Frits Pannekoek AOE (born 1947) served as president of Athabasca University from 2005 to 2014. From 1998 to 2005 he was director of information resources and associate professor in the Faculty of Communication and Culture, University of Calgary. Prior to taking that position, he was director of director of historic sites (1979 to 1998). Graduating from the University of Alberta in 1969 with a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) and the Governor General’s Gold Medal, Pannekoek went on to get his Master of Arts from the same institution. This was followed by a doctorate in 1974 from Queen's University with a dissertation on Western Canadian history and Indigenous people.
From 2008 to 2012 he served as president of the International Council for Open and Distance Education, [1] and in 2014 was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of South Africa for his service to open and distance learning. In 2015 he was inducted into the Alberta Order of Excellence for community service, his work in heritage preservation and in distance learning. [2]
As president of Athabasca University, he undertook several key projects for which he had secured funds starting in 2007. In August 2011, the premier opened the 53,800-square-foot Academic Research Centre funded by a 2007 $30 million grant from Alberta’s Ministry of Advanced Education and Technology. [3] It was the first major new building on campus since the main building had been built decades earlier. That same year the university completed a two-year $7.65 million project to modernize its learning management systems, and an $8.45 million project to double the size of its science labs. Both were funded by the Government of Canada’s Knowledge Infrastructure Program, the Province of Alberta and internals sources. [4] In 2008 he also initiated the university’s first fundraising campaign Open Our World, which successfully concluded in 2015 exceeding its $30 million target. [5]
He continues to work with Indigenous postsecondary institutions and organizations, including Athabasca University, and with several colleagues and institutions on new ways of online learning, particularly MOOCs.
Alberta is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta borders British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Territories to the north, and the U.S. state of Montana to the south. It is one of the only two landlocked provinces in Canada, with Saskatchewan being the other. The eastern part of the province is occupied by the Great Plains, while the western part borders the Rocky Mountains. The province has a predominantly continental climate but experiences quick temperature changes due to air aridity. Seasonal temperature swings are less pronounced in western Alberta due to occasional Chinook winds.
The University of Calgary is a public research university located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The University of Calgary started in 1944 as the Calgary branch of the University of Alberta, founded in 1908, prior to being instituted into a separate, autonomous university in 1966. It is composed of 14 faculties and over 85 research institutes and centres. The main campus is located in the northwest quadrant of the city near the Bow River and a smaller south campus is located in the city centre. The main campus houses most of the research facilities and works with provincial and federal research and regulatory agencies, several of which are housed next to the campus such as the Geological Survey of Canada. The main campus covers approximately 200 hectares.
The University of Alberta is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford, the first premier of Alberta, and Henry Marshall Tory, the university's first president. It was enabled through the Post-secondary Learning Act. The university is considered a "comprehensive academic and research university" (CARU), which means that it offers a range of academic and professional programs that generally lead to undergraduate and graduate level credentials.
Athabasca University (AU) is a Canadian public university that primarily operates through online distance education. Founded in 1970, it is one of four comprehensive academic and research universities in Alberta, and was the first Canadian university to specialize in distance education.
The University of Lethbridge is a public comprehensive and research higher education institution located in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada, with a second campus in the city of Calgary, Alberta. It was founded in the liberal education tradition.
Mount Royal University (MRU) is a public university in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Thompson Rivers University is a public teaching and research university offering undergraduate and graduate degrees and vocational training. Its main campus is in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada, and its name comes from the two rivers which converge in Kamloops, the North Thompson and South Thompson. The university has a satellite campus in Williams Lake, BC and a distance education division called TRU-Open Learning. It also has several international partnerships through its TRU World division. TRU is accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU) at the associate, baccalaureate and master's degree levels.
The King's University in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, is a Canadian Christian university offering bachelor's degrees in the arts, humanities, music, social sciences, natural sciences, business, and education. King's is one of 26 publicly funded post-secondary institutions in Alberta. The university serves more than 900 students from across Canada and abroad, representing more than 16 nations.
Bow Valley College is a Canadian public, board-governed college located in Calgary, Alberta, operating as a comprehensive community institution under the Post-Secondary Learning Act of Alberta. The branch campuses are: Airdrie, Banff, Cochrane, Okotoks, and Strathmore. Bow Valley College is a member of the Alberta Rural Development Network and Colleges and Institutes Canada.
MacEwan University is a public undergraduate university located in the downtown core of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
George Siemens is a Canadian expatriate professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Arlington and professor and director of the Centre for Change and Complexity in Learning at the University of South Australia. He is known for his theory of connectivism, which seeks to understand learning in the digital age. He played a role in the early development of massive online open courses (MOOCs).
Walter Alvah Samuel Smith, known as Sam Smith, was a Canadian psychologist and academic who served as President of the University of Lethbridge and of Athabasca University.
Ross Henderson Paul, CM is a university administrator who was the fifth president and vice-chancellor of the University of Windsor. He completed his term of office as president on June 30, 2008.
The International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE) is a membership-led global organization in the field of online, open, flexible and technology enhanced education. It consists of more than 200 higher education institutions and organizations in some 84 countries.
Higher education in Canada includes provincial, territorial, Indigenous and military higher education systems. The ideal objective of Canadian higher education is to offer every Canadian the opportunity to acquire the skills and knowledge necessary to realize their utmost potential. It aspires to cultivate a world-class workforce, enhance the employment rate of Canadians, and safeguard Canada's enduring prosperity. Higher education programs are intricately designed with the perspective of the learner in focus, striving to mitigate risks and assure definite outcomes.
Higher education in Alberta refers to the post secondary education system for the province of Alberta. The Ministry of Advanced Education in Alberta oversees educational delivery through universities, publicly funded colleges, technical institutions, and private colleges. These institutions offer a variety of academic and vocational pursuits. Students have access to post-secondary options through most regions of Alberta, and a developed articulation system allows for increased student mobility.
Higher education in British Columbia is delivered by 25 publicly funded institutions that are composed of eleven universities, eleven colleges, and three institutes. This is in addition to three private universities, five private colleges, and six theological colleges. There are also an extensive number of private career institutes and colleges. Over 297,000 students were enrolled in post-secondary institutions in British Columbia in the 2019-2020 academic year.
Open College was a radio-based university-credit distance education provider based in Toronto, Canada; it primarily served listeners in Ontario.
Open educational resources in Canada are the various initiatives related to open education, open educational resources (OER), open pedagogies (OEP), open educational practices (OEP), and open scholarship that are established nationally and provincially across Canadian K-12 and higher education sectors, and where Canadian based inititatives extend to international collaborations.