorial comments on the article 'Ettore's Song'.

The spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) is placing impossible demands on distance education. With the closure of schools and colleges, teachers are being given only weeks to put their courses online regardless of their lack of online experience and support facilities. In the United States of America, international students who fail to continue their studies online have been threatened with expulsion to their own countries, where online resources may be unavailable. The failure of institutions to place their curricula online efficiently will be a public relations disaster blamed not on those who have issued these impossible demands but on the false premise that distance education methods were ineffective all along. The article summarizes the problems facing teachers and students in this situation, and repeats a conclusion expressed by me in previous reflection articles: that the surest way to make online learning effective is to consult the decades of practical experience in the distance education literature.

The development of distance education (DE) over the last 40 years is compared with the evolving content of the Distance Education journal during the same period. DE in general has been described as encountering a series of crossroad decision points, and as identifying numerous optimistic horizons beyond them. The decisions made and horizons sought have not always been prudent, however, and the journal's critical approach and logical sequence of priorities have encouraged DE to avoid ill-considered options. Currently, the journal is challenged with helping the field to overcome mainstream educators' lack of awareness of the traditional DE literature, media, and methods, and negative reactions to the effects of the massive open online course (MOOC). The approach taken by the journal during its first 40 years will help to overcome such problems and to keep the field on track.

The authors recognized a close similarity between practices used in online genealogy research and those common in online education. Uses of a popular online database service were examined within a peer instruction community dedicated to researching a family history topic. Three community subgroups were divided into leaders, who base their work on external sources, and followers who copy the leaders' conclusions. The accuracy and error levels of the 21 family trees produced by these researchers were calculated in relation to data obtained from offline archives. The trees created in the online process all contained flawed details and invalid conclusions due to practices similar to those of massive open online courses. The inconsistent reliability of the online approaches is discussed in terms of the 'fog' that descends upon knowledge when facts are distorted by academic jargon, disciplinary trends, and institutional priorities, and which increases with its transmission to others by non-experts.

This commentary discusses reasons that lead scholars to feel entitled to make judgements in areas where they have little or no expertise. Three current reports about the future of online learning are considered, issued by the Global Learning Council, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Gates Foundation. Two of these publications contain contradictions and confusion that may simply be due to lack of awareness of distance education (DE) and online learning research. The third report gives good evidence but has been criticized for being too academic. The conflicting standards and criteria evident in such writings may be due to institutional pressures to promote policies and principles despite lack of supportive evidence, and to weaknesses in the DE literature itself. As major institutional policies about online learning are likely to be based on the recommendations of such reports, it is important for DE specialists to challenge them where appropriate.

This article examines the current interest of educators in flipped learning. Although this concept has developed in the online and distance education literature over two decades, numerous current writers are attributing it to an idea formed in 2007 by two K–12 teachers in Colorado, USA. The mechanisms that generate such myths are examined, with emphasis on the confusions, defensive strategies, and blogfuscations that cause them in web sites and blogs. In its treatment of the flipped learning topic, Wikipedia.org, often regarded as lacking in accuracy and credibility, has demonstrated that a solid reviewing process can reduce the effects of hype and ensure that an accurate record is maintained. It is recommended that academic journals should enlist the help of their reviewing panels in monitoring hype as it arises and correcting accounts of it on, for example, Wikipedia as a vital quality control measure.

Volume 40(1) marks the 40th anniversary of this journal. This is no mean feat for an academic journal – especially in the fast-changing and short-termist world of educational media. Of course, as befits the nature of the topic, the journal has seen many changes of focus (and indeed changes of title). As way of briefly marking the occasion, we have invited five previous editors to reflect on their time leading the journal. As these reminiscences suggest, this is a journal that has been consistently ahead of its time in terms of foregrounding and critiquing new developments in educational media. This is also a journal that has been at the forefront of pushing back against some of the more hyperbolic elements of the field. These are both traits that we hope will continue for the next 40 years and beyond. Here is to 2055!

This article examines the current interest of educators in flipped learning. Although this concept has developed in the online and distance education literature over two decades, numerous current writers are attributing it to an idea formed in 2007 by two K-12 teachers in Colorado, USA. The mechanisms that generate such myths are examined, with emphasis on the confusions, defensive strategies, and blogfuscations that cause them in web sites and blogs. In its treatment of the flipped learning topic, Wikipedia.org, often regarded as lacking in accuracy and credibility, has demonstrated that a solid reviewing process can reduce the effects of hype and ensure that an accurate record is maintained. It is recommended that academic journals should enlist the help of their reviewing panels in monitoring hype as it arises and correcting accounts of it on, for example, Wikipedia as a vital quality control measure.

