EDEN Research Workshop Announcement

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RESEARCH INTO ONLINE DISTANCE EDUCATION AND E-LEARNING:
The European Distance and E-Learning Network is pleased to announce its fourth research workshop to be held in Castelldefels/Barcelona, Spain, between 25-28 October, 2006.
The host institution is the Open University of Catalonia (UOC).
INVITATION AND SCOPE
**While recognising that there are different perspectives on the definition of e-learning, the workshop aims to focus on research both into fully online distance education, and also into e-learning that combines face-to-face teaching with online learning.
Within the general theme, there will be three parallel sub-themes:
1. Research into institutional planning, management and quality development for online distance education and e-learning.
2. Research into innovative online teaching, learning and knowledge building (including assessment issues).
3. Research into online technology tools and services.
There will also be a workshop on appropriate research methods and designs for online distance education and e-learning. This will run at the same time as the parallel sessions. The workshop is aimed at students, teachers and practitioners interested in research design. The workshop will be limited to 30 participants. Participants must apply for the research design workshop in advance, by e-mail to Charlotte Creed: ccreed@creed.dabsol.co.uk.

CALL FOR PAPERS
You are invited to submit proposals for paper presentation in the parallel sessions that relate to one or more of the conference theme. Submissions may fall in the category of conference papers or poster presentations. If you wish to submit a paper for poster sessions, please make this clear when submitting. No more than 54 papers will be accepted. Further 15-20 papers will be selected for poster sessions. Papers should not exceed 3,000 words in length, and should be research-based. The following criteria will be used for selection:
- the topic of research is online distance education and/or e-learning
- the paper must be: a report of original research done by the author(s) or a discussion or critique of research design/methods for online distance education/e-learningor be an analytical, comprehensive review of research literature related to one or more of the workshop themes
- the bulk of the paper must not have been published elsewhere.

As well as the above criteria, papers will be selected in terms of coherence, quality of data collection and analysis, contribution to new knowledge, and relevance to the themes of the workshop.
Papers for the parallel and poster sessions must be submitted for review by June 26, 2006, at the latest. Papers should be sent to:
Dr. Tony Bates, Chair of the EDEN Research Workshop Program Committee,
Either:
- as an e-mail attachment in Word format or pdf to drtonybates@gmail.com
- OR as an html-based Web site (send the url and password, if needed, to the above e-mail address)
The working language of the conference will be English.CONFERENCE STRUCTURE
The Research Workshop will start in the evening of 25 October and will end lunchtime on 28 October. The programme will include plenaries, parallel sessions with paper presentations and poster sessions. As Social Events, a Welcome Cocktail Party and a Gala Dinner will be organised.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Prof. dr. Betty Collis, Consultant, Moonen & Collis Learning Technology
Consultants, B. V., Emeritus professor, University of Twente, Netherlands

Prof. dr. Rob Koper, Head of ICT application development (e-learning
infrastructures and educational software development), the Open
University of the Netherlands, Heerlen.

Stephen Downes, National Research Council Senior Researcher, Institute
for Information Technology's e-Learning Research Group, Moncton, New
Brunswick, Canada

Professor dr. Mario Barajas, Departament de Didàctica i Organització
Educativa, Facultat de Pedagogia, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain

Professor dr. Martin Weller, Professor of Educational Technology,
Institute of Educational Technology, Open University, United Kingdom

JOINING INFORMATION
Conference venue
Castelldefels, Spain (20 min. by taxi from Barcelona, 10 min. from Barcelona International Airport)Marked by Iberians, the Romans and Spanish lords, Castelldefels is the perfect place with all the advantages of being near a great city like Barcelona. Castelldefels beach, with its five kilometres of sand and a surface area of 500.000 m2, is one of the best equipped in the whole of Cataluña. The beach, the busy marina and canoeing canal offer some great experiences.
The Conference Hotel: Gran Hotel Rey Don Jaime - Located in an incomparable frame, with superb views to the sea and pleasant atmosphere, the location of the Workshop serves with comfort in all the different halls.
Registration
The EDEN Secretariat is taking care of the registration for the Workshop.The registration fee includes all conference facilities, the Welcome Reception on the evening of 25 October, lunches and coffees on 26-28 October. There is a reduced registration rate before 15 September 2006.
For EDEN members lower fee will apply.

For more details about the workshop, please consult the pages at the EDEN web site
http://www.eden-online.org

For paper submission please use: drtonybates@gmail.com
EDEN - European Distance and E-Learning Network Secretariat
Tel: +36 1 463 16 28, 463 2537 Fax: +36 1 463 18 58
E-mail: secretariat@eden-online.org http://www.eden-online.org