Global Trends on Adoption of Online Distance Learning and Access to Higher Education Institutions for Visually Impaired Students During COVID-19: A Bibliometric Analysis

This study conducted the bibliometric analysis global trends on adoption online distance learning and access to higher education institutions for visually impaired students during COVID-19 pandemic of which 54 empirical article publications were analysed between 2019 to 2025 from dimension scientific database. Using the VOSviewer 1.6.20 software established bibliometric visualization networks on the most influential authors, leading universities, countries, journals and co-authorships. The findings indicate worldwide visually impaired students and parents had inadequate online distance learning skills during lockdown in the period of COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, the study revealed that developed countries had higher rate of article publications and strong link of collaborations such as Russia, United States and United Kingdom in ODL than the developing countries like Chile and Nigeria in ODL. Also, the results revealed unawareness, limited knowledge of institutions to adopt ODL and lack of clear policies hinder effective implementations of ODL. This bibliometric analysis offers critical understanding for educational stakeholders and policy makers to formulate equitable and inclusive education policies in low-income countries and pave the way for further research on ODL.