In this current era of the fourth industrial revolution, the fifth generation of distance education has held out hopes of unique opportunities for engineering. With the aim of investigating the field of engineering through distance education, this study conducted a systematic review involving text-mining and social network analysis to examine 120 publications on this topic. The time trend analysis found that there has been a steadily increasing interest in engineering through distance education. Analysis of subject areas revealed that a considerable amount of the publications on engineering through distance education falls under the social sciences subject area, suggesting that there is a need for more interdisciplinary studies. In examining the geographical distribution of the publications, it was observed that most contributions come from the United States, a developed country that has invested heavily in educating students through distance education. The research patterns identified through text-mining and social network analysis revealed three major themes: (I) technology-enhanced distance engineering education, (II) e-learning and m-learning, and (III) virtual and remote labs.

Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are used in many dimensions of our lives, including education. Motivated by the increasing use of AI technologies and the current state of the art, this study examines research on AI from the perspective of online distance education. Following a systematic review protocol and using data mining and analytics approaches, the study examines a total of 276 publications. Accordingly, time trend analysis increases steadily with a peak in recent years, and China, India, and the United States are the leading countries in research on AI in online learning and distance education. Computer science and engineering are the research areas that make the most of the contribution, followed by social sciences. t-SNE analysis reveals three dominant clusters showing thematic tendencies, which are as follows: (1) how AI technologies are used in online teaching and learning processes, (2) how algorithms are used for the recognition, identification, and prediction of students’ behaviors, and (3) adaptive and personalized learning empowered through artificial intelligence technologies. Additionally, the text mining and social network analysis identified three broad research themes, which are (1) educational data mining, learning analytics, and artificial intelligence for adaptive and personalized learning; (2) algorithmic online educational spaces, ethics, and human agency; and (3) online learning through detection, identification, recognition, and prediction.

This research is a theory building study regarding the design of distance learning environments from a socio-technical perspective. Within this study, a synthesis of current theories and approaches in addition to established theories in the field of distance education will be conducted, with focus placed on the notion that a flexible learning environment may be designed based on social and technical elements. In this regard, the process of designing the aforementioned learning environment is expressed in a theoretical manner, with the following two theories comprising the basis of the study: (1) the Flexible Learning Approach and (2) the Socio-Technical Theory. A theoretical matrix is established within the study utilizing these theories, while each cell in the theoretical matrix provides a statement that determines a flow chart regarding the design of Flexible Distance Learning Environments.

This chapter primarily focuses on integrating the field of communication science to the distance education to find out the roles, competences, and responsibilities of the distance education experts in Turkey. Within this context, the chapter aims to develop a new perspective for distance education leadership. The distance education leadership requires skills including designing, evaluating, managing, and sustaining communication processes. In this context, this chapter discusses building a new perspective that provides the integration of the communication field in distance education for the experts, stakeholders, and researchers in distance education leadership.

The purpose of this chapter is to develop a framework for distance education institutions focusing on organizational code of cyber transparency in e-learning environments. The background of the study is based on the transparency concept as cyber transparency concept is derived from concepts of the cyber and transparency. In this sense, the cyber transparency framework points out two dimensions for distance education institutions as (1) internal transparency and (2) external transparency. The chapter explains these two dimensions in detail in terms of information share with people and amount of information shared. As a consequence, the cyber transparency framework can highlight the promotion of internal and external transparency in e-learning environments. On the other hand, this framework can be developed, customized and updated by the institutions, experts or researchers for different situations.