Morten Flate Paulsen

Morten Flate Paulsen is CEO of NooA, professor of online education, Acting Secretary General for ICDE – the International Council of Distance and Online Education and former President of EDEN – the European Distance and E-Learning Network, Norway.

My four favourite online education words are flexibility, cooperation, transparency and celebration. Four words that guide my work and are central in my Theory of Cooperative Freedom and Transparency in Online Education.

I have advocated, practiced and studied online education since I started developing the EKKO learning management system in 1986. In 2012, I established NooA – the Nordic open online Academy which has given me hands on experience in most imaginable functions of online education. Besides, I work as a part-time professor of online education at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. In 2017 I was appointed Vice Chair of the ICDE Board of Trustees and Member of Reference Group at the ICDE Global Doctoral Consortium. In these positions, I benefit from my time as President of EDEN – the European Distance and E-Learning Network and as a member of EADL – the European Association for Distance Learning R&D committee.

For many years, I thrived as director of development at NKI Nettstudier. There, I designed the EKKO computer conferencing and LMS system for distance education and initiated the NKI Internet College in 1987. This was probably the first European online college, and I’m still proud of being a central pioneer and implementer in the period when NKI developed its unique SESAM LMS system and excelled as one of Europe’s first megaproviders of online education and Scandinavia’s largest provider of online courses.

I learned a lot from my years as a doctoral student of adult education and instructional systems at the Pennsylvania State University. My dissertation was on «Teaching Techniques for Computer-mediated Communication» and my research included a survey of 150 online teachers in 30 countries. There, I established The Distance Education Online Symposium (DEOS) in 1990, when working as a graduate assistant at the American Center for the Study of Distance Education. I’m still proud of being the founding editor of DEOSNEWS and the first moderator of DEOS-L – among the world’s very first international online journals and discussion forums.

I also appreciate the friends and colleagues I met, both face-to-face and in Moodle, when I worked part time for Universidade Aberta in Portugal and was appointed Adjunct Professor, at the Athabasca University, Centre for Distance Education in Canada.

I gained valuable experience as regional editor for IRRODL (The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning) and EURODL (The European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning). I also have some experience from the Editorial Board of the Asian Journal of Distance Education and seminar.net.

I have enjoyed sharing my views and experience in a number of Keynote presentations and probably more than 50 other presentations at international conferences. Looking back, I have also published more papers than I can remember and edited at least twenty major books and reports about online education. More than 100 of my publications are listed in Google Scholar.

Finally, I want to say that I have developed a strong belief in international collaboration through participation in more than a dozen international projects related to e-learning and online education.

My education

Doctor of Education at the Pennsylvania State University, Department of Adult Education and Instructional Systems.

Master of Science in Engineering at the Norwegian Institute of Technology (The University of Trondheim), Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

My part-time engagements in online education

2017 – Vice Chair at the ICDE Board of Trustees

2017  – Member of Reference Group at the ICDE Global Doctoral Consortium

2016 –  Professor II at the Department of Computer Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway

2016 – Board member at FUN – Flexible Education Norway

2013 – 2015. Professor II at Sør-Trøndelag University College, Norway

2012 – 2013. Professor II at Gjøvik University College, Norway

2010 – 2013. President of EDEN – European Distance and E-learning Network

2009 – 2010. Professor associado at Universidade Aberta, Portugal

2004 – 2010. Member of the R&D committee of the European Association for Distance Learning.

1999 – 2005. Appointed Adjunct Professor at the Athabasca University, Centre for Distance Education, Canada

My work history in online education

2012 – CEO of Campus NooA – the Nordic open online Academy

1992 – 2012. NKI Distance Education, Program Director, Director of Development and Professor of Online Education.

1990 – 1992. Doctoral Student at Pennsylvania State University, Editor of DEOS – the Distance Education Online Symposium, and Graduate Assistant at the American Center for the Study of Distance Education.

1989 – 1990. The NKI College of Computer Science, Project Manager for the development, implementation and operation of «The NKI Electronic College».

1986 – 1989. The NKI College of Computer Science, Assistant Professor. Engaged as Project Manager for the EKKO-project, i.e. development, implementation and operation of a computer mediated conferencing system for distance education.