This is the 50th issue of our Journal. More precisely, this is the 50th issue of Distances et Médiations des Savoirs. The reason for this precision is that Distances et Savoirs was launched in March 2003. And it was in December 2012 that, without any discontinuity, with the same team and under a barely modified title, DMS took over. So the addition of the two series makes this the 91st issue.

Beyond the figures, however satisfying they may be, what counts is the realisation that our journal has clearly carved out its niche; it has found its place and its readership in the French-speaking field of scientific research on distance learning and distance in training.

The key to its success and longevity? The tenacity and perseverance of a small, close-knit team, the quality of the contributions accepted after being subjected to double-blind evaluations (and sometimes more), the presence of a Scientific Advisory Board made up of top-level French-speaking researchers, whose annual meetings are an ideal opportunity to evaluate what has been done and consider the future, the unstinting, unselfish support of the Cned, without any interference with the editorial policy; the support of Open Edition, which gives free access and a high national and international profile; the recognition, in France, of the Conseil national des universités, which confers on DMS the label of qualifying journal in information and communication sciences and in educational sciences; the regular organisation of events, symposia and seminars, to extend one issue or prepare the next. These are all essential factors contributing to this truly collective success.

The most important thing, however, is that, without abandoning its fundamental principles, DMS is always at the cutting edge of scientific debate and the most fertile advances in research. In fact, we don’t just regularly renew our themes. It opens up the new avenues it explores to the scientific community. That is why the Journal contributes to the dynamics of the disciplines, while at the same time fuelling its own dynamics.

This was indeed the original intention, formulated in the programmatic editorial of the inaugural 2003 issue. Signed by Martine Vidal, Monique Grandbastien and Pierre Mœglin, this editorial began with the words: “Distance lies at the heart of knowledge. Knowledge cannot be taught or acquired without transition or mediation. We need time to learn, and distance.” To which we added:

> The only way to access educational resources is from a distance. Delays and stages are both indispensable and inevitable. In training, immediacy is an illusion, fusion a mirage. Abolishing distance? It’s like trying to make learning escape the triviality of the concrete conditions in which it takes place. A vain pretension! Distance and distancing are necessary everywhere, including in the classroom.

So, from the outset, we expressed our desire to be open to the diversity of types of distances and knowledges. No exclusivity, either in terms of objects or approaches: “geographical and temporal distance as well as cognitive, social, material or symbolic distance”, as we put it. It’s this same openness to the plurality of distances that, from issue to issue, we practise today.

This issue is a testimony to that. Because it has the variety of a varia, of course. But also, and even more so, because its authors similarly adopt the prism of distance to analyse very different situations. Each distance, we might say, sheds light on the others. And it is the addition and multiplication of these different points of view that make the whole a rich experience.

Confirmation of this observation comes from Artémis Drakos, whose contribution we welcome with all the more interest as it emanates from the 2023 winner of the annual GIS2IF Dissertation Prize.

Her contribution refers to distance in two ways. On the one hand, she evokes the possibility of taking up and extending the distance the device whose relevance her thesis established locally. To this aim, she examines how video recordings produced and used on site can be integrated into remote modules. On the other hand, she shows how visualising the premises of a nuclear power plant brings operators closer to the places where they work, while contradictorily encouraging them to distance themselves from their lived experience. To characterise this distancing phenomenon, she speaks of “a temporal reconfiguration of lived experience.” In this way, her analysis opportunely combines three types of distance: spatial, temporal and cognitive. The first two support the third, which is the key to successful learning.

The contribution by Gaëlle Molinari and her colleagues focuses on the use of video in the flipped classroom. As they state at the outset, video “is one of the preferred media for transmitting knowledge at a distance,” and is all the more so now that every teacher can produce his or her own videos on his or her own, using whatever resources are available. The main objective, they add, is to avoid any cognitive overload in the design of these videos, a source of comprehension and learning difficulties.

However, they point out that, in contradiction to this common-sense objective, there are discrepancies between what happens with the video and what happens in the video. These discrepancies result in what they call “concordant or discordant echo effects between distance and presence.” And these effects are themselves attributable, they say, to the distance between the logics of design and the logics of use. These discrepancies give rise to real confrontations, reflecting the “conflict between the technico-organisational logic associated with tasks and prescriptions (what is required) and the human logic, that of the individuals carrying out these tasks (what is required)”. On the other hand, when students have the impression that there is no continuity between the video and the face-to-face course, the conflict subsides.

