Two decades of research in e-learning: a deep bibliometric analysis

Abstract

E-learning is the electronic version of distance learning: a planned teaching that presupposes a physical separation between the teacher and the student. The distance is either geographic or temporal, and communication can be asynchronous or synchronous, respectively. E-learning has been a target of high-quality research for the last two decades. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the scientific production on e-learning in journals indexed on Elsevier’s Scopus. The sample was composed by 25330 articles from 2000 to 2019. The results obtained by bibliometric analysis showed that rates publication continue to increase. A report was made on the journals, languages, authors, keywords, organizations and countries that publish in the field. This analysis was done for all articles as well as for the most cited articles. The bibliometric analysis was done for a total of 20 years, as well as for four 5- year periods. This article provides information from the past, but mostly clues about research on e-learning in the future.