At Dalarna University, about 70 percent of students are enrolled in our online courses and programmes. To develop and conduct pedagogical and didactic research that aims to strengthen the scientific basis of online teaching, an interdisciplinary research group has been established.
Our research builds on the university’s expertise in this area while consolidating and strengthening its position as a national leader with strong international relevance in the field.
Research focus
The research covers the ongoing development of digital higher education and the digital competence that both students and teachers require. The research group builds on experiences from research initiatives that the university has previously undertaken in the area, most recently the research programme Nätburen undervisning och digital kompetens inom högre utbildning (Online education and digital competence in higher education), which ran from 2023 to 2025. It was evaluated as follows: Utvärdering av forskningsprogrammet (pdf)
Higher seminars
- 12 December 2025, Research Day on the theme Utmaningarna med nätburen undervisning och digital kompetens (The challenges of online education and digital competence)
- 11 November 2025, Professor Italo Masiello, Linnaeus University – Vad krävs för att stärka lärarnas digitala kompetens? Resultat från en pilotstudie. (What is needed to increase teachers’ digital competence? Results from a pilot study)
- 14 October 2025, Senior Lecturer and artist Dan Tommi Hildén, University of Gothenburg – Skulpterat ur ett punktmoln – Ett virtuellt ateljésamtal (Sculpted from a point cloud – A virtual studio conversation)
- 30 September 2025, Megan Case, PhD, HDa – Distansstudenters personliga lärmiljöer och dessas påverkan på studierna (Distance learning students’ personal learning environments and their impact on studies)
- 17 September 2025, Professor Jimmy Jaldemark, Mid Sweden University – AI och forskning om lärande i högre utbildning (AI and research on learning in higher education)
- 19 August 2025, Online Education participates in the national research seminar HEEL
- 27 May 2025, PhD Ronan Bree, Dundalk Institute of Technology– The N-TUTORR project – transforming teaching and learning across the Irish technological higher education sector
- 15 April 2025, Online Education participates in the national research seminar HEEL
- 25 March 2025, Katarina Lindahl, PhD, University of Gothenburg – Att utveckla en högskolepedagogisk kurs om nätburen undervisning: Kursutveckling och design för engagemang och gemenskap (Developing a higher education pedagogy course on online teaching: Course development and design for engagement and community)
- 17 March 2025, text seminar – research applications
- 19 February 2025, Åse Tieva, PhD, Umeå University – Från skepsis till insikt: Resan mot framtidens lärmiljöer med flexibilitet, aktivt lärande och hybriditet i fokus (From scepticism to insight: The journey towards the learning environments of the future with a focus on flexibility, active learning and hybridity)
- January 23, 2025, Professor Thomas Rachfall, HS Merseburg, and Professor PhD Dirk Förster-Trallo, FH Zwickau – Exam insights – what kinds of exams are preferred by students and how do electronic tests affect students?
- 16 January 2025, text seminar
- 13 January 2025, text seminar
- 13 December 2024 Wilhelmina Statham, PhD, Uppsala University – AI, handledning och uppsatsskrivande (AI, supervision and essay writing)
- 22 November 2024, Associate Professor (docent) Emmy Vrieling, Open University in the Netherlands – Facilitating peer interaction regulation in academic distance education
- 15 October 2024, cancelled due to illness
- 18 September 2024, text seminar
- 23 May 2024, Inger Lindqvist and Lena Dafgård, PhD, HDa – Över 20 år av nätburen undervisning vid Högskolan Dalarna (Over 20 years of online teaching at Dalarna University)
- 26 April 2024, Tobias Andtfolk and Maria Byholm, Åbo Akademi University – DUTAR – digitalisering av utbildning för tillgänglighet, attraktivitet och relevans (DUTAR – digitalisation of education for accessibility, attractiveness and relevance)
- 13 March 2024, Richard Osborne, PhD, University College London – Can we quantify the affordance of digital tools? Introducing a new methodology designed to align pedagogy and technology
- 4 March 2024, Lotta Fröjdfeldt, Mälardalen University – Erfarenheter av kvalitetssystemet för digital kompetens DigiCompEdu (Experiences with the quality system for digital competence DigiCompEdu)
- 2 February 2024, Professor Cathrine Edelhard Tømte and Docent Alexandra Lazareva, University of Agder – Digital competence for teaching and learning in higher education institutions
- 12 December 2023 Sonja Bjelobaba, PhD, Uppsala University – Etiska aspekter av AI i högre utbildning och forskning (Ethical aspects of AI in higher education and research)
- 15 November 2023, Professor Stefan Hrastinski, KTH – Undervisning med digitala verktyg: möjligheter och utmaningar (Teaching with digital tools: opportunities and challenges)
- 17 October 2023: Lena Dafgård, PhD, HDa – Video i nätundervisning: pedagogiska möjligheter och begränsningar (Video in online education: pedagogical possibilities and limitations)
- 11 September 2023, Matias Hautamäki, HDa – Distansanpassade laborativa miljöer (Distance-adapted laboratory environments)
- 30 May 2023, Professor Tom Hillman, University of Gothenburg – Artificiell intelligens och pedagogiska implikationer – möjligheter och utmaningar (Artificial intelligence and pedagogical implications – opportunities and challenges)
- 30 March 2023, Start of the research program Nätburen undervisning (e-lärande) och digital kompetens i högre utbildning - vad innebär det vid Högskolan Dalarna? (Online teaching (e-learning) and digital competence in higher education – what does it mean at Dalarna University?)
Recommended conferences
Below is a list of research conferences in 2026 and 2027 in the field of online education that may be of particular interest.
- EduLearn (iated.org), 29 June–1 July 2026, Palma, Spain
- INTED2027 (iated.org), 9–11 March 2027, Valencia, Spain
- EDEN 2026 – Digital Learning Europe (eden-europe.eu), 14–16 June 2026, Porto, Portugal
- NU2026 (nu2026.mkon.se), June 8–10, 2026, Gothenburg
- Media & Learning 2026: Co-Creating the Future of Learning (media-and-learning.eu), 17–18 June 2026, Provinciehuis, Leuven, Belgium
- World Congress of Education (worldconedu.org), 24–26 August 2026, Cambridge, UK
- ICED (International Consortium for Educational Development) (iced26.es), 24–26 June 2026, Salamanca, Spain
- ICDE (International Council for Open and Distance Education): Lillehammer Lifelong Learning Conference 2027 (icde.org), 15–17 February 2027, Lillehammer, Norway
- NLC (Networked Learning Conference): Networked Learning Conference 2026 (networkedlearning.aau.dk), 6–8 May 2026, Brussels, Belgium
- About Education Symposium | Oxford Symposia, 14–16 December 2026, Oxford, United Kingdom
Last reviewed: