Guest post on the President’s blog by Ildikó Mázár
The call for papers of the EDEN RW9, to be held this year in Oldenburg next 4-7 October, has just been announced. Following up on the success of the RW8, held in Oxford, two years ago, the theme is once again very exciting and thought-provoking – “forging new pathways of research and innovation in open and distance learning: reaching from the roots”. The EDEN RW9 will be organised in collaboration with the Institute of Education and the Center for Lifelong Learning at Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, in Germany.
The announced selection of invited speakers is impressive and much diversified, including such names as Olaf Zawacki-Richter, Paul Prinsloo, Inge de Waard, George Veletsianos, Adnan Qayyum, Isa Jahnke and Som Naidu. This diversity and richness represents the current wide outreach and impact of EDEN in the research community worldwide.As you know and I’ve been pointing out in many of my blog posts, one of the focal points of EDEN’s strategy and one of the major aspects of our Association’s 25th years legacy in the field has been the support to the promotion, dissemination and recognition of quality research in open and digital learning. The organisation of the very successful biannual research workshops (the EDEN RWs) is only a part of that comprehensive activity, which has no parallel with any other association in the world in our field of practice.
At the upcoming EDEN16 in Budapest, our 25th anniversary annual conference, we’ll be introducing a number of new innovative services to our research community, especially focused on supporting young scholars. Amongst these initiatives, I would point out the Young Scholars pre-conference workshop which will include a special strand dedicated to the best methods and techniques to write good quality research journal articles. This activity will be lead by some of the most experienced editors of the best journals in open and distance learning.
Meanwhile, an additional important role of our organisation is to participate in international research initiatives. To speak about EDEN’s extensive support to research and its involvement in EU-funded projects, I’ve invited today my colleague and good friend Ildikó Mázár. She is the young Deputy Secretary General of EDEN and is a very talented and experienced project manager.
In her contribution, Ildikó presents a personal and moving account of her long experience as project manager at EDEN, highlighting the social and personal impact of the initiatives carried out.
António