About the Authors

Lex Bijlsma is a professor of education and software construction, and dean of the School of Computer Science at Open University of the Netherlands. He obtained a PhD in mathematics from the University of Amsterdam in 1978, and has worked as a researcher and lecturer in both mathematics and computer science at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques, Eindhoven University of Technology and Utrecht University. His research interests include programme design methodologies, mathematical techniques in computer science, and software architecture.

Anthony F. Camilleri is engaged with EFQUEL in the position of quality services manager. As part of his portfolio he manages a set of quality certifications for e-learning including UNIQUe (http://unique.efquel.org) for HEIs and ECBCheck (http://ecbcheck.efquel.org) for programmes. He has been investigating the linkages between higher education, innovation, quality and open education for the last three years, and in particular has been involved with the Open Education Quality Initiative – OPAL and the OERTest Initiative, where he proposed a learning passport model for recognition of credit gained through open learning. He currently co-ordinates the VM-PASS project which is attempting to facilitate recognition of open and non-traditional qualifications across Europe. He has also been active as a QA reviewer and trainer of QA reviewers around Europe, for a number of different QA institutions in higher education.

Chris Dede is the Timothy E. Wirth professor in learning technologies at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. His fields of scholarship include emerging technologies, policy and leadership. His funded research includes five grants from NSF and the Gates Foundation to design and study immersive simulations, transformed social interactions, and online professional development. In 2007, he was honoured by Harvard University as an outstanding teacher, and in 2011 he was named a fellow of the American Educational Research Association. He has served as a member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Foundations of Educational and Psychological Assessment and a member of the 2010 National Educational Technology Plan Technical Working Group. His latest co-edited book, Digital Teaching Platforms, was published by Teachers College Press in 2012.

Markus Deimann, MA, has been a research assistant at the Department of Instructional Technology & Media, Professor Dr Bastiaens, at the FernUniversität in Hagen since May, 2006. He completed his studies of educational sciences and political sciences at the University of Mannheim with a master’s degree. After that he became a research assistant in the BMBF-Project ‘Multimediales Fernstudium Medizinische Informatik (MEDIN)’ at the University of Technology Ilmenau and at the University of Erfurt. Furthermore, for one year, he became a visiting scholar at the Florida State University, Tallahassee, USA. Since 2011 he is a fellow of the OpenLearn Network at the Open University UK. He works as a peer reviewer for several international journals (e.g. IRRODL) as well as for various international conferences.

Ruediger Glott is a group leader within the Collaborative Creativity Group (CCG). His research covers a number of fields that are related through a focus on open and co-creative innovation processes and strategies and is characterized by a combination of academic and industry-oriented approaches.

Petra Hagemann works as a project co-ordinator at PTB, the ‘Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt’, where she implements technical co-operation projects with African countries. Until 2012 she stimulated human capacity building projects like ict@innovation at InWEnt – Capacity Building International, Germany. She has a strong belief in the power of open source and open education for open societies.

Pascale Hardy is the academic director of University of Liverpool/Laureate DBA Programme. She also supervises doctoral students in the DBA and PhD programmes at Grenoble School of Management and Walden University. She has extensive academic experience in US and European Universities through various senior academic roles and has played a leading role in a number of international research projects. She has authored a number of books and book chapters in the areas of knowledge management, open education and e-learning and her work has appeared in Computers & Education, E-learning and Digital Media as well as presented in prestigious conferences mainly in the area of E-learning and Innovation. Further, she has acted as an advisor to the UN on using e-learning and knowledge management strategies to build developing countries’ capacity in climate change negotiations. She holds a PhD in social sciences from Università Gregoriana, Italy and an MBA from Open University Business School, UK. Her research interests include strategic analysis of ICTs and learning development, knowledge creation and management, open innovation, e-learning, knowledge transfer, organizational learning and capabilities and change management.

Evangelia Katsikea is an assistant professor of marketing at the Department of Marketing and Communication of the Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece. She received her PhD from Cardiff University, UK. Her research interests focus on export sales management, international marketing strategy, open innovation and tourism marketing. Her work has appeared in Journal of World Business, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Business Research, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of International Marketing, International Business Review, International Marketing Review and Industrial Marketing Management, among others.

