Mapping the future of research in web-based education management: Effective HCI taken to new horizons

The educational research community attracts practitioners and policy makers interested in both consuming and producing high quality educational research methodologies. Over time, research findings significantly contribute to continuing educational theory as well as educational management and professional practice. Until now researchers have been able to understand the interactivity of instructional strategies and cognitive performance in traditional learning models. While the community has been exposed to these findings through professional publications and the electronic media; with the advent of Web-based educational research, the same cannot be said about dissemination from this emerging techno-educational paradigm. Is this due to the complex nature of the contributing factors involved with educational management that involves information and communications technologies (ICT) in the Web-mediated learning environments? In terms of the relationship between information technology and education management, defining such educational research is becoming quite difficult. This paper analyses research by practitioners primarily interested in Web-based education. To examine the trends, contributions are examined from a wide range of educational researchers at a recent international conference that attracted participants from 29 countries. These trends will be extrapolated to map the future of Web-based education management based on international synergies in research communities of practice.