The Social Utility and Desirability of E-learning

Dear Colleagues,

Today, online teaching and learning are becoming necessary for education, and the use of the Internet to teach and learn is inevitable for both teachers and students. As a result of the restrictions that have been enforced to protect nations against COVID-19, professors and students have adapted to new forms of educational communication, by starting to teach and learn in a virtual environment. Some of the students have taken the use of new communication techniques, new pedagogical tools and new teaching styles as a learning challenge. The same goes for many teachers, especially those who were not familiar with information technology before.

At a time like this, when the need to use e-learning is greater than ever, and in order to contribute to the success of using such systems in various locations and educational situations, we hereby propose that the research included in this Special Issue of the journal focuses on e-learning and the implications of the personal and social factors, as well as the pedagogical needs of the actors involved in the online teaching and learning process.

This Special Issue of the journal Societies aims to address the main issues of concern within e-learning, considering both technical and non-technical aspects: e-skills and information literacy for learning, e-learning methods, e-learning curriculum development issues, instructional design issues, and last but not least, technological issues.

The point of interest and novelty of this Special Issue will be the focus on research which covers the social utility of e-learning systems being used during this period of time, and their level of attractiveness and desirability within educational and social groups.

Interdisciplinary approaches will be of particular interest.

Contributions have to follow one of the three main categories of papers (article, conceptual paper or review) of the journal, and address the topic of the Special Issue.

Dr. Crisanta-Alina Mazilescu
Dr. Irina Elena Macsinga
Dr. Diana Andone
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the Special Issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as conceptual papers are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Societies is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.