About the Conference

Openness and innovation are major trends in contemporary education, influencing the whole spectrum of education institutions across the globe. Technological advancement and breakthroughs are bringing about a paradigm shift in contemporary education. Modes of learning and teaching are becoming more open and innovative in terms of time, space, curriculum contents, organization, pedagogical methods, infrastructure and requirements. This change happens virtually in all institutions (offering conventional, online and/or open courses). With this background, the OUHK organizes the annual conferences on open and innovative education with the following aims to:

- provide a platform for sharing quality research, effective practices and well-formulated views relevant to open and innovative education;
- facilitate networking and cross-institutional collaboration among researchers and educators in fields of educational innovation and/or openness; and
- promote studies and advancements open and innovative education.

Building on the successes of the conference series in seven previous years, the 2021 International Conference on Open and Innovative Education (ICOIE 2021) will be held at the Open University of Hong Kong on 5–7 July 2021.

ICOIE 2021 is the eighth conference series. Originally, the series was called International Conference on Open and Flexible Education (ICOFE), it was renamed International Conference on Open and Innovative Education (ICOIE) in 2017. For more information on this conference series, you may visit the websites of past conference

Due to the outbreak of COVID-19, ICOIE 2021 will take place as virtual conference. All participants will attend the conference and present their papers through our video conferencing system.

Conference Publications

Accepted full papers will be included in the conference proceedings (with an ISBN). Selected papers will be recommended for consideration to an edited book. Also, special issues of the following journals will be devoted to selected papers of the Conference. The journals include Interactive Technology and Smart Education (ESCI and Scopus listed), International Journal of Mobile Learning and Organisation (Scopus listed), and “Innovation and Technology in Education” Section of SN Computer Science.

Interactive Technology and Smart Education

International Journal of Mobile Learning and Organisation

“Innovation and Technology in Education” Section of SN Computer Science

Topics of conference papers

1. Academic/Learning analytics;
2. Artificial intelligence in education;
3. Engaging students and learning design;
4. Impacts of pandemic on online learning;
5. Innovations in curriculum development;
6. Innovations in educational technology;
7. Mobile and ubiquitous learning;
8. Open education;
9. Open educational resources and MOOCs;
10. Pedagogical innovations;
11. Social media and technology-mediated learning communities;
12. STEAM education;
13. Technology-enabled student advising;
14. Virtual reality/augmented reality in education; and
15. Other topics relevant to the conference.

Papers on all topics related to open or innovative education are welcome. Papers on related topics will also be considered.

Conference language

The Conference will be conducted in English.

Papers submitted for presentation should normally be in English.

Papers may also be written in Chinese and presented in Putonghua. In such a case, an English version of the abstract should be submitted together with the Chinese version.