The changing narratives of open, flexible and online learning

Increasing access to information and communications technologies worldwide, along with the opportunities that they afford for learning and teaching, is changing the narratives of open and flexible learning. Two recent reports tracking the development of online and distance education in the United States suggest that while campus-based registrations are down overall, distance education enrolments are on the rise, with one in three students in the US higher education sector taking at least one online distance education course (Seaman, Allen, & Seaman, 2018; Legon, Gareett, & Fredericksen, 2019). This picture is not that dissimilar in other developed as well as many developing countries. For instance, recent surveys of student access to information and communications technologies at the University of the South Pacific, which has fourteen campuses on very small island states of the southwest Pacific region, show that around 80% of its students have access to mobile devices such as laptops and smartphones along with reliable access to the Internet (Jione, Fong, & Naidu, 2019). Availability of this kind of infrastructure means that a wider range of students from high school graduates to those who are working fulltime can have access to educational opportunities. It also means access to flexible learning opportunities, and a chance to upskill and reorient while still in employment. As a result, fewer and fewer students across the higher education sector, and around the world, are either studying or working at any one time. Instead, many are living their lives at the junction of multiple student identities, working and studying at the same time, and in search for a curriculum and qualification that will best meet their needs and career aspirations now and in the future. The implications of this kind of learning and teaching landscape for educational institutions are numerous. They include not only the need for an understanding of contemporary learners and their learning contexts but also the design of a curriculum and its suitability for the complex learning environment that they will inhabit in the future. This journal has a long and strong track record of publishing research and reflections that have sought to understand learning and teaching in this complex and changing contemporary higher education space. It has included reviews of relevant academic narratives and approaches to learning and teaching in order to be able to propose models for best practices for an inclusive and productive learning experience. This has comprised showcasing authentic voices of students and teachers, and understanding and responding to the particular challenges that they face, and the specific contributions they make. It has also included an examination of the appropriateness of the curriculum and its approach to a very complex learning community that is no longer simply campus-based and resident in one country. One of these groups of learners that is growing substantially on conventional campuses, and especially in the English-speaking world, is international students. There are DISTANCE EDUCATION 2019, VOL. 40, NO. 2, 149–152 https://doi.org/10.1080/01587919.2019.1612981