Open Praxis is a peer-reviewed open access scholarly journal focusing on research and innovation in open, distance, and flexible education. It is published by International Council for Open and Distance Education - ICDE Web of Science (ESCI) Impact Factor for 2023 is 0,9; ranked 457 out of 759 in Education and Educational Sciences in Q3. Scopus Cite Score is 3.5; ranked 453 out of 1543 in Education category in Q2 and 72 out of 2801 in Library and Information Sciences category in Q2. Facts and Figures: 2024 article acceptance rate is 33%, rejection rate is 67% (13% desk rejections - 54% rejections after review). While the number of days for acceptance is 44, the number of days for rejection is 16.

This article analyses the state-of-the-art of virtual reality (VR) in higher education and provides an overview of the VR literature and identifies the need for the definition of key terms. Thus, it introduces three types of VR according to immersion level. Furthermore, analysis reveals a lack of systematic literature reviews (SLRs) on learning using immersive virtual reality (IVR). This article presents the results of the first SLR of the scientific literature on IVR in higher education indexed in Web of Science. A total of 291 articles were collected out of which 50 were selected for full-text analysis. We report three findings. First, we categorise and cluster the literature into formal aspects and research design and conclude that IVR research remains in its infancy. Furthermore, it lacks a sound and standardised research framework and design as well as comparative studies that are repeated for validation. Second, we analyse and discuss the current results and outcomes of the scientific research and identify the diversity of the reported research and learning outcomes with contradictory results, which are frequently due to specific and isolated scenarios. Third, this work is the first systematic scoping review on all studies from Web of Science that focuses on the use of IVR in higher education in general. We offer a unique overview of scientific articles on IVR in higher education without any limitation in time, scope or topic. Notably, the majority of the 50 articles do not present evidence-based and validated results; in particular, discussions and results related to pedagogical aspects are lacking.

This paper presents and analyses solutions where open education and open science were utilised to reduce the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on education. The COVID-19 outbreak and associated lockdowns created huge challenges in school and higher education, demanding sudden responses which aimed to sustain pedagogical quality. Responses have varied from conservative to radically innovative. Universally, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted and shocked societies worldwide, and education systems were on the front line. The lockdowns largely stopped face-to-face and formal education in almost all countries, and in most cases, distance learning soon became the ‘new normal’. A central challenge concerned sustaining educational visions and ideals in such circumstances. To better understand the state of the art in the educational landscape, we collected case studies from 13 countries during the first year of the pandemic starting on 11 March 2020 (when the World Health Organization declared a pandemic). This paper presents summaries of the full country reports that were collected and describe lessons learned. Our overall aim was to identify good practices and recommendations from the collected case studies that can be taken forward in the future. We categorised the responses on the three generic educational levels (macro, meso and micro) and identified seven key aspects and trends that are valid for all or most countries: (1) formal education at a distance for first time; (2) similar approaches for formal education; (3) missing infrastructure and sharing open educational resources; (4) diverse teaching and learning methods and practices; (5) open education and access to open educational resources; (6) urgent need for professional development and training for teachers and (7) assessing and monitoring learning environments, teachers and students. Finally, we identified key recommendations on how open education and open science can benefit formal education in schools and universities in the future, namely, improved awareness of open educational practices, provision of ICT infrastructure, embracing and sustaining the practice of open access publications and OERs, capacity building for stakeholders and finally encouraging research and development in the area of open education and open science. We found significant evidence for the proposition that open education and open science can support both traditional face-to-face and distance learning.

Are MOOCs Open Educational Resources? A literature review on history, definitions and typologies of OER and MOOCs

This paper presents the findings from a systematic literature review on the quality of massive open online courses (MOOCs). The main research question was “How can the quality criteria for MOOCs identified in the analysed studies from the systematic literature review be best organised in a categorisation scheme?” The systematic literature review was conducted using the PRISMA procedures. After conducting the screening and eligibility analysis according the pre-defined criteria, 103 studies were finally selected. The analysis was done in iterative cycles for continuous improvements of the assignments and clustering of the quality criteria. The final version was validated in consensus through the categorisation and assignment of all 103 studies in a consistent way to four dimensions (pedagogical, organisational, technological, and social) and their sub-categories. This quality framework can be re-used in future MOOC research and the discussion of the analysed studies provides a current literature overview on the quality of MOOCs.