The Grand Opening Ceremony of the 11th EDEN Research Workshop on 21 October afternoon was special in many regards. Besides officially launching the virtual, two and a half days long workshop hosted by the Universidade Aberta (https://portal.uab.pt/en/), Lisbon, the President of EDEN, Sandra Kučina Softić presented EDEN’s two most prestigious annual awards: EDEN Senior Fellow Awards and EDEN Fellow Awards.

The purpose of the EDEN Fellow scheme is to provide validation and support to professionals in Europe in this field, and to enhance their mobility within Europe through a respected scheme of recognition. The first Senior Fellow and Fellow Awards as an idea was initiated by Professor Alan Tait, and were first presented at the 2007 Annual Conference in Naples. In the last 12 years, nearly 100 Fellow and Senior Fellow awards have been handed over.

EDEN Senior Fellow Awards 2020

“In recognition of contribution to the development of
open, distance and e-learning in Europe and for valued commitment
and support to the evolution and progress of EDEN”

Professor Airina Volungeviciene, Vytautas Magnus University
Kaunas, Lithuania

Airina has served for nine years in the EDEN Executive Committee: three years as Member, then three years as Vice-President, crowned by another three years of her Presidency. These years were a unique period in the modernisation of education in Europe.

She has been one of the leading personalities of integration of the Baltic professional community in the EU.

Every president leaves its hand marks in one way or another on the development of the Association. Airina has ensured a stable continuity in EDEN, contributed to our enhanced reputation in Europe and beyond. The leadership style she has applied initiated new
co-operation culture of activities in the Executice Committee. With her nice personality she has strengthened further the “EDEN Community” atmosphere which was acknowledged by the Ingeborg Bo Prize in 2019.

Professor Antonella Poce, Università Degli Studi Roma Tre, Italy

Antonella was serving as Member, and later Chair of the Steering Committee of the EDEN Network of Academics and Professionals (NAP). The NAP Chair post is one of the important ones in EDEN and the Exective Committee. Her inspired and systematic activities have resulted enhanced impact and visibility of NAP internationally. The EDEN NAP Twitter Chats attracted many hundred experts every week for professional discussions. Later the NAP Webinars have launched tradition of regular exchange of experience. The exceptionally successful Annual Conference in Genova, Italy is also linked to her academic networking achievements.

Professor Josep M. Duart, Universitat Oberta Catalunya

Josep as Vice-President for Research has given a great momentum to the strenghtening the academic reputation, international recognition and the enhanced quality of the EDEN publications. He was behind the invention and introduction of the PhD Symposia, an important movement for young scholars and development of the academic and professional community. As member of the EDEN Presidency, his experience and wisdom has often supported the strategic decisions.

EDEN Fellow Awards 2020

“An expression of appreciation of professional merit to EDEN Members who have demonstrated excellence in professional practice of open, distance and e-learning
and provided valued support to the evolution and progress of EDEN”.

Ulf Sandström, Swedish Association for Distance Education

Ulf is Chair at Swedish Association for Distance Education (SADE – SVERD) which is is a leading association in Sweden in the area of open, online, flexible education and distance learning (ODL), including new research, networking and project-creating activities. SADE members come from the entire education sector, from K-12 to higher education, and public education, business and the private sector are also represented. The 2017 EDEN conference was held in Jönköping, Sweden   where SADE was a co-organizer. The Swedish Association, with the leadership of Ulf Sandstrom has been a special strategic partner of EDEN for many years in the Scandinavian region, supporting collaboration with these important countries, having a special professional culture in open, distance and digital learning and the information society.

Maria Rosaria Re, Università Degli Studi Roma Tre

Maria Rosaria is scholar at the Department of Educational Sciences, in Education,Culture and Communicationwith fields of interest in E-Learning, Online Learning, Science Teaching, Pedagogy, Assessment and Educational Evaluation. She was carrying out research in interactive teaching and learning online with specific reference to MOOCs and cooperating with the Laboratory of Experimental Research and Centre for Museum Studies.

Winner of the Young Scholar Award at the 2018 EDEN Annual Conference. Speaker at several EDEN conferences, participant of PhD Symposium and author of a paper in the Best of EDEN volume of the European Journal of Open, Distance and E-learning.

James Brunton Dublin City University.

Dr Brunton has a PhD in Social/Organisational Psychology from Dublin City University. James is Chair of the DCU BA in Humanities Programme at the  National Institute for Digital Learning and member of the Digital Learning Research Network. His research specialties include Social and Organisational Psychology, Identity Studies, Qualitative Methodologies. He is chartered Psychologist with the Psychological Society of Ireland and the British Psychological Society. At EDEN conferences he has delivered several valuable contributions, among others noted as speaker of the “Assessment Strategy: Managing and Supporting Assessment Designers” lecture in the Garden of Learning of EDEN.

Professor Covadonga Rodrigo, UNED Spain

Professor Rodrigo works in the Department of Computer Languages ​​and Systems at the UNED and Director of the Digital Inclusion Laboratory, Co-director of the Innovative User INteraction to Accesible Digital Objects programme. She was Vice-Rector for Technology at UNED and Deputy Vice-Rector of Technologies in Associated Centers. In EDEN, besides her papers at conferences, hosted an EDEN Chat on Development of Inclusive Museums Through Innovative Technologies.

Radu Vasiu

(EDEN Fellow Title has been awarded to Radu Vasiu at the EDEN Annual Virtual Conference in Timisoara, June 2020)

Radu Vasiu received his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering from the Politehnica University of Timisoara, Romania in 1982 and 1997, respectively. He is currently a professor at the Faculty of Electronics, Telecommunications and Information Technologies of the Politehnica University of Timisoara. He is President of the Politehnica University Senate and the Director of the Multimedia Research Centre. His research interests in the last years are in the area of open data , smart cities, mobile applications, e-learning, multimedia and web technologies. He acted as invited professor in different universities from UK, Finland, France, Austria, Greece and Netherlands.
The publication list includes 12 books and more than 150 papers presented at different international conferences. He was involved in 32 research or international cooperation projects.
Currently, prof. Vasiu acts as President of the International Association for e-Science (IAFeS), that promotes at international level the use of ICT in science and technology.
He is also a member of IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Communications Society, European Association for Telematics Applications (EATA), European Distance and E-learning Network (EDEN), International Association of Science and Technology Engineers for Development (IASTED) and of the Commission for European Integration of the Romanian Academy, Timisoara branch.