Andy Lane has been at The Open University in the UK since 1983 and held various offices including being a dean of the former technology faculty from 2000 to 2006. He was director of The Open University’s OpenLearn Initiative from 2006 to 2009 (www.open.ac.uk/openlearn); served as a board member of the OpenCourseWare Consortium from 2008 to 2010; been involved in a number of European OER initiatives such as MORIL (http://moril.eadtu.eu/) and OER-HE (http://www.eadtu.nl/oerhe/); was the senior fellow in the Support Centre for Open Resources in Education at the OU (http://www8.open.ac.uk/score/) from 2009 to 2012 and also lead the JISC funded SusTEACH project (http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/susteach/) investigating the carbon impacts of HE teaching models. He has authored or co-authored many teaching texts, research papers and other publications dealing with systems thinking and environmental management; the use of diagramming to aid systems thinking and learning; and systems of open education, especially the use of open educational resources.

Dominique Lelièvre is a lecturer in management at the University of Liverpool Management School (ULMS) where she has been responsible for a number of online programmes. She is currently the director of studies for the MSc in Global HRM. She is a graduate from the Sorbonne University and she holds an MBA and a PhD from the University of Manchester. She has acquired substantial work experience in the service sector prior to moving to academia where she has been involved for more than a decade with distance learning and online education for leading institutions in the UK (Open University, University of Liverpool). Her main research interests are concerned with the governance and dynamics of partnerships and open education.

Jeanne C. Meister is a best selling author, internationally recognized consultant and keynote speaker. She is partner of Future Workplace LLC (www.futureworkplace.com), a firm that provides executive education to assist organization in building the skills and capabilities needed for success in the workplace of the future. She is the best selling author of three books, two of these books are on the launch and globalization of corporate universities and her latest book is entitled: The 2020 Workplace: How Innovative Companies Attract, Develop & Keep Tomorrow’s Employees Today (HarperCollins).

Ad Notten received his MSc in information management from the University of Wales. Currently he is an information specialist and researcher at UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University, The Netherlands. In his capacity as an information specialist he has gained considerable experience in information service management issues. Issues pertaining information service provision to advanced and distance learning students have his special attention. Apart from this, he has also participated in several EC projects among which an ICT R&D evaluation project for DG CONNECT. He has presented at the annual techmining conference, and has also published in the Journal of Technology Transfer and in Scientometrics.

Pantelis M. Papadopoulos is an adjunct researcher at United Nations University – International Institute for Software Technology, in Macau SAR, China. His research focuses on educational technology and the integration of software tools in learning. His work is heavily influenced by social constructivism, focusing primarily on computer-supported collaboration learning and peer interaction. As a member of the PPAeL project in Macau, he works on collaboration patterns emerging in the loosely structured, ad hoc communities of open-source software. He also holds a position as a postdoctoral research associate at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, where he is working on designing and developing collaborative learning activities for multi-touch, multi-user tabletop systems in the ALADDIN project. He holds a diploma in informatics, and a MSc and a PhD in information and communication technologies in education from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He has published more than 30 papers in international journals and conferences.

Martin Rehm (PhD) is the project manager e-learning at the joint institute of the UNU-MERIT and the Maastricht Graduate School of Governance (MGSoG). In this context, he is responsible for acquiring and co-ordinating a variety of (blended) learning projects. External partners, for which he has worked, include the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and the Russian Ministry for Economic Development. He is also a senior researcher at UNU-MERIT and MGSoG, focussing on online collaborative learning, web 2.0 for education, distribution of innovation within (learning) networks and communities of learning (within organizations).

Florence Rizzo is a current ELIG fellow and the co-founder of SynLab, an independent organization with a mission to bring great and innovative ideas to life in the field of education (www.syn-lab.fr). SynLab promotes innovation in France and works as a citizen Research and Development body that mobilizes researchers, educators, private and public sector networks to co-create projects with a potential of systemic change. Previously, she worked with Ashoka, a global network of innovative social entrepreneurs and contributed to its launch in France, Belgium and Switzerland. She founded a training programme called ‘Challenge IMPACT’ in order to support Citizen Sector Organizations to scale up and generate more social impact. She was nominated in June 2011 at the French National Council for new technologies to lead a working group on e-education. She was also part of the team of a parliamentarian to handle a report to the French ministry of research on the impact of new technologies on education. She holds a master in political science and international relations and a MBA from ESSEC Business School with a focus on social entrepreneurship.

