Guest Editorial: eLearning Research Opportunities in Engineering Education

What is elearning? U.S. readers are far more familiar with the terms “cyberinfrastructure” and “cyberlearning.” But in the rest of the world, the term elearning is much more common for describing educational activities that make use of information and communication technology. Technology has always played a critical role in engineering education, but the growing reach and potential of advances in communication, computational, and information technologies are creating new capabilities for advancing research and innovation in engineering education.

Cyberlearning has the potential to transform education throughout a lifetime, enabling customized interaction with diverse learning materials on any topic—from anthropology to biochemistry to civil engineering to zoology. Learning does not stop with K-12 or higher education; cyberlearning supports continuous education at any age (Borgman et al., 2008, p. 5).