We are grateful to Monique Grandbastien for her support and contribution to this editorial.

1This issue is the last of three based on the international and bilingual conference ‘Distance Education: a brave new world?’ which took place online on 20–21 October 2022.

2The last two issues, ‘Learning and teaching how to learn in the post-COVID world: reflections and perspectives’ and ‘Using video in distance learning: observing collaboration, interaction and interpersonal relationships’ addressed the challenges that education faced while transitioning to distance and online teaching and learning during the COVID pandemic.

3The editorial of the previous issue ended on comments about how the conference and the papers in issue 46 explored the nature and shape of learning before, during and after COVID. This final issue of the series continues this exploration, probing transformations which occurred during the crisis and have impacted practices significantly since. The papers focus on new and often flexible teaching approaches which incorporate online elements. All the studies reported on were set in the context of higher education institutions, but in a range of countries: the United States of America, Morocco, Italy and China. Most of the moves to online or hybrid teaching observed were prompted by the COVID pandemic, but some were started before. In all cases, the researchers ask questions and draw conclusions that are relevant well beyond the context of the COVID-19 emergency.

4The first paper, by Ildiko Porter-Szucs and Barry DeCicco, entitled ‘Triple Hybrid (TriHy): What Happened When COVID Hit the Research Study,’ examines whether student success and student perceptions are affected by the mode of study chosen by students, in the context of an MA TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) course offered in three modes: face-to-face, synchronous online and asynchronous online. Three characteristics of the study are noteworthy. Firstly, the fact that once students had selected a mode of study, they were asked to commit to it for the whole course. Secondly, the course design specifically aimed to create a single community of learners by ensuring that students from all modes of attendance interacted and worked jointly within the course. Finally, it is significant that the study started shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic and was therefore affected by the forced closure of all face-to-face provision. However this change was taken into account and integrated in the research design, and it yielded further insights on the research questions. The study makes use of mixed methods, relying on quantitative measurements as proxies to student success, and quantitative survey data related to student perceptions. The authors’ findings are that the choice of attendance mode did not affect student success. However they found that there were differences in the perception of the factors affecting student success, with students initially attending face-to-face reporting that their forced move to online study had a detrimental effect on their learning, experience, and motivation. By contrast, students in the asynchronous online group reported an improvement in their learning experience and sense of belonging after all students were forced to move online, which seems to have created a more unified and effective learning environment. Overall the authors conclude that the TriHy model can be successful.

5The second study included in this issue, ‘Adopting Hyflex in HE in response to COVID—students perceptions and perspectives,’ was written by Rachid El Ganbour, Mohamed Dihi and Assya Bouali. It reports on a study that aimed to identify the factors that influence the acceptance of the Hyflex model by medical students at Mohammed First University of Oujda in Morocco. The study was based on the Technology Acceptance model with 249 students from the faculty of medicine. The article makes the distinction between hybrid, which means a blend of different modes, and flex, which means that students choose a single mode, which best suits their learning, from different modes on offer. The study identified several factors: attitude, perceived usefulness, perceived ease, subjective norms (social factors), image construct, availability of technological resources and mastery of ICT. A positive attitude towards the Hyflex model is the most important factor for the probability of use. The perceived usefulness does not seem to influence the use directly. However, the more students perceived the Hyflex model as useful, the more they will have a positive attitude towards it. The ease of use does not have an impact on the use as students of the current generation find it easy to use any devices as technology is not perceived as being a hurdle. On the other hand, the high perception of ease of use has a high impact on the perceived usefulness. The ease of use in this study refers to instructions not ICT. The social factors do not seem to influence the use. However, the social factors have an influence on use if the use is mandatory. Students view the Hyflex model as valuable not for its potential to improve their professional status but for its practical benefits in terms of productivity and efficiency. The level of ICT skills does not seem to influence the perceived ease of use. However, students need convivial online spaces and tools that are adapted for their tasks. The availability of technological resources does have a positive effect on the perceived ease of use. The article concludes that for a new model of learning to be accepted educators should prioritise pedagogical and organisational aspects over technological concerns.

