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This study identified salient challenges related to future preference for e-learning of undergraduates during closure of institutions of higher learning due to the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and put forth suggestions to overcome challenges of e-learning for present and future crises.

Undergraduates were drawn from two universities in Malaysia who normally attend conventional classroom learning. Underpinned by the literature, the challenges and future preference for e-learning were operationalised into statements. Data were collected via a self-administered questionnaire hosted on Google Forms and were analysed with Statistical Package for the Social Sciences and STATA statistical software.

The hierarchical multiple linear regression results showed that the salient challenges related to undergraduates' future preference for e-learning, in descending order, were learning outcomes, followed by disadvantages (negatively) and discipline. Moreover, there were nuanced gender differences on the relative importance of salient challenges related to future preference for e-learning.

Because the literature on e-learning during the closure of institutions of learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic is evolving, some salient challenges may not be captured in this study. Next, this survey was carried out in July 2020 when all courses were conducted using one hundred per cent e-learning for the first time. Hence, future replication studies may produce different results. Lastly, findings are not generalisable to other contexts as the salient challenges may be unique to the Malaysian context.

Concerted efforts by all stakeholders to address these salient challenges will shift e-learning in higher education closer to a panacea during present and future crises.

The sudden and involuntary switch from face-to-face learning to e-learning during the closure of institutions of higher learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic provided opportunity to research the salient challenges encountered by undergraduates and to overcome these salient challenges.

The ability to project oneself into a future landscape is a critical aspect for studying and practicing the science of foresight and foresight-based learning systems. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how we can construct immersive spatial narratives through multimedia-enhanced learning approaches, to increase deeper learner immersion and levels of creativity to transport the learner into a simulated 2030 landscape by reducing the distance between the projected reality and the Self.

The author designed a foresight-based course on the Future of Mobile Learning underpinned by a new learning system that embraced the concept of immersive spatial narratives, combining physical, virtual and cognitive learning spaces, which enable students to explore complex, undiscovered or unstructured knowledge. Practicing was carried out on 35 students who had completed the course during the preceding three years through a questionnaire and interviews to establish increased levels of creativity in a simulated future landscape.

The paper established that the addition of multimedia learning environments and tools to foresight-based learning creates immersive spatial narratives that increase creativity and learner ability to project him/herself into a simulated future landscape. In all, 75 per cent of the respondents stated that having to think about the future and place themselves in a practicing landscape increased their creative skills.

A new, foresight-based learning system driven by the concept of immersive spatial narratives, enhanced with student-created multimedia learning tools. The system demonstrated how this approach helps to increase learner creativity and the ability to transition from their Present Self to their Future Self.

Previous studies showed that combining learning based on experiences in the past with learning from an envisioned future scenario results in more innovative and radical ideas, as well as in a higher number of covered content domains. However, currently there is no holistic learning theory that integrates both sources of learning. The main purpose of this paper is to investigate whether it is possible to extend Bateson’s theory of learning, to link these two learning sources in one coherent framework.

To answer this research question, the author draws on learning from an envisioned future, and tries to link it with the most important levels of learning in Bateson’s framework.

This paper contributes to the literature by attempting to link the important but still underexplored aspect of “learning from the future” to the complex and multifaceted work of Bateson. Given the fact that both sources of learning and experience yield a great potential to create new knowledge, this study outlines a possibility to include both sources into one learning theory.

This work provides the basis for further research in building a general holistic theory of learning to learn.

On the individual level, the proposed approach can be easily applied with systemic coaching processes in general and coaching processes in the fields of developing an individual vision in particular. In the field of organizational learning, the awareness of different learning sources and different learning modes on the one hand and knowledge about the implementation of enabling spaces (PE-ba, FE-ba) to support these various learning modes on the other hand help organizations to generate new knowledge and create innovative and sustainable solutions, products and services.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, it is the first theoretical work that describes the integration of learning from past experiences and learning from future experiences in a methodological way.

