The Relationships Between Policy, Boundaries and Research in Networked Learning

The biennial Networked Learning Conference is an established locus for work on practice, research and epistemology in the field of networked learning. That work continues between the conferences through the researchers’ own networks, ‘hot seat’ debates, and through publications, especially the books that include a selection of reworked and peer-reviewed papers from the conference. The 2014 Networked Learning Conference which was held in Edinburgh was characterised by animated dialogue on emergent influences affecting networked teaching and learning building on work established in earlier conferences, such as the inclusion of sociomaterial perspectives and recognition of informal networked learning. The chapters here each bring a particular perspective to the themes of Policy, Boundaries and Research in Networked Learning which we have chosen as the focus of the book. The selection of the papers has been a combined editorial and collaborative process based on our own initial review of the conference papers and notes from the conference, as well as an informal survey where we asked conference participants to recommend three papers they found particularly interesting. The papers for the Networked Learning Conference are all peer-reviewed, and as they have turned into chapters for this book, each has been re-reviewed by the editors and other authors. The result is a genuinely collegial distillation of themes from a stimulating conference; a snapshot of a time when national and international policies and boundaries have been changing.