Exploring how digital technologies transform learning, teaching, and knowledge exchange.
The e-Learning & Innovative Pedagogies Research Network brings together educators, technologists, designers, and researchers who investigate the future of learning in an increasingly digital and connected world. Member-based and scholar-led, the Network is a platform for sharing research, innovation, and critical reflection on how technologies reshape educational practice and experience.
Founded in 2009, the e-Learning & Innovative Pedagogies Research Network emerged at a moment when digital technologies were beginning to unsettle long-standing assumptions about where, how, and with whom learning takes place. Established by Mary Kalantzis and William (Bill) Cope, the Network grows out of their research on multiliteracies, learning design, and digital pedagogies. From the outset, it has examined learning as a social, technological, and cultural process—focused on how digital tools reshape interaction, knowledge practices, and the experience of teaching and learning.
The International Conference on e-Learning & Innovative Pedagogies has since been hosted with universities across the world, including the University of Illinois at Chicago; the University of California, Berkley; the University of the Aegean; the University of Toronto; St John's University; the University of Malta; National Changhua University of Education; and the Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain, among others. Each host institution has added its own perspective—from early debates about online and blended learning to current discussions about AI, analytics, equity, and the future of educational design.
Mary Kalantzis and Bill Cope guided the Network’s formative years, establishing its focus on learner-centered, evidence-based, and technologically informed pedagogies. Their leadership connected theory and practice, emphasizing how digital environments can support more inclusive, multimodal, and participatory learning. Over time, the Network has expanded through its advisory board and global partners, who bring expertise across schooling, higher education, workplace learning, educational technology, and community settings.
The Network has hosted influential voices shaping debates about digital learning. Keynotes such as Sugata Mitra, Mimi Ito, George Siemens, Gilly Salmon, and Diana Laurillard have advanced conversations on topics ranging from connected learning and self-organized learning environments to learning analytics, online facilitation, open education, and the ethics of AI in teaching. Their contributions underscore the Network’s ongoing interest in how pedagogical innovation can strengthen—not replace—the human dimensions of education.
The Network’s publishing ecosystem is anchored by Ubiquitous Learning: An International Journal, a Hybrid Open Access journal that examines learning across formal and informal environments. The journal explores how digital media, multimodality, mobile technologies, and collaborative platforms change the conditions of learning in classrooms, communities, workplaces, and everyday life. It provides a convergent space for research on pedagogy, assessment, curriculum, literacy, educational technology, and the social and cultural contexts of learning. Each year, the Network awards the e-Learning & Innovative Pedagogies International Award for Excellence, selected from the ten highest-ranked peer-reviewed articles published in the journal. Award-winning work has addressed themes such as AI-supported learning, digital literacies, online assessment, gamification, inclusive design, participatory pedagogies, and emerging models of hybrid and networked learning. Winners receive Open Access publication and are invited to present at the subsequent conference.
Long-form scholarship is supported by the e-Learning & Innovative Pedagogies Book Imprint, which publishes monographs and edited collections on digital teaching and learning, educational design, technology-enhanced learning environments, and pedagogical innovation. The imprint welcomes a wide range of topics and approaches, and Open Access pathways ensure that research is accessible to educators, researchers, policymakers, and learning designers around the world.
Today, the e-Learning & Innovative Pedagogies Research Network continues to bring together educators, researchers, designers, technologists, and policymakers to explore how learning can be shaped for equity, creativity, and participation in digitally mediated environments. Through its annual conference, peer-reviewed journal, book imprint, and CGScholar community, the Network sustains a member-based, scholar-led space dedicated to improving learning in a rapidly changing world.
The Network is chaired by Professor Mary Kalantzis, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Professor Bill Cope, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, whose pioneering work in multiliteracies, learning design, and digital pedagogy has defined the field for over two decades.
Founding Chair, Editor
(2013 - )
Founding Chair, Editor
(2013 - )
The International Conference on e-Learning and Innovative Pedagogies has a rich history of featuring leading and emerging voices from the field, including:
Professor, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA
(2009)
Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana-Champaign, USA
(2009)
Professor, Syracuse University, Syracuse, USA
(2010)
Director, Cognitive OpenTech IBM, USA
(2015)
Program Leader, IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Center, USA
(2015)
The e-Learning and Innovative Pedagogies Research Network has had the pleasure of working with the following organizations:
