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In the year 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic turned both private and public life upside down. Teaching and learning at higher education institutions worldwide had to move online on very short notice. This Special Issue focuses on the academic practice of online teaching and learning in higher education in the current time of crisis. Online teaching and learning has been a prominent research topic for the last three decades, but online study programs at universities are still scarce. In this synthesis article, our considerations about online teaching and learning in higher education are positioned in the broad framework of communities of practice (CoPs). We establish a relationship between CoP-concepts and the integrative framework for learning activities involving technology in higher education (the C♭ model), as proposed by Sailer and colleagues in this Special Issue. We continue with some initial thoughts on online …