29th CIAED International Congress of ABED on Distance Education

Quality and Excellence in Distance Education

In discussions about Distance Education, ABED has clearly positioned itself in favor of Quality EaD, promoting live sessions and debates, issuing statements, and seeking dialogue with relevant authorities. As an Association with 29 years of existence, interacting with national and international associations, institutions, and professionals, we are fully aware that it is possible to offer distance education programs and courses with quality at least equivalent to in-person education.

To contribute to this debate, ABED has defined the central theme of the 29th CIAED as "Quality and Excellence in Distance Education," and the location of the event in Brasília, the country’s capital. The event thus brought together educators, tutors, managers, students, instructional designers, members of government sectors, politicians, entrepreneurs, and other professionals, both domestic and international, in a setting for discussions and deliberations on issues related to EaD. The Ministry of Education (MEC), the National Institute for Educational Studies and Research Anísio Teixeira (INEP), the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES), State Secretariats of Education, and other government agencies were invited, including to answer questions and provide support to Higher Education Institutions regarding regulations and processes.

João Mattar
President of the Brazilian Association of Distance Education - ABED

Presentation

I am taking advantage of this year’s Congress theme (quality) to highlight some improvements we have introduced in the process of selecting and presenting scientific papers at CIAED.

We started the process of implementing improvements already in the 2023 congress. During an open meeting of the Technical-Scientific Committee, held at that CIAED, where we received feedback and suggestions from the participants, we were able to see that the structural changes we implemented—especially the creation of tracks and the new submission and evaluation system (JEMS)—had more positive points than negative ones, and the latter could easily be solved. We immediately proceeded to form the new chair team, and with their participation, began drafting the call for papers for CIAED 2024.

It was 11 months of intensive work, culminating in a schedule of 36 technical-scientific sessions and 5 poster sessions, which will address topics such as quality, management, technology, legislation, methodologies, theories, women, curriculum extension, hybridization, extension, tools, dropout, immersive education, and artificial intelligence, among others. This was only possible with the invaluable help of article reviewers, session coordinators, and, of course, the authors themselves. I would like to extend, on behalf of Abed and the community of researchers and professionals in Distance Education, our heartfelt thanks to everyone involved. Without you, there would be no CIAED.

Now, let’s highlight the advancements in quality in the development of this year’s scientific tracks:

• Improved communication with users and support for the use of the submission system (JEMS);

• Articles grouped by affinity, coordinated by researchers with experience in the session’s topic;

• Closer proximity between track coordinators, authors, and session coordinators, with planning and prior interactions;

• Early access for session coordinators and authors to the papers of their respective sessions;

• Discussion groups between session coordinators and authors;

• Sessions planned to function similarly to round tables, moderated by the session coordinator, with time for interaction between authors and the attendees;

• Creation of poster session coordinators;

• Digitization and enhancement of the on-site evaluation process for poster presentations;

• Easy-to-consult map of technical-scientific sessions, available online;

• Preliminary proceedings available online, which allowed articles to be consulted before, during, and after being presented in technical sessions, until the publication of this final edition;

• Organization of a meeting during CIAED 2025, organized by the technical-scientific committee of CIAED, to discuss the quality of works in scientific events.

Feel free to immediately access all the content of the technical sessions in their final versions and share article links with people or groups who might be interested in the content.

Academic regards,

Romero Tori