Call for articles open for the next monographic Dossier on Mobile Learning Applications in Higher Education



For many educators, mobile technology in the field of teaching and learning has recently become one of the most important areas of research. Mobile learning has become a strategic topic for many organisations concerned with education.

The evolution of wireless technologies and the development of applications on mobile devices have been spectacular. The advent of new types of devices is disruptive to education, no matter what educators and education institutions do. Therefore, a thorough analysis, from a pedagogical and technological perspective, is key to ensuring an appropriate usage and implementation of mobile learning.

In the past two decades, we have experienced a revolution in wireless communications that has facilitated a reduction in people's dependency on cable in order to communicate. Moreover, in the last decade, we have seen a huge evolution in the performance and features of mobile devices. In many cases and for many tasks, this has led to mobile devices being a possible replacement for laptop or desktop computers. While it is hard to say whether the new breed of devices will be an outright replacement, they certainly mean that there is a new layer of interaction.

Today, we are seeing an explosion of tools and programming languages to develop applications on mobile devices, as well as the creation of new ways to share and download/upload these applications from/to specific markets. This has enabled many programmers to develop mobile applications in a fast, cheap and readily marketable way. It has never been easier to create applications and make them globally available, and learning environments are no exception.

We live in a new age. This has been called the mobile age or the mobile technological revolution by several authors, and it has been likened to the first and second industrial revolutions. Without doubt, we have seen a significant increase in mobile learning experiences in higher education in the last five years.



Thematic areas

We are interested in receiving research articles on this topic by authors from all educational sectors and around the world. The specific thematic areas of the monographic Dossier are as follows:

Advances in mobile learning in higher education
Applications of mobile learning in higher education
Evaluation of mobile learning in higher education
Emerging technologies for mobile learning in higher education
Ethical considerations in mobile learning in higher education
Future of mobile learning in higher education
Historical perspectives of mobile learning in higher education
Instructional design for mobile learning in higher education
Interface design for mobile learning in higher education
Learner interaction in mobile learning in higher education
Learner support for mobile learning in higher education
Mobile Learning in higher education: best practices around the world
Research on mobile learning in higher education
Standards for developing mobile learning in higher education
Strategies for mobile learning in higher education


Guest Editors

Dr Mohamed Ally is professor in Distance Education and a researcher in the Technology Enhanced Knowledge Research Institute (TEKRI) at Athabasca University, Canada. He obtained his doctorate from the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. His current areas of research include mobile learning, e-learning, distance education, and the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in training and education. Dr Ally was president of the International Federation of Training and Development Organizations (IFTDO) and is one of the founding directors of the International Association of Mobile Learning (IAmLearn). He was also on the board of the Canadian Society for Training and Development. Dr Ally chaired the Fifth World Conference on Mobile Learning and co-chaired the First International Conference on Mobile Libraries. He has published four edited books on the use of mobile technology in education, training and libraries. His book Mobile Learning: Transforming the Delivery of Education and Training won the Charles A. Wedemeyer Award for making a significant contribution to distance education. He is currently editing three books in the areas of mobile learning and e-learning. Dr Ally has published articles in peer-reviewed journals, chapters in books and encyclopedias, and served on many journal boards and conference committees. He has presented keynote speeches, workshops, papers and seminars in many countries.



Dr Josep Prieto-Blázquez obtained his doctorate in Computer Science from the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) in January 2009. He also holds a master's degree in Computer Science from the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya (BarcelonaTech, UPC). Since 1998, he has worked as a lecturer in the Computer Science, Multimedia and Telecommunication Department at the UOC, where he has been the director of the Computer Engineering (CE) programme since 2001 and a vice-dean since 2009.

His line of research focuses on exploratory and application technology in the field of ICTs. He has participated in wireless, free software and virtual learning environment projects, and is also a member of the Mobility, Multimedia and Multidevice innovation group (mUOC) and of the Cryptography and Information Security for Open Networks (KISON) research group.




Submission deadline

Articles should be submitted by 30 June 2013.

Articles will be published in Volume 11, Number 1, in January 2014.