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Dr. Frits Pannekoek, President of Athabasca University, Canada’s Open University, since 2005 and of ICDE since 2008 has led ICDE in its repositioning to become a membership driven world body. In his own university and in Canada, he is a leader in barrier free learning, in the OER movement, in the elearning quality agenda, and in open access publishing, all foundations of effective and dynamic open and distance universities of today and the future.
Prior to his appointment as President of Athabasca University, Frits Pannekoek was with the University of Calgary, as the Director of Information Resources responsible for its libraries, archives, press and museum. Prior to that he was a senior official with the Alberta government.
He obtained his doctorate in 1973 from Queen’s University, Kingston Canada, and his M.A. and B.A. (Honors) from the University of Alberta. His interests include the history of Canada’s Indigenous peoples, communication, digital learning environments and the new information revolution. He has published widely on policy issues relating to digital environments, on information seeking behaviours in an internet world, and on open access publishing as well as in the history of Indigenous peoples. He has been on the Government of Alberta’s taskforce to redesign post secondary education, and the chair of its affordability committee.
He was a key member of the research team that secured $12 million from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation to transform Canada’s scholarly communication from print to e-format. At Athabasca University he has founded one of North America’s first open access academic press. The intention is to transform scholarly communication so that all learners can have unfettered access to Canadian scholarship.