The statement by Hunter R. Rawlings III that "there are no good studies on what constitutes bad online pedagogy" coincides with the creation of a Global Learning Council to define the guidelines that previous online educators have allegedly failed to identify. This article discusses these disparaging remarks by the President of the Association of American Universities about the distance education (DE) field and the likely influence on the Council's deliberations by the motives of its members-American university presidents, corporate representatives, and providers of support for massive open online courses. The influence of their conclusions on public attitudes to new educational practices is anticipated, and the distorted pedagogical principles being offered in support of massive course practices are defined as arising from a form of plagiarism. A formal response by DE and online learning specialists to the rejection of their previous literature is encouraged; and an analysis of the situation is offered by a fictitious educational historian in the year 2031.

This is a postscript to an article about the evolution of the massive open online course (MOOC). In the brief space of time between the previous article’s completion and publication, attitudes to the MOOC appear to be changing rapidly. The current follow-up discusses the rejection of key MOOC principles by Harvard University and its replacement by small private online courses, not obviously different from the online education offered by distance education institutions since the mid-90s. The article also presents evidence suggesting that the previous widespread acceptance of MOOCs has been more myth than reality.

The techniques used in massive open online courses (MOOCs) are compared with supersizing in the fast food industry. Similarities include the profit motives, marketing techniques, criticisms, industry defences, and evolution of the two controversies. While fast food restaurants strategically increase the size of their meal courses and consumer base, MOOC providers increase the size of their student enrolments and the amounts of online course material they provide for the students to consume. In the two contexts, franchise owners and educational administrators deliver the supersized courses to their customers with apparent disregard for their widening negative effects. Educational institutions are encouraged to consider the ethics of these practices in order to prevent the unmonitored spread of junk education.

In the 1970s and `80s, television was the primary support medium in education, though the guidelines for its use were not consistently applied. In the 1990s, ETV was marginalised in western education owing to the assumption that the internet would prove more cost-effective. By contrast, Asian nations including China and India did not reject ETV, but maintained a steady evolutionary process which western ETV now lacks. Since 2011, the emergence in the west of the massive open online course (MOOC) has led to a widespread revival of interest in ETV, and the paper considers whether this time the medium's use is based on solid pedagogical principles. The efficient use of educational technologies in general is described as resulting not from a choice between high- and low-technology media, but from the application of instructional design (ID) principles applicable to all media. A checklist is provided of the ID principles established by educational researchers over the past century. The one principle consistently stressed by all of these researchers, though now being rejected by MOOC providers, is the role of the teacher in the educational process. The checklist is intended as a useful frame of reference for educators assessing the pedagogical value of current MOOC approaches.

The Journal of Learning for Development is launched at a critical time in the evolution of technology-based education. Currently, the ‘massive open online course’ is being welcomed as a cost-saver by educators in developed and emerging nations alike. Evaluation studies of MOOC impact, however, do not as yet confirm that courses with massive student numbers and no teachers are universally viable; and MOOC courses and evaluations have not taken developing-country needs into account. The new Journal, with its emphasis on the educational needs of developing as well as developed regions, can help to advise innovations of this type.

Inaccurate predictions about educational technology are discussed, and the tendency for them to go unchallenged. Their global generalizability is questionable when the expertise underlying them is restricted to local contexts or is unknown. The limitations of futuristic studies need to be stressed to prevent their conclusions from being applied out of context. Problems arise when studies inaccurately claiming to represent developing-world needs and conditions are used for educational planning in those nations. The article analyzes the predictions made by the annual Horizon Reports and the One Laptop Per Child project. It suggests that these projects are currently responding to criticism in a manner similar to that described in the classic study When Prophecy Fails.

In 2012–2013, the massive open online course (MOOC) approach has been accepted by universities around the world, and outsourcing companies have been launched to provide the infrastructure for it. Current press and blog coverage of the MOOC trend is examined and the range of reactions to it, most of them enthusiastic. MOOCs vary in their massiveness and openness, and in the extent to which they are courses; and a wide range of MOOCs is emerging under different names. These include xMOOCs, in which course content is defined by the course designers, and cMOOCs featuring information generated by the students. The origins of the MOOC are examined, and its implications for the educational institutions that have specialized in distance education previously.