Learning Design refers to research and development work that equips teachers with tools and strategies to aid their design thinking. Its origin stems from two lines of inquiry: (i) how to represent teaching practice from a technical perspective in the development and delivery of online learning environments; and (ii) how to represent teaching practice in an appropriate form to enable teachers to share ideas about innovative online pedagogy and think about the process of design. The underlying premise of learning design is that, if effective, teaching and learning practice can be represented in a systematic way, thus supporting the process of reuse, which could ultimately lead to improved practice.

A large international body of work has produced specifications of technical standards to support the delivery of online learning, different learning design representations to disseminate ‘best practice’ examples to support and encourage adaptation, and software tools and strategies to support the design process. This book presents a view of current thinking about learning design and provides insight into the future direction of this field of research and development. It is a timely contribution that will stimulate discussion about these issues and guide and advance the learning design field.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Learning, Media and Technology.