GUEST EDITORIAL Guest Editorial http://dx.doi.org/10.3991/ijim.v9i2.4414 This special focus issue of the International Journal of Interactive Mobile Technologies (iJIM) is dedicated to the Special Session “Online Labs and Mobile Learning” organized during the 8th International Conference on Interactive Mobile Communication Technologies and Learning, IMCL2014, held in Thessaloniki, Greece in September 2014. The issue contains papers prepared by renowned researchers from industry and academia about their work within the EU funded eScience project. The main topics of the Special Session “Online Labs and Mobile Learning” comprised the following research areas: • Mobile learning and Online or virtual Labs • Pedagogical approaches, models and theories for Mobile Learning • Design and Development of Mobile Platforms for Online Labs • Lab Clouds and Mobile Learning • Evaluation of Online Labs • New trends in Mobile Learning and training with online Labs • Learning at the Workplace and online Labs • Lab Workstations and Design of Online Experiments IMCL received a total of 97 submissions originating from 26 countries for including 70 papers coming from Europe, 6 from Asia-Pacific, 2 from North-America, 3 from South-America and 16 from Africa. The different participating countries were Ireland, Algeria, Finland, Portugal, India, USA, Greece, Malta, South Africa, France, Pakistan, Germany, Morocco, UK, Malaysia, Argentine, Tunisia, Russia Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Cyprus, Bulgaria and Indonesia. This is a proof of the truly international nature of IMCL. The Technical Program Committee with about 75 world-class experts from academia and industry selected 67 papers for oral presentations and 5 papers for poster presentations. In addition to the special session on “Online Labs and Mobile Learning”, seven special sessions have been brought in and were dedicated to the following topics: “Mobile Health Care and Training”, “Mobile Serious Games in Education”, “Combining Mobile Learning & Cloud Computing in Education”, “Mobile Learning in Cultural Institutions and Opens Spaces”, “ICT Use and Ethical Issues in Mobile Learning”, “Motivating Students with Mobiles” and “Digital Systems and Services for Opening up Education”. Three IMCL key note presentations by outstanding guest speakers completed the program by focusing on highly relevant topics. Based on the input of technical session chairs, several authors have been selected to submit full manuscripts for this Special Focus Issue of iJIM. The submitted manuscripts were subjected to a full regular review, arranged by the IMCL 2014 Guest Editors in corporation with the editor of iJIM. As Guest Editor I thank the authors for their contributions and the reviewers for their time and effort, as well as Elsevier Scopus for coverage. My special thanks go to the Editor-in-Chief of iJIM, Professor Michael E. Auer, for his dedication and long-time cooperation with the IMCL organizers as well to the conference chair Thrasyvoulos Tsiatsos for organizing the conference. Professor Thomas Zimmer University of Bordeaux, France 4 http://www.i-jim.org iJIM Vol. 9, No, 2, 2015 Guest Editorial