But does this conflict really fade away? Even if the authors don’t say so explicitly, we can doubt it when they conclude by showing that the logic of distance tends to reassert itself, resulting in what they call “destructive interference.”

In a different context, Éric Bruillard’s contribution also reflects the importance of distance and the plurality of distances involved. Commenting on the conferences, workshops and demonstrations held in Orlando in March 2025 at the SITE (Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education) symposium on the pedagogical uses of Generative Artificial Intelligence, he shows that, as soon as there is mediation, there is distance and distancing. He adds that the first of these distancing factors is a fact so obvious that we tend to forget it: the products of Artificial Intelligence are neither reality, nor even reflections of reality; they are data obtained from other data. In other words, they are signifiers produced by other signifiers. Nor are the signifieds of these signifiers fragments of reality; they are the mental images associated with signs.

To overlook this obvious fact is to fall into the cognitive illusion of anthropomorphism. On the contrary, to take this crucial fact for granted is to adopt a critical approach. This is the first step in raising awareness of the challenges posed by conversational agents. This lesson applies not only to Artificial Intelligence; at the heart of all learning lies this critical distance. In the present case, however, the appearance on an industrial scale of these new mediation devices, replacing (in particular) traditional search engines, radically alters the work of (and around) sources.

A note in passing: Éric Bruillard’s text inaugurates the “Points de vue et regards” section. The creation of this section is a response to a need: to open our columns to genuine scientific articles, the aim of which will be to offer structured theoretical considerations based on clearly identified issues. For all that, these articles will not call on empirical data as consistent and as systematically exploited as those on which “ordinary” articles are based. Their authors will simply take as their starting point one or more events, books or simple articles, and draw from them the material, for example, for a renewal of theoretical frameworks or the fresh formulation of hypotheses to be validated at a later date.

Mathieu Cisel and Nicolas Wujczak’s analyses of “Personal Training Accounts, face-to-face and distance learning: a plea for greater data openness, a prerequisite for rigorous research into learner choices” are included in the “Experiences” section, because their contribution relates a personal experience. And a disappointing one at that. The disappointment, in this case, was caused by gaps in the data provided by the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations, operator of the Personal Training Accounts, on learner trajectories. These gaps, say these authors, severely hamper the researcher’s work and hinder his attempts to track and understand the strategies of Mooc users and distance learners in general.

Firstly, the fact that information is provided at the level of a training session, and not at the level of the learner, prevents us from verifying the hypothesis that individuals who finance their training themselves from their own resources would prefer face-to-face rather than distance learning. As a second example, the available data do not allow us to verify the hypothesis that learners who commit their own resources are more likely to complete their course than those whose training is financed by third-party organisations. Of course, these two hypotheses are likely to be valid. But we need to be sure. What’s more, we don’t know to what extent they are, nor what factors and mechanisms are involved.

Mathieu Cisel and Nicolas Wujczak’s article ends with a call for a different data policy. And, he adds, there’s nothing impractical about the policy they’re calling for, since it’s the one, they say, that the Fun platform has adopted for its part. It’s our turn to express the hope that their appeal will be heard!

1 https://doi.org/10.4000/dms.9749. 19Rich and varied as usual, the “Debates—discussions” section—led this year by Luc Massou—gives colleagues the opportunity to react to a previously published contribution: in this case, the article by Bernadette Charlier and Claire Peltier entitled “Understanding the co-construction dynamics of hybrid learning environments: analytical framework and research avenues” (DMS, no 451). In relation to the issues raised in this article, Benoît Martinet emphasises the importance of the principle of continuity and motivation in hybrid systems, as dimensions to be fostered and maintained. Mélanie Gallot and Nady El Hoyek react to the same article on the basis of a study carried out on a “Staps” course before, during and after the Covid, and focus more particularly on the factors that influence student success. As for David Cassagne, he draws attention to the institutional dimension of the phenomena at play, using, among other things, a model of hybrid inter-school classes.

Finally, there are the usual critical readings. They come from Daniel Peraya (on issue 53 of the journal Éducation et Société, which includes a thematic dossier on “school in the age of tutorials”) and Laurent Petit (on Sabine Bossler’s book about “education to media.” We thank them for drawing our attention to significant events and works, which the flow of effervescent news could too quickly make us forget.

<footnote n="1">1 https://doi.org/10.4000/dms.9749.</footnote>