As the biggest name in distance and electronic learning, the University of South Africa (Unisa) will next month kick off an event based on it, with the Open Distance and e-Learning Conference now available for registration.

The university put out invites for attendees back in May, but now anyone can register for free to attend the conference which is being held online between 3rd and 5th August.

“The aim of the conference is to encourage debates on the contemporary and new opportunities, challenges and models facing the open distance and e-learning (ODeL) in a globally connected digital era,” reads a description of the event from the 2021 incarnation.

Registration can be done here and requires basic information from attendees with no real surprises in what needs to be filled out.

The interesting part is choosing which segments of the conference you would like to watch and partake in with several workshops and lectures taking place over the three days.

Well the three days isn’t entirely accurate as there are “Pre-conference Workshops” which will take place on 2nd August. The eight listed workshops cover a wide range of topics including academic integrity, oppression, sustainability in distance learning, improvements in distance learning and more.

The presenters include academics not just from South Africa, but also abroad with Professor Chris Knaus from the University of Washington Tacoma hosting one of the workshops.

After these pre-conference workshops the conference is split into various sessions which take place throughout each day. It’s a lot to take in so we recommend attendees carefully read the full programme which has been published here as a PDF.

We do, however, warn that this programme may not be finalised. It is listed as a draft programme and has a date of 4th July making it rather old. We’re sure that a newer programme will be issued closer to the time that the Open Distance and e-Learning Conference starts.