This study aims at analyzing the impact of perceptions of the fourth industrial revolution (crisis and opportunity) in the relationship between workers’ career attitudes and future learning intentions.

This study analyzed the multiple mediating effect of the perception of the fourth industrial revolution in the relationship between career attitudes and future learning intention using data of 305 Korean workers. As career attitude variables, boundaryless and protean career orientation variables were used, and perception of the fourth industrial revolution was analyzed (opportunity and crisis perception).

Both workers’ boundaryless career orientation and protean career orientation influenced future learning intention through the perception of opportunity for the fourth industrial revolution. This result suggested that flexible career attitudes positively recognized the changes of the fourth industrial revolution and had an effect on promoting attitude toward future learning.

The study confirmed that workers’ flexible career attitudes could promote perception of opportunity rather than crisis in changing situation and strengthen their intention to prepare for the future by mediating this perception. These results suggest that lifelong learning and competency development can be reinforced by facilitating perception of an opportunities for external change for individual career development.

Insights for personal career development were provided by analyzing the relationship between flexible career attitudes, which are increasing in importance in the modern society, and perceptions of changes in external environment.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors affecting employees’ overall acceptance, satisfaction and future use of e-learning, specifically exploring the impact that age has on the intended future use of e-learning relative to the other potential predictors.

The project developed an online survey and invited employees of one Australian rail organisation to participate. Questions were structured around the factors that affect acceptance and future use of e-learning. Statistical analysis was used.

The findings from the study suggest that, despite the often espoused stereotype, age is not a significant factor impacting either future use intentions or satisfaction with e-learning. In contrast, three variables were found to be useful predictors of intention for future use of organisational e-learning; low complexity, authenticity and technical support.

The study did not consider other moderating effects related to demographic data other than age, such as educational experience. Further, the case presented is a single organisation and therefore is not necessarily representative of other industries. Future studies should adopt a mixed methods approach.

This study has emphasised that attention needs to be focussed on factors over which organisations have control when adopting and using e-learning. Employee age should not be seen as an obstacle to e-learning implementation, rather attention needs to turn to effective and user-friendly e-learning interventions along with sufficient technology support.

Perceptions within industry and indeed in some literature, suggest that employee age stereotypes still exist in relation to technology uptake. This research has demonstrated that this stereotype is an erroneous assumption and emphasised the importance of other factors.

E‐learning is an organizationally risky investment given the cost and poor levels of adoption by users. In order to gain a better understanding of this problem, the aim of this paper is to conduct a study into the use of e‐learning in a rail organization.

Using an online survey, employees of a rail‐sector organization were questioned about their use and likelihood of adoption of e‐learning. This study explores the factors that affect the way in which learners experience and perceive such systems. Using statistical analysis, 12 hypotheses are tested and explored. Relationships between learning satisfaction, intention to adopt, and the characteristics of e‐learning systems were established.

The study found that e‐learning characteristics can buffer the relationship between learner characteristics and intention to adopt further e‐learning in the future. Further, the paper found that high levels of support can compensate individuals who are low in technological efficacy to adopt e‐learning.

The cross‐sectional design of the study and its focus on measuring intention to adopt as opposed to actual adoption are both limitations. Future research using longitudinal design and research employing a time lag design measuring actual adoption as well as intention are recommended.

From a practical perspective, organizations can focus on the actual content and authenticity of the learning experience delivered by the e‐learning system to significantly impact how employees will perceive and use e‐learning in the future. Low technological efficacy individuals tend not to adopt new technology. Instead of changing individuals’ personalities, organizations can implement supportive policies and practices which would lead to higher e‐learning adoption rate among low efficacy individuals.

The study integrates technology adoption and learning literatures in developing enablers for e‐learning in organizations. Further, this study collects data from rail employees, and therefore the findings are practical to an industry.