6The third paper, authored by Jane Helen Johnson, Eva-Maria Thüne and Carmelo Caruso, is entitled ‘University lecturers’ experiences from the classroom to a MOOC. Are they ready?’ It presents the results of a study exploring the experiences of HE lecturers contributing to the production of a MOOC designed to attract prospective masters students in the department of LILEC at the University of Bologna during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study included a 3-stage online survey conducted during the production process, and interviews done when the MOOC was released. It offered HE lecturers the opportunity to reflect on their teaching methods, with a focus on what can be taught online and what can be left for the classroom. The data analysis suggests that university lecturers in LILEC were not quite ready for the transformation of teaching practices, due to lack of training, general use of technology, and strong beliefs about teaching methods. They gained awareness about aspects of online teaching such as the need for concision, the impact of the medium on learning, multimodality and the possibility to use ready-made resources. Collaboration, content co-creation and changes in communication strategies were also emergent themes. Overall, however, participants felt that online pedagogical skills were not really transferable from the traditional classroom environment. They found online teaching limiting and that the need for concision led to ‘simplification’ not appropriate to HE. The results also point to a general sense of resentment towards new teaching methods and, interestingly, a reluctance to depart from the traditional role of ‘transmitter of knowledge.’ Due to the learning-by-doing format of the project, participants did change their practices over the course of the study. But overall, the MOOC was felt to be a complement to teaching, not a substitute. The conclusions highlight the need for thorough training for teachers to understand the affordances of various tools and how they affect learning, and to overcome barriers and existing views of what constitutes good and effective teaching.

7The fourth paper is ‘Exploring the Design and Application of an Intelligent French Dictation Platform’ by Yuming Zhai, Xiaoliang Huang and Nina Tian. It investigates the suitability and usefulness of an online dictation platform and automated error analysis framework and tool designed and developed by the authors. The context of the study is a beginners’ French course at a Chinese University. The research is an experimental study underpinned by two theoretical frameworks from the field of language acquisition: error analysis and interlanguage theory. The research data consists in qualitative feedback collected from learners and teachers through a questionnaire and one-to-one conversations, respectively, and the database of learner errors collected through the dictation platform. The affordances of the platform are: for learners the opportunity for self-directed practice of dictation and the automatic correction of errors, and for teachers the ability to provide student feedback and to adapt their teaching based on automatic error analysis. The paper considers two main research angles, one practical and one theoretical: (1) the design and implementation of the platform as part of French beginners’ teaching in China, and (2) the design and use of the underlying framework for error analysis. The key findings from the authors are evidence that using the dictation platform enhanced the learning and teaching of French as a foreign language, the study experiment having had a positive impact on learners’ dictation skills and having brought practical improvements for teachers through time and effort gains. More generally, the study has allowed the researchers to identify the most common errors made by Chinese learners of beginners’ French, which has the potential to enhance the teaching and learning of French across China.

8The four articles above are supplemented by a reflective practice paper (‘Changes in the professional gestures of teachers, from face-to-face to distance learning’). This study was also conducted at the end of the COVID-19 lockdown period, at Mohammed First university of Oujda in Morocco. The authors, Chaymae Aberkane, Sara El Mouhsine, and Toufik Azzimani, present an original analysis focusing on professional gestures. This perspective has already seen significant developments in other contexts, which are described at the beginning of the paper. The authors then present the results of interviews conducted with 40 teachers from Mohammed First University. These interviews reveal that teachers had difficulties in implementing their usual professional gestures, and that new ones need to be developed, which should be the focus of specific training. In the previous issue (DMS issue 46) this focus was also adopted in a contribution to the ‘Débats–Discussion’ section (Pélissier, 2024). Writing on the subject of lecturing, Chrysta Pélissier proposed using professional gestures as a starting point for questioning the diversity of teaching postures. We hope that this work will be insightful for teaching teams that continue to work on the development of online or hybrid courses.

