Data Mining the Adoption Trends: A Bibliometric Analysis of Online Learning in Higher Education (2000-2023)

Over the past two decades, online learning in higher education has developed dramatically, becoming a widespread phenomenon significantly influencing teaching and learning strategies. To further encourage its development, monitoring the research frontiers and gaining insights into the progress of related research is crucial. In this pursuit, the present research used VOS viewer to conduct a bibliometric study on the 661 documents extracted from the Scopus database published between 2000 and 2023, focusing on adopting online learning among students at higher education institutes. This study identified the development trends in this domain regarding publications, authors, countries, journals, and documents. Additionally, the study employed co-citation and co-occurrence analysis to identify the most frequently cited research papers and the trending keywords used by researchers in online learning adoption. By understanding the research frontiers and progress in online learning adoption, this study contributes valuable insights to developing and promoting online education initiatives in higher education.