Access to the unprecedented quantity and quality of data generated by students has created new challenges and opportunities. For example, researchers can get a better understanding of how students acquire subjectrelated knowledge, educators can assess the effects of teaching-learning activities and interventions, and students can receive student-centred support. Available online and in real time, this support is automatically personalised as students progress through the learning process. This issue contains four articles that deal specifically with such topics. Six more articles on RUSC’s thematic areas are included in the miscellaneous section.

The five articles in the miscellaneous section of this issue report on interesting studies on current topics in education research. The special section is the outcome of a call for papers on “MOOCs: Game Changer or Passing Fad?” edited by John Daniel, Esteban Vázquez Cano and Mercè Gisbert.  It includes five research articles and an introduction by the special section editors. The issue includes two book reviews.

This issue has two sections; one contains research articles related to the journal’s thematic areas, and the other is a Special Section in which we present five articles to update you about Open Educational Resources (OER) initiatives in the broader Oceania region of the southern hemisphere. Over the past decade, there has been a steady increase in the number of OER available and in the number of institutions providing OER online, and concepts of open content, open data and open access have come to the fore.

E-learning is broadening education horizons all over the world. With this in mind, this first Special Issue of RUSC. Universities and Knowledge Society Journal is to focus on innovations and practices applied to teaching environments and fields of knowledge connected with Economics and Business in an online environment. It has been edited by Alison Sheridan from Australia’s University of New England; Donald E. Hanna, Professor Emeritus of Educational Communications at the University of Wisconsin-Extension, and four members of faculty from the Business Studies Department at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Josep M. Batalla, Eva Rimbau, Enric Serradell and Àngels Fitó.

In this issue, the special section entitled "Apps for M-learning in Higher Education" has six articles which analyze the current state of m-learning and its prospects for the future. This special section is coordinated by two experts in the field, Professor Mohamed Ally from the University of Athabasca, Canada, and Professor Josep Prieto, researcher with the Mobility, Multimedia and Multidevice Innovation Group (mUOC) at the UOC. As well as the special section, the journal also contains nine articles about research into education and technology, including a study into learning networks to enhance reflectivity or a study of a mathematics program for detecting plagiarism entitled “Determination of writing styles to detect similarities in digital documents”.

This issue has a special section focusing on the outlook and challenges for education and technology in Mexico and Latin America. This section has been made possible thanks to collaboration from Mexico’s Sistema Nacional de Educación a Distancia (National Distance Education System, SINED) and was coordinated by professors Margarita Ontiveros (SINED, Mexico) and José Raúl Canay (University of Santiago de Compos­tela, Spain). There is also an extensive miscellany section with ten articles on questions linked to RUSC’s subject areas.