COVID-19 and the policy shift to lockdowns had a considerable impact on global higher education. Campuses transitioned to virtual, online teaching, leveraging a host of learning technologies to deliver educational content. While many universities had existing infrastructure to shift to online content delivery, interactive, collaborative learning…

Postsecondary institutions across the world have rapidly adapted to the need for online teaching and learning modalities as a result of the global pandemic that began in early 2020. A new dynamic has emerged with technology being the platform of the new virtual classroom, providing significant opportunities to explore internationalization. This…

In this article, ambassadors of the International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE) Open Educational Resources (OER) Advocacy Committee (OERAC) provide a snapshot of regional and global Open Educational Resources (OER)initiatives. This committee has been active since 2017 with membership renewed biannually. The ambassadors work to…

Over the last decade, York University, through the Borderless Higher Education for Refugees Project, has provided higher education in situ to refugee and local teachers in Dadaab, Kenya, one of the world's largest and longest standing refugee camps. In 2020, COVID-19 aggravated the insecurity and marginalization already present in Dadaab, which…

The cultural challenge of educating Haitian rehabilitation professionals was identified by a Canadian francophone university which collaborated in the implementation and organization of international internships. Ethical cross-border internationalization should ensure reciprocity for partners. With this as a central value and in a context of…

Teacher education programmes are embedded in both higher and K-12 education contexts. This study explores how collective teacher agency is developed and manifested within two online teacher education courses in a Canadian university and a Chinese university, respectively, under the Covid-19 pandemic context. Employing a digital ethnographic…

Using a team-based course development approach, the University of British Columbia collaborated with the Asia-Pacific Network for Sustainable Forest Management and Rehabilitation (APFNet) and universities from Australia, the Philippines, Malaysia, China, and Canada to design and develop six transnational, online, distance-education courses…

Using a co-writing, participation-by-design approach applied to a case study methodology, this article highlights some experiences in education during the first four months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Changes in focal purpose, hierarchy of leadership, engagement between teachers and school leaders and homes focussed on student learning and…

The suspension of onsite classes from March to June 2020 as a result of COVID-19 posed many challenges for educators supporting LAL (Literacy, Academics and Language) refugee youth. This paper reflects on the practices of a collaborative EAL (English as an Additional Language) and LAL high school team. It also addresses the challenges of remote…

The school closures necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic created a rapid shift to alternative modes of educational delivery, primarily online learning and teacher-supported home-schooling. This shift has revealed deep inequities in education systems worldwide, as many children lost access to teachers and schooling. An effective response to these…

How are we preparing teachers to design and foster learning through making where disciplinary knowledge and skills are applied and developed? One approach that addresses this question can be found from the International Maker Educational Network (IMEN); an online professional learning community built upon shared interests in educational making.…

In light of the growing negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on national labour markets and people's lives and livelihoods, the role of career guidance has become ever more important to individuals, families, communities, the workforce, employers and society. This report is based on a flash joint international survey, designed to provide a…

In 2020, 1.5 billion students in 188 countries/economies were locked out of their schools. Students everywhere have been faced with schools that are open one day and closed the next, causing massive disruption to their learning. With the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic still raging, many education systems are still struggling, and the situation is…

In the absence of comparative data about open universities, the current impact of ODL institutions is not clear. To develop a database of open universities in the Commonwealth, COL initiated a survey. The present report is based on the responses of 27 open universities that responded to our questionnaire.

Canada's important areas of expertise in open educational resources (OER) are beginning to be built upon or replicated more broadly in all education and training sectors. This paper provides an overview of the state of the art in OER initiatives and open higher education in general in Canada, providing insights into what is happening nationally…