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RIDE 2025: Empowering and Sustaining Change
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In March 2025, our 19th international Research in Distance Education and e-Learning (RIDE) conference title is: Empowering and Sustaining Change.
Online, blended, hybrid and digital education are firmly established in mainstream practice in higher education. As we navigate the challenges and opportunities of an increase in digitalisation, our roles in ensuring that the curriculum and pedagogy are evident based, adapted to the context and to learners' needs is as important as ever. How do we embed sustainability, develop, and maintain good engagement? How do we support learners’ and educators' wellbeing and sense of belonging? How do we ensure that what we do is inclusive and empowering? These are the questions we aim to address together.
The conference will address empowering and sustaining change in higher education through three sub-themes:
- Engagement, well-being and belonging
- Inclusive and accessible education
- Internationalisation and Transnational Education
We invite proposals that address the conference theme and sub-themes by demonstrating innovations in learning, teaching, assessment, support for learners and use of technologies in higher education.
CODE’s annual virtual and in person conference, taking place across two days, focuses on research and scholarly practices in online, distance, blended, hybrid and hyflex higher education. The conference aims to provide a supportive platform for scholarly, research and practice-informed engagement, showcasing people-focussed practices and innovations that are sustainable for people, organisations and the planet.
Conference details
Details
Conference dates: Thursday 13 and Friday 14 March 2025
Location: Online and in-person, 91app, Senate House, London UK
Conference programme
- Download the programme [PDF]
- Presentation abstracts [PDF]
- Keynote abstracts [PDF]
Conference tracks
Track 1: Research focus
We invite abstracts that showcase original conceptual, methodological, empirical, or theoretical research with implications for practice in online, distance, blended, hybrid or hiflex higher education provision.
Track 2: Practice focus
We invite abstracts that showcase research informed and scholarly effective practices in online, distance, blended, hybrid or hiflex higher education provision.
Presentation formats
Interactive presentations
We expect presentations to foster discussion and sharing of ideas. 30 minutes including 10 mins discussion. Online or in-person. Presentations are recorded and made available after the conference via the CODE website.
Lightning talks
Lightning talks are suitable for short presentations. They are ideal for sharing aspects of innovation, ideas, approaches, and findings, to test out part of a project/evaluation or to get feedback on an aspect of your work. 5 min talk with 10 mins discussion. Online or in-person. Lightning talks are recorded and made available after the conference via the CODE website.
Workshops
We expect workshops to be fully participatory and will be for groups sizes of up to 40 participants. Examples of workshop activities may involve demonstrations, debate, breakout discussions and reporting. 60 mins. In-person only (presenter(s) and audience). Workshops are not recorded.
Presentations, workshops and lightning talks will be placed in groups with common themes.
Research Track
Abstracts submitted to our research track, will be reviewed by a panel of Fellows from the Centre for Online and Distance Education.
You should aim to include research questions, methodological/theoretical/conceptual perspective(s) taken, a statement concerning the significance of the work and its contribution to the field, data sources used (if applicable), methods, and findings. Discuss how your work links to our conference title and sub-themes. Include any implications of your research for policy or practice.
Reviewing criteria: clarity and focus; originality; rigour; adherence to the conference theme/sub-themes; significance of the research for educational practice, policy, or theory.
Practice Track
Abstracts submitted to our practice focus track, will be reviewed by a panel of Fellows from the Centre for Online and Distance Education.
We recommend that you take an evidence-informed approach and where possible include research and scholarship that supports your work. You should include the context, the approach taken, your approach to evaluation and evidence of impact. Discuss how your work links to our conference theme/sub-themes. You may wish to include implications for policy.
Reviewing criteria: clarity and focus; adherence to the conference theme/sub-themes; demonstration of innovation and impact; transferability of the ideas and approaches; demonstration of research/scholarship/evidence informed practice.
Key dates for both tracks
| Activity | Date |
|---|---|
| Abstract submission opens | 16 September 2024 |
| Draft Abstract deadline | 28 October 2024 |
| Feedback on draft abstracts provided | 11 November 2024 |
| Abstract submission closes | 16 December 2024 |
| Notification of selection or rejection | 30 January 2025 |
| Notification of draft conference programme | 10 February 2025 |
| Final programme confirmed | 24 February 2025 |
We will provide a conference report published on the CODE website. All abstracts from the programme and video recordings of sessions will be provided after the conference.
Conference Proceedings will be published separately. Authors of selected abstracts (from both the research and practice tracks) will be invited to submit full papers for peer review and consideration for inclusion in the conference proceedings.
This page was last updated on 16 April 2025
