What does DEL mean?
A little history…did you know that DEL didn’t always stand for Digitally Engaged Learning? It started as Designs on eLearning before it was changed to the existing name in 2017.
The DEL Committee has had some interesting chats over the past year about what the name DEL means to us. Some of us have been on the committee or been part of the DEL community longer than others, and with a pinch of healthy debate, our different experiences and roles in our universities means our thoughts on the name occasionally evolve.
So why are we telling you this? As the landscape of higher education, art, and design continues to evolve, and linked to DEL’s mission of expanding our understanding of this landscape, the Digitally Engaged Learning Conference will now be known simply as the DEL Conference with the D, E, and L being set free to mean different things.
This change allows the DEL community to discuss a broader range of topical conversations. Higher education in 2024 implicitly involves digital technology in one way or another, so while DEL will always be online and plugged in, we hope to invite conversations about other emerging topics in art, design, and higher education: community engagement, interdisciplinary teaching, sustainability, inclusive pedagogies, and of course… AI.
Plans for 2025 and beyond
We are evolving the conference into a bi-annual in-person conference, with the next conference in 2026. In alternating years, we will be moving to a double-anonymous peer reviewed DEL In Between format. We want to maintain the academic rigor and bring it to our popular “DEL In Between” online webinars!
In summary:
- In odd years (starting Autumn 2025, 2027, …) – Monthly DEL In Between presentations will be double-anonymous peer-reviewed and hosted online.
- In even years (2026, 2028, …) – An in-person DEL Conference at a host institution (with double-anonymous peer-review process) and monthly DEL In Between sessions online
Here is a rough timeline for 2025 and 2026:
- February to May 2025: DEL In Betweens (non-peer reviewed)
- January 2025: Call for submissions for double-anonymous peer-reviewed DEL In Betweens
- April 2025: Deadline for submissions
- September 2025: Monthly double-anonymous peer-reviewed DEL In Betweens begin
- January 2026: Call for submissions to DEL 2026 Conference
- Spring 2026: Deadline for submissions
- September 2026: DEL Conference in person
A lot of thinking has gone into considering the future of the DEL and we hope that continuing to be open and explore the evolution of the format means we can balance various opportunities, perspectives and requirements of the DEL community and open it up to new members. In the meantime, please help us build the future of DEL by talking with your colleagues and documenting your own amazing work. The future may or may not be digital, but it’s waiting to be built by all of us.
Updated website URL and logo
As part of the name change, we are updating our URL to www.delconference.org. Please consider visiting and bookmarking our new URL. We will continue to redirect from our old URL for a short time. Updates to the webpage will be made in the coming months, so check back regularly,
Committee member Claudia Röschmann and one of her students Caroline Koi have been working on developing an updated logo for the DEL Conference. Without further ado, here is the new logo:
