Increasingly, it is learners themselves who will own their education - and over 2,000 international education professionals will be in Berlin this December to discuss the implications.

"Technology is dramatically altering the balance of power in education," says Rebecca Stromeyer, CEO of ICWE GmbH, the company behind OEB. "It is creating an extraordinary range of new possibilities for people to study whatever, whenever, wherever, and however they want.

"The nature of learning, training, and education has already been radically changed by developments in technology during the course of the past two decades. What is coming, however, is likely to be even more radical; it will produce a much more fundamental shift, which will massively empower students.

"This year's OEB is all about the implications of this shift. It's about what will happen as students start to take ownership and control of their learning. What does this shift mean - for learners, for institutions and for the industry? What are the opportunities? What are the obstacles? How far can, or should, it go? How can institutions and organisations stay ahead of the change?

"We'll be talking about a host of important practical and theoretical questions that arise from this shift in the ownership of learning. Globally, education is about to enter perhaps the most challenging and interesting phase in its history. We have launched a call for papers, and we want to hear from anyone with original ideas, views, products, and solutions."

OEB, which will take place in Berlin 30 November - 02 December, will feature several sectoral “tracks”. These will include Business Educa, which will focus on how developments in global markets will affect the workplace and its training requirements; Video Educa, which will look at the explosion in the use of video and other forms of communication; and Future Educa, which will examine emerging technologies and their implications.

A list of the main themes to be discussed at OEB, full details of the call for papers, and instructions about how to submit a proposal are available on the conference website.