International Alliance to Advance Learning in the Digital Era
(IAALDE)
The vision for the Alliance includes both outward-facing and inward-facing goals.
Outward Goal:
To increase the visibility and impact of the research produced by members of the individual societies by providing a mechanism for the societies to collaborate and generate a cohesive picture of important findings related to learning in the digital era that could influence research, educational practices, and policy. A highly successful exemplar for achieving such a goal (at least within the USA) is the Computing Research Association (CRA) whose mission is "to enhance innovation by joining with industry, government and academia to strengthen research and advanced education in computing."
Inward Goal:
To increase cross-society awareness both at a scientific level (around differing methods, theories, technologies, findings) and at an administrative level (especially around the organization of conference logistics).
Exchange of scientific papers as major mechanism to support cross-disciplinary science communication
History of IAALDE best papers exchanged through this mechanism
Calendar that visualizes the the annual cycle of IAALDE society conferences and their deadlines
Our mission is to advance scientific and practical understandings of how to teach, how learners learn, and how technological systems can more effectively support education. Our objective is to have a more powerful and global impact by linking together societies with overlapping interests and goals.

IAALDE
BECOMING AN IAALDE MEMBER
If you represent a society and would like to be an IAALDE member, click here for membership details.
WHO WE ARE
REPRESENTATION AND MISSION
International Alliance to Advance Learning in the Digital Era
(IAALDE)
Represents over 3,000 leading researchers worldwide who have joined forces to advance science, practice, and policy on issues surrounding learning in the context of a digital, technology driven era.
THE SOCIETIES
involved in the effort
Each individual society has its own history and disciplinary or multi-disciplinary foundation and established mechanisms for supporting the dissemination of their scholarly work.
What they have in common is a commitment to research on learning, broadly defined, and an orientation towards producing research that has real impact in the world.
However, these societies have evolved independently and, despite some overlapping membership, their research contributions remain largely within separate publication venues, conference proceedings and journals.
IAALDE'S GOVERNANCE STRUCTURE
The Governance Structure of IAALDE consists of an Executive Board with 1 representative from each society, typically the society's President or representative from their Management Board.
A Chair of IAALDE is elected from amongst the members of the Board. In the future, the Board might consider bringing in external expertise via an Advisory Board, as well as Task Forces or Working Groups for specific purposes. Full membership entitles an organization to select one member to participate as a voting member of the IAALDE board. However, conferences such as Learning @ Scale are eligible to play a less formal role as Affiliate Members, which entitles them to select a member to participate in IAALDE discussions, but without a vote.
Read the full IAALDE bylaws.
HISTORY OF IAALDE
There are a number of international societies with interests focused in the overlap between education, learning and digital technology who wish to explore the possibility of cooperating more closely.

