As the year 2022 closes, and we wrap up the final issue of volume 36 of The American Journal of Distance Education (The AJDE), I’d like to briefly reflect upon this past year, to give readers a sense of the areas we have covered – and to provide you with suggestions for areas of opportunity in research and scholarship.
In the final issue of the first volume of The AJDE, Holmberg (Citation1987) identified the following areas of study in the emerging field of distance education:
Philosophy and theory of distance education;
Distance students, their milieu, conditions, and study motivation;
Subject-matter presentation;
Communication and interaction between students and their supporting organization (tutors, counselors, administrators, other students);
Administration and organization;
Economics;
Systems (comparative distance education, typologies, evaluation, etc.; and
History of distance education (p. 20).
Over the past year, The AJDE published an important special issue (developed by Dr. Kay Shattuck and Dr. Don Olcott, Jr.) that focused on leadership, policy, and organization of online distance education. We also shepherded articles related to the emergency remote shifts of K-12 and higher education during the global Covid-19 pandemic. Articles also focused on trends in productivity and citations, research of online student privacy in education, and research trends on accessibility in higher education. Authors have contributed interesting articles that range from topics of interaction to self-regulated learning, course design, and the use of technology. And in this current issue (36–4), we are pleased to present articles that focus on topics such as virtual charter schools, home-schooling, video feedback, instructor attitudes, and accessibility. Articles throughout the year have covered the higher education, K-12, government, and military sectors.
While we welcome research in all areas, I would like to point out that there are many opportunities of focus for researchers that will move the scholarship of our field forward. Using Holmberg’s list above as a guide, these include philosophy and theory, economics, leadership, and history of distance education. We encourage you to consider these areas of scholarship and to contact us.
This past year we also have continued to publish articles in Spanish, and we published our first Speaking Personally interview in Spanish. We continue to welcome articles from scholars in Spanish-speaking countries.
Finally, as we move into 2023, I encourage readers to explore past issues of this journal and of other distance education journals, and to learn more about the history of the field, about theory, and about past practice. The AJDE editors look forward to the upcoming year and to continuing the original mission of providing “information, encouragement, and enlightenment to both those who work in distance education and also to those outside” (Moore, Citation1987, p. 5).