Call for contributions to a special issue of the Journal of e-Learning and Knowledge Society

As mentioned during the Eurocall event in Bologna, we are planning a special issue of the Journal of e-Learning and Knowledge Society dedicated to the theme of the joint EUROCALL CMC and Teacher Education SIGs research workshop: "LEARNING THROUGH SHARING: OPEN RESOURCES, OPEN PRACTICES, OPEN COMMUNICATION" held at CILTA - University of Bologna, 29-30 March 2012

The two-day conference focused on the impact of adopting openness as a key principle in education. It explored how open resources, open practices and open communication can be integrated in language teaching and learning, and in the initial and continuing development of language teachers. The main areas covered were:

theories that underpin openness as a key principle in education
using OER in teaching and/or course development, including reusing and re-purposing existing resources for different contexts or resource-based learning
integrating learner-generated content into language courses
developing a culture of sharing amongst the teaching community (barriers to and advantages of sharing)
sharing resources and/or practices in teacher education and professional development (e.g. through peer review of resources)
sharing resources and intellectual capital with others to raise individual or institutional profiles (e.g. through publishing resources on itunes U, contributing to a resource repository, open access publishing of research papers )
promoting learner communication in 'open' environments (e.g. through online gaming, virtual worlds, international discussion boards)
facilitating open communication in CMC - where 'sensitive' topics can be broached and diverse opinions are valued.

We are now inviting those who took part in the event but also other interested colleagues to submit a full paper of up to 22,000 characters (spaces included), including abstract (max 1500 char.) and bibliography (max 3000 char) by 15 June 2012 to the co-editors of the special issue, Ana Beaven (CILTA, University of Bologna, Italy) and Anna Comas Quinn (Open University, UK). Please send your papers to: bolognasigs2012@gmail.com. The journal will be published in English and Italian and selected papers will have to be translated into the other language of publication. Please refer to the attached guidelines, which can also be downloaded from the “Papers” page on the Conference website. Please, don't hesitate to contact us should you need further information.

Kind regards

Ana Beaven and Anna Comas-Quinn