This effort has grown out of a series of discussions involving a number of the Presidents of these societies and other interested persons under the leadership of Carolyn Rosé of the International Society of the Learning Sciences.
A number of the Presidents of these societies and other interested persons held meetings by videoconferencing between 2013 and 2016 under the guidance of Carolyn Rosé of ISLS. These discussions culminated in a face-to-face meeting in Edinburgh on April 30th 2016, associated with LAK 2016.
The groups meeting online and at Edinburgh have at different times included Carolyn Rosé, Jeremy Roschelle, Benedict du Boulay, Mykola Pechenizkiy, Dragan Gasevic, George Siemens, Paul De Bra, Katherine Maillet, Ryan Baker, Eleni Kyza, Cindy Hmelo-Silver, Beverly Woolf, Nikol Rummel, Danielle McNamara, Bruce McLaren Fridolin Wild, Martin Wolpers, Piotr Mitros, and Pierre Dillenbourg.
An initial draft of a proposal for this alliance was presented to the Management Boards of the initial societies in 2016 and was approved by July 2017 with the forming of the inaugural governing board.
The proposal for an alliance grew out of concerns over lack of shared practices that would encourage better coordination and sharing of resources. One concern was that fragmentation weakens each society's ability to represent the field of learning sciences and technology, broadly construed.
Another concern was that fragmentation leads to siloed knowledge, that is detrimental to pushing the science forward. This proposal was generated by members of the various societies with the intent to establish this alliance that could produce a productive partnership that bridges the societies and creates a platform for supporting broader synergies between research insights developed within each society. The hope is that in so doing, the concerns just mentioned could be addressed through continuing discussions. The years of informal discussions leading up to this proposal have already proved beneficial for increasing coordination. Opportunities for future growth are now established as the IAALDE Alliance, which now begins its important work.
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MEMBERSHIP
Please refer to the IAALDE bylaws. All member societies agree to uphold the IAALDE bylaws
Any not-for-profit professional society may become a member of IAALDE based on these criteria:
BECOMING AN IAALDE MEMBER
Full details of member expectations are specified in the IAALDE bylaws.
In order to apply for membership in IAALDE, please fill out the this form.
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AMBASSADORS
Ambassadors of Scientific Understanding
One of the primary goals of IAALDE is to use this cross-society collaboration to advance scientific and practical understandings of how to teach, how learners learn, and how technological systems can more effectively support education. As part of that effort, each year each member society will identify a Best Paper from its own conference and provide fiscal and logistic support for one of the author(s) of that paper to attend the conference of another IAALDE member and present the work there in a designated track.
Each member society will take responsibility for determining:
1. Their own process for identifying the best paper in accordance with their society’s guidelines, and
2. The level of funding provided for expenses related to presenting the paper.
The recipient of the award from each society would then select from among conferences sponsored by other IAALDE member societies listed in the table below. In order to present at a member society’s conference, the awardee must contact the society’s representative listed below by the listed deadline in order to secure a presentation slot at the next conference of that society occurring after the deadline.
Society | Representative | Deadline | Conference(s) |
---|---|---|---|
International Society of the Learning Sciences | Carolyn Rose | October 1 | International Conference of the Learning Sciences, Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning |
International AI in Education Society | Bruce McLaren | October 1 | Artificial Intelligence in Education |
Society of Learning Analytics Research | Stephanie Teasley | December 15 | Learning Analytics and Knowledge |
International Educational Data Mining Society | Ryan Baker | January 10 | Educational Data Mining |
The European Association of Technology Enhanced Learning | Viktoria Pammer-Schindler | May 31 | The European Conference of Technology Enhanced Learning |
Society for Text and Discourse | Danielle McNamara | March 15 | Text and Discourse |
Learning @ Scale | Beverly Woolf | March 15 | Learning @ Scale |
ATIEF : Association des Technologies de l'Information pour l'Education et la Formation | Nathalie Guin | January 31 | EIAH (biannual) : Environnements Informatiques pour l'Apprentissage Humain |
SIG EDU | Torsten Zesch | May 15 | Workshop on Innovative Use of NLP for Building Educational Applications (BEA) |
Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education (APSCE) | Lung-Hsiang Wong | July 31 | International Conference on Computers in Education (ICCE) |
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ALLIANCE BOARD
The following representatives will participate on the Board on behalf of their society.
Representing
International Alliance to Advance Learning in the Digital Era:

Representing
International Society for the Learning Sciences:
Representing
International Educational Data Mining Society:
Representing
Society for Text and Discourse:
Representing
The European Association for Technology Enhanced Learning:
Representing
Representing
International Artificial Intelligence in Education Society:
Representing/représentant
Association des Technologies de l'Information pour l'Education et la Formation (ATIEF)
Representing
SIG EDU
Representing
Asia Pacific Society for Computers in Education
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IAALDE'S MEMBERSHIP DETAILS
Membership in IAALDE is open to relevant research societies, defined as those being not-for-profit professional societies specifically those having a governing board, near-open membership, a peer-reviewed annual or bi-annual conference, and a dedication to research broadly related to the area described above.
In order to maintain continuity, research communities with conferences but not professional societies would not be eligible to join IAALDE in their own right as full members unless the conference has a Special Interest Group (SIG) designation by a larger professional society, with an individual identified by that professional society to represent the SIG in IAALDE.
The addition of new member organizations is by a vote of the full Board of IAALDE.
IAALDE Society Membership Application Criteria
Please refer to the IAALDE bylaws. All member societies agree to uphold the IAALDE bylaws
Any not-for-profit professional society may become a member of IAALDE based on these criteria:
a. Has an elected governing board
b. Has an established membership application and renewal process
c. Produces a peer-reviewed conference
d. Has a dedication to advancing scientific and practical understandings of how to teach, how learners learn, and how technological systems can more effectively support education
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We are very happy that you are interested in the IAALDE – The International Alliance to Advance Learning in the Digital Era. Please look at the current board and contact the acting president and secretary via email. We are looking forward to your email.
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NEWS AND EVENTS
LATEST NEWS AND EVENTS
September 2020
Viktoria was elected to chair the alliance board, and Anouschka van Leeuwen was elected as new secretary.
June 2019
Viktoria Pammer-Schindler was elected to serve as secretary to the continuing leadership of Stephanie as chair.
June 2019
The alliance held an IAALDE best paper session together with a panel discussion at the CSCL 2019 in Lyon, France.
October 2018
Carolyn Rose, IAALDE’s Inaugural chair, steps down, and Stephanie Teasley becomes the 2018/2019 Chair. Carolyn takes the supporting role of Secretary.
JUNE 2018
IAALDE organized a Best Paper session (Alliance Best Paper) and Panel Session (Alliance Panel: A Look Into the Future: Contributions from our Societies) at the London Festival of Learning.
September 2017
IAALDE was featured in a plenary panel on the closing day of the European Conference on Technology Enhanced Education (EC-TEL)
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