Biographies

Jane Klobas
Jane is a researcher at Bocconi University in Milan, Italy, where she is joint leader of a multi-national study of students´ psychological responses to online learning. She also holds an appointment as Professorial Fellow in the Graduate School of Management at the University of Western Australia in Perth, Australia. Jane has many years of experience in both distance and online teaching, and has won awards for her innovative teaching at the University of Western Australia. Her research concerns the role of the Internet in communication of information. She uses principles of social psychology and economics to study the role of the Internet in education and in tourism.

Jane Klobas

Agostino Marengo
Agostino’s research activity as Assistant Professor in Faculty of Economics at University of Bari, takes place primarily on didactic methodologies implemented by the use of ICT tools, particularly the development of e-learning web-based platforms that compete to introduce the technologies of distance learning in traditional institutional campus courses and activities. As coordinator of OSEL (Open Source e-learning research project, http://www.osel.it), currently his research plan is to create a database of Open Source LCMSs in order to choose and compare them. The research group is actually involved in usability, accessibility and quality evaluation of LMS (Learning Management Systems) and CMS (Content Management Systems) with a special goal to evaluate Open Source e-learning platforms. Website: http://www.agostinomarengo.it. Skype: agomare.

Agostino Marengo

Julià Minguillón
Julià received his Ph.D. degree from the Universidad Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) in September 2002. In January 2001 he joined the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) where he is a faculty member of the Computer Science, Multimedia and Telecommunication Studies department. He has developed learning resources for object oriented programming, abstract data types engineering and compiler construction. He is also involved in the integration of e-learning standards in virtual learning environments, such as IEEE LOM, SCORM and IMS LD. His main research interests include the formal description of the learning process by means of ontologies, personalizing the learning process by means of adaptive itineraries based on reusable learning objects, and user modeling in virtual e-learning environments applying web mining techniques for improving user experience and usability, accessibility and mobility issues. He is also interested in open educational resources and the uses of social tools for teaching and learning in virtual learning environments. He was in charge of the UOC participation in the OLCOS (Open Learning Content Observatory Services) EU funded project. He leads the Spanish Government funded PERSONAL(ONTO) project, the framework that articulates all the aforementioned research lines and the E-MATH++ project which promotes the use of learning object repositories in virtual learning environments

Julià Minguillón

Dr Pam Moule
Pam is Reader in Nursing and Learning Technologies, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK, where she leads the Centre for Learning and Workforce Research that includes the E-learning and Health Informatics Research Programme. Pam is an active researcher, whose particular interests include developing Communities of Practice online, the use of online learning to support clinical skill development, especially resuscitation skills, and the effectiveness of e-learning in supporting enhanced patient care. A number of publications reflect these interests and include the best selling text, Glen & Moule (Eds) (2006) E-learning in Nursing. Palgrave.  Pam is also Assistant Editor, Electronic Journal of e-Learning.

Pam Moule

Richard Hall
Richard is the e-Learning Co-ordinator for De Montfort University, Leicester, UK. He is responsible for the academic implementation of web-based technologies in the curriculum. These technologies include both institutional and non-institutional learning environments, alongside mobiles and Web 2.0 applications. He is also the project manager at DMU for the MoRSE project, which is a partnership with Kingston University funded by JISC, focusing upon the use of Web 2.0 tools with remote learners. For more information on this project see: http://www.morse.ac.uk and http://www.learnex.dmu.ac.uk

Richard Hall

Dr Mark Brown
Mark is the Director of Distance Education at Massey University, New Zealand. He has an extensive background in the use of new educational technologies. In 2006, he was a recipient of a national award for sustained teaching excellence and was a member of the Steering Committee for the Mahara open source ePortfolio initiative funded by the New Zealand government. He has a particular in interest in the application of e ePortfolios in the area of teacher education. In addition, Dr Brown has a particular interest in educational policy and was involved in a major analysis of eLearning policy across seven regions of the world including Europe. For further details see http://education.massey.ac.nz/massey/depart/education/staff/cp/brown-mark.cfm

Mark Brown

Anders Avdic
Anders is assistant professor in Informatics at Örebro University, Sweden. He has researched on various aspects of IT and learning since the early 1990’s. This includes Knowledge Management, End User Development and knowledge sharing, ICT for teachers and E-learning. Anders is also Program Manager for the International Electronic Government Master Program at Örebro University. More information can be found at www.oru.se/esi/informatik/aac

Anders Advic

Mathias Hatakka
Mathias is a researcher in ICT supported distance education in developing countries focusing on how education can contribute to development and reuse of open educational resources. Mathias is involved in several development projects mainly in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka but he has also worked with UNESCO on their Open Training platform.

Mathias Hatakka

Dr George A. Papadopoulos
George A. Papadopoulos (Ph.D.) holds the (tenured) rank of Professor in the Department of Computer Science, University of Cyprus. Professor Papadopoulos' research interests include component-based systems, mobile computing, multimedia systems, open and distance learning, parallel programming and high performance computing, GRID technologies, cooperative information systems and service oriented computing. He has published more than 100 papers as book chapters or in internationally refereed journals and conferences. Furthermore, he serves in the Editorial Board of 5 international journals and has served as a Co-Chairman, Steering or Program Committee member in more than 70 international conferences and workshops. Professor Papadopoulos is a recipient of an 1995 ERCIM-HCM scholarship award. He has been involved or is currently participating, as coordinator or partner, in over 30 internationally and nationally funded projects (total budget for his participation more than 4 MEURO), including 9 FP5 and FP6 IST (in the areas of tele-medicine, component-based systems, bioinformatics, e-learning and Internet technologies), 3 EUMEDIS (in Open and Distance Learning), 1 INCO-DC, 1 eTen (in tele-medicine) and 7 LEONARDO ones (in vocational training). He is the Director of the Software Engineering and Internet Technologies Laboratory (http://www.cs.ucy.ac.cy/seit). More information can be found at his personal web site at: http://www.cs.ucy.ac.cy/~george.

George Papadopoulos

Dr Roy Williams
Roy Williams designs learning spaces and knowledge management applications at the Flexible Learning Studio in the Faculty of Technology at the University of Portsmouth, and he is also the e-learning coordinator for the Faculty. He researches and published widely on e-learning, knowledge management, both on the practical design and application, and on the theory of learning and knowledge management. He currently has a grant from the Higher Education Academy in the UK to apply the theories of complex adaptive systems and ecological affordances to learning. He is actively involved in the European and International Conferences on e-learning, knowledge management, and business research methods and has edited the Electronic Journal of e-learning. He has held posts of Professor and Chair of Communication, Visiting Professor of Education, Visiting Examiner, Executive Board member of the IBA, the South African Broadcast regulator, and set up the joint-venture publishing company, Sached Books Pty Ltd. .

Roy Williams

Updated 25 September 2009