ECEL 2020 - Proceedings of the 19th European Conference on e-Learning - PRINT VERSION

These proceedings represent the work of contributors to the 19th European Conference on e-Learning (ECEL 2020), hosted by ACI and the University of Applied Sciences HTW Berlin (Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft) Berlin, Germany on 28 - 30 October 2020. We, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Carsten Busch and Prof. Dr. Tilo Wendler, have the honour to act as the Conference Chairs.  Martin Steinicke is the Programme Chair.

ECEL is now a well-established event on the academic research calendar and now in its 19th year the key aim remains the opportunity for participants to share ideas and meet the people who hold them. We would have loved to welcome you, but due to the global Covid-19 pandemic the conference was moved online to be held as a virtual event. . All three of us have a long-standing interest in e-learning and the digitisation of learning scenarios with a focus on game- and “Mixed Reality”-based learning. The pandemic has shown us how much Germany can learn from other countries in implementing innovative ways and formats of learning on- and offline. But on the bright side, this sometimes distressing view of the German educational system in times of stress also set things in motion that will bring new opportunities but also challenges. All of these need to be faced on solid scientific ground thus making the sharing of ideas and results all the more important. The subjects covered and the scope of papers in this year’s ECEL illustrate the wide range of topics that fall into this important and ever-growing area of research and will ensure an interesting two days – to which we look forward.

The opening keynote presentation is given by Professor Alf Inge Wang, from Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway, on the topic of Does Game-based Learning Really Work? The second day of the conference will include an address by Prof Mandla Makhanya, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa, entitled This is the Time for Universities to make Blended Learning a Strategic Dimension for their Future.

With an initial submission of 156 abstracts, after the double blind, peer review process there are 68 Academic research papers, 5 PhD research papers, 1 Masters Research paper and 7 work-in-progress papers published in these Conference Proceedings. These papers represent research from Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Bhutan, Canada, Chile, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Morocco, Norway, Oman, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sweden, Netherlands, UK, United Arab Emirates, USA and Vietnam.