Balthas Seibold is a senior project manager for‚Global Knowledge Sharing & Learning at GIZ, the ‘Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH’. He focuses on open knowledge co-operation to foster the freedom to learn and innovate in developing countries. He has a special interest in the knowledge commons and social networking and their potential to build human capacities, link up people and foster open learning worldwide. Before 2012 he led capacity building programmes with GIZ that promote the open source IT-sector in Asia and Africa such as ict@innovation. He has also worked at InWEnt – Capacity Building International, UNESCO’s bureau of strategic planning, the GTZ and the UNDP.

Michael Shaw is deputy editor of the TES (Times Educational Supplement), a weekly publication for teachers that started as a newspaper in 1910. He joined the UK-based TES as a news reporter in 2002, after working for the Bristol Evening Post newspaper and the TV channel Cartoon Network. This year he launched the TES’s digital service for teachers, TES Pro – a paid-for set of tools designed to complement its free open educational resource site TES Connect, which now has more than 2.5 million registered users around the world.

Peter Sloep is a full professor of technology enhanced learning at the Open University of the Netherlands. His research encompasses such topics as networked learning (specifically but not exclusively for professionals), learning design, learning objects, standards for learning technologies and open educational resources, as well as knowledge sharing and creative collaboration in communities and networks. He is an honorary professor at the Caledonian Academy of Glasgow Caledonian University. He has co-authored more than 100 peer-reviewed publications in scholarly journals and conference proceedings, and has authored or edited three books. He is a frequent speaker at national and international conferences. He is the European associate editor for MOOCs forum and frequently reviews papers for various journals and conferences in the TEL field.

Ioannis Stamelos is an associate professor at the Department of Informatics of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, where he carries out research and teaching in the area of software engineering. He holds a diploma of electrical engineering (1983) and a PhD in computer science by the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (1988). His current research interests are focused on open source software engineering, software project management and software education. He has published more than 100 articles in international journals and conferences. He is/was the scientific co-ordinator or principal investigator for his University in over 20 research and development projects in information and communication technologies with funding from national and international organizations.

Anne-Christin Tannhäuser works as project manager for the ‘European Foundation for Quality in E-learning (EFQUEL)’ and at the ‘Information Systems for Productions and Operations Management’ department, University of Duisburg-Essen. She co-ordinates the International Journal for Innovation and Quality in Learning (INNOQUAL). For the past five years, starting in 2008, she has been involved in several initiatives in the field of open education, innovation and new technologies at national and European level; first for the University of Iceland and later for a non-profit research center in Italy. In multilateral research endeavours she co-ordinated evaluation activities, the communication of research results and overall management. She earned a master degree in educational sciences and linguistics from the University of Leipzig in 2007. She was trained at the Max Planck-Institute for Human Development, Berlin, in the use of qualitative and quantitative research methodologies.

Bart Verspagen is director of UNU-MERIT and director-dean of the Maastricht Graduate School of Governance (MGSoG) at Maastricht University. He is an economist specialized in the economics of technological change. He did his undergraduate studies at the University of Limburg (now called Maastricht University) in Maastricht, the Netherlands, from 1984 to 1988. After that, he obtained a PhD degree from the same university in 1992. During the five years after that, he held a scholarship from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). His workplace is the Economics Department of Maastricht University, as well as the research institute UNU-Merit in Maastricht. At the university, he holds the chair of International Economics. His research interests are fairly broad. The centre area is the process of economic growth, and its relation to technological change. This also brings him into areas such as international trade theory, industrial dynamics, economic and technology history, and applied econometrics, statistics and mathematical modelling. With regard to the latter, he has mainly been applying evolutionary theory to economics. This includes simulation modelling of international economies.