9All the papers in this issue explore the integration between different teaching modes (face-to-face and online, synchronous and asynchronous), and lead to reflections on the role that online teaching can play, in the long term, in hybrid provisions within traditional face-to-face institutions. They shed light on how online and face-to-face teaching can best be combined, blended, integrated or mixed, for effective and pedagogically sound teaching. This work on hybridity builds on reflections published in this journal since the very start of the 2020 pandemic (DMS issue 30: Remond et al., 2020).

10Taken together, the studies demonstrate that flexible teaching incorporating online elements can come in many different configurations and be affected by several factors, as also described by Bernadette Charlier and Claire Peltier in a previous issue in this series (Charlier and Peltier, 2024). The configurations are reflected in discussions about terminology such as blended, hybrid, flex, and possible combinations such as TriHy or HyFlex. Differences are linked to factors such as student choice (or its absence), flexibility and the ability to move between teaching modes (or not), the way synchronous and asynchronous teaching are combined (or not), and the nature of the interface between online and face-to-face, as complementary equal elements or with one being a sub-component of the other.

11Common threads can be identified between the different papers. Firstly, several researchers report on the need for robust training for educators to develop an understanding of the affordances of online technologies and to translate their face-to-face pedagogy to an online or hybrid mode to create effective learning experiences. This adds to a body of research on the subject, e.g. Audran et al. (2021) and Stickler (2024). Secondly, the authors provide evidence that there can be discrepancies between teaching effectiveness and perceptions from teachers or students, highlighting the importance of disseminating research on the affordances of online teaching tools and on the benefits of online or hybrid teaching. Finally, they discuss the importance of community building for successful online teaching and learning, and show that a unified teaching strategy, learning platform and student experience is a crucial factor for effective learning and for successful community building in hybrid settings.

12What emerges from all the papers is that the new practices developed during and since the pandemic are more flexible. This allows institutions to reach a wider range of potential students or to meet the learning needs of a more diverse student population. New flexible teaching practices also hint as a renewed focus on the student experience, as reflected by the emphasis given to student perceptions in the research studies introduced above, or in other research (e.g. von Lindeiner-Stráský et al., 2023). This seems to suggest that flexibility is leading to more values-based approaches, i.e., more accessible, more inclusive, and more student-centred approaches. These are themes that were debated in one of the 2022 conference’s round-table discussions, Societal Impact of Distance Education (Braithwaite et al., 2022), which highlights that such values are perhaps more widely shared beyond specialist distance learning institutions today.

13There are also three reviews in this issue, in the ‘Notes de lecture’ section. They report on recent publications about the integration of digital technologies in learning design, the link between digitisation of education and internationalisation and mobility, and video gaming as a culture and its link to pedagogy.

14Finally, this issue includes new contributions to this year’s theme for the ‘Débat-discussion’ rubric of the journal, on the relevance and future of lectures in higher education pedagogy. Claire Peltier, Olivier Perlot and Marc Romainville continue the debate started in issue 45. Readers can refer to Claire Peltier’s introductory text for a detailed summary of the ideas developed in the contributions by Olivier Perlot and Marc Romainville. Some are not unrelated to the papers presented in this issue above. Following the online pivot triggered by the COVID lockdowns, lectures are indeed one of the aspects of higher education teaching which have commonly become a hybrid feature (as discussed, for example, in Kortemeyer et al., 2023). Olivier Perlot’s contribution on the use of physical space in lecture halls links directly back to the theme of hybridity—a common thread in the articles published in this issue—as he conceptualises lecture halls as ‘locations for hybrid learning.’ His discussion on the use of space in learning and teaching also relates to papers published in issue 46, particularly the work by Cathia Papi and Geneviève Dugré on online dance classes (Papi and Dugré, 2024). The importance of taking student perceptions into account (with respect to active pedagogies in Marc Romainville’s contribution) is another common theme found between the ‘débat-discussion’ section and the other papers.

15Overall, all the contributions in this issue allow us to confront and reflect on both traditional and innovative learning and teaching approaches. What can be done online? What should be left to the classroom in hybrid settings? What benefits can flexibility offer? These are important questions in the brave new post-COVID world where distance pedagogies are no longer the preserve of distance specialist institutions but now also sustainable alternatives to be integrated within or combined with traditional face-to-face teaching.