This presentation places online education in a disciplinary context, charting historical, pedagogical, institutional and cultural dimensions of e-learning. The evolution of online academic conferences is of particular relevance to this event. Online education is defined both in a broad sense and as a pan-disciplinary set of meta-skills and knowledge beyond subject matter expertise, an auxiliary discipline for practitioners of most disciplines (the presentation starts by explaining the difference between a field and a discipline). The lecture was followed by a Q&A session on the current emergency remote teaching situation globally, and what new structures are forming for online educator development events and organizations.