Alan Tait
Biography
Alan Tait is a consultant in the field of open, distance and online learning. Alan’s main areas of consulting focus include:
* learner support
* curriculum, programme and organisational development
* institutional strategies for scholarship and publishing
* mentoring and coaching for personal development and leadership
Alan has advised and consulted for UNESCO, The Commonwealth of Learning, and the European Commission, as well as keynoted for a range of other institutions and organisations in North America, Europe and Asia. Alan Tait is Professor of Distance Education and Development at the Open University, UK, and Director of International Development and Teacher Education, responsible for the strategic direction of major projects in sub-Saharan Africa, Bangladesh, and India. He was Pro Vice-Chancellor (Academic) at the Open University from 2007-2012. He is the founding editor of The Journal of Learning for Development, produced from the Commonwealth of Learning (www.jl4d.org); senior member of St Edmunds College, University of Cambridge; and Visiting Professor, Aalborg University, Denmark.
His recent publications include ‘Editorial’ with Ross Paul in ‘Special Issue: Open Universities: Past, Present, and Future’, in IRRODL, Vol 20 No 4 (2019), ‘From Distance learning to open education: continuities and discontinuities’, in Journal of Learning for Development (2018); Open Universities: Past, Present and Future’, in Journal of the Asian Association of Open Universities (2018), ‘European leaders in Distance and E-learning’, in Journal of Learning for Development 2017; ‘The Lifelong Learning University of the Future’, in Cendon, E., Mörth, A. & Pellert, A. (Hrsg.), Theorie und Praxis verzahnen – Lebenslanges Lernen an Hochschulen; Supporting Student Success in Distance and Online Learning, International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE), 2015, http://icde.typepad.com/student_success/; ‘From place to virtual space: reconfiguring student support for distance and e-learning in the digital age’, in Open Praxis, 2014; ‘Distance and E Learning, Social Justice and Development: the relevance of the Capacity Approach to the mission of open universities’, in the International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 2013.