Online university courses are nowadays widespread, both at traditional and at full distance learning institutions. This phenomenon affects both European and American institutions. As an example, in Italy, about 10% of university students are enrolled in online courses and the figures are increasing. The academic staff involved in online teaching is growing as well and the research about the teaching methodologies in virtual learning environments is undergoing a marked increase. On the other hand, the exploitation and analysis of learning data are becoming a fundamental prerequisite for supporting strategic decisions in several contexts, such as predicting dropouts and improving student experience and success rate.

This led to the organization of HELMeTO 2019, the first International Workshop on Higher Education Learning Methodologies and Technologies Online, which aims to bring together researchers and practitioners working in Higher Distance Education Institutions or studying Online Learning Methodologies to present and share their research in a multidisciplinary context. The workshop provides a forum for the discussion of new research directions and applications in these fields, where different disciplines could effectively meet.

The location of the workshop is the headquarters of eCampus University, one of the main Italian distance learning univeristies, located in Novedrate (CO), Italy, just between Como Lake and Milan.

HELMeTO 2019 is technically sponsored by SIREM, Società Italiana di Ricerca sull'Educazione Mediale and its post-proceedings will be published in Springer Communications in Computer and Information Science book series.