Distance education (DE) has recently become a noteworthy study topic in the public education system. From the Web of Science database, 5719 articles discussing DE and published in the period of 2011–2023 were acquired. By analyzing the overall characteristics, co-citation, and keyword co-occurrence of the selected articles, which utilized Cite Space software, the history of DE could be systematically grasped, thereby reasonably predict the emphases of future development. We found that the number of papers relevant to DE had been rapidly growing since 2018. USA, China, and Turkey are the top three countries where most authors or teams were located. The map of keyword cooccurrence showed that the previous DE research mainly focused on telelearning, adult learning, and distributed learning environment. The recent burst words emerging are used to determine that distance education will continue to be studied in the field with high explosive keywords such as visual tracking, technology acceptance model, and user interface. This will provide suggestions and directions for the development of distance education.

Anderson, T., & Dron, J. (2011). Three generations of distance education pedagogy. International Review of Research in Open Distributed Learning, 12(3), 80. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v12i3.890

Bao, W. (2020). COVID‐19 and online teaching in higher education: A case study of Peking University. Human Behavior Emerging Technologies, 2(2), 113–115. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbe2.191

Barger, R. P. (2020). Democratization of Education through Massive Open Online Courses in Asia. IAFOR Journal of Education, 8(2), 29–46. https://doi.org/10.22492/ije.8.2.02

Çakiroğlu, Ü., Kokoç, M., Gökoğlu, S., et al. (2019). An analysis of the journey of open and distance education: Major concepts and cutoff points in research trends. International Review of Research in Open Distributed Learning, 20(1). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v20i1.3743Copied

Castro, R. (2019). Blended learning in higher education: Trends and capabilities. Education Information Technologies, 24(4), 2523–2546. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-019-09886-3

Chang, Y. W., Huang, M. H., & Lin, C. W. (2015). Evolution of research subjects in library and information science based on keyword, bibliographical coupling, and co-citation analyses. Scientometrics, 105(3), 2071–2087. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-015-1762-8

Chen, C. (2006). CiteSpace II: Detecting and visualizing emerging trends and transient patterns in scientific literature. Journal of the American Society for information Science, 57(3), 359-377. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.20317

Chen, C. (2017). Science mapping: a systematic review of the literature. Journal of data information science, 2(2), 1–40. https://doi.org/10.1515/jdis-2017-0006

Costenbader, E., & Valente, T. W. (2003). The stability of centrality measures when networks are sampled. Social networks, 25(4), 283–307. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-8733(03)00012-1

D’Este, P., & Robinson-García, N. (2023). Interdisciplinary research and the societal visibility of science: The advantages of spanning multiple and distant scientific fields. Research Policy, 52(2), 104609. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2022.104609

de Oliveira, M. M. S., Penedo, A. S. T., & Pereira, V. S. (2018). Distance education: advantages and disadvantages of the point of view of education and society. Dialogia, (29), 139–152. https://doi.org/10.5585/dialogia.n29.7661

Dewi, M. P., & Wajdi, M. B. N. (2021). Distance learning policy during pandemic COVID-19. EDUTEC: Journal of Education and Technology, 4(3), 325–333. https://doi.org/10.29062/edu.v4i3.192

Ferrer, J., Ringer, A., Saville, K., et al. (2020). Students’ motivation and engagement in higher education: the importance of attitude to online learning. Higher Education, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcal.12551

Guerrero, M., Heaton, S., & Urbano, D. (2021). Building universities’ intrapreneurial capabilities in the digital era: The role and impacts of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Technovation, 99, 102139. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.technovation.2020.102139

He, L., Yang, N., Xu, L., et al. (2021). Synchronous distance education vs traditional education for health science students: A systematic review and meta‐analysis. Medical Education, 55(3), 293–308. https://doi.org/10.1111/medu.14364

Hollenbeck, B., & Shi, Q. (2021). Developing Effective and Sustainable Distance Education Programs and Courses. International Journal of Information Education Technology, 11(2), 102–106. https://doi.org/10.18178/ijiet.2021.11.2.1496

Jordan, K. (2014). Initial trends in enrolment and completion of massive open online courses. International Review of Research in Open Distributed Learning, 15(1), 133–160. https://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1651

Kentnor, H. E. (2015). Distance education and the evolution of online learning in the United States. Curriculum teaching dialogue, 17(1), 21–34. https://digitalcommons.du.edu/law_facpub/24/

Kim, B., Joines, S., Feng, J., et al. (2023). Technology-driven design process: teaching and mentoring technology-driven design process in industrial design education. International Journal of Technology, 33(2), 521–555. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10798-022-09739-0

Liyanagunawardena, T. R., Adams, A. A., & Williams, S. A. (2013). MOOCs: A systematic study of the published literature 2008-2012. International Review of Research in Open Distributed Learning, 14(3), 202–227. https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1066922arCopiedAn e

Malandrino, A., & Sager, F. (2021). Can Teachers’ Discretion Enhance the Role of Professionalism in Times of Crisis? A Comparative Policy Analysis of Distance Teaching in Italy and Switzerland during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research Practice, 23(1), 74–84. https://doi.org/10.1080/13876988.2020.1844544

Moore, M. G., & Kearsley, G. (2011). Distance education: A systems view of online learning. Cengage Learning. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131911.2020.1766204

Muralidharan, K., & Singh, A. (2021). India’s new National Education Policy: Evidence and challenges. Science, 372(6537), 36–38. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abf6655

Nair, P. P. (2019). Emerging trend of distance education globally and its underlying challenges. Journal of Management Research Analysis, 6(3), 125–128.

Reginald, G. (2023). Teaching and learning using virtual labs: Investigating the effects on students’ self-regulation. Cogent Education, 10(1), 2172308. https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186X.2023.2172308

Rousseeuw, P. J. (1987). Silhouettes: a graphical aid to the interpretation and validation of cluster analysis. Journal of computational applied mathematics, 20, 53–65. https://doi.org/10.1016/0377-0427(87)90125-7

Safapour, E., Kermanshachi, S., & Taneja, P. (2019). A review of nontraditional teaching methods: Flipped classroom, gamification, case study, self-learning, and social media. Education Sciences, 9(4), 273. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci9040273

Shearer, R. L., Aldemir, T., Hitchcock, J., et al. (2020). What students want: A vision of a future online learning experience grounded in distance education theory. American Journal of Distance Education, 34(1), 36–52. https://doi.org/10.1080/08923647.2019.1706019

Shishakly, R. (2024). Young children’s online homeschooling during Covid-19 closure in the United Arab Emirates: Parents’ experiences. Issues in Educational Research, 34(1), 261–279. https://www.iier.org.au/iier34/shishakly.pdf

Simonson, M., Schlosser, C., & Orellana, A. (2011). Distance education research: A review of the literature. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 23(2), 124–142. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12528-011-9045-8

Yilmaz, R. (2017). Exploring the role of e-learning readiness on student satisfaction and motivation in flipped classroom. Computers in Human Behavior, 70, 251–260. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.12.085

Yilmaz, Y., Sarikaya, O., Senol, Y., et al. (2021). RE-AIMing COVID-19 online learning for medical students: a massive open online course evaluation. BMC medical education, 21(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-021-02751-3

Zawacki-Richter, O., & Naidu, S. (2016). Mapping research trends from 35 years of publications in Distance Education. Distance Education, 37(3), 245–269. https://doi.org/10.1080/01587919.2016.1185079