The purpose of this paper is to consider whether the future for e‐learning is as bright as it has previously been heralded, or whether it is likely to fade into the background over time.

The paper is based on 29 research case studies.

The importance of time and commitment are drawn out, suggesting that a slower pace of development may not necessarily be a bad thing. Organisations need to focus on what really matters – creating an environment that truly values learning, which for many may involved a substantial culture change. The importance of communication, promotion and marketing are presented, with the commitment from the top giving e‐learning the necessary status it needs in order for it to be taken seriously throughout the company. Selection of technology is also important as this can be a limiting factor to further e‐learning development.

Broader considerations for discussion as to whether an organisation is truly committed to an e‐learning future or not.

This article concludes the series by focussing on what the research tells us for the future development of e‐learning.

This chapter looks to the future of research in next generation learning spaces. It begins with a review of the literature and concludes with the implications for future research. The review demonstrates that most ‘next generation learning space’ research has focused on the design and evaluation of spaces. We know that students like the spaces, but we don’t know if the spaces alone are effective in improving student learning or if the spaces in combination with changed pedagogic practices and/or curriculum design improve learning. There are many opportunities for researchers to provide much needed evidence to institutions on the interrelationships between next generation learning spaces design, teaching practices, curriculum design and learning outcomes.

Digital learning has become a global trend. Partly or fully automatic learning systems are integrated into education in schools and universities on a previously unseen scale. Learning systems have a lot of potential for re-education, life-long learning and for increasing access to educational resources. Learning systems create massive amounts of data about learning behaviour. Analysing that data for educational decision making has become an important track of research. The purpose of this paper is to analyse data from an intermediate-level computer science course, which was taught to 141 students in spring 2018 at University of Turku, Department of Future Technologies, Finland.

The available variables included number of submissions, submission times, variables of groupwork and final grades. Associations between these variables were looked at to reveal patterns in students’ learning behaviour.

It was found that time usage differs per different grades so that students with grade 4 out of 5 used most time. Also, it was found that studying at night is connected to weaker learning outcomes than studying during daytime. Several issues in relation to groupwork were revealed. For example, associations were found between prior skills, preference for individual vs groupwork, and course learning outcomes.

The research was limited by the domain of available variables, which is a common limitation in learning analytics research.

The practical implications include important ideas for future research and interventions in digital learning.

The importance of research on soft skills, social skills and collaboration is highlighted.

The paper points a number of important ideas for future research. One important observation is that some research questions in learning analytics need qualitative approaches, which need to be added to the toolbox of learning analytics research.

This response paper aims to comment on specific aspects of the position paper.

In this paper, the author presents a response to Fischer et al.'s contribution on “The Challenge for the Digital Age: Making Learning a Part of Life.” While imperatives and narratives of learning in the future have been well articulated in the literature, their paper provides insights into lifelong learning in the digital age.

The author raises comments on the comprehensiveness of the lifelong learning perspectives and the calls to action. Over the years, with multiyear efforts on the research-based evolution of the design, implementation and adoption of technology-supported learning environments in some parts of the world, the author believes well-researched innovative pedagogy and design principles have already to some extent impacted transformation of learning and teaching in normal schools. By referring to the work in the running of a model school in Taiwan, the author demonstrate some of the pathways that can guide innovation and work towards operationalizing a futuristic vision that is resonant with the one painted in the paper. The paper will end with some comments on how narratives on the future of learning will evolve.

In trying to understand the lens that the vision would bring to learning on the digital edge, the author has provided commentaries to probe into the comprehensiveness of their vision of future learning. From an Asian perspective, the author describes one effort that can help make progress in moving towards this vision. It involves realizing the vision by grounding our designs in real experiments or instantiations, such as the interest-driven creator (IDC) experimental school in Taiwan, and highlight past research efforts which have been successful in transformation of classrooms and schools such as developing seamless learning for connecting learning in different spaces afforded by mobile digital devices.